GREAT-MAN THEORY

Introduction:

The great man theory argues that a few people are born with the necessary characteristics to be great. Early research about leadership was based on the study of men who were already considered great leaders and were usually from the aristocracy.

Leaders may be well rounded and simultaneously display both instrumental and supportive leadership behavior. Instrumental activities include planning, organizing and controlling the activities of subordinates to accomplish the organization’s goals. Obtaining and allocating resources such as people, equipment, materials, funds, and space are particularly important. Supportive leadership is socially oriented and allows for participation and consultation from subordinates for decisions that affect them. Men who use both instrumental and supportive leadership behaviors were considered “great men” and supposedly can be effective leaders in any situation. Contrary contemporary thought is that leadership skills can be developed even when they are not inborn (Marquis & Huston, 2006).

 The Great Man Theory is a 19th-century idea according to which history can be largely explained by the impact of "great men", or heroes: highly influential individuals who, due to either their personal charisma, intelligence, wisdom, or political skill utilized their power in a way that had a decisive historical impact. The theory was popularized in the 1840s by Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle, and in 1860 Herbert Spencer formulated a counter-argument that has remained influential throughout the 20th century to the present; Spencer said that such great men are the products of their societies, and that their actions would be impossible without the social conditions built before their lifetimes.

Assumptions

Leaders are born and not made.

Great leaders will arise when there is a great need.

Description

Early research on leadership was based on the the study of people who were already great leaders. These people were often from the aristocracy, as few from lower classes had the opportunity to lead. This contributed to the notion that leadership had something to do with breeding.

The idea of the Great Man also strayed into the mythic domain, with notions that in times of need, a Great Man would arise, almost by magic. This was easy to verify, by pointing to people such as Eisenhower and Churchill, let alone those further back along the timeline, even to Jesus, Moses, Mohammed and the Buddah.

Discussion

The 'great man' theory was originally proposed by Thomas Carlyle.

Gender issues were not on the table when the 'Great Man' theory was proposed. Most leaders were male and the thought of a Great Woman was generally in areas other than leadership. Most researchers were also male, and concerns about androcentric bias were a long way from being realized.

It has been said that history is nothing but stories of great men. Certainly, much has this bias, although there is of course also much about peoples and broader life.

Criticism

Many of the traits cited as being important to be an effective leader are typical masculine traits. In contemporary research, there is a significant shift in such a mentality.

Conclusion

Prompted by the great man theory of leadership, and the emerging interest in understanding what leadership is, researchers focused on the leader - Who is a leader? What are the distinguishing characteristics of great and effective leaders? This gave rise to the early research efforts to the trait approach to leadership.

References:

Nursing Management and Leadership 8^th Edition pp. 182 Great Man Theory

http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/theories/great_man_theory.htm#see

http://www.managementstudyguide.com/great-man-theory.htm

TRAIT THEORY

Similar in some ways to "Great Man" theories, trait theories assume that people inherit certain qualities and traits that make them better suited to leadership. Trait theories often identify particular personality or behavioral characteristics shared by leaders. If particular traits are key features of leadership, then how do we explain people who possess those qualities but are not leaders? This question is one of the difficulties in using trait theories to explain leadership.

Pros

• That leadership depends upon having certain traits allows behavior modification to become more tenable in producing good leaders, if one takes to heart the writings of B.F. Skinner. Though the theory says that the traits are innate, this is controversial and allows testing as to whether or not the traits can be developed.
• Knowing what general traits make a successful leader aids in identifying potential leaders.
• The specific traits that are listed permit them to be available for quantification or correlation with validation techniques, such as brain scans.

Cons

• One question of what has been really added to the "Great Man Theory", other than an enumeration of traits. It is controversial whether or not these traits are innate.
• "Traits" in the trait theory refer to innate characteristics and it is questionable, at best, to consider them only as a partial outgrowth of personality.
• There is no situational awareness. The terms may mean different things in different contexts. What is malevolent in one situation may be beneficial in another.

