Cultural Dimensions of Leadership
February 12, 2025
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The theory was developed by Robert House and has its roots in the expectancy theory of motivation. The theory is based on the premise that an employee’s perception of expectancies between his effort and performance is greatly affected by a leader’s behavior.
The leaders help group members in attaining rewards by clarifying the paths to goals and removing obstacles to performance. They do so by providing the information, support, and other resources which are required by employees to complete the task.
House’s theory advocates servant leadership. As per servant leadership theory, leadership is not viewed as a position of power. Rather, leaders act as coaches and facilitators to their subordinates.
According to House’s path-goal theory, a leader’s effectiveness depends on several employee and environmental contingent factors and certain leadership styles. All these are explained in the figure 1 below:
Figure 1: Path-Goal Leadership TheoryThe four leadership styles are:
He/She makes judicious use of rewards and disciplinary action. The style is the same as task-oriented one.
He/She consults his subordinates on important decisions related to work, task goals, and paths to resolve goals.
The leader believes that employees are responsible enough to accomplish challenging goals. This is the same as goal-setting theory.
According to the theory, these leadership styles are not mutually excusive and leaders are capable of selecting more than one kind of a style suited for a particular situation.
The theory states that each of these styles will be effective in some situations but not in others.
It further states that the relationship between a leader’s style and effectiveness is dependent on the following variables:
When team cohesiveness is low, a supportive leadership style must be used whereas in a situation where performance-oriented team norms exist, a directive style or possibly an achievement-oriented style works better. Leaders should apply directive style to counteract team norms that oppose the team’s formal objectives.
The theory has been subjected to empirical testing in several studies and has received considerable research support.
This theory consistently reminds the leaders that their main role as a leader is to assist the subordinates in defining their goals and then to assist them in accomplishing those goals in the most efficient and effective manner.
This theory gives a guide map to the leaders about how to increase subordinates satisfaction and performance level.
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