Much of modern day leadership thinking is based around the theory of transformational leadership, of which MacGregor Burns first introduced this concept in 1978, in his book called, ‘Leadership’. Burns was one of the first gurus to identify that true leadership not only creates change and achieves goals within his or her environment, but changes…
Key Leadership Theories: Helping identify Areas to Improve Your Leadership Skills
Since the early 20th Century, business leaders and psychologists have tried to identify key leadership theories and models to reflect what exactly makes a good leader and what a true leader is. How he/she behaves and how they motivate employees to success has been studied endlessly. As you would expect, the more people that study…
The Managerial Grid: Helping you Identify Where you Can Improve as a Leader
The Managerial Grid provides a useful insight into the different leadership styles of a leader. Stop and think about it for a second; managing a business, an organisation, or a team of people requires a certain set of skills. It’s not just about understanding the financials and delivering the numbers – really good managers make…
Situational Leadership Theory: Providing Leadership through Flexibility
Situational Leadership theory was originally created by Dr Paul Hersey, a professor and author of “Situational Leader” and Ken Blanchard, author of the bestselling “The One Minute Manager. This model states that in the modern world, a leader cannot just rely on one management style to fit all situations. Mangers and leaders must be flexible…
Authoritarian Leadership: Use Sparingly!
Authoritarian leadership is a leadership style in which the leader dictates and controls all decisions in the group and task. Often referred to as Autocratic leadership, authoritarian leadership is about control, organisation and discipline and while it still has a place in the leader’s toolbox, it was regarded as the most prominent style almost one…
The Six Leadership Styles for effective Team Performance
Daniel Goleman (2002) created the Six Leadership Styles and found, in his research, that Leaders used one of these styles at any one time. Each of the Six Leadership styles comes from the use of Emotional Intelligence: Being acutely aware of the environment, his/her emotional needs and feelings and adjusting the style to suit the…
Managing Performance Through Effective Leadership Styles
Traditionally, effective Leadership Styles were thought of being a ‘one size fits all’ approach: that any Manager could pick the best off the shelf model and mirror this to create successful Leadership results. The accepted model, back a few decades ago, was that of the democratic Leadership style, and while this is generally more successful…
Emotional Intelligence Theory: Highlighting and Developing Leadership Skills
Leadership is Emotional, and Emotional intelligence theory and Leadership go hand in hand. – but first, some quotes: Emotional Intelligence – “is the ability to monitor one’s own and other’s emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use the information to guide one’s thinking and actions” (Salovey & Mayer 1990). “Emotional Intelligence is a way…
Trait Theory of Leadership and Its Key Characteristics
The trait theory of leadership is an early assumption that leaders are born and due to this belief, those that possess the correct qualities and traits are better suited to leadership. This theory often identifies behavioural characteristics that are common in leaders. Trait theory of leadership is one of the first academic theories of leadership…
The Leadership versus Management debate: What’s the difference?
Leadership versus management, isn’t it the same thing? Nope! Leaders set goals and direction, challenging the norm, and seeking new ways of working towards goals. Managers on the other hand maintain the status quo. They specialise on conformance to the standard. They manage their teams and individuals. And they organise, direct and control to achieve…