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9Power and Leadership

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Learning Outcomes After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

• Outline the major sources of power and principles of influence.

• Differentiate between power based on control and power based on cooperation and explain how these relate to conformity and compliance.

• Identify the four major perspectives on leadership and discuss their defining characteristics.

• Compare and contrast charismatic and transformational leadership.

• Identify the key organizational elements in which the evolution toward cooperative-power and leadership practices are most visibly expressed.

• Correlate the concept of employee empowerment to cooperative management practices in contemporary organizations.

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Introduction

Pretest

1. Self-managed teams have no need for external leadership. 2. Conformity and compliance both refer to being forced to adhere to someone else’s rules. 3. Empowered teamwork holds no real advantages over regular group work or teamwork. 4. Power and influence are the same thing. 5. Great leaders always have specific traits.

Answers can be found at the end of the chapter.

Introduction Ramon works for a large company that has recently begun to use a team-based approach for work. Most of the employees at this company are unfamiliar with the team-based approach. Because of this, many team leaders, including Ramon, have little or no idea how they should approach team leadership. Unfortunately, the organization has provided little guidance or training for team leaders and is leaving it up to them to acquire the knowledge to effectively lead their teams.

Ramon has worked at the company for 15 years and has contacts at all levels of the organization, so he was honored to be appointed team leader, despite being uncertain about how to execute his new role. Ramon begins to research leadership styles and the nature of power and influence, and he learns that he has several sources of power at his disposal. Because he was appointed team leader, he has legitimate power over his team. Because of his connections throughout the company, he also has referent power, or the ability to “borrow” authority by mentioning his connections. Additionally, his tenure at the company has made him an expert at what he does; since his knowledge is valued and shared, he also has expert and informational sources of power.

Ramon does not intend to use his power in a coercive or forceful manner; nor does he have reward power over his team, as he does not control their pay or any bonuses they may receive. This is fine with Ramon, as he does not want to force his team members to be compliant or accept his power because they have to, but rather because they choose to.

The first several months of Ramon’s leadership are difficult. The team members are trying to adjust to the new structure, and Ramon finds himself having to demand that they do certain tasks to remain on track with their goals. While Ramon is well liked by the team and is knowledgeable about their work and goals, team members are not yet choosing to follow him simply because he has power over them. In fact, Ramon has encountered a number of setbacks, including decreased productivity, and Ramon feels he must constantly monitor and nag team members to get them to complete their work. Ramon also feels that the team’s early cohesion has begun to fade; members seem to be working more as individuals and less as a team than they were just a few months ago.

Ramon does not want his team to continue down this path. He realizes he needs to cultivate his influence over his team members, rather than his power. He again turns to research and explores several avenues of influence that could be of use to him in his leadership role. Despite their flagging performance and cohesion, the team members all like Ramon, which makes them more open to his ideas and suggestions. Ramon

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Section 9.1 Power and Influence in Organizational Groups

attempts to reengage the team members in their own process by informally discussing their progress with them and soliciting ideas about how they should proceed. He then directs them to set new, more realistic performance goals and commit to achieving them together. Ramon understands that no one wants to feel like they are letting down the group, so the session works to both reset the team member’s feeling of togetherness and encourage members to follow through. Ramon also uses reciprocity to influence the team by asking about and addressing any relevant needs team members have. Ramon’s team members will feel he has given them something of value and are likely to respond in kind by following through on their tasks.

Though the team continues to struggle for a few more months, Ramon’s plan to cultivate his influence over his sources of power eventually pays off—the team members begin to monitor their own work and attend to their tasks and activities because they want to. Their problems with decreased productivity and cohesion eventually dissipate, and they are able to achieve several of their goals.

Power and leadership—the study of their origins, dynamics, and influence in groups and organizations—seem to be an ongoing source of fascination for practitioners and academics alike. In Chapter 9, we examine power relations within groups, the different perspectives on leadership, and contemporary constructs for sharing leadership. We end the section with practical lessons in group leadership. We start by examining power and influence in organizational groups.

9.1 Power and Influence in Organizational Groups Power is the ability to influence behavior and events, overcome resistance, and move people to act in ways they otherwise would not (Pfeffer, 1993; Kolb, 2011). Influence, a significant factor in any description of power, is the capacity to affect the character, development, attitudes, or behavior of people or processes. The two concepts are closely related, and at first glance may seem identical. However, there is a fundamental difference between power and influence that has a profound effect on the impact and expression of each.

A person in a position of power typically has authority over another person, whether he or she chooses to impose it or not. For instance, your manager has the authority to assign activi- ties and dictate what is (or isn’t) appropriate behavior in the workplace. An individual with influence, on the other hand, can merely encourage others to change (French & Raven, 1959). A close friend, for example, has no real authority over you but can still affect your opinions and behavior. One’s influence can range from very faint to overwhelming. Within groups, power and influence translate into the ability to:

• instigate, abolish, or transform behaviors, actions, and norms; • direct group activities and goals; • inspire conformity and compliance; and • shape member attitudes regarding approval and acceptance (Harrell & Simpson,

2016; Scheepers, Ellemers, & Sassenberg, 2013).

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Section 9.1 Power and Influence in Organizational Groups

In this section, we examine the types of power that individuals and groups can wield, where power comes from, and the basic avenues of influence group members experience and use. We also examine the nature of power and ponder a universal question: Is it better to control cooperation or inspire it?

The Accumulation of Power and Influence Power can be wielded by individual members within groups or by the group as a collective. Individuals can have power over fellow group members—for example, as a team leader or a highly regarded expert—and they can accrue power or social standing through their association with a particular group. Groups wield power through the coordinated actions of their members and the impact of those actions on others. Groups can direct their power and influence inward, upon particular members within the group, for example, when members band together to collectively reward or punish the behavior of specific members. A group majority may also exert power in the form of social pressure to get a group minority to conform or comply with a specific attitude, behavior, or course of action.

Groups can also direct their power and influence outward to affect actions, behavior, and attitudes outside of the group. In organizational groups, this is often part of their given task— for example, when a team is asked to handle a significant problem, make a key decision, or investigate and recommend a course of action such as marketing a new product. Like individuals, groups can directly or indirectly exert outward influence via their positional and personal power (Weber, 1968).

• Positional power is attached to a specific role or position assigned to an individual or group. A lieutenant in the army, for instance, has the legitimate authority to issue orders to soldiers of lower rank regardless of her character, leadership ability, or skill. Similarly, a group facilitator is accorded a certain amount of respect and authority to manage group interactions and encourage or curtail specific attitudes and behaviors within a group. A top management group also holds positional power, and as such has the authority to change and direct organizational policy and practices.

• Personal power, by contrast, is attached to the inherent qualities and attributes of an individual or group. Regardless of their position in a formal hierarchy, people who demonstrate great character, likeability, or skill may acquire personal power over those who recognize and appreciate such qualities. Successful or highly popular groups may also exert influence by inspiring others to perform or behave in ways that conform to perceived group principles, rules, or norms.

In acknowledgment of their positional or personal power, group members may be awarded formal or informal status. This is why status can both increase power and be increased by power. Next, we examine sources of power and influence.

