I’m still at this leadership theories thing and have found so many more theories that it is quite amazing. I guess the thing to do is make up a theory and then you can charge big bucks for consulting.
Transformational Theory
This theory is what I suspect forms the backbone behind all of the employee engagement work done by Gallup and others. It postulates that leadership is a process by which a leader engages and forms a connection with followers to increase motivation. Success in transformational leadership comes in meeting the needs of followers in order to enable them to reach their maximum potential.
Transactional Theory
In contrast with Transformational theory is transactional theory which focuses on exchanges between leaders and followers. This theory makes it a leader’s job to make it clear what is expected and what the consequences are for not meeting expectations.
Then there is also Path-Goal Theory and Servant Leadership Theory and I won’t get into those as I’m beginning to see where we might have gone wrong with all of these leadership theories.
Is leadership engrained as a trait or is it a skill? Is it a behaviour or is it a set of exchanges? In the end, I’m not sure that any of this matters as we seem to suck at it no matter how it is defined. Perhaps any approach will work but there is something else that needs to be present for one of these approaches to work.
All these different leadership theories, how can a person expect to follow anybody? There’s your answer for what needs to be present for any of these approaches to work; people to lead – willing followers. How many leaders out there all of a sudden found themselves on an island, regardless of the theory they subscribed to?
Perhaps some focus on the differing follower’s traits could lead to some insight on the most effective leadership theories.
Yes that is another factor, the traits of followers. I’ll figure out how to do something on that in the future.