.

Situational approach and Contingency Models: the situation itself determines the
leadership style that will be most effective and no single style of leadership is appropriate
for all situations.
Major leadership contingency models include:
 Hersey and Blanchard: Competence of followers

Transactional and Transformational leadership: An approach that looks at two levels of

leadership:
 Transactional: appeals to the self-interest of followers to achieve organizational goals
and is based on the leader’s position of authority in the structure.
 Transformational leadership takes a further step: it creates a vision for transforming the
performance of the organization and appeals to the higher ideals and the values of the
organization’s people to make it happen. People are motivated by more than just their
own self-interest, and they are motivated to give more effort than what transactional
leadership alone can achieve.
 Transformational leadership is viewed as an extension of transactional, rather than an
alternative to it.

Inspirational or charismatic leadership: is based on the personal qualities or charisma of

the leader. These leaders are seen as having a strong vision and sense of mission and
arouse strong emotions in followers.
Power: leadership influence is determined by the source and type of power held by the
leader. This section overviews the theories of the key writers on power, including:
French and Raven, Etzioni’s Typology, Fincham’s Analysis and Kipnis et al Studies.

Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory

Right in the name of this leadership theory, you can get a great indication of what it is all

about. The term 'situational' indicates that leaders should vary their approach based on

the people they are leading, and the circumstances that surround the task at hand.

Indeed, the Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory is one that is based around

variable leadership, depending on a variety of circumstances. When a leader is able to adapt to

the situation as quickly as possible, everyone will benefit in the end.

Specifically, this theory has to do with the . To those who have worked as leaders in the past, it

is no surprise that maturity should be considered when working on finding the right leadership

style. For example, someone who is inexperienced in their field will likely lack the skills or

confidence to take on tasks that would be comfortable for a more experienced employee.

Only when a leader is able to mold their approach to the maturity and talent of those
that make up the team will the overall performance be up to par.
The Situational Leadership Theory offers up four potential leadership styles, and then
four maturity levels that define the members of a team. Let's quickly look at each of the
four styles and levels that can then be paired up for optimal performance.

Fiedler's Least Preferred Co-worker (LPC) Theory

Disciplines > Leadership > Leadership theories > Fiedler's Least Preferred Co-worker (LPC) Theory
Assumptions | Description | Discussion | See also

Assumptions

Leaders prioritize between task-focus and people-focus.

Relationships, power and task structure are the three key factors that drive effective styles.

Description

Fiedler identified the a Least Preferred Co-Worker scoring for leaders by asking them first to think of

a person with which they worked that they would like least to work with again, and then to score the

person on a range of scales between positive factors (friendly, helpful, cheerful, etc.) and negative
factors (unfriendly, unhelpful, gloomy, etc.). A high LPC leader generally scores the other person as

positive and a low LPC leader scores them as negative.

High LPC leaders tend to have close and positive relationships and act in a supportive way, even

prioritizing the relationship before the task. Low LPC leaders put the task first and will turn to

relationships only when they are satisfied with how the work is going.

Three factors are then identified about the leader, member and the task, as follows:

 Leader-Member Relations: The extent to which the leader has the support and loyalties of

followers and relations with them are friendly and cooperative.

 Task structure: The extent to which tasks are standardised, documented and controlled.
 Leader's Position-power: The extent to which the leader has authority to assess follower performance and
give reward or punishment.
The best LPC approach depends on a combination of there three. Generally, a high LPC approach is best when
leader-member relations are poor, except when the task is unstructured and the leader is weak, in which a low
LPC style is better.

Leader-Member Leader's Most Effective

# Task structure
Relations Position- power leader

1 Good Structured Strong Low LPC

2 Good Structured Weak Low LPC

3 Good Unstructured Strong Low LPC

4 Good Unstructured Weak High LPC

5 Poor Structured Strong High LPC

6 Poor Structured Weak High LPC

7 Poor Unstructured Strong High LPC

8 Poor Unstructured Weak Low LPC

Discussion
This approach seeks to identify the underlying beliefs about people, in particular whether the leader sees others as
positive (high LPC) or negative (low LPC). The neat trick of the model is to take someone where it would be very
easy to be negative about them.
This is another approach that uses task- vs. people-focus as a major categorisation of the leader's style.

Least-Preferred Coworker Scale

REVIEWED BY WILL KENTON
Updated Dec 20, 2017

DEFINITION of Least-Preferred Coworker Scale

The least-preferred coworker scale, developed by American scientist Fred Fiedler, identifies whether an
individual's leadership style is relationship-oriented or task-oriented. The Least Preferred Coworker (LPC)
scale requires a person to rate the one individual they would least want to work with – the least-preferred
coworker – using a range of 18 to 25 bipolar (positive or negative) adjectives, with ratings from 1 to 8. The
LPC score is then computed by totaling all the ratings. A high LPC score indicates that the individual is a
relationship-oriented leader, while a low LPC score suggests a task-oriented leader.

BREAKING DOWN Least-Preferred Coworker Scale

A typical set of bipolar adjectives used in the LPC scale would include pleasant/unpleasant,
friendly/unfriendly, supportive/hostile, and so on. The responses are graded from 1 for the least favorable
attribute (for example, unpleasant/unfriendly), to 8 for the most favorable one (pleasant/friendly).

The LPC scale assumes that people whose leadership style is relationship-oriented tend to describe their
least preferred coworkers in a more positive manner, while those whose style is task-oriented rate them
more negatively.

How the Least Preferred Coworker Scale Can Be Applied

The model presented by the scale presents the notion that no single leadership style is perfect or ideal,
as the needs change depending on circumstances and context. For instance, a team that is comprised of
veteran professionals who are well-versed in their tasks may be served best by a relationship-oriented
style of leadership. The team does not require the heavy-handed approach that a less experienced team
might, which could include strict guidelines in order to ensure the task is accomplished.

Similarly, a veteran team might need task-oriented leadership if there is a short deadline to complete the
objectives or if the goals include sensitive milestones that will be difficult to achieve. If the team is made
up of both veteran professionals and untrained staff, the situational needs of the objective and could
mean leadership styles may change based on the moment or the individuals who need guidance.

The situational favorableness also plays a role in the leadership style adopted. The leadership-member
relationship is a barometer of how much influence and trust exists between the team and its leader. If this
bond is weak, then the leader can be said to hold a weak position in this regard. This can be swayed by
the leader’s position of power in the organization. The amount of power and authority a leader has to
direct the team who works for them might be described as strong, meaning they have clear control to see
their mandates are followed. If that power is weak, they have less control over the team to ensure action
that is taken.
Chapter 12: Basic Approaches to Leadership

What is Leadership?

The ability to influence a group toward the achievement of goals.

 Leadership plays a central part in understanding group behavior.

 There are many definitions of leadership and various theories have been proposed
 Is "Management" the same as "Leadership"? What does a manager do? What does a leader do? Why is
“coping” important according to Kotter? (p. 402)

LEADERSHIP THEORIES….

Trait Theories

Theories that consider personal qualities and characteristics that differentiate leaders from non-leaders.

 Some traits increase the likelihood of success as a leader, but none of them guarantee success.
 Some limitations to trait theories…. There are no universal traits - traits appear to predict leadership in
selective situations only; Traits generally predict behavior in “weak” vs. “strong” situations; cause and effect
relationships are not clear; do traits simply predict the appearance of leadership rather than effective vs.
ineffective leadership.

Behavioral Theories

Theories proposing that specific behaviors differentiate leaders from non-leaders.

Ohio State Studies

 Initiating structure vs.

 Consideration

University of Michigan Studies

 Employee oriented vs.

 Production oriented

The Managerial Grid

 Concern for people vs. concern for production (i.e. 81 different styles on which a leader's behavior may fall)

Contingency Theories

Several contingency models are explored...(what works in one organization may not work in another)

Fiedler Model

Effective group performance depends upon the proper match between the leader's style of interacting with
subordinates and the degree to which the situation gives control and influence to the leader. Assumes an individual's
leadership style is fixed.

 Identify style via the Least Preferred Co-worker (LPC) scale

 Leader-member relations

Task structure

Position power

Match leaders and situations

*Cognitive resource theory: stress unfavorably affects a situation. Intelligence and experience can lessen the
influence of stress on the leader…

Hersey and Blanchard's Situational Theory

 Situational leadership theory (SLT) – Focus on “readiness” of the followers (ability and willingness to
accomplish a specific task)

Leader-Member Exchange Theory (LMX)

Leaders create "in-groups" and "out-groups", and subordinates with in-group status will have higher performance
ratings, less turnover, and greater satisfaction with their superior.

Path-Goal Theory

A leader's behavior is acceptable to subordinates insofar as they view it as a source of either immediate or future
satisfaction.

 Directive vs. Supportive leadership

Leader-Participation Model

Provides a set of rules to determine the form and amount of participative decision making in different situations.
There are now 12 contingency variables in the latest revision of this model. This model is often too complicated for
managers/leaders to actually put into place in organizations.

