Traditional Paradigms of Leadership

Concluding Segment

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This video segment is a summary of what has been discussed in the video. Resources such as additional articles and references are provided.

Keywords

  • Conclusion
  • Leadership
  • Trait theory
  • Behavioural theory
  • Contingency theory
  • Skills theory
  • Great Man
  • Leadership Traits
  • Leadership skills
  • Leadership style

References

  1. 1.
    Harrison C (2018) Leadership theory and research: a critical approach to new and existing paradigms. Palgrave MacMillan, Switzerland. https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783319686714#CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  2. Blake RR, Mouton JS (1985) The managerial grid III. Gulf Publishing Company, Houston, TXGoogle Scholar
  3. Fiedler FE (1978) The contingency model and the dynamics of the leadership process. In: Berkowitz L (ed) Advances in the experimental social psychology. Academic Press, New York, pp 59–112Google Scholar
  4. Gill R (2011) Theory and practice of leadership, 2nd edn. Sage, LondonGoogle Scholar
  5. Stogdill RM (1974) Handbook of leadership. Free Press, New YorkGoogle Scholar
  6. Katz RL (1955) Skills of an effective administrator. Harv Bus Rev 33(1):33–42Google Scholar
  7. Katz RL (1974) Skills of an effective administrator. Harv Bus Rev 52(5):90–102Google Scholar
  8. Lewin K, Lippert R, White RK (1939) Patterns of aggressive behavior in experimentally created social climates. J Soc Psychol 10(2):271–301CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. Mann RD (1959) A review of the relationship between personality and performance in small groups. Psychol Bull 56(4):241–270CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. Mumford MD, Zaccaro SJ, Harding FD, Jacobs TO, Fleishman EA (2000) Leadership skills for a changing world solving complex social problems. Leadersh Q 11(1):11–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  11. Stogdill RM (1948) Personal factors associated with leadership: a survey of the literature. J Psychol 25(1):35–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. Zaccaro SJ, Mumford MD, Connelly MS, Marks MA, Gilbert JA (2000) Assessment of leader problem-solving capabilities. Leadersh Q 11(1):37–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar

About this video

Author(s)
Christian Harrison
First online
23 January 2020
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40805-3_5
Online ISBN
978-3-030-40805-3
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan
Copyright information
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

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Video Transcript

Hello, I’m Dr. Christian Harrison, and welcome to the concluding segment of this video titled, “Traditional Paradigms of Leadership,” a critical insight into established theories and concepts. It was nice being involved in this video , and I hope you learned a lot.

The whole idea of this video was to get you to know much more about the traditional paradigms on leadership. All the segments were made for you to examine this in more detail. First, we started with the first paradigm on leadership, and that was the trait theory on leadership. Of course, it emerged from the “Great Man”‘s perspective, and we looked at that in detail. We looked at the traits required for leadership, and we came up with a list of traits.

Well, one of the drawbacks to the approach was, “Leaders are born and not made.” And we all agreed that the major drawback behind this approach was leadership was for a specific few, specific group of people.

Then we went to the next theory on leadership, or the next traditional paradigm on leadership, and it’s called the behavioral theory on leadership. Scholars here believe that leadership shouldn’t be about what you possess, but leadership should be about your behavior. It should be about doing and not having.

So we looked at all the pivotal studies within this approach to leadership, and we looked at four core studies. We first started with Kurt Lewin’s study that highlighted three styles of leadership. We now looked at Ohio studies and Michigan studies that highlighted two styles of leadership. And we came up with Blake and Mouton’s Grid, as well, that highlighted five styles of leadership.

These pivotal studies were very important, and very key in understanding leadership style and behavior. But a lot of critiques, of course, have been on these studies as well. And the major criticism behind these studies is, there is a perfect style of leadership.

So it led to the next paradigm that we discussed in one of the segments that’s called a contingency theory on leadership, Rather than focus on a perfect style of leadership, leadership style should be based on the situation. So you should be able to get the right style that fits that situation.

So we looked at contingency theory in detail. We first started with the situational theory on leadership that had a broad sense of the situation and tried to say that you can adapt any style at all to fit a particular situation. And we went straight into contingency, as well– that try to say, OK, rather than being flexible, get somebody that fits that situation. The major proponent of that approach was Fiedler, and we looked at his model in much detail. And we also tried to see how we can use the model in real life.

Finally, we went beyond those three models or three paradigms on leadership and we looked at a skill perspective. A lot of scholars have said, OK, rather than focus on leadership– on leadership is based on traits, or leadership is based on behavior, leadership is based on the situation– let’s focus on the development side of leadership. Let’s focus on the skill perspective.

So we looked at different works on leadership skill perspective. We looked at the works by Katz. We looked at the works by Mumford and Zaccaro. We also looked at the work that I proposed as well. So there were a lot of skills that we examined, and we tried to highlight from a critical point of view how these skills are also important.

So this video has been able to look at those four traditional paradigms to leadership. I’m not saying that there couldn’t be more important paradigms on leadership, but these are the traditional paradigms and these are the foundation for how– on how emerging paradigms or paradigms have emerged over time that we know to date.

So alongside this video, I believe that there are some essential resources that will be useful in letting you– getting you to understand these paradigms better. And one of those resources is my book called “Leadership Theory and Research: A Critical Approach to New and Existing Paradigms.” It will be very useful in getting you to understand much more about the traditional paradigms on leadership, and there are others articles that I’ve highlighted on the screen.

Understand these paradigms better, and I believe that, based on what you have learned from this video, you now know much more about these paradigms, and they will help you in your leadership journey. See you, and thank you.