Rack BL — Leadership Theories

TAOP Resources Library -- Aisle B (Theories)

Print 🖨 PDF 📄

Resources: Main Page | Research Methods (A) | Major Theories (B) | Issues and Contemporary Topics (C) | Professional Education (D)

Aisle B (Major Theories): Classical Theories (BA) | Org. Behavior – Individual (BB1) | Org. Behavior – Groups & Teams (BB2) | Org. Behavior – Systems & Culture (BB3) | Contingency Theories (BC) | Org. Design (BD) | Org. Development & Change (BG) | Human Relations Theories (BH) | Institution Theories (BI) | Leadership Theories (BL) | Modern Management Perspectives (BM) | Postmodern & Critical Theories (BQ)

Rack BL (Leadership Theories): Person-Role Theories | Power & Influence | Situational Theories | Relational Processes | Contemporary Theories

Jump to: Importance | Theories | Research Areas | TAOP Episodes | References

What is Leadership Theory and Why is it Important?

Leadership theory attempts to explain the nature of leadership – what makes leaders effective, how leadership emerges, and how it influences organizational outcomes. It is an area ripe for theorizing given how difficult it is to describe precisely what leadership even means. Gary Yukl’s popular compendium Leadership in Organizations (9th edition as of 2019) shows how scholars and practitioners have varied in the definition of leadership over time. Many of the differences among these perspectives relate to which human factors appear to be most important or interesting to researchers at a given time or situation.

Leadership theory has a long history, beginning with “Great Man” theories in the late 19th century that suggested leaders were born with innate qualities that made them destined to lead. This evolved into “trait” theories, which tried to identify specific characteristics that distinguished leaders from non-leaders. However, these theories proved rather limited as researchers found that the phenomena that comprised leadership was more complex than these individually-based theories could explain. This led to behavioral theories that emerged in the mid-20th century and focused on what leaders actually did rather than who they were. These theories allowed scholars and practitioners to view leadership as something that could be learned rather than being purely innate. But then this too proved limited, as further research that context also mattered, giving rise to contingency theories of leadership. And so on to today that includes newer perspectives based on organizational transformation or complexity theories.

Regardless, leadership theory makes important contributions to leadership practice in at least three ways. First, it provides a framework for selecting and developing leaders through an applied understanding of principles and processes of effective leadership and useful tools for measuring leader performance. Second, leadership theory can help organizations diagnose and solve leadership problems. Finally, despite the convoluted path that leadership theorizing has undertaken over time, each new stream brings in important perspectives that helps scholars make sense of the extraordinarily broad scope of factors that contribute to what is popularly understood as “leadership.” Over time, this may help researchers differentiate better what are the true and unique contributions of leaders in their organizations, as opposed to just happening to be in the right (or wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time. For example, why might certain leadership approaches work in some situations but not others, even in the same organization and under similar conditions?

Some Prominent Leadership Theories & Concepts

Institution theory has become very broad. Various literature streams have emerged that focus on how institutions form, change, and disappear, along with how organizations and industries respond to these dynamics. This has helped with guiding researchers toward feasible and defensible projects. Here is a sample of some of these streams — it is not intended as a comprehensive list, suggestions for additions are welcome. The first set are the foundational concepts that emerged through the mid-20th Century.

Person/Role-Based Theories. This constitutes a suite of theoretical perspectives at the deepest foundations of leadership theory that equated leadership with the attributes or competencies of a leader. The first was so-called “Great Man” Theory that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It posited that leaders are born, not made. This perspective suggested that certain individuals possess inherent traits that predispose them to leadership roles. Early proponents of this theory, such as Thomas Carlyle (1840), argued that great leaders are distinguished by their unique qualities that set them apart from others. Trait theory followed, gaining prominence in the 1940s and 1950s. Researchers sought to identify specific traits successful leaders possess and unsuccessful leaders or non-leaders lack. Research during this period, such as that conducted by Stogdill (1948) emphasized the importance of traits like intelligence, self-confidence, and determination in effective leadership highlighting the variability of leadership effectiveness based on situational factors, thus paving the way for a more nuanced understanding of leadership beyond fixed traits. A third perspective, the behavioral approach, emerged in the 1950s and shifted the focus from inherent traits to observable behaviors of leaders. This perspective was significantly influenced by studies conducted at Ohio State University and the University of Michigan, which identified key leadership behaviors such as task-oriented and relationship-oriented behaviors. The findings from these studies underscored the idea that effective leadership is not solely dependent on personal traits but also on the actions and behaviors exhibited by leaders in various contexts.

