Path Goal Theory

What Path Goal Theory is

Path Goal Theory (نظرية المسار والهدف) is a theory of leadership effectiveness. It holds that the leader’s basic job is to clarify, and to make easier, the way to the employees’ goals. The style that suits a given employee depends on the nature of the task, the characteristics of the employee and the work environment. The theory proposes no single style that suits every case. Its question is what stands in the way of this employee reaching the employee’s goal, and which leader behaviour removes that obstacle.

The theory is attributed to the American researcher Robert J. House, in an article on a path goal theory of leader effectiveness published in Administrative Science Quarterly, volume 16, issue 3, in 1971, and to a later joint formulation by House and Mitchell in 1974.

The theory concerns the relationship between a manager and the team. What follows is an explanation of the theory and of its limits. It does not claim that following it raises performance or satisfaction, or that it predicts an employee’s behaviour.

Where the theory comes from

House’s 1971 article is recorded in Crossref in Administrative Science Quarterly, volume 16, issue 3, starting on page 321. House’s 1996 article on the lessons, the legacy and a reformulated version of the theory is recorded in The Leadership Quarterly, volume 7, issue 3, pages 323 to 352. It indicates that the originator returned to the theory with a revised formulation.

We did not verify the publication details of the 1974 article by House and Mitchell in the Journal of Contemporary Business or the text of any of these articles, so we give the 1974 article as secondary references present it and quote nothing from any of them.

Secondary sources say that House built the theory on ideas from expectancy theory, one of the theories of motivation listed under work motivation. The idea is that an employee puts in effort when the employee expects the effort to lead to a result that the employee values. For this reason the leader is seen in the theory as an intermediary between the employee’s effort and what the employee wants.

The leader behaviours in the theory

Secondary sources present four leader behaviours, and the number of behaviours differs in later formulations. The names below are English labels that vary between sources:

• Directive. The leader clarifies what is required, sets the schedule and the standards, and shows how the work is done.
• Supportive. The leader cares about the needs and welfare of employees and creates a friendly atmosphere, especially when the work is tiring or dull.
• Participative. The leader consults employees and takes their views into account in a decision.
• Achievement oriented. The leader sets challenging goals, expects a high level from the team and shows confidence that the team can reach it.

The idea is that one leader can practise all four behaviours as the situation requires, and so is not placed in a single category.

What determines the suitable behaviour

The theory says that choosing a behaviour depends on two sets of variables, as secondary sources summarise them:

• Characteristics of the employee. These include experience, confidence in the ability to perform the task, and the need for direction or for independence.
• Characteristics of the environment. These include the clarity of the task, the nature of the team and the authority system in the establishment.

If the task is ambiguous and the employee is new, the employee can need directive behaviour. If the task is clear, extra direction can be repetition that the employee does not need and can find irritating. If the work is monotonous or tiring, support can help. If the employee is an expert, a participative behaviour that allows a wider share in decisions can suit. These are illustrations of the theory’s logic and not proven rules.

This shows that the theory asks the manager to read the position of each employee individually and not the team as a whole. One employee can find a task clear while another finds it vague, and a team in a pressured environment can need support in one week and direction in another. Supervision then becomes a continuing conversation, and it is hard to reduce to a fixed schedule of meetings.

How the theory differs from situational leadership and other approaches

• Choosing a style by the employee’s ability and willingness for a particular task is the basis of situational leadership. Path Goal Theory looks at the task, the environment and the employee together, and makes the criterion what stands in the employee’s way to the goal.
• Leadership styles in the broad sense are a different field, because the theory deals with behaviour and not with a fixed style.
• Involving employees in decisions, in its degrees, is the subject matter of participative leadership, and it is one of the four behaviours.
• The idea of removing obstacles is close to that of servant leadership, which is a philosophy about the purpose of the leader. Path Goal Theory makes the idea a tool for choosing behaviour.

