LEADERSHIP STYLES AND IMPLICATIONS FOR DEFINING AN EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP STYLE -------Nguyen Anh Thu (*) Faculty of Management,

University of Social Sciences and Humanities This paper was published by Vietnam National University-Hanoi, in the Journal of Science, vol.24, no.5E, 2008, ISSN 0866-8612

Abstract: Leadership is one of the most concerned topics in management research because of its special importance for managers to do successfully their job. During the 20th Century, a lot of leadership styles have been made on the basis of behavior approach. From the last decade of the 20th Century to the beginning of the 21st Century, many new leadership styles have been continuously created to assist managers and organizations to better adapt to uncertain environment of the rapid globalization and technological advance, which has contributed to the diversity of leadership theories. However, within a jungle of the theories, it is very difficult for the managers to define which perspectives of leadership styles are the best for their organization. This paper will summarize the most common leadership styles which have been researched up to now and from which infer some implications for how to choose an effective style. Keywords: Leadership, Leadership Styles, Leadership Behaviors, Leading function.
(*) Corresponding author: Nguyen Anh Thu, Faculty of Management Science, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. Email: nathu@vnu.edu.vn

Introduction
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Robbins et al. [25, p.568] have summarized that a leader may not have good management skills but a manager should ideally be a leader. Therefore, leadership is one of the most concerned topics in management research. Even, no matter what managers have to do variously, none is as important as the role of organizational leader [36, p.26]. As a result, leadership styles or behaviors, as well as applying them in managerial practices have attracted writers who have approached the topic from the plenty of leadership views. They have created lots of leadership styles such as task/ relationship- oriented styles, situation- related styles, charismatic/ visionary styles, transformational/ transactional styles, paternalistic style, team leadership style, servant leadership style, change- centered style, and narcissistic style, etc. For managers, determining which style is appropriate to each situation and to their organization as a whole is always a difficult decision because it critically affects themselves and their followers performance as well as organizational productivity. Specially, in problematic cases of management, i.e. employee productivity decreases because of stressed/bad workplace relationship or work conflicts, leaders behaviors play a very important role in improvement of the organizational performance. This paper will summarize the most common leadership styles which have been created up to now and infer some implications for how to choose an effective style on the basis of these examined leadership styles.