Summary and Implications for Managers

Leaders usually are the members of an organization who provide the direction toward goal attainment.

Re: Traits - Generally speaking, individuals who are ambitious; have high energy, a desire to lead, self-confidence,
intelligence, and are flexible are more likely to succeed as leaders than those without these traits.

No particular style (behavioral theories) is effective in all situations

Contingency models help us better understand leadership. Consider…..Task structure of the job, level of situational
stress, group support, leader intelligence and experience, and follower characteristics (personality, experience, ability
and motivation)

FOUNDERS AND AUTHORS

Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner have been working together for more than thirty years, studying leaders, researching leadership, conducting leadership
development seminars, and serving as leaders themselves in various capacities. They are coauthors of the award-winning, best-selling book The Leadership
Challenge. Since its first edition in 1987, The Leadership Challenge has sold more than two million copies worldwide and is available in more than twenty-
two languages. It has won numerous awards, including the Critics’ Choice Award from the nation’s book review editors and the James A. Hamilton
Hospital Administrators’ Book of the Year Award, and was selected as one of the top ten books on leadership in Covert and Sattersten’s The 100 Best
Business Books of All Time.
Jim and Barry have coauthored more than a dozen other award-winning leadership books, including

 Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It
 The Truth About Leadership: The No-Fads, Heart-of-the-Matter Facts You Need to Know
 A Leader’s Legacy
 The Encouraging the Heart Workshop Facilitator's Guide Set
 The Student Leadership Challenge
 The Academic Administrator’s Guide to Exemplary Leadership

They also developed the highly-acclaimed Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), a 360-degree questionnaire for assessing leadership behavior, which is
one of the most widely used leadership assessment instruments in the world, along with The Student LPI. More than five hundred doctoral dissertations and
academic research projects have been based on their The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® model.

Among the honors and awards that Jim and Barry have received is the American Society for Training and Development’s highest award for their
Distinguished Contribution to Workplace Learning and Performance. They have been named Management/Leadership Educators of the Year by the
International Management Council; ranked by Leadership Excellence magazine in the top twenty on its list of the Top 100 Thought Leaders; named among
the 50 Top Coaches in the nation (according to Coaching for Leadership); and listed among HR Magazine’s Most Influential International Thinkers.

Jim and Barry are frequent speakers, and each has conducted leadership development programs for hundreds of organizations, including Alberta Health
Services, Apple, Applied Materials, ARCO, AT&T, Australia Institute of Management, Australia Post, Bank of America, Bose, Charles Schwab, Chevron,
Cisco Systems, Clorox, Community Leadership Association, Conference Board of Canada, Consumers Energy, Deloitte Touche, Dorothy Wylie Nursing
and Health Leaders Institute, Dow Chemical, Egon Zehnder International, Federal Express, Genentech, Google, Gymboree, HP, IBM, Jobs DR-Singapore,
Johnson & Johnson, Kaiser Foundation Health Plans and Hospitals, Intel, Itau Unibanco, L. L. Bean, Lawrence Livermore National Labs, Lucile Packard
Children’s Hospital, Merck, Motorola, NetApp, Northrop Grumman, Novartis, Oakwood Temporary Housing, Oracle, Petronas, Roche Bioscience,
Siemens, 3M, Toyota, United Way, USAA, Verizon, VISA, the Walt Disney Company, and Westpac. They have lectured at over sixty college and
university campuses.

All The Leadership Challenge-related books, assessment instruments, and training materials are published by Jossey-Bass (books) and Pfeiffer
(assessments and training materials), imprints of John Wiley & Sons.

Honesty in Leadership: Kouzes and Posner

Kouzes and Posner identify five behaviors of effective leadership, with honesty essential to each.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Assess the theoretical framework devised by Kouzes and Posner in relating leadership and honesty from a business perspective

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Key Points

 Leadership is a process of motivating people and mobilizing resources to accomplish a common goal.

 Honesty refers to different aspects of moral character. It indicates positive and virtuous attributes such as integrity,
truthfulness, and straightforwardness.

 Honesty is essential to a leader ‘s legitimacy, credibility, and ability to develop trust with followers.
 Kouzes and Posner identify five behaviors of effective leaders: model the way, inspire vision, enable others, challenge the
process, and encourage the heart.

 Effective leaders set strong behavioral examples while expounding upon the company vision to inspire employees to be
fulfilled, and honesty is a necessary component of this behavior.

Key Terms

 micromanaging: The act of over-supervising or employing too much detail in delegating a task.
 Honesty: A facet of moral character that connotes positive and virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness, and
straightforwardness, along with the absence of lying, cheating, or theft.
Leadership is the ability to motivate people and mobilize resources to accomplish a common goal. In leadership, honesty is an
important virtue, as leaders serve as role models for their subordinates. Honesty refers to different aspects of moral character. It
indicates positive and virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness, and straightforwardness. These characteristics create
trust, which is critical to leaders in all positions. Honesty also implies the absence of lying, cheating, or theft.

Subordinates have faith in the leaders they follow. A leader who is not honest will lose legitimacy in the eyes of followers.
Integrity and openness are essential to developing trust, and without honesty a leader cannot gain and maintain the trust needed to
build commitment to a shared vision.

Leadership experts Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner find honesty to be the most important trait of effective leaders. In its absence,
leaders lack credibility, and their ability to influence others is diminished. Honesty also brings a degree of transparency to a
leader’s interaction with others.

For Kouzes and Posner, honesty is a critical element of the five behaviors of effective leaders.

Five behaviors of effective leaders: This model was created by Kouzes and Posner to emphasize vital leadership practices.
  Model the way: Leaders must clarify their values and set an example for their employees to imitate, underscoring the
importance of modeling positive characteristics such as honesty.
 Inspire vision: The vision is the emotional element of a company’s mission statement, and this vision must be
communicated honestly and with passion. Promoting the company’s vision allows leaders to inspire employees.
 Enable others to act: Leaders often make the critical mistake of micromanaging, as opposed to trusting others to do their
job. Trust stems from honesty, and creating an honest environment allows other employees more personal autonomy.
 Challenge the process: Leaders need to be attentive to how things are done, not just what gets done, and they must be
willing to address areas that require change. These practices are essential for continuous improvement, progress toward
goals, and innovation.
 Encourage the heart: Leaders must nurture the emotional dimension of their relationships with followers. Showing
appreciation, creating a supportive environment, and fostering community sentiment helps build commitment to the
leader’s vision.

In summary, leaders are tasked with balancing the organizational strategies of management with the social elements of leading.
This requires leaders to be in tune with their employees’ emotions and concerns in a meaningful and honest way. Effective
leaders set strong behavioral examples while communicating their vision to inspire employees. The need for honesty is woven
throughout the primary activities of effective leaders.

Leadership and Gender

Studies on the role of gender in leadership success show mixed results.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Discuss the relationship between gender and leadership behavior

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Key Points

 Research on leadership differences between men and women shows conflicting results. Some research states that women
have a different style of leadership than men, while other studies reveal no major differences in leadership behaviors
between the genders.

 Areas of study have included perceptions of leadership, leadership styles, leadership practices, and leadership
effectiveness.

 Some studies have found women leaders tend to demonstrate more communication, cooperation, affiliation, and nurturing
than men in leadership.

 Male leaders have been shown to be be more goal- and task-oriented and less relationship- and process-focused than
women.

Key Terms

 gender: The sociocultural phenomenon of the division of people into categories of male and female, each having
associated clothing, roles, stereotypes, etc.
 leadership: The capacity of someone to lead.
The future of leadership Theory
February 5, 2009 Sree Rama Rao Human Resource Management

Research on leadership behavior is moving in many directions. In this article, we will look at transformational or
charismatic leadership and a recent revival of the behavioral approach. Then we will look at two challenges to our
traditional ideas of leadership. One challenge casts a skeptical eye on the leader’s personality, while another raises
questions about the way followers see their leaders. A final challenge comes, where we discuss self managed groups and
whether leaders are really necessary.

Transformational or Charismatic Leadership:

One area of growing interest is the study of individuals who have an exceptional impact on their organizations. These
individuals may be called charismatic or transformational leaders. The recent interest in such transformational leaders
stems from at least two sources. First, many large companies including such giants as AT&T, IBM, and GM have
embarked on organizational transformations, programs of extensive changes that must be accomplished in short periods of
time. Such transformations, it has been argued, require transformational leader. Second, many feel that by concentrating
on traits, behaviors and situations, leadership theory has lost sight of the leader. The visibility of a business leader like Lee
Iacocca or a military figure like General Norman Schwartzkopf reminds us that some leaders seem to have personal
characteristics that do make a difference but are not accounted for by existing theories.