Influence-Based Theories. According to Yukl (2019), influence-based theories (a.k.a., the participative approach) contrasts with person/role in that leaders not only influence other people but are also influenced. Leadership is therefore a function of the leaders’ capabilities and capacity to make decisions, whether it be in an autocratic style, after consultation with others, as a joint decision, or through delegation of authorities and responsibilities. The pioneering work in this stream is Lewin, Lippitt, & White (1939) that studied the three different types of leadership styles (authoritarian, democratic, and “laissez-faire”) and observed how the leaders’ styles manifested behaviors among members. This stream also includes studies of power, including the classic French & Raven (1959) study of sources of power that drive different forms of influence of leaders over others — including legitimate power, reward power, expert power, and others.

Situational and Contingency-Based Theories. A third perspective regarded how the situation affected the leaders’ effectiveness and decision-making. Like Contingency Theory proper (see Rack BC), this perspective would dispute the extent to which there was one best way to lead. Contingency theories began to surface in the late 1960s, and the leading ones include path-goal theory where a leader’s actions and behaviors can influence a subordinate’s perceptions about the benefits or consequences of varying their compliance with the leader’s directions (Evans, 1970), situational leadership theory that explained how leaders should determine the appropriate actions to influence subordinates based on the situation (Hersey & Blanchard, 1977), and the least-preferred-coworker (LPC) contingency model by Fiedler (1978) that identifies leaders as being more relationship- or task-oriented. The theory was named due to how leaders adjust their own preferences according to how they perceived the coworker they wanted to work with the least often. A related theory is stratified systems theory (SST) by Eliot Jaques that is more closely associated with organizational design (Rack BD) but also applies here as it identifies the need for alignment between the managers’ capacity to handle complexity and the organization’s hierarchical structure (see Episode 48).

Relational Processes. These represent a set of theories that regard exchange relationships between leaders and subordinates or across an organization. A category on this stream follows dyadic theories such as Leader-member exchange (LMX) that explains how the two-way exchange relationships of leaders and subordinates differ based on factors such as personality compatibility, competence, dependability, and interests (Graen & Cashman, 1975; Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995). This also led to various followership theories, which began with the work of Robert Kelley leading to the book The power of followership (1992), that seek to identify and understand the roles that followers play in organizations and different types of followers based on their independent qualities and active involvement. Also included are charismatic leadership studies that seeks to explain the emotional and symbolic aspects of leadership based on the exceptional qualities of a leader (Yukl, 2019; Weber, 1947), and transformational leadership studies that inspired followers to reach to new heights or place their actions in terms of a greater good (Burns, 1978) as opposed to transactional leadership where followers were motivated more by self-interest.

Contemporary Research Areas

Leadership theory has continued to grow, especially as questions have arisen concerning the general efficacy of leaders and the emergence of concerns over inappropriate or harmful conduct by leaders.

Toxic/Destructive Leadership. “Toxic” leadership emerged in part from the military professions as a way of describing behaviors and attitudes by those in leadership positions detrimental to a unit’s cohesion and effectiveness. Reed (2004) describes “toxic leader syndrome” as including three indicators: (1) leaders lacking any concern for their subordinates, (2) relational techniques that harm the organization’s climate, and (3) motivation exclusively by self-interest. The initial concepts were based on negative subordinate views attributed to the leader, so this evolved over subsequent years into the more empirical accepted construct of destructive leadership which includes behaviors and attitudes directed to both subordinates and the organization itself, that is systematic and repeated, that has some intentionality for harm, and directly opposed the legitimate interests of the organization (Einarsen, et al., 2007). Studies in this area have increased as movements toward more ethical conduct and corporate responsibility among leaders has arguably waned and popular beliefs are trended further toward the idea that destructive behaviors are becoming normalized due to the competitive advantages they appear to provide in the workplace. Hence, this is an area ripe for further study on destructive leadership’s antecedents and consequences (Krasikova, et al., 2013).

