The Nature of Leadership: Impact and Traits in Managers

1. CHAPTER 7 LEADERSHIP

2. The Nature of Leadership • The process through which a person tries to get organization members to do something that the person desires • Leaders and managers are not equivalent terms, someone may be the formal group manager, yet another person may actually be the group’s leader

3. The Nature of Leadership (cont.) • Leadership: the incremental influence that a person has beyond his or her formal authority • Informal leaders: lack formal authority but actually possess substantial incremental influence

4. Does Leadership Make a Difference? • One of the best ways to assess impact of leadership is to study instances of leader succession • Evidence suggests that succession (leadership) can have strong impact on measurable performance outcomes • However, frequently changing leaders can have adverse effects

5. What Managers Actually Do • Managers’ jobs involve a lot less glamour than one might think; in fact studies reveal that the popular notion of the harried executive is fairly accurate • Most perform a large number of brief, highly varied, and fragmented activities

6. Trait Approach • Prior to the 1950s researchers believed that leaders possessed some special traits • By and large, the trait studies did not show any simple pattern of traits that was both strongly and consistently related to leadership

7. Trait Approach (cont.) • Several traits do appear to have some modes association with leadership, e.g., intelligence • People who hold leadership positions tend to be somewhat more intelligent • However, if leaders are extremely intelligent, it may interfere with their ability to communicate with followers

8. Trait Approach (cont.) • Cognitive resource theory argues that intelligence can be used to predict leadership success in very specific cases in which directive leaders who are intelligent and possess relevant job experience are in stress-free settings in which subordinates are supportive

9. Trait Approach (cont.) • Recent work by Robert Sternberg suggests that intelligence may be better conceptualized as being comprised of several major components

10. Trait Approach (cont.) • Triarchic model of intelligence is comprised of three components: • Analytical reasoning ability: ability to solve problems with an abstract element; deductive thinking, e.g. math problems • Social intelligence: ability to understand motives and actions of others, and to interact effectively with others, e.g. “street smarts”

11. Trait Approach (cont.) • Creativity: ability to identify many possible solutions to a given problem • Model suggests that managers may be screened on each of these forms of intelligence, and placed into appropriate jobs based on the job itself

12. Trait Approach: Gender Issues • A review of available literature on male-female gender differences reveals that women and men differ in their leadership styles • Women are more democratic, men are more directive

13. Trait Approach: Gender Issues (cont.) • However, there is little reason to believe that either women or men will be superior in role of manager • Mentoring has a significant impact on development of managers • Recent evidences suggests that female managers-in-training have less access to same-gender mentors

14. Trait Approach: Gender Issues (cont.) • Given sensitivity surrounding cross-gender relationships, female managers often seek out peer mentors

15. Behavioral Approach to Leadership • Tried to identify specific styles of leader conduct and attempted to discover whether leader behavior was associated with employee attitudes and performance • An early study sought to determine which form of leader behavior was more effective: authoritarianism, or democratic leadership

16. Behavioral Approach to Leadership (cont.) • Autocratic leadership may be required in certain situations in which followers actually prefer autocracy, or in which urgent action is required

17. Interaction Process Analysis System • Developed a process through which all group interactions could be classified into 12 different behaviors • Concluded that groups have two roles that must be fulfilled for effective group functioning: a task oriented role and a socio-emotional role

18. Ohio State Leadership Studies • Focused on task vs. employee orientation; they termed the variables initiating structure and consideration • Consideration: extent to which the leader has job relationships that rely on mutual trust, respect for subordinates, and sensitivity to subordinate’s feelings

19. Ohio State Leadership Studies (cont.) • Initiating structure: the extent to which a leader defines and structures the work that he and his subordinates perform, with the focus being on task accomplishment

20. Ohio State Leadership Studies (cont.) • Early results suggested that the combination of high consideration and high initiating structure constitute the most successful managerial style, but other studies have not corroborated this finding

21. Ohio State Leadership Studies (cont.) • Certain variables, e.g., subordinate characteristics, supervisor characteristics, and task characteristics, can moderate the relationship between leader behavior and outcome

22. Managerial Grid • Explains leadership styles in the context of a grid • Five different styles of leadership are categorized using various combinations of concern for people and concern for production

23. Managerial Grid (cont.) • The five major leadership styles are: • Authority/Obedience management (9, 1 style) • Country-Club management (1, 9 style) • Laissez-faire or impoverished management (1, 1 style) • Organization man management (5, 5 style) • Team management (9, 9 style)

24. Managerial Grid (cont.) • Model assumes that there is only one best or most effective style of management, the team management style—the team management or 9,9 style

25. Charismatic Leadership • Refers to the possession of a form of influence over followers that can best be described as referent power • Characteristics of charismatic leaders: • Exude self-confidence, sense of purpose • Often reject formal authority • Willing to take personal risks because of strong convictions

26. Charismatic Leadership (cont.) • Once thought rare, charismatics are now thought to be found in all kinds of organizations • Dark side of charisma: witness the charismatic effects of Adolph Hitler, Jim Jones, David Koresh

