Originally referred to as the “vertical dyad linkage theory,” Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) has been the subject of much research (and an upgraded name). LMX focuses on the interactions between leaders and an individual follower. The leaders relationship to the follower unit as a whole is viewed a series of these individual relationships. These relationships are [...]
As you may or not know, I’ve been involved with a project called LeaderLab. This community of leadership resources includes a blog, a podcast and now, a magazine. LeaderLab Quarterly is an online journal that features leadership articles written by and for scholarly practitioners. The links and abstracts of the first issue is below:
LeaderLab Quarterly [...]
Path-goal theory is half leadership, half motivational theory. It was developed to explain how leaders motivate their followers toward a determined end. It is derived from expectancy theory, which argued that employees will be motivated if they believe that a) putting in more effort will yield better job performance b) better job performance will lead [...]
If you haven’t noticed it yet, most leadership theories build on the previous one. In the same manner, situational leadership theory builds upon contingency theory. Where contingency theory asserts that certain leaders work best in certain environments because of their leadership style, situational leadership theory argues that any leader can work best in any environment [...]
Leadership requires strategy.
But there is far more to strategy than just announcing where an organization is headed. The authors of Strategy Safari use the analogy of a syringe to explain this misconception. Where leaders believe it is solely their responsibility to fill a syringe with deliberate strategy and then inject it into the followers. What [...]
Maybe leadership isn’t about who you are, what skills you have or how you act. Maybe what defines effective leadership is about more than just you. This inquisitive contemplation brought forth the idea of Contingency theory, and moved the field of leadership theory forward by another drastic step.
Developed by Fielder, Contingency theory examines the leader [...]
Why is the greatest military in the history of the world still fighting a war against a network of terrorists who can barely communicate from cave to cave? Why can’t a team of the highest-priced lawyers stop teenagers from downloading free music via peer-to-peer software? In The Starfish and the Spider, Ori Brafman and Rod [...]
Style theory differs drastically from trait or skill theories. Instead of focusing on who leaders are, style theories considers what leaders do. At the core of all style theories is the idea that leaders engage in two distinct types of behavior: task behaviors and relationship behaviors. How leaders combine these two behaviors determines their leadership [...]
John Kotter is a Harvard Business School professor and prolific author on leadership and change. The bulk of Kotter’s work takes the form of scholarly articles and intellectual books. After years of research, Kotter published Leading Change. In it, he presents an 8 stage model for leading organizations through change. Leading Change presents great model, [...]
I’ve been featured in the February issue of the Leadership Development Blog Carnival. My post is one of many discussing leadership, management and coaching. You can find the full list of featured blog posts here.
About
David Burkus is the editor of LeaderLab, a community of resources dedicated to promoting the practice of leadership theory. He is an executive coach, a sought-after speaker and an adjunct professor at Oral Roberts University’s School of Business.