Ethical and Authentic Leadership. These two streams represent another significant area of contemporary research, focusing on leaders who prioritize the needs of their followers and the organization. While specific terms in this broad stream have been difficult to define (Yukl, 2019), there are themes describing a range of desirable behaviors that these theories seek to explain. Ethical leadership theory, for example, represents the study of the benefits of honesty, trustworthiness, integrity, and fairness by leaders (Trevino, Brown, & Hartmann, 2003). Authentic leadership theory adds self-awareness to the construct in which leaders who are authentic are consistent in their words and actions, encourage positive behaviors and values in others, and avoid deception (Yukl, 2019). Bennis (2004) proposed that authenticity can be honed by through “great tests and crises” which molds them with a vision and values that can inspire others. Can these forms of leadership be cultivated to the exclusion of their destructive opposites?

Servant Leadership. In a similar vein, servant leadership theory has uncovered benefits of leaders who effectively subordinate themselves to the organization and the workers. This stream originated in the work of Robert Greenleaf (1977) who characterizes servant leadership as a function of the leader’s motivation. He described the servant-leader as a servant first, followed by a “conscious choice to lead” (p. 27) as opposed to one who attains a leadership position first and then chooses to serve others while in the role. Greenleaf’s belief was that servant leadership was important for a strong society, but that potential servant-leaders choose to simply remain servants and not step up to take positions of leadership. Servant leadership’s benefits have been well documented in recent research, such as Sudargini et al. (2023) showing how it enhances job satisfaction and motivation among employees, particularly in educational settings. Unfortunately, while the term has become overused in practice to describe any form of leadership in which the leader shows care for the workers which in fact could simply be a leader’s manipulation of workers and abuse of power (Kessler, 2019).

Leadership Development. This is a critical area of research that addresses the need for effective leadership training and development programs. The military professions place strong emphasis on leadership development and education due to the vital importance of effective command and control of forces while in combat (e.g., Wong, Bliese, & McGurk, 2003; Department of the Army, 2015). However, leader development is important in many other settings where leaders require specialized knowledge to make proper decisions for the benefits of their organizations and clients, such as in education (Daniels, et. al., 2019). What makes for effective leader development approaches, given how busy and stressed today’s leaders are? Studies suggest that leadership development strategies should align with organizational goals and engage stakeholders to be effective (Day & Dragoni, 2015). For example, Maheshwari and Yadav (2018) propose a six-step integrated approach to leadership development that emphasizes contextual relevance and participant aspirations. As organizations strive to cultivate future leaders, understanding effective development strategies helps ensure leadership continuity and effectiveness.

Other Streams and Future Directions. As with the aforementioned Stratified Systems Theory, greater attention has been paid to notions of strategic leadership in organizations, meaning the particular behaviors and skills required of executives that may differ from direct supervision or middle management (e.g., Mumford, et al., 2007). This theory also has implications for leader development programs, particularly in industries where leaders tend to be promoted from within. Complexity leadership theory focuses on leaders’ capacities to lead their organizations toward adaptive and innovative solutions to overcome the complexity and dynamics of their environments. This stream emphasizes research into leaders’ creativity, learning, and capacity for adaptation (Uhl-Bien, Marion, and McKelvey, 2007). Finally, there is neuroleadership and the general application of emerging neuroscience toward the development of leaders. Among the foundational works are those of David Rock who coined the term “neuroleadership” and published Your Brain at Work (2009), which connected the latest research on brain function to leader behaviors, attitudes, and feelings. Neuroleadership is a very popular topic as it shows promise for explaining physiologically the leadership phenomena described throughout this page (e.g., Kukreja et al., 2024).

