Leadership Behaviours and Styles

Theories On Leadership Behaviours and Styles

Different leadership studies highlight the importance of effective leadership behaviours. In short, there are commonalities that emerge from this research time and again, which characterise positive behaviours and negative behaviours. Whilst there may be significant differences at the detailed level there seems to be a broad consensus of:

Positive leadership behaviours:

• Conducts regular, effective meetings to set objectives, allocate tasks and review performance   
• Effective project planning and management     
• Identifying the right person for the right role    
• Appropriate delegation of responsibility whilst retaining accountability     
• Consults and includes others in decision-making     
• Shows an interest in others and responding to their needs whether that is for more information, guidance, support, personal development, positive feedback or reward and recognition    
• Takes ownership and shows commitment for solving problems or difficult/sensitive issues
• Leads by example, showing a contagious passion and enthusiasm, engaging and motivating others     
• Direct, clear, open style of communication 
• Considers impact before action  

Ineffective or Negative Behaviours

In the 1970’s, researcher James McGregor Burns wrote a significant book entitled, Leadership. He sought to define the processes or behaviours used by leaders to motivate or influence followers. Burns described leadership behaviour as falling within two broad categories of influence. One category is called transformational leadership.

This behavior is founded on the belief that leaders and followers can raise each other to higher levels of motivation and morality. In contrast, transactional leadership seeks to motivate followers by appealing to their own self-interest. Its principles are to motivate by the exchange process. For example, business owners exchange status and wages for the work effort of the employee.

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In the political environment, politicians may exchange favours or government jobs for votes. Transactional behaviour focuses on the accomplishment of tasks and good worker relationships in exchange for desirable rewards. Transactional leadership may encourage the leader to adapt their style and behaviour to meet the perceived expectations of the followers.

Some researchers added to Burns original theory and it is thought by many today that transactional leadership can encompass four types of behaviour.  

1. Contingent Reward

To influence behaviour, the leader clarifies the work needed to be accomplished. The leader uses rewards or incentives to achieve results when expectations are met.      

2. Passive Management by Exception

To influence behaviour, the leader uses correction or punishment as a response to unacceptable performance or deviation from the accepted standards.      

3. Active Management by Exception

To influence behaviour, the leader actively monitors the work performed and uses corrective methods to ensure the work is completed to meet accepted standards.      

4. Laissez-Faire Leadership

The leader is indifferent and has a “hands-off” approach toward the workers and their performance. This leader ignores the needs of others, does not respond to problems or does not monitor performance.      

Transactional leadership behaviour is used to one degree or another by most leaders. However, as the old saying goes, “if the only tool in your workbox is a hammer…you will perceive every problem as a nail”. A leader should not exclusively or primarily practice transactional leadership behaviour to influence others! Here are a few common problems of those who do    

Leadership has been described as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task”. Definitions more inclusive of followers have also emerged. Alan Keith of Genentech states that, “Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen.” According to Ken “SKC” Ogbonnia, “effective leadership is the ability to successfully integrate and maximize available resources within the internal and external environment for the attainment of organizational or societal goals.”

Eric Berne first analysed the relations between a group and its leadership in terms of Transactional Analysis.  

The transactional leader (Burns, 1978) is given power to perform certain tasks and reward or punish for the team’s performance. It gives the opportunity to the manager to lead the group and the group agrees to follow his lead to accomplish a predetermined goal in exchange for something else. Power is given to the leader to evaluate, correct and train subordinates when productivity is not up to the desired level and reward effectiveness when expected outcome is reached.  

The transformational leader (Burns, 1978) motivates its team to be effective and efficient. Communication is the base for goal achievement focusing the group on the final desired outcome or goal attainment. This leader is highly visible and uses chain of command to get the job done. Transformational leaders focus on the big picture, needing to be surrounded by people who take care of the details. The leader is always looking for ideas that move the organization to reach the company’s vision.

