Leadership Styles: Inertia and changes in the Czech Republic

Social Darwinism suggests that in crisis situations leaders have to be replaced by better fitting leaders. An opposing school argues that leaders, based on their personality, are successful in all situations and therefore can master all situations including a crisis. A third view concludes that leaders can learn to overcome the path dependency of organizational structures. In this paper, the development and essentials of these approaches of leadership research are discussed and demonstrated in the case study of the Czech Republic after the Velvet Revolution. The test is based on the Vroom/Yetton model of leadership effectiveness. The results confirm that inertia and change can be explained based on the general contingency approach of leadership.