Related TAOP Episodes, Events, and Notes

121: Rhetoric vs. Reality — Mark Zbaracki

This month we explore a renowned multiple-case study commonly assigned as foundational readings in organization studies programs. Mark Zbaracki’s “The rhetoric and reality of Total Quality Management” chronicled the development and introduction of Total Quality Management (TQM) into the corporate environment, only to find that in many cases its implementation did not align with the promises made by leaders about process improvements nor did firms fully exercise all the practices and activities that TQM required. The question that Zbaracki posed was more than to what extent did this rhetoric-reality unfold, but why?
Read More

102: Executive Leadership — Sloan’s “My Years at General Motors”

Alfred Sloan was President, Chairman, and CEO of General Motors from 1923 to 1956. His memoir “My Years at General Motors” tells his story about how he took a corporation consisting of several disparate and competing companies and shaped them into division that manufactured cars tailored to different segments of society. He constantly pursued and integrated new technologies into the automobiles themselves while also shaping the buying experience through the introductions of different styles, improved relations with dealings, and financial services that rivaled banks.
Read More

97: Social Change and Organization – Invictus (2009 movie)

The 2009 film Invictus tells the story of how the first post-Apartheid President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, used sports as a unifying force to overcome lingering and bitter racial divides in the nation. The movie and the real-life events that inspired it are powerful. We will look at it through an organizational lens and discuss insights related to leadership, team building, change and other management topics.
Read More

71: Managerial Behavior — Melville Dalton

2020 ushered in a full year of major change and renewed a lot of conversations about how we work, live, and cooperate in organizations and societies. In that spirit, we discuss Melville Dalton’s classic 1959 book “Men Who Manage: Fusions of Feeling and Theory in Administration.” The study provided an intimate look at how men (as these were all men at the time) entered into the managerial culture of a firm, how the separations between managers are workers were structured and maintained, and how managers felt about their standing — which ranged from secure to tenuous. In Part 1, we focus on the study itself, which is still very relevant not only for understanding what happens within the circle of managers but also how the boundaries can exclude others, particularly along gender lines.
Read More

64: Disasters and Crisis Management – Powley and Weick

Crises and disasters are regular occurrences in organizational life, putting leaders into the spotlight and organizations under tremendous pressure to respond appropriately — whether it is to preserve life or salvage reputations. With the COVID-19 pandemic ongoing, we wanted to discuss some important texts on organizational crises and their management, and in this episode we present two — from Karl Weick studying the Tenerife air disaster and Edward Powley on activating organizational resilience.
Read More

61: Power & Influence in Organizations — Dan Brass

What is power and influence? Although power appears as a multilevel concept, the early organizational literature tended to view it as wielded by people–measured as skills, traits, or competencies. This would change in the 1980s, in large part to a classic empirical study providing evidence that one’s position within an organizational structure was more likely to translate into one’s source of power. Dan Brass’ article, “Being in the Right Place: A Structural Analysis of Individual Influence in an Organization” from Administrative Science Quarterly is the subject of this episode.
Read More

56: Cooperative Advantage – Charles Clinton Spaulding

In this episode, we acknowledge the extraordinary contributions of Charles Clinton Spaulding, an important management thought leader who, like many African-Americans prior to the U.S. civil rights movement, has been sadly overlooked in the management canon. In 1927, with the U.S. in recession, Spaulding wrote a reflection of his experiences as a business leader in the Pittsburgh Courier, a widely-read newspaper, hoping to help fellow African-American business leaders overcome the economic downturn.
Read More

52: Management in Practice – Rosemary Stewart

What do managers do in practice? How do they spend their time (or put another way, how does their time spend them)? Are there differences in the demands of managers in different positions, or withiin different organizations? These were the questions that famed management theorist Rosemary Stewart set out to uncover in her research back in the 1960s, resulting in the first edition of this episode’s subject–her book Managers and Their Jobs: A Study of the Similarities and Differences in the Ways Managers Spend Their Time.
Read More

48: Stratified Systems Theory — Elliott Jaques

As bureaucracies became more prevalent as a feature of organizations post-WWII, questions surfaced as to how they could be improved. Was there an optimal way to design them? What was the best role of individual members within a bureaucracy? Could individuals be developed to handle higher level roles? Among those asking such questions was Elliott Jaques, co-founder of the Tavistock Institute and later the author of the renowned book Requisite Organization that combined social theories with theories of organization.
Read More

