n-1 isn't necessarily the wisest choice

Ask any vendor & you will find that one of their greatest frustrations is when customers insist on implementing only the "n-1" release of a particular product. 

At almost every meeting, vendors are asked about the availability of new features, or new capabilities, or new supported configurations that will match what the customer is trying to achieve, and yet when these are finally made available after much development and testing, customers will wait, and stick with supposedly safer older versions.

The risk-management logic, of course, is that the latest release is untried, and may contain flaws and bugs. Unfortunately this misses the point that fixes to older flaws are made possible by deploying a new release. It also brings up the laughable scenario of customers asking for new features to be "back-ported" to the older, "safe" release. Pro-tip: if you back-port all of your new features to the older release, then you end up with the new release anyway!

There are also some times when you just can't take advantage of the latest technology unless you're up-to-date: for example getting the most benefit out of new CPU's requires the operating system software to be in-sync. As SUSE VP of engineering Olaf Kirch points out in this article from 2012, when new features are introduced, you can either back-port to old code (possibly introducing errors) or take the new code and harden it. 

Which brings me to the real point of this article - when we're  talking about open source, the rate of change can be extremely rapid. This means that by the time you get a hardened, tested,  enterprise version of software out of the door, it is already at least version "n-1" : the bleeding-edge stuff is happening at the forefront of the community project, where many eyes and many egos are working on improvements to correctness and performance as well as features. So there's really no reason to require an n-1 release of, say, enterprise Linux ... all you're doing in that case is hobbling your hardware, paying more for extended support, and missing out on access to improvements.

So when SUSE introduces a new kernel revision mid-way through a major release, as it is doing with SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Service Pack 2 (SLE12SP2), don't fret about the risks: the bleeding edge has already moved forward, and what you're getting is just the best, hardened, QA'd, engineered version of Linux with the most functionality.

Conflict within Teams – Inevitable & Necessary ?

This was originally a scholarly article written as a discussion of whether conflict in teams is both inevitable and necessary.  The style is a little more formal for that reason.

Modern organisations are increasingly reliant on teams and teamwork to conduct the bulk of their business. These teams exist at all levels – from manufacturing and customer support at the front-line of operations, through management layers and even into the executive management of a organisation and its board of directors or trustees. Teams can be formed from groups of workers within a single area of responsibility, or can be cross-functional teams including participants from many different parts of the organisation working together on a single project. Following improvements in telecommunications and information technology, team members may not even be in the same physical location, but make up “virtual” teams representing different geographic locations or simply taking advantage of the ability to work remotely.

At the same time as teams and teamwork are becoming more important, the working population is continuing to diversify, including people with obvious differences in gender and racial background, but also including the less-obvious diversity of people from a wider range of disciplines and training backgrounds than were previously evident in business. With the aging population of many Western nations, there is also greater likelihood of a wide range of ages being included in any given work group, which in turn leads to diversity of experiences, attitudes and expectations between team members.

This increase in diversity leads to the question of conflict occurring between team members. Although conflict is traditionally regarded as a negative thing, and not conducive to productivity and satisfaction, some recent theories of management practice suggest that conflict may have beneficial effects on performance. This essay examines the question of whether conflict in teams is both inevitable and necessary, with a focus on the modern working environment. The evolution of thinking around this question – in particular the necessity of conflict – will be studied along with the results of experiments performed by researchers in the field.

It is clear from the literature that this topic is very controversial and the subject of continuing debate amongst management theorists. This paper will examine and present the argument that although conflict of some form is highly likely in modern teams, and although it can lead to some benefits in innovation and performance, the negative factors are such as to make it highly undesirable, and that conflict management techniques should be used to mediate these negative effects.

What is conflict?

In order to properly understand whether conflict is inevitable or necessary, it is important to understand what is meant by conflict in the context of workplace teams. Intragroup conflict can be broadly defined as perceived incompatibilities between team members (Jehn, 1995), but it is self-evident that incompatibilities can take more than one form, and so the nature of conflict must be further investigated.

Early theories of the types of conflict include structural models (Deutsch, as cited in Korsgaard, et al, 2008), and process models (Pondy, 1967). Structural models theorise that conflict occurs as a result of interdependence and incompatibility between parties; when goals of one team member can only be achieved at the expense of another team member, conflict is increasingly likely to result. It is the structure of the inter-relationship between parties which gives rise to conflict, and in this theory focus is given to the importance of task characteristics, social context, and the relationships of participants.

