Transcript LEADERSHIP

Chapter 6
 Some leaders are visionaries
 Others use their position of power
 Others persuade us to do what they want
 Basics of leadership
 What is leadership
 Relationship between leaders and followers
 How leaders are chosen or emerge
 Personality theory
 Behavioural theory
 Leadership effectiveness
 Contingency Theories
 1 .Fiedler’s contingency theory
 2.Normative theory
 3-Path-goal theory
 Gender differences
leadership
Yukl (1994)
“the process through which one member of a group (its
leader) influences other group members towards the
attainment of group goals.”
1. Leadership is about how a person exerts social influence.
2. The leader is a member of a group and to be effective
must be recognised and accepted as the leader (otherwise
the leader will have to use power, if he has it)
3. Leadership is about the attainment of group goals. The
goals of the leader should coincide with the goals of the
group.
Leadership as power
French and Raven (1956) updated by Raven (1993)
description
example
 Reward power
 Manager in an organisation
Ability of the leader to
provide what others want or
remove what they dislike
 Referent power
 A leader is respected and
looked up to by other
members. The leader
emphasises the identity of
the group and provides a
sense of common identity
has the power to promote a
worker and/or give higher
salary
 The leader is a role model.
The power is maintained as
long as the person is
respected
 Informational power
 The leader may have privileged
access to information s/he uses
in a logical argument to
persuade the other members
 Legitimate power
 The other members accept the
rules and norms of the leader
and consider the leader as
properly occupying the position.
 The Chief executive of an
organisation knows more
about, for ex., a take-over bid
 Army generals
 Heads of Government who are
democratically elected.
Legitimate power disappears
when the person no longer
occupies the position
 Expert power
 The leader has a high level of
knowledge and is recognised
as having a superior ability in
a specialised area
 Coercive power
 the leader has the ability to
threaten and/or punish the
group members. If they do
not conform to the leader’s
wishes.
 A professor of psychology
 A foot-ball player
 Use of this power often
results in group members
obeying the leader, especially
where the punishment may
involve death or
imprisonment.
Power and leadership
 These types of power can be used by the same leader
at different times.
EXAMPLES?
LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS
 Leaders exist if they have followers
 Looking at leadership as social influence and the use
leaders make of different types of power fails to capture the
reciprocal influence that followers have on leaders.
 Lee (1991) claims that effective followers are essential for
effective leaders (enthusiastic, committed and self-reliant)
 Senge (1990) asserts that organisations who are able to
respond to change and to learn about the needs of their
customers have leaders empowering the workers. Workers
feel that they are part of the decision-making process.
Four categories of followers
Lee (1991)
 YES Followers
 Active toward leader and job /Low on critical thinking
 Sheep
 Passive toward leader and job/low on critical thinking
 Alienated followers
 Passive towards leader and job/High on critical
thinking
 Effective followers
 Active toward leader and job/High on critical thinking
Choosing a leader
 Leaders achieve their position by a variety of means.
 In democratic countries leaders receive the support of
the people from the votes cast.
 Dictators may achieve their position through a military
coup.
 Some leaders inherit their position (the Queen and
the hereditary peers in Britain).
 In many organisation leaders (such as the C.E.O) are
appointed on the basis of their ability, experience and
visionary qualities.
Personality and leadership
EXERCISE!
 Think about two people you regard as great leaders.
 Write a short description of each.
Personality and leadership
Psychologists have tried to find those personalities
traits or characteristics that set great leaders apart
from other people
GREAT PERSONALITY THEORY
Personality and leadership
 two assumptions:
 1. a small number of personality traits are associated
with great leaders
 2. that such characteristics are inherited and not
learned through socialisation and experience
 Empirical evidence has failed to provide support to
either claims, but especially the idea that leaders
possess certain special personality traits.
 For example, Dean Simonton (1987, 2001) gathered information
about one hundred personal attributes of all U.S. presidents,
such as their family backgrounds, educational experiences,
occupations, and personalities.
 Only three of these variables—height, family size, and the
number of books a president published before taking office—
correlated with how effective the presidents were in office.
 Tall presidents, those from small families, and those who have
published books are most likely to become effective leaders, as
rated by historians.
 The other ninety-seven characteristics, including personality
traits, were not related to leadership effectiveness at all.
Personality and leadership
 Mann (1959) conducted a review of over 100 studies which
had attempted to correlate different personality traits with
leadership.
