BA105:
Organizational Behavior
Professor Jim Lincoln
Week 5: Lecture
Class agenda:
Leadership in Organizations
Discuss meanings and types of leadership roles
and how they differ from “management”
Consider examples of leaders in business and
politics
Discuss how can organizations find or make
leaders
2
What is leadership?
The use of personal capabilities and
relationships to direct, inspire,
motivate, and empower others
3
What does leadership do?
 Directs (gives guidance)
 Inspires & motivates (drives, enthralls, impassions
followers to subordinate self-interest to the good of the
group)
 Personifies (gives the organization a human face; puts
flesh on core values)
 Simplifies (cuts through complexities & ambiguities)
 Aligns (unifies the organization around the leader’s goals)
 Creates accountability (attributes agency; assigns creditand blame)
4
“Leaders are living individuals whom
employees can smell, feel, touch their
presence” [the elevator test] … “Leaders
love their work. That passion is
infectious.” … “ ‘It’s only business, not
personal’ … IT ALWAYS IS
PERSONAL.” … “If you love what you
do, it shows. You cannot fake love
and succeed.”
--Tom Peters
5
Debi Marchovik, a Southwest flight attendant
for six years, sums up what motivates a lot of
the airline’s employees: “you don’t want to let
Herb (Southwest Airlines CEO Herb Kelleher)
down.”
--Wall Street Journal article on Southwest
6
“Great leaders are almost always great
simplifiers who can cut through
argument, debate, and doubt to offer a
solution everyone can understand”
--Colin Powell
7
Leadership is power; but not all
power is leadership
What are some other forms of power?
• Leveraging the formal organization
– Exercising authority
– Designing and implementing systems
• Trading on scarce skills or resources
• Maneuvering, manipulation
8
Leadership versus management
• Management: the design and implementation of
formal systems of control, coordination, and
decision-making
• Management is about coping with complexity
• Ensuring reliable and efficient operation without undue
dependence on people
• Leadership is about coping with change
– In times of change and uncertainty, “management” is
insufficient; leadership is critical
• Particularly true of “paradigm-breaking,” discontinuous change
• Times of change/uncertainty may call forth great leadership
9
Leadership is tied to teamwork
Picture a dog sled. A human is riding, holding a whip, as
the team pulls the sled. ``The leader in that group is the
lead dog,'' Chambers says.
A leader is someone ``who is able to set the course for the
team, who never asks the team to do something that she or
he is not willing to do themselves, who has the confidence
of the team that they will follow him, that when it really
gets tough, will be able to set the pace and know how hard
the team can run without breaking down. A leader is a
person who leads because of people's confidence and trust
in their ability, as opposed to their formal title and their
ability to do a command-and-control mentality.
Cisco CEO John Chambers, quoted by Don Gillmore,
SiliconValley.com, May 20, 2000
10
Although leadership is personal, it is a group
or organization role, not an individual attribute
• Leadership is inherently relational
– Requires followership– a bond of trust & commitment
between leader & follower
• But some people are better at building it than others
• Leadership is also situation- or context-specific
– Leadership styles that work in one setting may not work
in another
• Charisma may derive from being different
11
Two faces of leadership
• Vision: directing and inspiring
• Clear picture of future
• Passion to achieve
• Charisma: motivating & empowering
– Personal qualities & capabilities that attract &
motivate others
12
Crafting a vision
• A vision need not be unique nor altogether new
• A vision should:
– Be simple, clear, sharp, “eureka” evoking
• Represented with symbols, metaphors, icons, slogans
– Be holistic-- a gestalt or frame on reality
– Be emotional, intuitive, inspiring
– Motivate change but build on core values & beliefs
13
Martin Luther King
as visionary and charismatic leader
Strong, clear vision
– Put an end to “de jure” discrimination
– Consistent strategy of nonviolence
– Appeals to core American values
• Powerful, eloquent orator
– “I have a dream speech”
– Perhaps less charismatic a personality than some other
civil rights leaders (e.g., Malcolm X or Stokely
Carmichael)
14
Steve Jobs as visionary and
charismatic leader
“Do you want to sell sugar water to children for the rest of your
life, or do you want to change the world?”
Steve Jobs’ 1983 recruitment pitch to Pepsi CEO John Sculley
“His defining characteristic is an unalloyed confidence—some
might call it arrogance—that his own judgment is correct,
whatever other people say. This is coupled with extraordinary
powers of persuasion: he is said to be surrounded by a “reality
distortion field” that enables him to convince everyone in his
immediate vicinity that he is right. And he is unquestionably the
greatest showman in the computer industry.”
