Understanding leadership principles and practices

¶ … Leadership

The theories of leadership advanced by Max Weber, James MacGregor Burns and Daniel Goleman are some of the most influential and sophisticated notions in the field of leadership. Some of the ideas denoted by these men have an intrinsic link to one another, such as both Weber and Burns' conception of transactional and transformative leaders. The philosophical espousing of this triumvirate have directly influenced many of the ideas of contemporary leadership philosophers, and have largely set the stage for modern day notions of leadership as both an academic and pragmatic field of interest. The positive and negative attributes of their theories are examined in the subsequent paragraphs.

Weber's most outstanding contribution to the field of leadership was his initial conceptualization of leadership largely hinging upon both context and circumstance. This realization of Weber's allows for a fluidity and flexibility in leadership that varies upon whatever sort of situation a leader finds himself in and what his own personal strengths and attributes are. In alignment with this notion, Weber delineated three archetypes of leaders with accordant values: those of the bureaucratic, charismatic, and traditional leader. Again, the true value in this theory of leadership is that a good leader will adopt these poses with a prudence that is based upon whatever situation in which he finds himself.

These leadership types can be stratified into a pair of paradigms that apply to leadership -- those that are transactional and those that are transformational in nature. The latter of these largely pertains to charismatic leaders, who generally possess innate qualities that can inspire and compel people to follow them. Therefore, these type of leaders can set precedents in policy and in approach to leading others -- since they largely have the charisma and personality traits to inspire confidence in people to adhere to them in unconventional settings and ways (Williams, no date). Bureaucratic leadership, or that which is of legal-rational authority, is an example of transactional leadership in which rulers employ an intrinsic knowledge of legal procedures and codes to govern others. This type of leadership is considerably more static than transactional leadership. Examples of traditional leadership include patriarchies and have rigid caste systems in which there are clear distinctions between "born" followers and leaders.

Interestingly enough, many of the tenets of leadership theory that are important to James Macgregor Burns have a direct correlation to those denoted by Weber. Burns is primarily known for his work in transformational leadership theory (London, 2008), in which he defined a number of different types of leaders and accordant styles including a charismatic leader. However, the principle positive attribute associated with Burns' work in transformational leadership theory has to do with the sense of mores he associates with it. Burns' conception of transformational leadership is largely based on a preoccupation with moral behavior and the pursuit of virtues that are best categorized as those that pertain to human rights. Furthermore, the author conceives of this moral behavior in a hierarchized sense in which the overarching goal of transformation leadership is to secure these rights for the general public. In keeping with this conception of leadership, Burns' esteem of transformational leaderships seeks to discern what sort of moral reasons a person becomes a leader, and what positive effects upholding the aforementioned mores that person's leadership will have upon the public.

Although Burns also defined aspects of leadership theory that adhered to transactional leadership, his most influential work in this field was related to transformational leadership. As such, there were a few inherent negatives associated with his notions of transformational leadership, such as its reliance upon motivation in order to properly galvanize a group of followers. Additionally, his conception of transformational leadership was less able than other styles of leadership to accommodate unforeseen obstacles.