Leadership: An Integrative Approach

Yaschira E. Rodriguez-Cuevas

LDR/531

March 10th, 2012

Professor Miguel Rodriguez Carrasquillo

Leadership: An Integrative Approach

Leadership, as stated by Yukl (2010), is a multifaceted concept that has kept a passionate interest among its followers and people since it takes into account the characteristics of the leaders, followers and the surrounding environment. Also, in his work Yukl (2010) portrays the term as both a specialized role and a shared influence process. Although a definition for the term leadership does not exists Yukl defines it as the process of inspiring others to comprehend and
Leadership from an Integrative Approach

The integrative approach, as explained in Yukl’s work (2010), is the combination of two or more variables or approaches to try to explain the effectiveness of leadership in organizations since more than one type of leadership variable would be present in the studies made by researchers.

Strengths

The main strength in the Integrative Approach is the flexibility that it suggests which is needed to accustom organizations to this volatile, chaotic and constantly changing global environment (Robbins & Judge, 2011). Leaders in this approach sacrifice themselves and their abilities to transform their followers by raising the sense of the importance and value of their tasks serving as guidance. In addition, attributes to this approach have been identified as self-confidence, a vision, strong conviction in that vision, extraordinary or novel behavior and ability to create an image of a change agent (Yukl, 2010).

Weaknesses

The main weakness in the Integrative Approach is that it does not include all of the variables. Furthermore, the cultural environment in which the approach is to be applied must be taken into account as the communication must be effective in order for the leadership to be effective (Yukl, 2010/ Robbins & Judge, 2011).

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