Bass’s Theory of Transformational Leadership:

In his explorations of the concept of transformational leadership, Bernard M Bass has contrasted two types of leadership
behaviors: transactional and transformational. Transactional leaders determine what employees need to do to achieve their
own and organizational objectives, classify those requirements, and help employees become confident they can reach their
objectives by expending the necessary efforts. In contrast, transformational leaders motivate us to do more than we
originally expected to do by raising our sense of the importance and value of our tasks, by getting us to transcend our own
self interests for the sake of the higher order needs, such as self actualization.

Much of the leadership theory that we have discussed in this article fits Bass’s transactional category reasonably well, and
Bass argues that such theory is useful helpful, as far as it goes. However, to be fully effective and to have a major impact
on their organizations leaders need to use their personal vision and energy to inspire their followers.

House’s theory of Charismatic:

Although the transformational leadership concept dates back at least to Max Weber’s discussion of charismatic leaders in
the first decades of the century the concept received relatively little research attention until recently. One of the notable
early contributions to systematic analysis of the subject is Robert J House’s theory of charismatic leadership.

House’s theory suggests that charismatic leaders have very high levels of referent power and that some of the power
comes from their need to influence others. The charismatic leader has extremely high levels of self confidence, dominance,
and a strong conviction in the oral righteousness of his/her beliefs or at least the ability to convince followers that he or
she possesses such confidence and conviction. House suggests that charismatic leaders communicate a vision or higher
level (transcendent) goal that captures the commitment and energy of followers. They are careful to create an image of
success and competence and to exemplify in their own behavior the value they espouse. They also communicate high
expectations for followers and confidence that followers will perform up to those expectations.
 One aspect of House’s theory that is likely to receive careful attention is the type of vision transformational leaders and
their followers pursue. Though the names and deeds of Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King are
stirring House and others are well aware that the ability to inspire great commitment, sacrifice, and energy is no guarantee
that the cause or vision is a worthwhile one. Adolf Hitler was also known for his charisma and for the tragedies his
leadership brought to his followers and others. Transformational leaders may possess great potential for revitalizing
declining institutions and helping individual find meaning and excitement in their work lives, but they can pose great
dangers if their goals and values are opposed to the basic tents of civilized society.
—

What is transformational leadership?

Transformational leadership is a leadership style in which leaders encourage, inspire and motivate employees to
innovate and create change that will help grow and shape the future success of the company. This is accomplished
by setting an example at the executive level through a strong sense of corporate culture, employee ownership and
independence in the workplace.

Transformational leaders inspire and motivate their workforce without micromanaging — they trust trained
employees to take authority over decisions in their assigned jobs. It’s a management style that’s designed to give
employees more room to be creative, look to the future and find new solutions to old problems. Employees on the
leadership track will also be prepared to become transformational leaders themselves through mentorship and
training.

Transformational leadership model

The concept of transformational leadership started with James V. Downton in 1973 and was expanded by James
Burns in 1978. In 1985, researcher Bernard M. Bass further expanded the concept to include ways for measuring the
success of transformational leadership. This model encourages leaders to demonstrate authentic, strong leadership
with the idea that employees will be inspired to follow suit.

While Bass’ model dates to the ’70s, it’s still an effective leadership style practiced today — this style of authentic
leadership never changes, just the environments it’s used in. It’s applicable across every industry, but it’s especially
vital to the fast-paced tech industry where innovation and agility can make or break a company.

For a deeper look at the transformational leadership model, see "How to apply transformational leadership at your
company."

Transformational leadership characteristics

According to Bass, these are the hallmarks of a transformational leader that sets them apart from other leadership
styles. A transformational leader is someone who:

 Encourages the motivation and positive development of followers

 Exemplifies moral standards within the organization and encourages the same of others
 Fosters an ethical work environment with clear values, priorities and standards.
 Builds company culture by encouraging employees to move from an attitude of self-interest to a mindset where they are
working for the common good
 Holds an emphasis on authenticity, cooperation and open communication
 Provides coaching and mentoring but allowing employees to make decisions and take ownership of tasks

For a look at how to draw out your transformational leadership qualities in your resume, see "IT resume makeover:
Highlighting transformational leadership."

[ Looking to upgrade your career in tech? This comprehensive online course teaches you how. ]

What is Transactional Leadership? How Structure Leads to Results

Published On: November 25, 2014
Updated On: May 08, 2018

A transactional leader is someone who values order and structure. They are likely to command military operations, manage large corporations, or
lead international projects that require rules and regulations to complete objectives on time or move people and supplies in an organized way.
Transactional leaders are not a good fit for places where creativity and innovative ideas are valued.
Transactional leadership is most often compared to transformational leadership. Transactional leadership depends on self-motivated people who
work well in a structured, directed environment. By contrast, transformational leadership seeks to motivate and inspire workers, choosing to
influence rather than direct others.
Read more about transactional leadership:

 Transactional leadership defined

 History of transactional leadership
 Transactional leaders and quotes
 Characteristics of transactional leadership
 Advantages and disadvantages of transactional leadership
 Benefits of transactional leadership
Transactional leadership definition
Transactional leadership focuses on results, conforms to the existing structure of an organization and measures success according to that
organization’s system of rewards and penalties. Transactional leaders have formal authority and positions of responsibility in an organization.
This type of leader is responsible for maintaining routine by managing individual performance and facilitating group performance.
This type of leader sets the criteria for their workers according to previously defined requirements. Performance reviews are the most common
way to judge employee performance. Transactional, or managerial, leaders work best with employees who know their jobs and are motivated by
the reward-penalty system. The status quo of an organization is maintained through transactional leadership.

Differences between transactional leadership and other leadership styles

Transactional leaders differ from charismatic and transformational leaders in both structure and method. Charismatic leadership emphasizes
influencing a group or organization to make the world a better place. In transactional leadership, the emphasis is on managing the performance of
the individual and determining how well he or she performs in a structured environment.
The difference between transactional leadership and transformational leadership is also quite large. Simply put, transactional is a “telling”
leadership style, and transformational is a “selling” style. While the transactional approach features positive and negative reinforcement,
transformational leadership emphasizes motivation and inspiration. Transactional leaders are reactive; transformational leaders are proactive.
Transactional leadership appeals to the self-interest of individuals, while the transformational style prioritizes group progress.

History of the transactional leadership theory

Max Weber, a 20th-century German sociologist, made an extensive study of leadership styles and divided them into three categories: traditional,
charismatic and rational-legal, or bureaucratic. In 1947, Weber was the first to describe rational-legal leadership — the style that would come to
be known as transactional leadership — as “the exercise of control on the basis of knowledge.”

Transactional leadership theory is based on the idea that managers give employees something they want in exchange for getting something they
want. It posits that workers are not self-motivated and require structure, instruction and monitoring in order to complete tasks correctly and on
time.
The transactional leadership style was widely used after World War II in the United States. This was a time when the government concentrated on
rebuilding and required a high level of structure to maintain national stability.
Political scientist James McGregor Burns was one of the most prominent authors to advance Weber’s theories. In his 1978 book “Leadership,”
Burns argued that both transactional and transformational leaders must be moral and have a higher purpose. In Burns’s model, transactional
leaders espouse honesty, fairness, responsibility, and honoring commitments.
In the 1980s and 90s, researchers including Bernard M. Bass, Jane Howell and Bruce Avolio defined the dimensions of transactional leadership:

 Contingent reward, the process of setting expectations and rewarding workers for meeting them
 Passive management by exception, where a manager does not interfere with workflow unless an issue arises
 Active management by exception, in which managers anticipate problems, monitor progress and issue corrective measures
Many current leadership theorists agree that principals of transactional and transformational leadership can be combined for ideal outcomes for
both management and the workforce.

Examples of transactional leadership

The transactional model is likely to succeed in a crisis or in projects that require linear and specific processes. This model is also useful for big
corporations, such as Hewlett-Packard, a company known for its extensive use of management by exception.
Many high-level members of the military, CEOs of large international companies, and NFL coaches are known to be transactional leaders.
Transactional leadership also works well in policing agencies and first responder organizations. Here are four examples of transactional leaders.

Norman Schwarzkopf
Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf was born in 1934 and graduated from West Point. He went to Vietnam as an advisor to the South Vietnamese army.
During that war, he was wounded twice and awarded three Silver Star medals. In 1978, he became a brigadier general; he attained a four-star
ranking in 1988. General Schwarzkopf was commander-in-chief of the U.S. forces in Operation Desert Storm, responsible for tens of thousands
of troops in Iraq and Kuwait. He used the rules and regulations of the military to coordinate operations on several continents.

Vince Lombardi
Born in 1913, Vince Lombardi is best known as the coach for the Green Bay Packers. He signed a five-year contract with Green Bay in 1959.
Under his leadership, the team never had a losing session. Over the course of his career, he led the team to a 98-30-4 record and five
championships. The Super Bowl trophy is named after him. He used to run the Packers through the same plays in practice over and over again.
The team’s opponents knew the plays Lombardi would run, but the team was so well trained that many teams had trouble defending against them.

