Key Issues

in differences in leadership definitions

Leadership definitions differ according to:

- Who exerts influence

- The type of influence

- The purpose of the influence attempt

- Reason vs. emotions

Common themes in leadership definitions

• Leadership is a process (interactive)
• Leadership involves influence 
• Leadership occurs in groups
• Leadership includes attention to goals

What is Leadership?

Leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives.

Leadership vs. Management

Fiedler: No need for distinction

("Leadership is the part of management that deals with the direction and supervision of subordinates")

Kotter: Different Functions

(Management produces order and consistency; Leadership produces change and movement)

Rost: Leadership is not simply good management

("Scholars do not have to glamorize management by associating it with lleadership...It should be highly valued for what it is.")

Three considerations:

1. What is the criterion of interest?
2. Is the focus on immediate or delayed outcomes?
3. Effectiveness from whose perspective?

3 Main questions:

1. What Kind of leadership variable is being studied?
2. At what level of analysis is that theory focused?
3. From which perspective is leadership being examined?

Types of Variables studied:

Major Research Approaches

• Trait
• Behavioral
• Power-influence
• Situational
• Integrative 

Leadership Research: Levels of Analysis

• Intra- Individual
• Dyadic (leader influencing another person
• Group Unit
• Organizational

2 Perspectives

Leader Centered (focus on person in leader role)

Follwer Centered

Leadership Reaserach

2 additional issues

• Descriptive (what they do) vs. Prescriptive (what effective leaders do)
• Universal vs. Contingency (situational)

Yukl's summary (observations, diaries, & interviews):

• Pace of work is hectic and unrelenting
• Content of work is varied and fragmented
• Many activities are reactive
• Interactions often involve peers and outsiders
• Interactions typically involve oral communication
• Decision processes are disorderly and political
• most planing is informal and adaptive

Purpose: To understand which duties/roles are critical for leadership effectiveness

2 Methods for data collection

Survey: Managerial Position Description Questionnaire (MPDQ)

Observation: Mintzberg's Managerial Roles

• Supervising
• Planning and Organizing
• Decision Making
• Monitoring Indicators
• Controlling
• Representing
• Coordinating
• Consulting
• Administering

Mintzberg's Managerial Roles

Interpersonal roles (interacting w/other people)

Mintzberg's Managerial Roles

Information processing Roles

1. Monitor- seeking information from different sources
2. Disseminator -Passing info to subordinates
3. Spokesperson- taking info from workgroup and passing info to outsiders

1. Entrepreneur- change, how to do things better
2. Disturbance handler- how to address problems
3. Resource Allocator- Where to put resources
4. Negotiator - Working with others

Mintzberg's Managerial Roles 

depends on......

Situational factors- What Matters?

• level of management 
• size of organizational unit
• lateral interdependence - level of dependence between organizational subunits
• crisis situations
• stage in organizational life cycle

• Demands - what managers have to do

• Constraints - limitations on what managers can do

• Choices - what you can do but not required to do

• Not up to date
• Often addresses what is most prevalent, not what is most effective
• Manager perceptions of importance may not be correct
• Research on effective managers doesn't always compare to ineffective managers

Trait Approach 

Basic assumption

People have certain characteristics that make them likely to become leaders or be effective leaders

Any of a number of individual attributes that include personality needs, temperament motives, or values

The ability to do something in an effective manner

3 types:

1. Technical Skills- ex: plumber, electrician
2. Interpersonal - interact w/ other people
3. Conceptual - logic, critical thinking

who: MC Clelland

Freudian roots

Measurements via projective test ex: Roarche Test (INK) - snapshot of picture,look at it for 1 min then tell a story about pic *use this to rate ppl on these 3 motives

3 Motives

• need for power (nPow)
• need for achievement(nAch)
• need for affiliation (nAff)

Before: Abstract personality, general intelligence

Now: Specigic traits, Skills relevant for certan situations

Before: Limited methods, cross-sectional

Now: Assessment centers (used in hiring, expensive), critical incidents (asking ppl to think of situation & how they handled it & what was outcome), longitudinal methods

