UAPP 2053 Organizational Psychology - Lecture 9 Leadership

Objectives

• Definition and Overview
• Theories of Leadership
• Styles of Leadership
• Characteristic of Successful Leaders
• Women in Management

Definition and Overview

• Many people today are seeking to understand – and many people are writing about – the concept and practices of leadership.
• There are a great many reasons for the popularity of the topic, including that organizations are faced with changes like never before.
• The concept of leadership is relevant to any aspect of ensuring effectiveness in organizations and in managing change.
• There has been an explosion of literature about leadership lately. Leading is a very human activity – we’re all human – so there are many people who consider themselves experts on leadership.
• Unfortunately, many people make strong assertions about leadership without ever really understanding a great deal about leadership.
• Understanding the concept of leadership requires more than reading a few articles or fantasizing about what great leaders should be.
• Many people believe that leadership is simply being the first, biggest or most powerful.
• Leadership in organizations has a different and more meaningful definition.
• Very simply put, a leader is interpreted as someone who sets direction in an effort and influences people to follow that direction.
• How they set that direction and influence people depends on a variety of factors that we’ll consider later on below.
• To really comprehend the “territory” of leadership, you should briefly scan some of the major theories, notice various styles of leadership and review some of the suggested traits and characteristics that leaders should have.
• Leadership, as defined by most dictionaries, means “to go before, or with, to show the way; to induce.” Every organization needs a leader (and preferably several leaders) to “show the way” to others as the organization strives to define and achieve its goals.
• Whether these goals are entrepreneurial or humanitarian – or both – the leader’s work is to instill a sense of purpose and passion to take the work that the organization undertakes.
• Identifying, developing and sustaining leadership in your organization must be one of your strategic objectives. Without leaders at every level of your organization, your organization may well under-perform.
• It may miss strategic opportunities, stifle innovation, underutilize your employees, and fall short of its goals in customer service, quality, productivity, and profitability.
• Effective managers are not necessarily true leaders. Many administrators, supervisors, and even top executives execute their responsibilities successfully without being great leaders.
• But these positions afford opportunity for leadership. The ability to lead effectively, then, will set the excellent managers apart from the average ones.
• Where as management must deal with the ongoing, day-to-day complexities of organizations, true leadership includes effectively orchestrating important change.
• While managing requires planning and budgeting routines, leading includes setting the direction (creating a vision) for the firm Management requires structuring the organization, staffing it with capable people, and monitoring activities; leadership goes beyond these functions by inspiring people to attain the vision.
• Great leaders keep people focused on moving the organization toward its ideal future, motivating them to overcome whatever obstacles lie in the way.
• Organizations succeed or fail not only because of how well they are led but also because of how well followers follow.
• Just as managers are not necessarily good leaders, people are not always good followers.
• The most effective followers are capable of independent thinking and at the same time are actively committed to organizational goals.
• As a manager, you will be asked to play the roles of both leader and follower. As you lead the people who report to you, you will report to your boss. You will be a member of some teams and committees, and you may chair others.
• Effective followers are distinguished from ineffective ones by their enthusiasm and commitment to the organization and to a person or purpose other than themselves or their own interests. They master skills that are useful to their organizations, and they hold to performance standards that are higher than required. To be a good leader you must become a good follower first.

Leadership Theory

• There are also numerous theories about leadership, or about carrying out the role of leader, e.g. servant leader, democratic leader, principle-centered leader, group-man theory, great-man theory, traits theory, visionary leader, total leader, situational leader, etc.

Contingency Theory

• Assumptions
  - The leader’s ability to lead is contingent upon various situational factors, including the leader’s preferred style, the capabilities and behaviors of followers and also various other situational factors.
• Description
  - Contingency theories are a class of behavioral theory that contend that there is no one best way of leading and that a leadership style that is effective in some situations may not be successful in others.
  - An effect of this is that leaders who are very effective at one place and time may become unsuccessful either when transplanted to another situation or when the factors around them change.
  - This helps to explain how some leaders who seem for a while to have the ‘Midas touch’ suddenly appear to go off the boil and make very unsuccessful decisions.
• Discussion
  - Contingency theory is similar to situational theory in that there is an assumption of no simple one right way.
  - The main differences is that situational theory tends to focus more on the behaviors that the leader should adopt, given situational factors (often about follower behavior), whereas contingency theory takes a broader view that includes contingent factors about leader capability and other variables within the situation.

