What is the Path Goal Theory of Leadership?

Becoming an effective leader isn’t always easy. Managers and supervisors don’t become exceptional leaders just because they gain the ability to direct a team. These professionals need to find the right way of motivating, engaging, and supporting their employees.

To improve employee performance and business outcomes, leaders need to consider a range of leadership styles, and how they might influence their teams. The path-goal theory of leadership can be a valuable tool for choosing the right leadership strategy.

What is the Path Goal Theory of Leadership?

The path-goal theory or “path-goal model” of leadership suggests that the traits and behaviors of leaders in a team environment directly affect business outcomes. According to the path goal leadership theory, the actions of a leader automatically affect the satisfaction, motivation, and performance of each team member.

Companies following the path goal theory for leadership measure the success of managers and supervisors by their ability to promote the contentment and accomplishments of their subordinates.

The concept was originally introduced by Robert J. House, and is based on the “expectancy theory” of motivation, in which experts believe an individual will act in a certain way because they expect their behavior to promote a certain outcome.

What are the Benefits of Path Goal Leadership?

Although the path goal model isn’t embraced by every business, it can deliver significant advantages to some companies when used correctly. The main benefits of considering the path goal theory of leadership when choosing a business operational style include:

• Overcoming training challenges: Providing trainers with the four different strategies of path goal theory leadership can sometimes help them to better avoid problems with different types of learning preferences. Many find this model improves their training outcomes.
• Achieve more goals: Using the path goal theory for training can also guide future leaders in the right direction, and help businesses to achieve their goals more consistently. Once supervisors and leaders find the right leadership style, they can use it to engage the workforce, increase productivity, and boost workplace efficiency.
• Improved emotional intelligence: The path goal theory of leadership provides leaders with a framework to help them understand how their style influences the motivation and confidence of their subordinates. This can lead to better emotional intelligence and empathy.
• Welcoming work environment: By adjusting leadership styles to suit the needs and expectations of employees, leaders can boost their chances of creating a strong company culture and welcoming workplace. This can reduce staff turnover and improve employee engagement, retention, and satisfaction levels.

How Path-Goal Theory works

The Path goal model assumes that leaders in business environments complement their employees, compensate for their shortcomings, and work hard to help them achieve their goals. According to this theory, leaders give their staff members a clear path they can follow to achieve their goals while minimizing any potential obstacles or pitfalls.

Path goal theory works by using different types of leadership behavior to motivate, engage, and influence employees while improving the overall company culture.

Path-goal Theory Types

Notably, the path goal theory of leadership identifies four types of key leadership behavior to be aware of. These include:

• Achievement oriented leadership: In this kind of leadership style, the supervisor or manager focuses on encouraging excellence by setting challenging goals and pushing team members to overcome their weak points. Leaders motivate employees to constantly improve and take pride in their achievements.
• Directive path goal clarifying leadership: In the directive path style of leadership, supervisors and managers provide employees with clear guidelines regarding expectations and processes. This style of leadership reduces the ambiguity in work and job functions, to help team members feel more confident in the way they conduct themselves at work. This leadership style also requires a lot of constant supervision and feedback.
• Supportive leadership: In a supportive leadership model, the supervisor or manager pays close attention to the wellbeing and needs of employees. The focus of the leader is to make the workplace as engaging and pleasant as possible for staff, by being empathetic, respectful, and friendly. This management style is considered extremely useful when employees need an extra boost of motivation.
• Participative leadership: The participative leadership style involves regularly consulting with team members on work-related decisions, processes, and goals. It enables the employee to be involved directly in the decision making process, and helps to encourage ownership. This strategy often takes full advantage of the specialist knowledge each employee has.

How to Apply Path Goal Theory

There’s no one-size-fits-all strategy to achieving business goals with path goal theory. However, there are some steps companies can follow if they want to utilize these leadership styles themselves. The way you apply the path goal model of leadership will depend on the types of leadership behaviors you’re going to be focusing on. For instance:

Achievement strategies

For the achievement-focused style of leadership to be successful, leaders need to show confidence in the ability of their team to overcome challenges and obstacles. Although these leaders set high expectations for their employees, they also don’t push them beyond their limits. These leaders need to consistently motivate and inspire their team members to deliver their best work. This leadership style will usually work well with employees who don’t need a high level of support, and feel comfortable working independently. It also works well when team members already have a significant level of confidence in their own abilities.

Directive strategies

Because the directive path goal leadership model is task oriented, it requires extensive training and one-on-one coaching. Leaders should have a clear vision of how to break big goals down into small steps with regular milestones. They should also be willing to work consistently with team members to help them visualize how to reach their potential goals.

The directive strategy generally works best for employees who prefer their workplace to have a lot of structure. Team members who like to receive plenty of feedback and step-by-step instruction will benefit from a directive leadership style.

Supportive Strategies

In this leadership style, leaders need to constantly work to show emotional intelligence and empathy towards their employees. They need to be committed to making sure employees are as satisfied, engaged, and happy as possible in their roles.

The supportive leadership strategy is typically most effective in situations where tasks and relationships are often quite challenging. Supportive leaders need to focus on creating warm and friendly environments for their team members, and maintaining a constant stream of communication.

Participative strategies

Participative leadership strategies work best when employees have an opportunity to participate in the setting of goals and reaching specific targets. It requires constant communication between employees and leaders, so teams can make decisions as a group.

Employees need to be constantly encouraged to provide regular feedback to their leaders, so changes can be made to processes when necessary.