The Economist 2/5/04
15
Dividing the labor of leadership at Microsoft
Bill Gates as visionary, Steve Ballmer as
charismatic coach
There's the Gates variety -- what Ballmer calls thought leadership. ``By
dint of your ideas, your thinking, your force of will behind some concept
that you're working on, you bring people with you.''
Then there's the administrative leader -- ``somebody who basically focuses
in on keeping the train running,'' Ballmer says. ``I'm not pejorative about
that. It's an important thing, and for many people, that is most of the
leadership that they see and hear.''
And then there's the style Ballmer thinks is his best suit: the coach. Those
leaders ``may not make everybody better around them, or they might.
They might have good ideas and might not. They might be good at
keeping the railroads running on time. But man, can they fire people up.''
Dan Gillmore, SiliconValley.com, July 8, 2000
16
Jack Welch: coordinating with charisma
Business Week May 28, 1998
GE is far different from the old-style conglomerate ‘with a totally unrelated portfolio that is mostly
financially driven, with a layered, wedding-cake structure.’ (It) is ‘a group of powerful, well-run operating
companies that cooperate through a small, very talented, very thoughtful corporate headquarters.’ But it is ‘
inherently difficult to run anything this big. It takes a very, very strong personality and tremendous
character to be able to keep pushing that kind of an organization. It is inconceivable that it could work
without one very talented manager, the kind of manager who has the leadership skills to really move an
organization periodically, kick them in the pants, destabilize it and get it moving.’
Welch acts as the galvanizing agent, crossing company borders and layers and regularly delivering shocks
with his wit and incisiveness. While he relies on a few trusted aides, he is exceptionally hands-on and a
large force in the minds and hearts of employees, who refer to him as Jack and quote his maxims. (He) has
been a combination of charismatic preacher, all-knowing judge, internal ombudsman and hard-driving
coach. He cultivates and rewards the same qualities in the system and in his employees -- aggressiveness,
high energy -- that he prizes in himself. Employees who don't measure up are weeded out.
Thanks to a prodigious memory and 40 years with GE, Mr. Welch is on a first-name basis with thousands
of employees. With handwritten notes, e-mails and phone calls, he emits a constant stream of
encouragement or disparagement that keeps managers on their toes. A former GE executive who heads
another company says: "You're not really sure if he is going to shower you with charisma or he's going to
kick you in the a--. It keeps you on edge."
Charisma is part of his MO: Mr. Welch is blunt, quick and often very funny. (Yet) Welch vehemently
insists his success has less to do with him than with the system. "The job of CEO here is about allocating
people resources, allocating dollars and rapidly spreading best practices," he says. "That is our core
competency... ." The CEO, he says, "is the orchestra leader of sorts, but the players in the orchestra are all
first-rate. This job is not that hard, because you have so many good people who know their jobs."17
Leadership as an alignment or
coordination mechanism
Marketing
Accounting
Manufacturing
Engineer
ing
Human
Resources
18
The charismatic and visionary leader
as deviant, eccentric, slightly mad
 Deviant, exotic, eccentric, iconoclast; a cut apart;
symbolic of a new direction
• Charisma may be context-specific
 Different mind-set, style, gestalt, way of framing reality
 Steve Jobs’ “reality distortion field”
 Leaders emerge from unconventional career paths
19
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s (PROBABLY FAKE) Yale
Commencement Speech
"Graduates of Yale University, I apologize if you have endured this type of prologue before, but I
want you to do something for me. Please, take a good look around you. Look at the classmate on
your left. Look at the classmate on your right. Now, consider this: Five years from now, 10 years
from now, even 30 thirty years from now, odds are the person on your left is going to be a loser.
The person on your right, meanwhile, will also be a loser. And you, in the middle? What can you
expect? Loser. Loserhood. Loser Cum Laude.
"In fact, as I look out before me today, I don't see a thousand hopes for a bright tomorrow. I don't
see a thousand future leaders in a thousand industries. I see a thousand losers.
"You're upset. That's understandable. After all, how can I, Larry Ellison, college dropout, have
the audacity to spout such heresy to the graduating class of one of the nation's most prestigious
institutions? I'll tell you why. Because I, Lawrence "Larry" Ellison, second richest man on the
planet, am a college dropout, and you are not.
