ASSIGNMENT OF LEADER SHIP

SUBMITTED TO: SIR IRFAN FARIDI

SUBMITTED BY: MAZHAR HAYAT

REGISTRATION# 1652-416022

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 LEADER SHIP THEORIES

Leadership theories focused on what qualities distinguished between leaders and

followers, while subsequent theories looked at other variables such as situational factors
and skill level.
1. Great Man Theories:
The Great Man Theory of leadership which asserts that leaders in general and
great leaders in particular are born and not made. According to the theory, leadership
calls for certain qualities like charm, persuasiveness, commanding personality, high
degree of intuition, judgment, courage, intelligence, aggressiveness and action
orientation which are of such a nature that they cannot be taught or learnt in a formal
sense. One either has them or does not have them. Leadership qualities are carried in
the genes. In other words, they are inborn, or- something inherited in family from
generation-to-generation. They were born natural leaders with built-in qualities of
leadership and attained greatness by divine design. It is said that history is nothing but
the biographies of great men and women. They were the ones who made history. They
were great leaders of their time. It is contended that such men would have become
leaders in any case because they were inherently endowed with leadership traits and
skills. They were not trained in leadership nor did they acquire any leadership skills in
their lives; such skills were natural to them. In other words, there was something in
their anatomy, physiology and personality which marked them out from the common
mass of mortals. They had an instinctive urge to assume leadership and had an inborn
will to achieve greatness and success. People turned to them instinctively for
inspiration, solace and support.

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 The implications of the theory are listed:

i. Leaders are gifts of God to mankind. A measure of divinity is attributed to

leaders and their actions.
ii. Everyone cannot aspire to become a leader and to attain greatness.
iii. The inborn leadership qualities alone are necessary and sufficient for a
leader to exercise influence over his followers and to become successful.
iv. Leadership qualities and effectiveness are independent variables.
Situational factors like the nature and needs of followers, the demands of
task and the general socioeconomic environment have little or no influence
on a leader’s emergence or effectiveness.
v. The theory discounts the belief that individuals can be trained for assuming
leadership positions and roles. Leadership qualities cannot be transmitted
through education and exposure.

The Great Man Theory of leadership is similar to the notion of divine right of kings to
reign and rule over their subjects on a perpetual hereditary basis. Kings were supposed to
acquire their legitimacy from God Himself. Similarly, some individuals were destined to
become great leaders on their own because God gave them certain inimitable abilities of a
divine nature. In fact, the Great Man Theory dates back to the ancient Greek and Roman
times when leadership used to be correlated with certain peculiar mental, physical and
personality characteristics. Because leaders were thought to be born, a measure of
divinity used to be attributed to them and their behaviour. The theory carries some
credibility to the extent that leaders in general and great leaders in particular have certain
mystique about them and are viewed with awe by their followers. The qualities and
actions of such leaders inspire implicit respect, at-least in some respects.

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Weakness of the Great Man Theory:
The great weakness of the Great Man Theory, apart from the improbability of
inherent traits, is the absurd belief that some people become great and successful leaders
independent of their environmental situations. The Great Man Theory is totally rejected
by many modern theorists and even by some leaders themselves.

(i) There is nothing inborn, divine or mysterious about leadership qualities.

Born leaders are imaginary characters. The so called born leaders tend to be
misfits in the modern complex fast changing conditions. If at all there are
born leaders, they are freaks of nature; their availability is negligible,
unreliable and cannot meet the growing demands of society for effective
leadership in all spheres of activities.
(ii) Leaders are ordinary mortals who happen to acquire certain characteristics
and skills useful for influencing other people. Leadership qualities can be
acquired and sharpened by anyone through proper education, training and
exposure.
(iii) Leadership qualities and traits by themselves are not sufficient for
achieving effectiveness. Situational factors, in conjunction with leadership
skills and qualities, have considerable influence on both the emergence and
effectiveness of leaders.
(iv) The genetic or great man theory of leadership does not provide a scientific,
verifiable and predictable explanation of why, how and when leaders
emerge and become effective, what are the critical qualities needed for
achieving greatness in leadership, and why as between two leaders of
comparable qualities, one becomes effective and the other fails.

