Term Papers On Leadership Theories

Introduction

Leadership is a concept that has been written about, formally researched, and informally discussed more than any other single topic. However despite all the attention given to leadership there is still a significant amount of controversy attached to the concept. In fact there are some organizational behaviorists that do not even recognize it as a concept let alone develop or consider theories regarding it. For example an article started with the assumption “The social construct of leadership is viewed as a myth that functions to reinforce existing social beliefs and structures about the necessity of hierarchy and leaders in n organization.” [1] Yet throughout history the difference between success and failure, whether in a war, business, a protest movement, or a basketball game, has been attributed to leadership. The intensity of today’s concern over leadership is pointed out by the following observation: “ Business in America has lost its way, in a sea of managerial mediocrity, desperately needing leadership to face worldwide economic competition. Once the dominant innovator in technology, marketing and manufacturing, American business has lost ground to foreign competition.”[2] However regardless of the attention given to leadership it does remain a rather obscure if not “black box” kind ambiguous idea. It is known to exist and to have a tremendous impact on human behavior and performance, but the inner workings or specific dimensions cannot be spelled out.

In recent years many theorists and practitioners emphasize the difference between managers and leaders. The distinction is an important one. Leaders conquer the context – the turbulent, sometimes ambiguous surroundings and sometimes seem to conspire against us and will surely suffocate us we let them – while managers surrender to it. Although many definitions could be cited most would depend on the theoretical orientation taken. Besides influence, leadership has been defined in terms of group processes, personality, compliance, particular behaviors, power, persuasion, goal achievement, interaction, role differentiation, initiation of structure and combinations of two or more of these. The definition however is not important rather that the concept be interpreted in a theoretical framework and it be realized that leadership, however defined, does make a difference.

Current Position

The leader in question in this paper is facing a set of situations and circumstances that are leading up to ineffective leadership. That is however the symptom and not the cause and in order to diagnose the problem and make a recommendation it is important to note the cause. After careful analysis and study it is has been concluded that the leader is faced with unstructured systems and processes and therefore cannot organize viable work groups or teams to effectively meet goals and objectives, be they long-term or short term. In addition the leader currently is ready to make the necessary changes that are required, yet he lacks the resource mobilization power to accomplish the change and has little authority in regards to decision making for more than just his direct team.

Theory and Concepts – The Contingency Theory

Initially theories presented focused on the leaders themselves and their traits, these were therefore the trait theories, however attention later turned to situational aspects of leadership. Social psychologists began to search for situational variables that affect leadership roles, skills, behavior, and followers’ performance and satisfaction. Although many variables were identified, no theory pulled it all together until Fed Fiedler proposed a widely recognized situation-based, or contingency, theory for leadership effectiveness.

Fiedler developed what he called the Contingency Model of leadership Effectiveness. This model contained the relationship between leadership style and the favorableness of the situations. Situational favorableness was described by Fielder in terms of three empirically derived dimensions:

1. 1. The leadership-membership relationship, which is the most critical variable in determining the situations favorableness.
2. 2. The degree of task structures, which is the second most important input into the favorableness of the situation.
3. 3. The leader’s position power obtained through formal authority, which is the third most critical dimension of the situation.

Situations are favorable to the leader if all three dimensions are high. In other words if the leader is generally accepted by followers, (high first dimension), if the task is very structured and everything is “spelled out” (high second dimension), and if a great deal of authority and power is formally attributed to the leaders position, (high third dimension) the situation is favorable. And of the three dimensions are low then the situation becomes unfavorable to the leader, and Fiedler was convinced that the favorableness of the situations depended directly on the effectiveness of the leader.