Matakuliah
Tahun
: L0244 – Psikologi Kepemimpinan
: 2010
Characteristics of the Situation
Pertemuan 21 & 22
Background
• The appropriateness of a leader’s behavior with a group of
followers often makes sense only in the situational context
in which the behavior occurs.
• The situation, not someone’s traits or abilities, plays the
most important role in determining who emerges as a leader.
• Great leaders typically emerged during economic crisis,
social upheavals, or revolutions.
– It was believed that leaders were made, not born, and that
prior leadership experience helped forge effective leaders.
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Situational Factors That Affect
Leaders’ Behaviors
• Role theory: A leader’s behavior depends on a leader’s perceptions of
several critical aspects of the situation:
– Rules and regulations governing the job.
– Role expectations of subordinates, peers, and superiors.
– Nature of the task.
– Feedback about subordinates’ performance.
• Multiple-influence model
– Microvariables
– Macrovariables
• Situational levels: Task, organizational, and environmental levels.
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An Expanded Leader-Follower-Situation Model
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From the Industrial Age to the Information Age
• In the new information age, many fundamental assumptions
of the industrial age are becoming obsolete.
• Changes in the ways companies operate:
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Cross functions
Links to customers and suppliers
Customer segmentation
Global scale
Innovation
Knowledge workers
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A Congruence Model
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The Work – Job Characteristics
• Skill variety: Degree to which a job involves performing a variety
of different activities or skills.
• Task identity: Degree to which a situation or task requires
completion of a whole unit of work from beginning to end with a
visible outcome.
• Task significance: Degree to which a job substantially impacts
others’ lives.
• Autonomy: Degree to which a job provides an individual with
some control over what and how he does it.
• Feedback: Degree to which a person accomplishing a task
receives information about performance from performing the
task itself.
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The Work – Task Structure
• People vary in their preferences for, or ability to handle,
structured versus unstructured tasks.
• Subordinates need help when:
– A task is unstructured.
– They do not know what the desired outcome looks like.
– They do not know how to achieve the outcome.
• Reducing the degree of ambiguity inherent in an
unstructured situation is a leadership behavior usually
appreciated by followers.
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The Work – Task Interdependence
• Task interdependence: Degree to which tasks require
coordination and synchronization for work groups or
teams to accomplish desired goals.
• Tasks with high levels of interdependence place a
premium on leaders’ organizing and planning,
directing, and communication skills.
• Task interdependence can also dictate which leader
behaviors will be effective in a particular situation.
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The People
• Leaders should look at the followers in terms of:
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Skills
Knowledge
Experience
Expectations
Needs
Preferences
• In a rapidly changing environment, diversity allows the
species to sense and adapt more quickly.
• Diversity is essential to quality and survival in a rapidly
changing world.
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The Formal Organization – Level of Authority
• Level of authority: One’s hierarchical level in an organization.
• The types of behaviors most critical to leadership
effectiveness can change substantially as one moves up an
organizational ladder.
• Leaders at high organizational levels often perform a greater
variety of activities and are more apt to use participation and
delegation.
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The Formal Organization –
Organizational Structure
• Organizational structure: The way an organization’s
activities are coordinated and controlled, and represents
another level of the situation in which leaders and followers
must operate.
• Organization structure can be thought of in three terms:
– Complexity:
• Horizontal complexity
• Vertical complexity
• Spatial complexity
– Formalization: Degree of standardization.
– Centralization: Diffusion of decision making.
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Organizational Design - Functional Design
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Organizational Design – Product Design
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Organizational Design – Matrix Design
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Organizational Design – Lateral
Interdependence
• Lateral interdependence: Degree of coordination or
synchronization required between organizational units
in order to accomplish work-group or organizational
goals.
• Leaders are more likely to use rational persuasion as an
influence tactic when the level of lateral
interdependence is high.
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The Informal Organization
• Organizational culture: System of shared backgrounds,
norms, values, or beliefs among members of a group.
• Organizational climate: Members’ subjective reactions
about the organization.
• Leaders can change culture by attending to or ignoring
particular issues, problems, or projects.
• Leaders can modify culture
– Through their reactions to crisis
– By rewarding new or different kinds of behavior
– By eliminating previous punishments or negative
consequences for certain behaviors.
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Some Questions That Define
Organizational Culture
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Environmental Characteristics
• Environmental characteristics: Situational factors outside
the task or organization that still affect the leadership
process.
• These factors include:
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Technological forces
Economic forces
Political forces
Social forces
Legal forces
• These factors often create anxiety, and therefore cause an
increase in employees’ security needs.
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Technology and Uncertainty
• Environments of low technological complexity: Workers
play a large role and are able to modify their behavior
depending on the situation.
– A range of technological complexity can exist.
• Different kinds of organizational structures or designs are
best suited for different technological environments.
• The degree of environmental uncertainty affects optimal
organizational design.
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Crisis
• Behaviors associated with effective leadership during
crises differ from those associated with noncrisis
situations.
• During crises, followers are more likely to look to leaders
to identify the problem as well as develop and
implement a solution.
• Leaders are less apt to use participation or consultation
during crises.
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Situational Engineering
• A leader or follower can become more effective by
identifying problem areas and restructuring the
situation so that problems become easier to overcome.
• A variety of ways in which leaders and followers can
change the task, organizational, and environmental
factors affecting their behaviors and attitudes exist.
• Leaders and followers must think about how they can
change the situation for everyone to be more satisfied
and productive.
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Summary
• The situation may well be the most complex factor in the leaderfollower-situation framework.
• Situations vary not only in complexity but also in strength.
• The Congruence Model can be used as a way to consider many of
the situational factors leaders should consider.
• Research has shown that organizational factors play a major role in
the leader-situation framework.
• The informal organization or the organizational culture can have a
profound impact on the way both leaders and followers behave.
• Factors in the environment, such as legal, political, or economic
forces, can also affect leaders’ and followers’ behaviors.
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Reference
•
Hughes., Ginnett., & Curpy. (2009). Leadership: Enhancing
The Lesson of Experience. 6 eds. McGraw-Hill. Boston.
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