"Because Bill Gates, richest man on the planet is a college dropout, and you are not.
"Because Paul Allen, the third richest man on the planet, dropped out of college and you did not.
"And for good measure, because Michael Dell, No. 9 on the list and moving up fast, is a college
dropout, and you, yet again, are not.“
Oh sure, you may, perhaps, work your way up to No. 10 or No. 11, like Steve Ballmer. But then, I
don't have to tell you who he really works for, do I? And for the record, he dropped out of grad
school. Bit of a late bloomer."
"Finally, I realize that many of you, and hopefully by now most of you, are wondering, 'Is there
anything I can do? Is there any hope for me at all?' Actually, no. It's too late. You've absorbed too
much, think you know too much. You're not 19 anymore. You have a built-in cap, and I'm not
referring to the mortar boards on your heads."
20
Are leaders born or made?
Leadership traits and skills
Quality/behavior
Immutable
(trait)
Learnable
(skill)
Passion, commitment
Med
Med
Aggressiveness/toughness
Hi
Med
Energy
Hi
Lo
Extroversion
Hi
Lo-med
Empathy, sensitivity, “emotional intelligence”
Med
Med
Confidence
Lo
Hi
Cognitive intelligence
Hi
Lo
Networking/team-building ability
Med
Med
Genius/imagination
Hi
Lo
Charm, smoothness
Hi
Med
Eccentricity, zaniness
Hi
Lo
Public speaking skills
Med
Med
Physical features (voice, height, looks, gender)
Hi
Lo
21
Tom Peters on gender differences
“AS LEADERS, WOMEN
RULE: New Studies find
that female managers
outshine their male
counterparts in almost
every measure”
22
Title, Special Report, Business Week, 11.20.00
More Tom Peters on gender differences
Women’s Stuff = New Economy Match
Improv skills
Relationship-centric
Less “rank consciousness”
Self determined
Trust sensitive
Intuitive
Natural “empowerment freaks” [less
threatened by strong people]
Intrinsic [motivation] > Extrinsic
23
Charlotte Beers’ leadership style
Charlotte Beers is known for sweeping theatrically into client meetings. Even
before hellos are exchanged, she'll drawl to the group, "Now, you're gonna give
us this business today, aren't you?" To most men, she's beguiling. Sears CEO
Arthur Martinez, an Ogilvy client, says, "I think a lot of male-female business
relationships get stilted. What I like so much about Charlotte is that you can
have fun with her." Beers' former colleague BBDO International President
Jean-Michel Goudard says, "Charlotte, more than anyone in this business,
wants to seduce. There's something deep about Charlotte, and also frivolous.
She is a woman, a woman, a woman."
It is the women, the women, the women who knock her style. Some say she
sets feminism back years. "The criticism really ticks me off," says Beers, who
comes across in an interview as intimate, incisive, tough, funny, and a decade
younger than her 61 years. A cowboy's daughter from southeast Texas, she first
learned to dazzle the crowd when she was in her 20s, teaching algebra to oilpatch engineers. Beers reckons that Southern charm is simply smart business.
"Yes, I call CEOs 'honey,' but to me, that's wry Texas humor," she says. "I'm
likely to say the most outrageous thing in the room--to liven things up."
--Fortune, 1966: “Women, sex, and power”
24
How to find and build leadership
• Selection: (recruit and promote on leadership traits & skills: avoid the
“Peter Principle”)
• Socialization: conditions that breed leadership
• Formal organization
• Structure: (divisional vs. functional;
horizontal vs. hierarchical)
• Appraisal and reward systems
• Measure outcomes, not process
• Reward risk-taking, entrepreneurship
• Culture and networks (strong, rich, entrepreneurial)
• Socialization and training
--mentoring by role models
--training in communication and listening skills
--team-building and role-playing
25
Leadership is hard to come by when the
informal organization is undeveloped
• Weak/fragmented culture
– Lack of shared values & perceptions
• Weak networks
– Low trust & reciprocity
– Low density & connectivity
• Negative politics
But that makes it all the more important
• The leader’s task is to create the context
• Strong cultures usually originate with visionary leaders
26
Heroic and developmental (postheroic) leadership
Heroic Leaders
Developmental Leaders
• Are very high-impact
• Become an icon for the
organization
• Create a huge gulf between
leader and follower
• Put followers in awe of the
great (wo)man.
