Van Seters and Field (1990) (1) have identified nine leadership eras beginning with the Personality Era all the way to the current Transformational Era. Each of these eras contains two or more periods of theory development.
1. Personality Era: Great Man Period; Trait Period
This Era equated leadership with personality and marked a beginning in the understanding of the leadership process.
2. Influence Era: Power Relations Period; Persuasion Period
This Era built on the last by recognizing that leadership did not only depend on the personality of the leader but involved a relationship between the leader and the followers.
3. Behavior Era: Early Behavior Period; Late Behavior Period; Operant Period
Similar to the Trait Period in the Personality Era, this Era emphasized the Behavior traits of leaders.
4. Situation Era: Environment Period; Social Status Period; Socio-technical Period
This era recognized that leadership did not only involve leader and follows but was influenced by the situation and circumstances.
5. Contingency Era
This was something of an hybrid era. It was recognized that leadership was not unidimensional as was theorized in the previous eras but was contingent on one or more of the emphases in the previous eras.
6. Transactional Era: Exchange Period; Role Development Period
In this era it was suggested that leadership did not only reside in the person or the situation but was influenced by role differentiation and social interaction.
7. Anti-Leadership Era: Ambiguity Period; Substitute Period
This era was a reaction to the apparent failure of the current leadership paradigm. Studies to test the extant theories were inconclusive. Some concluded that there was no articulable concept called leadership.
8. Culture Era
We recovered from the cynicism of the Anti-Leadership area with the idea that leadership is not just a phenomenon of the leader or of the group but is omnipotent in the entire organization.
9. Transformational Era: Charisma Period; Self-fulfilling Prophecy Period.
This is the current approach to leadership in which the leader attempts to “transform those who see the vision, and give them a new and stronger sense of purpose and meaning.”
Van Seters and Field go into great detail showing how each period differed in its focus from others that came before it. Three types of changes are obvious from their analysis.
Generally, new eras evolved as practitioners realized that the existing theories of leadership were “inadequate to explain the leadership phenomenon, and poorly adapted to serve useful practical application.” For example, the transition within the Personality Era from the Great Man Period to the Trait Period occurred because it became apparent that many effective leaders had widely differing personalities. More importantly, it is extremely difficult to imitate an individual’s personality. The Trait Period focused on a number of traits that one could develop to enhance leadership and potential. It also fell into disuse because, in addition to the fact that most traits cannot be learned, studies could not identify one single trait or group of characteristics associated with good leadership. This is the first type of transition: an improvement of an old theory because of new information.
At times new eras took the field in a completely new direction. This is what happened with the transition from the Influence Era to the Behavior Era. The Influence Era had improved on the previous Personality Era, but the Behavior Era emphasized what leaders do instead of their traits or sources of power. This is the second type of transition in which the theorist adds an entirely new perspective to the field. The new theory may be able to coexist with the other.
Finally, sometimes old theories were revisited given the benefit of new advances in the field, as with the rise of the Transactional Era. Whereas the Contingency Era suggested that effective leadership was contingent on one or more of the pure, unidimensional forms of the first four eras, the Transactional Era suggested that “leadership resided not only in the person or the situation, but also and rather more in role differentiation and social interaction.” The Transactional Era can also be viewed as the Influence Era revisited because “it addresses the influence between the leader and subordinate.”
1. Van Seters, D. A. and Field, R. H. G. (1990). “The Evolution of Leadership Theory.” Journal of Occupational Change Management. Vol. 3 Iss: 3, pp.29 – 45. < http://apps.business.ualberta.ca/rfield/papers/evolution.PDF >
No comments:
Post a Comment