Leadership Flashcards (Final Exam)

What is leadership?

The art of influencing individual or group activities toward achievement of organizational goals. It’s about getting people to assist you willingly and harmoniously in accomplishing organizational goals.

What is the difference between management and leadership?

Being a great leader does not necessarily make you a great manager b/c leadership is only one function of management.

What is the difference between leadership and supervision?

leadership = informal authority; supervision = formal authority

What is reward power? coercive power? legitimate power? expert power? referent power? (be able to recognize when each is being used in a situation)

Reward: the capacity to allocate rewards to subordinates who comply with a manager’s request. (give rewards)

Coercive: the capacity to dispense punishments to subordinates who don’t comply with a manager’s request. (punishments)

Legitimate: the right of a manager to request reasonable actions from subordinates and expect that they will comply. aka position power. (authority from position)

Expert: the special knowledge or expertise that a manager may possess. (knowledge-based)

Referent: the identification of the subordinate with the manager. The subordinate admires the manager in terms of the personal qualities the manager possesses and/or the goals the manager is achieving. (admiration-based)

What power bases does a leader use? supervisor use?

A “leader” will be more likely to use referent and/or expert power.

A “supervisor” will use legitimate, reward, and/or coercive power.

Which of the power bases best exemplifies supervision? leadership?

supervision: legitimate; leadership: referent

What is the relationship between the five power bases and productivity?

expert and referent: positively related to productivity

coercive: negatively related to productivity

reward and legitimate: no significant relation to productivity

What are theory x and theory y?  How do they affect leadership?

Theory X: people dislike work; they must be coerced, controlled, directed, and threatened to get them to put forth effort. An autocratic leader.

Theory Y: People like to work; they seek responsibility and are creative. A democratic leader.

What are the beliefs that underlie theory x? theory y?

X: avoid work/responsibility Y: enjoy work, seek responsibility

What is meant by the phrase “these theories (x and y) can become self-fulfilling prophecies”?

Assumptions lead to behaviors that make them true.

What is the basic idea behind trait theory of leadership?

Leadership comes from traits separating leaders and followers.

What is the great man trait theory? Learned traits theory?

great man: born leaders; learned: traits can be acquired

In general, what has the research revealed about traits separating leaders from followers?

traits don’t really separate leaders from followers, except possibly behavioral flexibility (ability to perceive group member’s need and goals and to adjust one’s approach accordingly).

What trait reliably tells you if someone will be a leader or not?

Behavioral flexibility. The behavioral phase holds that leaders may be best characterized by how they behave, rather than by their personality traits.

Why was the trait in #65 not identified until recently?

What is the focus of behavioral theory (also known as the Ohio State Studies)?

To determine the relationship between effective leader behavior and subordinate satisfaction and performance.

What is initiating structure? consideration? (be able to recognize these behaviors in a situation)

initiating structure (task-oriented): leader behavior oriented toward task, structuring subordinates for the purpose of goal attainment.

consideration (people-oriented): leader behavior oriented toward developing mutual trust, 2-way communication, respect for subordinates’ ideas, and concern for their feelings.

Which combination of behaviors did behavioral theorists originally think would be the best in all situations?

high consideration, high initiating structure

What is the major drawback of the behavioral theory (Ohio State Studies) as originally proposed?

ignored situational differences

What combination of behaviors is actually the best in behavioral theory?

depends on the situation

What combination of behaviors does a theory x manager exhibit? theory y exhibit?

X: High structure, low consideration; Y: High consideration, participative

In Fielder’s contingency theory of leadership, work group performance is a function of what?

Contingent upon the match between a person’s leadership style and the “favorableness” of leadership situation.

According to Fiedler, what is your leadership style based on?   As a result, does Fiedler believe you can change your leadership style?

Leadership style is based on personality. You can’t change it.

What does Fiedler believe about leadership training that teaches you how to be flexible and change your style to match the situation?

He’s skeptical-it won’t work.

What scale did Fiedler develop to measure your leadership style?

LPC scale: Least Preferred Co-worker scale (asks respondents to think of all the individuals with whom they have ever work and using the scale, to describe the one person with whom they worked least well.

