Leadership styles

Leadership is all the process by which an individual (called leader) influences others (called followers) to understand and agree about what should be done and how it can be done effectivieley and efficiently in a sort of facilitation encouraging collective efforts and aiming at shared objectives.

In litterature, leadership has been approached in many different ways. At first, researchers were focused on trait approach in the 1930s, describing leadership as the sum of traits and characteristics of individuals (leaders) such as intelligence, courage, integrity, responsibility, honesty and ethic. But when it comes to establishing a comparison between different leaders, the traits on tehir own, are not capable of defining what a true leader is about. The necessity of founding a new approach start to grow to give bith to a new approach called Behavioral approach that focuses on what leaders do instead of aiming specific traits and qualities they possess. It also claims that it’s the leader’s bahaviour that influences followers instead of personal traits.

However, servant leadership and transformational leadership theories are considered among the most popular and highly studied leadership theories in leadership literature, stating that ethics are a core characteristic of leadership behavior. The concept of ethical leadership has emerged which specifically focuses upon moral and ethical aspects of leadership behavior.

Transformational leadership is the most extensively studied leadership theory for the last 30 years that was limited to traits, behaviors and situational theories and were failed to address qualities of effective leadership properly. So as in 1980s the transformational leadership emerged as a new and influential theory of leadership. The transformational leaders challenge their employees’ ways of thinking, motivates them and inspire them by keeping in mind high moral standards and values that guide their performance. Thins type of leadership is based on four dimensions; charisma, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration and communication. It is also based in order to promote equality and justice and ensure that fairness exists in the organization.

The servant leadership is an approach that views leaders as servant to their followers, putting the needs, well-being and welfare of the followers first. As a result, moral integrity has been identified central to servant leadership, which has gained reputation in both public and private sector organizations because of its ethical component. Servant leadership encompasses nine components : Emotional healing, empowering, creating value for the community, helping subordinates grow and succeed, servanthood, conceptual skills, relational skills, ethical behavior and putting subordinates first.

The concept of authentic leadership has emerged in the 1950s mainly in response to numerous high-profile corporate scandals like WorldCom, Tyco and Lehman Brother. Authentic leadership is an ethical, genuine and transparent form of leadership approach which is identified as a positive development in organizational research and is known as the root construct that serves as the base for all form of positive leadership. It that draws upon and promotes both positive psychological capacities and a positive ethical climate, to foster greater self-awareness, an internalized moral perspective, balanced processing of information, and relational transparency on the part of leaders working with followers, fostering positive self-development.

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