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Lesson 11

Leadership

11.1 Introduction

Who would you consider as a leader? Think of leaders you know, what
makes them a leader?

Leadership can be considered as the process of motivating other people to


act in particular ways in order to achieve specific goals.

A leader emerges from among a group of people. The leader should have
an ability to encourage people to do what s/he wants them to do. So, a
leader can influence the behaviour of others (followers) towards the
achievement of goals. A leader inspires assistance, loyalty and
unquestioning obedience from followers. In leadership literature what is
considered is the action because leaders are judged on what they do.

Leadership is both a process and an asset.


• As a process: influencing the group members toward the achievement
of goals without force. As group members accept the leader, she/he
can make others work towards the goal willingly.
• As an asset: set of characteristics or qualities of individuals who are
supposed to be leaders.
Some researchers identify leadership as a trait, or as behaviour, while others
view it from a political perspective, or from a humanistic viewpoint.

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Two common forms of leadership are assigned and emergent.

Assigned leadership is based on having a formal title or position within an


organization. For example, the Managing Director of an organization is a
formal position. Manager is the assigned post.
Emergent leadership results from what one does and how one acquires
support from followers. No one appoints the person as a leader, but he/she
emerges from within the group as a leader.

11.2 Lesson outcomes

After completing this lesson, you should be able to:


• Explain the nature and importance of leadership
• Compare and contrast leadership and management
• Distinguish between Trait approach to Leadership and Behavioural
approach to leadership.
• Evaluate the Leadership Grid.
• Compare and contrast Fiedler’s contingency approach and Path-goal
theory
• Compare Transactional and Transformational Leadership
• Analyze gender issues in leadership
• Analyze the relationship between culture and leadership ethics

11.3 Leadership: An overview

11.3.1 Importance of leadership

Effective leadership can make a significant difference in


organizations. All groups of people that perform near its total
capacity have some person as their head. That is the leader.

Though there is wide spread acceptance that leadership is


important, it is difficult to identify elements of leadership. People are
interested in the idea of leadership and they seek more information on how
to become effective leaders.

Huge organizations seek individuals with good leadership qualities, because


they believe these individuals provide special assets to them.

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11.3.2 How to become a leader?

Leadership is a behavioral skill and can be learned. The best way to learn to
be a leader is by gaining experience. If you accept responsibilities, you will
build up your confidence. Both successes and failures provide valuable
experience to you and give you the confidence to attend to more difficult
tasks. If you are ready to accept challenges and find best solutions, then
others would accept you as the leader.

In some situations the leader emerges naturally, particularly where tasks are
of a technical nature. In such a situation, an expert may arise to solve the
problem and disappear when the task is over. I’m sure you have
experienced this. Recall school days. At a time to decorate a hall, the one
with artistic skills would have become automatically the leader and directed
others what to do and how to do. When the function was over the leader
disappeared.

11.3.3 Leadership Vs. Management

There are some similarities between management and leadership. Both


management and leadership;

• involves influence- they influence others


• Requires working with people – without people to work with, one can
not become a leader nor a manager
• Is concerned with effective goal accomplishment- the people worked
with should be guided to achieve goals

However a manager and a leader are not the same.


Managers play the role of strengthening the existing organization and
exercise duty and responsibility. They depend on their status. Leaders do not
depend on a formal role or status.

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Kotter, JP (1990) identifies differences as follows:

Managers Leaders
Dealing with complexity Coping with change

Brings order and consistency to Setting a direction


complex organizations. It involves Develop a vision of the future &
planning and budgeting strategies for achieving the vision
Concerned with the achievement of Obtaining the workers’ commitment to
plans through designing the the realization of the vision.
organizational structure and staffing

Bennis(1989) identifies the differences of Leadership and Management as:

Leaders Managers
Innovate Administer
Develop Maintain
Inspire Control
Long-term view Short-term view
Ask what and why? Ask how and when?
Originate Imitate
Ask Tell
Do the right thing Do things right

From the above explanation it is clear that though similarities exist, there
is a visible difference between a leader and a manager. A manager has a
position and performs according to the work assigned to him. He/she may
or may not be effective in influencing subordinates or team members to
set and achieve goals. But the leader is a person who can influence the
behaviour of others to achieve goals without having to rely on powers. He
is accepted by others as a leader.

11.4 Leadership Theories


Early leadership theories focused on the leader and the ways that the leader
interacts with others. The theories that focus on the leader are called ‘Trait
theories’ and those that focus on the leader’s interaction with others are
called ‘behavioral theories.’

