Leadership is sacrifice and influence (Northouse, 2013). A leader is called one if they have won the hearts of their followers and the employees have been ready to follow them with total trust. Some leaders are charismatic, and they are just loved without much proves of their abilities, while some must defend themselves with their leadership style, skills, and influence. A wise leader should, therefore, know what their strong point is and maximize on it, while not neglecting their weaknesses so that they do not work to their disadvantage. Moreover, there are those universal characteristics of leaders, for example, intelligence, attractiveness, trustworthiness, sociability, self-confidence, integrity and determination that leaders must have (Northouse, 2013). A wise leader will, therefore, choose a style of leadership that is appropriate for the situation and the subordinates.

Define Path-Goal Leadership

Path–goal theory is about how leaders motivate subordinates to accomplish designated goals. The relationship between the subordinates’ characteristics and the style of the leader is the emphasis of the path-goal theory. The path-goal theory is derived from the expectancy theory which takes is that, if employees think they can perform a certain task, and the payoff they will get is worthwhile, and that their efforts will result in a favorable outcome, they will be motivated (House & Mitchell, 1974).

To be effective, leaders need to help subordinates by giving them what is missing in their environment and by helping them compensate for deficiencies in their abilities. This ability is, however, the greatest challenge because the leader has to find a style of leadership that will meet the needs of the subordinates. To motivate them, leaders need to appropriately reward inform and provide for anything the subordinates needs for them to reach their goals (Indvik, 1986). If the work is satisfying, the goal path is easy to travel, remove the obstacles, the payoffs are increased, and, the work is made satisfying, the leadership will achieve a high motivation level which is very critical for performance (House & Mitchell, 1974).

The path-goal leadership has four styles, which include; supportive, achievement oriented, participative and directive leadership styles (Northouse, 2013). These leadership styles must relate positively to the subordinate characteristics for them to be effective. Subordinate characteristics determine how a leader’s behavior is interpreted by subordinates in a given work context. These characteristics include; the need for affiliation, need to excel, need for control, need for clarity, autonomous, authoritarian, need for human touch, dogmatic and unsatisfied, each of which matches a specific task structure.

Identify the path-goal leadership style used in this situation; provide the tasks and the subordinates’ characteristics with specific examples

I work in the sales and marketing department. However, last year we were faced with a drastic decline in sales, which we later realized that it was caused by assigning almost every new employee to the sales department. Due to lack of experience and customer skills, the customers started to start buying from our competitors. In this case, these subordinates needed help to overcome to overcome this obstacle of non-performance. Specifically, obstacles create excessive uncertainties, frustrations, or threats for subordinates (Northouse, 2013). These employees, therefore, needed help to boost their task completion expectation and job satisfaction. The characteristic of these subordinates autonomous, they needed clarity and control as the task was ambiguous, unstructured and unclear to them (House & Mitchell, 1974). They, therefore, needed a participative leader who would be involved in the day-to-day sales and show them how things are done.

Explain whether the action taken was appropriate and effective.

We took the most appropriate and effective action by using participative leadership style, and that was the best style to use for that situation (House & Mitchell, 1974). We rolled our sleeves, and for the whole week, we never judged them or instructed them. We got our hands on the ground, used our experience on how we used to make sales when we were at their level, and they enjoyed the company. By leading through example, they got the clarity of what was needed of them and the goals they were supposed to reach. After leaving them, having been sure that our participation had challenged and educated them, we started seeing a lot of improvement up to today. The sales have come back to normal, and we no longer struggle with customer relations.

Discuss if the path-goal leadership approach would be useful in understanding the leadership applied to the situation.

Without the knowledge of the path -goal leadership approach, we would have used the wrong leadership style. For example, if we decided to direct, it would never have worked. This ineffectiveness is because, directive leadership needs to only provide psychological structure and guidance to authoritarian or dogmatic subordinate characteristics who already know what they are supposed to do, and they just need to be directed on how to do it (Northouse, 2013). Using the wrong style in a situation, which does not match the characteristics of the subordinates, will only demotivate them and they will not be able to accomplish the designated goals (House & Mitchell, 1974). Simply put, by knowing what path-goal leadership is all about, a leader can match his style with the characteristics of the leaders that is looking up to the leader.

Conclusion

Many times, the leader and the employees will fail if they do not understand each other. Especially for the leader who is supposed to know the composition of his subordinates, and he the leader fails to realize their characteristics, they will not achieve their desired goals. However, leaders might exhibit any or all of these four styles with various subordinates and in different situations (House & Mitchell, 1974). It is therefore upon the leader to study the situation and the subordinates, and get to meet any need that could be wanting in that circle.

References

House, R. J., & Mitchell, R. R. (1974). Path–goal theory of leadership. Journal of Contemporary Business, 3, 81–97.

Ndvik, J. (1986). Path–goal theory of leadership: Ameta-analysis. In Proceedings of the Academy of Management Meeting (pp. 189–192). Briarcliff Manor, NY: Academyof Management.

Northouse, P. (2013). Leadershiptheory and practice (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN: 9781452203409.

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