Process models take the view that conflict is a series of episodes, each of which commences with some pre-existing conflict potentials, and concludes with an aftermath which affects future episodes. The participants in the conflict go through a process of interpretation, or sense making, after each event which leads to feelings, thoughts and actions in response, which in turn leads to consequences for future interactions of the parties. The process model highlights the role of perception in conflict development, and is infused with affective reactions such as anger (Korsgaard et al, 2008).

The combination of structural and process theories suggest that conflict can be seen as three linked factors leading to conflict (Korsgaard et al, 2008), viz:

• Inputs (individual differences; individual traits; task structure; social context) leading to...
• Behaviour (conflict provoking behaviour; 2-person exchanges; group interactions) leading to...
• Sense Making (identifying an event as an offence; laying blame on another party) which leads to conflict

Manifestations of conflict include frustration, anger, intentions to rectify and/or retaliate, and interference of cognition and effectiveness.

More recent studies of intragroup conflict have focussed on distinguishing between different types of conflict, and their effects on teams where the group is responsible for some collective product or decision (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003). The current typology of conflict includes three broad areas; task conflict, relationship conflict, and process conflict (Jehn, 1997; Korsgaard et al, 2008)

Task conflict (also known as cognitive conflict) is disagreement related to the job at hand: what should be included in the task, how to approach it, ideas, issues and content. Task conflict has a predominantly intellectual basis, and is strongly influenced by disparate backgrounds in the participants of a team (Li & Hambrick, 2005).

Relationship conflict (also referred to as affective conflict) involves interpersonal incompatibilities, tension and antagonism (Jehn, 1995). It has an emotional basis and impacts the ability of team members to share and assess information within the group (Jehn & Mannix, 2001)

Process conflict, according to Jehn (1997), is “conflict about how task accomplishment should proceed in the work unit, who's responsible for what, and how things should be delegated”. It is more about the logistics of “who does what” rather than the task conflict nature of “what should be done”. Process conflicts impact on the team's ability to coordinate effectively (Greer, Jehn & Mannix, 2008).

It is also important to understand that conflict is dynamic – it evolves over time, and the above three types of conflict can interact and transform from one kind into another during the lifespan of a team (Greer, et al, 2008).

Is conflict inevitable?

It can be asserted that conflict in teams is inevitable since creative collaboration is often the team's reason for existence (Kling 2009), and indeed although this assertion may not be completely borne out in all cases, the literature generally seems to take conflict of some kind as a given in team environments and any other kind of group or organisation (eg Jehn, 1995; De Dreu 2008).

In a study of 60 cross-functional teams in high technology companies (Lovelace , Shapiro & Weingart, 2001), it was found that all teams experienced some degree of intra-team disagreement. Hobman & Bordia (2006) also found direct associations between dissimilarity in individuals and the likelihood of conflict; given that everyone brings some degree of difference to any group, conflict of some kind is likely to occur.

However, it is worth considering whether the inevitability of conflict in the workplace is influenced by cultural constraints. Individual performance and achievement is generally well-regarded in the individualistic Anglo-American cultures (including Australia), but in collectivist cultures such as those found in Asia and Southern Europe, greater emphasis is placed on intragroup harmony and personal relationships, and conflict may be perceived as a threat to the interests of the team (Passos & Caetano, 2005; Hempel, Zhang & Tjosvold, 2009).

Is conflict necessary?

From the 1990's until the present, conflict in teams has been interpreted as a vital component of team success (eg Amason et al, 1995; Karnani, 2008; Flanagan & Runde, 2009), and studies have shown that some degree of conflict may be required to develop more creative thinking than might be achieved in a group with convergent thinking (Jehn, 1995). It has also been suggested that in cases where pressure is being applied by an external source, the “groupthink” of convergent teams may lead to the premature selection of a less than optimal solution (Paulus, 2002). Conflict, however, can introduce “vigorous debate” on issues requiring critical analysis or innovative thinking (Flanagan & Runde, 2008).

Through interviews with managers of teams, Amason et al (1995) found that the presence of task conflict enhanced the ability of teams to make creative decisions. This improved creativity was reported in cases where participants brought different points of view to a problem and were supported by the right environment to manage the conflict. In their interviews, participants related the belief that the improved creativity of teams with some degree of task conflict resulted in valuable business decisions, and that the lack of conflict in some decisions resulted in substantial costs or failures.