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 (v) A somewhat moderate viewpoint is that one may not totally rule out the
genetic or inborn nature of some leadership attributes. Just as there are
some ‘precocious’ and almost born singers, artists and geniuses in various
spheres of activity, there could also be born leaders—those individuals who
demonstrate leadership qualities right from their early age and who possess
a considerable amount of intuitive wisdom. It is also argued that great
leaders, by virtue of their sheer ‘magic’, bend situational factors to their
advantage; hence situational factors have little independent influence on
leadership effectiveness. Another point of argument is that leaders are
made’ out of those individuals who possess certain basic leadership
attributes. The latter are allowed to sharpen and develop through education
and training processes
2. Trait Theory of Leadership:
A modification of the Great Man Theory is the Trait Theory which argues
that leadership qualities or traits can be acquired. They need not always be inborn.
The trait theory of leadership states that there are certain identifiable qualities or
characteristics that are unique to leaders and those good leaders possess such
qualities to some extent. Leadership qualities may be inborn or they may be
acquired through training and practice.
(i) Intelligence:
Good leaders should be intelligent enough to understand the context and
content of their position and function, to grasp the dynamics of environmental
variables, both internal and external, which affect their activities and to have a
good perspective of the present and future dimensions of their organization

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 (ii) Personality:
This is not to be confused with physical appearance, though it is important.
More than outward appearance, certain inner-personality qualities mark out good
leaders from others. Such qualities include: emotional stability and maturity, self-
confidence, decisiveness, strong drive, optimism, extrovertness, achievement
orientation, purposefulness, discipline, skill in getting along with others, integrity
in character and a tendency to be cooperative.
These qualities tend to help leaders to organize and coordinate human
effort, to guide and motivate people in task situations, to make sound decisions, to
achieve concrete results and goals, to resolve conflict and to manage
organizational change.
(iii) Other qualities:
Apart from intelligence and personality attributes, good leaders also possess
a few key qualities like open mindedness, scientific spirit, social sensitivity, ability
to communicate, objectivity, and an abiding interest in people, pragmatism and a
sense of realism. Leadership qualities, suggests that effective leaders can be seen
as having a strong drive for responsibility, task orientation, vigour and persistence
pursuit of goals, originality, problem solving skills, drive to exercise initiative in
social situations, self-confidence and a sense of personal identity, willingness to
accept consequences of decisions and action, readiness to absorb interpersonal
stress, ability to influence other persons and the capacity to structure social
interaction systems to the purpose at hand. The list of leadership qualities is almost
endless. Although possession of the above qualities does not guarantee success for
a leader, all we say is that they increase the probability of success and enable the
leader to interact and cope with situations more effectively. However, serious
deficiencies in the above qualities may be disastrous for leaders. Persons who are
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 indecisive and indifferent do not make good leaders. It is quite possible that
presence of some vital qualities in a marked degree may offset the absence or
deficiency of other qualities. For example, a higher achievement orientation may
to some extent compensate for deficiency in tolerance and objectivity.
Limitations:
The trait theory is described as outdated by many modern theorists.
1. It is not based on any research or systematic development of concepts and
principles. It is more a speculative theory which fails when subjected to empirical
tests. It is only descriptive theory on how some people emerge as leaders.
2. It has few explanatory and predictive properties. It is not possible to isolate a
specific set of traits which can be consistently applied to leadership across a range
of situations: cases can be cited to prove that mere possession of certain traits is
not enough for one to become a leader. Nor does the absence of the called traits
prevent individuals from emerging and proving their worth as leaders.
3. The trait theory does not try to relate particular traits to performance and
behaviour effectiveness of leaders. Some traits tend to cancel out each other. For
example, pragmatism and possession of ethical sense of right and wrong do not
always go together. Traits which are needed for maintaining leadership are
different from those which are needed for acquiring leadership.
4. . An individual’s traits do not make up his total personality, nor do they fully
reveal about attitudes, values, aspirations and behaviour.
5. . The trait theory is inward-looking towards the leader alone to the exclusion of the
group of followers and the task situation, which are in fact more important for
leader effectiveness.

