Contemporary Leadership Styles: How relevant are they in today’s changing world?

OVERVIEW OF LEADERSHIP

Historically, the idea of leadership was introduced by Warren Bennis in his early 90s. He wrote 30 books on it. He defined leadership as a skill that can be gained by handwork (Sterbenz 2014). There are two types of leadership style, Early styles known as Traditional leadership and modern leadership known as Contemporary Leadership. The early ideas of leadership were invented of industry expansions and revolution that described leader as a great individual. Early theories of leaderships known as Traditional Leadership styles, include the great man 7 traits theory (Hunt, Thaddeus & Fedynich, Lavonne 2019).

Trait theory(1930s): In this theory, Effective leaders are born not made, we have great examples like Nelson Mandela and Gandhi. Leadership qualities are always recognised through personal abilities, characteristics and the 7 leadership traits.

 Kurt Lewin in 1930 invented three types of leaders; Autocratic, Democratic and Laissez faire leadership styles (Carlin 2019).

Autocratic Leadership

In autocratic style of leadership, every decision is made by the upper level management without consulting their team members. It is known as a boss centered leadership with power distance between the leaders and the employees (Degree 2018).

Democratic Leadership

In democratic style, decision making process includes team members. They believe in creativity and innovation and it encourages employees towards better performance. It is also known as team centered leadership (Degree 2018).

Laissez-Faire Leadership

In this leadership style, employees are given full freedom to work in their own style and provide them with resources. It creates high job satisfaction, but sometimes time management problem occurs because of this style. It is also known as Hands-off leadership, let the people do as they choose (Degree 2018).

DEFINITION OF LEADERSHIP

Leadership is a process of social influence, an art of motivation and encouraging people towards a certain goal (Ward 2020). Leadership is the ability to transform vision into reality, whereas a good leader is someone who has followers (Kruse 2013).

The most important features of leadership come from these essential leadership theories which includes the following;

Traits Theory

A good leader has followers and leaders inspire them. To be a good leader, an individual need to have 7 traits associated with leadership (Economy n.d.)

1. Drive: A leader need to put a lot of efforts to achieve high goals and be more ambitious towards the aim.
2. Desire to Lead: They should have the ability and capacity to lead and take responsibility to influence others to achieve the target.
3. Honesty and Integrity:  They must create a healthy environment and connection with their followers, workers, and be more honest with them to show them the right path and consistency to work hard.
4. Self Confidence: A good leader needs to be confident about the target and lead other with self-confidence.
5. Intelligence: Leaders need to have plenty of knowledge about situation to solve problems and to create a vision for the followers
6. Job Relevant Knowledge: Leaders should have full information about the company and its matters, so it helps the leader in making favourable decision for the company
7. Extraversion: it is related to optimism that leader should have a positive attitude and be more social and active.

Situation Theory

Situational leadership theory reflects that no leadership style is the best. It all depends on the circumstances of an organisation and the most effective leaders are the one who adapts the style of leadership according to the requirement of the situation (Cherry 2019).

Visionary Theory

In visionary leadership, leaders work according to the requirement of the world that how the world should exist. (Lucas 2019).

Charismatic Leadership (1970-1980’s)

Charismatic leaders have an ability to persuade and inspire the followers. They even sacrifice their own comfort to achieve a certain aim. They are focused, creative and confidence (Sisk 2018).

 For this blog, I would like to talk about the leadership styles that are now used in the modern world. Modern leadership is known as Contemporary leadership. Contemporary leadership has two types; Transformational and Transactional leadership.

Transformational leadership:

Transformational leadership was introduced by James MacGregor Burns, he said that transformational leadership is all about taking each other to the upper level of ethical and inspiration. Transformational leadership includes motivating people and spreading positivity in the working environment. Leaders who follow transformational leadership are more optimistic and energetic and ambitious towards their work (Cherry 2020). In transformational leadership, leaders are innovative, creative and enthusiastic and they can bring change with a sense of promise and motivation. Study indicates that groups led by transformational leaders have higher levels of performance and satisfaction than groups led by other types of leaders(Cherry 2020).

Transformational can be further categorise into four concepts (Cherry 2020).

1. Idealised influence
2. Inspirational motivation
3. Intellectual stimulation
4. Individualised consideration

Transactional leadership

Weber described transactional leadership as the exercise of control on the basis of information. In transactional leadership, leaders are more practical (St. Thomas University 2018). They are more focused on results, have formal authority and positions of responsibility in a company. Transactional leaders recognise the demand of the followers and gives reward to encourage them to increase their efforts and performance towards the certain goal (Cherry 2019).

