The Nature of Leadership
Previous units have addressed how organizations are changing in response to the dynamic business environment. This leaves questions about how the role of leadership will change as well. This resource offers insights into the nature of leadership, the process of leadership, and how leaders emerge in organizations.
Leader Emergence
The Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum
In the 1950s, Tannenbaum and Schmidt created a continuum along which leadership styles range from authoritarian to extremely high levels of worker freedom. Subsequent to Tannenbaum and Schmidt's work, researchers adapted the continuum by categorizing leader power styles as autocratic (boss-centered), participative (workers are consulted and involved), or free-rein (members are assigned the work and decide on their own how to do it; the leader relinquishes the active assumption of the role of leadership).
Exhibit 12.6 Tannenbaum and Schmidt's Leadership Continuum