Chapter 1 - Introduction: Chapter one initiates the concept of leadership. Leadership
has many definitions depending on the era of time you are looking at. From the early
1900's to today, leadership has taken on many different shapes and sizes.
1900-1929 - Leadership emphasized control and centralization of power with a common
theme of domination.
1930's - Traits became the focus of defining leadership, with an emerging view of
leadership as influence rather than domination.
1940's - Group approach came into the forefront - leadership defined as the behavior of
an individual while involved in directing group activities.
1950's - Three themes: a) continuance of group theory b) Leadership as a relationship
that develops shared goals c) effectiveness
1960's - Harmony amongst leadership scholars - behavior that influences people toward
shared goals
1970's - Group focus gave way to the organizational behavior approach - leadership
viewed as "initiating and maintaining groups or organizations to accomplish group or
organizational goals.
1980's - Scholarly and popular works on the nature of leadership - several themes: a) do
as the leader wishes b) influence c) traits d) transformation
21st Century - No common definition for leadership - everyone agrees!
The one definition that stands is: Leadership is a process whereby an
individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal.
Leadership involves influence, occurs in groups, involves attention to common goals.
Leadership described:
a)
Trait Versus Process Leadership
b)
Assigned Versus Emergent Leadership
c)
Leadership and power.....
Referent Power - someone who is adored hold power
Expert Power - knowledge perception brings power
Legitimate Power - having status or formal job authority
Reward Power - Derived from having the capacity to provide rewards
Coercive Power - penalize or punish others to create power
Summary of Chapter 1 - Leadership is a topic of universal appeal. Through the years
leadership has been defined and conceptualized in many ways. Leadership is an
influence process that assists groups of individuals toward goal attainment.
A complex process!
Chapter 2
Trait Approach
Description: One of the first systematic attempts to study leadership. Theories that
were developed were called "great man" theories because they focused on identifying the
innate qualities and characteristics possessed by great social, political, and military
leaders. People were believed to be born with these traits and that only the "great"
people possessed them. Research concentrated on determining the specific traits.
Page 21 - 10 Traits positively associated with leadership:
1)
Drive for responsibility
2)
Vigor and persistence in pursuit of goals
3)
Risk Taking and originality in problem solving
4)
Drive to exercise initiative in social situations
5)
Self-confidence and sense of personal identity
6)
Willingness to accept consequences of decision and action
7)
Readiness to absorb interpersonal stress
8)
Willingness to tolerate frustration and delay
9)
Ability to influence other people's behavior
10)
Capacity to structure social interaction systems to the purpose at hand
Page 23 - Table 2.2 - Major leadership traits: Intelligence, Self Confidence,
Determination, Integrity and Sociability
Strengths/Weakness of the Trait Approach:
Strengths:
1)
Intuitively appealing
2)
Century of research to back it up
3)
Trait approach highlights the leader component in the leadership process
4)
Given us benchmarks
Weaknesses:
1)
Failure to delimit a definitive list of leadership traits
2)
Failed to take situations into account
3)
Resulted in highly subjective determinations of the most important
leadership traits
4)
Failing to look at traits in relationship to leadership outcomes
Summary: The trait approach has shown its advantages (shown above) because it fits
clearly into the popular idea that leaders are special people who are out front leading.
On the negative side, the trait approach has failed to provide a definitive list of
leadership traits.
Chapter 3
Skills Approach
Description: Takes a leader-centered perspective on leadership - shifting the focus on
personality characteristics, which usually are viewed as innate and largely fixed, to an
emphasis on skills and abilities that can be learned and developed.
The impetus for research on skills was first published in 1955 - "Skills of an Effective
Administrator" (Northhouse Page 43 - Robert Katz).
Skills Approach divided into two parts:
1)
General Ideas set forth by Katz regarding three basic administrative skills
a)
Technical
b)
Human
c)
Conceptual
2)
Mumford and colleagues - skills based model of organizational leadership
Competencies - Problem solving skills (leader's creative ability to solve new and
unusual, ill defined organizational problems), social judgment skills (the capacity to
understand people and social systems), knowledge (inextricably related to the
application and implementation of problem-solving skills in organizations)
Individual Attributes - General Cognitive Ability (Person's intelligence), Crystallized
Cognitive Ability (Intellectual ability that is learned or acquired over time), Motivation
(Willingness to tackle complex organizational problems), Personality (this attribute
reminds us that our personality has impact on the development of leadership skills)
Leadership Outcomes - Effective Problem Solving (described above and the keystone in
the skills approach), Performance (how well the leader is doing)
Career Experiences have an impact on the characteristics and competencies of leaders.
