LEADERSHIP (1)

Hermione McIntosh

Learning outcomes:

By the end of this session you will be able to:

• discuss the distinction between management and leadership

• evaluate various approaches to classical leadership

Leadership

Handout on leadership definitions Which definition do you like best and why?

Are there any common themes in the definitions?

‘[There are] almost as many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept’ Stogdill (1974, p.259).

Relationship between

management and leadership

Management is about:

• path following

• doing things right

• planning & budgeting

• controlling & problem solving

Leadership is about:

• path finding

• doing right things

• establishing direction

• motivating & inspiring

‘For clarity of goals and direction, managers need leaders. For indispensable help in reaching goals, leaders need managers’ (Burke, 1986, p.68)

‘I have never been fond of distinguishing between leadership and management: they overlap and you need both qualities’ (Fullan, 2001, p.2)

(Rajan, 2000)

Management and leadership are often inextricably linked

Mintzberg’s (1973) Managerial Roles

Interpersonal

Roles

Figurehead

Leader

Liaison

Informational

Roles

Monitor

Disseminator

Spokesperson

Decisional Roles

Entrepreneur

Disturbance

Handler

Resource Allocator

Negotiator

Formal Authority and Status

Schools of thought on leadership

• Great man theory and traits approach (qualities approach)

• Functional/skills approach

• Style/behavioural approach

• Contingency approach

• Situational approach

• Transformational vs transactional leadership

• Inspirational leadership

• Authentic leadership

• Distributed leadership

This week (wk 9)

Next week (wk 10)

Great man theory (Sadler, 2003)

• Attention focuses on great men and women leaders in history and on their personalities, on the assumption that the route to becoming an effective leader was to study their lives and emulate them.

• Identify some great leaders.

• Limitations: – Most great leaders in history display widely different qualities

– Ability to copy is problematic

Leadership

How can the term ‘leader’ be applied to such a diverse set of personality traits, whose actions have had a range of consequences?

Integrity

Justice

Enthusiasm

Bearing

Endurance

Unselfishness

Loyalty

Judgement

Initiative

Dependability

Decisiveness

Courage

Knowledge

Traits Approach

• Assumes leaders are born not made.

• Leadership consists of certain inherited characteristics or personality traits

• Abandons the attempt to link leadership qualities with particular individuals and involves listing a number of traits which are believed in general to relate to effective leadership (Sadler, 2003).

• ‘Leadership is of utmost importance. Indeed there is no substitute for it. But leadership cannot be created or

promoted. It cannot be taught or learned’ (Drucker, 1955).

Trait Spotting (Stogdill, 1974)

• strong drive for responsibility • focus on completing the task • vigour and persistence in

pursuit of goals • ventursomeness and

originality in problem solving • drive to exercise initiative in

social settings • self-confidence • sense of personality identity

• willingness to accept consequences of decisions and actions

• readiness to absorb interpersonal stress

• willingness to tolerate frustration and delay

• ability to influence the behaviour of others

• capacity to structure social systems to the purpose in hand

Limitations of traits approach

• Raises the question: whether leaders are born or made – but these are not mutually exclusive alternatives.

• What is effective leadership? Subjective?

• ‘…the list of possible traits tend to be very long and there is not always agreement on the most important’ (Mullins, 2010, p. 377).

• ‘Although an enormous number of studies have been conducted over the past 100 years, the findings … have been ambiguous and uncertain at times’ (Northouse, 2010, p. 26).

• Ignores the situational factors

• But ….

Major leadership traits (Northouse,

2010)

• intelligence

• self-confidence

• determination

• integrity

• sociability

Functional Approach

• Focuses attention, not on the personality of the leader, but on the content (functions) of leadership

• Leadership is viewed in terms of how the leader’s behaviour affects, and is affected by, the followers (Mullins, 2010)

• Skills of leadership can be learnt

• ‘Successful companies actively seek out people with leadership potential and expose them to career experiences designed to develop that potential’ (Kotter, 1990)

Model of primary leadership skills (Northouse, 2012)

Core Leadership

Skills

Being Socially Perceptive

Showing Emotional Intelligence

Managing Interpersonal

Conflict

Problem Solving

Strategic Planning

Creating Visions

Managing People

Managing Resources

Showing Technical

Competence

Style/Behavioural Approach

• Early styles identified as: autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire.