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 6. There is no way of systematically defining and measuring the incidence and
intensity of traits among persons purported to be leaders. Nor is it possible to
position the traits along a hierarchy of importance.
3. The Skills Theories:
The Skills Theory of Leadership is a theory that identifies what assets make up a
good leader as well as we identify a leader that is best fit for the role in an
organization. All good leaders have taken the position of being a follower
beforehand. Each leader in an organization is never given the role to be a leader,
for example, you cannot go into an organization with the mindset that you’re a
leader and you want start leading peers, subordinates, or supervisors, he or she
must have the qualities and experience to be able to take on the role of leading
others. One of the major benefits in the skills theory is that anyone can become a
leader through the set of skills and developmental stages in an organization. A
leader is selected by his or her peers that feel comfortable in taking opinions and
direction from that person. A leader is a role model, a person that can be
accountable, reliable, honest and loyal to the organization and those employed
there. These are considered “Traits”. Leaders must have a set of skills they follow
within an organization, which includes: technical, human, and conceptual skills.
With these set of skills, a higher- level leader needs to have stronger conceptual
skills as opposed to a hands-on leader who needs to have stronger technical skills.
Leader must develop these set of skills:
i. Human Skills
Communication and attention to relationships with others in an organization.
ii. Technical Skills
Accomplish tasks for those working on the front lines; they are techniques,
practices, tools, and processes.
iii. Conceptual Skills
Take in the big picture of the entire organization and use abstract ideas to set
strategic initiatives.
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 i. Human Skills
The abilities one has when it comes to working with individuals are known
as Human skills. Understanding behavior, group dynamics, motives, attitudes, and
feelings of that individual are the main characteristics of good human skills. To
achieve goals in an organization, one must know how to adapt to their peers,
supervisors, as well as subordinates. These skills give a leader the understanding
of how to influence a team and/or group members to work effectively to
accomplish goals and objectives within the organization. Human skills proficiency
enables a leader to know how to monitor their thoughts and feelings within an
organization to correlate with others in productivity. “Interpersonal” is another
term used for human skills, however, a leader that has a higher level of this skill is
said to be better at adapting to their own ideas as well as to others ideas in an
organization through the achievement of goals and objectives. Interpersonal
leaders are subject to be a little more sensitive and empathetic to what truly
motivates others. It is the leader’s obligation to have followers who trust you to
achieve what needs to be met in an organization. Interpersonal skills require all
three levels of management in an organization such as supervisory, middle
management, and senior management. As a leader, you want to be able to provide
the best accommodations to your peers, supervisors, and subordinates, and by
doing so a leader must take on the task of learning how to obtain each set of skills
to work effectively in an organization.
ii. Technical skills
; These skills are based off one’s knowledge in a specific area of work. In
order to have technical skills an individual must be competent and knowledgeable in
an activity specified for the organization. With reasoning a potential leader must
know the organizations rules and standard operating procedures, as well as the
products and services. There are different levels of proficiency used in an
organization such as supervisory levels of management, middle managers, and top
managers. Each level has its own special qualifications such as CEOs and senior
managers are accustomed to being in the “top managers” level which is considered to
be the least set of skills, supervisory managers being the highest set of skills, and
middle managers being the in-between set of skills. But, all in all technical skills
proficiency goes hand in hand with “things”.
a. Supervisory Management
The action of overseeing and managing employees in the workplace. Ex:
holding meetings, reviewing performance, scheduling, hiring or firing employees,
b. Middle Management
The center of a hierarchical organization, middle managers provide
guidance to the lower-level managers and inspire them to perform better as well as
intermediate management level accountable to top managements.

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 c. Senior Management
A team of individuals that are the highest level of management of an
organization who has the day-to-day tasks of managing that specific organization.
iii. Conceptual skills
Conceptual skills are based upon an individual thinking through and working
with ideas in an organization. For conceptual skills to be effective, a leader must
know how to express his or her ideas in a verbal or written form; as well as expressing
the economic principles in an organization. Leaders that develop these skills are
comfortable with asking hypothetical questions such as “what if”, and working with
abstract ideas. To make sense of an Abstract idea, a leader must develop conceptual
skills for their peers, subordinates, and managers understand their ideas. Although
conceptual skills are not most important in every organization, it is most important to
senior managers, less to middle managers, and least to supervisory managers.
Conceptual skills are considered to be less important to lower level managers. In
order to be important to a higher level manager, conceptual skills must be demonstrated
to all levels of management to be effective in each organization. How we would obtain
this goal is to encourage each organization to use conceptual skills within their program.
In conclusion leadership is not about individuals born with leadership traits that make
them effective leaders in the future. It is truly about the skills approach that gives an
individual the potential to become a leader from their experience through skills, test, and
developmental stages acquired. How a leader can obtain these skills, a leader must evolve
themselves with activities and exposure to different people and events in and out of the
community their business is in. being stated I have factored out that this argument
between different levels of organization is truly about the laws and rules of each
organization within the levels of the firm. All in all, I have concluded the topic of
discussion that leaders are not born leaders. In fact, they have a chain of skills too
complete before they can be a leader to lead in a business or big organization.

