Traditional leadership assumptions

Traditional leadership assumptions include the idea that conflict has a negative impact on the organization and that the leader acts externally on the system to create change toward a predetermined goal; these assumptions restrict traditional leaders from supporting innovation (Plowman & Duchon, 2008). Stacey (2007) suggested that leaders who are disconnected from the system and create visions and plans without input from the agents can push the system away from its desired state and thus increase organizational anxiety. For example, an emergency department director decides to make budget cuts by reducing staffing based solely on historical patient flow trends and
in the process creates a chronic short staffing problem as flow and acuity change unpredictably.