Bill Gates
Bill Gates was born in Seattle in 1955. In his early teens, he met Paul Allen at the Lakeside School, where they both developed computer
programs as a hobby. When Gates went to Harvard, Allen went to work as a programmer for Honeywell in Boston. In 1975, they started
Microsoft, and by 1978, the company had grossed $2.5 million, when Gates was 23. In 1985, Microsoft launched Windows. Bill Gates is now one
of the richest people in the world. As a transactional leader, he used to visit new product teams and ask difficult questions until he was satisfied
that the teams were on track and understood the goal.

Howard Schultz
Howard Schultz was born in 1953 and grew up in the Brooklyn housing projects. He escaped the projects with a football scholarship from
Northern Michigan University. After college, he started selling coffee makers to companies that included the Starbucks Coffee Tea and Spice
Company, which originally sold coffee beans rather than made-to-order drinks. He was hired by the company in 1982. In 1984, Schultz opened
the first Starbucks coffeehouse based on the concept of an Italian espresso bar.
Schultz wanted to grow Starbucks, but the owners wanted to stay small. Schultz left and opened his own company in 1985. With the help of
investors in 1987, he bought Starbucks and merged the two companies. By 2006, Schultz was ranked 394 on Forbes magazine’s list of the 400
richest people in America. As a transactional leader, he was responsible for the vision and implementation of the Starbucks model.

Transactional leadership quotes

Norman Schwarzkopf: “When placed in command, take charge.”
Vince Lombardi: “The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have
applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.”
Bill Gates: “The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency.
The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.”
Howard Schultz: “Starbucks is not an advertiser; people think we are a great marketing company, but in fact we spend very little money on
marketing and more money on training our people than advertising.”
Transactional leadership style
Here are some of the characteristics of transactional leaders:

 Focused on short-term goals

 Favor structured policies and procedures
 Thrive on following rules and doing things correctly
 Revel in efficiency
 Very left-brained
 Tend to be inflexible
 Opposed to change
Advantages and disadvantages of transactional leadership
Transactional leadership works well in organizations where structure is important. Transactional leadership is not the right fit for organizations
where initiative is encouraged:
Transactional leadership pros:
 Rewards those who are motivated by self-interest to follow instructions
 Provides an unambiguous structure for large organizations, systems requiring repetitive tasks and infinitely reproducible environments
 Achieves short-term goals quickly
 Rewards and penalties are clearly defined for workers
Transactional leadership cons:
 Rewards the worker on a practical level only, such as money or perks
 Creativity is limited since the goals and objectives are already set
 Does not reward personal initiative
Benefits of transactional leadership
There is definitely a place for transactional leadership in the world today. One of its best uses is in multinational corporations where not all of the
workers speak the same language. Once the structure and the requirements are learned, it is easy for workers to complete tasks successfully. This
works because transactional leadership is simple to learn and does not require extensive training. The transactional approach is easy to understand
and apply across much of an organization.
The military, policing organizations, and first responders use this style of leadership so that all areas of the organization are consistent. It is also
easier to apply in a crisis situation, where everyone must know exactly what is required of them and how a task is to be done under pressure.
To many people, money and perks are a powerful motivator. Many people need a job to pay the bills. They have other obligations and
distractions and would just as soon know exactly how to do their job in order to keep it and reap the rewards.

Situational Approach

• Focuses on leadership in situations

• Composed of a directive and supportive dimension
• A leader must match his or her style to the competence and commitment of the subordinates.
• Effective leaders are those who can recognize what employees need and then adapt their own style to meet those needs
• Effective leadership occurs when the leader can accurately diagnose the development level of the subordinates in a task situation and
then exhibit the prescribed leadership style that matches that situation

Directive Behavior
 • helps group members accomplish goals by giving directions, defining roles, setting time lines, evaluating and showing how goals will
be met.
• Explains what is to be done, how it is to be done, and who is responsible for doing it
• One way communication
• helps group members accomplish goals by giving directions, defining roles, setting time lines, evaluating and showing how goals will
be met.
• Explains what is to be done, how it is to be done, and who is responsible for doing it
• One way communication

Supportive Behavior

• helps coworkers feel comfortable about themselves, their coworkers and the situation.
• Asking for input, praising, listening, sharing information about oneself
• Two way communication

Four Leadership Styles (Seacrh )

The Leader-Member Exchange Theory

Getting the Best From all Team Members
(Also known as LMX or Vertical Dyad Linkage Theory)

© Veer
MARKBZ
Do you refuse some team members access to your time and attention?
As a manager, it's not always right to treat everyone on your team
in the same way.
For instance, you probably have team members that you've developed a great relationship with: you trust
them, they work hard, and they've never let you down. To you, these team members are invaluable, and
you make an extra effort to send challenging projects their way.
It's also likely that you have others on your team who you think less well of. They may not have far-
reaching career goals, they're less competent, and you simply don't trust them to the same extent. These
team members get everyday responsibilities, and are not considered for promotions or challenging
assignments.

However, have you ever stopped to analyze why you don't trust certain team members? Rightly or
wrongly, do you let that distrust, or the belief that they're unreliable, influence how you relate to them? Do
you, even subconsciously, withhold opportunities that might help them grow and succeed?

This situation is at the heart of the Leader-Member Exchange Theory. This theory, also known as LMX or
the Vertical Dyad Linkage Theory, explores how leaders and managers develop relationships with team
members; and it explains how those relationships can either contribute to growth or hold people back.

Understanding the Theory

The Leader-Member Exchange Theory first emerged in the 1970s. It focuses on the relationship that
develops between managers and members of their teams.

The theory states that all relationships between managers and subordinates go through three stages.
These are:

1. Role-Taking.

2. Role-Making.

3. "Routinization."

Let's look at each stage in greater detail.

1. Role-Taking

Role-taking occurs when team members first join the group. Managers use this time to assess new
members' skills and abilities.

2. Role-Making

New team members then begin to work on projects and tasks as part of the team. In this stage, managers
generally expect that new team members will work hard, be loyal and prove trustworthy as they get used
to their new role.

The theory says that, during this stage, managers sort new team members (often subconsciously) into
one of two groups.

 In-Group - if team members prove themselves loyal, trustworthy and skilled, they're put into the In-
Group. This group is made up of the team members that the manager trusts the most. Managers give
this group most of their attention, providing challenging and interesting work, and offering opportunities
 for additional training and advancement. This group also gets more one-to-one time with the manager.
Often, people in this group have a similar personality and work-ethic to their manager.
 Out-Group - if team members betray the trust of the manager, or prove that they're unmotivated or
incompetent, they're put into the Out-Group. This group's work is often restricted and unchallenging.
Out-Group members tend to have less access to the manager, and often don't receive opportunities
for growth or advancement.

3. Routinization

During this last phase, routines between team members and their managers are established.

In-Group team members work hard to maintain the good opinion of their managers, by showing trust,
respect, empathy, patience, and persistence.

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Out-Group members may start to dislike or distrust their managers. Because it's so hard to move out of
the Out-Group once the perception has been established, Out-Group members may have to change
departments or organizations in order to "start over."

Once team members have been classified, even subconsciously, as In-Group or Out-Group, that
classification affects how their managers relate to them from then on, and it can become self-fulfilling.

For instance, In-Group team members are often seen as rising stars and the manager trusts them to work
and perform at a high level. This is also the group that the manager talks to most, offering support and
advice, and they're given the best opportunities to test their skills and grow. So, of course, they're more
likely to develop in their roles.

This also holds true for the Out-Group. The manager spends little, if any, time trying to support and
develop this group. They receive few challenging assignments or opportunities for training and
advancement. And, because they're never tested, they have little chance to change the manager's
opinion.

Using the Theory

You can use the Leader-Member Exchange Theory to be aware of how you perceive members of your
own team.

To do this, follow these steps:

1. Identify Your Out-Group

Chances are, you know who's in your Out-Group already. Take a moment to note their names down.

Next, analyze why these people have fallen "out of favor." Did they do something specifically to lose your
trust? Do they exhibit bad behavior at work ? Are they truly incompetent, or do they have low
motivation?
Analyze what they've actually done, and compare the facts with your perceptions. Do these match, or
have you (perhaps subconsciously) blown things out of proportion?

2. Reestablish the Relationship

It's important that, as the leader, you make a reasonable effort to reestablish a relationship with Out-
Group team members. Research published in the Leadership Quarterly journal in 1995 showed that team
members who have high quality relationships with their leader have higher morale, and are more
productive than those who don't. So you, and your organization, can benefit from creating a better
relationship.

Keep in mind that this group will likely be wary of any attention or support from you; after all, they may not
have had it in the past.

First, meet each team member one-on-one. Take the time to find out if they're happy with their job. What
are their career goals? What can you do to make their work more challenging or engaging?

