Theories of

Leadership
Herman J. Suhendra, MA
Meeting 3 and 4
Part 1
What do we speak about?
Well discuss on theoretical approaches to
leadership. But what for?
1. To understand how the leader-follower
relation works
2. To master important models of
leadership, so that we can evaluate
critically leadership practices we face in
our society, family, workplace, campus
etc.
3. To apply them in our organization.
What is a Model?
It is not the reality, but its
miniature. With model man
tries to simplify the
complexity of the leader-
follower interactions into a
miniature.
We need model to
comprehend easily the
leader-follower relations.
Leadership approach is model
to explain how the leader-
follower interaction looks like.
How Many Approaches?
1. Trait Approach
2. Style Approach
3. Situational Approach
4. Contingency Theory
5. Path Goal Theory
6. Transactional
Leadership
7. Transformational
Leadership

8. Gender Approach
9. Psychodynamic
Approach
10. Leader Member
Exchange Theory
11. Popular Approach
1. Trait Approach
This classical approach tries to
explain the reason why
someone becomes a leader
and find the answers in the
character or trait. There are
leadership traits that can be
traced through the biography
of a leader.
So, it is very common
approach to say that someone
who leads the others is born as
a leader. Leaders are born, not
made is the quintessence of
trait approach.
How does this approach
work?
The central concern of trait approach is the
personality of the leader. The situation and the
follower are not seen as determining factors in
leadership. By analyzing her or his traits we can
identify, if someone is the right person to lead
the others or not.
Trait analysis consists of the identification of the
strengths and the weaknesses of the personality
of the leader. So, we apply this approach, when
we read the biography of a leader and formulate
his character.
Only Example.
Stogdills Research
(1974)
Achievement
Persistence
Insight
Initiative
Self-confidence
Responsibility
Cooperativeness
Tolerance
Influence
Sociability
Kirpatricks Research
(1991)
Drive
Motivation
Integrity
Confidence
Cognitive Ability
Task Knowledge
How is character built?
Through the process of habituation:
1. A repeated action will be a habit. For example, a
successful stealing is tend to be done more and more.
2. An unstopped habit shows behavioral
phenomenon. If stealing becomes routine, one cannot
control himself to steal. It becomes a need.
3. Behavior that continue to exist crystallizes into
inner attitude. Stealing as a way of life.
4. This attitude can be a character, if it isnt corrected.
5. And fixed character contributes the fate of the
person.
Criticisms
The individual doesnt become a leader
solely because of his or her traits. In
reality certain traits are relevant only to
certain situations in which the leadership
functions effectively. In the other
situation those traits are not relevant.
For example: Dominance (of the leader)
is a trait one doesnt wish in the
participative leadership. But it is
necessary in the directive leadership.
2. Style Approach
Style approach still focuses on the leader, but
not on his personality or traits. It focuses on his
or her behavior. Whereas traits are something
innate in the personality, behavior is something
that can be learned, trained and changed. So,
the style approach assumes that leaders are
made. We can develop ourselves as a leader,
e.g., through trainings or experiences.
Like the swimming styles we can choose our
leadership style and train ourselves to master
this style.
Leadership Styles
If we observe the organizational practice
of leadership, we can find two kinds of
leader: the one who stresses the tasks
accomplishment and the other who
concerns for relationship between him self
and his followers. So, we can differ two
kind of concerns: (1) Concern of people;
and (2) Concern of Results.
Five Styles
1. Authority Compliance Management: leaders
who emphasis on task and job requirements
practice this style. He doesnt so much take care
on communication with his followers except for
instructing them to fulfill their jobs. We can call
his style controlling, demanding,
overpowering etc.
2. Country Club Management: leaders who apply
this style in their leadership prefer to
communicate and build relationship with their
followers. They have (very) low concern for tasks.
But they try to create a positive atmosphere to
develop the interpersonal relationship. This style
supports pro-social behavior.
More.
3. Impoverished Management: Some leaders are
indifferent with tasks and persons of their
followers. They make distances from their people.
One calls this style in French laissez faire
(indifference or I dont care Style). We can also
call it zero management, because leader in this
style doesnt try to influence people and stay
passive.
4. Middle of the road management: If we observe
leaders behavior that has an intermediate
concern for people and an intermediate concern
for duties, we find the application of this style in
his leadership. Many of us practice such a
leadership style.
More
5. Team management: This style is ideal.
It combines maximal task-oriented and
people-oriented behavior of a leader.
Leaders with this style promote
participation and teamwork in the
organization. They try to touch the heart
of their people and in the same time
motivate them to reach the goals of the
organization.
There are still two Styles
6. Paternalism/Maternalism: Leaders who have
concern for people or for tasks but they
emphasis on loyalty and obedience of their
followers exercise paternalistic leadership style.
If they acts gracious but do so for the purpose
of goal accomplishment, their style is called
benevolent dictatorship.
7. Opportunism: The opportunistic style is
practice by leaders who use any combination of
the basic five styles for the purpose of personal
advancement. They jump from one style to the
other to take advantage from the opportunity.
Criticism
It is difficult to find an universal style that
can be effective in almost every situation.
So, this approach cannot ignore the role of
situation to determine the effectiveness of
a style. Style alone cannot help us to
know how a leadership can be effective.
3. Situational Approach
To overcome the weaknesses of the
former approaches this approach
combines both leadership style and
leadership situation. According to this
approach different situations demand
different kind of leadership.
So, an effective leader is an individual who
can adapt his or her style to demands of
different situations.
Situation In what sense?
Certainly there are many situations like
educational, familial, financial, social, political
situation. But the situational approach reduces
the complexity of situation into two basic
variable: (1) commitment and (2) competence of
the followers. With situation it means the
follower situation.
Commitment is motivation, concern, involvement
etc, whereas competence is skill, eloquence,
virtue, talent, etc.
In this approach the counterpart of situation is
the style of leadership.
Which Situation?
The first situation: The followers are low in
competence, but they have high commitment. The new
employees show us this attitude.
The second situation: If they have achieved some
competence, but their commitment start to lost their
initial motivation, they are in this second situation.
The third situation: In this situation the followers lack
commitment, but their moderate to high competence.
They have skill but dont have enough confidence to
accomplish the tasks.
The fourth situation: The followers who have a high
degree of commitment and competence to their jobs are
in this situation.
And which leadership style?
1. If the followers are in the first situation, the leader
must take the directing style, i.e. instructs and directs
them to achieve the goals of organization.
2. The coaching style must be applied in the second
situation. The leader trains the followers to develop their
competence and to maintain their initial commitment.
3. But if the followers are in the third situation, the
leader must apply the supporting style. He gives them
moral supports and value orientation.
4. And finally, the delegating style must be taken for the
fourth situation, because the followers are already
mature in the leadership participation.

