Overview of Theories Covered in the Course

Although the four components discussed on the previous pages are central to understanding leadership, there are many different perspectives from the past study of leadership. Not all approaches or theories we will cover include all components of our leadership definition from the previous page as many of these theories pre-date Northhouse (2013) by quite some time. And, no one theory alone (including the newer theories) is the best. Instead, much like the parable of the elephant, we believe we can learn from all of these perspectives. If you are not familiar with the parable of the elephant, watch the following video to hear the parable as told in the poetry of John G. Saxe (note: the story is thought to predate this author; the origin of the story is disputed). 

Below you will find a very brief description of the different perspectives that we will study this semester. This is an overview to help you understand where we are going in this class.

• Leadership has been seen from a personality (or trait) perspective, which suggests that leadership is a combination of certain characteristics that individuals have that allow them to convince others to accomplish tasks. This is probably the most common conceptualization of leadership and may be how you have always thought of leadership. We will discuss the trait approach to leadership in the next lesson.
• The style and skills approaches emphasize the behavior of the leader. These approaches focus only on what leaders do and how they act.
• According to the situational approach, we need to focus on leadership in situations. Different situations demand different kinds of leadership. In order to be effective, leaders need to adapt their styles to the demands of different situations.
• The psychodynamic approach posits that leaders are more effective when they have insight into their own psychological makeup. Similarly, leaders are more effective when they understand the psychological makeup of their subordinates.
• Leadership has also been viewed as the power relationship that exists between leaders and followers. Leaders have power and use it to cause change in others.
• Contingency theory tries to match leaders to certain situations. In this approach to leadership it is believed that a leader’s effectiveness depends on how well the leader’s style fits the context. Contingency theory is concerned with styles and situations. It is different from the situational approach in that contingency theory believes that leader effectiveness is based on changing the situation versus the leader.
• Path-goal theory is about how leaders motivate subordinates to accomplish designated goals. The goal of this leadership theory is to enhance employee performance and employee satisfaction by focusing on employee motivation.
• Leader-member exchange theory (LMX) conceptualizes leadership as a process that is centered on the interactions between leaders and followers. LMX theory makes the dyadic relationship between leaders and followers the focal point of the leadership process.
• Transformational leadership, states that leadership is a process that changes and transforms individuals. It is concerned with emotions, values, ethics, standards, and long-term goals. Transformational leadership moves followers to accomplish more than what is usually expected of them. Authentic leadership grows out of transformational leadership but is about being leading by being true to oneself and convictions.
• Servant leadership is about meeting the needs of followers. It is similar to the situational approach and path-goal theory, but with a bigger emphasis on followers.

We will study all of these various approaches to leadership. We will spend the last few weeks discussing other issues (a bit more practical in nature) in leadership that are important in organizations today. We will talk about leadership in teams. We will also discuss leadership and diversity, since diversity is such an important topic in today’s workplace. Organizations are extremely interested in how to develop good leaders. Finally, in light of recent political, corporate, and other organizational scandals, we will discuss toxic leadership and ethics.