It is important to note that the type of conflict apparently yielding positive results in the above is task conflict. In cases where relationship conflict is evident in a team, the effect becomes dysfunctional, and can be a serious impairment to team performance (Amason, 1996). Similarly, process conflict has be found to have both a negative impact on team performance itself, and also the quality of transforming to other types of conflict over time, especially if experienced in the early life of a team (Greer et al, 2008).

As mentioned above, the correct supportive environment must be in place to gain the maximum innovative benefit of task conflict. This includes the freedom of team members to express doubts without a “win-lose” position being taken by other members of the team: that ideas can be freely expressed without the danger of participants self-censoring. When combined with collaborative communications, this allows for differences in ideas to be exchanged and developed by the team as a whole, rather than becoming the focus of antagonism and dissatisfaction (Lovelace et al, 2001). Participants must have a sense of trust and safety in their interactions, and possess sufficient emotional intelligence to be aware and cope if and when constructive conflict deteriorates into destructive behaviours (Flanagan & Runde, 2009).

Whilst the introduction of task conflict into a team in order to generate more creative ideas is often regarded as a positive thing, West (2002) has argued that it is implementation rather than creativity and idea generation that is the important factor in team performance, and that this requires high degrees of collaboration. Furthermore, De Dreu (2006) shows that the positive benefits of conflict on performance follows a curve – although a small amount can help stimulate ideas outside the status quo, too much conflict has a greatly negative impact (see Figure 1)

Figure 1: Curvilinear Relationship Between Task Conflict and Team Innovation (from De Dreu 2006)

This curvilinear effect was also noted by Jehn (1995), and can be explained in part by the conflict transformation discussed by Greer et al (2008): each of the three types of conflict (relationship, task, process) can feed into the others over time. The drop-off in innovation can also be attributed to situations where teams have positions that are so divergent at the start that they may never come to an agreed conclusion, or may not completely synthesise their ideas into a commonly-agreed solution within the timeframe required.

Intentionally introducing conflict (by, for example, assembling extreme diverse teams) is extremely difficult to manage; Chen (2006) notes that careful timing of positive conflict is necessary, along with training in conflict awareness and the development of significant trust and psychological support within the team. This may be a significant additional effort, since the diverse groups assembled in order to introduce task conflict are also likely to be sufficiently divergent that process conflicts will also arise (Jehn, Northcraft & Neale, 1999). The time taken for conflict awareness training and the development of team cohesion must be accounted for in a project's schedule and costs.

Similarly, in their study of cross-functional teams, Lovelace, Shapiro & Weingart (2001) found that innovation and time & cost efficiency was most positively influenced by the way their disagreements were managed by teams members as well as leaders. Successful conflict resolution techniques require the team members to have a shared sense of responsibility and purpose (Flanagan & Runde, 2009), yet developing the skills for effective conflict management are an additional cost to the organisation in terms of both money and time.

Careful management of conflict is also needed because, according to De Dreu (2008), there is only a very narrow set of conditions under which conflict has a positive function. For example, conflicts should be task conflicts only, be of no more than moderate intensity, and are only of use if the team would otherwise have preferred a “suboptimal” solution.

It should also be noted that for teams working on a well-defined procedural task rather than a problem requiring innovative solutions, task conflict is perceived as a significant source of dissatisfaction and negative performance impact, since it distracts team members form the “real” work they are trying to achieve (Jehn, 1995).

Meta-analysis of many research reports has found that while relationship conflict had the expected negative impact on team effectiveness and satisfaction, task conflict was equally negative in many the reported studies, and could not be clearly identified as purely positive in any (De Dreu & Weingart , 2003). De Dreu (2008) also notes the various costs of conflict and conflict management: in time, health and well-being of participants, and the displacement of costs to a third party (for example, the end-customer). The introduction of these (often initially hidden) costs must affect an organisation's decision on whether to introduce conflict, and how best to manage conflict overall. With this in mind it has been suggested that constructive conflict management is essential for mitigating the broadly negative effects of conflict in teams (De Dreu 2008).

