Leadership Concepts: 4 Concepts to Know

By Jyoti Barman

Updated Over a Week Ago

Minute Read

In today’s world, proper leadership concepts are a crucial factor in ongoing corporate success. Leadership is one of “the” assets that all companies must have for glory. It is because every company goes through many ups and downs. Here, corporations need a fitting leader to guide a team.

Especially in tough situations, where the solutions and motivation seem bleak, effective leadership is the need of the hour. Therefore, companies must find leaders to take them through every facet of the corporate world.

Now that we have understood the importance, it is also essential to understand what makes a great leader. Today, let’s try to understand this better with some crucial leadership concepts. First, let’s get the basics of the topic out of the way with this question.

What are the Leadership Concepts?

Leadership concepts are theories and ideas put forward by experts that lead to good leadership. These theories can include traits, practices, behavior, management approaches, etc. As such, these studies give you a better understanding of what factors make a great leader.

Based on these, there are many leadership concepts. Let’s have a look at four of these.

Four Leadership Concepts You Must Understand

1. Trait Theory

This leadership concept states certain personality traits that make a successful leader. These leadership qualities are good personality, intellect, initiative, maturity, confidence, flexibility, responsiveness, fairness, decisiveness, etc.

While this concept seems right at first glance, there is certain criticism. Many critics argue that this theory emphasizes mostly inborn traits. It means that a person is either born a leader or not.

This concept doesn’t sit well because leaders aren’t born that way; they are made and cultivated through experiences. The theory also listed many traits of a leader. But this is not true in the real world because there cannot be one “single” set of qualities that makes a great leader.

2. Behavioral Theory

Behavioral Theory is the result of studies by Ohio State University and the University of Michigan. It states that certain behavior of individuals that determines whether they are leaders or not.

This theory helps point out two types of leaders based on their leadership styles or behavior. These are leaders that get results through employee satisfaction or sheer performance.

They came to this conclusion by designing a leadership behavior description questionnaire. It questions individuals on different approaches to situations. Based on the answers, one is either a task-centered leader or an employee-centered leader.

3. Situational Theory

This theory looks at understanding the relationship between a leader and their subordinates. Mainly, the theory dictates that how an individual behaves in certain situations determines leadership competency.

Here, the theory also suggests that behavior must change according to different situations. For example, while leaders can be pleasant at all times, they must be strict regarding specific rules.

The theory looks to understand how an individual behaves in different situations. In this regard, an effective leader is one who acts appropriately in all conditions. They must be motivated in tough times, welcoming during onboarding, strict in handling priority projects, etc.

4. Management or Transactional Theory

This theory links successful leadership to determining appropriate sources of motivation to get results. It runs on the concept of rewards and recognition. The theory believes that a leader can get the best results only when he motivates his team well.

The sources of motivation can be monetary, non-monetary, awards, benefits, etc. The theory also stresses the importance of knowing the right source of motivation. It means there is one shoe fits all attitude.

Leaders should know how to drive their team members and offer the right motivation to get the best results in return.

These were the four leadership concepts you must know to understand what leads to successful leadership.



Conclusion

Great leadership can be hard at times to achieve for companies. But all good things take time, so you must be patient in your pursuit. In our piece today, we hope you understood what many studies found that contribute to successful leadership.

If you have additional leadership concepts that might be helpful to readers, share them in the comments section below. Thanks!

Would you like to contribute a post?

About the author

Jyoti Barman

Jyoti Prakash Barman is an in-house content marketer at Vantage Circle, an employee engagement platform and Vantage Fit, an all-in-one corporate wellness solution. The platforms help corporations connect and engage better with their employees. Jyoti Prakash mainly concentrates effort on informative content creation on essential HR topics of the business world.

{"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}

The Ultimate Leader Masterclass

Unlock  Your Management Team's Full Potential

With Proven Training That Transforms Managers into Exceptional Leaders

>