Participative leadership theories rely on the involvement of different participants and suggest that the ideal leadership style is one that takes the inputs of others into account. Participative leaders encourage participation and contributions from group members and involve them in the decision-making process. Participative leadership tries to achieve through people, teamwork and collaboration.
According to Environmental theories of leadership, a leader needs to deal effectively with environmental complexities and lead in a certain style as a result of environmental responses. Environmental influenced leadership demand leaders to learn how to adjust environmental factors. Leaders also have the responsibility of creating the right kind of environment for their followers by focusing on environmental factors and pressures.
The multiple linkage model states that leadership effectiveness is based on six variables. Multiple variables of a leader's behavior and situation have a linkage to the performance of the individual follower and work unit performance. The theory is based on the notion of the link between the organization process and managerial influence.
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.
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.
University of Iowa Studies was the first leadership study to analyze leadership using scientific methodology. The study was conducted by Lewin, Lippitt, and White and worked on different styles of leadership. The studies explored three leadership styles - authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-fair leaders. This early study was very influential and established three major leadership styles.
Michigan Leadership Studies led to behavioral Leadership Theory as a result of a leadership study conducted at the University of Michigan. Michigan studies identified three important behaviors of leadership called task-oriented behavior, relationship-oriented behavior, and participative leadership. Two leadership styles associated with studies are employee orientation and production orientation.
Leadership traits refer to personal qualities that define effective leaders. Here are the major leadership qualities that can make someone a good leader. Five key traits that are common in leaders can be learned and sharpened with time.
Situational Theories of Leadership
The situational theories of leadership assume that the most effective style of leadership depends from situation to situation. Situational leadership is a leadership style in which the leader must adjust to match the development needs of the followers. They must adapt varying behaviors to strike the right balance between task & relationship based on different levels of maturity of followers and also as followers develop and cultivate their skills.
The cognitive resource theory states the influence of the leader's resources on his or her reaction to stress. The cognitive resources of a leader are experience, intelligence, competence, and task-relevant knowledge. Stress is common in resource managing situations, and this cognitive theory emphasizes how intelligence and experience are each best under different stress situations. This theory is the reconceptualization of the Fiedler model.
Early studies on leadership were done at Ohio State University using the Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire to identify the leader's observable behaviors. Ohio State study on leadership found two behavioral characteristics of leadership - people-oriented (consideration) and task-oriented (initiating structure) leadership style.
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