leadership - chapter 9

Leadership:

The process of inspiring others to work hard to accomplish

important tasks

Contemporary leadership challenges:

• Shorter time frames for accomplishing things

• Expectations for success on the first attempt

• Complex, ambiguous, and multidimensional problems

• Taking a long-term view while meeting short-term demands

Power:

The ability to get someone else to do something you want

done or make things happen in the way you want

Power should be used to influence and control others for the

common good rather than seeking to exercise control for personal

satisfaction

Two sources of managerial power:

• Position power

• Personal power

Position power:

Based on a manager’s official status in the organization’s

hierarchy of authority

Sources of position power:

• reward power

• coercive power

• legitimate power

Reward power:

Capable of offering something of value

Coercive power:

Capable of delivering punishment or withholding positive

outcomes

Legitimate power:

Organizational position or status confers the right to

control those in subordinate positions

Personal power:

Based on the unique personal qualities that a person brings to

a leadership situation

Sources of personal power:

• expert power

• referent power

• relational power

Expert power:

Capacity to influence others because of one’s knowledge

and skills

Referent power:

Capacity to influence others because they admire you and

want to identify positively with you

Relational power

is the ability to function well as part of a team working toward a collective goal

Vision:

A future that one hopes to create or achieve in order to

improve upon the present state of affairs

Visionary Leadership:

A leader who brings a clear and compelling sense of the

future to any situation, as well as an understanding of the

actions needed to get there successfully

Meeting the challenges of visionary leadership:

• Challenge the process

• Show enthusiasm

• Help others to act

• Set the example

• Celebrate achievements

Servant leadership:

• Commitment to serving others

• Followers are more important than the leader

• “Other-centred ” not “self-centered”

• Power is not a “zero-sum” quantity

• Focuses on empowerment, not on power

Empowerment:

The way in which managers enable and help others to gain

power and achieve influence.

Effective leaders empower others by providing them with:

• Information

• Responsibility

• Authority

• Trust

LEADERSHIP TRAITS

• Drive

• Self-confidence

• Creativity

• Cognitive ability

• Business knowledge

• Motivation

• Flexibility

• Honesty and integrity

LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOURS

• Leadership behaviour theories focus on how leaders behave when working with followers

• Leadership styles are recurring patterns of behaviours exhibited by leaders

• Basic dimensions of leadership behaviours

Basic dimensions of leadership behaviours:

• Concern for the task to be accomplished

• Concern for the people doing the work

Task Concerns:

• Plans and defines work to be done

• Assigns task responsibilities

• Sets clear work standards

• Urges task completion

• Monitors performance results

People Concerns:

• Acts warm and supportive toward followers

• Develops social rapport with followers

• Respects the feelings of followers

• Is sensitive to followers’ needs

• Shows trust in followers

BLAKE AND MOUTON LEADERSHIP GRID

• Team management

• Authority-obedience management

• Country club management

• Impoverished management

• Middle of the road management

Team management:

High task concern; high people concern

Authority-obedience management:

High task concern; low people concern

Country club management:

High people concern; low task concern

Impoverished management:

Low task concern; low people concern

Middle of the road management:

Non-committal for both task concern and people concern

Classic leadership styles:

Autocratic style

Human relations style

Autocratic style

Emphasizes work over people, keeps authority and

information within the leader’s tight control, and acts in

a unilateral command-and-control fashion

Human relations style

Emphasizes people over work.

Classic leadership styles:

Laissez-faire style

Democratic style

Laissez-faire style

Shows little concern for task at hand, lets the group make

decisions, and acts with a “do the best you can and don’t

bother me” attitude

Democratic style

Committed to task and people, getting things done while

sharing information, encouraging participation in

decision making, and helping people develop skills and

competencies

Fiedler’s Contingency Model:

• Good leadership depends on a match between leadership and situational demands

• Determining leadership style:

• Low LPC: task-motivated leaders

• High LPC: relationship-motivated leaders

• Leadership is part of one’s personality, and therefore relatively enduring and difficult to change

• Leadership style must be fit to the situation

Fiedler’s contingency model (cont’d):

• Diagnosing situational control:

• Quality of leader-member relations (good or poor)

• Degree of task structure (high or low)

• Amount of position power (strong or weak)

• Task-oriented leaders are most successful in:

• Very favourable (high control) situations

• Very unfavourable (low control) situations

• Relationship-oriented leaders are most successful in:

• Situations of moderate control

The Hersey-Blanchard situational leadership model:

Leaders adjust their styles depending on the readiness of their

followers to perform in a given situation

Readiness:

how able, willing and confident followers are in performing tasks

Delegating:

Low-task, low-relationship style

Works best in high readiness-situations

Participating:

Low-task, high-relationship style

Works best in low- to moderate-readiness situations

Selling:

High-task, high-relationship style

Work best in moderate- to high-readiness situations

Telling:

High-task, low-relationship style

Work best in low-readiness situations

House’s path-goal leadership theory:

• Effective leadership deals with the paths through which followers can achieve goals.

