Leadership is talked quite often in modern day work places. What is meant by leadership is quite often reliant on speaker’s mental model of it. There is a high likelyhood that speaker(or the leader) may not have a structured mental model for what she means by leadership. In addition, the listener may have an entirely different understanding of leadership. The following leadership models summarize characteristic of a few leadership models and attempts to review how leadership models have evolved over time.
Heroic Leadership
Standard mode of thinking in individualistic culture revolves around the pattern of thinking where Leader is a hero and Saviour. A superman who saves the day.
| Theory | Theme | Contributing theorists | Notes to self |
| Heroic Leadership | Leader is born, not made. Leader possesses extra ordinary capabilities with which she can perform wonders which others cannot. | Thomas Carlyle in 1840 originally phrased the term, Plato, Lao-tzu, Aristotle , Machiavelli have been contributing over time to this pattern of thinking. | This theory is still dominant mode of thinking in workplace today. Recent HBR article tries to identify a few of its caveats here. |
Charismatic Leadership
Slightly modified version of the heroic leader. Charismatic leader may have inborn traits, but they also cquires the skills like charisma, integrity, motivation etc.
In the words of Riggio:
C”harismatic leaders are essentially very skilled communicators – individuals who are both verbally eloquent, but also able to communicate to followers on a deep, emptional level. They are able to articulate a compelling or captivating vision and are able to arouse strong emotions in followers.”
| Theory | Theme | Contributing theorists | Notes to self |
| Charismatic Leader | Leaders can acquire certain traits, which will help them in achieving desired objectives. | Several | This theory appeals because traits and characteristic are to some degree responsible for goal achievement e.g., for team building one would get a lot of help from integrity and conscientiousness. |
Behavioural Leadership
Trait theory ignored the context around leadership success. Behavioural theory built upon internal traits and said that external behaviors(supported by traits) of leaders contribute to the success.
| Theory | Theme | Contributing theorists | Notes to self |
| Behavioural Leadership | Traits are not always consistent. Therefore, external behaviour of leaders is determinant of success. Traits can be indicative of what behaviour to expect. But the actual consistency in behaviour determines success | Katz, Maccoby, Gurin and Floor(1951), Stogdill and Coons(1957). | Feels contributary to success. Consistency is the key and helps in achieving trust of the team. |
Contingent Leadership
Contingent theory ( 1967-1990) took into account contextual variable. Leader could have the best traits (trait theory), she could exhibit them in her behavior consistently(behavioral theory), however, the external factors had been missing in accounting for leadership success. Contingency theory takes into account people, situational, organizational and enviornmental factors.
Three of the most notable theories of this era were
1. Fiedler’s Contingency Theory,
2. House’s Path-Goal Theory,
3. Vroom and Yetton’s Normative Theory of Decision Making
Fiedler identified three managerial components:
- Leader-member relations
- Task structures
- Position power.
some contexts favoured leaders who were task-oriented and some favoured those who were relationship oriented.
| Theory | Theme | Contributing theorists | Notes to self |
| Contingent Leadership | No single style of leadership is universal. It all depends on the context.
(Traits + Behaviours) + context |
Fiedler(1967,1971),
Hershey & Blanchard(1969) |
Smaller organisation are often driven by task based leaders, larger organisation have influence power arranged in relationships. |
Servant Leaderhip
Originally coined in 1970 by Robert Greenleaf, servant leadership is linked to ethics, virtues and morality. Its origin go back through history with people such as confucius, Lao-tzu, Moses and Jesus Christ as examples of servant leader.
Spears identifies 10 characteristics of servant leaders:
- Receptive listening.
- Empathy.
- Healing : Recognizing they have opportunities to make themselves and others whole.
- Self Awareness.
- Persuation: Convincing over coersion.
- Conceptualisation: Nurturing the ability to envision greater possibilities.
- Foresight : Intuititvely learning lessons from past.
- Stewardship : Comitted first and foremost to serving the needs of the others.
- Commitment : to growth of people in personal, professional and spiritual realms.
- Building community: identifies means of building communities among individuals working within organizations.
This is my favourite theory because of its inherent beauty and contradictions in its implementation. It is beautiful because it is characterised by trust and respect between leaders and followers. It is despicable because of the practical lip service it gets in organization.It is truly difficult to embrace.
Now a days(2022) it is exhbited by inverting organogram, showing CEO at the bottom and employee at the top. I am always amused by CEO’s and top leaders inverting the hirearchy in an organogram and then “asking ( somewhat ordering) ” the followers to lead by “following” the new-found diagram of inverted hirearchy.
My sentiments are echoed in Robert Greenleaf’s questions (1970 ):
“The best test and difficult to administer is: do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, will they not be further deprived?”
| Theory | Theme | Contributing theorists | Notes to self |
| Servant Leadership | Leader serve the followers.
High quality relationship are characterised by trust and respect between leader and follower. Low quality relationship are characterised by transactional and contractual obligation |
Robert Greenleaf(1970),Graen & Uhl-Bien (1995), Gerstner & Day (1997), Nahrgang & Morgeson(2007) | Theoretically wonderful, practically contradictory. Can a follower change strategy set out by leader? |
Transformational Leadership
In a rapidly changing world, transformational leadership model seeks adaptation to change from the leader.In change adaptation, It focuses on getting commitment from the follower rather than compliance,. A tranformational leadership model proposes a symbiotic relationship in contrast to a transactional relationship . A mutual simulation converts followers into leaders and leaders into moral agents. James MacGregor Burn’s work Leadership (1987) introduced this concept. James first termed the idea of ‘Transformational leadership’ as a balanced dynamic between leaders and followers predicated upon social influence, rather than power. It looked toward fulfillment of aspirational needs of people.
Bernard Bass ( influenced by James M.) detailed the structure of transformational leadership to include :
- Idealised behaviours : Walking the talk
- Inspirational motivation : Offering compelling vision .
- Intellectual simulation: Challenge followers to be innovative and creative .
- Individualized consideration : Ability of the leader to demonstrate genuine concern for needs and feelings of follower.
| Theory | Theme | Contributing theorists | Notes to self |
| Transformational Leadership | Leader-follower symbiosis for achieving common good. | James Macgregor Burn (1987), Bernard & Bass (1985,1998) | Heavy leaning on the idealistic side of the world. Asks a lot of leader, e.g. leader should be able to inspire motivation and intellectually simulate the follower. These 2 tasks in themselves are too uphill for mere mortals. |
System Leadership
System leadership recognises that collaboration is essential to solve wicked problems (Heifetz,Kani, and Kramer, 2004). Leaders in system leadership model sacrifice their ego for common good. They move from individual to collaborative responsibility. Reactivity is replaced pro-active collaboration. Leaders collaborate with followers to achieve a shared vision. Power distribution in the organisation is decentralized. Hirearchy has its foundation in mutual trust rather than vertical organogram.
| Theory | Theme | Contributing theorists | Notes to self |
| System Leadership | Decentralized power, mutual trust, and letting go of a leader’s ego for achieving shared vision | Senge, Hamilton, and Kania (2015), Jim Collins, Fredric Laloux (2014) | Especially in a knowledge-based economy, this model serves well. It solves the complexity of interconnected systems. It also nourishes individual autonomy and individual ideation while keeping focus on common goals. |
References :
Gene Early, A short history of leadership theories.