Chapter 3 - Skills

Approach

Leadership

Chapter 7 – Path-Goal Theory

Northouse, 5th edition
Chapter 3 - Skills
Approach

Overview
❖ Path-Goal Theory Perspective
❖ Conditions of Leadership Motivation
❖ Leader Behaviors & Subordinate
Characteristics
❖ Task Characteristics
❖ How Does the PGT Approach Work?
Chapter 3 - Skills
Approach

Path-Goal Theory (House, 1971)

Description
Definition

Path-goal theory centers on how leaders

motivate subordinates to accomplish
designated goals

Emphasizes the relationship between

the leader’s style
the characteristics of the subordinates
the work setting
 Chapter 3 - Skills
Approach

Path-Goal Theory (House, 1971)

Description
Perspective
❖ Goal - To enhance employee performance and
satisfaction by focusing on employee
motivation
❖ Motivational Principles (based on Expectancy
Theory) - Subordinates will be motivated if they
believe:
– they are capable of performing their work
– that their efforts will result in a certain outcome
– that the payoffs for doing their work are worthwhile
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Challenge to Leader

❖ Use a Leadership Style that best meets

subordinates’ motivational needs
– choose behaviors that complement or
supplement what is missing in the work setting
– enhance goal attainment by providing
information or rewards
– provide subordinates with the elements they
need to reach their goals
Chapter 3 - Skills
Approach

Conditions of Leadership Motivation

Leadership generates motivation when:
❖ It increases the number and kinds
of payoffs subordinates receive
from their work
❖ Makes the path to the goal clear
and easy to travel through with
coaching and direction
❖ Removes obstacles and
roadblocks to attaining the goal
❖ Makes the work itself more
personally satisfying
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Basic Idea
Chapter 3 - Skills
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Path-Goal Theory
Chapter 3 - Skills
Approach

Leader Behaviors
 Chapter 3 - Skills
Approach

Leader Behaviors & Subordinate Characteristics

Subordinate Characteristics
Directive Leadership • Dogmatic & authoritarian
Leader who gives • Clarifies path to the goal,
subordinates task instruction making it less ambiguous
including: • Authoritarian types feel more
• What is expected of them comfortable when leader
• How task is to be done provides certainty in work
• Timeline for task completion setting
• External locus of control -
outside forces control their
circumstances
 Chapter 3 - Skills
Approach

Leader Behaviors & Subordinate Characteristics

Supportive Leadership Subordinate

Refers to being friendly Characteristics
and approachable as a leader:
• Attends to subordinates’ • Need for affiliation
well-being • Friendly and concerned
• Supportively attempts to make leadership is a source of
work environment pleasant satisfaction
• Treats subordinates as equals
and with respect
 Chapter 3 - Skills
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Leader Behaviors & Subordinate Characteristics

Subordinate Characteristics
Participative Leadership
Leader who invites
subordinates to share in the
decision-making • Internal locus of control
• Consults with subordinates • Allows subordinates to feel
• Seeks their ideas & opinions in charge of their work
• Integrates their input into • Makes them an integral part
organizational decisions of the decision-making
process
 Chapter 3 - Skills
Approach

Leader Behaviors & Subordinate

Characteristics
Subordinate Characteristics
Achievement Oriented
Leader who challenges
subordinates to perform • High expectations & need to excel
work at the highest level • In ambiguous task situations,
possible subordinates feel their efforts
• Establishes a high standard of will result in effective performance
excellence
• Seeks continuous improvement
• Demonstrates a high degree of
confidence in subordinates’
ability to establish & achieve
challenging goals
Chapter 3 - Skills
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Subordinate Characteristics
❖ Determine how a leader’s behavior will
be interpreted by subordinates in a
given work context

❖ Researchers focus on subordinates’

– Need for affiliation
– Preferences for structure (less uncertainty)
– Desires for control (Locus of Control)
– Self-perceived level of task ability
Chapter 3 - Skills
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Task Characteristics
Components

❖Task Characteristics:
– Design of subordinates’ task
– Organization’s formal authority system
– Primary work group of subordinates
Chapter 3 - Skills
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Task Characteristics
Task Situations Requiring Leader Involvement

❖ Unclear and ambiguous - Leader needs to

provide structure
❖ Highly repetitive - Leader needs to provide
support to maintain subordinate motivation
❖ Weak formal authority - If formal authority
system is weak, the leader needs to assist
subordinates by making rules and work
requirements clear
❖ Nonsupportive/weak group norms - Leader
needs to help build cohesiveness and role
responsibility
Chapter 3 - Skills
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Task Characteristics
Obstacles
❖ Anything in the work setting that gets in the
way of subordinates
– They create excessive uncertainties, frustrations,
or threats for subordinates
❖ Leader’s responsibility is to help
subordinates by –
– Removing the obstacles
– Helping subordinates around them
❖ Assisting with obstacles will increase
– Subordinates’ expectations to complete the task
– Their sense of job satisfaction
Chapter 3 - Skills
Approach

How Does the Path-Goal

Theory Approach Work?

❖ Focus of Path-Goal Theory

❖ Strengths
❖ Criticisms
❖ Application
Chapter 3 - Skills
Approach

How Does Path-Goal Theory Work?

❖ The leader’s job is to help subordinates reach
their goals by directing, guiding, and coaching
them along the way
❖ Leaders must evaluate task and subordinate
characteristics and adapt leadership style
according to these
❖ The theory suggests which style is most
appropriate for specific characteristics
 Chapter 3 - Skills
Approach

Path-Goal Theory Approach

Focus Overall Scope

❖ Path-goal theory is a ❖ Path-goal theory

complex but also provides a set of
pragmatic approach assumptions about how
❖ Leaders should choose different leadership
a leadership style that styles will interact with
best fits the needs of subordinate
subordinates and their characteristics and the
work work situation to affect
employee motivation
Chapter 3 - Skills
Approach

Path-Goal Theory Matrix

 Chapter 3 - Skills
Approach

Strengths
❖ Useful theoretical framework. Path-goal theory is
a useful theoretical framework for understanding
how various leadership behaviors affect the
satisfaction of subordinates and their work
performance.
❖ Integrates motivation. Path-goal theory attempts
to integrate the motivation principles of expectancy
theory into a theory of leadership.
❖ Practical model. Path-goal theory provides a
practical model that underscores and highlights the
important ways leaders help subordinates.
 Chapter 3 - Skills
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Criticisms
❖ Interpreting the meaning of the theory can be
confusing because it is so complex and
incorporates so many different aspects of
leadership; consequently, it is difficult to implement.
❖ Empirical research studies have demonstrated only
partial support for path-goal theory.
❖ It fails to adequately explain the relationship
between leadership behavior and worker motivation.
❖ The path-goal theory approach treats leadership as
a one-way event in which the leader affects the
subordinate.
Chapter 3 - Skills
Approach

Application
❖ PGT offers valuable insights
that can be applied in ongoing
settings to improve one’s
leadership.
❖ Informs leaders about when to
be directive, supportive,
participative, or achievement
oriented.
❖ The principles of PGT can be
employed by leaders at all
organizational levels and for all
types of tasks.