Existential Headship and Strategic Headship paradigms
Pittaway et al.’s Existential and Strategic Headship paradigms are closely related
(Pittaway et al. 1998: 419), both being concerned with executive-level leadership
of organisations. The significant distinction between these paradigms is that in
Existential Headship leaders are conceptualised as drivers of change (proactive)
while leaders in the Strategic Headship are conceptualised as having less control
over internal and external environmental change – they are responders to change
rather than drivers of it.
Of the 44 relevant hospitality leadership research studies, only eight (18 per cent)
have been concerned with executive-level leadership of organisations and, of
these, only four (9 per cent) have focussed solely on executive level leadership
(Worsfold 1989; Hinkin and Tracey 1994; Tracey and Hinkin 1994; Chung-Herrera
et al. 2003). Studies which have examined both executive-level leadership and
leadership within organisations are: Shortt (1989), Cichy and Schmidgall (1996),
Nicolaides (2006) and Zopiatis and Constanti (2010).
Although Zopiatis and Constanti (2010) contained a focus on executive-level
leadership of organisations, their research also focused leadership in organisations
and aimed to investigate the (hypothesised) causal relationship between
leadership style and leader burnout. For these reasons this paper was placed in
the Situational Leadership category.
Influential leadership paradigm
Three hospitality leadership studies (6.8 per cent) have been published which are
relevant to the Influential Leadership paradigm. Borchgrevink and Boster (1997)
drew upon French and Raven’s ‘social bases of power’ framework to incorporate
coercive, reward, expert and referent power along with interdyadic
communication into their causal model of LMX (Leader-Member Exchange)
relationships in a hospitality setting. Elsewhere, Erkutlu and Chafra (2006)
sought to examine the influence of leadership power bases on subordinates’ job
stress at boutique hotels in Turkish boutique hotels. To do this the authors used
French and Raven’s (1959) ‘social bases of power’ framework and Rahim’s (1988)
Leader Power Inventory. Significant correlations between leader power bases and
subordinates’ job stress were found and the authors recommended that