RECENT THEORIES OF
LEADERSHIP
SEARCH FOR EXCELLENT

Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman’s In Search of Excellent
(1982). The basic theme of this body of work is familiar-to
succeed leaders must attend to both the hard and soft
components of the organization (the tasks and the people). The
eight attributes of successful leadership are as below.
Bias For Action.
1.

A preference for doing something-anything-rather than sending an idea
through endless cycles of analyses and committee reports.
Staying Close To The Customer
2.

Learning customer preference and catering to them.
Autonomy And Entrepreneurship
3.

Breaking the corporation into small companies and encouraging them
to think independently and competitively
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
Productivity Through People


Hands-on, Value-driven


Creating in all employees the awareness that their best efforts are essential
and that they will share in the rewards of the company's success.
Insisting that executives keep in touch with the firm’s essential business
and promote a strong corporate culture
Stick To The Knitting

Remaining with the businesses the company knows best

Simple Form, Learn Staff
 Few administrative layers, few people at the upper levels.

Simultaneous Loose-tight Properties
 Fostering a climate in which there is dedication to the central
values of the company combined with tolerance for innovation
from all employees who accept those values
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Source: attributes of leadership as specified from In Search of Excellent

Peters promotes the importance of organizations being
responsive to customer needs and supporting
experimentation, initiative, and risk taking to accomplish
goals and satisfy highly visible customers.

The research stresses the importance of rich, in-formal
communication, open forums, management by walking
around(MBWA), positive reinforcement, better listening,
constancy of innovation, and responsiveness to customer
and employees. Mistakes are always viewed as progress,
although they must be identified and corrected quickly.
Peter’s message is listening, trust, respect, and innovation.
Leaders must love change (instead of fighting it) and instill
and share an inspiring vision.
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THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE
PEOPLE (STEVEN R COVEY BOOK 1989)
 Habit

Take the initiative, responding and making things
happen. Realize you have freedom to choose, be aware of
self, develop knowledge and integrity in choice.
 Habit

1: Be Proactive.
2: Begin with the End in Mind
Start with an image or paradigm of the end in mind.
Have a clear understanding of where you are going,
where you are, and what it is going to take to get the
destination. Leadership comes first.
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 Habit

Practice effective self-management day in and day out.
Discipline comes from within and is measured by
personal integrity. All truly successful people make
present decisions that help achieve desired outcomes.
Organize your time and tie weekly goals to your
principles, priorities, and vision.
 Habit

3: Put First Things First
4: Think Win/Win
Have a frame of mind that always seeks to have all
parties feel as though they have won-the benefits to be
mutually shared. All parties feel good about decisions
made and are committed to the plan of action.
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Cooperation is the key.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then Be Understood


Habit 6: Synergize


Practice empathetic listening skills so th at you understand other
people from their frame of reference. Listen with not only ears, but with
eyes and hearts. Then, present your ideas logically, clearly, specifically,
and in the context of understanding the other person.
Create new alternatives. Leave your comfort zones to confront new and
unknown challenges. Value differences, respect them, and use them to
build on strengths. Discard old scripts, and write new one. You are
limited only by your own imagination. Develop unity and creativity
with others. Unleash new powers, create new, exciting alternatives.
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Take time to preserve the most important asset-yourself. Take time to
minister to your own physical, mental, social/emotional, and spiritual
needs. Leading people requires a tremendous amount of energy. Make
a constant effort to manage health needs. Model good self-help
technique. Convince others that they are valued and should valued
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others. Enjoy and celebrate accomplishment.
THE LEARNING ORGANIZATION

The “learning organization” concept developed by Peter Senge (1990) is
a generative process that enhances and extends an organization’s ability
to create. The concept of responsiveness is an important organizational
behavior, but the real payoffs come from being generative. Clarify what
is important by continually learning how to see the current reality more
clearly and developing abilities to move beyond it. This new learned
knowledge permeates the organization and gives coherence to diverse
activities. A shared vision provides the focus and energy for learning
and creates commitment (not compliance). Commitment to the vision
fosters risk taking and experimentation. It is central to the daily work
of those within the organization.