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11.4.1 Trait theories:
These theories (developed in 1920’s and 1930’s) suggested that excellent
leaders possessed certain personal characteristics or traits, which helped
them lead. Therefore, these traits would differentiate leaders from non-
leaders.
The following traits have been identified.
• Desire to lead: Willingness to take responsibilities and a strong
desire to influence and lead others.
• Honesty and integrity: Getting popular among followers by being
truthful
• Self-confidence: Leaders show confidence in themselves to assure
followers of the rightness.
• Intelligence: Clever enough to put together and analyze information
and make right decisions
• Job-relevant knowledge: Good knowledge about the organization
and business to understand the implications of various decisions
made.
• Assertiveness: Leaders are energetic, sociable and fluent in speech
• Attractiveness: Personal appearance

Though these are the common features of a leader, it is not correct to treat
these characteristics as sufficient to explain an efficient leader, because no
two leaders are exactly alike. During the period 1940’s -1960’s researches
concentrated on studying the behavior of leaders. Let us look at the
behavioral theories.
Try self-assessment 1

Activity 11.1
1. Identify a person who you would describe as an effective leader. Make
a list of personal characteristics of that leader.

2. Identify another effective leader and repeat the process and compare
the two lists to identify similarities and differences.

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11.4.2 Behavioral theories
These theories tried to identify behaviors that differentiated effective
leaders from ineffective leaders. According to these theories, leaders can be
trained. Let us look at four major behavioural theories.

• Leadership Style
The University of Iowa studies found out three leadership styles according
to the degree which the leader shares decision-making authority with
followers (subordinates.)
Exhibit 11.1 shows these different styles. They are Autocratic style,
Democratic (Participative) style and Laissez-Faire style. Upper part of the
exhibit 11.1 shows the authority of decision making. You will notice that
this decision making authority is high in Autocratic style. In Participative
style both leader and subordinates have authority, while in Laissez-Faire
Style subordinates have the authority of decision making.

Exhibit 11.1
Leadership Style and the Decision Making Authority

Leader’s authority of decision making

Subordinates’ authority in decision making


Autocratic Style Participative Style Laissez-Faire:
Leader makes decision Manager makes decisions
Subordinates make
and announces it with ideas from
decisions subject to the
subordinates
limit set by the leader

Autocratic style
A leader makes decisions without reference to anyone else. Authority is
centralized and followers’ participation is limited. A high degree of
dependency on the leader is the result. This style can create de-
motivation and unfriendliness of staff.
However, this style may be valuable in some types of business where
decisions need to be taken quickly with expertise knowledge.

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Participative (Democratic) Style

Leader shares decision making authority


with subordinates. The level of sharing the
authority may vary from situation to
situation. A leader promotes followers to
bring their ideas, views and talents. This
may encourage followers’ involvement and
motivate them. Workers feel the ownership
of the firm and its ideas. This improves the
sharing of ideas and experiences within the
business.
But this can delay decision making as it takes time to obtain others’ views
and to agree upon a final decision.

Laissez-Faire

The leadership responsibilities are shared by all. Subordinates are


empowered to make decisions within the limits set by the leader. This
style may be very useful in businesses where creative ideas are
important. Also, this style can be highly motivational, as people have
control over their working life.
On the other hand, unless subordinates are capable of making decisions,
practicing this style may become risky as the probability of wrong
decision making is high.

(Robert Tannenbaum and Warren H. Schmidt identified several


intermediate behaviours that a manager might consider and are shown as
leadership continuum)
Because people and circumstances constantly change, the effective
manager switches from one leadership style to another as appropriate.

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Leaders can also adopt a behavior of a focus on task or a focus on
employees.

Three major Studies on this behaviour are:

• The Ohio State Studies


• University of Michigan Studies
• The Managerial Grid

• The Ohio State Studies

These studies identified two dimensions of leader behaviour.


- Initiating structure: This includes the behaviour that is concerned with
organizing work, work relationships and goals.
- Consideration: Mutual trust and respect for ideas and feelings of
group members. If consideration is high, the leader would treat group
members equally, listen to their personal problems, and move with
them in a friendly manner.
Researchers found that leader with high initiating structure and high
consideration (High-High Leader) generates better results than others,
but not always. It implies that there would be some other factors that
affect effective leadership, possibly situational factors.