Sources of Power and Influence Now that we have a basic grasp of who holds power and why, let’s look at where power comes from and the specific ways we influence each other. We’ll start by examining French and Raven’s six sources of power.

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Section 9.1 Power and Influence in Organizational Groups

Sources of Power In two notable studies, French and Raven (French & Raven, 1959; Raven, 1965) identified six sources of power typically found in organizations and groups: coercive, reward, legitimate, referent, expert, and informational.

1. Coercive power refers to an individual’s ability to threaten the use of force to gain compliance from another person. If a particularly intimidating foreman at a factory prevented an employee from leaving his post to take a break under the threat of force, this would constitute coercive power.

2. Reward power refers to the ability to control the rewards, including pay and bonuses as well as recognition, that another individual receives. A manager has reward power when she has the authority to decide which employees receive a bonus and/or its amount. Conversely, when managers have formal authority over their employees but lack the authority to determine their pay (such as in bureaucratic organizations where pay is determined by factors other than performance), the managers’ power is weakened unless they fortify it with another source of power.

3. Legitimate power refers to authority assigned to an individual by custom and law. In democratic societies, elected officials—such as the president of the United States—have the legal authority to exert power within the limits of their office, such as being commander in chief of the military. Individuals’ position in an organization’s formal hierarchy, often indicated by their title or rank, constitutes their legitimate power and is therefore a form of positional (as opposed to personal) power.

4. Referent power is rooted in the ability to “borrow” authority, status, and influence via affiliation or association with powerful individuals, groups, and organizations. In colloquial terms, referent power is akin to “name dropping.” An employee who invokes her personal connection with a high-ranking executive in order to solicit a favor from another employee is using referent power. Similarly, a group member uses referent power if he evokes his membership in a prestigious organization, such as an Ivy League university or an exclusive club.

5. Expert power is authority based on one’s experience and special KSAs. An engineer who fully understands the intricate design of a feature in a new product, such as the Falcon wing doors of the Tesla Model X, possesses expert power. In today’s low- hierarchy organizations, such as the dot-coms that populate Silicon Valley, expert power is becoming increasingly important. In such companies, expertise is more important than hierarchical position, and one’s hierarchical position is increasingly tied to one’s expertise. Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is well known for hiring people who have demonstrated genius expertise in narrow fields, regardless of their formal educational level. He is also known for firing engineers who fail to answer his detailed technical questions (Vance, 2015). Because expertise is independent of one’s formal position, it is a form of personal (as opposed to positional) power.

6. Informational power refers to an individual’s ability to influence others through the dissemination of knowledge. It is different from expert power in that the targets of influence understand and process the information, which alters their behavior. Expert power, by contrast, does not require others to understand the information that the expert possesses—they need only value it. A doctor may exert expert power when ordering a patient to follow a particular treatment without the patient necessarily

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Section 9.1 Power and Influence in Organizational Groups

understanding the diagnostic. The patient is therefore complying with the treatment simply because he trusts the expertise of the doctor. By contrast, if an individual decides to avoid fast food as a result of a campaign against obesity that clearly explains its negative impact on health, that individual is influenced by informational power.

French and Raven’s six sources of power represent an attempt to categorize the different ways in which we recognize and respond to power. Likewise, there are specific ways in which we exert and experience influence (Cialdini, 2009). We take a look at these next.

Avenues of Influence Influential management researcher Robert Cialdini (2009) has identified six key avenues through which one can influence another person: reciprocity, social proof, commitment and consistency, apparent authority, liking, and scarcity value. These are known as Cialdini’s six principles of influence:

1. Reciprocity refers to people’s tendency to repay in kind anything offered or provided by another person, because they feel socially obligated to achieve a mutual exchange of similar nature or value. This social norm is so universal that it is considered a central property of human culture (Gouldner, 1960; Gachter & Herrmann, 2009). The urge toward reciprocity is so strong that it can overpower dislike. Members of the Hare Krishna religious group successfully leveraged this fact beginning in the 1960s, when they used small gifts of courtesy and flowers to garner donations even from people who promptly threw the flowers away in disgust. In studying this phenomenon, Cialdini (2009) noted that this reaction was so predictable that the Hare Krishnas would periodically collect their flowers from nearby waste bins and reuse them to solicit donations from other passersby. The concept is equally successful in commercial settings, where free samples and small gifts like keychains, bags, or address labels elicit feelings of indebtedness that lead to purchases down the line.

2. Social proof refers to people’s tendency to base their actions on those of others, especially their peers. This is particularly common when an individual is uncertain about which course of action to follow. We touched on this concept in Chapter 6, when discussing social influence. Recall the Asch study in which individuals conformed to a group majority despite its clearly incorrect opinion. This is an excellent example of social proof at work and its ability to influence how we perceive and respond to the world around us.

3. Commitment and consistency refers to people’s tendency to avoid backing out of deals. This is related to the desire to present an attractive and capable self-image. Reneging on a deal creates a negative impression. In studying this phenomenon, Cialdini (2009) noted that when individuals were asked whether they would vote before an election, they all said yes—and most of them did in fact show up to vote. However, when individuals were not asked ahead of time, a much smaller percentage showed up at the polls. Therefore, getting individuals to commit to something is a way to influence them to follow up on their commitment, especially when the commitment is made in public.

4. Apparent authority refers to the general tendency to follow the lead of people in authority positions or who have the attributes of authority, such as the appropriate

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Section 9.1 Power and Influence in Organizational Groups

clothing (such as a uniform), title (such as a PhD), or credibility (such as a letter of recommendation from a respected individual). Security guards whose uniforms mimic those worn by local police encourage people to regard them as having similar authority. Likewise, a strong, clear voice stating “I’m a doctor” at an accident scene immediately directs others to listen to that authority.

5. Liking refers to the basic fact that most people are more inclined to say yes to those who are familiar and likable. People also favor those who are physically attractive, similar to them, or who give them compliments. One application of this principle is that by portraying oneself as similar in beliefs and attitudes to a target of influence, one is more likely to succeed in an attempt to influence. This is why politicians often advocate positions they believe to be popular among their supporters, rather than positions they actually believe in themselves.

6. Finally, scarcity value relates to the economic principle of supply and demand: The less there is of something, the more valuable it is presumed to be. Marketers use this principle when they make it sound that a product offer is a one-time deal that will expire soon. This makes it seem more desirable. You may have seen a store that always seems to be having a going-out-of business sale; such a place is trying to take advantage of the fact that many impulse buys are the results of “flash sales” or “temporary markdowns.”

Cialdini’s six principles of influence are practical tools that can be used by anyone, regardless of one’s power to exert influence over others. It is useful to be aware of these principles—and mindful of how they can be used to influence our attitudes, behaviors, and actions, particularly in response to others. The line between accepting influence because we choose to or because we are forced to can be blurry, especially when dealing with perceived authority. In the next section, we explore the nature of power and discuss the vital difference between control and cooperation.

