Leadership: A Critical Review Of Leadership Theories

Leadership has been defined in a variety of ways, there are multiple authors and theorists who have tried to define and understand leadership, all leading to varying theories and conclusions, but one thing that is universally understood is the importance of effective leadership and how someone with good leadership skills can impact so many people around them. (Kakabadse and Kakabadse, 1999; Yukl, 2002; Northouse,2013)

The main components that have been identified to play a role in leadership are relations between leader and subordinates, interaction form between leader and followers, the influence that the leader has, the way in which the leader behaves and finally a leader’s traits. (Yukl, 2002) These elements that make up a leader, are then used as building blocks to identify the way in which each specific leader deals with its followers.

Critical Review of Leadership Theories

There have been a variety of theorists who have tried to understand how good leaders acquire their skills and whether the components which make up a successful leader are hereditary or learned. Many Studies have been made using twins to identify that about forty percent of differences in personality are hereditary. (Vernon et al., 1998) From this we can see that it is not only a matter of whether a person in born with these skills but one must also build on them to become a successful leader.

Some of the main approaches to convey different leadership styles throughout the years have been The