• University of Michigan Studies

Michigan studies, concentrated on performance effectiveness, also identified


two dimensions of leadership behaviour.
- Employee oriented: emphasized interpersonal relationships and taking
care of employees’ needs. A more friendly type leader.
- Production oriented: emphasized technical or task aspects of job. That
is to get the job done.
Researchers concluded that leaders who are employee-oriented would be
more effective as they were associated with high group productivity and
high job satisfaction.

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• The Managerial Grid

Managerial Grid, sometimes called the Leadership Grid(shown in exhibit


11.2), has been developed by Robert R Blake. For the Managerial Grid,
dimensions identified by earlier studies were renamed as “concern for
people” and “concern for production.” They evaluated a leader’s use of
behaviours, ranking them on a scale from 1(low) to 9(high).

Though there are 81 (9x9) styles according to the grid, emphasis was on
five styles. (1,1); (1.9); (5.5);(9.1); and (9.9) as shown in exhibit 11.2.

Exhibit 11.2

Leadership Grid

1.9 9.9
9

7
Concern for People

6
5.5
5

2
1.1 9.1
1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Concern for production

Source: Robbins,SP & Coulter,M.,2005,pg.426

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1.1 Impoverished management: Leader is unconcerned
about both the task and interpersonal relationships. Leader
has little contact with followers. Reserved or uninterested
leader.

9.1 Task management: considers people as tools for getting


the work done. Concerned with efficiency in operations
through placing conditions with less attention to
employees. Communication with subordinates is only for
the purpose of giving instructions about the task.

5.5 Middle-of-the-road management: Leaders have


intermediate concern for the task and the people who do
the task. Leaders avoid conflicts and emphasize moderate
level of production and interpersonal relationships. This
leadership style is more practical.

1.9 Country club management: Less emphasis on


production. Leaders consider attitudes and feelings of
workers and make sure the personal and social needs of
followers are met.

9.9 Team management: Strong emphasis is on both task


and relationships. Leaders promote high degree of
participation and team work. They are open-minded, and
enjoy working.

Try Self assessment 2

11.4.3 Contingency Theories of Leadership

These theories looked at leadership as being more flexible. They pointed


out that different leadership styles are effective at different times
depending on the circumstance.

• Fiedler’s Contingency model

Fiedler’s Model is the first comprehensive contingency model. According


to him effective leadership depends on the proper match between the
leader’s style and the degree to which the situation allowed the leader to
control and influence. To measure a leader’s style, Least Preferred Co-
worker (LPC) questions were developed. This measures whether a leader

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was task or relationship oriented. Fiedler believed that one can determine
a person’s basic leadership style on the basis of the responses to the LPC
questions. If the leader describes the person least like to work with in
favourable terms (High LPC score), then the leader is relationship
oriented. is relationship oriented and if in relatively unfavorable terms, (a
low LPC score) interest is in getting the job done. So, the leader is task
oriented.

It explains individuals who are :


- highly task motivated (Low LPCs)
- socio-independent (Middle LPCs)
- relationship motivated (high LPCs)

According to Fiedler leadership style remains the same regardless of the


situation. Hence he suggested that once, according to him, once the
leadership style is identified the situation needs to be adjusted to match.
To measure the situation, 3 variables are assessed.

1 Leader-member relations: the degree of confidence, trust and


respect employees had for their leader. Rated as either good or
poor.
2 Task structure: The degree to which jobs assigned were formalized.
Rate either as high or low
3 Position power: The degree of influence a leader had over power
based activities .For example, dismissal of a worker, giving
promotions or a salary increase. Rated either as strong or weak.

As shown in exhibit 11.3, there are eight possible situations. There


should be a match between the leader variables and the situational
variables for a leader to perform well.

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Exhibit 11.3

Fiedler’s Contingency model


Contingency Factors Situations
Leader-Member
Good Bad
Relations
Task Structure High Low High Low

Position Power Strong Weak Strong Weak Strong Weak Strong Weak

Favourableness of Most Favourable Moderately Favourable Most Unfavourable


Situation

Appropriate Task-Oriented Relationship-Oriented Task-Oriented


Leader Behaviour

Source: Griffin, RW,2004, “Management”, Houghton Mifflin Company.pg.517

• Situational leadership theory

Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard developed this theory and focused on
followers’ readiness. They argue that successful leadership is achieved by
selecting the right leadership style, which is dependent on the level of the
followers’ readiness. Readiness is the ability and willingness of people to
carry out a specific task. This also considers dimensions of task and
relationship behaviour as either High or Low and then combining them into
four specific leadership styles. These are the stages that move from i-iv

i. Telling : high task- low relationship: The leader decides and


tells what, when and how to do. But not a close link
with the follower.

ii. Selling : high task- high relationship: Leader gives directions


and supports and observes the work of the follower.
Relationship with the follower is high.

iii. Participating : low task- high relationship: Follower participates in


decision making. Leader acts as a facilitator.