Concepts in Action: The Shocking Influence of Apparent Authority

Merriam-Webster defines the word apparent as clearly manifest, or having the appearance of reality (“Apparent,” 2016). Cultural conditioning teaches us that authority—and in particular critical authority figures such as police officers or doctors—should be obeyed. But what happens when an apparently critical authority figure directs us toward an attitude or behavior that can have negative or dangerous consequences? Do we obey? Would you?

In a famous study on authority, Stanley Milgram (1963) told participants that he was studying the impact of pain on memory. They were then put in charge of administering increasingly painful electric shocks to a test subject. This person was, in fact, an associate of the experi- menter and merely pretended to be in pain at the hands of the participants. Milgram found that 65% of participants were willing to administer the maximum level of electric shock— 450 volts. This was despite the fact that such a shock level was clearly labeled as potentially lethal and the test subject writhed in pain and eventually pretended to lose consciousness. Why did participants do so? Milgram (1974) attributes it to a culturally conditioned tendency to conform to apparent authority. While this is a prime factor, several of Cialdini’s avenues

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Section 9.1 Power and Influence in Organizational Groups

of influence were likely working together to produce the behavior observed in Milgram’s experiment.

The apparent authority of the man conducting the study—a scientist wearing a white lab coat—triggered participants’ culturally conditioned response to authority. This response was strengthened by commitment and consistency because the participants had agreed to obey the instructions given during the experiment. When faced with doubt over whether to continue to deliver shocks, participants were influenced by a combination of social proof and their expectations surrounding the apparent authority of the seemingly credible scientist who was conducting the experiment. They assumed that if neither the scientist nor the majority of their fellows obviously disapproved of the escalation of electrical current, then their behavior was both acceptable and desired.

Critics of Milgram’s study suggested that participants may not have actually believed that the shocks and their consequence were real, and this contributed to their decision to keep esca- lating the shocks. To test this theory, a similar experiment was performed using a puppy who could not pretend to be shocked. Although participants expressed extreme emotional distress, most continued to press the shock button until they hit maximum voltage (Sheridan & King, 1972).

Critical-Thinking Questions 1. What does this second experiment tell you about the different weights each avenue of

influence had on the participants’ choice to continue the shocks? Explain your answer in terms of the knowledge you have gained regarding the six avenues of influence.

2. Given what you know about the principles of influence, do think you the participants would be more likely to stop the escalation of shocks if they observed distaste or con- cern from a) their fellow participants, or b) the scientist conducting the study? Explain your answer.

Concepts in Action: The Shocking Influence of Apparent Authority (continued)

The Nature of Power: Control or Cooperation Traditional views of power imply asymmetry between those who wield it and those who fall under its influence. The former have power over the latter, and there is little or no expecta- tion of influence going both ways. This runs counter to the ideals of freedom and democracy that are at the heart of American values. Furthermore, it runs counter to recent attitudes that are prevalent in contemporary organizations. Employee involvement and empower- ment are becoming more popular in organizational culture and practice, and organizations are increasingly adopting flattened hierarchies where expertise and talent trump positional power and status. Power is shifting from conceptual frameworks based on control towards those that feature cooperation. To understand why this shift is occurring, it is useful to distin- guish between conformity and compliance.

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Section 9.1 Power and Influence in Organizational Groups

Conformity Versus Compliance Conformity—and its associated dynamics—is a big issue in group work. In Chapter 6 we defined conformity and discussed its impact on various situations and processes. Here we explore conformity as it applies to the nature of power. We tend to think of power as a force that causes various changes in the behavior and actions of others—and this is true. However, there are different methods by which power can enact these changes. In essence, power can inspire conformity—or compliance.

In conformity, individuals accept influence because they choose to. Thus, conformity is internally driven: It is affected by motivation and internalized norms, by the desire to belong to a particular collectivity, and sometimes by whether the behavior appears meaningful. In conformity, individuals’ internal feelings typically correspond to their external behavior, and acceptance of influence occurs in both public and private behavior. Given that norms are the unwritten rules of behavior, their assimilation is typically a process of conformity. An office that has no formal dress code, for example, may still have certain norms in place that act as unspoken guidelines that rule out certain types of clothing or styles. For example, people are unlikely to wear yoga or sports gear even in offices with a casual dress code, despite that fact that these styles have become common in nonprofessional settings. The key is that no one is actually forcing the decision—people choose to conform because they either agree with the appropriateness of whatever action or behavior is being suggested or expect it to be beneficial in some way.

In compliance, on the other hand, individuals accept influence because they must. Compliance is externally imposed, often by the promise or threat of strong rewards or punishments. Internally, individuals may disagree with the mandate or feel uncomfortable about it; but nonetheless, in public their behavior adjusts to the source of influence. Formal rules with hard consequences tend to generate compliance. Employees of an organization that requires a rigid dress code or uniforms, for example, must comply with this rule in order to remain employed—whether or not they find their outfits comfortable or appealing. The key here is that compliance does not require individuals’ acceptance or belief—just that they do it regardless. This is an important distinction, because whereas conformity can foster lasting changes, compliance only lasts as long as the associated consequences are an effective deterrent. If getting fired is no longer a significant consequence, for example, an employee who detests a company’s dress code will have no reason to continue to follow it.

Social pressure and the desire for acceptance can blur the line between conformity and compliance, as people willingly conform to avoid rejection and other forms of social punishment. However, these expectations are sometimes false, as in cases of pluralistic ignorance, described in Chapter 6, where group members conform and/or comply with what they falsely perceive are popular attitudes or behaviors because they fear the consequences of going against an apparent group norm.

Several circumstances can increase the likelihood of compliant behavior:

• Lack of alternatives. Compliance is more likely when individuals believe they have few or no alternatives regarding group selection. For example, an employee may feel she has no choice regarding which groups—or group members—she must work with, particularly if she fears losing respect or benefits if she requests a change.

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Section 9.1 Power and Influence in Organizational Groups

• Group control over environment. Compliance is also more likely in an environment where the group controls many or most domains of an individual’s life, such as in the military. In these situations, the group or its leaders have control over member rewards and punishments.

• Low status. Because status is often associated with power, compliance is more likely among low-status group members, who feel they must comply with the demands of those with greater power and influence (Clark, Clark, & Polborn, 2006).

Compliance is at the heart of traditional power relations wherein leaders exert control over their followers with a very one-sided influence. As Table 9.1 outlines, however, there are some major disadvantages of compliant relationships for both followers and leaders.

Table 9.1: Disadvantages of compliance

Disadvantage Explanation

Surveillance Typically, compliance requires surveillance in order to be effective. Leaders or their representatives must carefully watch and correct members because group members may resist influence in their more private behaviors.

Enforcement Compliance may require certain people to take on specialized roles, such as foreman, to ensure that directives are carried out or deviant behavior is squelched.

Blowback Group members may be disgruntled and as a result engage in sabotage.

Decreased productivity Due to coercion attempts and enforcement, many group members may become anxious. If anxiety levels due to coercion are high, this may interfere with and lower productivity on group tasks.

Diminished cohesion Members’ identification and attachment with the group will decrease, which can negatively influence performance.

Higher turnover If the opportunity presents itself, members may leave the group entirely for another alternative.