• May foster high trust but also
low sharing
• Appropriate most responsibility
and accountability for outcomes
• Disempower followers
• Stay behind-the-scenes; do not hog
the limelight
• Increase subordinates’ awareness of
the importance of their tasks and of
doing them well.
• Share responsibility and encourage
ownership
– “strategic humility”
• Foster teamwork
• Direct subordinates by sharing
vision
• Support subordinates in taking risks
27
Are American executives excessively
prone to “heroic” leadership?
•
American individualism leads to attribution bias
•
American obsession with celebrities
– The U. S. business press fixates on leaders
•
Sky-high executive compensation in the U. S.
motivates heroic styles of leadership
28
Is Michael Dell a heroic leader?
Insiders say Mr. Dell continues to set a gung-ho tone at the
company. His 2 a.m. e-mail messages and notes scribbled on
pages torn from magazines remind employees that their boss
works as if he is running a start-up. "If Michael weren't as
involved, I'd worry. There's no one who can make that company
run like Michael," says Doug MacGregor, a former Dell vice
president who is now a researcher at Harvard Business School.
Wall Street Journal, August 31, 2000
29
Is Steve Jobs’ a heroic leader?
“But with so much of its future resting on the
power--and instincts--of one person, Apple is
vulnerable. What if Jobs gets distracted or falls
off his game?”
From “Yes, Steve, you fixed it. Congrats! Now
what's Act Two?” (Business Week, July 31, 2000)
30
Was Jack Welch a heroic leader?
This is face-to-face with Jack, not so much as the celebrated chairman and
chief executive of GE, the company he has made the most valuable in the
world, but rather as Professor Welch, coach and teacher to 71 high-potential
managers attending a three-week development course.
In this classroom, where Welch has appeared more than 250 times in the past
17 years to engage some 15,000 GE managers and executives, something
extraordinary happens. The legendary chairman of GE, the take-no-prisoners
tough guy who gets results at any cost, becomes human. His slight stutter, a
handicap that has bedeviled him since childhood, makes him oddly vulnerable.
The students see all of Jack here: the management theorist, strategic thinker,
business teacher, and corporate icon who made it to the top despite his
working-class background. No one leaves the room untouched.
If leadership is an art, then surely Welch has proved himself a master painter.
Few have personified corporate leadership more dramatically.
Business Week May 28, 1998
31
Roles in teams: leaders & followers
A definition of teamwork: leader and follower roles rotate
smoothly and continuously among the members of a group
Leadership roles in teams
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Ask questions
Get the group to solve problems
Promote real participation
Help resolve conflict
Train others
Positive reinforcement
Encourage high performance goals
Encourage self-evaluation
Tell the truth, even when it’s disagreeable
Liaison with higher management
32
Transitioning from “heroic” leadership
to developmental leadership
L
L
L
= Leader
Mature
L
Experienced
Transitional
L
Start - up
C. Manz & H. Sims
Business Without Bosses
John Wiley, 1993
33
Effective leadership in a
dysfunctional team
• Adopt a Socratic leadership style
• Attack data and logic, not persons
• Don’t polarize others in group
against you
• Remain calm
• Don’t reveal an explicit position
that can be attacked – appear
neutral
34
Takeaway Points
• Leadership is:
– Personalistic, charismatic
– Relational (requires followership/teamwork)
• Leadership consists of vision and charisma
– Crafting a vision is the easy part; selling it is hard
– Anyone can become charismatic
• Leadership requires fertile ground to fluorish
• There is no one best style of leadership
(congruence model). However:
– Heroic leadership is effective in the short run but
disempowers followers and creates succession crisis
– Developmental leadership empowers followers &
grows next-generation leaders
35
Thursday discussion
• Class reps conduct oral evaluations
• Other business; lecture tie-ups
• Charlotte Beers case
36
Preparing for the Charlotte Beers case
1. Assess Ogilyv’s problems in relation to its strategy and
environment
2. Analyze cause and effect relationships behind problems
a. Consider all the of O’s existing organizational
architecture
3. What were Charlotte’s strengths and weaknesses as a leader?
4. Critique Charlotte’s analysis of Ogilvy’s problems
5. Evaluate her approach to:
a. Crafting the brand stewardship vision
b. Communicating the vision
c. Aligning Ogilvy’s organization with the vision
6. What would you have done differently?
7. Was there real substance to “brand stewardship” or was
Charlotte just a good saleswoman?
8. How much of what Charlotte did was “leadership” and how
much of it was “management”?
37