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iv. Delegating: low task- low relationship: Leader provides little
direction. Follower doesn’t expect a support from
the leader. Leader delegates authority.

As followers reach high levels of readiness, the leader responds by reducing


the control over their activities and lessening the relationship behaviour.
That is if followers are willing and able to get responsibilities, leader need
not do much.
Though the idea of changing leadership style according to the followers’
conditions is theoretically sound, in reality deciding when to change the
leadership style is problematic. Further, there is not much support from
research findings to this type of leadership.

Example
Mr. Silva is the recently appointed Head of the Painting Division of
Zigma Pvt ltd. He found that painting services were inefficient and
costly. So, Silva completely reorganized the department, designed a
new scheduling procedure, and redefined the expected standards of
performance. He didn’t seek any input from his subordinates. Silva
needed to be strict about getting painters to do a good job.

As time passed, Silva relaxed his style and was less demanding. He
allocated some responsibilities to two crew leaders who reported to
him, but always stayed in close touch with each of the employees. On
a weekly basis, Silva used to take a small group of workers to the local
sports bar for tea. He loved to chat with the employees.

Silva is very proud of his department. He says he always wanted to be


a coach and that is how he feels about running his department. He
enjoys working with people.

In this example you must have noticed the way Mr. Silva changed his
leadership style. At the beginning, he maintained the Telling Style. He gave
orders and didn’t seek comments from subordinates. But gradually he
changed the style. Selling, Participating, and Delegating. (Try to understand
this changing leadership styles by yourself relating to your experience. This
experience you need not get from a business. Perhaps things you learned
from your parents or elders. Recall the different stages of getting
responsibilities. If you had played a role of leader recall how you passed
responsibilities to your subordinates and how you changed your leadership
style.)

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• Path-goal theory

This theory was developed by Robert House and Martin Evans. It is based on
the elements of expectancy theory of motivation. They argued that it is the
leader’s job to assist followers in attaining their goals and to provide the
direction needed to ensure that their goals are compatible with the overall
objectives. Four leadership behaviours have been identified.
- Directive leader: Gives specific guidance to followers to accomplish
task
- Supportive leader: Friendly and concerned about the needs of the
followers
- Participative leader: Gets suggestions of followers in making decisions
- Achievement- oriented leader: Sets challenging goals and expects
followers to achieve them in the highest possible manner.

They suggest that leaders are flexible and display any of these styles
or a combination of styles according to the situation. Style may be
dependent on various situational factors such as risk, type of business,
organizational culture and nature of the task.
This theory is more dynamic. The majority of the research findings supports
the logic behind the theory and suggests that the path-goal theory is a fairly
good description of the leadership process.

Try self-assessment 3

11.5 Modern Approaches to Leadership

11.5.1 Transactional, Transformational & Charismatic


Leadership

Transactional leaders guide or motivate their followers towards the


established goals by clarifying role and task requirements. eg. The leader
recommends the promotion when the follower reaches the required level.
This is very common and can be observed at many levels throughout all
types of organizations.
Transformational leadership is something more than the transactional
leadership and a process that changes and transforms individuals. They
expect more from employees and motivate them to raise need levels. They
change followers’ awareness of issues and help followers to look at old
problems in a new way. They inspire followers to put extra effort to attain
organizational goals. Transformational leaders create widespread changes to
business organizations.
Studies have proved that transformational leadership is more effective than
transactional leadership.

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Theory of charismatic leadership is described in ways similar to
transformational leadership. The concept “charisma” was first used to
describe a special gift that individuals have which gives them the capacity to
do extraordinary things. House(1976) suggested that charismatic leaders act
in unique ways that have specific charismatic effects on their followers.
According to him personal characteristics of a charismatic leader include
being dominant, having a strong desire to influence others, being self-
confident, and having a strong sense of one’s own moral values.
Charismatic leader is an enthusiastic, self-confident leader whose
personality and actions influence people to behave in certain ways. Five
characteristics of a charismatic leader have been identified. They have a
clear vision, are able to express that vision, are willing to take risks to
achieve that vision, are sensitive to environmental constraints and
follower needs and exhibit specific behaviours.
Some believe that charismatic leaders are born with these qualities, while
others believe that these qualities can be learned. As in transformational
leadership, charismatic leadership may not expect high level of employee
performance.