• Focuses attention on the kinds of behaviour of people in leadership positions

• Two key projects: – Michigan studies

– Ohio studies

Michigan studies (Katz and Kahn, 1951)

Identified two dimensions of leadership:

Concern for people

(employee orientation)

Concern for task

(production orientation)

Ohio State Leadership Studies (Fleishman, 1953; Fleishman and Harris, 1962)

• Identified two categories of leadership behaviour

– ‘consideration’ – relationships- and needs-orientated

– ‘initiating structure’ – leader’s behaviour emphasises production, leader decides what should be done and assigns tasks

Ohio State leadership theory predictions (cited by Buchanan & Huczynski, 2010)

Initiating Structure

Co

nsid

era

tio

n

High

High

Low

Low

High performance

Few grievances

Low turnover

Low performance

Few grievances

Low turnover

High performance

Many grievances

High turnover

Low performance

Many grievances

High turnover

Likert’s ‘attitude toward man’ (1961 cited by Buchanan & Huczynski, 2010))

System 1: exploitative autocratic

• has no confidence & trust in subordinates

• imposes decisions, never delegates

• motivates by threat

• has little communication & teamwork

System 2: benevolent authoritative

• has superficial, condescending trust in subordinates

• imposes decisions, never delegates

• motivates by reward

• sometimes involves subordinates in solving problems

System 3: participative

• has incomplete confidence & trust in subordinates

• listens to subordinates but controls decision-making

• motivates by reward & some involvement

• uses ideas & opinions of subordinates constructively

System 4: democratic

• has complete confidence & trust in subordinates

• allows subordinates to make decisions for themselves

• motivates by reward for achieving goals set by participation

• shares ideas & opinions

Blake & Mouton‘s Managerial Grid (1964,

1978)

Leadership Continuum (Tannenbaum

and Schmidt, 1958 reprinted in 1973)

Subordinate centred leadership

Boss centred leadership

Use of authority by

manager

Area of freedom for subordinates

Manager makes decision & announces it

Manager ‘sells’ decision

Manager presents ideas & invites questions

Manager presents tentative decision subject to change

Manager presents problem, gets suggestions, makes decision

Manager defines limits, asks group to make decision

Manager permits subordinates to function within limits defined by superior

Should a manager be democratic or

autocratic–or something in between? (Tannenbaum & Schmidt, 1958 cited by Buchanan and Huczynski, 2010, p. 610)

• No one best way, depends on:

– forces in the manager (personality, values, preferences, beliefs about employee participation, confidence in subordinates)

– forces in the subordinates (need for independence, tolerance of ambiguity, knowledge of the problem, expectations of involvement)

– forces in the situation (organizational norms, size and location of work groups, effectiveness of teamworking, nature of the problem)

Contingency theory of leadership

• ‘Leaders must adjust their style in a manner consistent with aspects of context’ (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2010, p. 610).

Fiedler’s contingency theory – (1967,

Fiedler and Chemers, 1974, 1984 cited in Buchanan and Huczynski, 2010, pp. 610-612)

• leadership effectiveness is influenced not just by leadership orientation but also by:

• the extent to which the task is structured

• the leader’s position power

• the nature of the relationships between the leader and followers

The low LPC leader The high LPC leader

Self-esteem based on task completion

Put the task first

Is hard on those who fail

Considers competence a key attribute

Likes details

Self-esteem based on interpersonal relationships

Puts people first

Likes to please others

Considers loyalty a key attribute

Is bored with detail

Fiedler’s contingency theory

• When the situation is:

– very favourable (good leader-member relations, structured task, strong position power) or

– very unfavourable (poor leader-member relations, unstructured task, weak position power)

• TASK ORIENTED LEADER (low LPC score) with a directive, controlling style will be more effective

Fiedler’s contingency theory

• When the situation is: – moderately favourable (moderately good

leader-member relations, task is unstructured, leader’s position power is low)