Effective leaders help their employees to understand the systematic
forces that shape change and to see current reality. Effective leaders
instill the confidence in their employees that together “We can learn
whatever we need to learn in order to achieve the results we truly
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desire” (Senge, 1990. p. 399)
TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM)

Edward Deming (1986,1991,1993), the father of TQM,
stated, “Workers are responsible for only 15% of the
problems, the system for the other 85%”. He then added
that the system is the responsibility of management. The
heart of Deming’s approach to improving the organization
is teamwork and collaboration among managers and
workers. The leader provides core values, consistency of
purpose, information, support, training, integration,
common language, continuing feedback, improved
systems, alignment, integrity, time, trust, and resources.
Employees are responsible for improving themselves and
the work process in such a way that the outcomes of the
organization continuously improve.
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
TQM applied to education includes commitment to
aims and purpose, a shared common vision;
accountability and testing designed to improve and
reduce cost; continuous improvement of schools;
developmental plans and training for all employees;
and, the development of leadership and pride in what
employees do. Fear is eliminated so that people feel
free to ask questions, take a stand, make suggestions,
experiment, and take risks. Leaders must build the
culture within the organization to support the
needed transformation.

Deming provides a number of statistical models and
theories to organize and present information in order
to improve and streamline communication, such as
action plan, brainstorming, cause and effect analysis,
flowchart, histogram etc.
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SCHOOL-BASED MANAGEMENT (SBM)


School-based or site –based leadership follows many of the same
principles as total quality leadership. It empowers staff to create
condition in schools that facilitate improvement, innovation,
and continuous professional growth (David, 1989). It gives the
school principal and professional staff members the widest
possible latitude in sustaining efforts to continuously improve
the effectiveness of the teaching and learning process. Teachers
would be encouraged to introduce improvements that directly
affect teaching and learning and that require genuine authority
over budget, personnel, curriculum, instruction, and program
evaluations.
The probability to success is increase when school staff have time
to acquire new knowledge and skill. Participants are rewarded
for the progress they make towards the shared goals and vision.11
CULTURAL LEADERSHIP
 Schein
(1985) suggest that the most important
thing that leaders do is help shape an effective
culture in which people will complete their work.
In fact, culture is often defined as “the way we do
things around here”. Deal and Kennedy (1982)
suggest that culture gives meaning to work,
providing an understanding of how the
organization moves from desired values and
outcomes to work performance and finally to
actual results. It is the internal system of
organizational integration. Lee G. Bolman and
Terrence E. Deal (1991) believe that;
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


Culture is both product and process. As product, it
embodies the accumulated wisdom of those who
were members before we came. As process, it is
continually renewed and recreated and new
members are taught the old ways and eventually
become teachers themselves.
Our view is that every organization develops
distinctive beliefs and patterns over time. Many of
these patterns and assumptions are unconscious or
taken for granted. They are reflected in myths, fairy
tales, stories, rituals, ceremonies, and others
symbolic forms. Managers who understand the
power of symbols have a better chance of influencing
organizations than do those who focus only on other
frames.
Perhaps the cultural glue that holds organizations together is trust.
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TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP

Burns (1978) proposed “transactional” and
“transformational”
leadership.
“Transactional”
leadership is based on defining needs, assigning clear
tasks, rewarding congruent behavior, and having a
command-and-control mentality. Followers are
willing to trust the leader because they need to have
problems solved and they believe the leader can solve
them. “Transformational” leaders develop followers,
help map new directions, mobilize resources,
facilitate and support employees, and respond to
organizational challenges. They see change as
necessary and strive to cause it.
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 Transformational
leaders create the incentives for
people to continuously improve their practices
and, thus, those of
the organization.
Transformational school leader are in continuous
pursuit of three fundamental goals:
1.
2.
3.
Helping staff members develop and maintain a
collaborative, professional school culture.
Fostering teacher development, and
Helping teachers solve problems together more
effectively
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 Transformational
leaders provide the mechanism by
which solution are transferred into subsequent
practice by building the capacity of the individuals and
the group.
 Transformational leadership is a process to shape and
elevate goals and abilities so as to achieve significant
improvements though common interest and collective
actions (Bennis & Nanus, 1985). Successful leaders
expend extraordinary efforts to achieve goals through:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Vision- knowing your desired outcomes and methods of achievement
through lots of idea development and the creation of vision
Communication- expressing your ideas through various forms of
presentation, including symbolic actions and shared meaning.
Trust-being predictable, accountable, persistent, and reliable and
having integrity.
Deployment- knowing and nurturing of strengths, compensating for
weaknesses, evaluating in relation to job requirements, and focusing on16
positive goals not problems.
EMERGING LEADERSHIP
PERSPECTIVES
Rujukan : Schermerhorn J.R., Hunt J.G., and
Osborn R.N.(2008). Organizational
Behaviour 10/E
Chapter 12
1.
Integrative Leadership



2.
Moral Leadership




3.
Full-range leadership theory (FRLT)
Shared Leadership
Cross-Cultural Leadership: Project GLOBE
strategic Leadership
Ethical Leadership
Authentic Leadership
Servant Leadership
Spiritual leadership
Change Leadership




Leaders as Change Agents
Phases of Planned Change
Planned Change Strategies
Resistance to Change
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