• High energy level and stress tolerance
• Self-Confidence
• Internal locus of control
• Emotional Stability and Maturity 
• Personal Integrity
• Power Motivation- high socialization
• Achievement Motivation- Moderate- High
• Need for affiliation- relatively low
• achieve

Big 5 Personality

5 dimensions:

OCEAN

1. Openness to Experience (intelligence) 
2. Conscientiousness(responsibility,being organized).
3. Extraversion 
4. Agreeableness
5. Neuroticism (adjustment,emotional stability)

Here are the results from  Judge et al's recent meta-analysis (Aug. 2002):

• Strongest appears to be extraversion
• openness to experience and conscientiousness also had significant positive relationships
• Agreeableness was less relevant
• Neuroticism had significant negative relationship

Definition:The ability and traits related to organizing and emotions in ourselves and others

Who: Goleman (father of emotional intelligence)

5 components

1. Self Awareness
2. Self Regulation (think before act)
3. Motivation
4. Empathy
5. Social Skills

What skills are needed depends on what level of management you focus on.

Top levels: An emphasis on conceptual skills

Lower Levels: An emphasis on Technical skills

Strengths

1. Intuitively appealing
2. Long History
3. Deeper understanding of leader aspect of leadership
4. Possible uses of selection
5. Not useful for training and development

Weaknesses

1. No defenitive list of traits
2. Failure to account for situations
3. Traits can be too abstract to be useful
4. Failure to relate to other leader outcomes
5. Not useful for training and development

The Future of Trait Approach 

ideas of packages or patterns of traits........ and ballance

Packages/Patterns- each person has pattern or trait

Balance - Curvilinear relationships

           = difficult    *Balance having certain traits

Situational factors - graph shows y is effectiveness x is trait 

graphs line increases from 0,0 then goes up and proceeds to make a curve. (like a candy cane sort of)

The Behavior Approach

Stogdill's Review

Paradigm Shift - From traits to behavior

Its not who the leader is but what the leader does

Early behavior theory based on Maslow's hierarchy needs (pyramid)

• Self-actualization
• Esteem
• Social
• Safety/Secure (steady employment)
• physiological  (basic needs:water,air,food)

• The "conventional view"
• Goal is to get things done by directing and controlling subordinates
• Assumptions:

-People are lazy, lack ambition, and dislike responsibility

-People are self Centered and indifferent to the good of the organization

-People don't like change

• The egg came before the chicken...
• Focus on fulfilling worker's higher order needs
• Assumptions:

-People are NOT passive and lazy by  nature- management has made them  that way

-People want to grow and develop, to  assume responsibility, and to reach  goals.

-It's managements job to create the  right conditions for people to grow,  develop, and meet their goals.

Very influential early questionnaire research (1950's)

LBDQ Development

• LBDQ= Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire
• Goal= to measure what leaders do
• 1800 behavioral examples (created survey with 1800 items)
• Reduce to 150 items
• Administered LBDQ to diverse sample of jobs (Air Force Commanders, U.S. Naval Offices, Executives)
• Responses subjected to a Factor Analysis
• 2 Relatively Independent dimensions Emmereged

• Consideration (C) (relationship side of things)

-The Degree to which a leader acts in a friendly and supportive manner, shows concern for subordinates, and looks out for their welfare

• Initiating Structure (IS)

-The degree to which a leader defines and structures his/her own role and the roles of subordinates toward attainment of the group's formal goals.

Research Findings: 

• Consideration predicts "human outcomes":absenteeism, turnover, OCBs (Organization Citizenship Behavior), job satisfaction
• Initiating Structure: No consistent results

Research question: What differences are there between effective and ineffective managers?

Sample: Variety of Sources in field Settings

Method: Interviews and Questionnaires:

Likert's summary/analysis

3 behaviors distinguished: 

1. Task-oriented (ex:planing,organizing workers)
2. Relationship-Oriented
3. Participative (decision making, communicating w/subordinates) *distinctive factor from Ohio study

1. Questionnaire data collection Method

• Item interpretation
• Retrospective accounts
• Rater Errors

2. What about other methods?

• Observation
• Critical Incidents

3. Research Design

• Data Source
• Cross-sectional design
• Causality?