11.5.2 Team leadership


Team structure is one way in which an organization can respond quickly and
adapt to the changes in the work place. Research on effectiveness of
organizational teams suggested that it has led to:
• greater productivity
• more effective use of resources
• better decisions and problem solving
• better quality product and service
• increase innovation and creativity

More view effective team leadership as the primary factor for team success
and ineffective leadership as a major obstacle to team effectiveness.
It is necessary not only to understand the functions that leaders perform,
but the complexity involved in performing these functions and its effect on
team performance.

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11.6 Issues in leadership

11.6.1 Gender differences and leadership

There is a considerable progress, but an imbalance in the proportion of


working women in leader roles in almost all sectors. As more and more
women have entered the work force, organizations have experienced
changes in the relative proportion of males to females.
Women play leading role in various fields in Sri Lanka. We as Sri Lankans
are proud to say that the first women Prime Minister in the world was from
Sri Lanka. So as other political leaders, a women President led the country
for 11 years.

Leading women entrepreneurs are in Sri Lanka. Ms.Janet of Janet Products


and Ms.Ottara Chandiram of ODEL are entrepreneurs who have built up their
own businesses. Some other Sri Lankan women run their husband’s or
parents businesses very successfully. Dr.Soma Edirisinghe of EAP Edirisinghe
Group is an example.

An example of women holding top management positions is Leisha de Silva


Chandrasena- Chairperson of Telecom.
They are doing extremely well in managing businesses. For women it is
useful to study the careers of the successful women.
However there are some invisible barriers which prevent many women from
advancing to top level leadership roles. We can identify common barriers to
women leader’s advancement.

i. Organizational barriers

• Inhospitable corporate culture


• Preference for males for promotion decisions
• Ignorance and inaction by male CEOs and silent majority male peers
• Lack of definitive developmental opportunities for women

ii. Interpersonal barriers

• Lack of emotional and interpersonal support


• Exclusion from informal networks

iii. Personal barriers


• Insufficient knowledge on internal politics
• Work-home conflict

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A major gender related problem that many organization face today is the
“glass-ceiling.”- That is the barrier, that keeps women from advancing to top
management positions.
Why this glass ceiling?
• Some male managers are still reluctant to promote female managers.
Therefore many talented women have chosen to leave the organization
and start their own business.
• Some women have chosen to suspend or slow their career progression
to have children and family obligations.
• The average pay of women in most organizations is lower than that of
men.
Although pay gap is gradually sinking, inequalities are still present.

Many studies have pointed out that women possess the behavioral skills and
inner qualities that qualify them for effective leadership; they remained
underrepresented in such positions. To make better use of the talent of high
potential women, organizations must identify, develop and support potential
women leaders. On the other hand, women need to develop their
competence and build partnerships both within and beyond their
organizations.

Activity:11.2

Interview a female leader and identify barriers/difficulties she faced being a


leader.
Come up with possible solutions.

11.6.2 The culture and leadership ethics


National culture is an important situational variable in determining which
leadership style will be most effective. .(Cultural issues will be discussed in
detail in the lesson 14) What works in Japan or Britain may not be effective
in Sri Lanka. This is mainly due to the effect of culture on followers’
response. Leader’s style is constrained by the cultural conditions his/her
followers expect. Some examples of effective leaders from findings of cross
cultural leadership are:
• Japanese leaders are expected to be humble and speak often.
• Malaysian Leaders are expected to use more of an autocratic than
participative style

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• Korean leaders are expected to be paternalistic toward employees
However the cross-cultural study of leadership by GLOBE suggests that
some elements of transformational leadership are universal. That is for
effective leadership, no matter which culture prevails, there are some
common elements. Vision, foresight, providing encouragement,
trustworthiness, and positive ness are some of them.
Ethics play a central role in leadership process. As leaders influence
followers, they have enormous responsibility to find out how they affect the
followers. Some features of ethical leadership are:
• Treat followers with respect
• Be fairness in decision making
• Place others’ welfare ahead or contribute to the common goal
• Search for goals that are compatible with the goals of followers and
the society as a whole

11.6.3 Managing power

The process of leadership is intertwined with the concepts of power, and


authority. Power gives a person the ability to exercise influence over others
to get them to follow. Leaders possess power and this increases the power-
capacity to influence work actions or decisions. Do you remember five
sources of leader power we learned in lesson 9? They were:

1. Legitimate power: The power a leader has as a result of the position


s/he holds.
2. Coercive power: his/her ability to punish or control; demote
employees or giving unpleasant work
3. Reward power: give positive benefits or rewards
4. Expert power: expertise in special skills or knowledge.
5. Referent power: arises because of person’s desirable resources or
personal traits.

