Leading: Chapter 9

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.

Developing Leaders: A Firm's Most Important Job

• Procter & Gamble (P&G) recognizes the importance of developing excellent leaders.
• P&G uses "The Talent Portfolio," a blue binder containing names of up-and-coming leaders, sections showing outperformers, those "at risk," promotion readiness, and those needing more time.
• There are at least three candidates for each major job, showing bench strength.
• Executives who become general managers are evaluated every six months on financial measures and leadership/team-building abilities.
• Managers are evaluated by bosses, lateral managers, and direct reports.
• P&G executives are expected to develop leadership skills in themselves and others and was selected as one of the World's Best Companies for Leaders by Fortune magazine.

Integrity

• Integrity is being honest, credible, and consistent.
• Lack of integrity signs include giving special treatment, lying, blaming others, falsifying reports, instigating conflict, taking credit for others' ideas, and stealing.
• Peter Drucker emphasized "service" as central to integrity: leaders subordinate their preferences to the welfare of the institution and see the world as it is.

The Nature of Leadership

• Leadership is the process of inspiring others to work hard to accomplish important tasks.
• Managers face challenges with shorter time frames and complex problems, needing skills and competencies to their full advantage.

Leadership and Power

• Leadership success rests on making things happen to serve team/organizational goals, relating to "power."
• Power is the ability to get someone else to do something you want done or to make things happen the way you want.
• Positive power influences control for the group's good, essential for effective leadership.
• Leaders gain power from positions and personal qualities.
• Position power includes reward, coercive, and legitimate power.
• Personal power includes expertise, referent, and relational power.

Position Power

• Reward power: The ability to influence through rewards by offering something of value (pay raises, bonuses, promotions, etc.). If you do what I ask, I'll give you a reward.
• Coercive power: The ability to influence through punishment or withholding positive outcomes. If you don't do what I want, I'll punish you.
• Legitimate power: The ability to influence through authority based on organizational position. Because I am the boss, you must do as I ask.

Personal Power

• Expert power: The ability to influence through special expertise derived from knowledge and skills. You should do what I want because of my special expertise or information.
• Referent power: The ability to influence through identification, admiration, and positive relationships. You should do what I want in order to maintain a positive, self-defined relationship with me.
• Relational power: The ability to work and function well in a team towards a collective goal. You should do what I want because it is in the best interests of the team.

Leadership and Vision

• Great leaders inspire and motivate towards a common purpose using their power well.
• Vision: A future one hopes to create to improve the present.
• Visionary leadership describes a leader bringing a clear sense of the future and actions needed to get there, communicating the vision, and inspiring motivation.
• Visionary leadership brings meaning to people's work.

Leadership as Service

• Servant leadership: Leadership based on a commitment to serving others, helping them use talents for organizations that benefit society.
• Servant leadership is follower-centered, generating empowerment.
• Empowerment is the process through which managers enable others to gain power and achieve influence by providing information, responsibility, authority, and trust.

Leadership Traits and Behaviours

• Historically, leadership has been studied from trait, behavioural, and contingency approaches.

Leadership Traits

• Early research searched for universal traits separating effective from ineffective leaders, called the "great person theory,” but physical characteristics make no difference in determining leadership success.
• Successful leaders are consistently admired for being honest, competent, forward-looking, inspiring, and credible.
• Personal traits of successful leaders include:
  • Drive: High energy, initiative, tenacious.
  • Self-confidence: Trust in their abilities.
  • Creativity: Original thinking.
  • Cognitive ability: Intelligence to integrate information.
  • Job-relevant knowledge: Understanding of the industry.
  • Motivation: Enjoy influencing others.
  • Flexibility: Adapt to follower needs.
  • Honesty and integrity: Trustworthy, predictable, and dependable.

Leadership Behaviours

• Research shifted to how leaders behave, investigating leadership styles.
• Studies at Ohio State and Michigan focused on concern for the task and concern for people.
• Ohio State: Initiating structure and consideration.
• Michigan: Production-centered and employee-centered.
  • High concern for the task: Plans work, assigns responsibilities, sets standards, urges completion, monitors results.
  • High concern for people: Acts warm, supportive, respects feelings, shows trust.
• Early research suggested people-oriented leaders were most productive, but evolved to effective leaders being high in both concerns.
• Blake and Mouton's leadership grid describes tendencies toward people and production concerns.
• The preferred combination is called the team manager.

Classic Leadership Styles

• Autocratic style: emphasizes task over people, command-and-control fashion.
• Human relations style: emphasizes people over tasks.
• Laissez-faire style: shows little concern for the task, lets the group make decisions.
• Democratic style: committed to both task and people, encourages participation.

Contingency Approaches to Leadership

• Researchers recognized the need to examine circumstances where different leadership styles are preferable, leading to contingency approaches.