Overview

The trait theory states that leaders have certain innate traits that enable them to lead, such traits as assertiveness,  dependability, persistence and adaptability it is convenient to list the elements that Ralph Stodgill (1974), the originator of the trait theory, determined:

Traits	Skills
Ø  Adaptable to situations Ø  Alert to social environment Ø  Ambitious and achievement-orientated Ø  Assertive Ø  Cooperative Ø  Decisive Ø  Dependable Ø  Dominant (desire to influence others) Ø  Energetic (high activity level) Ø  Persistent Ø  Self-confident Ø  Tolerant of stress Ø  Willing to assume responsibility	Ø  Clever (intelligent) Ø  Conceptually skilled Ø  Creative Ø  Diplomatic and tactful Ø  Fluent in speaking Ø  Knowledgeable about group task Ø  Organized (administrative ability) Ø  Persuasive Ø  Socially skilled

McCall and Lombardo (1983), which expanded on the trait theory, argued that a leader is made or broken based on emotional stability, the ability to admit faults and errors, intellectual strength and having refined interpersonal skills and relations.

Until the mid-1940’s, the trait theory was the basis for most leadership research. Early work in this area maintained the traits are inherited, but later theories suggested that traits could be obtained through learning and experience.

Discussion

During World War II, people were focused on what enabled individuals like Hitler and Mussolini to become so popular. The most immediate observation was charisma; Hitler was electrifying. In his Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote of having to practice speaking and emulating the likes of Gustav Le Bon in his 1896 work The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. The iniquity of Hitler did not negate the fact that he was a "great" man in the sense of standing far above the others. Certainly, in modern times, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of anyone more vile.

From this thinking emerged the formalization of Trait Theory of Stogdill in 1974 with his Handbook of Leadership. In 1948 he said that leaders did not have traits that were unique to leaders. This followed much research during the previous two decades that had suggested the same. However, research methods changed and as a result, Stogdill came to his latter view.

The 1950s saw an emergence of behavioralism, the major proponent being B.F. Skinner and his view that a person's behavior could be modified. Psychoanalysis was riding high as well, where the inner mind of a person could be probed by "lying on the couch" and pouring out accounts of past experiences. During the Korean War, it was learned that sensory deprivation could cause a person to alter his/her thinking. Albeit crude, it was possible to utilize behaviorally-oriented techniques to manage traits. Here, a person could be transformed from an adherent to capitalism to communism (surely cognizant of the Stalinist mode). It was in this decade that the mother-daughter team of Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers created a personality trait test with their name which has subsequently evolved into a very sophisticated personality testing instrument often is used for assessing how suited a person was to certain types of work. Carl Jung, a famous psychologist, held that there is a collective consciousness in which is found models or archetypes, of human personality traits. It was from this that Myers-Briggs derived their instrument to assess 16 traits. Scientists, for example, are curious, intelligent and detail-oriented. An accountant is also detail-oriented and is organized and would typically prefer routines. Architects are creative, intelligent and detailed-oriented. Some of these persons are more orientated towards leadership, and others prefer to serve.

The Boy Scouts USA (BSA) "...provides a program for young people that builds character, trains them in the responsibilities of participating citizenship...".The BSA since its inception in 1910 has purported that a scout is "...trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent." In fact, it can be claimed that many other leadership programs stress personal traits as being critical to leadership success.

Future of theory

Refinement of Trait Theory might be made to classify which traits are associated with the ethical system of a person. We have seen Machiavelli's discussion that having benevolent traits does not mean that a leader will be successful. By assessing a person's traits and correlating to known ethical systems, we may be on the verge of being able to predicting how a leader will perform and encourage or prevent her/his rise to leadership.