4. Behavioral Theories:

Leadership styles refer to a leader’s behavior towards group members. Behavior pattern
is that the leader reflects his role as a leader is described as style.
Leadership style is the results of a leader’s philosophy, personality, and experience and
value system; Leadership styles based on authority can be four types:
1. Autocratic Leadership,
2. Democratic or Participative Leadership,
3. Free-Rein or Lassie-Faire Leadership, and
4. Paternalistic Leadership.

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 1. Autocratic Leadership
Autocratic Leadership relies on coercion, and its style is paternalism,
arbitrariness, command, and compliance. The autocratic leader gives orders which
must be obeyed by the subordinates. He determines policies for the group without
consulting them and does not give detailed information about future plans, but
simply tells the group what immediate steps they must take. They are willing to
hear and consider subordinates’ ideas and suggestions, but when a decision is to be
made, they turn to be more autocratic than benevolent.
Advantages of autocratic leadership
It is the speed with which decision can be made; the leader does not have to
obtain group members’ approval before deciding.
Disadvantage of autocratic leadership
Autocratic leadership does have a negative impact upon group -morale.
Members may resent the way in which decisions are made and thus support
them in only a minimal fashion.
2. Democratic Leadership
Style of leadership that uses legitimate power can be classified as
democratic leadership. A democratic leader usually gives instructions only after
consulting the group. He sees to it that policies are worked out in group
discussion and with the acceptance of the group. That means democratic
leadership solicits employees’ participation and respects their opinions.
Advantages of democratic leadership
i. It often enhances the morale of the employees.
ii. It increases acceptance of management’s ideas.
iii. It increases cooperation between management and employees.
iv. It leads to a reduction in the number of complaints and grievances.
Disadvantage of democratic leadership
a. It accounts for slow decisions, diluted accountability for decisions.
b. There may be possible compromises that are designed to please everyone but does
not give the best solution.

3. Free-Rein Leadership
The leadership style which allows maximum freedom to followers may be
called free rein leadership. It gives employees a high degree of independence in their
operations. A free rein leader completely abdicates his leadership position, to give all
responsibility of most of the work entrusted to him to the group which he is supposed to
lead, limiting his authority to maintain the contact of the group with persons outside the
group. This is also known as the permissive style of leadership.

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Advantages of free rein leadership
i. Opportunity for individual development is offered to group members.
ii. All persons are given a chance to express themselves and to function
relatively independently.

Disadvantages of free rein leadership

a. It may result in the lack of group cohesion and unity toward organization
objectives.
b. Without a leader, the group may have little direction and a lack of control.
c. The result can be inefficiency or even worse, chaos.
4. Paternalistic Leadership
Under Paternalistic Leadership, the leader assumes that his function is paternal or
fatherly. His attitude is that of treating the relationship between the leader and the
group as that of family with the leader as the head of family. He works to help,
guide, protect, and keep his followers happily working together as members of a
family. He provides them with good working conditions and employee services.
This style has been successful, particularly in Japan because of its cultural
background. It is said that employees under such leadership will work harder out
of gratitude. This mode of leadership produces good and quick results if the
followers are highly educated and brilliant, and have a sincere desire to go ahead
and perform with responsibility.

5. Contingency Theories:
Contingency theories of leadership focus on particular variables related to
the environment that might determine which particular style of leadership is best
suited for the situation. According to this theory, no leadership style is best in all
situations. Success depends upon a number of variables, including the leadership
style, qualities of the followers, and aspects of the situation.

6. Situational Theories:
Situational theories propose that leaders choose the best course of action
based upon situational variable. Different styles of leadership may be more
appropriate for certain types of decision-making.

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 7. Participative Theories:
Participative leadership theories suggest that the ideal leadership style is
one that takes the input of others into account. These leaders encourage
participation and contributions from group members and help group members feel
more relevant and committed to the decision-making process. In participative
theories, however, the leader retains the right to allow the input of others.

8. Transactional Theories:
Transactional theories or management theories focus on the role of
supervision, organization, and group performance. These theories base leadership
on a system of reward and punishment. Managerial theories are often used in
business; when employees are successful, they are rewarded; when they fail, they
are reprimanded or punished.

9. Transformational Theories:
Transformational or relationship theories focus upon the connections
formed between leaders and followers. These leaders motivate and inspire people
by helping group members see the importance and higher good of the task.
Transformational leaders are focused on the performance of group members, but
also want each person to fulfill his or her potential. These leaders often have high
ethical and moral standards.

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