Conclusion

The investigation, classification and analysis of different types of intragroup conflict has been going on for several decades, leading to ever-more nuanced understandings of how people interact in teams. That conflict will occur seems to be universally accepted as inevitable in the Anglo-American world, although the prevalence of intragroup conflict may be muted in more collectivist cultures where group harmony and interpersonal relationships are an intrinsic part of business.

Relationship conflict is almost universally regarded as being detrimental to team performance, and process conflict has been shown to be very damaging especially when encountered in the early stages of a team's lifespan. What remains contentious is the degree to which task conflict is necessary or even desirable. It certainly appears to be the case that for teams required to produce innovative results (as opposed to those performing well-defined and standardized procedures), some degree of task conflict is necessary in order to generate a wider range of ideas that might otherwise be developed by a group with convergent thinking. This concept has even given rise to the saying “thinking outside the box”, which is often hailed as a positive concept in modern business.

It is important to understand that all conflict - however benign - comes at a cost of some kind, and the additional time required to work through the increased range of ideas brought about by task conflict may not be available in certain types of project. Similarly, process conflict can substantially affect the efficient delivery of the end result, and if implementation is an important factor, then group cohesion and well-defined roles should also be considered vital. Finally, attention should be paid to the idea that conflict is dynamic, and without careful management can easily transform from task-based to relationship- and/or process-based, and hence cause significant damage to team cohesion, performance and participant satisfaction.

It appears that introducing conflict in order to improve team performance is a technique fraught with peril, and requires a great deal of skill to manage effectively: if conflict is necessary, it is a necessary evil. In any case, proper management strategies should be put into place in order to deal with the inevitable conflict that will arise in teams, with a focus on reducing the negative impact, rather than any attempt to engender productivity gains which may never be realised.

Is Your Leadership Style Fixed or Changeable?

This was originally a scholarly article written as a discussion of whether the leadership style of an individual was fixed and unchangeable, or adaptable and flexible.  The style is a little more formal for that reason.

 “Inventories can be managed, but people must be led.”

- H. Ross Perot

Leadership, and the development of leaders, is an activity that organisations of all kinds have been applying a great deal of effort to for time immemorial. In the past 100 years, theories on the nature of leaders have undergone a great deal of development, and in the modern environment of change the quest to understand how leadership works is as important as ever.

This essay considers the question “is leadership style fixed and unchangeable for a leader or flexible and adaptable?”, with a focus on the modern business environment. It will examine the theories of “leadership” in the modern business context, and discuss some of the leadership styles which have been described in the literature.

It is apparent from the literature and ongoing discussion that the question of leadership and the ability of leaders to change is the subject of much debate and research. This paper will propose that adaptability is a complex and difficult exercise, and that there may be alternatives available for an organisation to achieve leadership goals more efficiently.

What is leadership?

Despite a lot of research into the question, there is no single defined understanding of what constitutes a “leader”, or what distinguishes an effective leader from an ineffective one or “non-leader” (Bennis & Nanus, 1985 in Vroom & Jago, 2007).

The original (and still popularly held) concept of leadership is of a “great man” whose internal
qualities, or “traits”, provided the ability to lead, and that such people simply needed to be identified and placed into positions of power (Horner, 1997). Indeed, some traits are frequently seen in effective leaders, such as: persistence, tolerance for ambiguity, self-confidence, drive, honesty, integrity, internal locus of control, achievement motivation, and cognitive ability (Avolio, 2007). However leadership itself is not a specific trait, and although many attempts have been made to measure for such a thing, they have been unsuccessful (Vroom & Jago, 2007).

Leadership can be described as the exercise of social power to influence others (Kruglanksi, Pierro & Higgins, 2007), and French and Raven (1959, in Kruglanksi, et al, 2007) describe five specific power bases:

1. coercive power, associated with the threat of punishment or discipline
2. legitimate power, associated with a perceived “right” to exert influence (such as rank)
3. expert power, associated with a influencer's superior knowledge (as recognised by the person being influenced)
4. referent power, associated with the target’s identification & feelings of connectedness with the influencer, such that the target will seek to gain the approval of the leader
5. reward power, associated with the ability to provide desirable things like money, security or pleasure

Of these power bases, coercive and legitimate powers are described as “hard”, since compliance is demanded but enforced rules or threats, whilst expert, referent and reward are described as “soft”, since they are effective only so long as the person being influenced is willing to accept the advice of the influencer.