4. Curvilinear relationships?

     Fleishman &Harris

Y axis=turnover rate, X axis = consideration 

Graph shows you do not need high consideration tohave low turover rate, avoid low levels of consideration

Overcoming limitations

Leadership Research

• Through Survey development process
• Field Research with different data collection methods and/or different sources
• Experimental research, Lab Research...

Managerial Grid

Blake & Mouton

• Builds on Ohio State findings (consideration and initiating structure)
• Concern for people (relationship) and concern for production (task oriented)
• High High Hypothesis - Being high in concern for people and concern for production is MOST effective style

Major Categories in Blake & Mouton's 

Managerial Grid

The Managerial Grid is based on two behavioral dimensions:

• Concern for People - This is the degree to which a leader considers the needs of team members, their interests, and areas of personal development when deciding how best to accomplish a task
• Concern for Production - This is the degree to which a leader emphasizes concrete objectives, organizational efficiency and high productivity when deciding how best to accomplish a task.

[image]

Country Club Leadership - High People/Low Production

Produce or Perish Leadership - High Production/Low People

Impoverished Leadership - Low Production/ Low People

Middle-of-the-Road Leadership - Medium Production/Medium People

Team Leadership - High Production/High People BEST

T =Task-Oriented

R =Relationship-Oriented

C =Change-Oriented

• Based on behavioral claims that there is no best way to organize a corporation, to lead a company, or to make decisions.
• An organization/decision making leadership style that is effective, may not be successful in other situations 
• Style of choice depends on many internal and external factors

Developed by Hersey & Blanchard

Leadership pattern changes depending on follower maturity:

• Job maturity
• Psychological Maturity

• Subordinates are motivated by a leader only to the extent they percieve this individual as helping them to attain valued goals
• Leaders role is to clarify the follower's path to their goals (clarifying what followers need to do to get where they should be and removing any obstacles in the way)
• Main contributor: House

Path-Goal Theory

Based on Expectancy Theory (VIE)

• Valence   :  Outcome  Satisfaction
• Instrumentality :  Performance  Outcome
• Expectancy:  Effort  Performance

Path-Goal Theory 

Leader behaviors, subordinate characteristics, task & environment characteristics

Leader behaviors

• Supportive leadership
• Directive leadership
• participative leadership
• Achievement- oriented  leadership

Subordinate characteristics

• Need for affiliation
• Need for structure
• Ability/ Experience

Task & Environment Characteristics

• Design of task
• Formal Authority System
• Primary work group characteristics

Path-Goal Theory

Strengths and weakneses

Strengths

• Useful framework
• Integrates motivation and leadership
• Practical message

Weaknesses

• Complex and confusing
• Only partial empirical support
• Conceptual problems with expectancy  theory
• Leader behaviors
  • too broad
  • only considered independently

Developed by Kerr & Jermier

Basic idea: Leader behavior is irrelevant in some situations

Substitutes & neutralizers

• A Substitute replaces the need for leadership
• A  neutralizer erases the effectiveness of leadership

Leadership dimensions

• Supportive leadership
• Instrumental leadership

Intervening variables (implicit):

• Role clarity
• Task motivation

Three categories of situational variables

• subordinate characteristics

 -example: indifference towards rewards

• Task characteristics

- example: structured, routine task

• Group or Organization_characteristics

- example: cohesive work group

Leadership Substitute Theory 

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths:

• Not typical  leadership model
• Consistent with shared leadership idea
• More balance approach to understanding group performance

Weaknesses:

• Not enough empirical research
• Needs more explicit casual processes

Difficult to develop testable hypothesis

Theories vary in…

• whether they consider leader traits
• what leader behaviors  they consider
• the variety of situational variables
• whether intervening variables are included

Not enough research

Complexity inhibits application