27. Transformational Leadership • Expands the notion of charismatic leadership to include these other factors: • Elevation of subordinate’s goals • Underscores the importance of manager’s vision • Emphasizes manager’s intellectual stimulation of followers • Acknowledges the importance of leader’s individualized consideration of employees

28. Situational Approaches to Leadership • Fiedler’s Contingency Model of Leadership Effectiveness assumes that group performance is a function of the combination of a leader’s style and the situation in which a leader is placed

29. Situational Approaches to Leadership (cont.) • Leadership style in Fiedler’s model is measured via his least preferred coworker, or LPC, scale • People who score high give lenient responses, and are said to be relationship oriented • People who score low judge others harshly, and are said to be task oriented

30. Situational Approaches to Leadership (cont.) • The leadership situation is measured via examination of several variables intended to gauge the leader’s ease or difficulty in leading, known as situational favorableness • Three important factor that underlie situational favorableness: • Leader-member relations • Task structure • Position power

31. Situational Approaches to Leadership (cont.) • Low LPC leaders were determined to be more effective than high-LPC leaders in extremely favorable and unfavorable situations • High-LPC leaders were relatively more effective in octants of moderate favorability

32. Situational Approaches to Leadership (cont.) • Critics argue that the Contingency Model is still little more than a black box

33. Implications of Contingency Model • A leader effective in one situation may be ineffective in another • Leaders need to engineer facets of their work setting to enhance their personal effectiveness rather than changing leadership styles

34. Implications of Contingency Model (cont.) • Performance decreases across octants as we move toward the unfavorable end of situational favorability

35. Other Contingency Models • Path Goal Theory • Situational Theory • Vroom-Yetton Leadership Model • Vertical Dyad Linkage Model or Leader-Member Exchange Model

36. Path Goal Theory • Suggest that leaders can affect the satisfaction, motivation, and performance of group members in several ways • The primary means of affecting workers’ feelings toward work, and their performance, is by making rewards contingent on the accomplishment of performing goals

37. Path Goal Theory (cont.) • Another related way that leaders can aid employees is to clarify available paths that workers can use to achieve performance goals • In order to accomplish both the linkage of rewards with performance, and the clarification of paths, leaders may have to adopt various leadership styles

38. Path Goal Theory (cont.) • Directive leadership • Supportive leadership • Participative leadership • Achievement-oriented leadership • All four styles of leadership are used by individual leaders at various times

39. Path Goal Theory (cont.) • Evidence suggests that when subordinates are involved with ambiguous tasks, directive leadership can increase satisfaction and motivation • With fairly unambiguous tasks directive leadership can decrease satisfaction and motivation

40. Path Goal Theory (cont.) • Supportive leadership behavior typically is associated with increased subordinate satisfaction

41. Situational Leadership Theory • Based on the leadership styles created in the Ohio State model, yet provides a twist in that it says that leaders should vary their styles of leadership according to followers’ maturity levels • Subordinate maturity: • Job maturity: technical knowledge

42. Situational Leadership Theory (cont.) • Psychological maturity: feelings of self-confidence and the willingness and ability to accept responsibility • A subordinate who is highly mature possesses both technical competence and self-confidence for a given task

43. Situational Leadership Theory (cont.) • Central thesis of model is that as follower maturity increases, a leader should rely more on relationship-oriented behavior and less on task-oriented behavior • Very immature subordinates should be led via task-oriented behaviors; the leaders should be very directive and autocratic--workers are told what to do

44. Situational Leadership Theory (cont.) • Somewhat immature subordinates; leaders should focus on being more relationship-oriented--the leader sells the followers • Fairly mature subordinates; leaders should use a fair degree of support and considerate treatment--workers participate with subordinates

45. Situational Leadership Theory (cont.) • Highly mature subordinates are self-motivated; leaders should allow them to enjoy a great deal of autonomy • The model is highly criticized for its lack of empirical evidence

46. Vroom-Yetton Leadership Model • Helps leaders decide on a precise style of leadership to use in making decisions • Five styles are offered that vary in terms of their degree of participation • Autocratic I • Autocratic II • Consultative I • Consultative II • Group

47. Vroom-Yetton Leadership Model (cont.) • Model uses a decision tree in which key questions lead to other questions, and the ultimate product is a decision style • Provides a useful device for diagnosing a situation

48. Vertical Dyad Linkage Model • Also know as Leader-Member Exchange Model of Leadership • Argues that leaders do not typically display an uniform, or average, style of leadership toward all group members, but rather, that they behave somewhat differently toward each subordinate

49. Vertical Dyad Linkage Model (cont.) • In each work unit pairs of relations, or dyads, can be judged in terms of whether an individual is relatively “in” or “out” with the supervisor • In-group members are invited to share in decision making and are given added responsibility; they are treated like trusted assistants

50. Vertical Dyad Linkage Model (cont.) • Out-group members are supervised within the narrow terms of their formal employment contract; they are treated like hired hands • In-group members are hypothesized to display greater job satisfaction, superior performance, higher commitment, lower turnover; enjoy enriched jobs