This year in LDS 1301 we learned about and did a project about the style approach to leadership. This leadership theory assesses leadership in terms of leader task and relationship behavior. It concludes that what leaders do has impacts both on achieving their task but also on the relationship between them and their subordinates. In this style of leadership, there are five main types of leaders based on their task and relationship behaviors. These include country club managers, team managers, middle of the road managers, impoverished managers, and authority-compliance managers. Each other these types of leaders have a varying focus on a combination of task and relational actions. The ideal style to encompass is that of team management, which balances a high concern for leader-subordinate relations as well as a high concern for achieving the task at hand. I think that having this style of leadership approach would be beneficial in almost every situation, as it seems to always be important to have a concern for others as well as a concern for getting your job done. Team management is a healthy balance of both. Below is a diagram outlining the five different types of leadership according to the style approach to leadership.

The situational approach to leadership is one of the more popular approaches to leadership, and is one that I personally relate to. That is because, just as the situations we are in are constantly changing, the leadership approaches we must take are also constantly changing. This style of leadership is based on the idea that different situations call for different kinds of leadership, something that I hold to be completely true. We must evaluate ourselves, the situation, and our subordinates before we can decide how to go about achieving a goal and being the best leader we can be. In matching our leadership styles to the competence and commitment of our subordinates, we are best able to achieve our end goal. We do so by balancing both a directive and supportive role of leadership applied correctly to a given situation. We then match these leadership styles to the development level of the people we aim to lead. All of these is represented in the situational leadership model. Finding the best combination of directive and supportive leadership to match the competence of subordinates is crucial to achieving a goal in the most effective way possible. Bellow is the leadership model that displays the relationship between the two aspects of this leadership theory.

The skills approach to leadership focuses on the belief that certain abilities, knowledge, and skills that can be learned or developed are important to leadership. This theory evaluates the success of a leader on the basis of what they can accomplish. By focusing on what they can do instead of who they are, this concept allows for leadership to be available to everyone instead of a select few with the right leadership traits. The three main skills needed for leadership, according to this theory, are technical, human, and conceptual. Different types of leaders use these three skill sets in different ways to accomplish their goals. In the model for this leadership style, a leader’s attributes, personality, and cognitive abilities influence their acquired skills and knowledge which they use to problem solve and achieve a goal. The leader’s individual attributes and skills are influenced by their past career experiences, while their attributes, skills, and performances are all influenced by environmental factors outside the control of the leader. Together this all makes up the skills model of leadership. I think that this is an important and useful leadership theory. While some people naturally have more leadership qualities than others, I believe that everyone has the potential to be a leader and it is important for everyone to obtain leadership skills and understand how to best use them. This is important because no matter how much or how little of a natural leader someone is, everyone will be placed in a leadership role at some point in their life. This theory helps people how to use their personal attributes along with problem solving, social judgment skills, and knowledge to achieve or solve any problems that come their way.

Below is the skills model associated with the skills approach to leadership.