ABSTRACT
Lewin, Lippitt and White (1939) were the first academics to suggest that there were three different leadership approaches – autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire. This theory was further developed by Robert Tannenbaum and Warren Schmidt (1973), who published their initial model in 1958. This model, shown in Figure 5.1, called the ‘continuum of leadership behaviour’ describes the range of possible leadership styles available to managers. This was later updated in 1973 to reflect a number of organisational and societal changes.
