Organisational Behaviour - Leadership in Organizational Setting

Leadership is the ability to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute to the effectiveness of the organizations of which they are members.
David Thodey's transformation of Telstra is presented as an example of effective leadership.

Shared leadership is the view that leadership is broadly distributed rather than assigned to one person.
Employees act as leaders when they champion change within the company or team.
Shared leadership requires:
- Formal leaders willing to delegate power.
- A collaborative culture where employees support each other.
- Employee ability to influence through persuasion.

Transformational leadership involves developing and communicating a strategic vision.
- The vision is an image of the company's attractive future that motivates and bonds employees.
- The leader champions this vision.
Communicating the vision involves:
- Framing the message around a grand purpose.
- Sharing a mental model of the future.
- Using symbols, metaphors, and stories.
Elements of transformational leadership:
- Create a strategic vision.
- Communicate the vision.
- Model the vision.
- Build commitment towards the vision.

Modeling the vision involves:
- Walking the talk.
- Symbolizing/demonstrating the vision through behavior.
This increases employee trust in the leader.

Commitment is increased through:
- Communication and modeling of the vision.
- Employee involvement in shaping the shared vision.
- Encouraging experimentation by questioning current ways and experimenting with new approaches.

Some models consider charismatic leadership essential for transformational leadership.
However, an emerging view suggests that charisma differs from transformational leadership.
Charisma is a personal trait that provides referent power but does not necessarily attempt to change the organization.
Transformational leadership is a set of behaviors aimed at bringing about change.

Transformational leadership is considered important and is associated with:
- Higher employee satisfaction.
- Improved performance.
- Organizational citizenship.
- Creativity.
Limitations of transformational leadership:
- Some models have circular logic, defining transformational leaders by their success rather than behavior, resulting in no predictive value.
- The need for a contingency-oriented theory that recognizes differences across cultures is emphasized.

Assumes that organizational/department objectives are stable and aligned with the external environment.
Has a more micro-focus and is more concrete.
Interdependent perspectives:
- Managerial and transformational perspectives depend on each other.
- Managerial perspective depends on transformational leadership to set the direction.

Originated with expectancy theory of motivation.
- Paths = employee expectancies.
- Goals = employee performance.
Effective leaders ensure that employees who perform their jobs well receive more valued rewards than those who perform poorly.

Directive: Provide psychological structure to jobs; task-oriented behaviors.
Supportive: Provide psychological support; people-oriented behaviors.
Participative: Encourage/facilitate employee involvement.
Achievement-oriented: Encourage peak performance through goal setting and positive self-fulfilling prophecy.

Leader behaviors (Directive, Supportive, Participative, Achievement-oriented) interact with:
- Employee contingencies (Skills and experience, Locus of control).
- Environmental contingencies (Task structure, Team dynamics).
To influence:
- Employee motivation.
- Employee satisfaction.
- Leader acceptance.
- Leader effectiveness.

Contingencies that limit a leader's influence or make a particular leadership style unnecessary.
Example: Training and experience can replace task-oriented leadership.
Research suggests substitutes help but do not completely replace real leadership.

Challenges the assumption that leaders solely make the difference (as in transformational & managerial leadership perspectives).
Acknowledges leaders influence performance but emphasizes the role of followers.
Proposes leaders emerge as a result of attributional & cognitive processes of followers.
Two main follower-centric theories:
- Romance of leadership.
- Implicit leadership theory.

Romance of leadership theory:
- Leadership is a useful way to simplify life events.
- Life events are generated more by people than natural forces.
Implicit leadership theory:
- Focuses on followers' perception of informal leadership positions.
- Everyone has a leadership prototype.
- These are preconceived beliefs regarding features & behaviors of effective leaders.
- People wish to trust leaders.
- Potential leaders must understand others' expectations & adhere to them.

Focuses on personal characteristics that distinguish great leaders from others.
Early research in the 1940s failed to produce a consistent trait list.
Later research suggested effective leaders might possess specific personal characteristics, including:
- Skills.
- Knowledge.
- Aptitudes.

Refers to how well leaders are aware of, feel comfortable with, & act consistently with their self-concept.
Involves:
- Knowing yourself (self-reflection, feedback from trusted sources).
- Understanding your life story.
- Being yourself (developing your own style, applying your values, maintaining a positive core self-evaluation).

Vital for organizational conduct and effectiveness.
Determined by individual characteristics and demonstrated through leaders' behaviors.
Core elements:
- A strong sense of social obligation.
- Awareness of the impact of one's behavior on others.
- Concern for followers.
Characterized by four virtues: prudence, courage, temperance, and justice.

Societal cultural values and practices affect leaders by:
- Shaping leaders' values and norms.
- Influencing decisions and actions.
- Shaping follower prototypes of effective leaders.
Some leadership styles are universal, while others differ across cultures.
- 'Charismatic visionary' leadership seems to be universally valued.
- Participative leadership works better in some cultures than others.

Male and female leaders exhibit similar task- and people-oriented leadership behaviors.
Female leaders use a participative leadership style more often.
Evaluation of female leaders:
- They still receive negative evaluations due to prototypes and gender stereotypes.
- However, evidence suggests they excel at emerging leadership styles like coaching and teamwork.