Leadership in Organizations 1st Lecture What is leadership ? = process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal A personality attribute An exercise of influence A particular kind of act A form of persuasion A power relation An instrument in the attainment of goals Initiation of structure A focus on group processes 2nd Lecture Leadership attributes: - Charisma, which means “gift” Narcissism, excessive use of “me” and “I” instead of “us” or “we”; prominence of CEO in photographs, compensation excessively high compared to the 2nd highest paid. A study shows that it’s positively correlated with strategic dynamism and grandiosity as well as number and size of M&A => actions that attract attention but that can result in both big wins or losses. Great Person Theories The trait approach is one of the first systematic attempts to study leadership. 1900s: “Great Man” Theories and focused on identifying innate qualities and characteristics possessed by great social, political and military leaders. => INNATE QUALITIES 1930-1950s: Traits interacting with situational demands on Leaders. Stogdill proposed a study which synthetized 124 traits of leadership. It reconceptualized leadership as a relationship between people in a social situation. Mann classified 1400 traits of leader personality in small group. He was thinking that situations didn’t impact that much personality, and therefore personality traits could be used to differentiate leaders and non-leaders. => SITUATIONS 1970-1990s: Revival of critical role of traits in Leader Effectiveness. Stogdill validated his original study and identified 10 characteristics positively related to leadership. => PERSONNALITY Today: we identified 5 major leadership traits: Intelligence, Self-Confidence, Determination, Integrity and Sociability. Big Five Theory of Personnality Neuroticism: tendency to be depressed, anxious, insecure, vulnerable and hostile. Extraversion: tendency to be sociable, assertive and to have a positive energy Openness: tendency to be informed, creative, insightful and curious Agreableness: tendency to be accepting, conforming, trusting and nurturing Conscientiousness: tendency to be thorough, organized, controlled, dependable and decisive Extraversion and Conscientiousness are strongly associated with leadership. 2nd Lecture Major Leadership Traits = traits to possess or cultivate if one seeks to be perceived by others as a leader: Intelligence: verbal, perceptual and reasoning. Self-confidence Determination: initiative, persistence, drive Integrity: honesty and trustworthiness Sociability: inclination to seek out pleasant social relationships Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive and apply emotions to life tasks, reason/understand emotions, express emotions, use them to facilitate thinking, and manage them within oneself and relationships. => The underlying premise is that people who are more sensitive to their emotions and their impact on others will be more effective leaders. Shankman & Allen suggest it as awareness of 3 aspects of leadership: context, self and others. Traits Approach Organizations use personality assessments to find the “right” people. They assume it will increase organizational effectiveness and are looking for specific traits for specific position ( with for example the Myers Brigg test). Strengths: It’s intuitively appealing as people need to view leaders as “gifted”. It gained a lot of credibility from a century-long of research. It highlights leadership components in the leadership process – provides a deeper level of understanding of how leader personality is related to the leadership process and benchmarks for what to look for in a leader. Criticisms: fails to delimit a definitive list of leadership traits and most important ones are highly subjective (endless lists). Doesn’t take into account situational effects. Fails to establish correlation with leadership outcomes. Useless for training and personal development. Skills Approach Description focused – Leader centered perspective. It provides a structure for understanding the nature of effective leadership. Emphasizes skills and abilities that can be learned and developed. Principal Research: - Katz: suggests importance of particular leadership skills varies depending on where leaders reside in management hierarchy. Suggests 3 category: Technical, Human and Conceptual Skills. - Mumford, Campion, & Morgeson, (2007) suggest higher levels of all skills needed at higher levels of hierarchy Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding et al. (2000) suggest leadership outcomes are direct result of leader’s skilled competency in problem solving, social judgment & knowledge Technical= having knowledge about and being proficient in a specific type of work and activity. It involved hands-on ability with a product/process most important at lower levels of management. Human Skills- being able to work with people: being aware of