A one-on-one meeting can also help you identify that person's psychological contract with you - that
is, the unspoken benefits they expect from you, as their leader. If they're in the Out-Group, they may feel
that the psychological contract has been broken.
You also need to discover what truly motivates them. Use McClelland's Human Motivation Theory or
Herzberg's Motivators and Hygiene Factor Theory to find out what drives them to succeed.
Once you've had a chance to reconnect with your team members through one-on-one meetings, do what
you sensibly can to continue to touch base with them. Practice management by walking around , or
drop by their office to see if they need help on projects or tasks. Work on getting to know these team
members on a personal level.
3. Provide Training and Development Opportunities

Remember, the biggest advantage to the Leader-Member Exchange Theory is that it alerts you to the
preference you might unconsciously - and possibly unfairly - be showing some team members; this allows
you to offer all of your team members appropriate opportunities for training, development, and
advancement.

Your Out-Group team members may benefit from a mentoring or coaching relationship with you.
You may also want to provide them with low risk opportunities to test and grow their skills. Use task
allocation strategies to make sure you're assigning the right task to the right person. Also, take our Bite-
Sized Training session, /community/Bite-SizedTraining/SettingGoals.phpSetting Goals for Your Team,
to learn how to set effective and realistic goals for these team members.
You can also use the Nine-Box Grid for Talent Management to re-assess their potential from time to
time, and to give them the right development opportunities.
Warning:
A problem with the Leader-Member Exchange Theory is that it assumes that all team members are
equally worthy of trust, prestigious projects and advancement. Although we may like to think that
everyone is honest, hard-working and worthy of our esteem, the reality can be different!

Managers need to get the best possible results. This means putting the right people in the right places,
and it means developing and reinforcing success. Of necessity, this means that talented people will get
more interesting opportunities and may get more attention than less-talented ones.

Use the Leader-Member Exchange Theory to make sure that you're objective in the way that you deal
with people, but don't be naïve in the way that you apply it.
Key Points
The Leader-Member Exchange Theory first appeared in the 1970s. It analyzes the relationship between
managers and team members.

Team members typically go through three phases in their relationship with their manager: Role-Taking,
Role-Making, and Routinization.

Typically, during the Role-Making phase, group members are classified into one of two groups: In-Group,
and Out-Group. In-Group team members often receive more attention and support, and more
opportunities, from their managers. Out-Group members get very little face time, and few opportunities.

You can use the Leader-Member Exchange Theory to identify and validate any perceptions that you
might have of people on your team.
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Leadership-Member Exchange (LMX)
Theory
Informal observation of leadership behavior suggests that leader’s action is not the same towards all subordinates.
The importance of potential differences in this respect is brought into sharp focus by Graen’s leader-member
exchange model, also known as the vertical dyad linkage theory. The theory views leadership as consisting of a
number of dyadic relationships linking the leader with a follower. The quality of the relationship is reflected by the
degree of mutual trust, loyalty, support, respect, and obligation.

According to the theory, leaders form different kinds of relationships with various groups of subordinates. One
group, referred to as the in-group, is favored by the leader. Members of in-group receive considerably more attention
from the leader and have more access to the organizational resources. By contrast, other subordinates fall into the
out-group. These individuals are disfavored by the leader. As such, they receive fewer valued resources from their
leaders.

Leaders distinguish between the in-group and out-group members on the basis of the perceived similarity with
respect to personal characteristics, such as age, gender, or personality. A follower may also be granted an in-group
status if the leader believes that person to be especially competent at performing his or her job. The relationship
between leaders and followers follows three stages:

 Role taking: When a new member joins the organization, the leader assesses the talent and abilities of the
member and offers them opportunities to demonstrate their capabilities.
 Role making: An informal and unstructured negotiation on work-related factors takes place between the
leader and the member. A member who is similar to the leader is more likely to succeed. A betrayal by the
member at this stage may result in him being relegated to the out-group

The LMX 7 scale assesses the degree to which leaders and followers have mutual respect for each other’s
capabilities, feel a deepening sense of mutual trust, and have a sense of strong obligation to one another. Taken
together, these dimensions determine the extent to which followers will be part of the leader’s in-group or out-group.

In-group followers tend to function as assistants or advisers and to have higher quality personalized exchanges with
the leader than do out-group followers. These exchanges typically involve a leader’s emphasis on assignments to
interesting tasks, delegation of important responsibilities, information sharing, and participation in the leader’s
decisions, as well as special benefits, such as personal support and support and favorable work schedules.

Strengths of LMX Theory

LMX theory is an exceptional theory of leadership as unlike the other theories, it concentrates and talks about
specific relationships between the leader and each subordinate.

LMX Theory is a robust explanatory theory.

LMX Theory focuses our attention to the significance of communication in leadership. Communication is a
medium through which leaders and subordinates develop, grow and maintain beneficial exchanges. When this
 communication is accompanied by features such as mutual trust, respect and devotion, it leads to effective
leadership.

LMX Theory is very much valid and practical in it’s approach.

Criticisms of LMX Theory

LMX Theory fails to explain the particulars of how high-quality exchanges are created.

LMX Theory is objected on grounds of fairness and justice as some followers receive special attention of
leaders at workplace and other followers do not.

Implications
According to many studies conducted in this area, it has been found that leaders definitely do support the members
of the in-group and may go to the extent of inflating their ratings on poor performance as well. This kind of a
treatment is not given to the members of the out-group. Due to the favoritism that the in-group members receive
from their leaders, they are found to perform their jobs better and develop positive attitude towards their jobs in
comparison to the members of the out-group. The job satisfaction of in-group members is high and they perform
effectively on their jobs. They tend to receive more mentoring from their superiors which helps them in their
careers. For these reasons, low attrition rate, increased salaries, and promotion rates are associated with the in-group
members in comparison to that of the out-group members.

Servant Leadership

Servant Leadership
Putting Your Team First, and Yourself Second
© iStockphoto
MarkLinnard

Find out how meeting others’ needs can make you a more effective leader.
A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are
doing well to do even better. – Jim Rohn, American entrepreneur.

Everyone on Samit's team knows that he's "there for them." He checks in with them often to see
how they are, and he helps them develop the skills they need to advance their careers, even if this
means that they may move on.
Samit also makes an effort to see situations from others' perspectives. He makes decisions with
the team's best interests in mind, and ensures that everyone has the resources and knowledge
they need to meet their objectives.

As a result of this, his team is one of the most successful in the department, with low staff
turnover and high engagement.

Samit is an example of a "servant leader." In this article, we'll explore what servant leadership is,
and the advantages it can bring you as a leader. We'll also look at situations where it isn't
appropriate.

What Is Servant Leadership?

Robert K. Greenleaf first coined the phrase "servant leadership" in his 1970 essay, "The Servant
as a Leader." However, it's an approach that people have used for centuries.

As a servant leader, you're a "servant first" – you focus on the needs of others, especially team
members, before you consider your own. You acknowledge other people's perspectives, give
them the support they need to meet their work and personal goals, involve them in decisions
where appropriate, and build a sense of community within your team. This leads to higher
engagement, more trust, and stronger relationships with team members and other stakeholders. It
can also lead to increased innovation.

Servant leadership is not a leadership style or technique as such. Rather it's a way of behaving
that you adopt over the longer term. It complements democratic leadership styles, and it has
similarities with Transformational Leadership – which is often the most effective style to use in
business situations – and Level 5 Leadership – which is where leaders demonstrate humility in
the way they work.

However, servant leadership is problematic in hierarchical, autocratic cultures where managers

and leaders are expected to make all the decisions. Here, servant leaders may struggle to earn
respect.

Important:

Remember that servant leadership is about focusing on other people's needs – not their feelings.
Don't avoid making unpopular decisions or giving team members negative feedback when this is
needed.

Also, do not rely on it exclusively – use it alongside styles like Transformational Leadership,
where you develop an inspiring vision of the future, motivate people to deliver this, manage its
implementation, and build an ever-stronger team.
How to Become a Servant Leader
According to Larry C. Spears, former president of the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant
Leadership, these are the 10 most important characteristics of servant leaders:

1. Listening.
2. Empathy.
3. Healing.
4. Awareness.
5. Persuasion.
6. Conceptualization.
7. Foresight.
8. Stewardship.
9. Commitment to the growth of people.
10. Building community.

From "Character and Servant Leadership: 10 Characteristics of Effective, Caring

Leaders" by Larry C. Spears, published in "The Journal of Virtues and Leadership,"
Vol. 1, Issue 1. Reproduced with permission.

Once you've decided to prioritize other people's needs over your own in the long term, you can
work on developing your skills in each area. Let's look at how you can do this.

1. Listening
You'll serve people better when you make a deep commitment to listening intently to them and
understanding what they're saying. To improve your listening skills , give people your full
attention, take notice of their body language, avoid interrupting them before they've finished
speaking, and give feedback on what they say.