Transactional leadership has following characteristic

1. Attentive towards short term goals
2. Conflicting to change
3. Favour current policies and methodologies
4. Incline to be more inflexible
5. More focused on following rules and doing everything efficiently

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRANSFORMATIONAL AND TRANSACTIONAL LEADERSHIP

For Transformational leadership I’ll take an example of Michelle Obama, a lawyer and who was the first lady of US from 2009 to 2017. A recent article in Forbes stated that Michelle Obama has been actively in the news for her fashion sense and her leadership skills and community activism. A female Transformational leader who inspired others, motivated people and enhanced the morale of the followers. Michelle Obama established this quality as she leads the change from fast food to healthy eating for everyone, but especially the children. She also led a countrywide move from inactive to physical activities for children to contribute in the effort to end childhood obesity (Agbor 2017). For Transactional leadership, we can take an example of Bill gates, a well-known computer tycoon of Microsoft. He is known for an influential and strict leadership style he transformed Microsoft into a stable monopoly. He had strict rules and regulations to control the organisation’s operations for the development and acceptance of the products by consumers. He was more focused on sales. As a Transactional leader, he used to control his new product and ask relevant and hard questions until he was fully satisfied from the output by his employees (Rampton 2016).

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

So, if we conclude the contemporary leadership, Michelle Obama was more focused towards humanity and did work for the betterment of the nation and always influenced her followers, that is why she is known as a Transformational Leader. But Bill gates always focused on increasing the profits of the company and never motivated his workers for better performance, so he comes in the category of Transactional leadership. Now a days, people prefer working in an organisation with Transformational leaders to enhance their skills and positive environment.

REFERENCES

Agbor, S. 2017 Michelle Obama – Transformational Leader [online] available from https://contentbuilder.merlot.org/toolkit/html/snapshot.php?id=51988240193565 [17^th march 2020]

Carlin, D. 2019 Democratic, Authoritarian, Laissez-Faire: What Type of Leader Are You? [online] available from https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidcarlin/2019/10/18/democratic-authoritarian-laissez-faire-what-type-of-leader-are-you/#2afacba72a6b [14^th march 2020]

Cherry, K 2019 The Situational Theory of Leadership [online] available from https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-situational-theory-of-leadership-2795321 [16^th march 2020]

Cherry, K 2019 How a Transactional Leadership Style Works [online] available from https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-transactional-leadership-2795317 [14^th march 2020]

Cherry, K. 2020 Transformational Leadership [online] available from https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-transformational-leadership-2795313 [ 14^th march 2020]

Degree, M. (2018) Leadership Styles Autocratic, Democratic, and Laissez-Faire [online] available from https://thirddegreesolutions.com/leadership-styles-autocratic-democratic-and-laissez-faire/ [14^th march 2020]

Economy, P. N.d. 7 Traits of Highly Effective Leaders [online] available from https://www.inc.com/peter-economy/7-traits-highly-effective-leaders.html [ 14^th march 2020]

Kruse, K. 2013 What Is Leadership? [online] available from https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2013/04/09/what-is-leadership/#2bb81cd65b90 [ 14^th march 2020]

Lucas, S. 2019 Visionary Leadership [online] available from https://www.thebalancecareers.com/visionary-leadership-4174279 [14^th march 2020]

Rampton, J. 2016 How Bill Gates Became a Leadership Legend [online] available from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/250607 [16^th march 2020]

Sisk, A. 2018 Charismatic Leadership Theories [online] available from https://bizfluent.com/about-7416354-charismatic-leadership-theories.html [16^th march 2020]

St. Thomas University. 2018 What is Transactional Leadership? How Structure Leads to Results [online] available from https://online.stu.edu/articles/education/what-is-transactional-leadership.aspx [14^th march 2020]

Sterbenz, C. 2014 The Man Who Invented The Study Of Corporate Leadership, Warren Bennis, Died on July 31st Aged 89 [online] available from https://www.businessinsider.com/the-man-who-invented-the-study-of-corporate-leadership-warren-bennis-died-on-july-31st-aged-89-2014-8?r=US&IR=T [14^th march 2020]

Ward, S. 2020 The Definition of Leadership What Is Leadership? And Can You Learn to Be a Good Leader? [online] available from https://www.thebalancesmb.com/leadership-definition-2948275 [ 14^th march 2020]

Hunt, Thaddeus & Fedynich, Lavonne. (2019). Leadership: Past, Present, and Future: An Evolution of an Idea. 8. 20-24. available from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331473953_Leadership_Past_Present_and_Future_An_Evolution_of_an_Idea [14th march 2020]