 Only weak evidence was found for leaders possessing the
traits of intelligence, extraversion, dominance and
sensitivity to other.
 It was found that leaders tend to be slightly taller than
average. (we choose the leader that fits our stereotype “size
matters) “Eagly and Karau , (1991).
 Mullen et al. (1989) suggest that only two traits seem to
offer correlation with leadership: intelligence and
talkativeness. (the act of talking makes a person prominent
in a group. Mullen et al.(1989)
Five reasons why this approach
failed
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No central personality traits clearly correlate with leadership
The trait approach does not take account of the situation or
the context where the leader is operating.
The idea that a group possesses just one leader is often
incorrect.
The focus on the person rather than on the situation may be an
example of the fundamental attribution error (Ross, 1977) “too
much emphasis on personality factor and too little on
situation”. (e.g. Only a minority of the population are
personally acquainted with the Prime Minister)
The great person theory cannot predict in advance who will
become a leader.
Characteristics of successful leaders
(Kirkpatrick and Locke (1991)
There has been a recent revival of interest in the “trait approach”. Drawing
upon both traditional personality traits but also characteristics
representing knowledge and experience, K&L suggest 8 characteristics
of successful leaders.
1. Drive: desire to succeed
2. Honesty and integrity : trustworthiness, reliability.
3. Leadership motivation: desire to achieve shared outcomes.
4. Self-confidence: trust in leadership ability
5. Cognitive ability: ability to deal with complex information.
6. Knowledge of the business
7. Creativity : original, visionary thinking
8. Flexibility: ability to respond and adapt to change.
Behavioural theory of leadership
 Another way in which psychologists can remain focussed
on the individual is to look at the actual behaviour
performed by leaders. This approach has been much more
productive over time and remains of contemporary
importance.
 It Implies that leaders can be trained – focus on the way of doing
things.
 60 years ago Hemphill (1950) conducted a ground-breaking
study in which a large number of people rated the
behaviour of leaders on a thousand different aspects.
 Statistical analysis revealed two main behavioural
dimensions: group-centred and directive behaviours.
Behavioural styles
 Group centred or “consideration” behaviours are those
shown by a leader considering interpersonal
relationships in the group, developing a sense of trust
between group members and looking after the
emotional well-being of the group.
 By contrast, directive behaviours or “initiating
structure” are more related to the task the group faces
and include allocating tasks to the group members,
ensuring norms and rules are upheld, ensuring
performance measures.
Behavioural styles
 Stogdill (1974)characterised these two behavioural
styles as two independent dimensions with each along
a high-low continuum.
 It might seem that if a leader is high on one dimension
then the s/he will be low on the other dimension.
 But the two are not mutually excluding dimensions.
 A leader con be high, moderate or low on both
dimensions.
Is there a combination that is better for effective
leadership?
Behavioural styles
 Blake and Mouton (1985) found that leaders who are high
on both dimensions, or can be trained to be so, lead teams
to high level of performance.
 Bales and Slater (1955) discovered similar behavioural styles
to initiating structure and consideration the task leader
and the socio-emotional leader.
 In contrast to Stogdill they claimed that different people
occupied these leadership roles.
 While there may be disagreement over whether one leader
can or cannot occupy these two roles, these two leadership
styles do seem fundamental, and have been found to apply
in many different contexts and in different cultures (Bass,
1990).
Behavioural styles
 Lippet and White (1943) had a different approach in
their highly influential and classic study.
 These researchers investigated the effects of three
leadership styles – autocratic, democratic and laissezfaire – on group productivity, group atmosphere and
how well group members liked their leader.
 The research was conducted using adult leaders with
schoolboys working on tasks such as making models
from bars of soap.
Behavioural style
Autocratic leader
 Gives order, primarily task-
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oriented, aloof from group
members
Democratic leader
Asks for suggestions,
discusses and interacts with
group members
Laissez-faire leader
Leaves group to make own
decisions, not directive, does
not intervene
 Not well liked by group
members, dependent group
atmosphere, high productivity
when present.
 Liked by group members,
positive and friendly group
atmosphere, good productivity
when leader present or absent.
 Not well liked by g.m., friendly
group atmosphere, poor
productivity with leader present
and absent.