• Leadership styles for dealing with path-goal relationships

Leadership styles for dealing with path-goal relationships:

• Directive leadership

• Supportive leadership

• Achievement-oriented leadership

• Participative leadership

Directive leadership:

• Communicate expectations

• Give directions

• Schedule work

• Maintain performance standards

• Clarify leader’s role

Supportive leadership:

• Make work pleasant

• Treat group members as equals

• Be friendly and approachable

• Show concern for subordinates’ well-being

Achievement-oriented leadership:

• Set challenging goals

• Expect high performance levels

• Emphasize continuous improvement

• Display confidence in meeting high standards

Participative leadership:

• Involve subordinates in decision making

• Consult with subordinates

• Ask for subordinates’ suggestions

• Use subordinates’ suggestions

When to use House’s leadership styles:

• Use directive leadership when job assignments are ambiguous

• Use supportive leadership when worker self-confidence is low

• Use participative leadership when performance incentives are poor

• Use achievement-oriented leadership when task challenge is insufficient

Not all people are treated the same by leaders in leadership

situations

“In groups”

High LMX

“Out groups”

Low LMX

Nature of the exchange is based on presumed characteristics by the

leader

High LMX relationship:

• favourable personality

• competency

• compatibility

Low LMX relationship:

• unfavourable personality

• low competency

• low compatibility

Vroom-Jago leader-participation theory:

• Helps leaders choose the method of decision making that best fits the nature of the problem situation

• Basic decision-making choices

Basic decision-making choices

• Authority decision

• Consultative decision

• Group decision

DECISION-MAKING OPTIONS IN THE

VROOM-JAGO LEADER-PARTICIPATION

THEORY

• Decide alone

• Consult individually

• Consult with group

• Facilitate

• Delegate

Contingency factors in the Vroom-Jago leader-participation

theory:

Decision quality:

Who has the information needed for problem solving?

Decision acceptance:

What is the importance of subordinate acceptance to

eventual implementation?

Decision time:

Is there enough time available to make and implement the

decision?

According to Vroom-Jago leader-participation theory, a leader

should use authority-oriented decision methods when:

• The leader has greater expertise to solve a problem

• The leader is confident and capable of acting alone

• Others are likely to accept and implement the decision

• Little or no time is available for discussion

According to Vroom-Jago leader-participation theory, a leader

should use group-oriented and participative decision methods

when:

• the leader lacks sufficient information to solve a problem by himself/herself

• the problem is unclear and help is needed to clarify the situation

• acceptance of the decision and commitment by others is necessary for implementation

• adequate time is available for true participation

Benefits of participative decision methods:

• Help improve decision quality

• Help improve decision acceptance

• Helps develop leadership potential

Potential disadvantages of participative decision methods:

• Lost efficiency

• Not particularly useful when problems must be solved

immediately

Superleaders:

Persons whose vision and strength of personality have an

extraordinary impact on others

Charismatic leaders:

Develop special leader-follower relationships and inspire

others in extraordinary ways

Transactional leadership:

Someone who directs the efforts of others through tasks,

rewards, and structures

Transformational leadership:

Someone who is truly inspirational as a leader and who

arouses others to seek extraordinary performance

accomplishments

Characteristics of transformational leaders:

• Vision

• Charisma

• Symbolism

• Empowerment

• Intellectual Stimulation

• Integrity

Emotional Intelligence:

The ability of people to manage themselves and their

relationships effectively

Components of emotional intelligence:

• Self-awareness

• Self-regulation

• Motivation

• Empathy

• Social skill

Gender and Leadership (cont’d):

• Both women and men can be effective leaders

• Women tend to use interactive leadership, which shares the qualities of transformational leadership

• Men tend to use transactional leadership

• Interactive leadership provides a good fit with the demands of a diverse workforce and the new workplace

Gender and Leadership:

Future leadership success will depend on a person’s capacity

to:

• Be open

• Have positive relationships

• Be supportive

• Be empowering

Moral Leadership:

• Ethical leadership adheres to moral standards meeting the test of “good” rather than “bad” and “right” rather than “wrong”

• All leaders are expected to maintain high ethical standards

• Long-term, sustainable success requires ethical behaviour

• Integrity involves the leader’s honesty, credibility, and consistency in putting values into action

