Different approaches to Leadership and its role in Management
Introduction:-
- Leadership:- Leadership has been described as “a process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task". Leadership occupies the central position in Management. Leadership is visible, yet seems to baffle diagnosis, its construction and synthesis from out of the perceived elements. George.R.Terry believed leadership is the activity of influencing people to strive willingly for group objectives. According to Robert Tannebaum, Irving R, Weschler and Fred Massarik, leadership is interpersonal influence exercised in a situation and directed through the communication process toward the
The Attitude Criterion Approach to Leadership:- The leader attitude approach to leadership studies , registers and appraises the variable in terms of attitudes conditioning leadership behavior and effectiveness. Studies defined two variables which were termed employees orientation and production orientation. Dorwin Cartwright and Alving Zandar identified the aim of a group as a composite of two elements ie,Achieving a group goal and Service of the group itself. The goal oriented manager will set tasks, improve techniques and productivity and structure his activities toward the group goal. The manager, on the other hand, who concentrates on group service and group maintenance, will be relations oriented, with concern for people, cultivating popular participation, fostering and trusting informal group behavior, trustful and communicative. Another paralle concet can be observed as Authoritarian Democratic Behaviour. Authoritarian leader style is set parallel to achieving the group goal as group maintenance or service which approximates to the democratic leader style. The authoritarian leader will decide and tell his followers what to do; the democratic leaders will opt for a participative style of decision making.

The Contingency Theory Approach to Leadership:- Situational theory also appeared as a reaction to the trait theory of leadership. Social scientists argued that history was more than the result of intervention of great men, as trait