Leadership Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Leadership - Term Paper Example An effective leadership is reflected in terms of the leader’s behavior, tactics, strategies, and adaptability to situations. However, in the modern day world, corporations have witnessed a drastic change in the model of leadership where no such model can be regarded perfectly right or absolutely wrong. Their implementation has become leader specific. The change in leadership style has been reflected in terms of the leader’s vision, planning, and effective application of resources in order to ensure a smooth and friendly operating environment whereby high level of productivity and personnel satisfaction can be achieved. As such this report will focus on different theories of leadership and will evaluate the leadership style of three leaders, Brain, Larry and Tom, who work for Kay and Associates Inc, based on the leadership theories studied within the report. Table of Contents Introduction 4 Leadership Theories 5 Leadership Grid 5 Path Goal Theory 7 Fiedler’s conti ngency model 8 Leadership Style Evaluation 9 Brain 9 Larry 10 Tom 12 Conclusion 13 References 14 Introduction Kay and Associates, Inc. (KAI) is a small business that was established in 1960 providing cost effective and exceptional quality technical services to Government and Commercial customers worldwide. Their operations for the last 50 years have got worldwide recognition and thus they are always expected to provide the very best of their services to their customers from all over the world. KAI's line of operations involve management of complex depot level aviation maintenance operations, metrology laboratory operations, maintenance test flight, flight training, management and operation of customer owned ground support equipment and direct maintenance and support for daily flight operations Currently KAI holds the contract to maintain aviation Contract Field Team (CFT) on HAAF, GA, for the US government providing all levels of maintenance, including Organizational, Intermediate a nd Depot level support (Kay and Associates Inc, 2010). The CFT for this department is composed of three subsequent teams along with few support personnel. The first two team’s line of work involves Chinook helicopters and comprises of 13 members, and is headed by Brian and Larry. Whereas the third team, comprising of 9 people, is led by Tom and they work on black hawk helicopters. This report will involve a thorough analysis of leadership theories such as the leadership grid, path – goal theory and Fiedler’s contingency model thereby evaluating the performance of each of the leaders mentioned above. Leadership Theories Leadership Grid Leadership can be defined as a process which initiates, enables, develops implements and maintains a change in the management of an individual, group or an organization (Mackenzie, 2006). In this rapidly changing environment the role of leaders rather than managers has become a critical factor contributing towards the performance o f an organization (Cope & Wadell, 2001). A similar theory has been explained by Natale, Sora & Kavalipurapu (2004). According to Zeidan (2009), some leaders are task oriented (whose leadership is based on setting and enforcing tight schedules) whereas some are people oriented (whose leadership is based on accommodating employee needs). The important thing here is to identify one’