Leadership Theories
Andrea Reger
Theories
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Trait Approach
Skills Approach
Style Approach
Situational Approach
Contingency Theory
Path-Goal Theory
• Leader Member
Exchange
• Transformational
• Transactional
• Team Leadership
Transaction
Leadership
Transactional Leadership
• Differs from transformational because it does
not individualize followers needs or focus on
their personal development
• Transactional leadership is an exchange – you
scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. The idea is
to advance both parties agendas by helping each
other.
• This can be influential because in order for the
followers to succeed – the leader must be
successful as well.
Transformational Leadership
• 2 factors
– Contingent Reward – an exchange process between leaders
and followers in which effort by followers is exchanged for
specific rewards. The leader tries to obtain agreements from
followers on what must be done and what the payoffs will be
for the people doing it.
– Management by Exception – involves corrective criticism,
negative feedback, and negative enforcement.
• 2 forms – active and passive
• Active – watches followers closely for mistakes or rule violations and
then takes corrective action.
• Passive – the leader intervenes only after standards have not been met
or problems have arisen.
Transactional Leadership
Comparisons
Transactional
• Pros
– Sets clear goals with rewards for making them
(however problems if they are not met)
Transactional
• Cons
– Can be seen as a reward/punishment system
– Leader is concerned with their own status quo
and will put themselves before the followers
– Management for exception is a poor example of
a supervisor
– Offers few advantages to followers and can be
very unhappy work environment
Team Leadership
Team Leadership
• Team leadership is the most rapidly growing
area of current research
• Team = organizational groups composed of
members who are interdependent, who share
common goals, and who must coordinate the
actives to accomplish these goals.
• Team work is characteristic of the Millennial
generation (that’s you!)
Team Leadership
• Effective team performance begins with the leader’s
mental model of the situation. This model consists of
both the problem confronting the team and the
environment.
• A good team leader is flexible and has a wide repertoire
of actions or skills to meet the team’s diverse needs.
• The leader has special responsibility for functioning in
a manner that will help the group achieve effectiveness.
Leadership behavior is seen as team based problem
solving by analyzing the internal and external
situation and then selecting the appropriate behaviors
to ensure team effectiveness.
Team Leadership
• 1st decision – take action or observe
• 2nd decision – determine the general task or
relational function of the intervention that is
needed.
• Final decision – intervene at the internal
level (with the team itself) or external level
(the team’s environment)
Team Leadership
Team Leadership
• Internal Task Leadership Actions
– Goal focusing
– Structuring for results (planning, visioning,
organizing, clarifying roles, delegating)
– Facilitating decision making
– Training team members in task completion
– Maintaining standards of excellence (assessing
team and individual performance, confronting
inadequate performance)
Team Leadership
• External Environment Leadership Actions
– Networking and forming alliances in environment
– Advocating and representing team to environment
– Negotiation upward to secure necessary resources,
support and recognition for team
– Buffering team members from environmental
distractions
– Assessing environmental indicators of team’s
effectiveness
– Sharing relevant environmental information with
the team
Team Leadership
Team Leadership
• Pros
– Research was focused on real-life organizational
work groups and the leadership needed therein
– Helps leaders design and maintain effective teams,
especially when performance is below standards
– Takes into account the changing role of leaders and
followers in organizations
– Theory can help in the selection of team leaders
Team Leadership
• Cons
– Model has not been completed supported or tested
– Teams are very complex and therefore hard to work
with in (or explain)
– Does not offer on the spot answers to specific
situation for the team leader
References
Northouse, P.G. (2007) Leadership Theory
and Practice. Sage Publications, Inc.
Thousand Oaks, CA.