Leadership Styles and its impact onThe Development Learning at Literature review

Leadership Styles and its impact onThe Development Learning at Universities - Literature review Example The paper tells that since time immemorial, humans have constantly been engaging in social activities that out of necessity resulted in some individuals becoming leaders while others took the role of following the roles of the leaders. In as much as some theorist may suggest that every person is a leader of his or her own, but in this case, we would like to speak of a leader one who is at the top of any organizational pyramid after appointment, promotion, attrition or the like. In recent times, as the population continues to expand and there got an increase in interdependence in all human areas, leadership started taking keen toll on management. As population increases, the need of having appropriate leaders to lead groups of people has emanated. In accordance to Northhouse, leadership becomes defined as a process where a person influences a certain group of people to achieve a given common goal. Leadership remains to be a term that evolved through time and became lately more popular as interests in it continued. Leadership began mostly with the productivity law that states that the most productive individuals became awarded something or an honor. It then evolved to become a management law when people became supposed to manage other individuals in order to improve on productivity leading to it becoming leadership law. In any learning institution for instance, there are many different leaders that got different styles plus different levels of popularity. Leadership styles Leadership style in simple terms can be described as how an individual plays a given role. In addition, it could imply how a given individual reacts, decides, interacts and treats other people. Kurt Lewin (1939, p.78) led some researchers in identify various different styles of leadership. From his research and many more on leadership styles, there are over 10 leadership styles that became identified in influencing developmental learning in universities (Goleman 2004, p.18). Examples of basic l eadership styles commonly employed in university settings by the leaders include autocratic, bureaucratic, Laissez faire and democratic leadership. Other leadership styles include transformational leadership, transactional, creative, corrective, change, intelligence, multicultural, pedagogical, bridging, servant and purposeful leadership (Dereli 2010, p.6; Glanz 2002, p.3; Kippenberger 2002, p.10). History The interest and documentation of academic leadership more so began in the middle part of the 20th century. It started with seminal works focused specifically on the notion that most successful leaders were in possession of certain intellectual and physical attributes that made them become successful in leading others. The trait theory, emanated as a product of leadership positions bestowed by a higher power historically through birthright therefore, producing the belief that most leaders get born rather than made. One of the first published work in this field belonged to Stogdill . Stogdill and Shartle (1948, p.3) approached this work with intentions of identifying key traits perceived as common attributes associated with successful leaders. After Stogdill and Shartle, many more studies became conducted to add up to their list of leadership traits (Mann 1959, p.34; Locke & Kirkpatrick 1991, p.56; Alliger, Lord 1986, p.67). A lot of differences and commonalities in the leadership traits identified by some of these researchers continued to show prevalence among various academic institutions. After the Stogdill and Shartle, additional efforts became placed on coming up with things that make an individual possess strong leadership skills. This led to the birth of the skills approach in ascertain some leadership qualities (Lewis 1993, p.18). The skills approach disagrees with the trait approach in a number of ways. In as much as both the skills approa