Path-Goal Theory of Leadership

• Description
  ·- The Path-Goal Theory of Leadership was developed to describe the way that leaders encourage and support their followers in achieving the goals they have been set by making the path that they should take clear and easy.
  - In particular, leaders:
  Ø Clarify the path so subordinates know which way to go.
  Ø Remove roadblocks that are stopping them going there.
  Ø Increasing the rewards along the route.
  - Leaders can take a strong or limited approach in these. In clarifying the path, they may be directive or give vague hints. In removing roadblocks, they may scour the path or help the follower move the bigger blocks. In increasing rewards, they may give occasional encouragement or pave the way with gold.
• Discussion
  - Leaders who show the way and help followers along a path are effectively ‘leading’.
  - This approach assumes that there is one right way of achieving a goal and that the leader can see it and the follower cannot. This casts the leader as the knowing person and the follower as dependent.
  - It also assumes that the follower is completely rational and that the appropriate methods can be deterministically selected depending on the situation.

Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory

• Leader-Member Exchange Theory, also called LMX or Vertical Dyad Linkage Theory, describes how leaders in groups maintain their position through a series of tacit exchange agreements with their members.
• In-group and out-group
  - In particular, leaders often have a special relationship with an inner circle of trusted lieutenants, assistants and advisors, to whom they give high levels of responsibility, decision influence, and access to resources.
  - This in-group pays for their position. They work harder, are more committed to task objectives, and share more administrative duties. They are also expected to be fully committed and loyal to their leader. The out-group, on the other hand, is given low levels of choice or influence.
  - This also puts constraints upon the leader. They have to nurture the relationship with their inner circle whilst balancing giving them power with ensuring they do not have enough to strike out on their own.
• Using it
  - When you join a team, work hard to also join the inner circle. Take on more than your share of administrative and other tasks. Demonstrate unswerving loyalty. See your leader’s point of view. Be reasonable and supportive in your challenges to them, and pick your moments carefully.
  - As a leader, pick your inner circle with care. Reward them for their loyalty and hard work, whilst being careful about maintaining commitment of other people.
• Defending
  - If you want to be an ‘ordinary’ member of a team, play your part carefully. There will be others with more power. If you want to lead an equal team, beware of those who curry favor.

Styles of Leadership

• Autocratic Leadership
  - Autocratic leadership is an extreme form of transactional leadership, where leader has absolute power over his or her employees or team. Employees and team members have little opportunity for making suggestions, even if these would be in the team or organization’s interest.
  - Most people tend to resent being treated like this. Because of this, autocratic leadership usually leads to high levels of absenteeism and staff turnover. For some routine and unskilled jobs, the style can remain effective where the advantages of control outweigh the disadvantages.
• Bureaucratic Leadership
  - Bureaucratic leaders work “by the book”, ensuring that their staff follow procedures exactly. This is a very appropriate style for work involving serious safety risks (such as working with machinery, with toxic substances or at height) or where large sums of money are involved (such as cash-handling).
• Charismatic Leadership
  - A charismatic leadership style can appear similar to a transformational leadership style, in that the leader injects huge doses of enthusiasm into his or her team, and is very energetic in driving others forward.
  - However, a charismatic leader tends to believe more in him- or herself than in their team. This can create a risk that a project, or even an entire organization, might collapse if the leader were to leave: In the eyes of their followers, success is tied up with the presence of the charismatic leader. As such, charismatic leadership carries great responsibility, and needs long-term commitment from the leader.
• Democratic Leadership or Participative Leadership
  - Although a democratic leader will make the final decision, he or she invites other members of the team to contribute to the decision-making process. This not only increases job satisfaction by involving employees or team members in what’s going on, but it also helps to develop people’s skills.
  - Employees and team members feel in control of their own destiny, such as the promotion they desire, and so are motivated to work hard by more than just a financial reward.
  - As participation takes time, this approach can lead to things happening more slowly, but often the end result is better. The approach can be most suitable where team working is essential, and quality is more important than speed to market or productivity.
• Transactional Leadership
  - This style of leadership starts with the idea that team members agree to obey their leader totally when they take on a job: the “transaction” is (usually) that the organization pays the team members in return for their effort and compliance. You have a right to “punish” the team members if their work doesn’t meet the pre-determined standard.
  - Team members can do little to improve their job satisfaction under transactional leadership. The leader could give team members some control of their income/reward by using incentives that encourage even higher standards or greater productivity.
  - Alternatively a transactional leader could practice “management by exception”, whereby, rather than rewarding better work, he or she would take corrective action if the required standards were not met.
  - Transactional leadership is really just a way of managing rather than a true leadership style as the focus is on short-term tasks. It has serious limitations for knowledge-based or creative work, but remains a common style in many organizations.
• Transformational Leadership
  - A person with this leadership style is a true leader who inspires his or her team constantly with a shared vision of the future. Transformational leaders are highly visible, and spend a lot of time communicating. They don’t necessarily lead from the front, as they tend to delegate responsibility amongst their team.
  - While their enthusiasm is often infectious, they generally need to be supported by “details people”.
  - In many organizations, both transactional and transformational leadership are needed. The transactional leaders (or managers) ensure that routine work is done reliably, while the transformational leaders look after initiatives that add value.

