R.J. House’s
Donald Hebb once wrote that a good theory was one that stays around long enough to help one get to a better theory. The path-goal theory of leadership has fulfilled that criterion well.

Janet
As suggested by the theory, supportive leader behavior appears to be an important variable—it obtained consistently strong relationships with the dependent variables at all levels of the organization.

Path-Goal approaches to explaining the current results build on a basic "postulate" of the theory: that the leader's function is a supplemental one, to provide structure, guidance, and support for subordinates which is not part of their work environment and which they require (House and Dessler, 1974, p. 31).

Thus, although theoretical and empirical literature on leadership and motivation suggest that other, nontask, situational variables impact upon subordinate outcome variables, these have been ignored in tests of the theory.

Increased acceptability of leader supportiven Konstructure tasd sources of "role clarity. A second" approacA wAiicA employs Path-Goal premises is to examine other characteristics of the task which may provide role clarity

Thomas regarding hypotheses deduced from the theory. Numerous explanations of neg-ative test results have been suggested, including problems of measurement (34) and use of inap-propriate statistical models (11)

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An evluation

These theories help us understand how a leader can influence followers to make selfsacrifices, commit to difficult objectives, and achieve much more than was initially expected.

The underlying influence process is described in terms of motivating followers by making them more aware of the importance of task outcomes and inducing them to transcend their own self interest for the sake of the organization.

Most survey studies