In response to the early criticisms of the trait approach, theorists began to research leadership as a set of behaviours, evaluating the behaviour of successful leaders, determining a behaviour taxonomy and identifying broad leadership styles.

Kurt Lewin, Ronald Lipitt, and Ralph White developed in 1939 the seminal work on the influence of leadership styles and performance. The researchers evaluated the performance of groups of eleven-year-old boys under different types of work climate. In each, the leader exercised his influence regarding the type of group decision making, praise and criticism (feedback), and the management of the group tasks (project management) according to three styles: (1) authoritarian, (2) democratic and (3) laissez-faire.  

Authoritarian climates were characterized by leaders who make decisions alone, demand strict compliance to his orders, and dictate each step taken; future steps were uncertain to a large degree. The leader is not necessarily hostile but is aloof from participation in work and commonly offers personal praise and criticism for the work done.  

Democratic climates were characterized by collective decision processes, assisted by the leader. Before accomplishing tasks, perspectives are gained from group discussion and technical advice from a leader. Members are given choices and collectively decide the division of labor. Praise and criticism in such an environment are objective, fact minded and given by a group member without necessarily having participated extensively in the actual work.  

Laissez faire climates gave freedom to the group for policy determination without any participation from the leader. The leader remains uninvolved in work decisions unless asked, does not participate in the division of labour, and very infrequently gives praise. The results seemed to confirm that the democratic climate was preferred.  

The managerial grid model is also based on a behavioural theory. The model was developed by Robert Blake and Jane Mouton in 1964 and suggests five different leadership styles, based on the leaders’ concern for people and their concern for goal achievement.  

B.F. Skinner is the father of Behaviour Modification and developed the concept of positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement occurs when a positive stimulus is presented in response to a behaviuor, increasing the likelihood of that behaviour in the future. The following is an example of how positive reinforcement can be used in a business setting. Assume praise is a positive reinforcer for a particular employee. This employee does not show up to work on time every day. The manager of this employee decides to praise the employee for showing up on time every day the employee actually shows up to work on time. As a result, the employee comes to work on time more often because the employee likes to be praised. In this example, praise (i.e. stimulus) is a positive reinforcer for this employee because the employee arrives (i.e. behaviour) to work on time more frequently after being praised for showing up to work on time.  

The use of positive reinforcement is a successful and growing technique used by leaders to motivate and attain desired behaviours from subordinates. Empirical research covering the last 20 years suggests that reinforcement theory has a 17 percent increase in performance. Additionally, many reinforcement techniques such as the use of praise are inexpensive, providing higher performance for lower costs.    

Autocratic or authoritarian style  

Under the autocratic leadership style, all decision-making powers are centralised in the leader, as with dictator leaders.  

They do not entertain any suggestions or initiatives from subordinates. The autocratic management has been successful as it provides strong motivation to the manager. It permits quick decision-making, as only one person decides for the whole group and keeps each decision to himself until he feels it is needed to be shared with the rest of the group.

Participative or democratic style  

The democratic leadership style favours decision-making by the group as shown, such as leader gives instruction after consulting the group.  

They can win the co-operation of their group and can motivate them effectively and positively. The decisions of the democratic leader are not unilateral as with the autocrat because they arise from consultation with the group members and participation by them.    

Laissez-faire or free rein style  

A free-rein leader does not lead, but leaves the group entirely to itself as shown; such a leader allows maximum freedom to subordinates, i.e., they are given a free hand in deciding their own policies and methods.  

Different situations call for different leadership styles. In an emergency when there is little time to converge on an agreement and where a designated authority has significantly more experience or expertise than the rest of the team, an autocratic leadership style may be most effective; however, in a highly motivated and aligned team with a homogeneous level of expertise, a more democratic or laissez-faire style may be more effective. The style adopted should be the one that most effectively achieves the objectives of the group while balancing the interests of its individual members.  

Various academics such as Kets de Vries, Maccoby and Thomas have identified narcissistic leadership as an important and common leadership style.    

