Join our monthly newsletter to receive management tips, tricks and insights directly into your inbox!
CQ Net
CQ Net
  • Home
  • About Us
    • ABOUT US

      • CQ Net - Management skills for everyone!
      • Our Foundation: Evidence-based Management
      • Management Trainers and Consultants
      • Contact Us
  • Resources
    • MANAGEMENT RESOURCES

      • All Management Learning Resources
      • All Management Toolboxes
      • How to lead?
      • How to innovate?
      • How to improve workplace safety?
      • How to innovate?
      • How to manage change?
      • How to manage human performance?
  • Training
    • MANAGEMENT TRAINING

      • All Management Trainings
      • Leadership Training
      • Online Training and Certificate in Management
  • Counseling
    • MANAGEMENT COUNSELING

      • All Management Counseling Services
      • Career Counseling
      • Organisational Development
  • Blog
      • English English
      • Deutsch Deutsch
Log in
☰

The future of leadership: From the Great Man Theory to the Great Team Theory

  • Blog
  • Great Man Theory

Contents

  1. What is the great man theory? Leadership seen as a heroic act performed by an individual
  2. To this day there are no generally-accepted universal leadership qualities
  3. Leadership redefined: Situation, environment, and people are at the core of leadership
  4. Leadership Member Exchange Theory (LMX): Leadership seen as an interactive process
  5. Team leadership theories: How one plus one equals three
  6. Authentic leadership: Moral, ethic, self-awareness, and positive psychology
  7. Agile leadership: Staying ahead of the curve in a VUCA environment
  8. Learning about other leadership approaches and frameworks adds value
  9. References and further reading

Leadership is a phenomenon that has interested people for hundreds of years. One rather outdated explanatory approach still plays a prominent role in practice and the media in particular: The so-called Great Man Theory. In this blog we present what this theory is all about and why it is time to look for alternative approaches.

The Future of Leadership: From the Great Man theory to the Great Team theory
Total votes: 1841
Dr. Markus Nini, 24.05.2020 | Posted in Leadership, Methodologies & Tools, Teams 0 comment
The Great Man Theory’s dream to discover universal characteristics is still a controversial topic in the scientific community, but couldn't be confirmed up to now.Dr. Markus Nini

What is the great man theory? Leadership seen as a heroic act performed by an individual

The aspiration and ability to inspire people for a common goal keeps academia as well as everyday practice equally busy. One of the first leadership theories is based on the assumption that there are certain characteristics that distinguishes people with leadership capabilities from others. This Great Man Theory is still widespread and is particularly popular among popular science literature, revealed by many business bestseller titles. What is this theory all about?

To this day there are no generally-accepted universal leadership qualities

The search for characteristics that define successful leaders began with a number of studies in the first half of the 20th century. Stogdill (1948) came to the conclusion that reliability, sociability, initiative, and confidence are traits that characterize successful leaders. Other scientists extended this list by a number of additional characteristics (creativity, masculinity, and motivation - only to name a few).

However, they were not able to unravel the long-desired pattern of repeating and by other scientists confirmed properties. Finally, the realization prevailed that there are several properties that are at least related to successful leadership. Through his studies, Judge et al. (2002) reached the conclusion that the personal characteristics extraversion, conscientiousness, and being open for new experiences are properties that positively correlate with leadership. These findings are reflected in the trait-based approach to leadership.

The trait-based approach to leadership relies on the assumption that leaders are characterized by characteristics that makes them more suitable for leadership positions

The Five Factor Model of Personality is a personality inventory which can be used in organizations to select and develop individuals with leadership potential. Furthermore, cognitive performance and most of all intelligence (in academia also referred to as "g") are features that are connected with successful leadership (Schmidt 2002). The Great Man Theory’s dream to discover universal characteristics is still a controversial topic in the scientific community, but couldn't be confirmed up to now.

Leadership redefined: Situation, environment, and people are at the core of leadership

What is the current understanding of leadership if the Great Man Theory could not be confirmed up to date? As often times in life, there is also no simple answer to this question. The focus of current leadership approaches moved away from a heroic hero towards a combination of several factors accounting for the respective environment and the “human factor”. We have summarized a few of the currently discussed approaches below.

Management skills newsletter

Join our monthly newsletter to receive management tips, tricks and insights directly into your inbox!

By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from CQ Net - Management skills for everyone! You can unsubscribe at any time.

Leadership Member Exchange Theory (LMX): Leadership seen as an interactive process

The LMX theory is not entirely new (Graen, Uhl-Bien 1995), but is still quite popular. In contrast to the Great Man theory, LMX assumes that leadership is always an interactive process between at least two people (leader and follower). During this interactive process a relationship is formed between the two participants. This relationship can be of high or of low quality.

The most decisive criteria for a high quality relationship are respect, trust, and commitment. The better the relationship, i.e. the relationship quality, the higher is the work performance, satisfaction and general welfare (Gerstner, Day 1997).

Team leadership theories: How one plus one equals three

Collaboration in teams in order to reach a common goal with combined forces is an approach that becomes more and more relevant. In this context, leadership represents team development, inspiration for the common goals and further advancement (Hogan, Kaiser 2005). Group identity development plays a special role since it allows members to identify with the team.

Common goals as a part of the group identity are a characteristic that distinguishes real teams from pseudo teams (West, Lyubovnikova 2012). Therefore, leadership becomes a shared process (shared leadership) that is not only perceived by a single person, but embedded in the whole team. This results in a performance boost to a level that exceeds the combined performance of the individual team members.

Authentic leadership: Moral, ethic, self-awareness, and positive psychology

New insight in the field of positive psychology, motivation research, and the increasing relevance of ethic and moral questions were included in a new approach to leadership (Avolio et al. 2009). Authentic leadership describes leading actions that require a stable and consolidated personality while following high moral and ethic standards and is aiming for a positive development of the team and the organization as a whole.

