Understanding Leadership Theories and Models

1. Leadership 12

2. Learning Objectives • Define leadership and contrast leadership and management. • Summarize the trait theories of leadership. • Identify the principles and main limitations of behavioral theories. • Assess contingency theories of leadership by their level of support. • Compare and contrast charismatic and transformational leadership. • Define authentic leadership and show why effective leaders are good examples of ethics and trust. • Address challenges to the effectiveness of leadership. • Assess whether charismatic and transformational leadership generalize across cultures.

3. What Is Leadership? • Leadership • The ability to influence a group toward the achievement of goals • Management • Use of authority from your position to obtain agreement from employees • Both are necessary for organizational success

4. Trait Theories of Leadership • Theories that consider personality, social, physical, or intellectual traits to differentiate leaders from nonleaders • Essential Leadership Traits • Extroversion • Conscientiousness • Openness • Emotional Intelligence (Qualified) • Traits can predict leadership, but they are better at predicting new leaders than effectiveness.

5. Behavioral Theories of Leadership • Theories proposing that specific behaviors differentiate leaders from nonleaders • 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 and can be taught to anyone, so we must identify the proper behaviors to teach potential leaders

6. Contingency Theories • While trait and behavior theories do help us understand leadership, an important part is missing: the environment in which the leader exists • Contingency Theory adds this additional aspect to our understanding of leadership effectiveness studies • Three key theories: • Fiedler’s Model • Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory • Path-Goal Theory

7. Fiedler Model • Effective group performance depends on a match between leadership style and leader control. • 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: leader’s 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

8. Graphic Representation of Fiedler’s Model Used to determine which type of leader to use in a given situation

9. Fiedler’s Cognitive Resource Theory • A refinement of Fiedler’s original model: • Focuses on stress as the enemy of rationality and creator of unfavorable conditions • A leader’s intelligence and experience influence his or her reaction to that stress • Research is supporting the theory.

10. Situational Leadership Theory • A model that focuses on follower “readiness” • Followers can accept or reject the leader • Effectiveness depends on the followers’ response to the leader’s actions • “Readiness” is the extent to which people have the ability and willingness to accomplish a specific task

11. House’s Path-Goal Theory • The Theory: • Leaders provide followers with information, support, and resources to help them achieve their goals • Leaders help clarify the “path” to the worker’s 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

12. Vroom and Yetton’s Leader-Participation Model • How a leader makes decisions is as important as what is decided • Based on the idea that situational variables interact with leadership attributes to impact the behavior of the leader. • Leader behaviors must adjust to the way tasks are structured in the organization. • This is a normative model that tells leaders how participative to be in their decision making

13. Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory • Out Groups • Managed by formal rules and policies • Receive less of the leader’s attention / fewer exchanges • More likely to work against the organization In Groups • Members are similar to leader • In the leader’s inner circle of communication • Receives more time and attention from leader • Gives greater responsibility and rewards

14. Charismatic Leadership Charisma means gift in Greek

15. Charismatic Leadership How do charismatic leaders influence followers?

16. Transformational Leaders Inspire followers to transcend their self-interests for the good of the organization

17. Leadership Model

19. Trust and Leadership • Trust – a psychological state that exists when you agree to make yourself vulnerable to another because you have a positive expectation for how things are going to turn out. • Key attribute associated with leadership • Followers who trust their leader will agree their actions and attitudes with the leader’s behaviors/requests

20. How is Trust Developed?

21. Finding and Creating Effective Leaders

22. Global Implications • 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

23. 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. • Need to take into account the situational variables, especially the impact of followers. • Research on charismatic and transformational leadership has made major contributions to our understanding of leadership. • Leaders must be seen as natural and trustworthy. • Training leaders is very important for future development.