Leadership Theories

Leadership has been studied from a wide variety of perspectives including psychology, political science, business, sociology, history, philosophy, and public administration. Though numerous definitions for leadership exist, leadership is commonly viewed as a form of social influence. A communication perspective theorizes leadership as a contextual process involving the performance of talk and/or action that other people see as moving toward progress on certain important tasks. As such, leadership is cocreated among people. It is grounded in the performance of people within interaction, it is appropriate and effective, and it is contextual, which means the communicative patterns need to fit with the situation in order for people to see these patterns as leadership.

This definition of leadership does not explicitly address the notion of what counts as communication. Gail Fairhurst, in her book Discursive Leadership makes an important distinction between the two dominant ways that leadership scholars have conceptualized communication—leadership psychology and discursive leadership. Leadership psychology has approached communication as a form of information transfer, where leaders need to appropriately encode messages and deliver them to audiences in order to provide information and persuade them to move in a particular direction. Leadership psychology tends to focus on personality, social, and structural variables that drive communicative behavior; it views context as a relatively stable entity.

Robert House's leadership path-goal theory is a good example of how leadership psychology approaches communication. Within House's framework, the situation may be defined in terms of task structure, the clarity or ambiguity of the goals that people are attempting to achieve, and the means through which they may achieve them. The situation drives the communicative behavior. Because goals and means are quite clear, highly structured situations require relationally oriented behavior that supports individuals. In contrast, highly unstructured situations require task-oriented behavior that can clarify the path individuals need to take in order to accomplish their goals.

The second approach, discursive leadership, treats communication as an active creative force that socially constructs personal and professional identities, relationships, groups, organizations, and societies. A discursive leadership approach acknowledges the importance of both “big-D” Discourse and “little-d” discourse. Big D Discourse refers to the larger social construction of world views, perspectives, and ideologies that are created within social institutions. For example, a Discourse of capitalism emphasizes the importance of people behaving in a rational manner within a competitive environment, attempting to maximize their resources and minimize their costs. Given the intersection of the Discourses of capitalism and of individualism within Western society, not surprising is that early leadership research explored “Great Man” theories of leadership, which focused on the individual personality, physical, and social traits that allowed people to create leadership positions.

Little d discourse focuses on the situated and local interaction of individuals—what people say or do in local interactions. Both Discourse and discourse are intertwined because big D Discourses can serve as important resources for communication and the local discourses can confirm, challenge, [Page 594]or modify Discourses. A discursive view emphasizes the social construction of social realities, whereas leadership psychology emphasizes the transmission of information.

...