Moral Leadership (cont’d):

• Leaders with integrity earn the trust of their followers

• Leaders have a moral obligation to build performancecapacities by awakening people’s potential

• Authentic leadership activates performance through the positive psychological states of confidence, hope, optimism, and resilience

• Authentic leadership helps in clearly framing and responding to moral dilemmas, and serving as an ethical role model

Drucker’s “Old-fashioned” Leadership:

Leadership is more than charisma; it is “good old-fashioned”

hard work

Essentials of “old-fashioned” leadership:

• Defining and establishing a sense of mission

• Accepting leadership as a “responsibility” rather than a rank

• Earning and keeping the trust of others

Communication:

An interpersonal process of sending and receiving symbols

with messages attached to them

Key elements of the communication process:

• Sender

• Message

• Communication channel

• Receiver

• Interpreted meaning

• Feedback

Effective and efficient communication:

Effective communication:

• Occurs when the intended meaning of the sender is identical to the interpreted meaning of the receiver

Efficient communication:

• Occurs at a minimum resource cost

Potential trade-offs between effectiveness and efficiency must

be recognized

Persuasion and credibility in communication:

• Communication is used for sharing information and influencing other people

• Persuasion is getting someone else to support the message being presented

• Horizontal structures and empowerment are important contexts for persuasion

Persuasion and credibility in communication (cont’d):

• Expert power and referent power are essential for persuasion

• Credibility involves trust, respect, and integrity in the eyes of others

• Credibility can be built through expertise and relationships

Sources of noise in communication:

• Poor choice of channels

• Poor written or oral expression

• Failure to recognize nonverbal signals

• Physical distractions

• Status effects

Poor choice of communication channels:

Choose the channel that works best

Written channels work for messages that:

• Are simple and easy to convey

• Require extensive dissemination quickly

• Convey formal policy or authoritative directives

Spoken channels work best for messages that:

• Are complex or difficult to convey where immediate feedback is needed

• Attempt to create a supportive, even inspirational, climate

Guidelines for making oral presentations:

• Be prepared

• Set the right tone

• Sequence points

• Support your points

• Accent the presentation

• Add the right amount of polish

• Check your technology

• Don’t bet on the Internet

• Be professional

Failure to recognize nonverbal signals:

• Nonverbal communication takes place through gestures, facial expressions, body posture, eye contact, and use of interpersonal space

• Mixed messages occur when a person’s words and nonverbal signals communicate different things

• The growing use of communication technologies causes important nonverbal communication to be lost

Status effects:

Occur when an organization’s hierarchy of authority creates

a barrier to effective communication

Status effects include:

• Filtering: the intentional distortion of information to make it appear favourable to the recipient

• Subordinates acting as “yes men”

Physical distractions:

• Include interruptions from telephone calls, drop-in visitors, a lack of privacy, etc.

• Can interfere with the effectiveness of a communication attempt

• Can be avoided or at least minimized through proper planning

Active listening:

The process of taking action to help someone say exactly what

he or she really means

Rules for active listening:

• Listen for message content

• Listen for feelings

• Respond to feelings

• Note all cues, verbal and nonverbal

• Paraphrase and restate

Five rules for good listening:

• Listen for message content

• Listen for feelings

• Respond to feelings

• Note all cues

• Paraphrase and restate

Feedback:

The process of telling others how you feel about something

they did or said, or about the situation in general

Constructive Feedback Guidelines:

• Give it directly

• Make it specific

• Give it when the receiver is willing/able to accept it

• Make sure it is valid

• Give it in small doses

Proxemics and space design:

• Proxemics is the use of interpersonal space

• Interpersonal space is an important nonverbal cue

• Workspace layout is often overlooked as a form of nonverbal communication but is being increasingly recognized for its

• impact on communication and behaviour

Use of communication channels:

Channel richness is the capacity of a communication channel

to carry information in an effective manner

• Low channel richness is impersonal, one-way, and fast

• High channel richness is personal, two-way, and slow

Managers need to choose a channel with the appropriate

richness for the communication

Technology utilization:

• Information technologies facilitate communication

• The electronic grapevine speeds messages and information from person to person

  • Functional if information is accurate and useful

  • Dysfunctional if information is false, distorted, or based on rumour

• Email privacy

• Employer’s policy on personal email

• Don’t assume that e-mail privacy exists at work

Valuing culture and diversity:

Ethnocentrism is the tendency to consider one’s culture

superior to any and all others

Ethnocentrism can cause people to:

• Not listen to others

• Address or speak to others in ways that alienate them

• Use inappropriate stereotypes in dealing with someone from another culture