Power relationships that are based predominantly on compliance often generate subjugation, resistance, and alienation (Deutsch, 1973a). Distrust is common between leaders and subordinates, and control is maintained only through constant scrutiny and enforcement. This approach is unlikely to produce employee commitment or buy-in and has limited practicality for positive group outcomes, particularly where cooperation or collaboration is desired. While it takes more time and effort to bring about conformity than compliance, the increased cohesion, autonomy, and buy-in that it generates offer substantial value. Behavior modeling is an excellent way to foster conformity and has the added benefit of reinforcing desired attitudes or behaviors in both those modeling and those adopting them. As teams and teamwork values have become increasingly common in organizations, power relations have moved from compliance to conformity. This has caused a related shift in the conceptual frameworks that direct power relations in organizations. We look at these evolving paradigms in the next section.

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Section 9.1 Power and Influence in Organizational Groups

Evolving Paradigms for Power Relations Over the past century, there has been a shift in attitudes about power relations that has unlocked the rigid perception of power as control and reimagined it as a cooperative process. Power as control is the traditional approach to power relations, in which X has some special authority and influence over Y (Coleman & Voronov, 2003; French & Raven, 1959). The power- as-control paradigm can be traced to Robert Dahl’s (1969) perspective that power represents our capacity to overcome resistance in others; the ability to move others into actions they would not otherwise have chosen. This viewpoint presents power as both a potentially positive mechanism for establishing and maintaining authority, order, and control, and a potentially negative framework that enables coercion and abuse.

By contrast, the more recent paradigm of cooperative power emphasizes a noncompetitive approach in which power is shared among cooperating parties, including subordinates (Follett, 1973). Examples of cooperative power range from employee involvement initiatives that foster awareness of and participation in organizational decision-making processes to self-managed teams and team-based organizations. We discuss these in more detail later in this chapter and in Chapter 10. For now, let’s focus on why organizations have found it advantageous to shift toward cooperative power. Table 9.2 compares and contrasts the different assumptions associated with power as control versus cooperative power.

Table 9.2: Power as control versus cooperative power

Aspect Power-as-control approach Cooperative-power approach

Amount of power A finite amount of power exists in any relationship (for example, the more power held by X, the less is available for Y).

Power can be created and enhanced through mutually cooperative efforts.

Power relations Power relations are consistently unidirectional; influence moves from X to Y.

Power relations are mutual, interdependent, and bidirectional (influence goes both ways).

Power dynamics Due to the finite nature of power in any relationship, power relations are inherently competitive.

Given the right conditions, people will willingly share power with others.

Motivation A primary motivation for the use of power is to increase that power.

X and Y can hold interdependent and positively related goals for which mutually satisfying outcomes can be achieved.

Power base Power is essentially based on control through coercion.

Power can be based in harmonious interrelations and mutual influence (Coleman & Tjosvold, 2000).

Cooperative-power practices motivate participants to seek out and appreciate one another’s abilities and contributions, foster resource exchanges and negotiation for mutual benefits, and encourage and support member learning and development.

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Section 9.2 Perspectives on Leadership Theory

Despite these significant advantages of cooperative power, the power-as-control model remains popular as a classic approach to power relations; traditionally minded managers still follow it today. However, the growing desirability and effectiveness of interorganizational cooperation and teamwork is motivating an increasing number of organizations to move beyond the traditional power-as-control paradigm and understand power as cooperative. This changing attitude has enacted a similar evolution in perspective regarding the dynamics of leadership.

9.2 Perspectives on Leadership Theory Leadership has been defined as a process whereby an individual influences others to work toward a common goal (Northouse, 1997). This definition contains four important elements:

1. Leadership is a process. 2. Leadership involves influence. 3. Leadership is a social interaction. 4. Leadership involves the pursuit of goals.

Thus, group leadership refers to the process of influencing group members toward collective, interdependent goals and coordinating member behavior in pursuit of group goals. A key point here is that although leaders can exercise and accrue power, leadership is primarily a process of influence.

Leaders use various resources and a repertoire of styles—or recognizable and regular patterns of behaviors—to exert influence. Sometimes influence flows asymmetrically in one direction— from leaders to the group—as in the power-as-control model. Sometimes influence flows both ways, or reciprocally, as in the cooperative-power model. Today leadership is considered to be more effective when it inspires, rather than enforces, desired actions, attitudes, and behavior. How leaders achieve this is a much-studied phenomenon. At the heart of this question lies a particular fascination with what makes a good leader.

Despite more than a century of research, no one universal theory of leadership seems to be universally accepted. Instead, several theories have been formulated that can be classified into four broad perspectives, each of which emphasizes a different aspect of the phenomenon:

• The leader-centric perspective views leadership in relation to individual traits and styles.

• The situation-centric perspective views leadership in relation to situational factors. • The follower-centric perspective views leadership as a construct of follower beliefs

and actions. • The interactional perspective views leadership as a construct of the leader’s effective

interaction with the situation and his or her followers.

Some of these perspectives stand alone, while others encompass several major theories on leadership. We examine each these in the following sections.

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Section 9.2 Perspectives on Leadership Theory

The Leader-Centric Perspective on Leadership The leader-centric perspective assumes that leadership flows from specific leader characteristics and behaviors. At the beginning of the 20th century, when scholars first tried to theorize leadership, they naturally focused on leaders themselves. The word leadership is based on the word leader, which implies that this phenomenon flows from the personality and actions of exceptional people: leaders. Under the influence of personality theory, early leadership scholars focused on leaders’ traits and personality, which gave birth to the trait theory of leadership. Second, under the influence of behaviorism, they focused on leaders’ behavior and style, which gave birth to the style theory of leadership.

Trait Theory Between 1920 and 1950 researchers hoped to discover how individual traits are connected to leadership effectiveness. Traits describe the enduring characteristics or dispositions that give rise to a person’s behaviors or behavior patterns. Nineteenth-century intellectual greats such as Thomas Carlyle, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Francis Galton had already established and rallied around the idea that history was driven by great men, and the “natural born leader” concept seemed a logical basis for investigation (Vroom & Jago, 2007). According to the trait theory of leadership, leaders naturally possess traits that set them apart from other people. Researchers have identified nine major leadership traits (Bass, 1990; Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1996):

1. Drive: achievement, ambition, energy, tenacity, and initiative 2. Leadership motivation: socialized motivation (such as the desire to lead for the com-

mon good), personalized motivation (such as the desire for the perks associated with leadership)

3. Participation: activity, sociability, cooperation, adaptability, humor 4. Honesty and integrity: truthfulness, straightforwardness, ethicality, moral standards 5. Self-confidence: self-esteem, positive self-image, self-assurance, self-efficacy 6. Personal abilities: intelligence, vitality, verbal agility, originality, critical

abilities 7. Expertise: knowledge of the business or the situation 8. Proven achievements: academic, business, sports, military, general culture 9. Status: positional, personal, social, popularity

According to the trait theory of leadership, the more of these nine traits an individual pos- sesses, the more likely he or she is to emerge as a leader.

