Leadership Training: Leadership Theory

Management and Leadership Skills Training

Proven Leadership Skills

The Leadership Training Institute offers seminars that teach participants to confidently use proven methods of management leadership to lead people and help them plan, organize and control their work assignments. Workshop participants will also learn to use resources made available to them more effectively.

On-Site Classes: can be tailored to the needs of client organization and delivered on-site at time and location of client choice.

Seminar Objectives:

At the 90-day post-workshop assessment, participants will have:

Demonstrated (on the job) an understanding that the intuitive style of leadership (self-centered, directive) will only work in special circumstances and will have made noticeable improvement in working themselves toward a management leadership style (participatory, empowering)

Spent more time "leading and managing" and less time "doing"

Used the action planning process to plan and implement at least one important initiative that has a positive impact on business results

Used the decision-making technique on the job to arrive at sound decisions that have or will have a positive impact on business results

Demonstrated greater ability to function in teamwork situations

Developed and successfully used a system of control by exception

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Leadership Skills Training - Leadership Theory

Leadership is "organizing a group of people to achieve a common goal." The leader may or may not have any formal authority. Students of leadership have produced theories involving traits, situational interaction, function, behavior, power, vision and values, charisma, and intelligence among others.

Arieu defines a leader as "a person capable of inspiring and associate others with a dream." It is therefore important that organizations have a mission high transcendent, since it is a powerful way to strengthen the leadership of its directors.

Early history
The search for the characteristics or traits of leaders has been ongoing for centuries. History's greatest philosophical writings from Plato's Republic to Plutarch's Lives have explored the question of "What qualities distinguish an individual as a leader?" Underlying this search was the early recognition of the importance of leadership and the assumption that leadership is rooted in the characteristics that certain individuals possess. This idea that leadership is based on individual attributes is known as the "trait theory of leadership."
This view of leadership, the trait theory, was explored at length in a number of works in the previous century. Most notable are the writings of Thomas Carlyle and Francis Galton, whose works have prompted decades of research. In Heroes and Hero Worship (1841), Carlyle identified the talents, skills, and physical characteristics of men who rose to power. In Galton's (1869) Hereditary Genius, he examined leadership qualities in the families of powerful men. After showing that the numbers of eminent relatives dropped off when moving from first degree to second degree relatives, Galton concluded that leadership was inherited. In other words, leaders were born, not developed. Both of these notable works lent great initial support for the notion that leadership is rooted in characteristics of the leader.
For decades, this trait-based perspective dominated empirical and theoretical work in leadership. Using early research techniques, researchers conducted over a hundred studies proposing a number of characteristics that distinguished leaders from nonleaders: intelligence, dominance, adaptability, persistence, integrity, socioeconomic status, and self-confidence just to name a few.

Rise of alternative theories
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, however, a series of qualitative reviews of these studies (e.g., Bird, 1940; Stogdill, 1948; Mann, 1959) prompted researchers to take a drastically different view of the driving forces behind leadership. In reviewing the extant literature, Stogdill and Mann found that while some traits were common across a number of studies, the overall evidence suggested that persons who are leaders in one situation may not necessarily be leaders in other situations. Subsequently, leadership was no longer characterized as an enduring individual trait, as situational approaches (see alternative leadership theories below) posited that individuals can be effective in certain situations, but not others. This approach dominated much of the leadership theory and research for the next few decades.

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