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Leadership Theories

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Introduction
A leader is a person who provides direction and inspiration towards a goal. Leadership theory is critical for our understanding of the role individuals can play in shaping an organization. (Clegg et al, 2008) Leadership is considered both a character trait as well as a relational concept whereby one person influences others. (Katz and Kahn, 1978) Over the years many different leadership theories have emerged with some gaining a much wider acceptance than others. Here a discussion on two well known theories is being undertaken to understand what they are and how best they describe the concept of leadership.

Path Goal Theory
Some contemporary theories on leadership have purported that the leadership is all about being able to adapt and show flexibility to ever changing situations and circumstances. This group believes that effective leadership does not stem from some behavioural traits only but to a large extent depends on the situation in which a potential leader might find them. This situation or context as it is called comes from the nature of work that the leader has to carry out, the internal culture and environment of an organization and the external socio economic environment that the organization finds itself in (Fiedler, 1994). Path Goal Theory of leadership belongs to this school of thought. It was first put forward by Robert House (House, 1996) and since then has become one of the most studied and researched theory on leadership.
According to this theory effective leaders motivate their teams by helping them realize that their needs and expectations can be accomplished through the performance of their roles and jobs. As they (the team) achieve their work objectives they get closer to fulfilment of their needs and expectations. The Path Goad theory also emphasizes that the apart from the provision of psychological support to the team, an

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