Contemporary

Leadership Theories
and Styles
Dr. Deepa R
LIBA
Contemporary Leadership Theories
Transactional Leadership
Leaders who guide or motivate their followers in the direction
of established goals by clarifying role and task requirements
Focus is on the exchange between leaders and followers
Transformational Leadership (James MacGregor Burns, 1978)
Leaders who inspire followers to go beyond their own self-
interests for the good of the organization
Leaders who have a profound and extraordinary effect on their
followers
It is a process that changes and transforms people.
It is concerned with emotions, values, ethics, standards, and
long-term goals.
It is a process that often incorporates charismatic and
visionary leadership.
The Difference
Transactional leadership Transformational Leadership
Leadership is responsive Leadership is proactive
Works within the organizational culture Work to change the organizational culture by
implementing new ideas
Transactional leaders make employees achieve Transformational leaders motivate and empower
organizational objectives through rewards and punishment employees to achieve company’s objectives by appealing
to higher ideals and moral values
Motivates followers by appealing to their own self-interest Motivates followers by encouraging them to transcend
their own interests for those of the group or unit
Pseudo-Transformational
Leaders

• This term refers to leaders who are self-consumed,

exploitive, and power oriented, with warped moral
values
• A pseudo-transformational leader has strong
inspirational talent and appeal but is manipulative
and dominates and directs followers toward his or
her own values. It is leadership that is threatening
to the welfare of followers because it ignores the
common good.
• Saddam Hussain, Hitler, Mussolini
A Model of
Transformational
Leadership (Bass, 1985)

• Idealized Influence – Charisma ; Strong

role model ; high moral and ethical
standards ; deeply respected by
followers
• Inspirational Motivation –
Communicate high expectations to Individualized Consideration - Representative of leaders
followers ; inspiring them through who provide a supportive climate in which they listen
motivation to get committed carefully to the individual needs of followers. Leaders act
• Intellectual stimulation – It stimulates as coaches and advisers while trying to assist followers in
followers to be innovative or creative becoming fully actualize
and challenge their own beliefs and
that of the leader https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx6zeEDGndw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIeLiPjgAbQ

Transactional leaders exchange
things of value with followers to
advance their own and their
followers’ agendas
Transactional Leadership
Factors
• Contingent Rewards - It is an exchange
process between leaders and followers in
which effort by followers is exchanged
for specified rewards.
• Management by Exception – It is
leadership that involves corrective
criticism, negative feedback, and
negative reinforcement. They can be
active or passive leaders who manage by
exception
Non-Leadership Factors
• Laissez-Faire - This factor represents the absence of leadership. As the
French phrase implies, the laissez-faire leader takes a “hands-off, let-
things-ride” approach. This leader abdicates responsibility, delays
decisions, gives no feedback, and makes little effort to help followers
satisfy their need
Charismatic Leadership

• Charismatic Leadership
Charismatic Leaders are enthusiastic, self-
confident leaders whose personality and actions
influence people to behave in certain ways
House’s (1976) - Charismatic Leadership Theory
Weber (1947) provided the most well-known
definition of charisma as a special personality
characteristic that gives a person superhuman or
exceptional powers and is reserved for a few, is
of divine origin, and results in the person being
treated as a leader
 Visionary and Servant
Leadership
• Visionary Leadership
A leader who creates and articulates a
realistic, credible, and attractive vision
of the future that improves upon the
present situation
• Servant Leadership
The leader exists to serve people.
Contemporary Leadership Theories
• Authentic Leadership – Believe in and act
according to values and beliefs
• Team Leadership – Share information, trust
team members, know when to leave the
team alone or when to intervene, liaison
with external constituencies, conflict
managers, trouble-shooters, facilitating
internal process and external boundary
• Self-Leadership – Reduced level of
supervision - Where can we see it now?
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC
Authentic Leadership
• It focuses on whether leadership is genuine and “real.”
• One of defining Authentic Leadership is the intrapersonal perspective. It
incorporates the leader’s self-knowledge, self-regulation, and self-concept
• A second way of defining authentic leadership is as an interpersonal process.
This perspective outlines authentic leadership as relational, created by
leaders and followers together
• Finally, authentic leadership can be defined from a developmental
perspective. This perspective, which views authentic leadership as
something that can be nurtured in a leader, rather than as a fixed trait
• Specifically, authentic leaders demonstrate five basic characteristics: (1) They
understand their purpose, (2) they have strong values about the right thing
to do, (3) they establish trusting relationships with others, (4) they
demonstrate self-discipline and act on their values, and (5) they are
passionate about their mission (i.e., act from their heart) (George, 2003).
• The related characteristics passion, behavior, connectedness, consistency
and compassion that individuals need to develop to become authentic
leaders are also specified in the outer circle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1QOtPDAAeY
Authentic Leadership
Four components form the foundation for a theory of authentic
leadership
• Self-awareness refers to the personal insights of the leader.
• Internalized moral perspective - Individuals use their internal
moral standards and values to guide their behavior rather than
allow outside pressures to control them
• Balanced processing is also a self-regulatory behavior. It refers to
an individual’s ability to analyze information objectively and
explore other people’s opinions before making a decision.
• Relational transparency refers to being open and honest in
presenting one’s true self to others

