Leadership Styles
Relationship- and Task-Based Leadership Styles
In leading groups and organizations, managers and leaders alike adopt different kinds of styles or approaches to be able to achieve specific objectives. These objectives could include establishing rapport and cohesion within a group, be it from a team or organizational level. Another objective that a leader could aspire to achieve is to focus on accomplishing the task or work at hand, regardless of the nature of the relationship between the leader and his/her team members/employees. Alternatively, a leader might aspire to maintain both relational and performance aspects of his responsibilities for his/her team or organization. Thus, s/he would work deliberately to maintain a balance between maintaining good relationships with group members and successfully accomplishing the task assigned to the group.
The types of leadership described above are illustrative of either the relationship-based or task-based leadership. Relationship-based leadership style is characterized by a kind of leadership that cultivates "three highly interrelated and mutually reinforcing dimensions: shared purpose, social support, and voice" (Avolio, 2009:432). Relationship-based leadership helps maintain the leader's authority through a shared understanding and knowledge of the people or members within the group. Further elucidating on these three dimensions of relationship-based leadership, Avolio's study looked at "shared purpose" as a form of socially-reinforced...
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