Are you eager to excel in a managerial or supervisorial position, but struggling to see yourself as a natural leader?
Fortunately, even if being a leader doesn’t come naturally to you, some of the lessons learned from leadership theories can help you to identify and adopt crucial leadership qualities and behaviours.
To help you understand the importance of leadership theories, we’ve created this comprehensive guide to the top ten leadership theories and how you can apply them to your personal or professional life.
Alternatively, if you’d like expert support with your individual leadership development requirements, why not speak to a helpful member of our team today to find out how we can help?
What is a leadership theory?
What exactly makes a leader successful? Leadership theories aim to answer this question. A leadership theory is simply an attempt at explaining how and why certain individuals become effective leaders.
Leadership theories tend to focus on exploring the qualities, characteristics, skills, and behaviours of individuals that become leaders.
Why is leadership theory important?
Leadership theories are important because they can help us to identify certain characteristics and behaviours that can be adopted by others to help them improve their own leadership abilities.
Understanding what makes a good leader can be essential to the success of many businesses. This is because employees tend to look to their managers, directors, and supervisors for vital motivation, guidance, and support.
Without a strong leader to drive a group forward, be it a family or workforce, progression and growth is likely to be hindered. In business, this lack of leadership can have a direct, negative impact on turnover, the development of professional relationships, and the overall success of the company.
What are the fundamentals of leadership?
The exact number and type of leadership fundamentals does vary depending on who you ask, but there are some key qualities that frequently appear in leadership theories. This includes strong ethics, self-awareness, communication, influence, visionary thinking, and learning agility.
Strong ethics
Having high moral standards as a leader is crucial to the creation of an inspired, motivated, and engaged workplace culture as this approach centres around doing what is right. Ethical leaders are therefore experts at decision-making and establishing clear expectations for employees.
Self-awareness
Self-awareness in a leader ensures that they have a good understanding of both their strengths and weaknesses, allowing them to continually improve in many different areas. This quality also ensures that they’re aware of how their behaviour might impact, be it positively or negatively, the people around them.
Communication
Effective communication is one of the most vital ways that a leader can inspire, build trust, and create a rapport between themselves and their employees. This is because good leaders ensure their employees understand what’s expected of them and give them the confidence to safely voice their opinions.
Influence
All leaders must demonstrate the ability to influence the behaviours, attitudes, opinions and choices of others. Once a decision has been made, the leader must use their influence to encourage other group members to support it otherwise the desired or expected outcome of the decision may not be achieved.
Visionary thinking
Visionary thinking refers to the ability to see the bigger picture and to plan for it by taking both potential obstacles and opportunities into consideration. Leaders that utilise visionary thinking are great at embracing change, driving growth, and working in an innovative way to boost the success of their organisation.
Learning agility
If you’re able to easily and quickly adapt to new ways of working, then you may be someone with the sought-after benefit of learning agility. This approach can be incredibly useful as it can help leaders to determine what their next steps should be when they’re unsure what to do.
How many leadership theories are there?
According to Scientific Research’s Open Journal of Leadership, there over 66 theories of leadership.
This wide range of leadership theories has been developed since some of the first theories emerged in the 19th century, but there are some key theories of leadership that are the most well-known in the practice and research of leadership.
Top 10 leadership theories for 2025
With almost 70 leadership theories to explore, it can be difficult finding one that resonates with your beliefs or options. To support you with this substantial task, the helpful team at Leadership Success has listed ten of the most well-known and popular theories of leadership below.
The Transactional Theory
Also known as the Management Theory, this leadership theory was put forward by the German sociologist, Max Weber, in 1947. The theory states that this type of leader uses a system of direct rewards and reprimands to create structure and order, which are often most effective when implemented in fast-paced and goal-orientated environments.
When an employee does something correctly or meets a specific deadline, this behaviour will be rewarded. Similarly, those that don’t meet performance requirements, will be reprimanded. Employees are therefore incentivised to meet targets to both avoid penalties and receive rewards.
The Transformational Theory
The transformational leadership theory revolves around leaders encouraging, inspiring, and motivating their employees to meet their full potential. This theory was created by James V. Downton in 1973 and suggests that transformational leaders use communication and positive reinforcement to help workers meet targets.
Part of this approach involves identifying which changes are needed to help the employees obtain a shared vision. Often, this type of leader is so effective at boosting morale that workers perform beyond their expectations, allowing them to achieve remarkable results.
The Contingency Theory
Proposed by the Austrian psychologist, Fred Edward Fiedler, in 1964, the contingency theory states that leadership is only effective if it fits the situation. It therefore works on the premise that people have different leadership styles that cannot be changed or adapted.
This means that one individual could be a fantastic leader is one circumstance, but an ineffective leader in another – it all depends on that particular situation and whether the individual’s leadership style lends itself to that situation.
The Situational Theory
While similar to the contingency theory of leadership in that it also asserts that no one leadership style is suitable for all situations, the situational theory believes that an individual’s leadership style can be changed and adjusted to suit various circumstances.
Developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard in 1969, this theory states that the most effective leaders have the flexibility to adapt their approach based off the needs of their team or individual members. As a result, no one leadership style is considered the best according to this theory.
The Great Man Theory
In contrast to other leadership theories that suggest leaders can be made, the great man theory attests that certain individuals are born with characteristics that make them good leaders. It adds that these individuals take on their leadership positions within a group when their traits are required.
This means that some people simply cannot be leaders because they don’t possess the necessary innate leadership characteristics of a ‘great man’, such as heroic courage or superior intellect. Developed by the philosopher Thomas Carlyle in 1840, this theory became popular in the 19th century with the rise of prominent leaders like Napoleon Bonaparte.
The Trait Theory
Similar to the great man theory, the trait theory of leadership dates back to the mid-1800s and originally suggested that only certain individuals were born to become leaders based on their innate personality traits and characteristics, such as confidence and charisma.
This theory therefore focused on identifying the various inheritable traits that help make certain individuals the most effective leaders. However, a more recent comeback of this theory moves away from the belief that inherited personality traits alone determine leadership success.
Instead, it attests that certain traits of effective leaders can also be acquired, such as cultural and social traits.
The Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory
First emerging in the 1970s, the leader-member exchange theory takes a relationship-based approach to the two-way exchange that happens between a leader and other group members. This theory stipulates that leaders establish different kinds of relationships with their subordinates.
They select the best members of the group and attempt to form stronger relationships with them that the subordinates can choose to accept or not. This process therefore involves leaders putting in more effort and taking an active interest in what certain followers want to build strong, respect-based relationships with them.
These stronger interpersonal relationships are designed to produce different positive emotions to help boost group growth and productivity. At the same time, it posits that leaders cannot maintain these strong relationships will all employees due to their limited time and resources.
The Behavioural Theory
The behavioural theory was developed in the 1960s and involves the observation and evaluation of a leader’s behaviour (what they do and how they act). By exploring how leaders respond to different situations, their behaviours can be identified, signalling a move away from the belief that only inherent personality traits determine the effectiveness of a leader.
Although similar to the trait theory, the behavioural theory of leadership analyses how leaders act instead of their inherent characteristics. As a result, it asserts that individuals can become leaders by understanding these actions and implementing them into the way they behave and respond to situations.
The Servant Leader Theory
A type of moral-based leadership, the servant leader theory has its foundations in ethical and caring behaviour. It posits that leaders should adopt this approach to help meet the needs of other group members, rather than their own, or the group as a whole.
The goal of the leader is therefore to serve and empower their employees by including them in the decision-making process and putting their well-being first. This style of leadership requires the individual to possess certain characteristics such as empathy, stewardship, communication, and commitment to the personal growth of others.
The Participative Theory
Developed in the late 1990’s, the participative theory of leadership shares some similarities with the servant leader theory in that group members are involved in decision-making for the overall group. It encourages employee feedback and takes a more democratic approach to driving the organisation forward.
Participative leaders tend to be good listeners, empathetic, communicative, and open-minded, but this style of leadership can be more time-consuming as leaders need to dedicate more time to collaborating with all members of the group.
However, the believed benefits of the participative theory is that group members are more satisfied and work better together, leading to higher levels of retention for the organisation.
Implementing a coaching leadership style in the workplace
Coaching leadership is now commonplace across a wide range of different workplaces. It’s used by leading business figures such as Sheryl Sandberg, the CEO of Facebook, who combines high expectations for her employees, combined with praise and recognition.
Widely regarded as a transformational leader, she sets famously high standards and uses the success of individuals to inspire others. Despite her reputation for exacting standards she’s also seen as an open and reflective leader who encourages her team to come to her with ideas and insights that she might have missed.
Another example of successful coaching leadership was set by Satya Nadella when he stepped in as CEO of Microsoft. At the time, Microsoft was performing well but was believed to be stagnating with a range of challenges on the horizon. He helped to transform the organisation through the development of a growth mindset for employees and fellow leaders. This embedded a coaching leadership style at Microsoft leading to a cultural shift in the organisation.
How has leadership theory involved?
Previously, the key theories of leadership, such as the great man theory and trait theory, revolved around the belief that certain individuals were simply born with the natural skills and qualities that make them good leaders.
However, more recent leadership theories take a different approach. Instead of assuming all leaders are born with these qualities, these newer theories propose that a combination of learned behaviours, as well as experience and situational variables also play an important role.
For example, situational and contingent leadership theories assert that the best leaders are individuals that can adjust their style to suit a certain context. As adjusting leadership style is type of skill, these theories suggest that leadership can be practised, developed, and improved over time.
Receive tailored leadership development
Eager to learn more about which behaviours and characteristics are most commonly associated with leaders? Please feel free to get in touch with our knowledgeable team today.
Working alongside a varied network of expert delivery partners, we provide both practical assessment services as well as coach-led development programs to support emerging, frontline, and middle managers.
Our external partners give you the confidence to identify and work through a wide range of leadership issues by creating a safe, confidential environment and providing you with an objective point of view.
To speak to one of our helpful team members about your leadership development requirements, simply give us a call on 02045292622.
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