• a leader with an interpersonal relationship orientation and a PARTICIPATIVE APPROACH will be more effective (high LPC)

Fiedler’s contingency theory

• Confirms the importance of contextual/situational factors

• Recognises no one ideal set of traits or best behavioural pattern

• Helps managers develop self-awareness of their leadership style

• Recognises difficulties managers have in changing their styles

• Thus to be effective leader have to change their context – choosing conditions in which their preferred style is most likely to be effective

(Buchanan and Huczynski, 2010, p. 612)

Situational leadership

• Leadership is specific to the situation in which it is being exercised

• Effective leader must be good diagnosticians and adapt their style to meet the demands of the situation in which they operate (Hersey and Blanchard 1988)

• Leaders can and should adopt their style to fit the situation

Situational Leadership Model (Hersey

& Blanchard, 1988)

Goleman’s Six Leadership Styles

• Coercive Style “Do what I tell you”

• Authoritative Style “Come with me”

• Affiliative Style “People come first”

• Democratic Style “What do you think?”

• Pacesetting Style “Do as I do, now”

• Coaching Style “Try this”

(Goleman, 2000)

“The most effective leaders switch flexibly among the

leadership styles as needed. Leaders who have mastered

four or more….have the best climate and business

performance”

Summary • Leadership has many different meanings

• There are clear differences between leaders and managers, but the two constructs overlap

• Trait theories of leadership postulate common qualities or characteristics of effective leaders, but are these qualities inherited or acquired?

• Functional approach argues that leadership skills can be learnt

• Style/behavioural approach focuses attention on the kinds of behaviour of people in leadership positions and the three main styles are autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire.

• Contingency approach argues that leaders must adjust their style to take into account aspects of the context

• Situational leadership determines the most effective style of influencing, considering the direction and support a leader gives and the readiness of followers to perform the task.

Reference list

Blake, R.R. and Mouton, J.S. 1964. The managerial grid. Houston: Gulf Publishing Company. Blake, R.R. and Mouton J.S. 1978. The new managerial grid. Houston: Gulf Publishing Company. Buchanan, D. and Huczynski, A. 2010. Organizational behaviour. 7th ed. Harlow: Pearson/FT Prentice Hall. Burke, W.W. 1986. Leadership as empowering others. In S. Srivasta and Associates (eds). Executive power: how executives influence people and organisations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Drucker, P. 1955. The practice of management. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Fleishman, E.A. 1953. The description of supervisory behaviour. Journal of Applied Psychology. 37 (1) pp.1-6. Fleishman, E.A. and Harris, E. F. 1962. Patterns of leadership behaviour related to employee grievances and turnover. Personnel Psychology. 15 (1) pp. 43-56. Fullan, M. 2001. Leading in a Culture of Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Katz, D. and Kahrn, R.L. 1951. Human organization and worker motivation. In L.R. Tripp (ed.) Industrial Psychology. Madison: Industrial Relations Research Association.

Reference list Goleman, D. 2000. Leadership that gets results. Harvard Business Review. 78 (2) pp. 78-90. Hersey, P. and Blanchard, K.H. 1988. Management of organizational behavior: utilizing human resources. 5th ed. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. Kotter, J.P. 1990. A force for change: how leadership differs from management. New York: The Free Press. Mintzberg, H. 1973. The nature of managerial work. New York: Harper-Row. Mullins, L. J. 2010. Management & organisational behaviour. 9th ed. Harlow: Pearson/FT Prentice Hall. Northouse, P.G. 2010. Leadership: theory and practice. 5th ed. London: Sage Publications. Northouse, P.G. 2012. Introduction to leadership concepts and practice. London: Sage. Rajan, A. 2000. Does management development fail to produce leaders? Tonbridge: Centre for Research in Employment and Technology in Europe. Sadler, P. 2003. Leadership. 2nd ed. London: Kogan Page. Stogdill, R.M. 1974. Handbook of leadership: a survey of theory and research. New York: New York Press Tannenbaum, R. and Schmidt, W.H. 1958. How to choose a leadership pattern. Harvard Business Review. 36 (2) pp. 95-102 (reprinted in May-June 1973).