Toxic leadership  

A toxic leader is someone who has responsibility over a group of people or an organization, and who abuses the leader-follower relationship by leaving the group or organization in a worse-off condition than when s/he first found them.

Characteristics of a Team    

• There must be an awareness of unity on the part of all its members.    
• There must be interpersonal relationship. Members must have a chance to contribute, learn from and work with others.  
• The member must have the ability to act together toward a common goal.  

Ten characteristics of well-functioning teams:      

• Purpose: Members proudly share a sense of why the team exists and are invested in accomplishing its mission and goals.    
• Priorities: Members know what needs to be done next, by whom, and by when to achieve team goals.    
• Roles: Members know their roles in getting tasks done and when to allow a more skillful member to do a certain task.     
• Decisions: Authority and decision-making lines are clearly understood.     
• Conflict: Conflict is dealt with openly and is considered important to decision-making and personal growth.      
• Personal traits: members feel their unique personalities are appreciated and well utilized.
• Norms: Group norms for working together are set and seen as standards for every one in the groups.     
• Effectiveness: Members find team meetings efficient and productive and look forward to this time together.   
• Success: Members know clearly when the team has met with success and share in this equally and proudly.     
• Training: Opportunities for feedback and updating skills are provided and taken advantage of by team members.

Transactional Leadership

The transactional style of leadership was first described by Max Weber in 1947 and then by Bernard Bass in 1981. This style is most often used by the managers. It focuses on the basic management process of controlling, organizing, and short-term planning. The famous examples of leaders who have used transactional technique include McCarthy and de Gaulle.

Transactional leadership involves motivating and directing followers primarily through appealing to their own self-interest. The power of transactional leaders comes from their formal authority and responsibility in the organization. The main goal of the follower is to obey the instructions of the leader. The style can also be mentioned as a ‘telling style’.

The leader believes in motivating through a system of rewards and punishment. If a subordinate does what is desired, a reward will follow, and if he does not go as per the wishes of the leader, a punishment will follow. Here, the exchange between leader and follower takes place to achieve routine performance goals. These exchanges involve four dimensions:

• Contingent Rewards: Transactional leaders link the goal to rewards, clarify expectations, provide necessary resources, set mutually agreed upon goals, and provide various kinds of rewards for successful performance. They set SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely) goals for their subordinates.  
• Active Management by Exception: Transactional leaders actively monitor the work of their subordinates, watch for deviations from rules and standards and taking corrective action to prevent mistakes.           
• Passive Management by Exception: Transactional leaders intervene only when standards are not met or when the performance is not as per the expectations. They may even use punishment as a response to unacceptable performance.
• Laissez-faire: The leader provides an environment where the subordinates get many opportunities to make decisions. The leader himself abdicates responsibilities and avoids making decisions and therefore the group often lacks direction.

Assumptions of Transactional Theory  

• Employees are motivated by reward and punishment.    
• The subordinates have to obey the orders of the superior.    
• The subordinates are not self-motivated. They have to be closely monitored and controlled to get the work done from them.

Implications of Transactional Theory

The transactional leaders overemphasise detailed and short-term goals, and standard rules and procedures. They do not make an effort to enhance followers’ creativity and generation of new ideas. This kind of a leadership style may work well where the organizational problems are simple and clearly defined. Such leaders tend to not reward or ignore ideas that do not fit with existing plans and goals.  

The transactional leaders are found to be quite effective in guiding efficiency decisions which are aimed at cutting costs and improving productivity. The transactional leaders tend to be highly directive and action oriented and their relationship with the followers tends to be transitory and not based on emotional bonds.  

The theory assumes that subordinates can be motivated by simple rewards. The only ‘transaction’ between the leader and the followers is the money which the followers receive for their compliance and effort.