In a more scientific setting, cognitive neuroscience has been emerging as a viable way of assessing a person's psychological condition. For years, people have debated the "nature vs. nurture" dichotomy of human development. What role does genetics play and do certain families produce more leaders than others? The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (in its four major revisions) draws its authority from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, where people are asked to subjectively respond to questions (albeit asked in several different ways) about their psychological states. Professionals in the psychological and psychiatric field use this manual to assess and classify a person's psychological state, but the whole procedure is subjective. Up until recent time, there has been no clear-cut approach to validating the diagnoses'. In fact, the DSM is controversial and has undergone numerous re-classification schemes.

Source: http://www.leadership-central.com/trait-theory.html#axzz2C0oqNEEO

             

TRANSACTIONAL THEORY

History:

                The transactional style of leadership was first described by Max Weber in 1947 and then by Bernard Bass in 1981. This style is most often used by the managers. It focuses on the basic management process of controlling, organizing, and short-term planning.

                As defined by Eric Berne (1977), transactional theory presumes that perception is based on unconscious assumptions about a person's environment. These assumptions can be viewed as probabilities of transactions that may occur in that environment. Therefore, according to the transactional theory, what is perceived is highly dependent on the knowledge gathered during interactions with the environment, and the perceived reality and its properties are built up via a series of interactions or transactions.

Diagram:

Discussions:

Transactional leadership involves motivating and directing followers primarily through appealing to their own self-interest. The power of transactional leaders comes from their formal authority and responsibility in the organization. The main goal of the follower is to obey the instructions of the leader. The style can also be mentioned as a ‘telling style’.

The leader or manager is a caretaker who sets goal for employees, focuses on day-to-day operation and uses management by expectation. It is competitive, task focused approach that takes place in a hierarchy. It tends to maintain status quo through policies, procedures, routinized performance, self-interests and interpersonal dependence (bass 1990; Huber 2006; Marquis & Huston,2006; Sullivan & decker 2005; yoder-wise &Kowalski 2006)

In transactional leadership, rewards and punishments are contingent upon the performance of the followers. The leader views the relationship between managers and subordinates as an exchange - you give me something for something in return. When subordinates perform well, they receive some type of reward. When they perform poorly, they will be punished in some way. The exchange between leader and follower takes place to achieve routine performance goals.

These exchanges involve four dimensions:

·         Contingent Rewards: Transactional leaders link the goal to rewards, clarify expectations, provide necessary resources, set mutually agreed upon goals, and provide various kinds of rewards for successful performance. They set SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely) goals for their subordinates.

·         Active Management by Exception: Transactional leaders actively monitor the work of their subordinates, watch for deviations from rules and standards and taking corrective action to prevent mistakes.

·         Passive Management by Exception: Transactional leaders intervene only when standards are not met or when the performance is not as per the expectations. They may even use punishment as a response to unacceptable performance.

·         Laissez-faire: The leader provides an environment where the subordinates get many opportunities to make decisions.  The leader himself abdicates responsibilities and avoids making decisions and therefore the group often lacks direction.

Explanation:

                Transactional leadership is an exchange posture that identifies needs of the followers and provides rewards to meet those needs in exchange for expected performance. It is concerned with a day to day operations and view the leader-follower relationship as a process of exchange. The transactional leaders overemphasize detailed and short-term goals, and standard rules and procedures. They do not make an effort to enhance followers’ creativity and generation of new ideas. This kind of a leadership style may work well where the organizational problems are simple and clearly defined. Such leaders tend to not reward or ignore ideas that do not fit with existing plans and goals. The transactional leaders are found to be quite effective in guiding efficiency decisions which are aimed at cutting costs and improving productivity. The transactional leaders tend to be highly directive and action oriented and their relationship with the followers tends to be transitory and not based on emotional bonds. The theory assumes that subordinates can be motivated by simple rewards. The only ‘transaction’ between the leader and the followers is the money which the followers receive for their compliance and effort. The transactional style of leadership is viewed as insufficient, but not bad, in developing the maximum leadership potential. It forms as the basis for more mature interactions but care should be taken by leaders not to practice it exclusively, otherwise it will lead to the creation of an environment permeated by position, power, perks, and politics.

