Social Influence and Structure: Elements of A General Theory of Leadership

The contemporary leadership theories of Fiedler (LPC Contingency Theory), House (Path Goal, Vroom and Yetton (Decision Making) and Graen (Vertical Dyad Linkage) are commonly viewed as divergent, if not competing. The result is a fragmented leadership literature which contains little theoretical or empirical integration. The apparent diversity of these theories is substantially reduced and their common basic structures revealed if they are reconsidered in the context of a social influence-structure matrix, where social influence is the form or level of subordinate involvement in task matters, and social structure is the context in which managersubordinate interaction takes place.