Path-goal theory has a special place in my heart. It isn’t just because I find it very useful in my current life, which I do, it has a great deal to do with my first glimpse into what an environment can be like when a leader uses a leadership style to its fullest potential. My ability to adapt to different situations effectively is an aspect of my approach to leadership that I place a very high priority. I also feel like there are many opportunities to increase the quality of life of their followers that some leaders don’t capitalize on. This is a priority in the successful implementation of path goal leadership theory.
What do I consider a successful leader, is it someone who gets the job done? Yes, but that is the end of a journey. How you get to your destination is often just as important as the destination itself. I have worked in a few different industries in a few different geographic locations throughout the United Stated, this has provided me with an insight into differing levels of efficacy in approaches to leadership across settings. I got my start in the world of followership, and my start to leadership both in the restaurant industry. This is often a high employee turnover business, one could make the argument that it is in part due to the idea of finding the right fit for yourself (I liked working in short order kitchens). While the restaurant game never yielded me the fortunes, and free time I may have dreamed of as a young child, and was consistently highly demanding, it was satisfying and rewarding work. If one were to hear these terms on their own it would seem counterintuitive to think these were the pieces that came together to represent the glory days I think back on to this day.
I have been out of the restaurant life for several years, it was only recently that I started to understand that is wasn’t that leaders were able to avoid these downsides to the business, they were able to counteract them. In a high employee turnover business, you are inevitably going to have a wide spectrum of employee characteristics (Northouse, 2016), this means that an approach to leadership that didn’t stress matching your leadership behaviors to individual employees would be destine for failure. The variation of task characteristics exhibited in a single day covers the full spectrum, this allows for leaders to successfully match followers with tasks they will be successful in. It is this great variability that I feel makes path-goal leadership such a great fit. Of the leadership behaviors, directive behavior is perfect when training new employees, or when an employee is cross training to learn other jobs in the kitchen. The giving of instructions, and making expectations clear (Northouse, 2016) is paramount for a developing employee, as these new tasks can be different in every kitchen. Supportive leadership behavior (Northouse, 2016) is a match for employees who have reached high levels of efficacy, the complexity associated with the first day on the job eventually morphs into potentially unchallenging monotony. A source of some of the most impressive loyalty I have ever seen in an organizational setting was made possible through this supportive behavior. A constant use of participative leadership behavior (Northouse, 2016) was in one of my favorite parts of each dinner service, the pre-shift meeting. This was when done properly an opportunity for employees to be part of the “plan of attack” for the night, giving the employees a real part in contributing toward the achievement of collective goals. This was also an opportunity to as a group create structure where there was none. Achievement-oriented leadership behavior in the kitchen usually meant establishing high standards for things like quality of product, and efficiency that would be geared toward the whole collective. But in the more skilled staff members this was a way to help someone who thought they had reached their highest level of performance continue to grow by setting lofty but achievable, individual goals.
As you can see this path-goal approach to leadership if implemented correctly can be highly successful, even in a chaotic, demanding, competitive, and thankless industry.
The criticisms of this theory don’t really hold too much water in my mind. The idea that this may be too complex, or the successful implementation of this leadership approach may be too daunting of a task is terrifying to me. We live in a time where people from the private sector are launching sports cars into space and then landing their rockets safely back on earth, too difficult shouldn’t be in our vocabulary. It is contradictory to the whole premise of this theory. An additional criticism of this theory is that followers may come to depend on leaders too much and may not recognize the full abilities of followers (Northouse, 2016). I tend to disagree, while this approach to leadership requires great dedication and attention from the leader, I feel that once a follower reaches the highest levels of efficacy the leader is not nearly as involved. In my experience, at the highest levels of follower performance it is absolutely a reasonable expectation to have a leader set goals designed to help followers reach their highest potential. The criticism I find most baffling is the idea that this is considered a top down style of leadership (PSU, 2018). How is this possible when one of the fundamental aspects of this theory is participative leadership behavior, which “consists of inviting followers to share in the decision making” and states that “a participative leader consults with followers, obtains their ideas and opinions, and integrates their suggestions into the decisions about how the group or organization will proceed” (Northouse, 2016 p.118)
References
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership, Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
PSU. (2018). Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/
Edward W Klock says
Hi Erik,
Your blog comment proves a lot of good points to why the path goal theory is so effective when utilized correctly. Although I think that the theory is only as good as the leader implementing it and like you said only in certain situations. This theory is a good way to properly teach a leader to use different approaches for different people. Our commentary states the theory provides direction about how leaders can help subordinates to accomplish their work in a satisfactory manner. It should not be taken as the only type of leadership theory being used. If the leader utilizes all the behaviors, they should be able to successfully achieve almost all of their goals. This leadership theory is great when the staff is happy and the situation is just right. If one of these is off though the theory could be a little challenging. I too do not understand how this is a top down type of theory. The only thing that I can think of is that not all leaders are participative leaders some could lack that behavior. This is only one instance thought and should not defy a theory as top down. As a leader at the restaurant, did you try to use all of the behaviors or did you mainly stick to one?
PSU. (2018). PSYCH 485: Leadership in work settings. Lesson 6: Contingency and path theories. Retrieved from
https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1925331/modules/items/23786561