Path Goal Theory And Organizational Leadership Styles

Discussion

Discuss about the Community Management and Organizations for Path Goal Theory.

Introduction

The topic selected for the essay is path goal theory and its implication in organizations. The path goal theory of leadership consists of four groups such as leadership styles, environmental contingencies, outcomes and subordinate contingencies. The essay research will focus on the styles of leadership that are described in the theory with the context of organizational examples. Leaders will change and adapt their pattern of leadership that suits their employees.

The basic assumptions illustrated by path goal theory of leadership are clarifying paths towards reaching goals, taking care of problems, increasing the number of rewards, taking initiatives that satisfy the employees. However, the leaders can increase the productivity of the team by explaining different positive aspects of its style. The leadership styles that will be explained in the essay are as follows:

Leaders of organizations such as Google follow directive leadership styles. They clarify the guidelines and expectations. The guidelines of a particular work include rules and regulations, setting various guidelines of performances, work schedule and performance of tasks. In this way, the relation between the leader and followers will be nurtured. Communication between the team members is the cause of the improved relationship and improved productivity of the team while accomplishing the goals (Chemers 2014).

The leaders following supportive leadership style are usually friendly in nature. The approach of these leaders is different from leaders who are practicing different style of leadership such as autocratic and transformational leadership. Global organization like 3M follows supportive leadership in order to motivate the executives of the company. As the company is focused with innovation, hence leaders motivate the employees by increasing employee confidence, improvement of trust and relations between leaders and followers, etc (Daft 2014).

Participative leadership is the most popular style of leadership practiced by many successful leaders of the world. This form of leadership style is characterized by consulting the employees in the decision making process of the company. For instance, founder of South West Airlines, Herb Kelleher follows participative leadership for making any decision in the company. He is famous for the leadership style followed by him in the organization. In this way, Kelleher is successful in maintaining a reputation in the airline sector (Dinh et al. 2014).

Achievement oriented leadership style is characterized by having high expectations from the followers. Leaders assume that the subordinates or the followers will take the responsibility of the work they are assigned to. Steve Jobs in Apple believe in innovation. Executives of Apple have high responsibility as they are focused on development of innovative products. The roles of the employees are challenging in nature that help Apple in maintaining the quality of its products (Li et al. 2012).

Directive Leadership

The performances of the organization along with the satisfaction of the employees are mentioned in the essay. Various organizational examples are explained in the essay such as Southwest, Apple, McDonald’s, 3M, Google, etc. The path-goal leadership theory is implemented in order to develop the appropriate forms of leadership along with its improved productivity among the employees of the different organizations. The satisfaction of the employees must be high so that they can deliver their best in their particular field of work. It is seen that, various forms of leadership like directive, supportive, achievement oriented and participative leadership are implemented in accomplishing the organizational goals. Various organizations have different practice of leadership theories based on the nature of the organization culture as well as the employees associated with it. Apart from that, situational leadership can also be implemented in a team to improve the efficiency of the workers along with the productivity of the team to meet the target set for them by the organization. It depends on the understanding of the leader of the company.

Factors of subordinate contingency can be divided into perceived ability, locus of control and experience. The organization should have their control on the lives of their employees. Internals and externals i.e. the effects of internal and external factors on the lives of employees are also considered by the organizations. Big multinational organizations like McDonald’s have increased locus of control to their junior level employees. However, it can be seen that the employees that are experienced or working at middle level and senior level management do not require greater locus of control. Experience of their work in McDonald’s helps them in gaining perceived ability. Higher locus of control is considered as directive leadership. It is required for the people who are having little experience.

Environmental contingency factors are divided into task structure, formal authority system and primary work group. The factors of leadership that create an effect on the task structure are supportive leadership, directive leadership and no leadership. The situational leadership is the best form of leadership practiced by companies like Southwest Airlines. Southwest has a good form of leadership by its senior management that increased the productivity of the company. The formal authority system is very clear which is the result of participative and situational leadership.  The employees of Southwest Airlines are included in the decision making process so that they feel that organizations provide value to them. It is the form of primary work group.

Supportive Leadership

Conclusion

Many leaders follow the path goal theory of leadership across the world. The four styles of leadership that are described above have practical implications that are described above. the organizational leaders are famous for their own style of leadership not only within the organization but also outside the company. The other four approaches of the theory if implemented in a right way will increase the performance level of the team.

Introduction

The question that is set regarding the topic of Path Goal leadership theory in the essay research is:

How do organizations use the mentioned leadership styles by reducing the weaknesses present in the team apart from having criticisms?

The question is interesting because it covers the negative aspects faced by a team at organizational level. Solutions are also provided regarding the mentioned problems faced by the individual teams of various organizations. Criticisms will also be described in the following.