A leader needs to employ different types of power in managing followers. He


can give orders using legitimate power and recommend for promotions using
reward power. If a leader has more power, making influence on followers is
easy. Good leaders should not rely on coercive, legitimate or reward power.
Expert power and referent power can be used to influence followers.

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11.6.4 Proving online leadership

If people (subordinates) are physically separated from the leader, in a


virtual setting, a leader may find an alternative way to lead them. That is
through online. However, some challenges occur in on-line leadership. It is
necessary to develop new communication skills to be an effective leader. Eg:
Using the right word, the structure of word etc.
Another challenge is managing performance. Subordinates should
understand their task, responsibilities and how they are going to be
assessed. There should not be uncertainties. Maintaining this is a difficult
task.
Again in a virtual setting there is a possibility to violate trust. It is
very important to build trust among all participants; say about the
technology used in monitoring or evaluation.

11.6.5 Empowering employees

At present subordinates expect to be involved in the decision making


process. As we learnt in previous lessons, empowering employees has
become more practical. Employees who are more knowledgeable about
issues are allowed to make decisions. As a result, quick and effective
decisions could be made and at the same time employees are motivated.
However, it is the leaders’ responsibility to decide to what extent that
followers should be empowered. In this regard, not only the knowledge,
skills, and experience of the follower, but their willingness to work
independently (autonomously) needs to be considered.

11.6.6 Is Leadership relevant?

Leadership may not always be important. Research indicates that in some


situations any behviour a leader exhibits is irrelevant. Individuals, job and
organizational variables act as substitutes for leadership.

• Followers’ characteristics such as experience, training, professional


orientation, or need for independence can neutralize the effect of
leadership. These can replace the employee’s need for a leader’s
support. Having a leader for such a situation may hinder the
performance rather than improve it.
• If work is routine there is less demand for leadership.
• Formalized goals, rigid rules, & procedures would reduce the need for
a leader.

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11.7 Summary

In this lesson, we tried to explain how important and complicated


leadership is. Success or failure of an organization mainly depends on the
performance of the leader. We can identify some similarities, but a
manager and a leader are not the same. Though every one believes that
an effective leader is the backbone of success, there are different ideas
and views on effective leadership. Early theories on leadership focused on
the leader and the ways that leader interacts with others. i.e. Trait
theories and behavioral theories. We discussed in this lesson four major
behavioral theories; Leadership Style, The Ohio State Studies, University
of Michigan Studies and Leadership Grid.
As these theories were vague in explaining successful leaders,
subsequently contingency theories were presented. The main theme of
these theories is that different leadership styles are effective at different
times depending on the circumstance. Three theories, namely Fiedler’s
contingency model, Situational leadership theory and Path-goal theory
were discussed.
Further we discussed the important issues such as gender, culture,
managing power and empowering employees in leadership.

In achieving organizational goals, people and processes must be monitored


to prevent, detect, and correct undesirable differences between what is
expected and what is actually happening. This is done by controlling, the last
function of the management process. In our next lesson, we shall discuss
controlling.

Try self-assessment 4

Review questions

1.Can you think of leader behaviour other than what we have discussed in this
lesson? If so, clarify them.

2.Do male and female leaders differ in their behaviour and effectiveness in
organizations? Justify your answer with real examples.

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`
Society identifies Women as leaders!!!

Standard Chartered empowers its female leaders (Financial Times- Sunday June
15, 2008.

Standard Chartered, Sri Lanka recently conducted a series of programmes for


some of its female associates under its gender diversity strategy.
The programme was specifically designed for women in leadership roles within
Standard Chartered. The course aimed to help participants present themselves and
their ideas with confidence and clarity.

The recently concluded Borderlands out-bound training programme held at a


southern hotel took the form of a series of team oriented exercises. The
day’s activities were with the intention to enhance the participants’ leadership,
teamwork and creative abilities.

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