Basic Approaches to Leadership

Leadership Summary
Leadership is ability to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members. Leaders use influence to motivate followers, and arrange the work environment so that they do the job more effectively. Leaders exist throughout the organization, not just in the executive suite.

What Is Leadership?
Leadership
The ability to influence a group toward the achievement of goals Advocates for change & new approaches to problems

Management
Use of authority inherent in designated formal rank to obtain compliance from organizational members Advocates for stability and management control

Both are necessary for organizational success

Leaders and Managers

Personality Dimension Manager Attitudes toward Goals Passive, believes goals arise out of necessity Views work as enabling process. Seeks moderate risk through coordination and balance Prefer to work with others. Avoids close intense relationships, avoids conflict Leader Active, believes goals arise from desire Looks for fresh approaches to old problems, takes high risk with high pay offs

Conceptions of work

Relationship with others

Encourages close intense relationships , not conflict averse

Source: Harvard Business Review, January 2004

Leadership

Types of Leadership Style

Types of Leadership Style

Autocratic:
Leader makes decisions without reference to anyone else High degree of dependency on the leader Can create de-motivation and alienation of staff May be valuable in some types of business where decisions need to be made quickly and decisively

Types of Leadership Style

Democratic: Encourages decision making from different perspectives leadership may be emphasised throughout the organisation
Consultative: process of consultation before decisions are taken
Persuasive: Leader takes decision and seeks to persuade others that the decision

Workers feel ownership of the firm and its ideas Improves the sharing of ideas and experiences within the business Can delay decision makings correct

Types of Leadership Style

Laissez-Faire:
Non leadership Abdicates authority and responsibility, creates chaos Causes Role ambiguity, as leaders fail to clearly define goals, responsibilities and outcomes Higher interpersonal conflict at work

Trait Theories of Leadership

Theories that consider personality, social, physical, or intellectual traits to differentiate leaders from non leaders Not very useful until matched with the Big Five Personality Framework Leadership Traits
Extroversion Conscientiousness Openness Emotional Intelligence

Traits can predict leadership, but they are better at predicting leader emergence than effectiveness.

Competency Perspective
This perspective tries to identify the characteristics of effective leaders. Recent writing suggests that leaders have emotional intelligence, integrity, drive, leadership motivation, self-confidence, above-average intelligence, and knowledge of the business.

Behavioural Theories of Leadership

Theories proposing that specific behaviours differentiate leaders from non-leaders Differences between theories of leadership:
Trait theory: leadership is inherent, so we must identify the leader based on his or her traits
Behavioral theory: leadership is a skill set and can be taught to anyone, so we must identify the proper behaviors to teach potential leaders

Important Behavioral Studies

Ohio State University
Found two key dimensions of leader behavior:
Initiating structure the defining and structuring of roles Consideration job relationships that reflect trust and respect Both are important

University of Michigan
Also found two key dimensions of leader behavior:
Employee-oriented emphasizes interpersonal relationships and is the most powerful dimension Production-oriented emphasizes the technical aspects of the job

The dimensions of the two studies are very similar

Blake and Moutons Managerial Grid

Draws on both studies to assess leadership style
Concern for People is Consideration and Employee-Orientation Concern for Production is Initiating Structure and Production-Orientation

Style is determined by position on the graph

Behavioral Perspective of Leadership

This perspective identifies two clusters of leader behavior: People-oriented and Task-oriented.

People-oriented behaviors include showing mutual trust and respect for subordinates, demonstrating a genuine concern for their needs, and having a desire to look out for their welfare. Task-oriented behaviors include assigning employees to specific tasks, clarify their work duties and procedures, ensure that they follow company rules, and push them to reach their performance capacity.

Contingency Theories
While trait and behavior theories do help us understand leadership, an important component is missing: the environment in which the leader exists Contingency Theory deals with this additional aspect of leadership effectiveness studies By their nature, these are If-then theories Three key theories:
Fielders Model Hersey and Blanchards Situational Leadership Theory Path-Goal Theory

Contingency Perspective of Leadership

This perspective takes the view that effective leaders diagnose the situation and adapt their style to fit that situation.

Fiedler Model
Effective group performance depends on the proper match between leadership style and the situation
Assumes that leadership style (based on orientation revealed in LPC questionnaire) is fixed

Considers Three Situational Factors:

Leader-member relations: degree of confidence and trust in the leader Task structure: degree of structure in the jobs Position power: leaders ability to hire, fire, and reward

For effective leadership: must change to a leader who fits the situation or change the situational variables to fit the current leader

Graphic Representation of Fiedlers Model

Used to determine which type of leader to use in a given situation

Assessment of Fiedlers Model

Positives:
Considerable evidence supports the model

Problems:
The logic behind the LPC scale is not well understood LPC scores are not stable Contingency variables are complex and hard to determine

Hersey & Blanchards Situational Leadership

A model that focuses on follower readiness
Followers can accept or reject the leader Effectiveness depends on the followers response to the leaders actions Readiness is the extent to which people have the ability and willingness to accomplish a specific task

Houses Path-Goal Theory

Builds from the Ohio State studies and the expectancy theory of motivation The Theory:
Leaders provide followers with information, support, and resources to help them achieve their goals Leaders help clarify the path to the workers goals Leaders can display multiple leadership types

Four types of leaders:

Directive: focuses on the work to be done Supportive: focuses on the well-being of the worker Participative: consults with employees in decision-making Achievement-Oriented: sets challenging goals

Path-Goal Model
Two classes of contingency variables:
Environmental are outside of employee control Subordinate factors are internal to employee

Mixed support in the research findings

Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory

A response to the failing of contingency theories to account for followers and heterogeneous leadership approaches to individual workers LMX Premise:
Because of time pressures, leaders form a special relationship with a small group of followers: the in-group This in-group is trusted and gets more time and attention from the leader (more exchanges) All other followers are in the out-group and get less of the leaders attention and tend to have formal relationships with the leader (fewer exchanges) Leaders pick group members early in the relationship

LMX Model
How groups are assigned is unclear
Follower characteristics determine group membership

Leaders control by keeping favorites close

Research has been generally supportive

Global Implications
These leadership theories are primarily studied in English-speaking countries GLOBE does have some country-specific insights
Brazilian teams prefer leaders who are high in consideration, participative, and have high LPC scores French workers want a leader who is high on initiating structure and task-oriented Egyptian employees value team-oriented, participative leadership, while keeping a high-power distance Chinese workers may favor a moderately participative style

Leaders should take culture into account

Summary and Managerial Implications

Leadership is central to understanding group behavior as the leader provides the direction Extroversion, conscientiousness, and openness all show consistent relationships to leadership

Behavioral approaches have narrowed leadership down into two usable dimensions
Need to take into account the situational variables, especially the impact of followers