one’s own perspective and other’s at the same time; assisting group members in working cooperatively to achieve common goals; creating an atmosphere of trust and empowerment important at ALL levels Conceptual Skills – ability to do the mental work os shaping meaning of organizational policy or issues – what company stands for and where it’s going. It works with abstraction and hypothetical notions and is central to creating and articulating a vision and a strategic plan most important at top management level Leaders need all 3 skills but with relative importance based on level of management Strengths 1st approach to conceptualize and create a structure of the process of leadership around skills Describing leadership in terms of skills makes leadership available to everyone Provides an expansive view of leadership that incorporates wide variety of components Provides a structure consistent with leadership education programs Criticisms: Breadth of the skills approach appears to extend beyond the boundaries of leadership, making it more general, less precise. Weak in predictive value; does not explain how skills lead to effective leadership performance Skills model includes individual attributes that are traits-like Applications: Provides a way to delineate the skills of a leader Applicable to leaders at all levels within the organization Skills inventory can provide insights into the individual’s leadership competencies Test scores allow leaders to learn about areas in which they may wish to seek further training 3rd Lecture A) Style Approach The style approach emphasizes the behavior of the leader. It focuses exclusively on what leaders do and how they act. It comprised of 2 general kinds of behavior: Tasks behavior: facilitate goal accomplishment (help group members achieve objectives) Relationship behaviors: help subordinates feel comfortable with themselves, each other and the situation LBDQ-WII Ohio State Studies – Stogdil 1963 Identify 2 general types of leader behaviors 1. Initiating structure – provide structures for subordinates Tasks centered: organizing work, defining role responsibility, scheduling activities 2. Consideration – leaders nurture subordinates Relationship centered: building camaraderie, respect, trust and liking between leaders and followers U of Michigan Studies It put a specific emphasis on impact of leadership behavior on performance of smalls groups, and identify 2 types of leadership behaviors conceptualized as opposite ends of a sing continuum. 1. Employee orientation – strong human relations emphasis 2. Production orientation- stresses the technical aspects of a job Blake & Mouton’s Managerial Leadership Grid Based on 2 factors: concern for productions and concern for people Authority compliance (9;1) Efficiency in operations results from arranging conditions of work such that human interference is minimal. Heavy emphasis on task and job requirements and less on people: you communicate with subordinates mainly for task instructions. Results driven. traits: controlling, demanding, hard-driving and overpowering Country Club Management (1;9) Thoughtful attention to the needs of people leads to a comfortable, friendly organizational atmosphere and work tempo. Low concern for task accomplishment coupled with high concern for interpersonal relationships. De-emphasizes productions. Traits: agreeable, eager to help, comforting, non-controversial Impoverished Management (1:1) Minimal effort exerted to get work done is appropriate to sustain organizational membership. Leader unconcerned with both tasks and interpersonal relationships. Traits: little contact with followers, indifferent, noncommittal, resigned, apathetic Middle of the Road Management (5;5) Adequate organizational performance possible through balancing the necessity of getting work done while maintaining satisfactory morale. Leaders who are compromisers. Traits: expedients, soft-pedals disagreements, swallows’ conviction in the interest of progress Team Management (9;9) Work accomplished through committed people; interdependence via a common stake in the organization’s purpose which leads to relationships of trust and respect. Promotes high degree of participation & teamwork. Traits: stimulates participation, acts determined, makes priorities clear, follows through, behaves open-mindedly and enjoy working. Strengths: marked a major shift in leadership research from exclusively traits focused to include behaviors and actions of leaders. It exists a broad range of studies on leadership style who validates and gives credibility to this approach. It’s heuristic- leaders can learn a lot about themselves and how they come across to others by trying to see their behaviors in light of those 2 dimensions. Criticisms: Implies that the most effective leadership style is High-High (Team Management), whereas there is not an universal style of leadership that could be effective in almost every situation and with everyone.
