Lecture 8
Contemporary Issues in Leadership
BBA 352 Organizational Behavior
Department of Business Administration
Dr. S.Chan
Charmaine@chuhai.edu.hk http://home.chuhai.hk/~charmaine/
Chapter Learning Objectives
 After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
– Show how framing influences leadership effectiveness.
– Define charismatic leadership and show how it influences
followers.
– Contrast transformational with transactional leadership and discuss
how transformational leadership works.
– Define authentic leadership and show why ethics and trust are vital
to effective leadership.
– Identify the three types of trust.
– Demonstrate the importance of mentoring, self-leadership, and
virtual leadership to our understanding of leadership.
– Identify when leadership may not be necessary.
– Explain how to find and create effective leaders.
– Assess whether charismatic and transformational leadership
generalizes across cultures.
Inspirational Approaches to Leadership
 The focus is leader as communicator
 Framing:
– A way of communicating that shapes meaning
– A way for leaders to influence how others see and understand
events, including selecting and highlight one or more aspects of
a subject while excluding others.
– Ignored in traditional leadership studies: the ability of the
leader to inspire others to act beyond their immediate selfinterests.
 Two contemporary leadership theories:
– Charismatic Leadership
– Transformational Leadership
Charismatic Leadership 魅力型領導
 Originated from Charisma (Greek “gift”)
 Robert House’s Charismatic Leadership Theory:
– Followers make attributions of heroic or extraordinary leadership
abilities when they observe certain behaviors
 Four characteristics of charismatic leaders:
– Have a vision –idealized goal that proposes a future better than the
status quo, and is able to clarify the importance of the vision which
are understood to others;
– Are willing to take personal risks to achieve the vision, including
high costs, engage in self-sacrifice to achieve vision;
– Are sensitive to follower needs– perceptive of others abilities and
responsive to their needs and feeling;
– Exhibit behaviors that are out of the ordinary and unconventional;
 Traits and personality are related to charisma
 People can be trained to exhibit charismatic behaviors
How Charismatic Leaders Influence Followers
 A four-step process:
1. Leader articulates an
attractive vision
•
•
Vision Statement:
A formal, long-term strategy to attain goals
Links past, present, and future
1. Leader communicates high performance expectations
and confidence in follower ability
2. Leader conveys a new set of values by setting an
example
3. Leader engages in emotion-inducing and often
unconventional behavior to demonstrate convictions
about the vision
Charismatic Leadership Issues
 Importance of vision
– Must be inspirational, value-centered, realizable, and given
with superior imagery and articulation
 Charismatic effectiveness and situation
– Charisma works best when:
•
•
•
•
The follower’s task has an ideological component
There is a lot of stress and uncertainty in the environment
The leader is at the upper level of the organization
Followers have low self-esteem and self-worth
 Dark Side of Charisma
– Ego-driven charismatic allow their self-interest and personal
goals to override the organization’s goals
Transactional & Transformational Leadership
 Transactional Leaders比較交易領導
– Leaders who guide or motivate their followers in the direction of
established goals by clarifying role and task requirements
 Transformational Leaders轉型領導
– Inspire followers to transcend their own self-interests for the good
of the organization; they can have a profound and extraordinary
effect on followers
– Leaders pay attention to the concerns and developmental needs of
individual followers, change followers awareness of issues by
helping them to look at old problems in new ways, able to excite,
arouse and inspire followers to put extra efforts to achieve group
goals.
 Not opposing, but complementary approaches to leadership
– Great transformational leaders must also be transactional; only one
type is not enough for success
Characteristics of the Two Types of Leaders
Transactional
 Contingent Reward:
– Contracts exchange of rewards
for effort, promises rewards for
good performance, recognizes
accomplishments
 Management by Exception:
– Active: Watches and searches
for deviations from rules and
standards, takes corrective
action
– Passive: Intervenes only if
standards are not met
 Laissez-Faire:
– Abdicates responsibilities,
avoids making decisions
Transformational
 Idealized Influence:
– Provides vision and sense of
mission, instills pride, gains respect
and trust
 Inspiration:
–
Communicates high expectations,
uses symbols to focus efforts,
expresses important issues simply
 Intellectual Stimulation:
–
Promotes intelligence, rationality,
and problem solving
 Individualized Consideration:
– Gives personal attention, coaches,
advises
Issues with Transformational Leadership
 Basis for Action:
– Transformational leadership works by encouraging followers to be
more innovative and creative and by providing ambitious goals
 Evaluation Based on the Research:
– This theory does show high correlations with desired outcomes
– This style of leadership can be taught
 Transformational vs. Charismatic Leadership:
– Similar concepts, but transformational leadership may be considered
a broader concept than charisma.
