1. INTRODUCTION

It is universally acknowledged that winning is related to leadership. Leaders are those who have ideas, energy and values to do what need to be done. The world is changing constantly, so the criterion of measuring the success of an organization is not whether it can win today or not but whether it can stay ahead tomorrow and the day after. As a result, the final standard for an organization to succeed is not whether its leaders can make smart decisions but whether they can keep alert and sustain their success. Therefore, in order to sustain the success of acting as leaders, leadership theories have developed over time, and, equipped with these theories, leaders in organizations are able to influence the performance of their businesses. This assignment is hence designed to elaborate how these theories have developed over time and how leaders can influence the business performance. Examples of organizations will be used throughout the whole assignment.

3. CONCLUSION

To summarize, this assignment has mainly analyzed the development of leadership theories as well as how leaders in some successful companies applied them to guide their subordinates. To be specific, the assignment started with Traits Theory which described that, great leaders usually have certain characteristics which are able to differentiate them from others. Then Behavioral Theory left the choice of leaders as to whether to pay more attention on accomplishing the tasks or on personal relationships. Then, under goal-setting theory, leaders are supposed to clarify workers' path to goals as well as increase the benefits for workers. Charismatic Leadership believed that these leaders can gather followers through their charm, instead of authority or power from outside. Under the guidance of Transactional Leadership, the relationship between leaders and followers are more like to be dealers because they are doing a "transaction". Transformational leaders are often playing a role in organizations which is experiencing a crisis or collapse to rescue the situation. Above are the whole theories mentioned in this assignment. And these theories are supported with real-world examples to make the statement more clearly and powerful.