The ability to influence does not lie in isolation, though: in the modern context, leadership is understood be a process. Vroom & Jago (2007) define leadership as:

“...a process of motivating people to work together collaboratively to accomplish great things.”

In this definition it should be understood that the “great things” are the in the minds of both the leader and any followers, although this view may not be held by outsiders.

It is important to note that both this definition and the description of power bases above refer to strong links with the followers in the leader-follower relationship. Followers are a vital part of that relationship – it's self-evident that without at least one follower there can be no leader. Avolio (2007), asserts that “the quality of the exchange relationship between leaders and followers will determine the qualities of leadership and outcomes achieved”. As will be discussed later, followers can and do greatly influence leadership styles.

It may also be worth considering whether the classical role of “leader” even exists in modern contexts. Horner (1997) notes that a great deal of research into leadership focusses on male-dominated work places in manufacturing industries; as this profile becomes less and less prevalent in Western organisations, other modes of coordination are developing, such as self-managing teams and collaborative peer groups. Such groups also include innovators, entrepreneurs & thinkers working on leadership as a shared purpose (Gardner, 1990 in Horner, 1997). Drath (2008) suggests that in these collaborative situations there is still leadership, which can be viewed as the outcomes of agreeing on direction, developing a framework for aligning effort, and committing to the work at hand. He goes on to suggest that a collaborative leadership process might be observed in a discussion between peers: suggestions, disagreement and compromise form the discussion and eventually result in a consensus.

It could be argued, however, that such consensual decision-making is simply a specialised example of a “democratic” (Goleman, 2000) or “group decision making” (House, 1996) leadership style, as described in more detail below.

What is leadership style?

There are many definitions and theories of leadership style, but they can be generally classified into one of the following groups: trait, behavioural, contingency and contemporary (Horner, 1997).

As previously discussed, trait theories relate to the perceived innate qualities of leaders. Although no single “leadership” trait has been discovered, there is a body of thought that certain qualities may be both necessary and changeable for truly effective leadership styles, particularly the charismatic trait in times of change (Avolio, 2007; Bass, 1985).

Figure 1:Continuum of leadership behaviour - from Tannenbaum & Schmidt (1973)

Behavioural theories focus on what the leader actually does, and one premise of these theories is that these behaviours can be taught to, and adopted by, other employees in order to develop leaders. Tannenbaum & Schmidt (1973) defined leadership behaviours along a continuum from authoritarian to democratic, as shown in Figure 1. The ends of this continuum have also been labelled “forceful” & “advisory” (Kruglanski et al, 2007)

Contingency theories focus on the interrelationship between the traits and behaviours of leaders, and the situations in which the leader acts (Fiedler, 1969). Also important are the the interactions between leaders & their followers, such as described in path-goal theory (House, 1971, House & Mitchell, 1974, in House 1996).

Fiedler (1969) described two leadership styles: task-oriented, which is an authoritarian approach focussed on issuing directives and clarifying goals; and relationship-oriented, which is a supportive approach focussed on personal relations. These styles are then affected by the group situational factors in which leadership must be applied. The most important of these factors is leader-member personal relationships: a trusted, admired person will be able to influence a group regardless of any positional power; this can be related back to the “referent power” of described above. The second most important situational factor is task structure, which refers to how rigidly an assignment is defined. Highly structured tasks have leadership roles clearly defined, and so do not rely on a leader's individual positional power; unstructured tasks frequently have more than one solution, and so leaders must be able to influence group members in a more creative environment. The third most important situational factor is the position power of the leader, which is closely tied to “legitimate power” described above. It should be noted that leaders with high positional power do not always get better performance from their groups (Fielder, 1969).

Hersey & Blanchard (1969) described a curvilinear relationship between these task-oriented and relationship-oriented leadership styles as a way of illustrating the effective styles to use based on follower maturity (see Figure 2). As the readiness and capability of followers develops, the leader can adopt different styles as appropriate (see Table 1).

Figure 2: The Life-Cycle Theory of Leadership - from Hersey & Blanchard (1969)

Quadrant	Follower Readiness	Leader Style	Leader Actions
1	Unable and unwilling	Directing	Specific instructions and close supervision
2	Unable but willing	Coaching	Explain decisions and provide clarity
3	Able but unwilling	Supporting	Share ideas and facilitate group decisions
4	Able and willing	Delegating	Delegate responsibility

Table 1: Life Cycle Theory stages

Although identifying the suitability of different leadership styles with different workers, Hersey & Blanchard (1969) stress that changing style is difficult and can take a long time. For this reason, it should be gradual, and the result of planned growth.

