Page 16 - Management 19 (2024), številka 1

Jakob Wieland et al. | An Exploration of Traditional Approaches to Leadership

company and NGO members. In the NGO, it is approaches – as described in core leadership text-
easier to motivate members because the mem- books (e.g. Yukl 2010; Lussier and Achua 2010),
bers join with the wish to contribute to the activ- are relevant to understanding how leaders think
ities of a non-profit. Nonetheless, he explained about their leadership behaviour. However, dis-
that motivation is also needed in NGOs as it can tinguishing traits from behaviours and context
grow its reach. For this purpose, the members of proved to be tricky at times. For instance, the pi-
the NGOs are given opportunities to attend train- lot of our interview questionnaire revealed that
ings and conferences. In the private company the respondents are likely to link specific traits to
leader needs to be more decisive and make em- behaviours and behaviours to specific situations.
ployees feel their responsibilities, which means Leadership research, therefore, needs to align
even letting people go if they do not perform trait, behaviour and context approaches.
their job properly. Our interview questionnaire included 13 ques-
The respondent’s answers highlight the chal- tions to operationalize the traditional approach-
lenges of adapting leadership behaviours in dif- es to leadership. The concepts underlying these
ferent organizational contexts. In addition, they approaches are complex, have many dimensions
underscore the difficulty of changing leadership and would require a much more elaborate inter-
styles, as evidenced by the interviewee’s expe- view questionnaire than the one applied here. For
rience transitioning from leading an NGO to a instance, we have measured extraversion with
private company. The discussion emphasizes the two questions, but the extrovert personality has
influence of context, with the interviewee find- more than two traits and these traits would re-
ing that certain behaviours, such as networking, quire a more detailed questionnaire, for instance
are effective across both business and non-profit also using a survey. Alternatively, one could fo-
environments. The importance of effective com- cus on writing an article and conducting research
munication, task definition, and employee mo- only on a selected personality (for instance, ex-
tivation are also highlighted, emphasizing the troversion) or a selected behaviour (for instance,
multifaceted nature of leadership behaviours and networking). However, the purpose here was to
the need for adaptability based on specific organ- apply our knowledge from the lectures to im-
izational requirements and circumstances. prove our understanding of the leadership theo-
Having explored the intricacies of leadership ries. We do not make any new knowledge claims.
behaviour within the context of the interviewee’s In fact, we only interviewed one person, which
responses, the transition to the contingency ap- even for qualitative studies, is an insufficient
proach became the subsequent focus. While the number to uncover patterns from the data. For
initial discussions shed light on aspects related to more general findings, we would need to replicate
the broader context of leadership, the final section our interview in more instances.
of the interview protocol was specifically dedicat- Moreover, anybody who wishes to use our in-
ed to probing the contingency approach. During terview protocol should be aware that it is not a
this phase, the interviewee reiterated that leader- comprehensive tool. For instance, in our pilot,
ship manifests differently in the NGO when com- the interview respondent talked about motivat-
pared to the private firm. In the realm of NGOs, ing followers (employees and NGO members/vol-
the emphasis shifts towards a more open leader- unteers) and his relationship (exchanges) with
ship behaviour, fostering greater flexibility and followers. None of our interview questions spe-
independent action among NGO members. The cifically probed these aspects. Hence, we would
leaders within these organizations rely to a greater recommend adding at least one additional sec-
extent on the motivation of their members, draw- tion that deals with followers and how they can
ing empowerment from the overarching mission be motivated.
and activities. Overall, these questions underline
that leaders have to engage in many different be- Conclusion
haviours and that the exercise of some of these The approaches operationalized here for studying
behaviours will depend on the situation at hand. leadership are traditional approaches, used since
the early days of leadership studies. They are
Discussion based on an understanding of leadership as the
Our investigation provided us with several in- traits and behaviours of leaders as individuals.
sights and lessons on how to explore leadership As seen in the article, these traditional approach-
in organizations. We found that the leadership es can be easily applied to describe some basic

16 management 19 (2024) številka 1