Path-Goal Theory
Purpose: Leadership is the key to the success of organizations, businesses or individuals. While the leaders are important, so are the subordinates. This article digs deep into the leader-subordinate relationships, what are the expectations from the leader, what are the various kind of leadership styles and how each styles impacts the subordinates.
There have been immense amount of researches done on the topic of leadership and impact on subordinates. One theory ‘Expectancy theory’ states that and individual’s attitude (eg. Satisfaction with supervision or job satisfaction) or behavior (e.g. leader behavior or job effort) can be predicted from 1) the degree to which the job or behavior is seen as leading to various outcomes (expectancy and 2) the evaluation of these outcomes. Our interest on any project basically depends on the expected outcome. I want to relate this theory to a different kind of topic. I have observed, peoples’ passion for a certain “demand” goes down after they don’t see an outcome from the authorities. A good example could be the “Immigration Protests”. The proponents of “path to citizenship” and illegal aliens did protests etc. several times between 2008-2011. These protests were more common and passionate in President Obama’s previous tenure. But since nothing has come out even after several years of unrelenting protests, debates and voting on numerous immigration bills in the congress, I feel now that they are exhausted and not very positive this time around.
The Path-Goal Theory of Leadership suggests that effective leadership affects subordinates’ motivation and their ability to perform. The theory proposes that leaders behavior is acceptable to subordinates as far as it is a source of satisfaction also leaders behavior is motivational for the subordinates if it helps the subordinates to perform better or it provides coaching, guidance, support or reward for effective performance. Considering these propositions Path-Goal theory suggest
There have been immense amount of researches done on the topic of leadership and impact on subordinates. One theory ‘Expectancy theory’ states that and individual’s attitude (eg. Satisfaction with supervision or job satisfaction) or behavior (e.g. leader behavior or job effort) can be predicted from 1) the degree to which the job or behavior is seen as leading to various outcomes (expectancy and 2) the evaluation of these outcomes. Our interest on any project basically depends on the expected outcome. I want to relate this theory to a different kind of topic. I have observed, peoples’ passion for a certain “demand” goes down after they don’t see an outcome from the authorities. A good example could be the “Immigration Protests”. The proponents of “path to citizenship” and illegal aliens did protests etc. several times between 2008-2011. These protests were more common and passionate in President Obama’s previous tenure. But since nothing has come out even after several years of unrelenting protests, debates and voting on numerous immigration bills in the congress, I feel now that they are exhausted and not very positive this time around.
The Path-Goal Theory of Leadership suggests that effective leadership affects subordinates’ motivation and their ability to perform. The theory proposes that leaders behavior is acceptable to subordinates as far as it is a source of satisfaction also leaders behavior is motivational for the subordinates if it helps the subordinates to perform better or it provides coaching, guidance, support or reward for effective performance. Considering these propositions Path-Goal theory suggest