Leadership Theories

Leadership is one of the important concepts of management that helps in maximizing productivity in a business and achieving organizational goals. The leader, on the other hand, is the person who clearly explains the duties of the employees and carries out studies to reach the determined goals of the employees. Changes in the field of organization and management make the concept of leadership more important today. Leadership is used today for people who are successful in the fields of influencing and directing.

It is a concept that is very successful in influencing the views, actions and tendencies of its employees. Leadership is to get a group of people gathered for a specific purpose to take action on what to do to achieve their goals. It is a concept that has emerged to ensure that people who are together achieve the same goals in a social consciousness. Starting from this point of view, this article includes theories that classify research and studies that are the source of scientists' views on leadership.

These theories are; It is divided into three as trait theory, behavioral theories and contingency theories.

What are Leadership Theories?

Leadership theories are theories that try to explain many approaches to explaining leadership. These theories have been put forward to explain how leadership emerges, what it means, what features it has, how leaders behave and how they affect their employees. Studies have been carried out on this concept from the past to the present. However, what is important for us is the official studies in this field and the quality of these studies.

The first formal study on leadership is divided into three groups: trait theory made between 1930 and 1950, behavioral theories made between 1950 and 1960, and contingency theories made between 1960 and 1970.

What is Trait Theory?

Trait theory is the oldest among leadership theories. This theory suggested that leadership would be with certain characteristics. The characteristics of a leader affect the leadership process. The reason why a person in a group is accepted as a leader is due to the characteristics of that person. Trait theory suggested that the person who is a leader should have some characteristics for the four groups. These;

Intellectual Features: Intelligence, determination, optimism, foresight, responsibility, knowledge and ability to persuade.

Physical Characteristics: Age, height, gender, beauty, diction, strength, nationality, etc. consists of.

Social Features: Self-acceptance, extroversion, strong communication skills, friendship, etc. consists of.

Emotional Traits: It consists of ambition, loving and being loved, a sense of accomplishment, and self-control.

Trait theory emphasized that a person with the above-mentioned characteristics has a higher potential to be a leader. The elements that make a person a leader are their physical, emotional, intellectual and emotional characteristics. It has been demonstrated by studies that the theory of traits is not sufficient to understand a leader. The theory of properties has also made a name for itself with its shortcomings. It is very unlikely that the above-mentioned features will generally coexist in the same person. In fact, it is a fact that employees have these characteristics more than the leader's. The inability to measure the characteristics easily and the inadequacy of the characteristics to be a leader have led to the emergence of the concept of new leadership theories. After this theory, the concept of behavioral theories emerged.

What are Behavioral Theories?

Behavioral theories are theories that do their research by centered on the behavior of leaders. The purpose of this theory is to reveal what kind of behaviors leaders exhibit in common and distinctly. By doing this, he tried to explain leadership with behaviors. Behavioral theories, as the main idea, argue that the element that makes leaders successful is not the characteristics they have, but the behaviors they display while leading. From this point of view, the understanding that leaders can be defined by their behavior has emerged. The factors that determine the effectiveness of leaders are the communication of the leader with the group members, whether he authorizes his employees, the way he sets goals, etc. can be listed as

There have been many practical and theoretical studies on behavioral theories. As a result of these studies, the behaviors of the leaders were tried to be determined. There have been many studies on behavioral theories. Now, let's continue with the article by learning about the work done in this area.

Ohio State University Study

According to research conducted with Ohio State University and its collaborators, 1,800 dimensions related to the roles of leadership have been developed. Necessary analyzes have been made regarding these dimensions and leadership behavior has been gathered in two independent dimensions. One of the two independent dimensions was an understanding of human relations, while the other was a task-oriented understanding. Friendship, mutual respect and understanding between the employees and the leader formed the determining elements of the understanding of human relations. The determining elements of the task-oriented understanding are activating the organization, work and task planning, and appropriate task distribution.

University of Michigan Studies

The aim of the research conducted by the university is to find the factors that affect the job satisfaction of the employees and the productivity of the employees. In the study conducted by the university, variables such as job satisfaction, productivity, complaints, absenteeism, motivation and cost were included. According to the researches, two different behaviors emerged as personal-oriented behaviors and work-oriented behaviors of people who are leaders. As a result, it has been revealed that the group in which the leader practices person-oriented behaviors provides higher productivity.

Mc Gregor's Theory of X and Y

In this theory, the behavior of leaders is based on assumptions on their employees. He gathered the features of the classical management approach on the X theory, and the approach that gives importance to human relations on the Y theory. According to the X theory, people do not like to work, they are born lazy, irresponsible, and avoid work. Forced labor or punishment methods must be used to make people work. Theory Y has the opposite properties. Working is as natural as eating and resting. Laziness is also not seen as an innate trait. It is a theory that cares about the human element.

According to this theory, the leader can consult his subordinates, exchange ideas with them and include them in the plans. According to this approach, it is not necessary to use force to direct people to behavior. It is emphasized that the leaders should act in accordance with the democratic management philosophy. He argued that human beings should be treated humanely. This scientist's theory had such a great impact that not every view that emerged after that was developed without inspiration from theory Y.