The Path Goal Theory

The Path-Goal Theory

The Path-Goal theory is based on leader 's specific style, which best fits the employee and work environment in order to achieve goals set by the company. The idea is to increase motivation from the staff, provide empowerment and increase staff satisfaction. This will develop productive employee, which are vested in the greater good of the company. The Path-Goal leadership is based on four strategies the leader should set fourth: define the goal, explain the direction of the goal, remove obstacles so the goal can be achieved and provide support to the employee. The Path Goal Theory is forming a connection between the followers goals, and the goals of the organization. The biggest obstacles could be for the leader to identify

The idea is that a leader needs to develop as many high-quality relationships as possible to achieve the set goals. Good relationships will increases peoples sense of job satisfaction and develop ownership of goals and problems. Through good rapports productivity can be increased, organizational goals can be achieved, this is possible because of good teamwork and investment of the employee in the company. Within the LMX theory there are two groups, the in- and the out-group. In-group member are part of the inner circle from the leader, there have more responsibilities and the leader is trusting this group more to achieve goals as there are set by the leader. The out-group is the outside group, members of this group have not the trust of the leader, will not be assigned more responsibilities and are managed more formally. The theory focuses on the relationship with the leader and each employee(Northouse,

Both of them had clear goals and expectations of their players, to win the game. This is evident by both coaches lifetime career and total wins. They both set high standards that their players were expected to meet. Each team was put through a series of drills and practices to prepare them and help build their confidence to succeed. Coach K. believed in practicing heavily drills and skills. He had all his players analyze their game and strategies(S. Snook,L.Perlow and B.Delacey, 2005). Whereas Coach Knight mostly drilled his team very hard and was verbally abusive when training was not performed to his standards. The ability of both coaches to use achievement-oriented leadership contributed to their success(Snook, Perlow, and DeLacey, 2005). Each coach challenged and set high standards for their players. Each coach raised the confidence of their players to achieve their goals. The achievement-oriented leadership demonstrated by each coach helped motivate the players to want to succeed. This showed the integration of supportive, achievement, directive and participative path goal leadership style. It is important as a leader to be flexible between each style to achieve the maximum positive outcome as proven by both