If your LPC score is low, what does that mean?  What type of leader are you? If your LPC score is high, what does that mean?  What type of leader are you?

Low: task-oriented leader; High: Relationship-oriented leader

What are the three factors that determine situational favorableness?  Which is most important? Least important?

From most important to least important:

1. Leader-member relations (the degree to which group members like and trust and therefore, are willing to follow their leader)

2. task structure: the extent to which the group’s task can be spelled out step-by-step and performed according to a standard or well-defined performance

3. position power: the power inherent in the leader’s position including the freedom to hire, fire, promote, or demote, and the support from higher management for these decisions.

When is a high LPC leader the best? Low LPC? Middle LPC?  Why is the case according to Fiedler?

High LPC: most effective in middle situational favorability.

Low LPC: most effective in high and low situational favorability.

Middle LPC: most effective in all situations-largely independent of situational factors.

What is another name for middle LPC leadership?

behavioral flexibility

What are the implications of Fiedler’s contingency theory for managers?

1. Inaccurate to speak of effective/ineffective leaders when considering high LPC or low LPC leaders b/c there are those who perform netter in some leadership situations, but not all.

2. Anyone can be a leader by carefully selecting those situations that match his/her leadership style.

3. Leadership effectiveness can be enhanced by “engineering the job to fit the manager”

4. A person’s leadership style depends on their personality; a few lectures or few weeks of intensive training are unlikely to change a person’s leadership style.

5. Fiedler’s training program focuses on training the leader to change the favorability of the situation. Through this, a leader could diagnose the situation and then change/alter the situation to match his style for max work group effectiveness.

What does Fiedler recommend as a way to improve leadership effectiveness when a leader finds herself in a situation that does not match her style?

Change situation: structure, power, or relationships

What is Vroom and Yetton’s normative theory of leadership really a theory of?

The extent a leader should allow subordinates to share in decision-making.

What is the basic idea behind Vroom and Yetton’s normative theory of leadership?

Match decision-making style to situation using decision tree

What is AI? AII? CI? CII? and GII?  (Be able to recognize each decision-making style)

AI: Solo decision

AII: Solo with info

CI: Consult individually

CII: Consult as a group

GII: Group decision

What two situational factors in Vroom and Yetton’s normative theory of leadership determine the best decision making method for the situation?

Decision quality and acceptance

What is a feasible set?

List of decision styles appropriate for a given situation

 

What are the problems with Vroom and Yetton’s normative theory of leadership?

1. There are more than five decision-making models

2. Misses other factors (ex: asking about work group size, need for secrecy, and time pressure)

3. Bounded rationality: it is possible that managers aren’t sufficiently rational to apply normative theory.

What are the basic ideas behind reciprocal theory of leadership?  What makes the theory reciprocal?

States that influence is mutual between supervisor and subordinate. (ex: basketball team)

What determines whether a subordinate will be led or supervised by his manager in reciprocal theory?

in-group = led; out-group = supervised

What has the research revealed when the manager is taught to lead the out-group as well as the in-group?

Improves job satisfaction, productivity, and supervisor satisfaction

What is the basic idea behind implicit theory of leadership?

Leadership is based on follower’s perception and stereotypes

What is the basic idea behind substitutes for leadership?

In some situations, there may be sources of support such that leadership is irrelevant to employee satisfaction and performance. Thus, other factors besides leadership can influence employee satisfaction and performance.

What does substitutes for leadership say about leaders receiving credit and blame?

Leaders sometimes receive credit and blame for their subordinates’ behaviors that they don’t deserve it. Those subordinate behaviors can be explained sometimes by the circumstances over which the leader has little or no control; context may explain behavior.

What factors substitute for leadership, making it irrelevant to subordinate satisfaction and performance?

Things that make leadership irrelevant:

1. Technology (sub for initiating structure)

2. Work group cohesiveness and norms (sub for initiating structure and consideration)

3. Experience/knowledge (sub for initiating structure)

4. Job satisfaction (sub for consideration)