Thus, authentic leadership combines new insight into the effects of positive emotions on people with elements of already established leadership approaches such as ethic and transformational leadership into a new promising approach.

Agile leadership: Staying ahead of the curve in a VUCA environment

Agile leadership is another alternative leadership framework that has started to gain traction recently. In contrast to most available leadership approaches, agile leadership is a holistic framework that relies on a set of principles derived from systems theory, cybernetics and other social sciences. In its’ core, agility is a decision-making and decision-implementation framework.

Agile leadership doesn't rely on a strong leader, but on a decentralized and team-based leadership approach. By going through fast decision-making cycles instead of an extensive and time-consuming planning phase, agility allows for a quick and effortless adjustment to an ever changing environment. This makes agile leadership especially suitable for an environment that is characterized by a high level of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA).

Learning about other leadership approaches and frameworks adds value

According to Hollywood and business literature successful leadership is the result of great individual characters that lead their organization to success by their actions. As discussed in this blog, this traditional understanding is outdated. Instead, approaches that include the human factor, the environment, and the respective setting are of increasingly greater importance.

And yes, there are many more leadership approaches and frameworks with a proven track record regarding their effectiveness you should be aware of. We from CQ Net - Management skills for everyone! provide you an overview of the most important leadership approaches and how to apply them in practice.

References and further reading

Avolio, Bruce J.; Walumbwa, Fred O.; Weber, Todd J. (2009): Leadership: current theories, research, and future directions. In Annual review of psychology 60, pp. 421–449. DOI: 10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163621.

Gerstner, Charlotte R.; Day, David V. (1997): Meta-Analytic review of leader–member exchange theory. Correlates and construct issues. In Journal of Applied Psychology 82 (6), pp. 827–844. DOI: 10.1037/0021-9010.82.6.827.

Graen, George B.; Uhl-Bien, Mary (1995): Relationship-based approach to leadership. Development of leader-member exchange (LMX) theory of leadership over 25 years: Applying a multi-level multi-domain perspective. In The Leadership Quarterly 6 (2), pp. 219–247. DOI: 10.1016/1048-9843(95)90036-5.

Hogan, Robert; Kaiser, Robert B. (2005): What we know about leadership. In Review of General Psychology 9 (2), pp. 169–180. DOI: 10.1037/1089-2680.9.2.169.

Judge, Timothy A.; Bono, Joyce E.; Ilies, Remus; Gerhardt, Megan W. (2002): Personality and leadership. A qualitative and quantitative review. In Journal of Applied Psychology 87 (4), pp. 765–780. DOI: 10.1037//0021-9010.87.4.765.

Schmidt, Frank L. (2002): The Role of General Cognitive Ability and Job Performance. Why There Cannot Be a Debate. In Human Performance 15 (1-2), pp. 187–210. DOI: 10.1080/08959285.2002.9668091.

STOGDILL, R. M. (1948): Personal factors associated with leadership; a survey of the literature. In The Journal of psychology 25, pp. 35–71. DOI: 10.1080/00223980.1948.9917362.

WEST, MICHAEL A.; LYUBOVNIKOVA, JOANNE (2012): Real Teams or Pseudo Teams? The Changing Landscape Needs a Better Map. In Industrial and Organizational Psychology 5 (1), pp. 25–28. DOI: 10.1111/j.1754-9434.2011.01397.x.

Tags: Authentic Leadership, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-based learning, Implicit leadership theory, Leadership, Team Building, Trait based leadership, Transformational Leadership

Top Rated

Evidence-based management is about making better decisions and has its origins in evidence-based medicine
From evidence-based medicine to evidence-based management: An interview with Eric Barends, MD CEBMa
Social system change requires bridging of distinctive sets of social structures with appropriate language use
Social system change: Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and its lessons for business leaders
The modern world of work requires a different approach for decision making
What are the benefits of an evidence-based management approach in human resource practice? An Interview with Michael Vodianoi from ScienceforWork

About the Author

Markus is a senior management counselor with CQ Net - Management skills at work! He combines more than 15 years hands-on leadership experience from the private sector with in-depth knowledge in the area of people and organizational development. Markus holds a MSc in Organizational Behaviour and a Doctoral Degree in Management.

Comments

Add comment

Most Read Articles

How positive emotions can act as a learning booster: Three tips for practical implementation
Evidenzbasierte Manager vertrauen auf wissenschaftliche Literatur um ihre Fragen zu beantworten
The benefits of evidence-based management in a nutshell
How can a manager protect employees from sexual harassment, investigate accusations and prevent future incidents?
Sexual harassment and gender discrimination: Keeping employees safe in the #MeToo era

Blog Categories

  • Career Management
  • Change Management
  • Company
  • Innovation
  • Leadership
  • Learning & Development
  • Methodologies & Tools
  • Motivation
  • Research
  • Services
  • Strategy
  • Teams
  • Technology
  • Work and well-being

RELATED SERVICES

19€
Management Toolbox

Leadership guide for professionals

ImprintTermsPrivacy
Copyright 2023 by CQ
    • Sign In
      • Home
      • About us
        • CQ Net - Management skills for everyone!
        • Our Foundation: Evidence-based Management
        • Trainers, Consultants and Partners
        • Contact Us
      • Resources
        • All Management Learning Resources
        • All Management Toolboxes
        • How to lead?
        • How to manage change?
        • How to innovate?
        • How to manage human performance?
      • Training
        • All Management Trainings
        • Leadership Training
        • Online Training and Certificate in Management
      • Counseling
        • All Management Counseling
        • Career Counseling
        • Organisational Development
      • Blog
  • Language
    • English English
    • Deutsch Deutsch