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 is correct
Types of Leadership Style
 Democratic:
 May help motivation and involvement
 Workers feel ownership of the firm and its ideas
 Improves the sharing of ideas
and experiences within the business
 Can delay decision making
Types of Leadership Style
 Laissez-Faire:
 ‘Let it be’ – the leadership responsibilities
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are shared by all
Can be very useful in businesses
where creative ideas are important
Can be highly motivational,
as people have control over their working life
Can make coordination and decision making
time-consuming and lacking in overall direction
Relies on good team work
Relies on good interpersonal relations
Fiedler’s contingency theory
 Fiedler’s (1965, 1971, 1981) contingency theory of leadership
draws on Bales’ finding that small group often have two
leaders.
 In order to predict leadership effectiveness Fiedler stated
that an assessment of the situational favourableness had to
be made. For Fiedler, leadership effectiveness is contingent,
or depends upon, the behavioural styles and whether the
situation is favourable or unfavourable.
 Fiedler developed what has come to be a well known
measure of leadership style through the Least Preferred
Co-worker (LPC) scale.
LPC scale
The LPC scale asks a leader to think about a person
whom s/he found it difficult to work with. The scale
uses 16 bipolar adjectives with an 8 point scale.
Pleasant
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
unpleasant
Friendly
Unfriendly
Warm
cold
Interesting
boring
efficient
inefficient
Co-operative
Unco-operative
What type of leader
are you?
LPC scale
 Leaders who generally show positive attitude to their
LPC are categorised as socio-emotional leaders, while
those who show a negative attitude to their LPC are
task-oriented leaders.
 Scores can range from 8 to 48 with a low score
indicating a socio-emotional leader and a high score a
task oriented leader.
Fiedler’s contingency theory
 To assess the situation, Fiedler used three indicators:
Leader-follower relationships. Categorised as good or
poor.
2. The task structure- whether the task set the group
was clear and unambiguous or not. Categorised as
high or low.
3. Position of power of the leader- whether or not the
leader has authority over the other members in the
group. Categorised as strong or weak.
1.
 Since these three situational factors are categorised as
a dichotomy eight different situations are described as
a result and an overall assessment of situation
favourableness (favourable, moderate or
unfavourable) is made.
 Finally Fiedler predicted that task oriented leaders
would be most effective in highly favourable situations
(I, II and III) and unfavourable situations (VII and
VIII), while socio-emotional leaders would be effective
in moderately favourable situations (IV, V, VI)
 The logic behind it is:
 That unfavourable situations require a leader to give
guidance and direction.
 In highly favourable situations relationship between GM
are good, the task is clear, thus allowing the task oriented
leader to concentrate and successfully achieve the group
goals.
 Moderately favourable situations require a leader to
support GM in order to improve interpersonal
relationships so that the group can then move on to deal
with the group task. Fiedler found that leader-follower
relationships are the most important situational factors in
moderately favourable situations.
30 years of research on Fiedler’s theory
 Strube and Carcia (1981) conducted a meta analytic
review of over 170 studies and generally found strong
support for the theory.
 Peter et al. (1985) reviewed both laboratory and field
studies and found much less support for the theory
from the latter group.
Criticism of Fiedler’s contingency
theory
1. LPC scale is not a stable measure
2. As leader become more experienced they may
change their leadership style.
3. The three components of situational favourableness
are quite difficult to assess.
4. Field studies have provided less support to the
theory.
The theory has given great insight into leadership
effectiveness. More research in “real-life”settings is
needed to refine the LPC scale and better asses
situational favourableness is needed.
Normative theory
 One of the key tasks faced by any leader is that of decision-
making, and when working with a small group of people
one matter that Fielder’s theory is silent about concerns the
extent to which the followers should participate in
decision making.
 Should the leader be autocratic and make decisions
without consultation and involvement of other GM?
 Should the leader reach a decision through participation
and consensus?
 This is at the heart of Vroom and Yelton’s (1973) normative
theory of leadership.
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They suggest three basic styles of
leadership decision-making
1.Autocratic
Leader makes decisions unilaterally and without
follower participation or involvement
2 Consultative
Leader consults with GM and the makes decision
unilaterally
3.Group decision- leader consults and seeks view of
other GM and reaches decision by consensus
Vroom &Yelton
 Leadership effectiveness is contingent upon two main
situational factors:
 1- the extent to which a high-quality decision is
required
 2- the extent to which it is important that the other
group members accept the decision that is made.
IF
 It is important that a very high quality decision is
made
 The leader does not have enough information upon
which to base the decision
 It is important that the GM accept and are committed
to the decision what decision-making style is best?
