The Leadership Styles are the behavioural patterns that a leader adopts to influence the behaviour of his followers, i.e. the way he gives directions to his subordinates and motivates them to accomplish the given objectives.
The leadership styles can either be classified based on behavioural approach or situational approach. These approaches are comprised of several theories and models which are explained below:
Based on Behavioral Approach
Power Orientation
Power orientation refers to the “degree of authority” that a leader adopts to influence the behaviour of his subordinates. Based on this, the leadership styles can be further classified as:
Autocratic Leadership
Participative Leadership
Laissez-Faire
Leadership as a continuum
This model is given by Tannenbaum and Schmidt, who believed that several leadership styles range between two extremes of autocratic and free-rein, which are shown below:
Employee-Production Orientation
Several types of research were conducted to study the leadership behaviour that gets affected by the several characteristics that are related to each other. It was found that employee orientation and production orientation play an important role in determining the leadership style. Employee orientation is based on the premise that an employee is an important part of the group and is in parallel to the democratic leadership style. Whereas production Orientation focuses on the production and technical aspects of the job and the employees are considered as the tools for accomplishing the jobs. Thus, the production orientation is parallel to the autocratic leadership style.
Likert’s Management System
Rensis Likert along with his associates studied the patterns and behaviour of managers to identify the leadership styles and defined four systems of management. These four systems are Exploitative Authoritative, Benevolent Authoritative, consultative system and participative system.
Managerial Grid
The managerial grid is the tool designed by Blake and Mouton to determine the leadership style. According to them, the leadership style gets influenced by both task-oriented and relation-oriented behaviour in varying degrees.
Three Dimensional Grid
The three-dimensional grid also called a 3-D leadership model is given by W.J. Reddin. Reddin included the effectiveness dimension along with the task-oriented and relationship-oriented dimensions to study how a leader behaves in a given situation and a specific environment.
Based on the Situational Approach
Fiedler’s Contingency Model
This theory is given by Fred Fiedler, who, along with his associates identified the situational variables and their relationship to determine the leadership styles. Thus, this model is composed of three elements, leadership styles, situational variables and the interrelationship between these two.
Hursey and Blanchard’s Situational Model
According to this model, the leader has to adopt a leadership style that matches up with the subordinate’s maturity i.e. his willingness to direct his behaviour towards the goal.
Path-Goal Model
The Path-Goal Model is given by Robert House, who, along with his associates, tried to predict the effectiveness of leadership styles in varied situations. He believed that the foremost function of any leader is to define the goals to the subordinates clearly and assist them in finding the best path to accomplish that goal.
Comments