Despite its apparent practicality, the trait approach to leadership has had mixed results. As researchers kept expanding the list of relevant traits, it became so long that it failed to distinguish between leaders and nonleaders and included such traits as height, appearance, race, and sex. Furthermore, famous counterexamples could be found for many of the traits identified. For example, while height was identified as a possible leadership trait, Napoleon, who was notoriously short, does not fit that trend. Eventually, at the end of the 1940s, after a thorough review of the research literature, influential leadership scholar Ralph Stogdill (1948) dealt a significant blow to the trait theory of leadership, concluding that individuals do not become leaders by virtue of some combination of traits alone. This opened the avenue for a new theory based on leadership style.

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Section 9.2 Perspectives on Leadership Theory

Style Theory As a reaction to the relative failure of the early studies on the trait approach, researchers in the 1950s and 1960s began to consider the behavior of leaders, as opposed to their traits. This led to the style theories of leadership, which examined a leader’s particular manner of and approach to providing direction, motivating others, and implementing plans (Davis & Newstrom, 1993). Different studies have essentially discovered two opposite styles of leadership, given different labels at various times: the consideration/relationship- orientation/democratic style versus the initiating structure/task-orientation/autocratic style (Conger & Kanungo, 1998; Fleishman, 1953; Lewin & Lippitt, 1938). The consideration/ relationship-oriented/democratic style of leadership covers a wide variety of behaviors related to the treatment of people, including showing concern for subordinates, looking out for their welfare, acting in a friendly and supportive manner, building relationships with them, and including them in decision making. The initiating structure/task-oriented/autocratic style of leadership, by contrast, covers behaviors such as defining roles, guiding subordinates toward the attainment of work-group goals, assigning work, paying attention to standards of performance, emphasizing deadlines, and making decisions for followers.

One of the important questions that emerged from this research was whether one style was more effective than the other. The findings were mixed. Some studies found that a democratic style is associated with a higher productivity, others found an autocratic style to be associated with higher productivity, while still others found no difference (Bass, 1990). Nevertheless, available evidence seems to lean toward democratic leadership as more effective (Gastil, 1994). These mixed findings lead researchers to look at the importance of the situation in determining leadership effectiveness.

The Situation-Centric Perspective on Leadership The inability of the leader-centric perspectives to fully explain leadership phenomena gave rise to the situation-centric perspective. This perspective assumes that leadership effectiveness depends on its situational appropriateness. However, different theories disagree about what dimensions of the situation matter most or which types of interactions are most effective. Here we review the three major theories encompassed in this perspective.

Contingency Theory Since style theories of leadership failed to identify one best style that was effective across all situations, management researcher Fred Fiedler (1965, 1967) developed a contingency theory in which situational conditions influence the effectiveness of a given style. Working off the premise that leaders were either task oriented or relationship oriented, Fiedler studied their effectiveness in various settings based on combinations of three situational variables (Vroom & Jago, 2007):

1. Leader–member relations: the support and loyalty obtained from the work group, with a positive to negative scale ranging from good to poor

2. Task structure: the clarity with which critical task components such as goals, meth- ods, and standards of performance are defined, with a positive to negative scale ranging from structured to unstructured

3. Position power: the degree of power bestowed by the organization to reward and pun- ish subordinates, with a positive to negative scale ranging from strong to weak

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Section 9.2 Perspectives on Leadership Theory

Fiedler (1967) considered these variables to be key in determining the amount of situational control available to leaders in various settings, and the orientation—relationship or task— that would be most effective as a leadership style. According to Fiedler, situational control is highest when all three variables are in the positive range, and it gets correspondingly lower as the number of variables in the negative range increases. Table 9.3 outlines Fiedler’s findings regarding the most effective leadership style for each combination of situational variables.

Table 9.3: Fielder’s contingency theory

Leader–member relations Task structure

Leader’s position power

Most effective leadership style

Good Structured Strong Task oriented

Good Structured Weak Task oriented

Good Unstructured Strong Task oriented

Good Unstructured Weak Relationship oriented

Poor Structured Strong Relationship oriented

Poor Structured Weak Relationship oriented

Poor Unstructured Strong Relationship oriented

Poor Unstructured Weak Task oriented

Source: Adapted from Fiedler (1967).

To illustrate the theory, imagine that you are the newly appointed foreman of a group of 32 factory workers who perform very structured work on an assembly line. You are replacing a much-loved foreman who was recently killed in car accident. Since you were recruited straight out of your undergraduate program and have no prior experience with the organization, your team views you with distrust (so your leader–member relations are poor). However, you have high power because you are the boss and can distribute rewards and punishment to your employees. Fiedler’s theory predicts that the most effective leadership style in this situation would be relationship oriented. Contrast this example with that of a leader who has worked for a long time with a group of employees who respect and like her. The task is creative (therefore unstructured), and the leader’s position of power is high because she can distribute rewards and punishment to her employees. In this case, Fiedler’s theory predicts that the most effective leadership style would be task oriented.

The ability to predict the most effective leadership style for any given work situation would seem to suggest that leaders should adapt their style as needed, but contingency theory holds no provision for helping leaders develop this kind of stylistic flexibility. Fiedler assumed that a manager’s behaviors and personal characteristics would be more difficult to change than the work situation (Hersey, Blanchard, & Johnson, 2001). Therefore, Fielder’s suggestions for the practical application of this model centered on matching leaders (relationship versus task oriented) with the types of situations in which their style will be the most effective or, failing that, trying to adjust the situation by restructuring the situational variables to fit a leader’s habitual style (Vroom & Jago, 2007). Other situational approaches to leadership assume that leaders’ styles are flexible and that they should change their style depending on the situation.

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Section 9.2 Perspectives on Leadership Theory

Situational Leadership Situational leadership theory assumes that leaders can adopt different leadership styles to adapt to differing situations and subordinate needs (Hersey et al., 2001). For this reason, the theory has had wide appeal for managers because it increases their sense of flexibility and control. There are two basic style behaviors associated with the theory: directive and supportive. Directive behavior involves instructing and providing feedback on what tasks to perform, how to perform them, and when. Supportive behavior focuses on relational aspects, such as listening, encouraging, and supporting subordinates’ efforts at problem solving and decision making. However, Hersey and Blanchard (2001) assert that these style behaviors are not mutually exclusive and that leadership styles can be composed of various degrees and combinations of directive and supportive behavior. They propose the following four leadership styles, each most appropriate for a given situation:

1. Directing. This style is characterized by high directive and low supportive behaviors. Directing is the most effective leadership style for subordinates with low compe- tence for a task but high commitment to it (for example, a new and enthusiastic salesperson). The subordinate has the enthusiasm but lacks the skills to be success- ful in the situation.

2. Coaching. This style is characterized by high directive and high supportive behaviors. Coaching is most effective when subordinates have some competence for a task but low commitment to it (for example, a relatively new salesperson who is feeling dis- couraged about missing sales targets). Here the subordinate lacks both the degree of skill and commitment required to be successful in the situation.