Application:

The theory of transactional leadership, can be apply it in nursing profession by setting rules and regulations in the institution made by the administration or the highest authority (president, chairman, CEO of the company or institution). You are the one who motivate your subordinates appraise or recognize them if needed to boost up their motivation in doing their job well. Your subordinates (staff nurses and other employees) should know how to follow the rules and regulations you implemented, once they fail to follow a certain rule,(e.g. uniform policy, proper waste disposal or even negligence) they have to have penalize in their actions.

Latest Update:

Transformational and transactional leadership enabling (disabling) knowledge acquisition of self-managed teams: the consequences for performance

John D. Politis, (Higher Colleges of Technology, Dubai, United Arab Emirates)

 Abstact: Knowledge has been identified as one of the most important resources that contribute to the competitive advantage of an organisation. The problems associated with poor leadership and interpersonal skills manifest themselves in the loss of organisational knowledge and the expensive duplication of knowledge creation and acquisition, rising costs and reduced performance. Although behavioural and interpersonal skills are most often cited as essential for successful knowledge acquisition, little is known about the role played by “transformational and transactional” leadership in the process of knowledge acquisition and the consequences for organisational performance. A survey of 239 self-managing employees who are, or have been, engaged in knowledge acquisition activities was carried out to investigate the relationship between the components of leadership dimensions associated with Bass’s model, a number of knowledge acquisition attributes and performance. Although results showed that some of the “transformational” leadership dimensions enable followers’ knowledge acquisition, “transformational” leadership is not a pre-existing condition for achieving desirable performance of self-managing teams.

CONTINGENCY THEORY

Descriptions:

-          It was introduced by Fred Fiedler in the late 1960’s

-          Contingency Theory is a class of behavioral theory that contends that there is no one best way of  leading and that a leadership style that is effective in some situations may not be successful in others. Hence, the effectiveness of leadership styles varies depending on the situation.

-          An effect of this is that leaders who are very effective at one place and time may become unsuccessful either when transplanted to another situation or when the factors around them change.

-          The leader’s ability to lead is contingent upon various situational factors, including the leader’s preferred style, the capabilities and behaviors of followers and also various other situational factors

-          Proponents of this theory believe that isn’t just having a skilled leader that leads to success, but rather it is having a leader who can solve the right problems in the right way

-          According to Fiedler. Leadership style will be effective or ineffective, dependent on the situation

-          He identified three aspects of a situation that structure the leader’s role:

·         Leader-Member relations

·         Task structure

·         Position power

-          Leader – Member relations is defined as the level of acceptance team players have towards their leaders

-          Task structures maybe defined as the level of job specificity among subordinates

-          Position power is described as the level of authority attributed to a leaders as result of his position within the organization.

Diagram:

Group Situation

Condition                Leader-Member                Task                         Position                    Leadership Style

                                Relations                           Structure                  Power                       Correlating with Productivity

       1                       Good                                 Structured                Strong                       Directive

       2                       Good                                 Structured                Weak                        Directive

       3                       Good                                 Unstructured            Strong                       Directive

       4                       Good                                 Unstructured            Weak                        Permissive

       5                       Moderately poor               Structured                Strong                       Permissive

       6                       Moderately poor               Structured                Weak                         No data

       7                       Moderately poor               Unstructured            Strong                       No relationship found

       8                       Moderately poor               Unstructured            Weak                        Directive

Discussions:

-          Given the critical conditions, Fiedler argues that one can predict the most productive leadership style

-          If the task is structured but the leader is disliked and therefore seeks the cooperation of the workers, the considerate, accepting leadership style probably will be most productive. When a disliked leader faces ambiguous task, a directive style is more productive. The most productive leadership style is contingent on the situational variables.

Applications:

-          Task Structure:

ü  Having clear instructions are very important to the team. Often it is very important for you as a leader to tell your team exactly what you need from them, and when you need it.