Styles in Situational Approach
Supporting
(for low commitment but
moderate till high
competence followers)
Coaching
(for low commitment
and middle competence
followers)
Delegating
(for high commitment
and high competence
follower)
Directing
(for high commitment
but low competence
followers)
Leadership Dynamic
The situational approach tries to describe the
leadership development. Leadership isnt static,
but dynamic. The purpose of every leadership
dynamic is the maturity and autonomy of the
followers. They become mature, if they have
high degree of competence and commitment, so
that the leader delegates tasks to them. We call
someone mature follower, if he participates
actively and critically in the leadership process
and accomplishes tasks by him self without
direction of the other. He isnt mere a
subordinate, but a partner of the leader.
Criticism
It isnt clear enough how to combine
competence with commitment in this
approach. In reality the leader must
combine some styles to face a situation.
Discussion - Case
Because of a new and very important unit
project, for the past 3 months you have
made sure that your staff understood their
responsibilities and expected level of
performance, and you have supervised
them closely. Due to some project
setbacks recently, your staff has become
somewhat discouraged. Their morale has
dropped and so has their performance.
Which style is this?
1. Continue to direct and closely supervise their
performance (.)
2. Give the group more time to overcome the
setbacks but occasionally check their progress
(.)
3. Continue to define group activities, but
involve them more in decision making and
incorporate their ideas ()
4. Participate in their problem solving activities
and encourage and support their efforts to
overcome the project setbacks ()
4. Contingency Theory
Contingency means relativity.
So, the leaderships effectiveness
is relative to context or situation.
This approach differentiates more
elements of situation that cannot
be found in the situational
approach.

How does it work?
The contingency theory describes the correlation
between leadership styles and situational
variables.
1. The leadership styles are described as task-
motivated or relationship-motivated. They can
be measured with the Least Preferred Co-
worker (LPC) Scale. Leaders who score high on
this scale are relationship-motivated, whereas
those who score low are task-motivated.
Then
2. Situational Variables consist of the
following elements:
A. leader-member relation: refers to the
group atmosphere, loyalty, confidence etc.
B. task structure: refers to clearness of
the details of the tasks
C. position power: refers to the amount of
authority of the leader.
5. Path-Goal Theory
One of the important aspects of leadership
is goal attainment. The path goal theory is
a model that describes the function of a
leader as a person who sets goals for his
followers in the organization.
The word path refers to the way
through which the organization attains its
goals.
The role of a leader in this approach is to
break the hindrances in the path to the
goals and to motivate the followers to
attain the goals.
Leaders Role
1. To set the direction of organization
2. To motivate the followers to attain the
goals of the organization
3. To eliminate the hindrance to goal
attainment.