3. Supporting. This style is characterized by low directive and high supportive behav- iors. Supporting is most effective when subordinates have moderate competence for a task but variable commitment to it (for example, an experienced salesperson who is burned out on the job). In other words, the subordinate has the skills to be suc- cessful in the situation but lacks the commitment.

4. Delegating. This style is characterized by low directive and low supportive behaviors. Delegating is most effective when subordinates have both high competence and high commitment for the task (for example, an experienced and enthusiastic salesperson). The subordinate requires little direction and support because he or she has both the skills and enthusiasm to be successful in the situation.

Despite its popular appeal with managers, situational leadership theory has failed to receive significant empirical support (Phillips, 1995). In an effort to resolve this issue, researchers developed a third situational approach, known as path–goal theory.

Path–Goal Theory Path–goal theory combines leadership with motivation theory, suggesting that leaders motivate subordinates to achieve high performance by showing them the path to valued goals or results. When the corresponding tasks have been performed and the goals reached, rewards follow. The leader’s role is to show a clear path and help eliminate barriers to the achievement of goals.

Path–goal theory incorporates its own variation on the directive and supportive leadership styles and adds two others:

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Section 9.2 Perspectives on Leadership Theory

• Directive. This style involves telling subordinates what to do and is most appropriate when subordinates are unsure about the task or when there is a lot of uncertainty in the environment. For example, in a complex combat situation, soldiers will perform best when given very specific commands by their field commander.

• Supportive. This style involves making work more pleasant for subordinates and showing concern for them. It is most appropriate with subordinates who are unsatisfied and have a high need for affiliation and a human touch and for repetitive, mundane tasks. For instance, seasonal agricultural workers picking vegetables in a field—a repetitive and mundane task—will perform better when their foreman shows concern for them and finds ways to alleviate unpleasant work conditions such as boredom or physical discomfort.

• Participative. This style involves consulting subordinates when making a decision. It is most appropriate with subordinates who are autonomous and need control and clarity and for ambiguous and unstructured tasks. For instance, a hospital manager would do well to consult doctors and nurses when making important changes to hospital procedures, because these employees are highly trained professionals who are used to controlling their work and are likely to resist an authoritative leadership style.

• Achievement oriented. This style involves setting challenging goals for subordinates. It is most appropriate with subordinates who have high expectations and a need to excel and for complex, challenging, and ambiguous tasks. For example, Elon Musk obtains extraordinary results from his aerospace engineers at SpaceX, the extraordinarily successful space rocket company, by assigning them extremely challenging goals. For instance, he asked his team to design rockets whose lower stages can land back on a small platform in the ocean after launch, so they can be reused and save money. As of mid-2016 the company had already done it three times, which had never been achieved before.

Like Hersey and Blanchard’s situational leadership model, path–goal theory considers that a leader’ style is flexible and can be adapted to varying situations. However, in addition to considering characteristics of the subordinate as contingency factors, path–goal theory also considers task attributes such as complexity, required level of interdependence, and working conditions.

Next, we examine a perspective that views leadership as follower based.

The Follower-Centric Perspective on Leadership In the 1970s business theorist Jeffrey Pfeffer (1977) articulated a provocative reversal of perspective on leadership: What if the phenomenon of leadership had more to do with followers than with leaders? This question gave way to the follower-centric perspective, which assumes that leadership has little to do with the leader’s traits or actions but is attributed to leaders by their followers. Pfeffer’s idea was rooted in his observation that research had failed to demonstrate that leaders have a real impact on their organizations (Hall, 1974; Lieberson & O’Connor, 1972). Pfeffer’s theory put the whole concept of leadership in doubt and asserted that it may be an illusion. Pfeffer suggested that the phenomenon of leadership has more to do with the gullibility of followers than the exceptional qualities of leaders. His argument is based on attribution theory, a well-researched psychological theory that has shown that people tend to simplify reality when they make causal inferences (Kelley, 1971).

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Section 9.2 Perspectives on Leadership Theory

According to attribution theory, people have a tendency to analyze circumstances and events to make causal inferences, matching cause to effect as they experience the world around them. They do so in order to make predictions about their environment and interac- tions, giving them some measure of control over their own experience. For example, most people take note of behaviors or practices that receive either positive or negative feedback from superiors. This is part of the assimilation process new employees or group members undergo when they join a new group or organization; doing so instills predictable expecta- tions for praise or censure that foster a sense of confidence and control.

The problem is that reality is tremendously com- plex; because of this, attribution judgments tend to be based on a simplified perception of situations and events. In matching cause to effect, people tend to focus their attention on salient people, objects, or circumstances, those that noticeably stand out or contrast with other elements in the environment. Consequently, people can connect events to factors that are not really causal, simply because they were highly noticeable (Taylor & Fiske, 1978). This type of thinking was behind ancient superstitions con- necting cosmic events like comets or eclipses with similarly dramatic events such as an unseasonable drought or the birth or death of a public figure. This led Pfeffer to conclude that because leaders are highly visible, followers assume that leaders are the cause of organizational performance, when they have in fact a very modest influence on it. From this perspective, the power and influence ascribed to leaders could be viewed as stemming more from follower beliefs than any specific leadership traits or styles.

Pfeffer nonetheless recognized that leaders have an important role to play in the leadership process, if only in a symbolic sense. According to Pfeffer, effective leaders are those who successfully associate themselves with positive orga- nizational outcomes, pretending they had greater influence on them than they actually had. They divest themselves from negative outcomes, blaming them on the system or someone else. Consequently, Pfeffer (1981) viewed leadership primarily as a process of diplomacy, politic actions, and ability to present oneself to best advantage. While these are important aspects of leadership, Pfeffer’s viewpoint is too limited a theory to hold up on its own, as it discounts the more practical aspects of leadership, such as organization, planning, and motivating employ- ees (Thomas, 1988). Pfeffer’s work did offer some significant contributions to leadership the- ory, however, by establishing that (a) leadership involves managing both real and symbolic actions and (b) that leadership is a joint process involving both leaders and followers. Just as the situation-centric perspective established that leadership couldn’t be understood when viewed as independent from the situation in which it is enacted, the follower-centric per- spective highlighted the impact of follower beliefs and actions within the leadership process. Together, these concepts inspired the most complex and complete perspective on leadership to date: the interactional perspective.

GlobalP/iStock/Thinkstock

The superstition connecting black cats with bad luck is based on our tendency to focus on salient factors when searching for cause and effect.

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Section 9.2 Perspectives on Leadership Theory

The Interactional Perspective on Leadership While all of the approaches described thus far cast some interesting light on leadership, the fact that they had neither been integrated together nor received sufficient empirical support to stand alone led to the development of two new—and nearly identical (Conger & Kanungo, 1987)—theories: charismatic and transformational leadership. Together, they form the inter- actional perspective on leadership, which considers leadership to be a complex phenom- enon of social influence explained by the interaction between situational factors and the characteristics, behaviors, and beliefs of both leaders and followers. Charismatic and trans- formational leadership became and remain the most influential leadership theories today.

