Option #2: Observational Research for Leadership Specific to Gender and Ethnic DiversityThe evolution of leadership theory brought attention to early study findings that identified leader traits based

Ten Leadership Theories in Five Minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKUPDUDOBVo

Six selected Leadership Theories in the study of research integration:

1. Trait 2) Charismatic 3) Transformational 4) Strategic 5) Leadership 6) Diversity

Leadership Theory, Social Assumptions, and Determining “Normal”

We place a great deal of emphasis on theory as a way to organize knowledge. Relationships between objects are explained by way of theories, as we learned from Meuser, Gardner, Dinh, Hu, Liden and Lord (2016). Leadership theories have proliferated as an attempt to serve as rationale to explain the way leadership “works.” As noted on Page 1 of this module, there is a compunction in academia to consider theory and practice as separate (Raelin, 2007), but the two can be used to inform the other. Applying theory in real-life situations is a way to further explore a theory. However, there are those who suggest a theory establishes its own boundaries. Even theoretical integration is in an infancy stage, as previously discussed.

Relying on critical theory to investigate leadership, Western (2103) [required reading] employs discourse to study leadership in the postmodern world

Western indicated that discourse goes beyond leadership or organization theory. Discourses surface through societal phenomena. When Western speaks of discourse, it is with emphasis on the fact that organizations are not separate from the social, economic, political, and technological influences of the time. History sways ideas, attitudes and beliefs.  Continuing in the vein of critical inquiry, we will move beyond the foundation of theory to use a critical discourse analysis approach to study leadership. Western suggested that there are four current leadership discourses. The four are illustrated below in Figure 2.

As seen in Figure 2, Western’s four main discourses of leadership include: Controller, Therapist, Messiah, and Eco-leadership. The four are depicted on a timeline noting that all four are present in organizations today. The origination, peaks of influence, and evolution are illustrated in Figure 2. Recall also the historical, modern, and postmodern eras, discussed in earlier modules; overlay the eras here in Figure 2 to understand the dimensions of time and societal impacts on evolving discourses.