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

Authentic Leadership
Factors that influence Authentic Leadership
• Confidence refers to having self-efficacy—the belief that one has the
ability to successfully accomplish a specified task.
• Optimism refers to the cognitive process of viewing situations from a
positive light and having favorable expectations about the future.
• Resilience is the capacity to recover from and adjust to adverse situations.
It includes the ability to positively adapt to hardships and suffering
• Moral reasoning is the capacity to make ethical decisions about issues of
right or wrong and good or bad
• Critical life events are major events that shape people’s lives. They can be
positive events, like receiving an unexpected promotion, having a child, or
reading an important book; or they can be negative events, like being
diagnosed with cancer, getting a negative year-end evaluation, or having a
loved one die.[Howard Schultz (founder and CEO of Starbucks]
When leaders tell their life stories, they gain greater self-knowledge, more
clarity about who they are, and a better understanding of their role. By
understanding their own life experiences, leaders become more authentic.
 Servant
Leadership
Do those served grow as persons?
Do they, while being served,
become healthier, wiser, freer,
more autonomous, more likely
themselves to become servants?
And, what is the effect on the least
privileged in society? Will they
benefit or at least not be further
deprived? Robert Greenleaf
• Robert K Greenleaf coined the term
and wrote several books on the
subject – based on the novel “Journey
to the East”
• How can a person be a servant and
leader at the same time?
• Servant leadership emphasizes that
leaders be attentive to the concerns of
their followers, empathize with them,
and nurture them.
• Servant leaders put followers first,
empower them, and help them
develop their full personal capacities.
• If inequalities and social injustices
exist, a servant leader tries to remove
them
• Rather than using their power to
dominate others, leaders should share
their power and enable others to grow
and become autonomous
• Leaders must share control and
influence
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y
Meuk0ZtLM0
 1. Listening – Servant leaders communicate by listening
first
2. Empathy – Standing in the shoes of the other person
and attempting to see the world from that person’s
point of view
Ten 3. Healing - Greenleaf argues that the process of healing is
a two-way street—in helping followers become whole,
Characteristics 4.
servant leaders themselves are healed
Awareness - Understanding oneself and the impact one
has on others
of a Servant 5. Persuasion - Persuasion is clear and persistent
communication that convinces others to change
Leader 6. Conceptualization – Providing a clear sense of its goals
and direction
7. Foresight - An ability to predict what is coming based on
what is occurring in the present
8. Stewardship - Stewardship is about taking responsibility
for the leadership role entrusted to the leader.
Ten Characteristics
of a Servant
Leader
9. Commitment to the growth of
people - Treating each follower as a
unique person with intrinsic value that
goes beyond his or her tangible
contributions to the organization

10. Building Community - A

community is a collection of
individuals who have shared interests
and pursuits and feel a sense of unity
and relatedness.
 Adaptive Leadership
• Adaptive leadership focuses on the adaptations required of people in
response to changing environments
• Adaptive leadership stresses on the activities of the leader in relation to
the work of followers in the contexts in which they find themselves
• Heifetz first published Leadership Without Easy Answers (1994), the
seminal book on adaptive leadership
• Adaptive leaders engage in activities that mobilize, motivate, organize,
orient, and focus the attention of others (Heifetz, 1994).
 Adaptive Leadership – Scenarios
• Company Merger - A midsize family-owned paper company merges with another similar paper company.
The merger creates tensions between the employees regarding job titles and duties, different wage
schedules, overtime, and vacation pay. The new owners must bring these disparate groups of employees
together to have their company function successfully. They will have to identify their adaptive challenges
and then decide what work needs to be done (e.g., learning new ways of performing, shedding old ways
that no longer work, and reevaluating their beliefs and values).

• Merit Pay - In an established engineering company, a small group of young high-achieving engineers
wants to change the way merit pay is given by removing seniority and years of service as part of the
criteria. Longtime employees are resisting the change. The management must find a way to address this
issue without alienating either group.

• Condominium Rules - You are president of a small condo association, and two groups in the association
are at odds about an association rule requiring condo owners to be 55 years old or older. Some think it is
important to have young people around while others do not. In addition, in this area, young, new
homeowners are buying condos at higher rates than empty nesters. The president must guide the
association to reach consensus in a way that will benefit the association.
A Model of Adaptive Leadership

Technical Challenges - Technical challenges are

problems in the workplace or community that
are clearly defined with known solutions that
can be implemented through existing
organizational rules and procedures.
Technical and Adaptive Challenges - Some
challenges have both a technical and an
adaptive dimension. In this case, the
challenges are clearly defined but do not have
distinct straightforward solutions within the
existing organizational system
Adaptive Challenges – Adaptive challenges are
problems that are not clear-cut or easy to
identify. They cannot be solved by the leader’s
authority or expertise or through the normal
ways of doing things in the organization.
THANK YOU