Leadership Communication Exam 1

Northouse Definition of Leadership

leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal;

• process

• influence

• occurs in groups

• common goals

Six Conceptualizations of Leadership

1. Group processes

2. Personality perspective

3. Act(ion) or Behavior

4. Power relationship

5. Transformational process

6. Skills perspective

Followership Theories and Research

leaders need followers

Ways to get Leadership

Assigned or Emergent

Smith and Foti Personality Traits of Leaders

more dominant, more intelligent, more confident

Two Theories on Leader Emergence

Role Theory by Merton; Social Identity Theory by Hogg

Types of Power

Referent power; Expert power; Legitimate power; Reward power; Coercive power; Information power

Leadership

moving forward, motivating, influencing, evolving

Management

Consistency, continuity, details, stability

TRAIT APPROACH Theory Background

emerged from “Great Man” theory that tried to innate qualities of great leaders

• biased

• aka Great Person Theory

• based on the work of Thomas Carlyle on “heroes”

Great Person Theory

suggests certain people are born with special traits to make them great leaders; leaders are born, not made

TRAIT APPROACH Creator

Northouse suggests 5 key traits of great leaders

TRAIT APPROACH Theory Components

Five Key Traits:

• intelligence

• self-confidence

• determination

• integrity

• sociability

TRAIT APPROACH STRENGTHS

• fits with popular image of leaders as a special breed

• most amount of research to back it up so has credibility

• sole focus on leader offers a deep intricate understanding of leader and their qualities

• helps us to know what to look for in a leader

TRAIT APPROACH WEAKNESSES

• focuses only on the leader

• failed to develop a definitive set of traits

• tratis required can vary greatly by context

• trait lists are highly subjective

• fails to look at how traits impact outcomes

• not useful for training and development

SKILLS APPROACH Theory Background

frames leadership as capabilities, knowlege, and skills that make effective leadership possible; primarily descriptive

SKILLS APPROACH Creators

• Robert Katz 1995 article “Skills of an Effective Administrator”

• Mumford, Zaccaro, and Harding

SKILLS APPROACH Theory Components

Katz 3-Prong Set; Mumford, Zacarro, and Harding’s 3-Prong Set

Katz 3-Prong Set

technical, human, conceptual

Mumford, Zaccaro, and Harding’s 3-Prong Set

problem-solving skills, social judgement skills, knowledge skills

SKILLS APPROACH STRENGTHS

• skills can be taught/learned

• makes leadership a process that can be studied/practiced

• include variety of components/factors that can be studied separately or interconnected which gives credibility

• capture many intricacies of leadership using components

• provides structure consistnent with curriculum of most leadership education programs

SKILLS APPROACH WEAKNESSES

• many “skills” address more than leadership

• vast number of components makes the model more general and less precise

• doesn’t show how skills lead to outcomes

• weak in predictive value

• many of the attributes are traits not skills

• developed in only one context, may not be generalizable

STYLE/BEHAVIORAL APPROACH Background

focuses on what leaders do and how they act; studies leader’s task and relational behaviors and how they best combine them

STYLE/BEHAVIORAL APPROACH Creators

Hemphill & Coons; Khan; Blake & Moulton

Hemphill and Coons, Ohio State for STYLE/BEHAVIORAL APPROACH

two clusters of behaviors: initiating structure & consideration

• leaders can be rated on a range from low to high on each one

Khan, University of Michigan for STYLE/BEHAVIORAL APPROACH

employee orientation & production orientation

Blake and Moulton’s for STYLE/BEHAVIORAL APPROACH

concern for results/production & concern for people

Researchers have had difficulty discovering the one “best” style of leadership for STYLE/BEHAVIORAL APPROACH

One Strong Finding: more considerate leaders have more satisfied followers; some situations/followers require more direction while others need more nurturance

Blake and Moulton’s Leadership Grid for STYLE/BEHAVIORAL APPROACH

range from 1-9 on each scale (concern for results/concern for people)

