ABSTRACT
Leadership theory has developed within three broad but overlapping strands or approaches. The first of these, which could loosely be classified as an Academic Psychology Strand, has evolved from an early focus on the traits of leaders (Bass, 1990a), through a focus on leader behaviour or styles (Bass, 1990a; Blake and Mouton, 1964; Halpin, 1966; Lewin, Lippitt and White, 1939), on to a focus on leadership contingencies (Fiedler, 1974) and situational factors affecting leadership styles (Blanchard, Zigarmi and Zigarmi, 2004; Hersey and Blanchard, 1977). As this strand has developed, it is questionable whether or not it actually contains a theory of leadership at all. In many ways, it has the characteristics of a theory of management or, at worst, a theory of compliance. The focus of the research has often been on leadership in business or industrial settings or within the military and its central question has been how to get people (the subordinates) to follow someone else's (the manager's) leadership. It tends to assume that the tasks to be accomplished, or the goals of leadership, are unilaterally set by management, are not open to question and the objective is to figure out how to induce compliance with these goals or with this task. Leadership itself is rarely defined within this strand and it is rarely studied outside the context of management. Trade union leadership, for example, or the leadership of political or social change movements have received very little attention. Leadership within oppressed or marginalized groups has also received little attention. In more recent years, this strand has begun to overlap with a second approach that can be classified as the Organization Development/Management Theory Strand.