Environmental Influences represent factors that lie outside the leader's competencies,
characteristics, and experiences. These environmental influences can be internal and
external.
Summary:
The skill model frames leadership by describing five components of leader performance.
Strengths:
1)
Leader-centered model that stresses the importance of developing particular
leadership skills.
2)
Intuitively appealing - people can learn and develop
3)
Provides expansive view of leadership that incorporates a wide variety of
components, including problem-solving skills, social judgment skills, knowledge,
individual attributes, career experiences, and environmental influences.
4)
Provides a structure that is very consistent with the curricula of most leadership
education programs.
Criticisms:
1)
The breadth of the skills approach seems to extend beyond the boundaries of
leadership. For example, by including motivation, critical thinking, personality,
and conflict resolution the skills approach addresses more than just leadership
2)
Skills model is weak in predictive value. It does not explain specifically how
3)
4)
variations in social judgment skills and problem solving skills affect performance.
Criticized for claiming not to be a trait model when, in fact, a major component in
the model includes individual attributes, which are trait-like.
May not be suitably or appropriately applied to other contexts of leadership.
Chapter 4
Style Approach
The style approach emphasizes the behavior of the leader. This distinguishes it from the
trait approach.
Style approach determined that leadership is composed of two general kinds of
behaviors: task behaviors and relationship behaviors.
Two studies: The Ohio State Studies - The University of Michigan Studies
1) Ohio State = (Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire LBDQ) given to hundreds
of people in educational, military, and industrial settings, and the results showed that
certain clusters of behaviors were typical of leaders.
2) The University of Michigan Study - identified two types of leadership behaviors:
employee orientation (behavior of leaders who approach subordinates with a strong
human relations emphasis) and production orientation (consists of leadership behaviors
that stress the technical and production aspects of a job).
Blake and Mouton's Managerial (Leadership) Grid (Page 80 - Figure 4.1)
1)
Authority-Compliance (9,1)
2)
Country-Club Management (1,9)
3)
Impoverished Management (1,1)
4)
Middle of the Road Management (5,5)
5)
Team Management (9,9)
Utilizing the grid - One can look at the numbers and see if you have a high/low concern
for people or a low/high concern for results.
Paternalism - Maternalism refers to a leader who uses both 1, 9 and 9,1 styles but does
not integrate the two. This is the "benevolent dictator" who acts graciously but does so
for the purpose of goal accomplishment. Treat people as if they were dissociated from
the tasks - described as "fatherly/motherly".
Opportunism - refers to a leader who uses any combination of the basic five styles for
the purpose of personal advancement.
Strengths:
1)
Makes several positive contributions to our understanding of the leadership
process. Marked a major shift in the general focus of leadership research.
2)
A Wide range of studies on leadership style validates and gives credibility to the
basic tenets of the approach
3)
On a conceptual level, researchers from the style approach have ascertained that
a leader's style consists primarily of two major types of behaviors; task and
relationship.
4)
The style approach is heuristic. It provides us with a broad conceptual map that
is worthwhile to use in our attempts to understand the complexities of leadership.
Criticisms:
1)
Research on styles has not adequately shown how leaders' styles are associated
with performance outcomes.
2)
The approach has failed to find a universal style of leadership that could be
effective in almost every situation.
3)
The approach implies that the most effective leadership style is the high-high
style (i.e. high task and high relationship). Although some researches suggested
that high-high managers are most effective, that may not be the case in all
situations. Full range of research findings provide only limited support for a
universal high-high style.
Chapter 5
Situational Approach
Situational leadership focuses on leadership in situations. The premise of the theory is
that different situations demand different kinds of leadership. Situational leadership
stresses that leadership is composed of both a directive and a supportive dimension.
Page 100 - Figure 5.1
Four leadership styles:
1)
Directing - leader focuses communication on goal achievement and spends a
smaller amount of time using supportive behaviors.
2)
Coaching - highly directive high supportive. The leader focuses communication o
both achieving goals and meeting subordinates' socio emotional needs
3)
Supporting - requires that the leader take a high supportive-low directive style.
The leader does not focus on goals but uses supportive behaviors that bring out
the employees' skills around the task to be accomplished
4)
Delegating - low supportive-low directive style. The leader offers less task input
and social support, facilitating employees' confidence and motivation in reference
to the task. The leader lessens involvement in planning, control of details, and
goal clarification.