Milton Hershey and an Organization’s Commitment to its Members

As a contrast to the gig economy discussions of recent episodes, Tom offers an example of an organization and its leader who exercised high organizational commitment to its members. This is the story of Milton Hershey, the founder of both the Hershey Chocolate Factory and the small town that grew from it, then located in a rather remote spot east of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Read More

14: Simply Managing, by Henry Mintzberg

The book we analyzed in this episode, Simply Managing (2013), is an updated study of managers conducted by Henry Mintzberg based on observing 29 managers at all levels of organizations across a range of industries and organizational structures: business, government, healthcare, and pluralistic organizations such as museums and non-governmental organizations.
Read More

8: The Ends of Men – Chester Barnard

Continuing with our discussion of Chester Barnard’s master work – The Functions of The Executive (1938) – we look at parts III & IV of the book. Here he is going into more depth on a number of organizational aspects and on the process of management. Specifically, Barnard talks about the parts that make up an organization in Part III and, finally, the functions of the executive in Part IV.
Read More

7: Phases of Cooperation – Chester Barnard

This is the first of two episodes devoted to The Functions of the Executive. For this episode we are reading Parts I and II of the book, where Barnard outlines his understanding of the individual, of why individuals would form organizations, and of the basic principles of the formal organization.
Read More

Available Resource Pages

Rack BC — Contingency Theory

Curated list of resources regarding the major theories regarding the organizational context and how particular situations influence organizational structures, behaviors, and so on. Includes classic contingency theories and pragmatism.
Read More

Rack BI — Institution Theory

Curated list of resources on theories related to strategic management, including competitive forces models, resource-based perspectives, and organizational strategies and strategic change
Read More

Rack BL — Leadership Theories

Curated list of resources on theories related to leadership in organizations including classic trait theory, behavioral theories of leadership, and transactional / transformational leadership
Read More

References

Anthropic. (2024). What is leadership theory and why is it important; What are the dominant literature streams in leadership development today; What is followership theory, who initially proposed it, and how does it relate to leadership theory; How is neuroscience being applied to leadership studies today; What is the foundational book or article to read first concerning neuroscience applied to leadership studies. Claude (March 2024 version) [Large Language Model].

Bennis, W. (2004). The crucibles of authentic leadership. In J. Antonakis, A. T. Cianciolo, & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), The nature of leadership (pp. 331–342). Sage Publications, Inc.

Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper & Row.

Carlyle, T. (1846). On heroes, hero-worship, & the heroic in history: Six lectures; reported, with emendations and additions (No. 74). Wiley and Putnman.

Daniëls, E., Hondeghem, A., & Dochy, F. (2019). A review on leadership and leadership development in educational settings. Educational research review, 27, 110-125.

Day, D. and Dragoni, L. (2015). Leadership development: an outcome-oriented review based on time and levels of analyses. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 2(1), 133-156. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-032414-111328

Department of the Army. (2015). Leader development. Field Manual 6-22. Washington, DC: Department of the Army.

Einarsen, S., Aasland, M. S., & Skogstad, A. (2007). Destructive leadership behaviour: A definition and conceptual model. The leadership quarterly, 18(3), 207-216.

French, J. R. P., Jr., & Raven, B. (1959). The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Studies in social power (pp. 150–167). Univer. Michigan.

Graen, G. (1975). A role-making model of leadership in formal organizations: A developmental approach. Leadership frontiers/Kent State University Press.

Graen, George B. and Uhl-Bien, Mary, “Relationship-Based Approach to Leadership: Development of Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory of Leadership over 25 Years: Applying a Multi-Level MultiDomain Perspective” (1995). Management Department Faculty Publications. 57. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/managementfacpub/57

Greenleaf, R.K. (1977) Servant Leadership A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness. Paulist Press, New York.

Kelley, R. E. (1992). The power of followership: How to create leaders people want to follow, and followers who lead themselves. Broadway Business.