Authority-Compliance (Blake and Moulton’s Grid)

results driven; people are means to an end; controlling; hard-driving, demanding

Country Club Management (Blake and Moulton’s Grid)

low concern for task; high concern for people; comforting; eager to help

Impoverished Management (Blake and Moulton’s Grid)

low concern for task; low concern for people; (1,1) NOT (0,0); NOT delegation

Middle of the Road Management (Blake and Moulton’s Grid)

compromisers; medium concern for task and people; prefers middle ground

Team Management (Blake and Moulton’s Grid)

high emphasis on task; high emphasis on people; promotes teamwork and accomplishment

Paternalism/Maternalism (Blake and Moulton’s Grid)

benevolent dictator who acts as gracious but is truly detached; seeks own personal goal fulfillment

Opportunism (Blake and Moulton’s Grid)

leader uses any combination of styles; but for own personal advancement

STYLE/BEHAVIORAL APPROACH STRENGTHS

• broadens scope to include behaviors

• range of studies validates/gives credibility

• conceptual core of task and relationship behaviors forms core of leadership

• approach is heuritic (learned via “self-discovery” aka shortcut)

• gives broad conceptual map that helps understand complexities of leadership

• helps leaders see how they come across, assess, and decide how to change

STYLE/BEHAVIORAL APPROACH WEAKNESSES

• hasn’t shown how styles lead to outcomes

• has not found universal “most effective: style

• implies the best is “team leadership” but that may not be true/remains unclear

Competence

skills, abilities, capactity to do the job effectively

Communication Competence

skills and abilities to communicate effectively; exists in all areas of communication

Leadership Communication Competence

skills and abilities to communicate effectively as a leader; effective communication in a leadership context or role

Spitzberg

leading expert in studying communication competence; suggests communication competence is “functionally effective interaction appropriate to a given relational context”

SITUATIONAL APPROACH Background

different situations demand different leadership; to succeed the leader must adapt style to the situation; prescriptive approach; leader gauges followers’ competency and commitment; leader changes directive behaviors and supportive behaviors to fit

Vecchio for SITUATIONAL APPROACH

conducted studies using situational approach to develop theories; discovered more experienced/better educated employees desire less direction; older employees seek more structure; females desire more supportive, males desire more directive

SITUATIONAL APPROACH Creators

Hersay and Blanchard

• Blanchard developed the Situational Leadership II Model

Situational Leadership II Model for SITUATIONAL APPROACH

development level of followers (D) and leader’s style based on situation (S)

Development level of followers (D) for SITUATIONAL APPROACH

D1, D2, D3, D4

• D1: low competence, high commitment

• D2: low to some competence, low commitment

• D3: moderate to high competence, low or variable commitment

• D4: high competence, high commitment

Leader’s style based on situation (S) for SITUATIONAL APPROACH

• S1 Directing: high directive, low supportive

• S2 Coaching: high supportive, high directive

• S3 Supprting: high supportive, low directive

• S4 Delegating: low supportive, low directive

SITUATIONAL APPROACH STRENGTHS

• widely used to train leaders in real-world organizations (400 of the Fortune 500 companies)

• practicality

• prescriptive value (tells leaders what to do and not to do; clear direction on what style to use)

• emphasizes leadr flexibility (ADAPTION!)

• reminds leader to treat follower differently based on D level

• encourages leader to help followers develop, learn, and improve

SITUATIONAL APPROACH WEAKNESSES

• lacks strong body of research to back it.evidence to support prescriptions

• no clear empirical support for model

• ambiguous conceptualization of D levels

• how do commitment/competency form 4 levels?

• maybe commitment exists on a continuum?

• no research findings to back the way that commitment is conceptualized

• overlooks how demographics might influence the leader-follower prescriptions

• fails to address one-to-one vs. group leadership (use average?)