Leadership and Power Concepts

Chapter 14 Definitions

Leadership

  • Definition: Leadership is the process of inspiring others to work hard on behalf of a goal and to accomplish important tasks.

Power

  • Definition: Power is the ability to get others to do something you want done or to make things happen the way you want.

    • Types of Power:

      1. Reward Power: The capacity to offer something of value as a means of influencing other people.

      2. Coercive Power: The capacity to punish or withhold positive outcomes as a means of influencing other people.

      3. Legitimate Power: The capacity to influence others by virtue of formal authority, or the rights of office.

      4. Expert Power: The capacity to influence others because of specialized knowledge.

      5. Relationship Power: The ability to influence others through access to connections and networks.

      6. Social Capital: A capacity to get things done with the support and help of others.

      7. Reference Power: The capacity to influence others because of their desire to identify personally with you.

Vision

  • Definition: Vision clarifies the purpose of the organization and expresses what it hopes to be in the future.

  • Visionary Leadership: Brings a clear sense of the future and an understanding of how to get there.

Servant Leadership

  • Definition: Servant leadership is follower-centered and committed to helping others in their work.

Empowerment

  • Definition: Empowerment allows others to make decisions and exercise discretion in their work.

Followership

  • Definition: Followership is the act of joining with a leader to accomplish tasks and goals.

Learning Objectives for Leadership and Power

  • Be Sure You Can:

    • Define power.

    • Illustrate three types of position power and discuss how managers use each.

    • Illustrate three types of personal power and discuss how managers use each.

    • Define vision.

    • Explain the concept of visionary leadership.

    • Explain the notion and benefits of servant leadership.

    • Define empowerment and followership.

    • Explain the "romance of leadership" and "subordination of followership."

Leadership Styles

  • Definition: Leadership styles are recurring patterns of behaviors exhibited by a leader.

    • Various Styles:

      1. Autocratic Style: Leaders act in a command-and-control fashion.

      2. Human Relations Style: Emphasizes people over tasks.

      3. Laissez-faire Style: “Do the best you can and don’t bother me” attitude.

      4. Democratic Style: Emphasizes both tasks and people.

Learning Objectives for Leadership Styles

  • Be Sure You Can:

    • Contrast the trait and leader-behavior approaches to leadership research.

    • Identify five personal traits of successful leaders.

    • Illustrate leader behaviors consistent with a high concern for task.

    • Illustrate leader behaviors consistent with a high concern for people.

    • Describe behaviors associated with four classic leadership styles.

Situational Contingencies in Leadership

Importance of Context in Leadership Effectiveness

  • Learning Objective: Identify how situational contingencies influence leadership effectiveness.

  • Be Sure You Can:

    • Contrast the leader-behavior and contingency leadership approaches.

    • Explain Fiedler’s contingency model.

    • Identify the four leadership styles in the Hersey-Blanchard situational model.

    • Explain House’s path–goal theory.

    • Define substitutes for leadership.

    • Explain LMX theory.

    • Contrast the authority, consultative, and group decisions in the Vroom-Jago model.

Fiedler’s Contingency Model

  • Scale Used: The Least-Preferred Co-worker scale measures leadership style.

Substitutes for Leadership

  • Definition: Factors in the work setting that direct work efforts without the involvement of a leader.

Vroom-Jago Decision Models

  1. Authority Decisions: Made by the leader and then communicated to the group.

  2. Consultative Decisions: Made by a leader after receiving information, advice, or opinions from group members.

  3. Group Decisions: Made by team members together.

Leadership Characteristics

Charismatic Leadership

  • Definition: Charismatic leaders inspire followers in extraordinary ways.

Transformational Leadership

  • Definition: Transformational leadership is inspirational and arouses extraordinary effort and performance.

Emotional Intelligence (EI)

  • Definition: The ability to manage our emotions in social relationships.

  • Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ): A measure of a person’s ability to manage emotions in leadership and social relationships.

Gender and Leadership

  • Gender Similarities Hypothesis: Males and females have similar psychological properties.

  • Leadership Double Bind: Women get criticized for displaying stereotypical male leadership characteristics and for displaying stereotypical female leadership characteristics.

Interactive Leadership

  • Definition: Interactive leaders are strong communicators who act in democratic and participative ways.

Moral Leadership

  • Definition: Always “good” and “right” by ethical standards.

  • Integrity: Acting with honesty, credibility, and consistency in putting values into action.

Negative Leadership Traits

  1. Moral Overconfidence: An overly positive view of one’s strength of character.

  2. Narcissistic Leader: Arrogant, considers self superior to others, driven by entitlement and need for admiration.

  3. Psychopathic Leader: Disregards moral boundaries and is willing to hurt, bully, and intimidate others.

Challenges of Personal Leadership Development

Learning Objectives

  • Be Sure You Can:

    • Define transformational leadership.

    • Explain how emotional intelligence contributes to leadership success.

    • Discuss research insights on the relationship between gender and leadership.

    • Define interactive leadership.

    • Discuss integrity as a foundation for moral leadership.

    • List Drucker’s essentials of good old-fashioned leadership.

Recap of Leadership Concepts

  1. Leadership inspires others to achieve important tasks.

  2. Effective communication of a vision is essential for leadership.

  3. Power enables influence over others to achieve goals.

  4. Sources of position power: rewards, coercion, legitimacy.

  5. Sources of personal power: expertise, referent, information, and networking.

  6. Servant leadership is centered on empowering followers.

  7. Followership is collaboration with leaders to achieve goals.

  8. The tendency to credit leaders, known as the romance of leadership, often overlooks the contributions of followers, termed the subordination of followership.