Leadership Models, Styles & Philosophies

What’s this article about?  It’s about the confusion caused by the sheer number of leadership theories and how this makes it harder for leaders to become wiser and more skilful in their role.  It suggests a way to dispel the fog without losing the benefits of the many valuable ideas on leadership.

So Many Leadership Theories & Ideas

Heard of Situational leadership?  Servant leadership?  Authentic leadership?  Values-based leadership?  Transformational leadership?  The Three Levels of Leadership?

“Stop,” I hear you saying, “Enough.”  But there’s more… Transactional leadership.  Charismatic leadership.  Narcissistic leadership. Fiedler’s Contingency model.  Path-Goal theory.  Bolman & Deal’s Four Frame model.  And still there’s more to come…  But I agree, enough is enough.

What’s The Problem?

There’s nothing wrong with having dozens of ideas around leadership.  You could argue that leadership itself is an abstract idea, so people will inevitably want to write about the purpose, practice and theory of leadership.  And, above all, on how we can develop ourselves and become better leaders.

However, I think we would advance the cause of leadership development and have more ethical, capable leaders if we could better distinguish and classify the many ideas around leadership. That way, budding leaders would learn which materials offer practical guidance on how to grow as a leader and which are more intended as intellectual food for thought.

Leadership Models, Leadership Philosophies & Leadership Styles

One way of dispelling the fog and organising our thinking around leadership is to see the differences between leadership models, leadership philosophies and leadership styles.  Here is how I define the three:

• Leadership Models: theories or ideas on how to lead effectively or become a better leader.  Examples include leadership traits theories, Blake & Mouton’s Managerial Grid, Hersey & Blanchard’s Situational Leadership model, my own Three Levels of Leadership model, Kouzes & Posner’s Five Leadership Practices model and John Adair’s Action-Centred Leadership model.
• Leadership Philosophies: a value-laden view of what leaders should be and how they should act. Their main purpose is not to guide you on how to lead effectively or become a better leader. Instead, the focus of leadership philosophies is on what kind of leadership you should offer. Their other aim is to explain the sources of a leader’s power.  Examples include Servant Leadership, Authentic Leadership, Ethical Leadership, Values-Based Leadership and French & Raven’s analysis of the five sources of leadership power.
• Leadership Styles: descriptions or classifications of the main ways in which different real-life leaders behave. Unlike leadership models, their aim is not to help individuals become better leaders; it’s simply to describe the main forms of leadership we see in the world. And unlike leadership philosophies, leadership styles offer no guidance on the kind of leadership that leaders should offer; it’s merely descriptive. Examples of leadership styles include Transformational Leadership, Transactional Leadership, Charismatic Leadership and Narcissistic Leadership.

Seeing Through The Fog

So if you’re wanting to improve yourself as a leader, bearing these three categories in mind may help you cut your way through the jungle of leadership thinking and avoid reading stuff that’s interesting, but doesn’t help you much.

And if you are approaching the subject of leadership from an academic angle, this simple three-way split between leadership models, leadership styles and leadership philosophies could be the key to grasping the nuances of the different ideas without getting lost in the leadership jargon.

Does this help?