Leadership Toolkit

The complex nature of leadership - a quick tour

Historically, leaders have been associated with power and status and their virtues have been the basis of folk lore and myths, with some even being thought of as gods.

Source: List of people who have been considered deities.
Retrieved from the World Wide Web on 30 October 2006:
http://paganpedia.mind-n-magick.com/wiki/index.php?title=List_of_people_considered_to_be_deities

It wasn't until the mid-19th Century that theorists started labelling the way they perceived leadership.  Enter the:

Great Man approach to leadership

For the next half century, leaders were thought to be born, not made.  Leaders (who were mainly men) were thought to inherit their talents and their potential for leadership.  If you weren't born a leader, you would never become one. Leaders were a cut above the rest of society, because they:

• came from a privileged background;
• had the natural ability to lead - from birth, in fact; and
• could rightfully expect to be followed, without question.

 

Nonetheless, this theory proved to be too restrictive and, after a while, questions were asked as theorists started to focus more and more on the qualities that typified leaders from a whole range of areas, such as the military, politics, public service, etc.  This approach evolved into the trait theory of leadership.

Trait theory of leadership

For the first half of the 20th Century, a lot of attention was given to the traits, or characteristics common to leaders - what made them superior, what they shared in common, and what set them apart from their followers.   This was the beginning of the idea of 'learned leadership,' i.e, leaders possessing identified 'leader' traits were the leaders, and others could be trained to develop these traits and so become leaders.   This way of looking at leaders is now considered flawed, because many of the traits identified simply can't be observed or measured outside the context in which they occur, or away from the followers who surround the leader.  There were too many 'What about's?'  that couldn't be answered by this theory, e.g.:

• what about the effect of the situation on the leader?
• what about the influence of the followers upon the leader? (and vice versa); and
• what about the correlation between leaders' traits and leadership effectiveness?

 

The result was that trait theory tended to be supplanted by behavioural leadership theory.

Behavioural leadership

This was fairly short-lived (1950s-1960s). The behaviourists studied how leaders behaved towards their followers (e.g., were they despotic? benevolently despotic? despotically benevolent? benevolent? and so on, and did their behaviour towards their followers determine whether their leadership was effective or ineffective?).  This way of looking at leadership styles focussed more on what leaders actually did in the role than on their traits.  Underlying this approach was the premise that leaders who were concerned about their followers' needs, as well as the outcomes of their job or the task, were more effective than those who weren't.

Concurrent with the behavioural leadership theories, but lasting a little longer, were those related to contingency or situational leadership.

Contingency or situational leadership

This way of looking at things lasted roughly from the 1950s to the early 1980s.  Here, each situation was thought to demand a different kind of leader, or leadership.  The situation in which the leader was required to lead determined the actual leader who rose to the top, and the effectiveness of their leadership.  This would never have done for the Great Man or Trait theorists.  Under the contingency or situational leadership paradigm, the influences of context, task and followers were what really determined who would be the leader and how they would lead, rather than the innate qualities and psychological make-up of the leader.  This was a much more holistic view of leadership than those that preceded it, because leadership could no longer be separated out from the whole context, or situation, in which it occurred. 

However, at roughly the same time, others were exploring leadership from the point of view of influence.

Influence approach to leadership

Who influences whom?  What influences what?  Do the followers influence the leaders, or the leaders influence their followers?  Does the position, or role of leadership in an organisation, influence the leader, or vice versa?  What place does charisma have in effective leadership?  What conditions (e.g., crisis, chaos) produce a charismatic leader?  There is a two-way flow between leaders and followers in this view of leadership, and it is this exchange of influence that is its main focus.

From here it was only a small jump to the more contemporary relational or reciprocal approach.

Relational or reciprocal leadership

In many respects, this is a capstone kind of leadership.  The emphasis is on interpersonal relationships and involvement - interaction and participation by followers and leaders alike in the process of leadership.  For reciprocal leadership to work effectively, the leader needs to have a vision, the followers need to know what it is and must be committed to realising it.  If motivation is what it takes, then motivation is what the leader must provide.  As a result, the relational leader bends over backwards to find out what his or her followers need and gives it to them.  In this way, the needs and aspirations of the followers (the common good) are the driving forces that influence the leader while, at the same time, the leader's vision is what influences the followers.

Sometimes this kind of leadership is called 'transformational' leadership because of its power to bring about widespread organisational change by galvanising people to aim at big picture goals (often involving high levels of risk and commitment), rather than short term objectives.  In recent years, this kind of leadership theorising has evolved into a focus on the 'learning organisation,' a term used to describe a participatory problem-identification and problem-solving process in which workers at all levels in an organisation are collaboratively involved. 

Adapted from: Komives, S.R., Lucas, N., & McMahon, T.R. (1998).  Exploring Leadership: For College Students Who Want to Make a Difference.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 36-37; and
Daft, R.L. (2005). (3rd ed.)  The Leadership Experience.  Mason, Ohio: Thomson South-Western, pp. 23-25.

The table below summarises the major differences between 'old' and 'new' leadership paradigms.  The global changes since the Industrial Revolution in the late 19th Century have meant that the traditional views of leadership have been replaced by a more inclusive form, in which followers are much more important to the leader than they ever were before.

Traditional leadership versus inclusive leadership

Traditional Leadership	Inclusive Leadership
Denoted by position held in a hierarchical structured organisation.	Denoted by the quality of the interaction between people.
Based on a rational model of human behaviour: control, predictability and efficiency.	Not restricted to a position but seen as involving the entire organisation.
Leaders are expected to provide answers and solutions to problems.	Leaders are perceived as mentors, guides and empowering others.
Leadership evaluation is based on outcomes.	Leadership evaluation is based on workplace collaboration for the common good.
Leaders are distinguished by their character, personality and breeding.	An independent relationship exists between leaders and followers.
Followers do not have leadership traits.	Followers actively participate in the leadership process.
Communication is formal and restricted.	Good communication is essential.
Information is controlled and viewed as a source of power.	Information is freely shared.
Strong leadership is associated with undemocratic processes and based on control and secrecy.	Incorporates democratic processes, honesty and shared ethics.

Adapted from: Nemerowicz, G., & Rosi, E. (1997). Education for Leadership and Social Responsibility. Washington: Falmer, p.17.

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