 Consultative or group decision
 If There is limited time?
 consultative
IF
 The leader believes for good reasons that the other group
members do not have the knowledge or the experience to
make the right decision
 And the group will act on the decision made?
 Autocratic style
 The model is normative because V&Y provide a set of rules
to guide leaders in deciding which style of leaderparticipation should be adopted. Vroom and Jago (1978)
have updated the model.
 It is so complex that a computer programme is necessary to
work out the best decision-making style. It is very attractive
in organisations.
Normative theory
Strengths
Weaknesses
 It takes account of followers
 Heilman et al. (1984) found that
or other group members
 Suggest that a leader is able to
change his or her style of
decision-making to suit
different circumstances
managers preferred a
participative style even when the
model recommended an
autocratic one.
 Followers prefer a participative
style of leadership almost always
when the leaders are using an
autocratic style
 In high conflict situations
leaders may revert to autocratic
style against the model.
Path-goal theory
 House and Baetz(1979) suggested that the leader’s role
is to ensure that the group progresses along the
appropriate path to achieve its goals.
 Leaders may adopt one of four styles while at the same
time taking account of two contingency or situational
factors: 1 the characteristics of followers and 2 the
environment in which the group is working
The four leadership styles are
 1. Directive
 The leader provides clear guidance, lets followers know
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what is expected from them, and produces work schedule,
2. Supportive
The leader establishes good relationships with followers
and shows concern for their needs.
3. Participative
The leader consults with followers and encourages them to
be involved in decision-making
4. Achievement-oriented
The leader sets challenging goals and seeks improvement
in followers performance.
IF
 The task is unstructured the best leadership style is?
 Directive
 The followers are highly skilled and experienced the
most effective style is?
 Supportive
 Followers who have a high need for affiliation (to be
with others and get on with them) will do best with
 Supportive or participative style of leadership
Path-goal theory
 Good empirical support (Schriesham and De Nisi,
1981, Wofford and Liska, 1993)
 It focuses on the role of followers.
Transformational Leadership
 Leaders who are regarded as exceptional and as agent
of social, political, and economic change.
 These leaders are transformational in that they
inspired people to change.
 This approach to exceptional leadership is not a return
to the “great person theory” but is seen as the effect
and reactions that charismatic or transformational
leaders have on their followers.
Transformational Leadership
 Conger (1991) identifies four main characteristics of
leader-follower relationships;
 1. Followers show high level of devotion, loyalty and
reverence to the leader.
 2. Followers are both enthusiastic and committed to
the ideas and vision of the leader.
 3. Followers willingly make self-sacrifices for the
general good of the group as a whole.
 4. Followers show levels of performance and behaviour
greatly beyond what would normally be expected
Transformational leadership
 Howell and Frost (1989) have analysed the key behaviour of
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transformational leaders show when having such a profound
influence on the followers:
1. a vision or dream that the leader is able to communicate in
vivid, exciting and emotional ways.
2. such leaders convince their followers that they have a path or
means to get them from where they are now to a realisation of a
dream.
3. they offer a framing in which the followers are justified to
behave the way they want them to behave.
4. they exhibit total confidence in what they say and do, deep
regard for the needs of their followers, excellent interpersonal
communication skills and an inspiration power of oration.
(House et al., 1991).
Transformational Leadership
 Interest in transformational or charismatic leadership
has been intense in 1990s because of the dramatic
change one person can bring about.
 Bass (1997) claims that with the rapid development of
communication systems, the internet and electronic
commerce transformational leadership will increase in
the future.
 Transformational leadership is a two-edged swords
since both good and evil may result (Hitler and Lenin).
Gender and Leadership
 Leaders mentioned up to now are predominantly male
 This raises the question of whether or not males and
females differ in leadership styles and/or leadership
effectiveness or if cultural stereotypes prevent women from
occupying top positions.
 Eagly and Johnson (1990) conducted a meta-analytic review
of over 250 studies of leadership to see if males and females
differ in their leadership styles.
 The most important overall finding is that male and female
leaders show similar approaches but
 Males are generally more directive and autocratic, while
females are democratic and participative in their leadership
styles.
Gender and Leadership
 Research clearly show that women experience a “glass
ceiling” and that when they break through the glass
they are viewed more positively and are more likely to
be more effective in maintaining a leadership that is
participative and democratic.
 Female transformational leaders show the same
behavioural style and approach to their followers as do
males.
 Exceptional leadership transcends the sex of the
leader.