Situational approach is constructed around the idea that employees move forward and
backward along the developmental continuum, which represents the relative
competence and commitment of subordinates.
Strengths:
1)
This approach has stood the test of time in the marketplace. Situational
leadership is well known and frequently used for training leaders within
organizations.
2)
The approach has practicality. Situational leadership is easy to understand,
intuitively sensible and easily applied in a variety of settings.
3)
The approach has prescriptive value. It tells you what you should and should not
do in various contexts.
4)
Emphasizes leader flexibility. Stresses that the leaders need to find out about
their subordinates' needs and then adapt their leadership style accordingly.
Criticisms:
1)
Only a few research studies have been conducted to justify the assumptions and
propositions set forth by the approach.
2)
The approach has concerns of the ambiguous conceptualization in the model of
subordinates' development levels.
3)
Commitment varies and this affects the process
4)
The model matches leader style with subordinate development levels - the
prescription of the model. This fails to find strong evidence to support the basic
prescriptions suggested in the situational leadership model
5)
It fails to account for how certain demographic characteristics (e.g. education,
experience, age and gender) influence the leader-subordinate prescriptions of the
model.
6)
The Questionnaires on situational leadership typically ask respondents to analyze
various work situations and select the best leadership style for each situation.
The questionnaires are constructed to force respondents to describe leadership
(i.e. directing, coaching, supporting and delegating) rather than in terms of other
leadership behaviors - the answers seem to be pre-determined.
Chapter 6
Contingency Theory
Contingency Theory is a leader-match theory. This means it tries to match leaders to
appropriate situations. It is called contingency because it suggests that a leader's
effectiveness depends on how well the leader's style fits the context.
Within the framework, leadership styles are described as task motivated or relationship
motivated. Task-motivated leaders are concerned primarily with reaching a goal,
whereas relationship-motivated leaders are concerned with developing close
interpersonal relationships.
Characterized in terms of 3 factors:
1)
Leader member relations - group atmosphere and the degree of confidence,
loyalty and attraction that followers feel for their leader
2)
Task structure - the degree to which the requirements of a task are clear and
spelled out.
3)
Position power - the amount of authority a leader has to reward or to punish
followers. Includes legitimate power the individual has acquired as a result of the
position they hold in an organization. Position power is strong if a person has the
authority to hire and fire or give raises in rank or pay; it is weak if a person does
not have the authority to do these things.
How does the Contingency Theory work?
By measuring a leaders LPC (Least Preferred Co-worker) score and the three situational
variables, one can predict whether the leader is going to be effective in a particular
setting.
Strengths:
1)
Supported by a great deal of empirical research.
2)
Has broadened our understanding of leadership by forcing us to consider the
impact of situations of leaders.
3)
Is predictive and therefore provides useful information about the type of
leadership that is most likely to be effective in certain contexts.
4)
This theory does not require that people be effective in all situations. So often
leaders in organizations feel the need to be all things to all people, which may be
asking too much of them. (my thoughts: "Should this be included in the
strengths...or is this a criticism?)
5)
The theory provides data on leaders' styles that could be useful to organizations
in developing leadership profiles.
Criticisms:
1)
It fails to explain fully why people with certain leadership styles are more
effective in some situations than in others.
2)
This theory concerns the LPC scale. The LPC scale has been questioned because
it does not seem valid on the surface, it does not correlate well with other
standard leadership measures and is not easy to complete correctly.
3)
It fails to explain adequately what organizations should do when there is a
mismatch between the leader and the situation in the workplace.
Chapter 7
Path Goal Theory
Path-goal theory is about how leaders motivate subordinates to accomplish designated
goals. Path Goal theory emphasizes the relationship between the leader's style and the
characteristics of the subordinates and the work setting.
Page 138 - Figure 7.1
The Basic Idea Behind Path-Goal Theory
Conceptually, path goal theory is complex. It is useful to break it down into smaller
units:
1)
Leader Behaviors a)
Directive - characterizes a leader who gives subordinates instructions
about their task, including what is expected of them, how it is to be done,
and the time line for when it should be completed. Sets clear standards
and makes rules clear to subordinates.
b)
Supportive - being friendly and approachable
c)
Participative - inviting subordinates to share in the decision making
d)
Achievement oriented - characterized by a leader who challenges
subordinates to perform work at the highest level possible. This leader
establishes a high standard of excellence for subordinates and seeks
continuous improvement
2)
Subordinate Characteristics - Needs for: affiliation, preference for structure,
3)
4)
desires for control and self perceived level of task ability.
