Gregor's Leadership Theory

Another model concerned for managers has been proposed by McGregor (1960) who suggested that management-leadership style is influenced by leaders’ assumption about human nature and, in particular, about employees’ nature.
He proposed two opposite visions of managers in industry called Theory X and Theory Y.

The former states that managers have a negative view of their subordinates’ nature and it assumes that the average employee has a natural dislike and revulsion of work that lead him/her to avoid it if possible. This implies that Theory X managers believe that coercion and close control are necessary to motivate workers and to push them to work.
On the other hand, Theories Y managers have a positive attitude towards their employees’ nature

Situational and contingency theories

Being clear that a leadership style is effective in some situation but it may not be successful in others, researchers developed the theory according to which the style to be used by a leader depends on such internal and external factors as: the situation, the task, the people, the organization (its size, its core business, its operations), the external environments and so forth. All the studies developed within this context, are known as situational or contingency theories and they fostered an academic debate begun by Fiedler’s (1964, 1967) researches.
Resuming the behavioral notions of task-orientation and people-orientation he analyzed variables such a tasks structure, level of power of the position (strong VS weak) and quality of leader-member relationship (good VS bad). The results of his analysis concluded that task-oriented managers exhibit a directive leadership style while people-oriented leaders display a participative style of leadership.
His research concludes that, even if there is no a single universal style which is always effective, each situation requires a particular kind of leader and

This implies that leadership is more than something established by command: individuals can follow a leader who is not designated by formal authorities as well as they can dishearten a guide who has power for his/her position.

Analyzing this relational process means discovering the essence of leadership itself: more than investigating what are the qualities, the behaviors or the styles of the ideal leader, the key for effective leadership lies in understanding what aligns who commands and who follows. This is particularly important for business organizations (which are the background of this dissertation) that succeed in achieving their goal only if their whole human capital work and move in the same direction.
A number of recent studies focus on the relationship between leader and follower. Next, this manuscript describes three of the most relevant and agreed theories.
It’s important to underline that all three theories move from the same tacit assumption of leadership seen as a social process. What varies, is the nature of this