Leading - Comprehensive Notes

Leading

Learning Goals

• Describe the nature of leadership.
• Explain important leadership traits and behaviours.
• Describe the contingency theories of leadership.
• State and explain current issues in leadership development.
• Explain the communication process.
• Describe how communication can be improved.

Procter & Gamble (P&G) Leadership Development

• Leadership Transition:
  • A.G. Lafley stepped down as CEO, succeeded by Bob McDonald after 10 years.
  • Lafley intentionally distanced himself during the transition to signify the change in leadership.
• Developing Leaders:
  • P&G emphasizes the significance of nurturing excellent leaders.
  • They utilize "The Talent Portfolio," a blue binder containing information on potential leaders, including their performance, risk factors, promotion readiness, and development needs.
  • For every major job, there are at least three potential candidates identified.
• Evaluation Process:
  • Executives aspiring to be general managers undergo evaluations every six months.
  • Evaluations focus on financial measures, leadership skills, and team-building capabilities.
  • Managers receive feedback from superiors, peers, and subordinates.
• Leadership Development Support:
  • Leadership development is encouraged from the highest levels of the organization.
  • Executives are expected to cultivate leadership skills in themselves and others.
  • P&G has been recognized as one of the World's Best Companies for Leaders by Fortune magazine.

Integrity in Leadership

• Definition: Integrity is characterized by honesty, credibility, and consistency in actions.
• Lack of Integrity Indicators:
  • Showing favoritism.
  • Being Willing to lie.
  • Blaming mistakes on others.
  • Allowing others to take blame.
  • Wanting others to fail.
  • Falsifying reports.
  • Creating conflict.
  • Taking credit for others' ideas.
  • Stealing.
• Peter Drucker's Perspective:
  • Service is central to leadership integrity.
  • Leaders should prioritize the organization's welfare over personal preferences.
  • Leaders must perceive the world objectively.
• The Integrity Line:
  • Leaders should be Humble and Selfless and stay above the line.
  • Leaders should avoid being Dishonest, Inconsistent, Conceited and Selfish and stay below the line.

Nature of Leadership

• Definition: Leadership involves inspiring others to work diligently towards accomplishing important tasks.
• Distinction from Management:
  • Grace Hopper: "You manage things; you lead people."
  • Barry Posner: Leaders should focus on change, while managers deal with the status quo.
  • Tom Peters: Leaders facilitate success in others rather than being the best performers themselves.
• Leadership's Essence: Great leaders excel by maximizing the potential in their people.
• Challenges for Modern Leaders:
  • Short timeframes.
  • High expectations for initial success.
  • Complex problems.
  • Balancing long-term goals with short-term pressures.

Leadership and Power

• Power Defined: Power is the ability to influence others to achieve desired outcomes.
• Positive Use of Power: Effective leadership involves influencing and controlling for the benefit of the group or organization.
• Sources of Power:
  • Position Power: Derived from the manager's role within the organization.
  • Personal Power: Based on individual qualities and how managers are perceived.

Position Power

• Reward Power:
  • Ability to influence through incentives and positive outcomes.
  • Examples: Pay raises, bonuses, promotions, and compliments.
  • Manager's Message: "If you do what I ask, I'll give you a reward."
  • Punishment by withholding positive outcomes is part of it.
• Coercive Power:
  • Ability to influence through punishment or withholding positive outcomes.
  • Examples: Verbal reprimands, pay penalties, and termination threats.
  • Manager's Message: "If you don't do what I ask, I'll punish you."
• Legitimate Power:
  • Authority derived from organizational position.
  • Right to control subordinates.
  • Manager's Message: "Because I am the boss, you must do as I ask."

Personal Power

• Expert Power:
  • Influence based on specialized knowledge and skills.
  • Gained through competence and information networks.
  • Manager's Message: "You should do what I want because of my special expertise or information."
• Referent Power:
  • Influence based on admiration and the desire to identify with the leader.
  • Cultivated through positive interpersonal relationships.
  • Manager's Message: "You should do what I want in order to maintain a positive, self-defined relationship with me."
• Relational Power:
  • Ability to function effectively in a team.
  • Essential for collaborative environments.
  • Manager's Message: "You should do what I want because it is in the best interests of the team."

Leadership and Vision

• Vision Defined: A future aspiration that improves upon the present.
• Visionary Leadership:
  • Involves creating a clear and compelling vision of the future.
  • Communicating the vision effectively.
  • Inspiring and motivating others to pursue the vision.
• Lorraine Monroe Leadership Institute:
  • Mission: Develop public school leaders focused on transforming children's lives through education.
  • Monroe Doctrine: Reform society through schools, workplaces, churches, and families.
  • Monroe's emphasis: the "heart of the matter."
  • Monroe's View on Leadership: Leaders articulate a vision that others follow and enable everyone to make it active.