Difference between Transactional and Transformational Leaders

Transactional leadership                                                  

Leadership is responsive      

Works within the organisational culture

Transactional leaders make employees achieve organisational objectives through rewards and punishment

Motivates followers by appealing to their own self-interest       

Transformational Leadership  

Leadership is proactive

Work to change the organisational culture by implementing new ideas

Transformational leaders motivate and empower employees to achieve company’s objectives by appealing to higher ideals and moral values

Motivates followers by encouraging them to transcend their own interests for those of the group or unit Conclusion  

The transactional style of leadership is viewed as insufficient, but not bad, in developing the maximum leadership potential. It forms as the basis for more mature interactions but care should be taken by leaders not to practice it exclusively, otherwise it will lead to the creation of an environment permeated by position, power, perks, and politics.

From Mahatma Gandhi to Winston Churchill to Martin Luther King, there are as many leadership styles as there are leaders. Fortunately, businesspeople and psychologists have developed useful and simple ways to describe the main styles of leadership, and these can help aspiring leaders understand which styles they should use.  

So, whether you manage a team at work, captain a sports team, or lead a major corporation, which approach is best? Consciously, or subconsciously, you’ll probably use some of the leadership styles in this article at some point. Understanding these styles and their impact can help you develop your own, personal leadership style – and help you become a more effective leader.  

With this in mind, there are many different frameworks that have shaped our current understanding of leadership, and many of these have their place, just as long as they’re used appropriately. This article looks at some of the most common frameworks, and then looks at popular styles of leadership.

Leadership Theories

Researchers have developed a number of leadership theories over the years. These fall into four main groups:  

1. Trait theories – What type of person makes a good leader?  

Trait theories argue that leaders share a number of common personality traits and characteristics, and that leadership emerges from these traits. Early trait theories promoted the idea that leadership is an innate, instinctive quality that you either have or don’t have. Thankfully, we’ve moved on from this approach, and we’re learning more about what we can do as individuals to develop leadership qualities within ourselves and others.  

What’s more, traits are external behaviours that emerge from things going on within the leader’s mind – and it’s these internal beliefs and processes that are important for effective leadership.  

Trait theory does, however, help us identify some qualities that are helpful when leading others and, together, these emerge as a generalized leadership style. Examples include empathy, assertiveness, good decision-making, and likability. In our article Building Tomorrow’s Leaders, we discuss a series of attributes that are important for all types of leaders to develop. However, none of these traits, nor any combination of them, will guarantee success as a leader. You need more than that.  

2. Behavioural theories – What does a good leader do?  

Behavioural theories focus on how leaders behave. Do they dictate what needs to be done and expect cooperation? Or do they involve the team in decisions to encourage acceptance and support?  

In the 1930s, Kurt Lewin developed a leadership framework based on a leader’s decision-making behaviour. Lewin argued that there are three types of leaders:     

1. Autocratic leaders make decisions without consulting their teams. This is considered appropriate when decisions genuinely need to be taken quickly, when there’s no need for input, and when team agreement isn’t necessary for a successful outcome.   

2. Democratic leaders allow the team to provide input before making a decision, although the degree of input can vary from leader to leader. This type of style is important when team agreement matters, but it can be quite difficult to manage when there are lots of different perspectives and ideas.   

3. Laissez-faire leaders don’t interfere; they allow people within the team to make many of the decisions. This works well when the team is highly capable and motivated, and when it doesn’t need close monitoring or supervision. However, this style can arise because the leader is lazy or distracted, and, here, this approach can fail.

Blake-Mouton Managerial Grid

Similar to Lewin’s model, the Blake-Mouton Managerial Grid helps you decide how best to lead, depending on your concern for people versus your concern for production. The model describes five different leadership styles: impoverished, country club, team leader, produce or perish, or middle of the road.

The descriptions of these will help you understand your own leadership habits and adapt them to meet your team’s needs.  

Clearly, then, how leaders behave impacts on their effectiveness. Researchers have realised, though, that many of these leadership behaviours are appropriate at different times. So, the best leaders are those who can use many different behavioural styles and use the right style for each situation.  

