Leadership Theories: a brief history

Here is a 7 minute video that provides a brief introduction to leadership theories before discussing the 'Great Man' leadership theory.

Leadership Theories: Divine Ordination and the 'Great Man' theory of leadership

In the earliest days it was believed that the greatest leaders were blessed, identified or selected by divine intervention. For the Egyptians, the Pharoahs were gods. For the Aztecs, Quetzalcoatl, was a serpent god. In ancient China a leader was considered a “Son of Heaven”.

The Bible is full of examples of the leadership qualities of Moses, Abraham, David, Solomon, and Joseph to name but a few. There was also great interest in leadership in the East with Asian classics reflecting an intense interest in leadership as it applied to military and political leaders for example Sun-tzu in 300 BCE.

Plutarch, the Greek historian, suggested that political and military figures of the time were divinely ordained even before birth. For example, he writes that Alexander the Great’s father, King Phillip, “Dreamed that he did seal his wife’s belly and the seal wherewith he sealed left behind the print of a lion.”

This perception of divine ordination was perpetuated for many centuries. However, as leaders were faced with growing misfortunes or bad luck for which they had to do public penance or even abdicate, the role of the divine was increasingly called into question.

Would these leaders have commanded respect or fear? They don't sound very 'of the people' to me. What are the benefits or shortcomings of culturally isolated leaders?

We emphasise free will in the west, in direct opposition to the notion of divine intervention. One way of thinking more flexibly about leadership is by breaking up the persona of leaders: we don't have to accept the whole bundle! We can pick and choose.

Need to motivate a people to 'step up to the plate' or stimulate a team discussion about leadership? This video is just over three minutes. It has a wide range of cultural references. It may be just what you're looking for.

If you want to present an inspiring model of leadership to your followers, this 18 minute video by Simon Sinek may help inspire you to deliver.

"Simon Sinek presents a simple but powerful model for how leaders inspire action, starting with a golden circle and the question 'Why?' His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King, and the Wright brothers -- and as a counterpoint Tivo, which (until a recent court victory that tripled its stock price) appeared to be struggling."

And if, having worked on your presentation for a while, you'd like to rehearse and receive feedback that will help you to polish the final product, contact us.

Leadership theories grew up that identified productive and effective leadership characteristics,[link to t3 leadership-characteristics.html] leadership styles and leadership traits. Excellent leaders may share common traits, or use a particular style or combination of styles. They may exhibit a particular combination of personal qualities.

More sophisticated leadership theories emerge

More sophisticated leadership theories began in the 1920’s when researchers started to identify the traits that separated out leaders. It was believed that, to be a leader you had to possess certain physical, social, and personal characteristics.

The physical traits included being young to middle-aged, energetic, tall, and handsome.

Social background traits included being educated at the "right" schools and being socially prominent or upwardly mobile.

Social characteristics included being charismatic, charming, tactful, popular, cooperative, and diplomatic.

Personality traits included being self-confident, adaptable, assertive, and emotionally stable. Task-related characteristics included being driven to excel, accepting of responsibility, having initiative, and being results-oriented.

But the 'leadership traits' approach has not been able to identify a set of traits that consistently distinguish leaders from followers. It was seen to be too simplistic.

As an alternative leadership theory, 'leadership styles' or 'leadership behaviour' approach was put forward. This suggested that effective leaders employ one particular style regardless of the situation and this dominated the leadership theory literature from the late 1940s to the late 1960s.

One early example of this approach compared a democratic leadership style to two other styles, autocratic and laissez-faire:

Democratic leaders tend to involve others in the decision-making process and help the group reach its own goals, while

Autocratic or authoritarian leaders force the group to reach the leader’s goals and make most of the group’s decisions with little input from others. Laissez-faire leaders are sometimes characterized as non-leaders, as they expect and allow individuals and groups to make their own decisions.

Research suggested that the democratic style produced better outcomes than either the autocratic or laissez-faire style, and was most effective in terms of group involvement and satisfaction.

This opened the way to the current leadership development industry because, unlike the Trait Approach which suggested that effective leaders were “born, not made,” the Style Approach created the possibility for training leaders in a particular approach to leadership.

As this Styles Approach continued to be explored, in the early 1950’s it was suggested that the behaviours of leaders could be thought of on two dimensions: leadership that focused on getting the task completed, and that which was more about relationships with the followers.

Someone who scored highly on task-orientation was more active, quick to intervene and precise. While a high score on the social-emotional area indicated a leader who was more directed towards establishing and maintaining positive relationships at work.

Of course, neither of these alone predicted how successful a leader would be. And as it became more apparent that style alone was not a good indicator, research began to turn to the leader-follower relationship and it was found that leadership success was strongly influenced by the follower’s expectations and their involvement in influencing the outcomes.

The second part of this article is here: Leadership Theory.