Leadership as Service

• Servant Leadership:
  • Prioritizes serving others and facilitates the use of their talents for the benefit of society.
  • Focuses on followers rather than the leader.
• Empowerment:
  • Enables others to gain power and influence within the organization.
  • Involves providing information, responsibility, authority, and trust to make independent decisions.
  • Recognizes that power is not a zero-sum quantity.
• Insights on Servant Leadership:
  • Robert Greenleaf: Institutions thrive when leaders serve the dream.
  • Max DePree: Leaders allow others to share ownership of problems.
  • Lorraine Monroe: Real leaders serve the people and hire smart individuals in areas where the leader is not knowledgeable.

Leadership Traits

• Early Trait Studies (Great Person Theory):
  • Physical characteristics are not determinants of leadership success.
  • Certain personal traits are common among successful leaders.
• Kirkpatrick and Locke's Traits:
  • Drive: high energy, initiative, and tenacity.
  • Self-confidence: trust in one's abilities.
  • Creativity: original thinking.
  • Cognitive ability: intelligence to integrate information.
  • Job-relevant knowledge: industry and technical expertise.
  • Motivation: enjoy influencing others.
  • Flexibility: adapt to followers and situations.
  • Honesty and integrity: trustworthiness, predictability, and dependability.
    *Craig Kielburger traits:
  • Motivation: to fight against child labor.
  • Self-confidence: to gather a group of school friends to fight against child labor.
  • Drive: to change the world.

Leadership Behaviors

• Leadership Styles: Recurring patterns of behavior exhibited by leaders.
• Ohio State and University of Michigan Studies:
  • Focused on concern for the task and concern for people.
  • Ohio State: Initiating structure and consideration.
  • University of Michigan: Production-centered and employee-centered.
• Leader Behaviors:
  • High Concern for Task: Planning work, assigning responsibilities, setting standards, urging completion, and monitoring results.
  • High Concern for People: Warmth, support, good relations, respect, sensitivity, and trust.

Leadership Grid

• Robert Blake and Jane Mouton:
  • Team Manager (High-High): Shares decisions, empowers, encourages participation, and supports teamwork.

Classic Leadership Styles

• Autocratic Style (Authority-Obedience Manager): Emphasizes task over people, retains authority, and uses command-and-control.
• Human Relations Style (Country Club Manager): Emphasizes people over tasks.
• Laissez-faire Style (Impoverished Manager): Shows little concern for task or people; "do the best you can and don't bother me."
• Democratic Style (Team Manager): Committed to both task and people, shares information, encourages participation, and develops others.

Fiedler's Contingency Model

• Contingency Approach: Good leadership depends on matching leadership style to situational demands.

• Leadership Style Measurement: Measured using the Least-Preferred Co-worker scale (LPC).

• LPC Scale Interpretation: Task-motivated leader (low LPC score) or relationship-motivated leader (high LPC score).

• Fiedler's Beliefs: Leadership style is part of one's personality and is difficult to change; success comes from aligning existing styles with suitable situations.

• Situational Control: Determined by three contingency variables:

  • Leader-member relations (good or poor).
  • Task structure (high or low).
  • Position power (strong or weak).

• Propositions:

  • Task-oriented leaders succeed in very favorable (high-control) or very unfavorable (low-control) situations.
  • Relationship-oriented leaders succeed in situations of moderate control.

Hersey-Blanchard Leadership Model

• Situational Leadership Model: Successful leaders adjust their styles based on the maturity of followers.
• Readiness: Based on followers' ability, willingness, and confidence.
• Four Leadership Styles:
  • Delegating: low task, low relationship.
  • Participating: low task, high relationship.
  • Selling: high task, high relationship.
  • Telling: high task, low relationship.
• Application of Styles:
  • Delegating: High-readiness followers.
  • Telling: Low-readiness followers.
  • Participating: Low-to-moderate-readiness followers.
  • Selling: Moderate-to-high-readiness followers.

Path-Goal Leadership Theory

• Path-Goal Theory: Effective leaders clarify paths for followers to achieve task-related and personal goals.
• Leader Actions: Clarifying goals, removing barriers, and providing valued rewards.
• Four Leadership Styles:
  • Directive leadership: clear expectations and directions.
  • Supportive leadership: pleasant work environment and equal treatment.
  • Achievement-oriented leadership: challenging goals and continuous improvement.
  • Participative leadership: involving subordinates in decision-making.
• Contingencies :
  • Follower characteristics: ability, experience, and locus of control.
  • Work environment characteristics: task structure, authority system, and work group dynamics.
• Leadership Choices:
  • Unclear assignments: directive leadership.
  • Low worker self-confidence: supportive leadership.
  • Poor performance incentives: participative leadership.
  • Insufficient task challenge: achievement-oriented leadership.
• Substitutes for Leadership: Aspects of the work setting that reduce the need for a leader's personal involvement. Includes subordinate, task and organizational characteristics.

Leader-Member Exchange Theory

• LMX Theory: Leaders develop special relationships with some team members (in-groups) and others (out-groups).
• In-Group: Trusted, high-exchange relationships, special assignments, privileges, and access to information.
• Out-Group: Excluded from privileges and benefits; low-exchange relationship with the leader.