2. Empathy
Servant leaders strive to understand other people's intentions and perspectives. You can be more
empathetic by putting aside your viewpoint temporarily, valuing others' perspectives, and
approaching situations with an open mind.

3. Healing
This characteristic relates to the emotional health and "wholeness" of people, and involves
supporting them both physically and mentally.

First, make sure that your people have the knowledge, support and resources they need to do
their jobs effectively, and that they have a healthy workplace . Then take steps to help them be
happy and engaged in their roles.

You could also use a tool such as the Triple Bottom Line to think about how your organization
can make a positive impact on the people you lead and the customers you serve.

4. Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is the ability to look at yourself, think deeply about your emotions and behavior,
and consider how they affect the people around you and align with your values .

You can become more self-aware by knowing your strengths and weaknesses , and asking for
other people's feedback on them. Also, learn to manage your emotions , so that you consider
how your actions and behavior might affect others.

5. Persuasion
Servant leaders use persuasion – rather than their authority – to encourage people to take action.
They also aim to build consensus in groups , so that everyone supports decisions.

There are many tools and models that you can use to be more persuasive, without damaging
relationships or taking advantage of others. You should also build your expert power – when
people perceive you as an expert, they are more likely to listen to you when you want to
persuade or inspire them.

6. Conceptualization
This characteristic relates to your ability to "dream great dreams," so that you look beyond day-
to-day realities to the bigger picture.
If you're a senior leader in your company, work through and develop a robust organizational
strategy . Then, whatever level you're at, create mission and vision statements for your team,
and make it clear how people's roles tie in with your team's and organization's long-term
objectives. Also, develop long-term focus so that you stay motivated to achieve your more
distant goals, without getting distracted.

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7. Foresight
Foresight is when you can predict what's likely to happen in the future by learning from past
experiences, identifying what's happening now, and understanding the consequences of your
decisions.

You can use tools such as SWOT Analysis and PEST Analysis to think about your current
situation and environment, while Scenario Analysis helps you understand how the future could
play out. Use the ORAPAPA checklist when you make a decision, to learn from experience and
make sure that you've considered all the angles.

Also, learn to trust your intuition – if your instinct is telling you that something is wrong, listen
to it!

8. Stewardship
Stewardship is about taking responsibility for the actions and performance of your team, and
being accountable for the role team members play in your organization.

Whether you're a formal leader or not, you have a responsibility for the things that happen in
your company. Take time to think about your own values, as well as those of your organization,
so that you know what you will and won't stand for. Also, lead by example by demonstrating
the values and behaviors that you want to see in others, and have the confidence to stand up to
people when they act in a way that isn't aligned with them.

9. Commitment to the Growth of People

Servant leaders are committed to the personal and professional development of everyone on their
teams.

To develop your people , make sure that you use Training Needs Assessments to understand
their developmental needs and give them the skills they need to do their jobs effectively. Also,
find out what their personal goals are, and see if you can give them projects or additional
responsibilities that will help them achieve these.

10. Building Community

The last characteristic is to do with building a sense of community within your organization.

You can do this by providing opportunities for people to interact with one another across the
company. For instance, you could organize social events such as team lunches and barbecues,
design your workspace to encourage people to chat informally away from their desks, and
dedicate the first few minutes of meetings to non-work-related conversations.

Encourage people to take responsibility for their work, and remind them how what they do
contributes to the success and overall objectives of the organization.

Tip:

See our article on Leadership Styles to explore popular leadership approaches and the
advantages and disadvantages of each one.

And see this /community/ExpertInterviews/ServantLeadership.phpExpert Interview for a

valuable discussion on the misconceptions and realities of servant leadership.

Key Points
You are a servant leader when you focus on the needs of others before you consider your own.
It's a longer-term approach to leadership, rather than a technique that you can adopt in specific
situations. Therefore, you can use it with other leadership styles such as Transformational
Leadership.

You can become a servant leader by working on these 10 characteristics:

1. Listening.
2. Empathy.
3. Healing.
4. Awareness.
5. Persuasion.
6. Conceptualization.
7. Foresight.
8. Stewardship.
9. Commitment to the growth of people.
10. Building community.

Servant leaders are likely to have more engaged employees and enjoy better relationships with
team members and other stakeholders than leaders who don't put the interests of others before
their own.

Authentic Leadership
Becoming a Leader People Want to Follow
© iStockphoto
stockstudioX
Do people want to follow you?
You've probably heard of "authentic leadership." Books, leadership
courses, and entire businesses have been built around this idea. But it's
often easier to identify authentic leaders than it is to define what makes
them that way.
So what do the words "authentic leader" actually mean? What makes a leader authentic, and why is it worth the
effort?

There are many different answers to these questions. In this article, we'll discuss why authenticity is so important,
and we'll examine the different characteristics that make someone authentic as a leader.

Why Authentic Leadership?

Leadership today is very different from leadership in previous generations. The old "top-down" style of management
just doesn't work anymore. People generally want to be fully engaged, and committed to what they're doing. They
want to feel as if their work matters. And they want to believe in the people who are in charge.

Because of these higher expectations, it's vital for leaders to know how to inspire passion and confidence in the
people they're leading. When people work alongside a truly authentic leader, they'll often give their whole hearts and
minds to the cause. In these situations, a spirit of teamwork and loyalty can spread throughout an organization,
resulting in high morale and producing extraordinary results.

Authentic leaders inspire trust in their teams. People are more willing to be open about problems, which means that
those problems are more likely to get fixed, instead of being ignored.

What Is Authentic Leadership?

So, authentic leadership can inspire people to pull together, work hard, and communicate. But how do you lead in an
authentic way? What does this involve?

There's no easy answer to these questions, because authenticity can mean many different things and involve a wide
range of skills, actions, and behaviors. At its root, however, authentic leadership is all about behaving with integrity,
and being consistent.

For example, authentic leaders inspire those they lead because they stay true to their own values. They know who
they are, and they don't let anyone keep them from making a decision that they know is right. They have integrity
and a firm moral code, and they manage to stay sensible and stable even during the most difficult times.
How to Lead Authentically

The path to this type of leadership is not straight and well-defined. As we said earlier, it involves many different
skills, traits and actions. But, by focusing on some of the most common characteristics, you can start down your own
path toward authentic leadership.

Let's look at some main themes – ethics, power, communication, and the organization – and examine how you could
start developing these on your own.

Ethics

Authentic leaders are ethical leaders. They've identified their ethical codes, and they never compromise on what they
believe to be right and wrong.

If you'd like some help identifying your own ethics and values, our article Ethical Leadership is a great starting
point; and our /community/BookInsights/WinnersNeverCheat.phpBook Insight into "Winners Never Cheat" by
Jon Huntsman reviews a book that shows why being ethical matters so very much.

Power

All leaders have power. But authentic leaders know how to use the right kind of power – for the good of the group,
and for the goal that needs to be achieved.
There are several different kinds of power. One type is expert power. When you have expert power, your team looks
up to you because of your skills, knowledge and experience. Learn how to build and use this type of power with our
article on Expert Power .
Authentic leaders also use the power of example. When leaders do as they say, they gain the respect and admiration
of their teams. Learn more about this in our article, Leading by Example .
Authentic leaders don't just know what type of power to use in a given situation. They also understand power –
where it comes from, and how to use it to get things done. Our article on French and Raven's Five Forms of
Power explores the various different types of power in the workplace, and explains how to use the good forms and
avoid the bad.

Communication

Authentic leaders are excellent communicators. They use a number of different communication strategies to pass
along their values, inspire their teams, and give clear instructions.

They may use storytelling as an effective way to communicate an important message. Stories can inspire a team to
work harder – and, when done right, stories can change an entire corporate culture by creating "legends." Our article
on Business Storytelling shows you how to start telling great stories in your organization.
Communication requires "give and take." Authentic leaders understand that the world isn't just about them, and they
listen actively to other people and accept good advice, no matter where it comes from or who gives it.
Good communication also involves feedback. It can be incredibly difficult for leaders to get the feedback they need
to improve (no one wants to tell the CEO that his idea stinks!). But authentic leaders work hard to create a culture of
open communication. They know they are not perfect, and they hire people who are willing to tell them so.
Our article, How to Handle Criticism , can help you to improve in this areas.

The Organization

We've probably all seen leaders who only look out for themselves, instead of their organization and the people
they're leading. Authentic leaders, however, never forget that they have an enormous responsibility. They put their
companies and their people first.

A leader's goals should be aligned with company goals. When these two areas are not aligned, the focus becomes
divided. Learn more about aligning your goals with your organization's goals in our article on Management By
Objectives .
Authentic leaders also know what truly drives their companies and their teams.

Why is this important? Well, if you don't know the drivers that are key to performance, then you'll probably never
find out what's wrong when your company or team isn't "working." The Congruence Model can help you to
discover the four key components of your organization, and to make sure that they're aligned for success.
Tip:
Read Bruna Martinuzzi's article The Talisman of Leadership – Authenticity for a discussion of authentic
leadership, based on emotional intelligence.
Key Points
Authentic leadership involves a lot of different things. And developing the skills and characteristics needed is a
journey, not a destination.