Path-goal theory is concerned with the dyadic relationship between formally-assigned leader and subordinates (House, 1971, in House, 1996), and describes the role of the leader as one of clarifying the work goal for the subordinate, and making the path to the goal easier by reducing roadblocks and pitfalls and increasing opportunities for worker satisfaction. This theory was further developed to define a range of associated leader behaviours (House, 1996):

Path-Goal Clarifying: these behaviours include identifying subordinate goals, setting standards by which performance will be judged, and judicious use of rewards and punishment based on performance. These behaviours relate to the “task-oriented” style described above.

Achievement-Oriented: these behaviours are directed to encouraging excellence by setting challenging goals, seeking improvement, and showing confidence that subordinates will attain high standards of performance. These behaviours also relate to the “task-oriented” style described above.

Work Facilitating: these behaviours include planning, scheduling and organising work. It also includes mentoring and coaching subordinates and providing feedback for their development. The behaviours are most closely related to the “relationship-orient” style described above.

Supportive: these behaviours are focussed on supporting subordinate needs, such as showing concern for welfare and creating a friendly workplace. These behaviours are associated with the “relationship-oriented” style described above.

Interaction Facilitating: these behaviours include enabling collaboration, encouraging teamwork, and facilitating the resolution of disputes. These behaviours are also “relationship-oriented”.

Group-oriented decision making: this participative leader behaviour includes posing problems rather than solutions to the work group, encouraging all group members to be involved in the discussion, and ensuring that participation is balanced so that no individual dominates. Again, these behaviours fit into a “relationship-oriented” style.

With these behaviours in mind, House's (1996) revised theory of path-goal leadership proposes that:

1. Leader behaviour is acceptable and satisfying to subordinates
2. Leader behaviour will enhance subordinate goal-oriented performance

Avolio (2007) noted that contingency theories were developed as a result of past research examining relationships between pure “traits” and leadership performance produced conflicting results (Stogdill, 1974 in Avolio, 2007), leading to the idea that there needed to be a fit or match between the leader's style and the situation the leadership effort was being applied to.

Contemporary theories include the full-range model theory of transactional, transformational, and laissez-faire leadership (Bass, 1985). With the transactional style, leaders provide clear-cut roles and outcomes to their followers, and generally stay clear if workers are achieving. Transformational leadership emphasises the individualism of followers, and involves mentoring and a focus on relationships; workers are generally motivated to do more than they originally expected; transformational leaders may provide individualised consideration and/or intellectual stimulation to their followers, but are almost always associated with charismatic individuals. The laissez-faire style of leadership sees the avoidance of responsibility, and is generally perceived as has having negative effects. There is also the concept of “management by exception”, in which the leader remains disconnected from the workers unless a failure or breakdown occurs.

It is important to note that although transformational leadership is generally perceived to be the most effective (Avolio, 2007), it is not always the best style for a given situation (Bass, 1985). Even the laissez-faire style may be more appropriate for situations with the possibility of self-management (van Eeden, Cilliers & van Deventer, 2008).

There are many other recent descriptions of leadership styles in the literature, often focussing on how styles can be applied or adjusted. Rowe, Reardon & Bennis (1995, in Reardon, Reardon & Rowe, 1998) propose a Leadership Style Inventory (LSI) as summarised in Table 2. They assert that most leaders actually have a combination of these styles in varying degrees, and that the strongest strategic leaders demonstrate flexibility between styles.

Leader style	Focuses on	Persuades by	Makes changes	Learns by
Commanding	Results	Directing	Rapidly	Doing
Logical	Innovation	Explaining	Carefully	Studying
Inspirational	Opportunities	Creating trust	Radically	Questioning
Supportive	Facilitating work	Involvement	Slowly	Listening

Table 2: Leadership style inventory - from Rowe, Reardon & Bennis (1995, in Reardon, Reardon & Rowe, 1998)

Overlapping these descriptions, Goleman (2000) proposes six styles of leadership:

1. Coercive leaders who demand immediate compliance.
2. Authoritative leaders who mobilize people toward a vision.
3. Affiliative leaders who create emotional bonds and harmony.
4. Democratic leaders who build consensus through participation.
5. Pacesetting leaders who expect excellence and self-direction.
6. Coaching leaders who develop people for the future

Only four of these styles – authoritative, affiliative, democratic and coaching – consistently have a positive effect (Goleman, 2000). The coercive style limits the flexibility and creativity of followers, whilst the pacesetting style can lead to followers becoming overwhelmed by the high expectations placed on them. As with Reardon, et al (1998), Goleman suggests that leaders should engender multiple leadership styles in order to take the appropriate approach for a given situation, especially in times of change.