How the theory shows in work

A manager can put questions to each employee. Is the task clear to the employee? Does the employee see a link between effort and what the employee receives? What obstacle stands in the way? The manager then chooses what suits the answer. Other practices connect with this:

• Clarity of the goal. A goal that is specific and measurable, as in SMART goals, is the first thing that the theory presupposes, so that the path has meaning.
• Linking goals. An employee’s goal is tied to the goal of the team and of the establishment through goal cascading.
• Assignment. An expert employee is given wider room once the path is clear to the employee, which is the practice of delegation.
• Freedom in the job. The freedom that a job leaves its holder is the focus of job autonomy, and it reduces some employees’ need for direction.

A hypothetical example: dividing a manager’s hours by obstacle

Suppose a hypothetical manager of a team of five employees allots 10 hours a week to supervising the team. The manager diagnosed the obstacle of each employee. The first employee is new and the task is ambiguous, so the manager allotted four hours using directive behaviour. The second works on a monotonous and tiring task, so the manager allotted two hours with supportive behaviour.

The third is an expert who wants a wider contribution, so the manager allotted two hours with participative behaviour. The fourth and fifth have clear tasks and are independent, so the manager allotted one hour to each, with behaviour that challenges the abilities of those two employees through higher goals. The total is 4 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 10 hours, and the share of the first employee is 4 ÷ 10 = 40% of the time.

The allocation does not prove that this behaviour is the right one. The manager may misdiagnose the obstacle, and the new employee may need support and not direction. The figures are hypothetical and set to illustrate. They do not represent an establishment or a study, and they do not mean that 10 hours or 40% is customary. The value of the example is that it shows that the theory makes the leader’s time a distribution across different needs, and not one dose given to everyone.

Where the theory is limited

• A meta analysis exists; its results are unverified. Wofford and Liska published a meta analysis in the Journal of Management, volume 19, issue 4, 1993, pages 857 to 876, and we verified that it exists. House’s 1996 reformulation indicates that the theory did not stay in its first form.
• Difficulty of testing. The theory combines many variables, and a single study may not be able to test all its combinations.
• Reliance on the leader’s diagnosis. Correct application depends on the leader’s ability to identify the obstacle, and that ability can err.
• The employee as recipient. The theory focuses on what the leader does, and it gives less attention to what the employee does to remove the employee’s obstacles.
• Not a set of instructions. The theory does not specify how many hours or which style suits each situation.

These limits can be taken as an invitation to use the theory as questions and not as answers fixed in advance. This is our reading and not a research result. It invites the manager to ask about the clarity of the goal, about the link between effort and what the employee receives, and about obstacles on the way, and then it leaves the manager to decide in light of knowing the team.

How the theory is misunderstood

• Treating it as a recipe. The theory is a framework for thinking about obstacles and not a list of orders.
• Assuming that direction is always inferior. Direction can be what a new employee needs, and the problem is direction that is not needed.
• Attributing a fixed trait to the employee. An employee’s need changes with the task.
• Claiming more for the theory than it shows. It does not show that suitable behaviour raises performance.

The role of human resources

Human resources can train managers to diagnose obstacles before choosing a behaviour, with simple questions that the managers put to the employees, and can give the managers time for this in their schedules. Human resources can also use coaching to build the skill of asking questions instead of issuing instructions. Training alone is not enough if the appraisal system rewards the manager for completing tasks and not for enabling the team to complete them.

What the evidence allows

We do not state that Path Goal Theory explains or predicts team performance. House presented it in 1971 and revised it later. We did not verify the results of the empirical research around it, and we found no figure that we adopt for the effect of applying it.

The theory is treated as a tool that helps the manager ask: do I know what stands in each employee’s way, and does what I do remove that obstacle? It is judged by what changes when it is applied. Did task clarity increase? Did stumbling decrease?

The theory remains a way of reminding the manager that the manager’s work can be measured by the clarity and ease that the manager provides to the team. What is decided afterwards rests on the task, the employee and the situation.

This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.