Normative leadership theories are built on moral principles and tell leaders how they ought to act. Victor Vroom formulated the normative model of leadership that specifically address leader behavior explicitly built on moral principles or norms. Normative leadership theories tell leaders how they should act to raise the moral performance inside the working group and manage their different responsibilities.
The psychodynamic approach to leadership has its roots in the work done by Sigmund Freud. These involved psychological theories of personality development and explaining leadership using psychoanalytic concepts. It tries to define a person is in terms of personality traits. Personality structured into three parts (i.e., tripartite) - the id, ego, and superego.
There are four major factors in leadership called Leader, Follower, Communication, and Situation. The success of the leader is dependent on how the leader is effectively able to communicate and motivate followers to perform desired tasks using the appropriate leadership style best suited for the given situation. Interdependencies and dynamics of these four factors of leadership must be considered by a leader to be effective.
Communication has as its central objective the transmission of meaning. The process of communication is successful only when the receiver understands an idea as the sender intended it. How does a message or an idea travel from one person to another? To transmit our message, we engage in a sensitive and complex process of communication, with different elements like sender, message, channels, receiver, noise, and feedback.
Contingency Theories of Leadership
Contingency theories of leadership focus on both the leader's persona as well as the situation/environment in which that leader operates. These theories consider the context of leadership which means whether or not the leadership style suits a particular situation and states that a leader can be effective in one circumstance and a failure in another one. A leader will be most effective when he applies the right leadership style to a given situation and environment around him. Contingent leaders are flexible and adaptable.
The Systemic Approach to Leadership
The systemic approach to leadership looks at the organization as a whole and focuses on the understanding of the organization as a system. Moving to systems thinking demand managers to view organizations as organic systems. Leaders are also part of this complex system which is constantly undergoing change and evolving. The leaders need to manage the relations and networks within these systems by acting with systemic awareness.
Situational Leadership - Application
Situational Leadership Theories are well known and frequently used for training leaders within organizations. Practical application is how to choose the right leadership approach for the situation. The theory emphasizes leader flexibility and advises leaders to flex their style based on the followers' needs. Leaders must adapt their leadership style to fit the prescribed task, understanding given situation/maturity of followers.
Burns Transformational Leadership Theory
Transformational leadership theory has been defined by James MacGregor Burns as a process where both leaders and followers mutually raise one another to higher levels of morality and motivation. The concept of transforming leader works with teams to garner trust, respect, and admiration while reaching to higher moral positions. The transformational theory of leadership was developed while studying political leaders and how they use charismatic methods to attract people to the values.
Leadership has been defined in different ways by different sets of scholars. In very simple terms leadership can be defined as the skill of a person to influence an individual or a group for achievement of a goal in a given situation. One can use different dimensions and perspectives to define leadership. Through the evolution of leadership thought, leadership has been defined in various ways discussed here.
The open systems model of leadership acknowledges the influence of the environment on organizations. An open system regularly exchanges feedback with its external environment. The environment also provides key resources that are necessary to sustain and lead to change and survival. Leadership in an open system should focus on influence, open communication, and patterns to control expanding the number of variables created by external dynamics.
Have you ever resonated that there seem to be as many different ways to lead people as there have been great leaders? When we recall the success of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon Bonaparte to Steve Jobs and Jack Welch, we also notice that they all used different approaches that were suitable to their specific situations and circumstances. Over the last century, researchers and psychologists have developed simple ways to describe the “Styles of leadership” and in this section, we will explore these commonly known leadership styles.
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