Task Characteristics - include the design of the subordinate's task, the formal
authority system of the organization and the primary work group of subordinates.
Subordinates Motivation to the Goal(s) (Productivity)
Strengths:
1)
Provides a useful theoretical framework for understanding how various
leadership behaviors affect subordinates' satisfaction and work performance.
2)
It attempts to integrate the motivation principles of expectancy theory into a
theory of leadership. This makes path-goal unique because no other leadership
approach deals directly with motivation in this way.
3)
Path-Goal theory provides a model that in certain ways is very practical. The
representation of the model underscores and highlights the important ways
leaders help subordinates
Criticisms:
1)
So complex and incorporates so many different aspects of leadership that
interpreting the theory can be confusing.
2)
It has received only partial support from the many empirical research studies that
have been conducted to test its validity
3)
It fails to explain adequately the relationship between leadership behavior and
worker motivation. Path-goal theory is unique in that it incorporates the tenets
of expectancy theory; however, it does not go far enough in explicating how
leadership is related to these tenets.
Chapter 8
Leader -Member Exchange Theory
(LMX) theory takes another approach and conceptualizes leadership as a process that is
centered on the interactions between leaders and followers.
Dyad = 1. Two individuals or units regarded as a pair: the mother-daughter dyad. (The
free dictionary on line).
Pages 162-163 - Various diagrams regarding the LMX Theory of leadership
Figure 8.1 - Dimensions of Leadership
Follower/Dyadic Relationship/Leader
Figure 8.2 - The Vertical Dyad
Leader - Subordinate and the Dyadic Relationship
Figure 8.3 Vertical Dyads - of various subordinates
Researchers have found two types of linkages (or relationships): those that were based
on expanded and negotiated role responsibilities (extra roles), which were called the ingroup, and those that were based on the formal employment contract (defined roles),
which were called the out-group.
Subordinates in the in-group receive more information, influence, confidence and
concern from their leaders than do out-group subordinates. In addition, they are ore
dependable, more highly involved and more communicative than out-group
subordinates.
Leadership Making:
Research of LMX theory has also begun to focus on how exchanges between
leaders and subordinates can be used for leadership making. Leaders should develop
high quality exchanges with all leader's subordinates rather than just a few.
Phases in Leadership Making (Table 8.1 Page 166).
1.
Stranger Phase - the interactions are rule bound, contractual relationships. Lower
quality exchanges (similar to out-group).
2.
Acquaintance Phase - Improved career-oriented social exchanges - sharing more
resources and personal or work-related information. Testing period for both leader and
subordinate. Focus less on their own self-interests and more on the purposes and goals
of the group
3.
Partnership Phase - more mature. High quality leader-member exchanges. High
degree of mutual trust, respect, and obligation toward each other.
How does LMX work:
Two ways: 1) Describes Leadership and it 2) Prescribes leadership. In both instances
the central concept is the dyadic relationship.
Strengths:
1)
Makes positive contributions to our understanding of the leadership
process - strong descriptive theory.
2)
LMX theory is unique because it is the only leadership approach that
makes
the concept of the dyadic relationship the centerpiece of the leadership process
3)
LMX theory is noteworthy because it directs our attention to the
importance
of communication in leadership.
4)
LMX theory provides an important alert for leaders. It warns leaders to avoid
letting conscious or unconscious biases influence who is invited to the in-group (e.g.
biases regarding race, gender, ethnicity, religion, or age).
5)
LMX theory is related to positive organizational outcomes.
Criticisms:
1)
Leader-member exchange in its initial formulation (vertical dyad linkage theory)
runs counter to the basic human value of fairness
2)
LMX theory's basic ideas of the theory are not fully developed. It does not fully
explain how high quality leader-member exchanges are created.
3)
Researchers have not adequately explained the contextual factors that may
have an impact on LMX relationships. Researchers have not examined the
potential impact of other variables on LMX dyads. For example, workplace
4)
norms and other organizational culture variables and how they influence
leader-member exchange.
No empirical studies have used dyadic measures to analyze the LMX
process. leader-member exchanges have been measured with different
versions of leader-member exchange scales and with different levels of
analysis - results are not always directly comparable - content validity and
dimensionality of the scales have been questioned.