Topic Sentence : Directive leadership helps leaders to lead the team towards higher productivity and performance level by reducing errors of the team.	Topic Sentence : Global leaders of the organizations follow this leadership while improving the employee relations.	Topic Sentence : Participative leadership helps in giving priorities to the junior executives while increasing their motivation towards work.
Example: Small medium enterprises usually follow directive leadership (Yukl 2012).	Example: Weaknesses of the team members are improved by the implementation of the supportive leadership style (Van Knippenberg and Sitkin 2013).	Example: Leaders of global corporations usually involve the mid level and junior members while formulating strategies of the organization (Van Wart 2013).
Explanation: There are many problems that are faced by the supervisors and team leaders of the small medium enterprises. The problems are inexperienced employees, unstructured tasks, unclear authority system. Apart from that, external authority controls the employees of the organizations with lower ability to perceive things.	Explanation: A team can have different problems such as lack of confidence, frustrating tasks, lack of interest in the delegated tasks, etc. there are many other problems in a team that can arise due to lack of conveying the goals and objectives of the accomplished tasks.	Explanation: Most of the cases, team leaders delegate tasks without knowing the nature of the team performers. This leads to dissatisfaction of the workers while resulting in poor performance.
Link: Directive leadership will structure the tasks and formal authority system in a clear and structured way. The leader will diminish the external locus of control while improving the cohesiveness of the team.	Link: Supportive leadership style by leaders will enhance the relationship between the leader and employees. This can lead to more interactions that minimize the errors of the team members.	Link: Participative leadership helps global leaders in giving priority to the employees that are having potential to grow in the organization.

           

Topic Sentence Achievement oriented leadership helps improving performance more rather than individual importance.	Topic Sentence The four styles have negative impacts too that can hinder the progress of a team.	Topic Sentence The strengths of the theory illustrate different forms of leadership along with other environmental and subordinate contingencies.
Example Apple is a follower of this style of leadership that highlights innovation (Lorinkova et al. 2013).	Example Leaders must have to understand the weaknesses of the team in order to proper implementation of the team (Roueche et al. 2014).	Example Organizations face issues in locus of control, task structure, delegation of tasks, etc (Martin et al. 2013).
Explanation Individual goals are more focused rather than team goals. Responsibilities of the workers sometimes are not performed well in case of complex tasks.	Explanation The theory is complex in nature and it considers many parameters that are hard to follow. The components are very hard to implement in practical field. It can also create dependence of the leaders to the form of leadership styles.	Explanation Path goal theory has these approaches in the theoretical framework. It will help in improving the relation between the team members and supervisors.
Link The type of leadership style will increase the internal control of the leader to the team. The employees must be qualified with required tasks for accomplishing tasks.	Link Criticisms are there for the leaders for implementation of the leadership styles. Leaders must have a clear understanding of the various styles before implementing it.	Link The theoretical frameworks will work best if the leaders or the supervisors have a clear understanding of the both strengths and weaknesses of the preferred style of leadership.

Conclusion

The cases that are discussed in the essay research and essay plan discusses about the various practices of leadership styles followed by different leaders of the world. The topic selected for the essay describes different forms of leadership styles along with its positive and negative impacts.

References

Chemers, M., 2014. An integrative theory of leadership. Psychology Press.

Daft, R.L., 2014. The leadership experience. Cengage Learning.

Dinh, J.E., Lord, R.G., Gardner, W.L., Meuser, J.D., Liden, R.C. and Hu, J., 2014. Leadership theory and research in the new millennium: Current theoretical trends and changing perspectives. The Leadership Quarterly,25(1), pp.36-62.

Li, Y., Tan, C.H. and Teo, H.H., 2012. Leadership characteristics and developers’ motivation in open source software development. Information & Management, 49(5), pp.257-267.

Lorinkova, N.M., Pearsall, M.J. and Sims, H.P., 2013. Examining the differential longitudinal performance of directive versus empowering leadership in teams. Academy of Management Journal, 56(2), pp.573-596.

Martin, S.L., Liao, H. and Campbell, E.M., 2013. Directive versus empowering leadership: A field experiment comparing impacts on task proficiency and proactivity. Academy of Management Journal, 56(5), pp.1372-1395.

Roueche, P.E., Baker III, G.A. and Rose, R.R., 2014. Shared vision: Transformational leadership in American community colleges. Rowman & Littlefield.

Van Knippenberg, D. and Sitkin, S.B., 2013. A critical assessment of charismatic—Transformational leadership research: Back to the drawing board?. The Academy of Management Annals, 7(1), pp.1-60.

Van Wart, M., 2013. Lessons from leadership theory and the contemporary challenges of leaders. Public Administration Review, 73(4), pp.553-565.

Yukl, G., 2012. Effective leadership behavior: What we know and what questions need more attention. The Academy of Management Perspectives,26(4), pp.66-85.