Kessler, V. (2019). The dark side of servant leadership: Power abuse via serving. Servant Leadership, Social Entrepreneurship and the Will to Serve: Spiritual Foundations and Business Applications, 103-121.

Krasikova, D. V., Green, S. G., & LeBreton, J. M. (2013). Destructive leadership: A theoretical review, integration, and future research agenda. Journal of management, 39(5), 1308-1338.

Kukreja, J., Sharma, S., & Saluja S. (2024). Neuroleadership development and effective communication in modern business. Indonesia: IGI Global.

Lewin, K., Lippitt, R., & White, R. K. (1939). Patterns of aggressive behavior in experimentally created “social climates.” The Journal of Social Psychology, 10, 271–299. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1939.9713366

Maheshwari, S. and Yadav, J. (2018). Leadership development strategy: the missing links. Development in Learning Organizations an International Journal, 32(1), 11-14. https://doi.org/10.1108/dlo-04-2017-0038

Mumford, T. V., Campion, M. A., & Morgeson, F. P. (2007). The leadership skills strataplex: Leadership skill requirements across organizational levels. The Leadership Quarterly, 18(2), 154–166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2007.01.005

OpenAI. (2024). What are the five most important books on leadership that business school students and leadership scholars should read. ChatGPT (November 2022 version) [Large Language Model].

Reed, G. E. (2004). Toxic leadership. Military review, 84(4), 67-71.

Rock, D. (2009). Your brain at work: Strategies for overcoming distraction. HarperCollins.

Scite. (2024). What are the foundational theories and perspectives on organizational leadership; What are the key foundational works of organizational leadership from before 1970; What are the five most important books on leadership that business school students and leadership scholars should read; What are the major literature streams or perspectives in contemporary organizational leadership theory; What are the significant areas of contemporary research into leadership studies and why are they relevant to organizational leaders today; What are the dominant literature streams in leadership development today; What is followership theory and how does it relate to leadership theory. Scite (April 2024 version) [Large Language Model].

Stogdill, R. M. (1948). Personal factors associated with leadership; a survey of the literature. The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, 25, 35–71. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.1948.9917362

Sudargini, Y., Raharjo, T. J., & Wardani, S. (2023). The role of technology to enhance servant leadership in the organisation. Russian Law Journal, 11(3), 457-465.

The George Washington University. (2012). HOL 6704. Leadership theory, research, and practice [Course Syllabus]. Ashburn, VA: Diane Burley.

Treviño, L. K., Brown, M., & Hartman, L. P. (2003). A qualitative investigation of perceived executive ethical leadership: Perceptions from inside and outside the executive suite. Human Relations, 56(1), 5–37. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726703056001448

Uhl-Bien, M., Marion, R., & McKelvey, B. (2007). Complexity leadership theory: Shifting leadership from the industrial age to the knowledge era. The leadership quarterly, 18(4), 298-318.

Weber, M. (1947). The theory of social and economic organization, trans. Parsons, T. New York: Free Press.

Wong, L., Bliese, P., & McGurk, D. (2003). Military leadership: A context specific review. The Leadership Quarterly, 14(6), 657-692.

Yukl, G. (2019). Leadership in Organizations, 9th ed. Pearson.

The inclusion of external links and resources does not necessarily constitute endorsement by TAOP or any of its members.

Jump to: Importance | Theories | Research Areas | TAOP Episodes | References

Rack BL (Leadership Theories): Person-Role Theories | Power & Influence | Situational Theories | Relational Processes | Contemporary Theories

Aisle B (Major Theories): Classical Theories (BA) | Org. Behavior – Individual (BB1) | Org. Behavior – Groups & Teams (BB2) | Org. Behavior – Systems & Culture (BB3) | Contingency Theories (BC) | Org. Design (BD) | Org. Development & Change (BG) | Human Relations Theories (BH) | Institution Theories (BI) | Leadership Theories (BL) | Modern Management Perspectives (BM) | Postmodern & Critical Theories (BQ)

Resources: Main Page | Research Methods (A) | Major Theories (B) | Issues and Contemporary Topics (C) | Professional Education (D)