Leadership Styles There are lots of definitions of leadership. However, most of the scholars agree with the view of leadership as influencing employee behavior [16]. Specifically, leadership involves inspiring, motivating, choosing the most effective communication channels to affect employee behavior toward the goals of group/organization [9 & 25]. As such, leadership is really a central
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force in human affairs [4, p.11]. On the basis of the definition of leadership, leadership style may be defined as a pattern of emphases, indexed by the frequency or intensity of specific leadership behaviors or attitudes, which a leader places on the different leadership functions [5, p.246]. One of the first perspectives of leadership style is behavioral theories that emerged in the early part of the Twentieth Century. While the trait theories- a previous perspective of behavioral approach - tried to define the qualities of a good leader, behavioral theories focused on how the leader interacted with their followers [25]. Thus, generally, the behavioral scientists created two dimension models of leadership style which described two basic types of leadership behavior, namely task or production - oriented and employee or relationship - oriented [10]. Hersey [15] pointed out that in each behavioral model, these two factors have been expressed under the various names including autocratic - democratic styles; behaviors of concerning for work - for people (the managerial grid); and initiating structure styles - consideration styles. Also, the different theorists added the intermediate leadership styles in their above model such as the laissez-fair style, the middle-of-the road management, and the high-high leader (high in both initiating structure and consideration), respectively. Thus, each model has the particular contribution to the behavioral perspective. For example, the studies of autocratic/democratic styles focused on the centralization of authority and subordinates participation in decision making [34], meanwhile, the managerial grid theory represented a 1-9 scale of measurement of the leader ability to concern people and/or work [22]. Anyway, it is important that most behavioral theorists supported the democratic, consideration and people-oriented styles which are evaluated most effective in organizational leadership [10]. A real-world illustration of this is the case of Thomas John Watson (1914-1993) the former CEO of IBM Corporation, who is recognized as a relationship- oriented leader. Watson defined the IBM strategic guideline after being the IBMs CEO:
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- This is a company of human beings not machines, personalities not products, people not real estate. [35- 1958] - The employee relations of this company were founded long ago upon the Golden Rule and we expect all of our managers in working with their people to start with this fundamental. In keeping with this, we will continue to be sensitive to any personal problem which may temporarily affect an employee's performance. [351960] Another perspective of leadership styles which is close to behavioral theories is contingency theories (or situational approach). There are some major representatives of the approach including Fred Fiedler (the least preferred co-worker model), Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard (the situational leadership model), Victor Vroom (leader-participation model), and Robert House (path-goal theory). Similarly, the theories assume contingent factors affect significantly leaders style. In other words, leadership behaviors are different from various situations [7]. Nevertheless, each model in the perspective proposes plentiful types of leadership styles in correlation of contingent elements. For instance, Fiedler agrees with two task- and relationship- oriented styles but these styles have to match with three factors of context such as leader-member relationship, task structure and position power or Vroom expressed five styles which are decide, consult individually, consult group, facilitate and delegate in the appropriate relationship to the contingencies including decision significance, importance of commitment, leader expertise, group support, team competence, etc. Meanwhile, House stresses the styles such as directive, supportive, participative and achievement-oriented leader that are affected by and depend on the various goals or Hersey points out 4 styles of telling, selling, participating and delegating in relation to subordinates readiness [25]. To demonstrate these situational- related
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styles, a comparison between two situations can be considered. One of them is leading in a team of soldiers and the other is leading a group of researchers. In the former situation, the soldiers goals and requirements, task structure and position power is very clear so the common leadership styles are task- oriented (on Fiedler model), telling (on Hersey model) regardless of whether the followers are able and willing to do the task or not, decide (on Vrooms model) and directive (on path- goal model). In contrast, for the latter, the features of individual researchers (e.g. strong need for independent and creative thinking) and research process (e.g. creative and critical activities) are the contingent factors which require leaders more stress on the styles of relationship-oriented, participative and supportive leadership. The approaches which have been newly emerging since about the last two decades of the Twentieth Century is the transformational/ transactional leadership, charismatic and visionary leadership styles [11]. Transformational leadership is the process in which leaders inspire their followers to higher motivation with higher level of morality and support the subordinates to go beyond their own limitation of perception and interest to achieve the collective goals [28]. Meanwhile, transactional leaders influence their followers by establishing goals, clarifying task expectation, giving direction, and exchanging rewards for achievements [11]. Being close to the transformational style, the charismatic leadership approach emphasizes leaders personal characteristics such as empathy, self- confidence and empowerment [6]. Beyond the charismatic approach, the visionary leadership complements leaders ability to foresee specifically, credibly and attractively the future that drives the present development [32]. Despite the difference is stressed in each approach, House & Shamir (1993) [cited in 24] concludes that these three approaches consists of a strong convergence. Similarly, Robbins et al. [25] confirms that a transformational leader possesses charisma and a clear vision can help leaders inspire their
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followers to enthusiasm and energy to get the desired results. For example, by sending an email to all of Microsofts employees, Steve Ballmer- the Microsoft Corporations CEO- does not only state and explain about the companys new strategy in the future, but also transform the staffs his belief of what he and his followers are doing and his acknowledgement to the employees contribution [2]. Besides, he shows a crazy dance in front of thousands of Microsofts employees and ends the show by a speech: I love this company in order to transforms a special passion with the company and the jobs in Microsoft as the most important motivation to all of the company employees [1]. It can be concluded that Ballmer really possesses all transformative, charismatic and visionary characteristics. A leadership style that is put in the cutting- edge perspective along with transformational, charismatic and visionary approach is team leadership. This is because that a good team leader should set clear goals and vision for their team as well as encourage their team members to create team spirit as their important motivation of cooperation for goal achievement [19]. Most of researchers agree that team leaders implement 4 main roles in their group which are coach, liaison, conflict manager and troubleshooter [25]. This style seems to be suitable to a group with small to medium size such as a sporting team, a group of researchers. In contrast to the team leadership style, the paternalistic style of leadership refers to some leadership characteristics such as monopolized authority, no two-way communication, ignorance of suggestion, tight control and the stability of dignity. The style is commonly regarded as a feature of Chinese cultural leadership style [19]. One of the newest approaches is the servant leadership style. Leaders with the servant style always set aside their personal rights to serve their employees, customers and communities [27]. The ways that the leaders serve other people are encouraging two-way communication to
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understand the potential abilities, needs, goals, desires of their partners, thereby, inspiring the partners to trust and developing them to fullest potential [20]. Although this style has some similarities to transformational and charismatic ones, it is different from the previous approaches in the concentrating on leaders personal honesty and integrity, and expanding leaders impacts to outside of organization [20]. According to Russell [27], servant leadership is the valid, modern theory for organizational leadership today. However, McCrimmon [23] assumes that the concept of servant leader creates an image of a slavish and thereby, it is the opposite extreme of autocratic leader. Indira Gandhi is a typical example the servant leadership style. Even, Hayes [14] concludes Gandhi had more power than the British army. Another instance is Herb Kelleher (the Executive Officer of Southwest Airlines). He explains his servant leadership as: I have an inner need to help people. I have no passion for what I do for myself, but a passion to be a servant in everything I do.[17]. There has recently been a new leadership style which is created to adapt to the new context of globalization, cultural diversity and uncertain environment- the change-centered leadership style. The change-centered leadership behaviors refer to supporting discussions on changes, organizational opportunities and threats, heartening up new ideas for change, growth and encouraging new projects and products [29]. Ekvall [12] assumes that the change-centered leadership style might be a supplemental combination between the traditional relations/task-oriented dimensions and transactional/transformational leadership styles. However, the change-centered style does not stress on employee satisfaction too much because this style promotes employees self-perception of indispensability of changes, thus, inspirational motivation and desired goals is established [29].
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In fact, there have been many firms using the style up to now because of environments continuous changes. An illustration of these is Southwest Airlines. The Airlines change-centered leadership philosophy is always expressed through the encouragement of the new ideas and the creation for effectively changing. For instance, the companys leaders define its mission to their employees as Creativity and innovation are encouraged for improving the effectiveness of Southwest Airlines [31] or in the speeches and presentations of the Airlines leaders: - anything we can do to encourage that spark is important. Never scorn an idea because you will never get another idea from that person [17]. - The People of Southwest Airlines are the creators of what we have become and of what we will be. Our People transformed an idea into a legend. [3].
- We dont limit ourselves to the intellectual capital thats generated in management