The Styles taken by the leader
In order to be able to fulfill the
leaderships role, a leader in this approach
can take the following styles:
1. He can be directive leader
2. Or his style can be supportive
3. Participative style also can be taken
4. Or he can take an achievement-
oriented style.
Path-goal Leadership
From the standpoint of path-goal theory
we can say that an effective leadership
should concern not only on followers
situation, but also on the clearness of the
goals set by the leader.
In this sense a leadership is an ability to
determine the goal and to realize it by
eliminating the hindrances on the path to
the goal and by motivating the follower to
attain the goal.
Leadership Project
Please, join to your team and discuss to
formulate the project-proposal of your team.
6. Transactional Leadership
Transactional leadership is a model that
views the leadership process like business
interaction or transaction.
The term transaction refers to a form of
social interaction that is based on the
exchange process. In the market people
exchange money with things. So, we can
see also the interaction between a leader
and his follower as a process of
transaction.
What happens in the transaction?
Someone gives money to the other and
gets things, e.g. a house, a car, a hand
phone etc.
1. There is an equal position between
people who make the transaction
2. Everyone in the transaction wishes that
it is a fair process.
3. There is a certain distance between
people that involve in the transaction;
they are mediated by respect each other.
Businesslike Leadership
If a leader applies transactional exchange in
his relation to his followers, his leadership
is a transactional one. So, like in business:
1. The leader gives promises to his
follower
2. And the follower gives him loyalty.
So, there is an exchange between promises
and loyalty.
An Example
In USA like in the other democratic
countries candidates of president during
the campaign promise programs of their
government. The people choose one of the
candidates and control the
accomplishment of the promised program.
If a president chosen by the people
democratically doesnt keep his promises,
the people can take away their loyalty to
him.
In this way a certain transactional
condition is created.
7. Transformational Leadership
There are some differences between
transactional and transformational
leadership. Whereas in transactional
leadership the personal influence of leader
is minimal, in transformational his
influence is very central for the direction
and interaction in the organization.
We can say that the transactional
leadership is more managerial in its
nature.
Look at these differences!
Transactional
Leadership
1. Exchange of effort
and result between
leader and his
followers
2. Contractual and
egalitarian relation
3. Loyalty and trust
Transformational
Leadership
1. Leader give
direction and influenc
2. Paternalistic and
non egalitarian
relation
3. Leaders charisma
is very important

Four Factors in transformational
leadership
A transformational leader, i.e. a leader who
will create changes, must develop these
four leaderships factors:
1. Idealized influence or charisma
2. Inspirational motivation
3. Intellectual stimulation
4. Individual consideration
8. Team Leadership Theory
Recent researches in leadership focus on the
interaction between leader and his follower in
organizational context or work teams. Many
leadership trainings try to develop team
leadership, I.e. leadership in team.
Team is an organizational group composed of
member who are interdependent, who sahre
common goals, and who must coordinate their
activities to accomplish these goals.
Some Examples of Team
There are many kind of team such as:
1. Task forces
2. Work units
3. Standing committees
4. Quality teams
5. Improvement teams
6. Verification teams
7. Foot ball teams.etc.
The Mediator Role of a Leader
A team leader isnt a dictator or a paternalistic
leader who dominates his followers as a whole.
As a leader he takes the mediators role. He
mediates the information from outside to inside
his team and conversely.
The teams members are competent people, and
with their qualification a leader organizes and
coordinates them to attain the goals of the
team. So, a team leader must mediate among
the group, the groups actions and performance
outcomes.
Which Functions?
In a team the leaders roles are:
1. To diagnose group deficiencies
2. To take remedial action to correct
deficiencies
3. To forecast impeding environmental
changes
4. To take preventive action in response
to environmental changes
An Example
The group deficiencies of a football team like
e.g. racial prejudice or drug abuse must be (1)
detected by the team leader. He must (2) find
the solution of the problem like to train them the
non racial team spirit or to resign the drug
abuser. The challenge from outside like the
progress of the rival must be calculated by him
(3). And he must organize his member to deal
with the progress of the rival (4).
The results of team leadership
An experience of working in a team can
develop the following conditions for its
members:
1. They get some competences
2. There are collaborative climate among
them
3. The get standards of excellence
4. Or they get external support.
9. Psychodynamic Approach
Leadership isnt only organizational or
structural matter, but also something that
develops through education and
upbringing in the family. There is
psychological background of the
leaderships traits or even leaderships
style of a leader.
The psychodynamic approach tries to
reveal the correlation between that
psychological background and someones
leadership.
The Origin of Trait or Style
According to this approach leadership trait or
style originates in familial context of a person:
1. Highly authoritarian parents induce a very
submissive or a very resistant attitude in the
child. The individual who develops his
personality in such context can be either an
autocrat or an revolutionary type of person.
2. A laissez faire parent is possibly the origin of
a leader who has no clear value orientations.
And The Followers
It depends on the familial background that
the followers may react to a leader in the
following ways:
1. Dependent (from the authoritarian
parents)
2. Counterdependent (also from the
authoritarian parents)
3. Independence (from moderate parents)
Shadow Self
According to C.G. Jung we have unacceptable
and denied part of our personality. We repress it
into our sub- consciousness. It functions as our
shadow self.
Someone who thinks himself as a weak person
to his wife rejects this self image and behaves
contrarily as a strong leader in his office. He
represses his shadow self, but this part of his
personality expresses it self as the adversary
form.
Transactional Analysis
Eric Berne analyses that our ego has three
states: Parent-Adult-Child, and in the
communication we relate one of these
states to the ego state of the other
person.
1. An authoritarian leader tends to relate
his parent state to the child state of his
followers.
2. An egalitarian leader relates his adult
state to the adult state of the other.