In a slightly different vein, Rooke & Torbert (2005) propose leadership styles are part of an evolutionary process. They define seven types of internal “action logic”, being how people interpret their surroundings and react when their power or safety is challenged (as in leadership situations). The seven action logics are summarised in Table 3:

Action Logic	Characteristics	Strengths
Opportunist	Wins any way possible. Self-oriented; manipulative; “might makes right.”	Good in emergencies and in sales opportunities.
Diplomat	Avoids overt conflict Wants to belong; obeys group norms; rarely rocks the boat.	Good as supportive glue within an office; helps bring people together.
Expert	Rules by logic and expertise. Seeks rational efficiency.	Good as an individual contributor.
Achiever	Meets strategic goals. Effectively achieves goals through teams; juggles managerial duties and market demands.	Suited to managerial roles; action and goal oriented
Individualist	Interweaves competing personal and company action logics. Creates unique structures to resolve gaps between strategy and performance.	Effective in venture and consulting roles.
Strategist	Generates organizational and personal transformations. Exercises the power of mutual inquiry, vigilance, and vulnerability for both the short and long term.	Effective as a transformational leader.
Alchemist	Generates social transformations. Integrates material, spiritual, and societal transformations.	Good at leading society-wide transformation

Table 3: Seven Ways of Leading - from Rooke & Torbert (2005)

Rooke & Torbert describe these action logic stages as being part of an evolutionary path, starting with “Opportunist” and heading towards “Alchemist”. Movement between these stages is difficult, and not everyone is able reach the later stages. In this way, these styles can be perceived as much as traits as anything else, leading leadership theory to circle back to some of the original ideas of leadership comprising innate characteristics.

Regardless of the model of leadership styles being investigated, it is clear that the effectiveness of any given styles depends greatly on the situation (Fiedler, 1969; Tannenbaum & Schmidt, 1973; Vroom & Jago, 2007; etc), which includes interdependencies with non-managers (followers) and with external influences (Tannenbaum & Schmidt, 1973). The variations in situation may include the type of organisation and organisational culture, team effectiveness and ability, the nature of the problem, and time pressures. The variations of non-managers include their level of independence, their tolerance for ambiguity, their experience, their affinity with the goals of the organisation and the expectations of decision making they may have for themselves.

Why change leadership style?

As previously discussed, changes in leadership style are likely to be necessary in different situations, caused by internal or external circumstances. The 2007 global economic crisis was a clear case in point of how external influences can significantly impact day-to-day business and pose new and different situations for leaders to content with.

Similarly, different different skills and styles are required in the stages in an organisation's lifespan of startup → growth → consolidate → maintain (Tozzi, 2008).

It's also worth considering that what constitutes “good” leadership can vary greatly between cultures (Avolio, 2007). Cross-cultural leadership (eg of multinational firms) are an example of where leadership styles must change to be effective, although anecdotally this seems to be rare in practice.
Generational differences can also be significant factors in the need to change leadership style; the popularly-discussed difficulty of “Baby-boomer”¹ managers to understand the work culture of “Generation Y”² employees is a case in point (eg Erickson et al, 2009; Waxer, 2009).

Can leaders change their styles?

Arguments about whether a leader can change his or her leadership style vary according to the leadership style model proposed.

The continuum of leadership behaviour model (Tannenbaum & Schmidt, 1973) offers opportunities to respond to different situations differently, with the implication that all behaviours on a range are equally accessible to the leader.

Vroom & Jago (1988 in Vroom & Jago, 2007) found that managers were able to adopt more participative styles after training, however there is evidence that individuals will revert to older behaviours when faced with stressors such as time pressure, poor appraisal methods, and lack of skills (Bass, 1985), and that day-to-day work takes precedence over the perceived additional effort required to enact change (Pfeffer, 2007).