Authentic leaders are often easier to recognize than to define, but they all have a few traits in common. They know
themselves well, and they never allow someone else to cause them to break their moral codes. They put their
companies and their teams first, they're excellent communicators, and they know how to use the right kind of power
for the right situation.
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resources that you'll find here at Mind Tools. Subscribe to our free newsletter, or join the Mind Tools Club and
really supercharge your career!

The main premise of the book is that it is neither IQ or skills that make a great leader.

The secret to great leadership is a high level of emotional intelligence.

There’s obviously more than one correct way to lead a group of people, and while certain
leadership styles may be more warmly received than others, choosing which to rely on
depends on the circumstances, your personality, and the state of your team.

What’s important to keep in mind is that there isn’t one perfect approach to leadership. In fact,
you’ll most likely wind up using all of them eventually. It’ll be on you to switch between them
as you go, deciding on the best style to employ according to the situation.
Leadership Styles Definition
Leadership styles refer to the behaviors that leaders use to interact with their employees. It
covers everything including how they motivate, give directions, accomplish goals and
empower their team.

It’s important that as a manager, you empower your employees to become great leaders, too.
They should understand that a leader doesn’t need to be in a position of authority to have an
impact.

Enabling your employees to become leaders themselves will only create a more autonomous
and productive environment for your team.

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you to the next level.

The 6 Different Leadership Styles

1. Visionary Leadership
 The visionary leader moves people towards a shared vision.

It’s not about how to get there, it’s about getting your team to understand where you
want to go.

This style works best in the moments where a new direction is needed.

What’s great about this style is that it promotes autonomy and allows people to
innovate and experiment to get towards a goal.

Failure is accepted, and employees can feel comfortable trying new things that will
help move that mission forward.

Many organizations out there don’t have a clear mission, which can often lead to
employees feeling unmotivated. That’s why it’s so important to have a mission or a
“why” behind what you’re doing.

As an example, our vision at Officevibe is to empower managers. Incredibly simple and

powerful, it’s also an exciting vision.

Pro Tips To Become A Visionary Leader

1. Be bold. Don’t be afraid to try new things and experiment. Be okay with the
prospect of failure.

2. Create one ambitious goal that the whole team can focus on.

3. When you’re about to start a new task, ask yourself if it will help you reach your
goals.

4. You don’t have to come up with every answer alone. Asking for help from your
team won’t only encourage a greater diversity of ideas, but it’ll empower your
group for the next steps necessary in bringing those ideas to life. It will also enable
them to become visionaries themselves.

2. Coaching Leadership

This leadership style, like its name suggests, is all about coaching employees to get
better at what they do.

Things like one-on-ones are where managers with a coaching leadership style thrive.
 However, there is a difference between micromanaging and coaching. As a manager,
your goal is to help them evolve in their role, to challenge them so they can surpass
themselves while giving them the tools, advice, and support they need to succeed.

Coaching leadership is not dictating what a person should do every step of the way,
but rather guiding them towards an improved version of themselves so they can best
contribute to the team, while also meeting their own personal objectives.

One of the biggest mistakes that leaders make with this style is focusing on improving
the weaknesses of their employees. As a leader, if you want to get the best results
from your team you need to focus on their strengths.

Pro Tips To Become A Coaching Leader

1. Check in frequently with each member of your team, and make the time to mentor
them. No matter how busy you are, if you’re a coaching leader, then you need to
empower each of your employees to be the best they can be.

2. Try to schedule monthly one-on-ones where you’ll be able to ask them about their
challenges and improve their strengths.

3. An Affiliative Leader

Managers with this leadership style act as an affiliate, making connections throughout
their organization.

Their focus is to create a more harmonious workplace where everyone knows and
works well with each other.

Often, employees will have disagreements among themselves and may not like all of
their coworkers, but this leadership style aims to fix all of that.

If trust is ever broken in an organization, an affiliate leader is the perfect person to

mend those cracks.

Pro Tips To Become An Affiliative Leader

1. Build a culture of recognition on your team. Over time, this will bring everyone in
the group closer together, and help to develop those relationships.
 2. Otherwise, regular team building activities are a great way to bring the team closer
together.

3. Encourage difficult conversations within your team. It won’t always be perfect, and
it’s perfectly normal to have challenges and disagreements between the
employees. They key is to encourage vulnerability and real conversations.

4. Democratic Leadership

A democratic leadership style is all about creating group alignment towards a result.

This leadership style is best used when you, as a leader, aren’t 100% sure of which
direction to take and you want to source the wisdom of the crowd to help you make the
call.

This approach can be extremely powerful when you need to make big decisions, are
planning for future strategies or even when making strategic choices that may impact
the future of the business.

The knowledge of collective intelligence is always greater than the knowledge of one
person alone.

Pro Tips To Become A Democratic Leader

1. Learn to trust your employees and work on your communication skills so that you
can discuss ideas with everyone on the team. A democratic leader gives everyone
on the team an equal say in the decision making.

2. Suggest a few ideas to spark the conversation and a game plan as to how you
want to collect the opinions of everyone involved. Maybe suggest a brainstorm
session, or a survey with qualitative questions.

3. Consider all the ideas presented and share your thoughts with the team. It’s
important for them to know that you spent time considering each idea submitted.
Whether you move ahead with them or not, it’s important to acknowledge that they
took the time to think about the possibilities and challenges.

5. Pacesetting Leadership
 A pacesetting leader sets goals for their team that they expect will be reached no
matter what. They demand a lot from their people and exemplify what is expected of
the team.

This leadership style has the potential of being detrimental to your team, so you need
to be extremely careful when using this approach, and that it works best in short
bursts.

Sometimes you may need to expect a lot from your team, whether it’s due to the
company going through challenges that force you to be more demanding to meet
objectives – or for any other number of reasons.

The trick is to balance this style with recognition. You need to make your team realize
that while you’re asking a lot from your team and it may be tough, it’s also only
temporary.

Pro Tips To Become A Pacesetting Leader

1. Recognize their efforts both individually and collectively, it can be a great
motivator, especially when asking a lot!

2. Make sure to tell your team that the expectations are temporary and that as a
group, it’s the perfect time to pull together. In the end, it’ll only create stronger
bonds between employees.

3. Share the results of their efforts on the bigger picture. To be able to see the impact
of their effort across the organization can be a very powerful thing.

6. Commanding Leadership

The commanding leader leads with fear.

These leaders typically come across as cold and emotionless. Most of the time, this
style has extremely negative effects on company culture and is highly ineffective.

This style should be only used when in situations of crisis. But even then, it’s likely not
the best approach to take. It’s generally recommended to avoid using this style
altogether. Unless you’re in the military…
 How To Avoid Being A Commanding Leader
1. Do not order your team, instead, inspire participation and clearly explain the full
portrait of the situation. They will understand what needs to be done.

2. Make sure to communicate that it’s only a temporary situation, your team will need
to hold on for the storm to pass.

Key Takeaways
 There isn’t one perfect leadership style. You’ll need to interchange between them
according to the situation.

 You don’t have to do everything alone. It’s not because you’re the manager that it all falls
on you. Ask the team for help.

 Enable your employees to also become leaders themselves. A leader doesn’t always
mean a manager.

 It’s important for a leader to also develop its emotional intelligence.

5 Must-Have Qualities of Every Filipino Business

Leader

When you hear the words “Filipino businessman,” what comes to mind?

“Hardworking,” “persistent,” and “optimistic”—these are words strongly associated with the Filipino culture. More so,
these are also the usual words that paint the character of businessmen in the Philippine setting.

But, are these the only words to describe them? Thankfully, we have a very colorful and emotionally engaged culture
that is embedded in the work we do. Looking at how our country’s top businessmen have built their empires from the
ground up is sufficient evidence that the ingredients to becoming a Filipino leader take more than just hard
work, persistence, and optimism.

To be an embodiment of the values that every local enterprise should uphold, every Filipino business leader must be
an exemplar of five particular traits: empathy, humility, curiosity, passion, and servant leadership.

Be the change you want to see.

Trait 1: Pagmamalasakit (Empathy)
How this can be helpful: Filipinos are very social beings, and they always look after their fellow countrymen,
wherever they are in the world. Being a naturally empathetic nation allows us to have a sense of service towards
others. And, who else would be a better fit for an other-centric company than a leader who practices
pagmamalasakit?

Empathy goes much deeper than sympathy. To be empathetic means to have the ability to identify with individuals
judiciously. It takes emotionally intelligent people to go past "I feel sorry for you" and reach a point wherein they are
able to say, "I understand what you are going through. How can we improve the situation together?"

