Wendy Stout
University of Phoenix
Evaluating Contemporary Views of Leadership
Contemporary views of leadership come in many forms. Unlike views of the past, contemporary views of leadership include the complex interaction between the leader and follower, reactions to leadership and results of the leadership style. Six contemporary leadership styles that can be looked at are transactional, transforming, servant, situational, contingency and instrumental. Contemporary leadership views tend to be very similar, but there is much debate over the differences of each of them. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the similarities and differences among these six contemporary views of leadership. …show more content…
Transforming and servant leadership styles are about a long term change and turning followers into leaders. The goal is improvement of something or someone (Spears, 1996), (Wren, 1995). Transactional leadership is short term and the goal is for the exchange of something between the leader and follower. This may be political, educational or economical (Wren, 1995). Situational, contingency and instrumental leadership are task oriented and the leadership style may change after the completion of a task (Kriger & Seng, 2005), (Thompson & Vecchio, 2009).
Situational and contingency leadership styles change as needed. The situational leader changes the type of leadership they used based on follower 's development level (Thompson & Vecchio, 2009). Contingency leaders change styles based on their experiences and the environment the leader and their followers are in (Kriger & Seng, 2005). Instrumental leadership uses the same components of structuring, controlling and rewarding to promote behaviors that the leader wants the followers to have (Wren, …show more content…
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