Fiedler's Contingency Model

• Good leadership depends on matching leadership style and situational demands.
  • Leadership style is measured on the least-preferred co-worker scale, LPC which measures tendencies to behave as a task-motivated or relationship-motivated leader.
  • Fiedler believes leadership style is part of one's personality and difficult to change.
  • The key is to put existing styles to work where they fit best.
• The variable used to diagnose situational control is how much control a situation allows the leader.
  • Leader-member relations (good or poor): degree to which the group supports the leader.
  • Task structure (high or low): extent to which goals/procedures are spelled out.
  • Position power (strong or weak): degree to which the position gives the leader power to reward/punish.
• Eight leadership situations are based on different combinations of these variables with situations ranging from high to low control.
• A task-oriented leader is most successful in very favorable (high-control) or unfavorable (low-control) situations.
• A relationship-oriented leader is most successful in situations of moderate control.

Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Model

• Successful leaders adjust their styles based on the maturity of followers, indicated by their readiness to perform in a given situation which is based on how able and willing or confident followers are to perform required tasks.
  • Delegating: Allowing the group to take responsibility for task decisions. Is a low-task, low-relationship style.
  • Participating: Emphasizing shared ideas and participative decisions on task directions; low-task, high-relationship style.
  • Selling: Explaining task directions in a supportive and persuasive way; high-task, high-relationship style.
  • Telling: Giving specific task directions and closely supervising work; high-task, low-relationship style.
• The delegating style works best in high-readiness situations with able and willing, or confident followers.
• The telling style works best at the other extreme of low readiness, where followers are unable and unwilling, or insecure.
• The participating style is recommended for low-to-moderate-readiness followers-able but unwilling, or insecure.
• The selling style is for moderate-to-high-readiness followers-unable, but willing or confident.
• Leadership styles should be adjusted as followers change over time.

Path-Goal Leadership Theory

• An effective leader clarifies paths by which followers can achieve goals, clarifying goals, removing barriers, and providing valued rewards.
  • Directive leadership: Letting subordinates know what is expected; giving directions on what to do and how; scheduling work to be done; maintaining definite standards of performance; clarifying the leader's role in the group.
  • Supportive leadership: Doing things to make work more pleasant; treating group members as equals; being friendly and approachable; showing concern for the well-being of subordinates.
  • Achievement-oriented leadership: Setting challenging goals; expecting the highest levels of performance; emphasizing continuous improvement in performance; displaying confidence in meeting high standards.
  • Participative leadership: Involving subordinates in decision-making; consulting with subordinates; asking for suggestions from subordinates; using these suggestions when making a decision.
• Managers should use leadership styles that fit situational needs.
• Important contingencies include follower characteristics (ability, experience, locus of control) and work environment characteristics (task structure, authority system, work group).

Substitutes for Leadership

• Substitutes for leadership are aspects of the work setting and people involved that reduce the need for a leader’s personal involvement.
• Possible substitutes include subordinate characteristics, task characteristics (routineness, feedback), and organizational characteristics (clarity of plans, formalization of rules).

Leader-Member Exchange Theory

• Leader-member exchange theory (LMX) recognizes that not everyone is treated the same.
• People fall into "in-groups" with high-exchange relationships and "out-groups" with low-exchange relationships with the leader.
• Follower’s role is defined as a leader and follower interact over time.

Leader-Participation Model

• The Vroom-Jago leader-participation model indicates that leadership success results when the decision-making method best-fits the problem.
• Choices for making decisions fall into authority, consultative, or group decisions.
  • An authority decision is made by the leader and communicated to the group.
  • A consultative decision is made by a leader gathering information and advice.
  • A group decision is made by the group.
• Choice is governed by decision quality, decision acceptance to implement and decision time available.
• Authority decisions work best when:
  • Leaders have the expertise needed to solve the problem.
  • They are confident and capable of acting alone.
  • Others are likely to accept and implement the decision they make.
  • Little or no time is available for discussion.
• Consultative and group decisions work best when:
  • The leader lacks sufficient expertise and information to solve the problem alone.
  • The problem is unclear and help is needed to clarify.
  • Acceptance of the decision and commitment by others are necessary for implementation.
  • Adequate time is available to allow for true participation.

Issues in Leadership Development

• There is interest in charismatic leaders, who inspire others in exceptional ways improving personal leadership qualities.

Transformational Leadership

• Transactional leadership focuses on tasks, styles, and rewards, analytical approach, adjusting tasks, and allocating rewards to achieve positive influence.
• Transformational leadership is inspiring, arousing others to seek extraordinary performance accomplishments, raising aspirations, and shifting systems into new patters.
• Transformational leaders raise confidence, aspirations, and performance commitments through vision, charisma, symbolism, empowerment, intellectual stimulation, and integrity.

Emotional Intelligence and Leadership

• Emotional intelligence ("EI") is the ability to manage our emotions in social relationships.
  • Self-awareness: the ability to understand our own' moods and emotions, and to understand their impact on our work and on others.
  • Self-management: the ability to think before we act and to control otherwise disruptive impulses.
  • Motivation: being able to work hard with persistence and for reasons other than money/status.
  • Social awareness: empathy/ability to understand the emotions of others and to use this understanding to better relate to them.
  • Relationship management: establishing rapport with others and building good relationships/networks.

Gender and Leadership

• The gender similarities hypothesis states that males and females are similar psychologically.
• Both can be equally effective but may achieve leadership success differently.
• Women may be expected to be nurturing or act as