3. Contingency theories – How does the situation influence good leadership?  

The realisation that there isn’t one correct type of leader led to theories that the best leadership style is contingent on, or depends on, the situation. These theories try to predict which leadership style is best in which circumstance.  

When a decision is needed fast, which style is preferred? When the leader needs the full support of the team, is there a better way to lead? Should a leader be more people oriented or task oriented? These are all examples of questions that contingency leadership theories try to address.  

A popular contingency-based framework is the Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory, which links leadership style with the maturity of individual members of the leader’s team.

4. Power and influence theories – What is the source of the leader’s power?

Power and influence theories of leadership take an entirely different approach. They’re based on the different ways in which leaders use power and influence to get things done, and the leadership styles that emerge as a result. Perhaps the most well known of these theories is French and Raven’s Five Forms of Power. This model distinguishes between using your position to exert power, and using your personal attributes to be powerful.  

French and Raven identified three types of positional power – legitimate, reward, and coercive – and two sources of personal power – expert and referent (your personal appeal and charm). The model suggests that using personal power is the better alternative and, because Expert Power (the power that comes with being a real expert in the job) is the most legitimate of these, that you should actively work on building this. Similarly, leading by example is another highly effective way to establish and sustain a positive influence with your team.  

Another valid leadership style that’s supported by power and influence theories is Transactional Leadership. This approach assumes that work is done only because it is rewarded, and for no other reason, and it therefore focuses on designing tasks and reward structures. While it may not be the most appealing leadership strategy in terms of building relationships and developing a long-term motivating work environment, it does work, and it’s used in most organizations on a daily basis to get things done.

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An Up-to-Date Understanding of Leadership

Within all of these theories, frameworks, and approaches to leadership, there’s an underlying message that leaders need to have a variety of factors working in their favour. Effective leadership is not simply based on a set of attributes, behaviours, or influences. You must have a wide range of abilities and approaches that you can draw upon.  

Having said this, however, there’s one leadership style that is appropriate in very many corporate situations – that of Transformational Leadership. A leader using this style:     

• Has integrity.    
• Sets clear goals.    
• Clearly communicates a vision.    
• Sets a good example.    
• Expects the best from the team.    
• Encourages.    
• Supports.   
• Recognises good work and people.    
• Provides stimulating work.    
• Helps people see beyond their self-interests and focus more on team interests and needs.
• Inspires.  

In short, transformational leaders are exceptionally motivating, and they’re trusted. When your team trusts you, and is really “fired up” by the way you lead, you can achieve great things!

Having said that, Transformational Leadership suits very many circumstances in business, we need to remember that there may be situations where it’s not the best style. This is why it’s worth knowing about the other styles shown below so that you have a greater chance of finding the right combination for the situation you find yourself in.

Popular Leadership Styles

The leadership theories and styles discussed so far fit within formal theoretical frameworks. However, many more terms are used to describe leadership styles, even if these don’t fit within a particular system. It’s worth understanding these.

1. Autocratic leadership  

Autocratic leadership is an extreme form of transactional leadership, where leaders have absolute power over their workers or team. Staff and team members have little opportunity to make suggestions, even if these would be in the team’s or the organization’s best interest.   Most people tend to resent being treated like this. Therefore, autocratic leadership often leads to high levels of absenteeism and staff turnover. However, for some routine and unskilled jobs, the style can remain effective because the advantages of control may outweigh the disadvantages.  

2. Bureaucratic leadership  

Bureaucratic leaders work “by the book.” They follow rules rigorously, and ensure that their staff follows procedures precisely. This is a very appropriate style for work involving serious safety risks (such as working with machinery, with toxic substances, or at dangerous heights) or where large sums of money are involved (such as handling cash).  

3. Charismatic leadership  

A charismatic leadership style can seem similar to transformational leadership, because these leaders inspire lots of enthusiasm in their teams and are very energetic in driving others forward. However, charismatic leaders can tend to believe more in themselves than in their teams, and this creates a risk that a project, or even an entire organization, might collapse if the leader leaves. In the eyes of the followers, success is directly connected to the presence of the charismatic leader. As such, charismatic leadership carries great responsibility, and it needs a long-term commitment from the leader.  

