Which leadership theory most recently has emphasized that leaders need to develop good relationships with all of their followers?

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Abstract

Leadership is one of the most studied topics in organizational settings and has been studied in relation to several employee performance outcomes. Based on literature review, it is observed that the concept of congruence between leaders and followers is relatively new. As organizations spend a huge amount of their budget on different leadership development programs, congruence between the perception of leaders and followers is necessary to achieve better results. In developing countries, very little literature is available on the concept of congruence between leaders and followers. The present study is an effort to review and synthesize major leadership theories and its relationship with different outcomes. Further, based on a comprehensive review of literature, a future research agenda about leadership studies in a developing country is proposed.

Keywords

Leadership

Performance

Congruence

Literature review

Pakistan

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The Path-Goal theory describes a leader that motivates his or her followers to accomplish their goals. Chapter 6 it states that the goal of this theory is to “enhance follower performance and follower satisfaction by focusing on follower motivation” (115). The Path-Goal theory emphasizes the relationship between a leader’s style, the followers characteristics and the organizational setting. For example, when a leader provides more structure than what the followers need, they tend to become less motivated. A leader needs to understand their employees as they know how to best motivate them. The major components theory regarding leader behaviors include directive, supportive, participative, achievement oriented, follower characteristics, task characteristics, and motivation. There are three major strengths of  the Path-Goal Theory starting with a theoretical framework that is used to understand the directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-orientated styles of leadership. The second strength integrates motivational principles of expectancy theory and the third strength is it provides a practical model that emphasizes important ways for leaders to help followers. This path does have a couple of negatives as it does not show how leader behaviors directly affect follower motivation levels and it does not promote follower involvement in the leadership process.

The Leadership-Exchange Theory is a process centered on interactions between leaders and followers. It is not a theory that is focused on leaders or followers, but instead it focuses on the relationship that develops between managers and members of their teams. The two different types of members consists of the in-group and the out-group. The in-group is given expanded and negotiated role responsibilities. They have relationships that are marked by mutual trust and respect. Leaders give this group most of their attention, providing challenging and interesting work, and offer opportunities for additional training for advancement. This group gets more one-to-one time with the leader. The out-group consists of people that come to work, do the job, and go home. These people maintain formal communications with their leader. The Leader is expected to develop high-quality exchanges with all of his or her followers that include the three stages of stranger, acquaintance, and mature partnership. The strengths of this theory includes a realistic description of the leadership process, focus on communication, and the important alert for leaders. One downside of this theory is that it gives the appearance of discrimination to the out-groups.  This theory does support the development of privilege in the workplace, yet gives direction on how to improve leader-follower exchanges.

The third leadership theory is the Team-Leadership theory. This theory provides the framework to study the systemic factors that contribute to a team’s effectiveness. The purpose of the leader is to help the team accomplish its goals. A model component of this theory provides the leader with a map that  identifies team needs and makes suggestions on how to meet the needs. This theory consists of a shared leadership with different team members influencing the team while maximizing  team effectiveness. Team members step forward when situations go downhill, provide the leadership necessary, and then step back to allow others to lead. When this theory is successful, teams have less conflict and there is more trust with each other. The primary strength of  this approach is that it gives practical focus to real-life organizational teams and the effectiveness that comes with it. This approach helps to determine team leaders and team members.  One criticism  of this approach is that it does not provide opportunities for all possible leadership skills.  Secondly , the  team leader needs  time to adjust to the framework as it does not come naturally when decisions need to be made. This approach does not provide any spot on answers to problems that can arise.