Leader-Participation Model

• Vroom-Jago Model: Leadership success depends on using decision-making methods that fit the problem.
• Decision-Making Methods:
  • Authority Decision: Made by the leader and communicated to the group.
  • Consultative Decision: Made by the leader after gathering input from others.
  • Group Decision: Made by the group with the leader's support.
• Decision Rules:
  • Decision quality: based on who has necessary information.
  • Decision acceptance: based on follower acceptance.
  • Decision time: based on available time.
• Best Conditions:
  • Authority decisions: Leader has expertise, confident and others accept decision, and time is limited.
  • Consultative/group decisions: Leader lacks expertise, problem is unclear, acceptance is necessary, and time is available.

Issues in Leadership Development

• Charismatic Leaders: Inspire others in exceptional ways and have an extraordinary impact.

Transformational Leadership

• Transactional Leadership: Focuses on tasks, rewards, and structures to influence and direct efforts.
• Transformational Leadership: Inspires and motivates to achieve extraordinary performance by raising aspirations and shifting people and systems to new patterns. Transformational leadership attributes:
  • Vision: Communicating clear direction, and developing excitement about achieving shared "dreams".
  • Charisma: Using emotion to arouse faith, loyalty, pride, and trust.
  • Symbolism: Holding ceremonies to celebrate excellence and high achievement.
  • Empowerment: Removing performance obstacles and delegating challenging work.
  • Intellectual stimulation: Creating awareness of problems and stirring imaginations.
  • Integrity: Being honest and credible and following through on commitments.

Emotional Intelligence

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

Golemnan's El competences:
* Self-awareness: Understanding your own moods and emotions and their impact on your work and on others.
* Self-management: The ability to think before you act and to control otherwise disruptive impulses.
* Motivation: the ability to work hard with persistence and for reasons other than money and status.
* Social awareness: Empathy and the ability to understand the emotions of others and to use this understanding to better relate to them.
* Relationship management: The ability to establish rapport with others and to build good relationships and networks.

Gender and Leadership

• Gender Similarities Hypothesis: Males and females are similar in terms of psychological properties.
• Observed Differences:
  • Women may be expected to act as supportive "take care" leaders.
  • Men may be expected to act as directive "take charge" leaders.
    Interactive leadership style:
  • Use of participation in leadership behaviors
    *Strongers at motivating and fostering communication
    *More participative in decision making

Moral Leadership

• Definition: Leadership by ethical standards of being "good" and "correct."
  always "good" and "right" by ethical standards.
  Integrity in leadership:

  • Honesty
  • Credibility
  • Consistency

• Authentic Leadership: High self-awareness and consistent action with values, gaining respect from followers.
  Drucker's Leadership Wisdom:

• *Defining and communicating a clear vision.

• *Accepting leadership as a responsibility, not a rank.

• *Surrounding leadership with talented people.

• *Not blaming others when things go wrong.

• *Keeping your integrity; earn the trust of others.

• *Don't be clever, be consistent.

Communication Process

• Communication: An interpersonal process of sending and receiving symbols with meanings attached.

Communication key elements:

• *Sender

• *Message

• *Channel

• *Receiver

• *Feedback

• Effective Communication: The sender's message is fully understood by the receiver.

• Efficient Communication: Occurs at minimum cost in terms of resources expended.

Communication Barriers

• Poor Choice of Channels: Inappropriate pathway for message.
  Communication Channel is the pathway through which a message moves from sender to receiver
• Poor Written or Oral Expression: Unclear language.
• Failure to Recognize Nonverbal Signals: Missing body language cues.
  Nonverbal Communication: Takes place through gestures and body language for example.
  Mixed Message: When words communicate one message while actions communicate something else.
• Physical Distractions: Interruptions and noise.
• Status Effects: Hierarchy inhibiting communication.
  *Filtering Is the intentional distortion of information to make it appear favorable to the recipient.

Improving Communication

• Active Listening: Taking action to help someone say exactly what she or he really means.
  Active listening rules:
• *Listen for the message content.
• *Listen for feelings.
• *Respond to feelings.
• *Note all cues.
• *Paraphrase and restate.
• Constructive Feedback: Telling someone else how you feel about something that person did or said for example.
  Constructive feedback guide lines:
  *Give feedback directly and with real feeling, based on trust between you and the receiver. Make
  sure that feedback is specific rather than general use good and clear and recent examples.
  *Give feedback at a time when the receiver seems most willing or able to accept it Make
  sure that the feedback is valid. Limit it to things the receiver can be expected to do
  *Give feedback in small dozes never give more than the receiver can handle at any particular time.
• Use of Space (Proxemics): Appropriate arrangement of office and furniture.
  Proxemics: Involves the use of space in communication
• Channel Selection: Appropriate richness according to message complexity.
  Channel richness: Is the capacity of information in an effective manner.
• Understanding Electronic Communication: Awareness of potential misinterpretations.
  Electronic grapevine: Uses electronic media to pass messages and information among members of social networks
• Interactive Management: Regular contact and open communication channels.
  Management by Wandering (MBWA) In MBWA managers spend time outside their offices to meet and talk with workers at all levels for example
• Cross-cultural Sensitivity. The message has to be easy to decode for the other person and free of jargon or slang.
  Ethnocentrism: Is the tendency to consider one's culture superior to any and all others for example