Charismatic leaders influence their followers by motivating them to an extraordinary extent. They do so through at least four mechanisms:

1. They change their followers’ perceptions of the nature of work itself. 2. They offer an appealing future vision. 3. They develop a deep collective identity among followers. 4. They heighten both individual and collective self-efficacy, which is the belief that one

has the capabilities to perform in a certain manner or attain certain goals (Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993).

Steve Jobs is a perfect example of a charismatic leader. He motivated employees by creating a cohesive organizational identity that permeated every aspect of his organization. Jobs had a rigid design aesthetic that influenced his organization’s culture, practices, and working environment with a driving consistency and attention to detail that was both an incredibly demanding and stabilizing leadership influence. Jobs’s performance expectations could be hard to meet, but they were always expressed with clarity and determination—elements that could cause self-doubt in employees as they struggled to carry out his plans. However, they ultimately led to an increase in both individual and collective efficacy as goals were effectively accomplished (Isaacson, 2011). Jobs offered an appealing vision of the future that changed employees’ perception of their work and transformed his personal dreams of changing the world into a collective company goal that centered on technology innovation (Snell, 2011). As one journalist eloquently put it, many people believe that Steve Jobs’s greatest creation was not any one Apple product, but the company itself (Gruber, 2011).

Similarly, transformational leaders fundamentally change their followers’ perceptions, expectations, and beliefs by:

• heightening their followers’ awareness of the importance and value of designated goals and the means to achieve them;

• inducing followers to transcend their self-interests for the good of the collective and its goals; and

• stimulating and meeting their followers’ higher order needs through the leadership process and the mission (Bass, 1985).

The term transformational is chosen in contrast to transactional leadership. While in trans- actional leadership followers exchange their services for rewards distributed by the leader, transformational leaders add something to the social exchange process so that the end result of the interaction far exceeds a simple transactional exchange (Burns, 1978).

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Section 9.2 Perspectives on Leadership Theory

Both theories emphasize the notion that leaders transform and elevate the consciousness of their followers, thereby building a meaningful, cohesive group identity. As they do so, their own awareness is also transformed and elevated. Vision is one of the most important instruments through which charismatic and transformational leadership occurs. Vision refers to the fundamental mythic-like stories that create meaning out of chaos (Mumford & Strange, 2002). By articulating a vision, charismatic and transformational leaders reformulate both their own worldview and that of their followers, so a new meaning and a new collective mission emerge. Charismatic and transformational leaders have to be very good storytellers and communicators with high verbal abilities, because the stories they tell must be convincing (Gardner & Avolio, 1998). They also need to have an intimate knowledge of their followers and their culture (organizational and national) so that the vision they articulate is compatible with them, yet more meaningful and motivating. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech represents a great example of transformational leadership. In the context of the civil rights movement, which called for a radical change in American society to end racism and discrimination, King’s speech articulated in clear and poetic terms a new vision for America, at once consistent with its most profound ideals and very different from its history of segregation and racism. King was a transformational leader. His speeches gave voice to millions, motivated them, and galvanized change.

The interactional perspective of lead- ership combines aspects of the other perspectives we’ve examined. It is consistent with the follower-centric perspective on leadership, which emphasizes the need for leaders to be good actors and engage in symbolic actions. Nonetheless, it differs in that it assumes that symbolic actions have a real and powerful effect on follow- ers, and through them, on the bottom line. It is consistent with the leader- centric perspective because certain traits—such as high emotional intel- ligence, authenticity, and dramaturgi- cal and verbal abilities—help leaders be charismatic and transformational. Instead of assuming that leadership resides in these traits, however, lead-

ership is viewed as a process of social influence. Finally, the interactional perspective is consis- tent with the situation-centric perspective on leadership because it considers that the effect of a vision depends on the worldview of followers and on the situation.

Next, we take a look at how the concepts we’ve discussed so far come together for leaders in contemporary organizations.

SuperStock

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a transformational leader who elevated the consciousness of his followers through his speeches.

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Section 9.3 Leading in Contemporary Organizations

9.3 Leading in Contemporary Organizations One of the clearest trends in the study and practice of power is an evolution toward cooperative-power and leadership practices. This does not mean that leaders and bosses do not have an important role to play in groups. The roles of both traditional leaders and of group members have simply changed. They now incorporate concepts and practices that foster power sharing and distribute leadership responsibilities and roles among various personnel. The shift toward cooperative power can traced to the continuing growth of the human relations movement in the 1970s and the introduction of self-managing teams and their subsequent success in various settings across the world throughout the 1980s (Follett, 1973; Strauss & Hammer, 1987). As outlined in Chapter 1, the improvements to process and productivity attributed to the use of these early teams inspired a revolution of organizational culture and process that led to the permeation of teams, teamwork values, and cooperative- power and leadership practices in organizations today. We see these changes expressed most clearly by three key elements of contemporary organizations: process, management practices, and structure. The following sections examine each of these in turn.

Changes in Organizational Process The proliferation of teams as the basic unit of operation is perhaps the single most dramatic change in organizational process to occur as a result of the shift in power and leadership practices. However, the permeation of team concepts and culture has given rise to some other significant changes as well, the most prevalent of these being organizational focus on fostering teamwork values and employee involvement.

Teamwork Values for Today’s Organizations Teamwork values—expressed as focus on generating a cohesive identity, commitment to a common purpose and good, and working within a climate of cooperation—can be applied in any work setting, including those that do not actively support regular teams. As noted in our earlier example of Steve Jobs’s leadership at Apple, contemporary organizations recognize the value of creating a cohesive identity around which employees can rally their commitment, loyalty, and vision. Fostering a climate of cooperation throughout an organization offers significant benefits as well.

Cooperation is integral to organizational success and employee satisfaction (Fieschi, 2003; West, Tjosvold, & Smith, 2003). A climate of cooperation generates a working environment that fosters learning and knowledge sharing, process improvement, supportive behaviors, and constructive feedback, conflict, and competition. The combination of all of these increases employee productivity, morale, and effectiveness across the board. Implementing teamwork values at the management level leads employees to become involved in organizational strategy and decision making.

The Movement Toward Employee Involvement Employee involvement is a catchphrase that encompasses organizational initiatives and practices that enable cross-hierarchical exchange of information and influence within the organization (Cox, Marchington, & Suter, 2009). In most cases this translates as on- and

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Section 9.3 Leading in Contemporary Organizations

offline events and forums that keep employees informed on organizational strategy and needs, which allows them to discuss relevant ideas and information and ask questions and voice opinions regarding strategic planning and decision making. In practice, this process can take many forms:

• During his highly successful tenure as CEO of General Electric from 1981 to 2001, Jack Welch instituted a now famous employee involvement practice dubbed the “GE Workout,” a town hall meeting–style approach to airing organizational issues and problems that are then solved collaboratively by the subordinates and managers who are directly involved (Schaninger, Harris, & Niebuhr, 1999).

• Quality circles are another employee involvement practice that involve a parallel team made up of coworkers in related areas who are tasked with investigating issues that pertain to specific work processes or problems and suggesting improvements or solutions to management (Pereira & Osborn, 2007). Quality circles can search out and discuss potential solutions for problems in the organizational process or employee–management relations by canvasing employees from particular organizational areas. They can also be assigned to special projects, such as improving a specific manufacturing process or investigating specific complaints regarding employee work conditions.