-          Leader-Member relations:

ü  To build a strong team, you have a great relationship with your followers by having effective communication skills, because it is the foundation of your leadership.

-          Position Power

ü  It is important that a leader first have that position, but if you want to become a real leader, you have to ‘qualify’ for that position before you’re followers will really look up to you as a leader. This means you have to have a good relationship with your followers.

Conclusions:

        Overly, Fielder was trying to say that leaders are not just successful or unsuccessful. Leaders can either be effective in certain situations and not all of them. Therefore, all individuals can become leaders if they choose the most appropriate situation to apply their leadership styles. Additionally, it is possible to make a leader more effective by altering the following; Position power, Task structure and Leader-Member relationships.

References:

Ann Marriner-Tomey ( 1996 ). Guide to Nursing Management and Leadership. Fifth edition. Pp. 270-271.

http:/www.articlebase.com/leadership-articles/cpntingency-theory-of-leadership-1907810.html

http:/www.leadership-with-you.com/fiedlers-contingency-theory.html

PATH-GOAL LEADERSHIP THEORY

What is the Path-Goal Leadership Theory?

A Leadership Theory proposed by the American psychologist Robert House. The Path-Goal Theory contends that the leader must motivate subordinates by: (1) emphasizing the relationship between the subordinates' own needs and the organizational goals; (2) clarifying and facilitating the path subordinates must take to fulfill their own needs as well as the organization's needs. House's theory also attempts to predict the effect that structuring behavior will have under different conditions.

The Path-Goal Theory of Leadership was developed to describe the way that leaders encourage and support their followers in achieving the goals they have been set by making the path that they should take clear and easy.

In particular, leaders:

• Clarify the path so subordinates know which way to go.
• Remove roadblocks that are stopping them going there.
• Increasing the rewards along the route.

Leaders can take a strong or limited approach in these. In clarifying the path, they may be directive or give vague hints. In removing roadblocks, they may scour the path or help the follower move the bigger blocks. In increasing rewards, they may give occasional encouragement or pave the way with gold.

This variation in approach will depend on the situation, including the follower's capability and motivation, as well as the difficulty of the job and other contextual factors.

House and Mitchell (1974) describe four styles of leadership:

Supportive leadership

Considering the needs of the follower, showing concern for their welfare and creating a friendly working environment. This includes increasing the follower's self-esteem and making the job more interesting. This approach is best when the work is stressful, boring or hazardous.

Directive leadership

Telling followers what needs to be done and giving appropriate guidance along the way. This includes giving them schedules of specific work to be done at specific times. Rewards may also be increased as needed and role ambiguity decreased (by telling them what they should be doing).

This may be used when the task is unstructured and complex and the follower is inexperienced. This increases the follower's sense of security and control and hence is appropriate to the situation.

Participative leadership

Consulting with followers and taking their ideas into account when making decisions and taking particular actions. This approach is best when the followers are expert and their advice is both needed and they expect to be able to give it.

Achievement-oriented leadership

Setting challenging goals, both in work and in self-improvement (and often together). High standards are demonstrated and expected. The leader shows faith in the capabilities of the follower to succeed. This approach is best when the task is complex.

Discussion

Leaders who show the way and help followers along a path are effectively 'leading'.

This approach assumes that there is one right way of achieving a goal and that the leader can see it and the follower cannot. This casts the leader as the knowing person and the follower as dependent.

It also assumes that the follower is completely rational and that the appropriate methods can be deterministically selected depending on the situation.

REFERENCES:

Evans, M.G. (1970). The effect of supervisory behavior on the path-goal relationship. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 5, 277-298

House, R.J. (1971). A path-goal theory of leader effectiveness. Administrative Science Quarterly, 16, 321-339

House, R.J. and Mitchell, T.R. (1974). Path-goal theory of leadership. Contemporary Business, 3, Fall, 81-98