– Instrument-based testing shows the measures to be roughly
equivalent
Authentic Leadership: Ethics and Trust
 Authentic Leaders:
– Ethical people who know who they are, know what they
believe in and value, and act on those values and beliefs
openly and candidly
– Primary quality is trust
 Build trust by:
– Sharing information
– Encouraging open communication
– Sticking to their ideals
 Still a new topic; needs more research
Ethics, Trust, and Leadership
 Ethics touch on many leadership styles
– As the moral leaders of organizations, CEOs must
demonstrate high ethical standards
– Socialized charismatic leadership: leaders who model ethical
behaviors
 Trust:
– The positive expectation that another person will not act
opportunistically
– Composed of a blend of familiarity and willingness to take a
risk
– Five key dimensions: integrity, competence, consistency,
loyalty, and openness
Five Key Dimensions of Trust
 Integrity
– Honesty and truthfulness
 Competence
– An individual’s technical and interpersonal
knowledge and skills
 Consistency
– An individual’s reliability, predictability, and good
judgment in handling situations
 Loyalty
– The willingness to protect and save face for
another person
 Openness
– Reliance on the person to give you the full truth
Basic Principles of Trust
 Mistrust drives out trust
 Trust begets trust
 Trust can be regained
 Mistrusting groups self-destruct
 Mistrust generally reduces
productivity
13-12
Contemporary Leadership Roles: Mentoring
 Mentor:
– A senior employee who sponsors and supports a less-experienced
employee (a protégé)
– Good teachers present ideas clearly, listen, and empathize
– Two functions:
• Career
– Coaching, assisting, sponsoring
• Psychosocial
– Counseling, sharing, acting as a role model
– Can be formal or informal
– Mentors tend to select protégés who are similar to them in
background: may restrict minorities and women
Contemporary Leadership Roles: Self-Leadership
 Self-Leadership
– A set of processes through which individuals
control their own behavior
– Effective leaders (superleaders) help followers
to lead themselves
– Important in self-managed teams
 To engage in self-leadership:
1. Make a mental chart of your peers and
colleagues
2. Focus on influence and not on control
3. Create opportunities; do not wait for them
Contemporary Leadership Roles: Online Leadership
 Leadership at a Distance: Building Trust
– The lack of face-to-face contact in electronic communications
removes the nonverbal cues that support verbal interactions.
– There is no supporting context to assist the receiver with
interpretation of an electronic communication.
– The structure and tone of electronic messages can strongly
affect the response of receivers.
– An individual’s verbal and written communications may not
follow the same style.
– Writing skills will likely become an extension of interpersonal
skills.
Finding and Creating Effective Leaders
 Selection
– Review specific requirements for the job
– Use tests that identify personal traits associated with
leadership, measure self-monitoring, and assess emotional
intelligence
– Conduct personal interviews to determine candidate’s fit
with the job
– Keep a list of potential candidates
 Training
– Recognize that all people are not equally trainable
– Teach skills that are necessary for employees to become
effective leaders
– Provide behavioral training to increase the development
potential of nascent charismatic employees
Global Implications
 Certain types of leadership behaviors work better in
some cultures than in others
 Charismatic/Transformational Leadership
– Seems to work across cultures
– May be an “universal” aspect of leadership in its focus on:
•
•
•
•
Vision and foresight
Providing encouragement
Trustworthiness
Dynamic, positive, and proactive traits
 Globalization may be the cause of these common
concerns – we may be able to train a “universal”
manager, if that person is culturally sensitive!
Summary and Managerial Implications
 Companies are looking for transformational leaders –
even if they only “look the part”
 Transformational style crosses borders reasonably well
 Effective managers must build trust with those they lead
 Leadership selection and training are important to longterm success