4. Democratic leadership or participative leadership  

Although democratic leaders make the final decisions, they invite other members of the team to contribute to the decision-making process. This not only increases job satisfaction by involving team members, but it also helps to develop people’s skills. Team members feel in control of their own destiny, so they’re motivated to work hard by more than just a financial reward.   Because participation takes time, this approach can take longer, but often the end result is better. The approach can be most suitable when working as a team is essential, and when quality is more important than speed to market, or productivity.  

5. Laissez-faire leadership  

This French phrase means “leave it be,” and it’s used to describe leaders who leave their team members to work on their own. It can be effective if the leader monitors what’s being achieved and communicates this back to the team regularly. Most often, laissez-faire leadership is effective when individual team members are very experienced and skilled self-starters. Unfortunately, this type of leadership can also occur when managers don’t apply sufficient control.  

6. People-oriented leadership or relations-oriented leadership  

This is the opposite of task-oriented leadership. With people-oriented leadership, leaders are totally focused on organizing, supporting, and developing the people in their teams. It’s a participative style, and it tends to encourage good teamwork and creative collaboration.   In practice, most leaders use both task-oriented and people-oriented styles of leadership.  

7. Servant leadership  

This term, created by Robert Greenleaf in the 1970s, describes a leader who is often not formally recognized as such. When someone, at any level within an organisation, leads simply by meeting the needs of the team, they are described as a “servant leader.”  

In many ways, servant leadership is a form of democratic leadership, because the whole team tends to be involved in decision making.  

Supporters of the servant leadership model suggest that it’s an important way to move ahead in a world where values are increasingly important, and where servant leaders achieve power on the basis of their values and ideals. Others believe that in competitive leadership situations, people who practice servant leadership can find themselves left behind by leaders using other leadership styles.  

8. Task-Oriented leadership  

Highly task-oriented leaders focus only on getting the job done, and they can be quite autocratic. They actively define the work and the roles required, put structures in place, plan, organize, and monitor. However, because task-oriented leaders don’t tend to think much about the well-being of their teams, this approach can suffer many of the flaws of autocratic leadership, with difficulties in motivating and retaining staff.  

9. Transactional leadership  

This style of leadership starts with the idea that team members agree to obey their leader totally when they accept a job. The “transaction” is usually the organization paying the team members in return for their effort and compliance. The leader has a right to “punish” team members if their work doesn’t meet the pre-determined standard.  

Team members can do little to improve their job satisfaction under transactional leadership. The leader could give team members some control of their income/reward by using incentives that encourage even higher standards or greater productivity. Alternatively, a transactional leader could practice “management by exception” – rather than rewarding better work, the leader could take corrective action if the required standards are not met.  

Transactional leadership is really a type of management, not a true leadership style, because the focus is on short-term tasks. It has serious limitations for knowledge-based or creative work, however it can be effective in other situations.  

10. Transformational leadership  

As we discussed earlier, people with this leadership style are true leaders who inspire their teams constantly with a shared vision of the future. While this leader’s enthusiasm is often passed onto the team, they can need to be supported by “detail people.” That’s why, in many organizations, both transactional and transformational leadership are needed. The transactional leaders (or managers) ensure that routine work is done reliably, while the transformational leaders look after initiatives that add new value.

Key Points

While the transformational leadership approach is often highly effective, there’s no one “right” way to lead or manage that fits all situations. To choose the most effective approach for yourself, consider the following:

• The skill levels and experience of your team.    
• The work involved (routine, or new and creative).    
• The organisational environment (stable or radically changing, conservative or adventurous).  
• Your own preferred or natural style.  

Good leaders often switch instinctively between styles, according to the people they lead and the work that needs to be done. Establish trust – that’s key to this process – and remember to balance the needs of the organisation against the needs of your team.  

Leadership Behaviours and Styles