Expose of Two Leadership Theories

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Expose of Two Leadership Theories

Introduction

This assignment aims to provide an expose of two leadership theories: trait theories of leadership and behavioral theories of leadership. Leadership has become increasingly important in today's world. Therefore, the paper will strive to research current articles in order to present the expose on these two theories of leadership.

Discussion

According to Avolio (2010), “leadership is the activity of influencing people to strive willingly for group objectives” (pp 209). Formal research on leadership has been conducted for more than 60 years. According to Hansen (2009), there are many different definitions of leadership, but all appear to have three things in common:

Leadership is a process about influencing;

There are at least two people involved, the leader and the follower; and

Leadership happens where implied or even unconscious goals or objectives are established.

Ling, Simsek, Lubatkin, Lyon & Veiga (2008) said that being a leader is like "learning how to play the violin in public" (p. 35). During this research on leadership, various theories have emerged that can be mainly categorized into eight main theories of Great Man Theory, Trait Theory, Contingency Theory, Situational Theory, Behavioral Theory, Participative Theory, Management Theory and Relationship Theory. However, the paper further discusses the Behavioral and Trait Theories of leadership as these two have been considered as the major leadership theories in defining the true meanings of leadership (DeRue et al., 2011).

Behavioral Theory

After receiving much criticism on the trait theory of leadership, many researchers started to focus on the behavioral theory of leadership. It can be argued that behavioral theories are focused upon studying the behaviors of leaders. However, it focuses upon the patterns of behavior found in leaders as compared to the individual leaders. The theory explains that certain behavioral trends and patterns may be identified as the styles of leadership. The implementations of this theory encourages the value of leadership styles with a primary focus on concern for individuals, as well as, participative decision making and promoting association and team development with the help of supporting individual needs. The theory believes that individuals may learn to develop leadership styles with the help of observation and teaching (DeRue et al., 2011). However, behavioral theories do not search for the inborn traits of people. Instead, it looks out for the actual traits of leaders and explains what actually leaders do. It can be argued that with the help of ...