Characteristic of Successful Leaders

• OK as a person!
  - These characteristics apply to everyone of course, but a leader has a greater advantage if the carries these characteristics in his ‘luggage’: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
• A positive attitude
  - From the preceding point it is evident that a good person, and especially a leader, radiates a positive attitude in a very natural and obvious manner. He is optimistic, has ideas, always sees a way out and will not give up easily.
• Honest
  - Leading people and being followed by people has a lot to do with trust. You don’t just receive trust from others, you have to earn it. You earn it by being honest; by doing what you say, by being trustworthy.
• Consistent
  - A leader not only has a clear picture of the goals he wishes to achieve; the manner in which he strives for those goals must also be clear to him. The ‘clarity’ becomes a framework for decision-making.
  - Being consistent and able to say ‘no’ becomes much easier when the goal and the procedure are crystal-clear. Living, working, and acting consistently create a predictable behavior which gives the co-workers a sense of security.
• Perseverance
  - Leading a group of people to reach a goal can be very tough road. Mountains needs to be conquered and valleys crossed. It’s not simple. Only when someone is able to “put their teeth into it” can they reach the finish line.
• Love for people
  - That sounds a bit ‘soft’, but it works. Everyone likes to be appreciated and respected, including your co-workers. A good leader sympathizes with his people and is available to help them in fulfilling their task.
• Skilled
  - A leader doesn’t have to be a specialist, but he must be capable of guiding and judging his people through his professional skill and insight.
  

When the Boss is a Woman

• Since women began to climb the management ladder, pundits have asked if they have what it takes to lead groups and organizations.
• The answer isn’t as simple as yes or no. According to the research, while men and women are equally effective in some settings, more often effectiveness depends on the fit between the setting and management gender.
• For example, women’s typically more mentoring, coaching style is more favorably received in female-dominated professions; men’s more typically “command and control” style is well received in male-dominated professions.
• Thus, all things being equal, men and women are equally effective.
• But given varied work settings and a workplace whose top managers are still more likely to be male, all things rarely are equal.
• For example, women are slightly more likely to be “transformational” leaders, serving as role models, helping employees develop their skills, and motivating them to be dedicated and creative.
• That approach may actually be more effective in today’s less hierarchical organizations.
• But not all workplaces are alike: the participatory style may backfire in traditional male settings such as the military or organized sports.
• Conversely, the command-and-control style more typical of men may backfire in a social-service agency or retail outlet.
• Studies published during the past decade underscore these complexities.
• A 1995 review by Alice Eagly, PhD, Steven Karau, PhD and Mona Makhijani, PhD, of more than 80 different studies found that when aggregated over the organizational and laboratory experimental studies in the sample, male and female leaders were equally effective.
• The leaders or managers assessed in the studies were typically first-level or first-line supervisors, with a strong minority of studies looking at mid-level managers or managers of mixed or unknown levels.
• At the same time, the analysis revealed that women were more effective leaders in female-dominated or female-oriented settings, and that men were more effective leaders in male-dominated or male-oriented settings. Thus working in a leadership role congruent with one’s gender appears to make one more effective – or at least perceived as being more effective.
• To address the question of whether men and women have different management styles, Eagly and Johnson conducted a 1990 review of leadership studies.
• Interestingly, although lab studies of management styles showed women to be both interpersonally oriented and democratic and men to be both task-oriented and autocratic, field studies found a difference on only one of those dimensions: The women were more democratic, encouraging participation, and the men me autocratic, directing performance.