Leadership Styles

There have been numerous leadership theories that have evolved over the last century. The start of this study of leadership brought about a set of standard beliefs during different time periods on how society perceived someone as a leader. This collection is made up of six approaches starting from the Great Man Theory in the early 1900’s and ending with the Relational Theory created in the 1970’s, but will the 20th century generate any new types of theories as our society advances? It will because as society evolves so will leaders and theories that define them.
The Great Man Theories are the first of these perceptions to be developed.   This theory states that men take on inherited traits and are just born great leaders. The theory came to because scholars were studying past and present popular leaders. This included Kings and other nobility who were given their title through birthright. The blue collar people back in those times were not even given the chances to be put in a leadership position so how could they even know if it really was inherited. When society did eventually change there are still examples in history that still proves this theory to be true. The Kennedy family is a great example of this. This family who produced several political leaders derived from poor Irish immigrants and came to America for better opportunities. These opportunities gave the traits the ability to thrive.   So this theory proved to only be partly true. Leadership can be an inherent ability that does not necessarily have to stem from a certain social class, but as we can see this was based on what people knew of society at that point in time.
The Trait Theories were the next concepts of a leader that were cultivated in the 1920’s. This was an in-depth study of the traits great leaders possessed so that they could maybe be predicted or perhaps trained. Traits differed too much from leader to leader so the idea of a specific list to establish a future leader was futile since... [continues]

Read full essay