Bass (1990), asserts that transformational (as opposed to transactional) leadership can be taught and learned, although he also states that “charismatic leadership is central to transformational process” (Bass, 1985). Charisma is arguably an intrinsic trait, rather than a skill that can be learned, which implies that truly achieving transformational leadership may be difficult for some.

It's also interesting to note that the leadership styles of the full-range model of leadership (transactional, transformational, laissez-faire) have been associated with personality traits in experiments conducted by van Eeden, et al (2008). Again, if traits are difficult to change, then changes in leadership style may also be difficult to achieve.

Avolio (2007), suggests that leadership traits may not be fixed, and may be affected by contexts (for example, disaster scenarios or emergencies), that result in the emergence of leadership and/or greater effectiveness. However it can be argued that if one's basic style of leadership is driven by one's personality, then making changes permanent may take years (Fielder, 1969), which does not lend to easy flexibility in an individual.

Goleman (2000) asserts that styles can be added to a leader's repertoire by developing the "emotional intelligence" competencies related to the new styles. Emotional intelligence is “the ability to manage ourselves and our relationships effectively”, and consists of four fundamental capabilities: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skill (Goleman, 2000).

In their discussion of the constructive-development theory and its relationship to leadership styles, McCauley, et al (2006) suggest that certain contexts encourage movement in adult development, and hence progression into new leadership styles. They also note, however, that even though a great deal of theorists' attention has been paid to developing tools to stimulate progression, there have been very few studies to validate their efficacy.

Rooke & Torbert (2005) describe cases in which leaders have been able to “evolve” their action-logic leadership styles, especially in circumstances where new opportunities (such as promotions) have opened outlets to demonstrate additional abilities. In the same paper, however, many example are given of failures of individual to achieve those changes, implying that the ability to change varies from person to person. Indeed, Avolio (2007) suggests that interactions between genetics and developmental components (at different life stages) are worthy of further study. If genes prove to be a component, then complete flexibility between leadership styles must be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for many people.

The overall implication seems to be that the more leadership styles are associated with personal traits rather than some learned behaviour, change becomes harder to attain and retain. Flexibility of leadership style can be observed in a small percentage of the population, but these are the exceptions rather than the rule.

Since leadership styles and their effectiveness are strongly influenced by the situation and target audience (Kruglanski et al, 2007), there may be alternatives to requiring a change in an individual leader's style in order to improve the result. Fiedler (1969) proposed that fitting a leader to a situation by finding places where s/he can perform well is a more effective strategy. Alternatively, it may be possible to adjust the situation to suit leader's style by altering the relationships, the task structure, or the leader's rank & relative position - a process described as “job engineering” (Fielder, 1998).

Conclusion

The definition of leadership and characterisation of leadership styles has developed a great deal over the past 100 years, and are still subjects of research and debate.

It's clear from the literature that situations (including follower characteristics) affect leadership style as much, or more so, as leaders themselves (Vroom & Jago, 2007; Kruglanski et al, 2007). With this in mind, awareness of one's own style and where other styles might be required is a big step in itself, even if the change cannot be managed by a single person (Reardon et al, 1998).

Flexibility in leadership style is certainly a desirable thing, as the different situations arising in the lifespan of an organisation will inevitably require different approaches to solve effectively. However, despite all the management programs and leadership courses made available in recent times, it appears that personal traits make up a significant amount of what distinguishes effective leaders (Bateman & Snell, 1999 in van Eeden et al, 2008). For those styles heavily influence by traits, change is possible, but requires recognition, understanding, desire and intrinsic ability, as well as opportunity for the change to occur and time for changes to truly take hold (Rooke & Torbert, 2005).

It may be that the most effective way of affecting changes in leadership style is to appropriately place leaders into situations which match their style (Fielder, 1998). Clear examples of this can be seen when businesses move from the start-up phase into the growth phase, and engage a professional and experienced CEO to manage the company, rather than the entrepreneurs and innovators who set things going.

Finally, leadership and leadership styles are all about people: it is people being led, and people doing the leading. Even with the emergence of self-managed teams and leadership as a collaborative exercise within a group, it is inevitable that the inter-personal relationships and group success will be affected by the personalities of the individual members; and so the investigation of leadership traits and styles remains an important area of research.

1 The Baby-boomer generation are those individuals born between 1945 and 1964

2 Generation Y individuals were born between approx 1980 and 1999