Individual Leadership Approach

Individual Leadership Approach Paper

Evelina L. Clark

LDR/531

January 30, 2012

Brian La Hargoue

Individual Leadership Approach Paper

What is leadership? This is a question that has been asked for centuries. We have seen effective leaders in the military, politics, religions, and corporations. The question is what makes an effective leader. Even today there is no one definition of leadership. In the twentieth century social scientists have tried to discover what makes an effective leader. Researchers have used different variables to determine leadership effectiveness. Three types of variables that are relevant for understanding leadership effectiveness include characteristics of leaders, characteristics of followers, and characteristics of the situation (Yuki, 2010). The five major categories of the study of leadership are, the trait approach, the behavior approach, the power-influence approach, the situational approach, and the integrative approach.

The theory the writer has chosen is the integrative approach theory, which according to Yuki (2010) “In recent years it has become more common for researchers to include two or more types of leadership variables in the same study, but it is still rare to find a theory that includes all of them (i.e. traits, behavior, influence processes, situational variables and outcomes)” (p.15, para. 2). With the integrative approach researchers could study many types of leaders such as charismatic, transformational, strategic, stewardship, and servant leadership. The integrative approach is used to study the leaders from all walks of life and compare various characteristics they possess in their leadership style. Strength is that the selected leaders would be the top in their fields in personal and work life. They would be the most admired leaders and would be a perfect example of how a leader should be. The major weakness of this approach is that it would take a considerable amount of time to evaluate...