committee meetings; we welcome ideas from all our Employees [18]. Another leadership style which has been debated up to now is narcissistic style. This approaches the leadership topic similarly to the trait theory, but describes specifically the characteristics of a narcissistic leader, not leaders traits in generally. Most of researchers espouse that a narcissistic leader usually possesses some feature such as arrogance, lack of empathy, grandiosity, self-absorption, hostility and paranoia, preference of power and administration [33]. Nonetheless, recently, some authors argue that

narcissistic leaders also are charismatic, creative and great. The positive characteristics are demonstrated by some successful and famous CEOs in computer and software industry [26]. For instance, according to the result of
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Harrison & Cloughs study [13], Bill Gates (Microsoft Corporation) is a narcissistic but productive leader who has eloquent, egotistical, risk taking, possible aloof and no empathy. Even though this style is not broadly

encouraged by many researchers, they also propose some solution to restrict the negative traits of narcissistic leaders, e.g. executive training to keep narcissistic leaders under control, giving intensive psychotherapy [26].

Implication for defining an effective leadership style It is practical to say that no one leadership style fits to all situations [36]. Therefore, a systematical and integrated approach of leadership styles has been recommended by a lot of scholars [5]. Each element plays an important role for the whole of one organization. The operation of all elements contributes to the relationship between input and output of the process towards organizational goal attainment [10]. At various points of time, some elements emerge with more significant impacts than the others. For leaders, the continuous changes of the significance across the elements influence considerably their selecting of effective leadership behaviors in the organizations [10]. The systematical approach to organizational structure and operation leads to an integrated perspective of choosing leadership styles [8]. Because of the fact that no one is the best style for all type of organizational context, groups and goals, leaders need to combine with some adjustment of the situational and change-centered approaches. In other words, the situational
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perspective requires the leaders to consider carefully the variations of the organizational rules, culture and other resources; the psychological

characteristics, culture, and norms of their followers/groups in correlation with the different group/organizational goals from time to time [8 & 21]. Also, thanks to the uncertain feature at all level of organizational environment, changecentered approach will make the leaders and their team more proactive to the contextual changes. This means that by encouraging the discussion on solutions for the changes or problems, all of the ideas do not only derive from the leaders, but also results from all of the followers and by this way, all the group members are motivated and inspired to create, innovate and share their ideas in order to contribute to the common goals. Therefore, the leaders play key roles of supporting, motivating, transforming, making vision and direction (in some cases possibly including commands) which help organizations/groups avoid shock and adapt well to the changes from external environment [25]. As such, the leaders really reach the charisma and effectiveness of lots of leadership styles combined.

Conclusion All leadership styles considered have been only the most common approaches up to now. They illustrate the plenty of researches on the topic in the development of management theories. However, it is difficult but very important to apply these theories to real-world cases in order to understand which style(s) is appropriate to the cases and advice managers to exactly decide what they can do to improve leadership effectiveness in their organizations. This demonstrates leadership styles significant impacts on solving the organizational problems. Although this paper
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has not provided quantitative evidences yet, the comprehensive examination of the classical and new styles has suggested a methodological approach which is based on the systematical perspective combined with the focus on change indispensability. As a result, this helps the leaders can define their foundation principles of perception of real-life leadership to apply to different organizational contexts so that they do not get bogged down on the theoretical jungle [30]. -------------------------------

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