Rickett Theory Of Leadership Essay

The world’s economy is not stable and few companies survive, are successful and profitable through strong leadership and management. These notions are considered to be the same by many people but they differ significantly. Leadership is a procedure in which a person influences people in organization to a goal using the appropriate style of leadership (Ricketts and Ricketts, 2010, p.5). The leader has a vision, communicates it to employees and inspires them. Management is defined as the achievement of goals in an effective way through planning, organizing, leading and controlling organizational resources (Daft, 2008, p.7). A manager makes decisions based on company’s data, is responsible for the organization’s order, changes rules and regulations and assigns tasks (Ricketts and Ricketts, 2010, p.12).

Firstly, the trait theory of leadership supports that a leader is borned and not made but there is not a specific and accepted list of characteristics (Kliem, 2004, p.2). A research of Ghiselli (1971 cited in Altman et al. 1985, p.287-288) shows that there are characteristics such as intelligence, the ability to direct others, self-confidence which are the most significant to leaders in relation to other characteristics like power and financial reward.
Secondly, the behavioral theory mentions that leadership is learned rather than inborn (Hurd et al, 2008, p.15). Two popular examples of this theory are the Ohio States model and the Leadership Grid.
The Ohio States model states that leaders exhibit two types of behaviors, people-oriented (consideration) and task-oriented (initiating structure) in order to achieve the goal (Hurd et al, 2008, p.16).
The Leadership Grid is a combination of management and leadership and includes five types of managers or leaders (Hurd et al, 2008,