As a result of early criticisms of the leadership trait approach, theorists started to research leadership as a set of behaviors. They assessed what effective leaders did, created catalogs of actions, and identified expansive patterns that indicated different leadership styles.
Hughes et al 2014 defined leadership behaviors as actions taken in response to situations. Behaviors were defined as a function of personality, knowledge, experience, traits, intelligence attitudes, values, and interests. Available literature suggests that while some traits are common across studies, the overall findings suggest that leaders in one situation may not necessarily be leaders in all situations. According to the contingency theory approach,