Ego States
Parent
Adult
Child
Parent
Adult
Child
Authoritarian Leader
Egalitarian Leader
Criticism
Many studies in psychodynamic approach base
on psychoanalysis (Freud) that is based on the
clinical observation of persons with
psychopathologies. So, this approach develops a
model of leadership that explains the origin of
abnormal behavior of a leader.
There are of course the other more positive
views of leadership that come from the other
psychological approaches like humanistic
psychology (Maslow, Rogers etc.)or logotherapy
(Frankl). In this model leadership is a process of
self actualization of a human person.
10. Gender Approach
Gender is the difference between male
and female insofar it is symbolized by the
culture and society. E.g. the traditional
value that views that women work in
private sphere (at home) is not a sexual,
but a gender problem.
If so, leadership can be seen as a gender
problem, because leadership is a social
and culture interaction.
Do Women lead differently?
Feminist leadership perspectives try to proof
that women feel more comfortable in the work
environment that has interactive climate. They
lead in a different way like:
1. Using consensual decision making
2. Viewing power as something to be shared
3. Encouraging productive approaches to conflict
4. Building supportive working environments
5. Promoting diversity in the workplace
Feminine View of Power
Masculine concept of power understands
power as something we have over other
people. Power is something to control or
dominate the others.
But feminine perspective views power not
as domination or control but as source of
synergy and collaboration. Power is not
over, but with others. So, it can be
understood not in hierarchical terms but in
relational terms.
Differences
Masculine Perspective
Hierarchical structure
of power
Control and
domination
Conflict as
threatening

Support competition
Feminine Perspective
Web-structure of
power
Sharing and chare

Conflict as a step to
cooperation
Support collaboration
11. Popular Approach
Leadership is a growing popular theme in
seminars or literatures. The former
approaches have a strictly academic
audience. But the popular approach tries
to communicate the leadership wisdoms
with popular use of language.
The Characteristics
1. Popular approach has applied and pragmatic
orientation to leadership. The writers or
speakers in this approach communicate with
anecdotes, simple cases and interesting
illustrations.
2. This approach tends to give practical advises
and formulas for success.
3. The term leadership is defined broadly. So,
leadership is not only a matter of office
organization, but also of personality and
attitude.
The General Themes
1. Servant-Leader Paradigm: Following the
biblical wisdom some writers like R.K. Greenleaf
stresses the idea of the leader as a servant.
2. Spiritual-Ethical Orientation: Writer like C.
Lowney is inspired by the spirituality of the
religious order in the roman catholic church.
3. Empowerment of Followers: The role of a
leader as a person who encourages others is the
central theme for many popular writers.
Some Writers
1. Robert K. Greenleaf, Servant
Leadership: A Journey Into the Nature of
Legitimate Power and Greatness, 1977
2. Chris Lowney, Heroic Leadership, 2003
3. Stephen Covey, Seven Habits, 1989
4. Burt Nanus, Visionary Leadership
Daniel Gole Man, Primal Leadership, 2002