Introduction
The history of civilization with all of its setbacks and advances can be termed as a chronicle of leadership outcomes, since the decisions of the leaders of various rank and files all along the journey of civilization caused either prosperity or loss in one or the other spheres of the society. Thus, the awareness regarding the value of leadership and the urge to find or create leaders have already produced a large body of leadership literature. On the other hand, people still believing in the old adage, leaders are born and cannot be made, keep arguing that leadership theories are of no use. This study, however, claims that aspiring leaders can develop greater insights regarding leadership practice by closely observing others’ leadership practice and evaluating them under popular leadership theories. Accordingly, it explores a contemporary leadership situation that is familiar to its author, before evaluating the same under the lens of a particular leadership theory such as Path-Goal Style and reaching its own conclusion.
The Situation
The leader under scanner, Mr. Tom, leads a branch of XYZ Company that do business within cell phone industry. Employees irrespective of their rank and file find Tom always approachable for any solution, although his advices vary from person to person. For example, Mr. Bright and Ms. Caroline separately went to him to find solution to a similar customer relationship problem and came back with two different solutions. However, in the end, both solutions worked.
The other notable characteristics of Tom includes his love for explaining an issue on the whiteboard with diagrams at any given opportunity, circling the grey areas of an issue with Red marker and asking ideas from the employees, and keeping tab of the personal skills/abilities of all employees and supporting them as per their needs. However, in the last case, his approaches vary from person to person; for example, he spends more time with the junior colleagues. Apart from the above, he is known for his punctuality, health consciousness, and ready wits.
It is under the leadership of Tom, this branch of the XYZ Company has topped the performance chart last year, and the employees have no doubt to keep that position in this year as well. However, Tom openly attributes this success to the employees by saying, “A leader is as good as his team”.
Evaluation of Tom’s Leadership within Path-Goal Style Framework
Path-Goal Theory in Brief
Path-Goal theory (Evans, 1970; House, 1971; House & Dressler, 1974; House & Mitchell, 1974) takes its cue from Vroom’s (1964) Expectancy Theory, which suggests that humans act to meet their conscious expectations, although their needs may be higher than that. According to Vroom, this happens due to the fact that humans adjust their efforts on the basis of the past experience, i.e., on the basis of one’s own esteem regarding one’s ability. The journey of Path-Goal theory begins right from here, as it suggests the leaders to identify the state of self-esteem among each follower and adopt an appropriate leadership behavior to raise the same at an individual level. In the process it suggests performing generic actions such as defining goals, clarifying path, removing obstacles, and providing support, while underpinning directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented behaviors as four behavioral tools to use as per requirement. In all, this theory helps the leaders to align the self-estimate of each follower to a common, elevated plane and to uniformly motivating them for an optimized performance.
Tom and Path-Goal Style
Tom’s love for explaining an issue on the whiteboard with diagrams amply hints that he defines goals and clarifies path, while the instances of his collaborative approach in resolving problems strongly suggests that he removes the obstacles. Finally the fact that all employees find Tom always approachable for any solution, provides a clear hint that Tom provides support to his followers. Therefore, Tom performs all four generic actions as prescribed under this theory.
The instances of his personal advices varying from person to person under similar situation clearly suggests that he chooses a leadership behavior that would be appropriate under a particular situation. Next, his decision to spend more time with the junior colleagues provides a fair hint that uses both directive and supportive leadership behavior with junior colleagues, since they have little experience and cannot do without direction and guidance. Finally, his habit of circling the grey areas of an issue with Red marker and asking ideas from the employees provide ample hint that he applies achievement oriented leadership behavior. Therefore, Tom uses all behavioral tools prescribed by the Path-Goal Style. His habit of keeping tab of the personal skills/abilities of all employees also consolidates the fact that he is keen to identify the individual state of motivation of the employees, so that he can adopt specific leadership behavior in specific case.
Conclusion
The above findings thus establishes the assumption that Tom follows Path-Goal Style, while the success record of his branch under XYZ Company enables this study to infer that Path-Goal Style is an effective leadership style to use within current business environment. This inference in turn, posits the claim that aspiring leaders can develop greater insights regarding leadership practice by closely observing others’ leadership practice and evaluating them under popular leadership theories.
References
Evans, M. G. (1970). The effects of supervisory behavior on the path–goal relationship. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 5, 277–298.
House, R. J. (1971). A path–goal theory of leader effectiveness. Administrative Science Quarterly, 16, 321–328.
House, R. J., & Dessler, G. (1974). The path–goal theory of leadership: Some post hoc and a priori tests. In J. Hunt & L. Larson (Eds.), Contingency approaches in leadership (pp. 29–55). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
House, R. J., & Mitchell, R. R. (1974). Path–goal theory of leadership. Journal of Contemporary Business, 3, 81–97.
Vroom, V. (1964). Work and motivation. New York: Jon Wiley & Sons.