Indifference seems to be the easiest route to ward off difficulties, but that was not an option for the late Mariano Que.
Instead of turning his back on the aftermath of World War II, he seized the opportunity to help Filipino communities
rise above the ashes by providing easier and more affordable access to medicines. Que invested his money to sell
Sulfathiazole, an antimicrobial drug that was highly sought yet limited at that time. Selling the drug at individual packs
made it more affordable for poverty-stricken neighborhoods, allowing Que to save hundreds of lives simply by putting
empathy into action. Today, the pharmaceutical employee is now known as the honorable founder of Mercury Drug
Store.

What leaders can achieve: Studies have shown that mastering empathy is an essential leadership trait that
increases workplace satisfaction and employee engagement.

When employees know that they are understood, it lessens workplace stress, making way for a more productive
environment. Moreover, empathy fosters openness among groups, which encourages individuals to speak up and get
their ideas across. This allows leaders to gain a source of new perspectives that could help them effectively build
relationships and improve systems.

Trait 2: Pagpapakumbaba (Humility)

How this can be helpful: There is an old Filipino proverb that says, “He who does not know how to look back at
where he came from will never reach his destination.”

The road to success is not a forward-moving path. More often than not, it is a journey that requires looking back and
learning from the past. Thus, the only way to achieve such a feat is through humility.

Just as with empathy, humble leadership enables individuals to work without letting the past discourage them and
rather allow it to be a footprint for better decisions. More importantly, humility inspires employees to work with a
mission in mind. Instead of entering a wormhole of self-pity, a humble character is reminded that a task is not solely
for his own gain, but for something greater.

The life of Socorro Ramos, co-founder of the National Bookstore, is an illustration of how humility enables a person to
carry on despite hardships. Ramos had to witness a series of unfortunate events from the break-out of World War II
to the wrath of fire and consecutive typhoons—all of which resulted in her store ending in wreckage. These would
seem like obvious signs to look for greener pastures elsewhere. But adversities did not stop Ramos from keeping her
end goal in mind: to raise a nation of readers through lower-priced books. Eventually, her humility and advocacy paid
off with her business enjoying over 75 years of success.

What leaders can achieve: One great definition of humility is that it is “not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of
yourself less.” Instead of placing your conveniences dead center in every project, you become more mission-oriented.
In turn, your team gains the same focus and a clearer picture of where all of you ought to go.

Trait 3: Pagkamausisa (Curiosity)

How this can be helpful: Curiosity is made up of two parts: The first is admitting that there are many things one
does not know, and second is having an eager desire to learn more. Through these two, individuals not only gain a
deeper understanding of themselves, but they also get a chance to build partnerships, solve problems, and most
importantly, remove complacency.

It is every leader’s responsibility to cultivate continuous learning and knowledge-sharing among teams. Organizations
that reward the best ideas, processes, and results can encourage employees to speak up, especially those who are
traditionally more shy in Filipino context.

Promoting curiosity and idea meritocracy can also prompt them to question the status quo more often. In effect,
leaders who welcome individuals to be mausisa allow them to discover surprisingly innovative answers to everyday
questions.

What leaders can achieve: Sometimes branded as the most valuable leadership trait you can have, being a curious
leader enables you and your organization to stay competitive, as it continuously seeks out new ways of doing
things—from new processes to entire industries.

A perfect example of a brand born out of curiosity is Jollibee, the local-gone-global fast food brand headed by Tony
Tan Caktiong. A literal bee-con of hope for Filipinos from every socio-economic background, the fast food giant
started out as a little ice cream parlor in Cubao. If not for Caktiong’s curiosity, he would never have discovered what
truly appealed to consumers’ tastes. His desire to learn how he could further grow his business led him to find out
that Filipinos, despite living in a tropical country, were more allured by burgers than ice creams. From there, Caktiong
expanded his enterprise, giving both foreigners and overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) a taste of home.
Trait 4: Pinoy Pride (Passion)
How this can be helpful: Filipinos are emotionally connected people. From international boxing matches to political
stances, there is nothing quite like how passionate Pinoys are.

And in the workplace, this passion is no less present. As managers of an emotionally charged group, Filipino
business leaders can maximize this passion by providing employees a way to find purpose in their work.

After all, not only is being passionate contagious, but it can ultimately promote an intangible rallying quality behind a
meaningful mission—leveraging the intensity Filipinos display when they truly believe in a cause.

Take a look at billionaire tycoon Lucio Tan. Before acquiring a wide portfolio of successful businesses, Tan had to
work part-time from high school up until college. And even after that, he continued to persevere despite losing his first
business. His failed venture eventually led him to success in the tobacco industry and later on, in banking, brewery,
and real estate, apart from owning a 4-star airline.

Tan has definitely grown an empire. It is safe to say though that his real passion lies in philanthropy—providing
transport to allow OFWs to come home from an amnesty period in Kuwait, making donations for the war-torn
communities in Marawi, and advocating for education and healthcare, among others.

What leaders can achieve: Being a passionate leader is not necessarily limited to the stereotype of a “loud,
pizzazzy” person who is always making inspirational speeches or raising their voice in the boardroom.

A study found out that passionate leaders are the ones who go deep: They display “depth of commitment and quiet
attention to detail” that is unmatched. By being this way, they inspire loyalty and caring relationships among their
employees.

Trait 5: Pakikisama (Servant Leadership)

How this can be helpful: As the famous saying goes, “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of
the continent.” This is true for any group, and it is especially applicable when it comes to professional organizations
and their leaders.

After all, the concept of pakikisama is a great way to remind everyone, especially leaders themselves, of the bigger
picture. Being a servant leader means you remember that you are part of a community. Not only will this combat crab
mentality, but it will ultimately promote a culture of pakikisama. Nobody is too good to do all the work, and it is all for
one as it is one for all—even at the top.

What leaders can achieve: The practice of servant leadership has been shown to increase a leader’s influence in
producing more thoughtful and balanced group decisions—ultimately promoting trust and a culture of learning in the
workplace. When it comes down to it, there's no better act of service than a leader who empowers others through his
own actions.

A perfect example would be Jaime Zobel de Ayala, a man who embodies an unwavering commitment to achieving
sustainable development, be it in water, power, real estate, finance, telecommunications, education, or healthcare.
Zobel de Ayala, who was recently honored by the United Nations for his positive impact in the Philippine business
community, heads one of the country’s most respectable conglomerates. Even with immense power, he displays a
cunning sense of “stewardship,” acknowledging that his family’s legacy is not without responsibility, especially
towards the country.
Leadership is less about your needs, and more about the needs of the people and the
organization you are leading. Leadership styles are not something to be tried on like
so many suits, to see which fits. Rather, they should be adapted to the particular
demands of the situation, the particular requirements of the people involved and the
particular challenges facing the organization.

In the book “Primal Leadership,” Daniel Goleman, who popularized the notion of
“Emotional Intelligence,” describes six different styles of leadership. The most
effective leaders can move among these styles, adopting the one that meets the
needs of the moment. They can all become part of the leader’s repertoire.

Visionary. This style is most appropriate when an organization needs a new

direction. Its goal is to move people towards a new set of shared dreams. “Visionary
leaders articulate where a group is going, but not how it will get there – setting people
free to innovate, experiment, take calculated risks,” write Mr. Goleman and his
coauthors.

Coaching. This one-on-one style focuses on developing individuals, showing them

how to improve their performance, and helping to connect their goals to the goals of
the organization. Coaching works best, Mr. Goleman writes, “with employees who
show initiative and want more professional development.” But it can backfire if it’s
perceived as “micromanaging” an employee, and undermines his or her self-
confidence.

Affiliative. This style emphasizes the importance of team work, and creates harmony
in a group by connecting people to each other. Mr. Goleman argues this approach is
particularly valuable “when trying to heighten team harmony, increase morale,
improve communication or repair broken trust in an organization.” But he warns
against using it alone, since its emphasis on group praise can allow poor
performance to go uncorrected. “Employees may perceive,” he writes, “that
mediocrity is tolerated.”

Democratic. This style draws on people’s knowledge and skills, and creates a group
commitment to the resulting goals. It works best when the direction the organization
should take is unclear, and the leader needs to tap the collective wisdom of the
group. Mr. Goleman warns that this consensus-building approach can be disastrous
in times of crisis, when urgent events demand quick decisions.
Pacesetting. In this style, the leader sets high standards for performance. He or she is
“obsessive about doing things better and faster, and asks the same of everyone.” But
Mr. Goleman warns this style should be used carefully, because it can undercut morale
and make people feel as if they are failing. “Our data shows that, more often than not,
pacesetting poisons the climate,” he writes.

Commanding. This is classic model of “military” style leadership – probably the most
often used, but the least often effective. Because it rarely involves praise and
frequently employs criticism, it undercuts morale and job satisfaction. Mr. Goleman
argues it is only effective in a crisis, when an urgent turnaround is needed. Even the
modern military has come to recognize its limited usefulness.