Leadership and Followership Theories Research Assignment

Leadership and Followership Theories
Your name
Your Institution of Affiliation
December 15, 2017
Introduction
In almost any facet of life, the ability to guide individuals with different sets of beliefs and make them collaborate to efficiently achieve a single set of goals, is a rather indispensable skill. In spite of being a rather crude definition of leadership, this is nonetheless a good conception of a leader’s role within the organization. However, in light of the century-old study of leadership and administration, this definition is simply insufficient for all sense and purposes. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the concept of leadership could now be defined by many ways and/or principles. Amongst this debate is how to define this term in relation to differing points of reference (the leader or the follower). On one hand, plenty of studies have been dedicated on studying the leadership based on his actions, skills, and ideologies that he utilizes to guide his decisions. On the other hand, another perspective on leadership focuses on the followers, since essentially, a leader would not exist without them. Nonetheless, it is widely accepted that the bulk of the studies on this matter focuses on the first theme. Studies which are oriented from the grass-roots (or the followership) are considered to be a late development in the field of management (Uhl-Bien, Riggio, Lowe, & Carsten, 2014). Following from this, the author of this study would conduct a detailed analysis of the different principles espoused by these two different sets of approaches. To start with, the next section would be dedicated to the general analysis of the different theories established by the more traditional approach of the leadership framework. In the succeeding section, the focus would then be shifted towards the more recent advancement, which is that on followership. Specifically for this section, we would expound on the ideas purported by Uhl-Bien, Riggio, Lowe, and Carsten (2014), where they suggest two theoretical frameworks for the study of followership, namely (1) Role-based approach and (2) Constructionist approach. After these detailed analyses of the two principles, the author would then provide a quick synthesis of the two chapters to understand the possible usages of these frameworks as well as the difficulties that it presents. Nevertheless, in light of all of this, the author of this paper strongly believes that understanding both of these perspectives are crucial for the successful development of leaders today.
Leadership Theories
Based on the current existing literature on our first perspective, there exist eight major theories, when it comes to analyzing leadership. Namely, these eight are (1) The “Great Man” theory, (2) Trait theory, (3) Contingency theory, (4) Situational theory, (5) Behavioral theory, (6) Participative theory, (7) Management theory, and the (8) Relationship theory. In general, these theories are primarily designed to distinguish the qualities that makes an individual a a leader? In the past theories, however, these characteristics are mainly believed to be “in-born” whereas more recent studies suggested that aside from the innate personality traits that individuals a...