One of the current approaches to leadership that has been the focus of much research in the recent decade is the bass model approach. In fact, this model is part of the new leadership paradigm, which gives more attention to the transformational element of
Leadership styles
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IJCMA 25,3
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leadership. Bass and Riggio (2006) suggested that its popularity may be due to its emphasis on intrinsic motivation and follower development.
Transformational leaders rather than focusing solely on current needs of their employees or themselves focus on future needs. These leaders rather than being concerned with short-term problems and opportunities faced by the organization are more concerned with long-term issues, rather than viewing intra- and extra- organizational factors as discrete, view them in a holistic perspective. The transformational leadership is not a substitute for transactional leadership, rather a complement to it. Research has proven that transformational leadership augments the effects of transactional leadership (Bass, 1990). These components of transformational and transactional leadership are predicted to effect organizational outcomes, followers’ satisfaction and leaders’ performance. Bass (1990) observed that a leader generally exhibits both styles, with one being more predominant. In an attempt to identify the behaviors underlying these leadership styles, Bass developed the multi-factor leadership theory. This model has been generalized across a wide variety of organizations, cultures and hierarchical levels of management (Bass and Avolio, 1993).
The transformational leadership has consistently been linked to high levels of effort, performance and satisfaction (Bass, 1990). Epitropaki and Martin (2005) examined the impact of transformational and transactional leadership perceptions as important predictors of employees’ reported organizational identification, performance, affective organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behaviors, burnout and employees’ health (Lewis, 2003; Saeed, 2008). Rafferty and Griffin (2004) developed a series of hypotheses suggesting that certain sub-dimensions of transformational leadership that are uniquely associated with a number of outcomes include affective and continuance commitment, role breadth self-efficacy, interpersonal helping behaviors and intentions to turnover.
Transactional leaders identify and clarify subordinates’ job tasks and communicate to them how successful execution of tasks will lead to the receipt of desirable rewards. Transactional managers determine and define goals for their subordinates, suggest how to execute tasks and provide feedback. Previous investigations suggest that transactional leadership can have a favorable influence on attitudinal and behavioral responses of employees (Bass, 1990).
Laissez-faire leaders abdicate their responsibility and avoid making decisions. Subordinates working under this kind of supervisor basically are left to their own devices to execute their job responsibilities. Although laissez-faire leadership is observed infrequently, managers still exhibit it in varying amounts. Prior research has found that laissez-faire leadership has an adverse effect on work-related outcomes of employees (Yammarino and Bass, 1990).
Blake and Mouton (1964) and Rahim (1992) tried to measure the strategies in which individuals typically deal with the conflicts. This approach treated conflict styles as individual disposition, stable over time and across situations. It is argued and supported by literature that leadership styles or behaviors remain stable over time and are expected to be significantly related to conflict management styles (Hendel, 2005). A schematic model can be sketched to explain the overlapping role of both models of leadership and conflict management styles (Figure 1).
In the proposed model, the conflict style constructs are shown in the top row of each entry whereas the leadership constructs are shown in parentheses on the bottom row.