• The Cisco System’s Idea Zone wiki described in Chapter 8 is another form of employee involvement. It allows employees to exchange ideas and concepts for new products, business units, and ways to use existing products, all aimed at increasing employee involvement in organizational strategy and decision making (Samker & Bouchard, 2009).

Employee involvement builds employee commitment, buy-in, and accountability to the company. It increases employees’ capacity for responsibility and autonomy in work processes and activities and enhances organizational function via collaborative problem solving and decision making (Amah & Ahiauzu, 2013). As such, employee involvement is another valuable dimension of organizational culture and process that has resulted from the shift toward cooperative-power and leadership practices. Next, we examine major changes in management practices, centered on the concept of employee empowerment.

Changes in Management Practices Cooperative power and shared leadership require nontraditional management practices that enable employees to take on some of the leadership roles and responsibilities classically held by external managers and leaders. This involves management practices geared toward developing and enabling employee empowerment, as well as the practical management of self-managing teams. Let’s look at how contemporary managers lead through empowerment.

Leading Through Empowerment Although employees can enjoy various levels of empowerment on different projects or teams, empowerment is not a one-time event. It is an ongoing process through which leaders share their power with their followers and train them to self-lead and lead others. Empowerment behaviors, or leadership activities directed at the development of subordinates’ self- management skills (Pearce & Conger, 2003), are for the most part developmental and person oriented. These include:

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Section 9.3 Leading in Contemporary Organizations

• empowering leadership styles (such as participative, consultative, and facilitative); and

• specific behaviors aimed at enhancing team member development and self- management capacity (such as coaching, mutual performance monitoring, and feedback activities) (Burke, Stagl, Salas, Pierce, & Kendall, 2006).

Regardless of the specific level and structure of team empowerment, empowerment behaviors promote team flexibility and learning, which facilitate effective team processes and performance outcomes (Burke et al., 2006; Salas, Sims, & Burke, 2005; Swezey & Salas, 1992). Leaders empower us mainly by reminding us that we can empower ourselves.

Self-empowerment is a natural phenomenon. All people require a certain level of perceived autonomy to stay motivated and preserve their psychological well-being. No matter what autonomy level a particular position holds, virtually all jobs entail emergent tasks that employees can to some extent redefine (Ilgen & Hollenbeck, 1991). Additionally, most employees further enrich their sense of self-direction and motivation by noticing or embedding intrinsic rewards within their task structures (Manz & Sims, 2001; Neck & Houghton, 2006). A customer service representative, for example, may feel good about helping and satisfying customers, and count that as an additional reward beyond managerial praise or salary. Similarly, members of an engineering or product development team may find the problem- solving and design process intrinsically rewarding in terms of personal satisfaction related to meeting challenges and problem solving.

The desire to do work that is meaningful is a major driver of self-empowering behaviors— such as enriching duties to provide more personal meaning to their accomplishment, setting goals and consequences for ourselves, and focusing on intrinsic rewards—that increase self- motivation and perceived autonomy, job satisfaction, and commitment to quality. Wrzesniewski and Dutton’s (2001) study on menial workers, for example, revealed that many tended to enlarge their duties and enrich them by injecting personal meaning in their accomplishment. Managers often list self-starter, action oriented, and persistence as desirable employee traits (Frese & Fay, 2001; Seibert, Crant, & Kraimer, 1999), and research has found that individuals with these qualities tend to “spontaneously create or mold situations in which they work to intrinsically motivate themselves for performance” (Millikin et al., 2010, p. 690). People do this by setting private goals, such as accomplishing a certain amount of work in a specific time period or by envisioning their activities as important to others in some significant way. Encouraging and even training employees to discover and craft intrinsic motivation for everyday tasks fosters their capacity for self-direction (Stewart, Carson, & Cardy, 1996).

Two commonly held assumptions support the idea that self-empowerment is a major component in leading and managing others, as well as in effective self-management:

1. Team members must learn to lead themselves before they can effectively influence and lead other team members (Houghton, Neck, & Manz, 2003a, 2003b).

2. Self-leading individuals are the basic building blocks of self-managing teams (Neck, Stewart, & Manz, 1996).

As we discussed in Chapter 1, self-managed or empowered teams were a critical element in the rise of teams in organizations and have become a staple of organizational productivity and success (Druskat & Wheeler, 2003; Sundstrom, De Meuse, & Futrell, 1990). Since their

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Section 9.3 Leading in Contemporary Organizations

introduction as an organizational work unit, self-managing teams have been a continuously developing concept, as organizations envision new variations on the roles and responsibilities of team members, external managers and leaders, and varying degrees and types of empowerment. Let’s look at how management practices have evolved to encompass self- managed teams.

Self-Managed Teams A self-managed team is a group of employees that is responsible and accountable for all or most aspects of producing a product or delivering a service (Yeatts & Hyten, 1998). Self- managed teamwork holds distinct advantages:

• Self-regulating team members are typically better at accomplishing individual and collaborative endeavors (Houghton et al., 2003a; Manz & Sims, 2001).

• Taking autonomous actions and assuming ownership of collective outcomes builds intrinsic motivation to self-monitor and regulate behaviors (Deci & Ryan, 1975; Druskat & Wheeler, 2003; Millikin et al., 2010) and deal constructively with the inevitable setbacks and frustrations of interdependent performance (Kanfer & Heggestad, 1997).

• By sharing or distributing leadership roles and responsibilities among team members, managers are able to take a broader focus. This includes managing several teams simultaneously and engaging in cooperative-power relations that support and facilitate effective teamwork.

• Empowered teams are able to adapt more quickly to changing conditions, which enhances team flexibility, effectiveness, and the of quality decision making in complex, dynamic environments as well as those that require rapid or continuous problem solving.

Despite proven advantages and the popularity of the empowered teamwork concept, there are drawbacks. First, there is a distinct lack of managerial understanding and organizational training on how to:

• empower existing teams, • motivate self-directive and empowering behaviors in employees, and • implement and manage empowered teams.

Additionally, one of the most common and significant areas of confusion lies in the division and distribution of leadership and management responsibilities and roles. People are often confused by the fundamental question of who leads a self-managed team, because leading these teams involves cooperative-power and leadership activities that go beyond traditional management practices.

Leading a Self-Managed Team Most self-managed teams engage in cooperative management practices in which both internal and external leaders work toward the good of the team. Leading a self-managed team requires a nontraditional approach to leadership (Druskat & Wheeler, 2003; Manz & Sims, 2001). This role generally falls to an external team leader, supervisor, or project manager whose activities and actions help direct the team. External team leaders often lead several teams

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Section 9.3 Leading in Contemporary Organizations

simultaneously, empowering team members with significant levels of autonomy over team decisions and actions. This empowerment results in a significant lack of the legitimate control associated with more traditional leadership approaches. For this reason, the role of external team leader is correspondingly more ambiguous, demanding, and complex than traditional leadership roles (Beyerlein, Johnson, & Beyerlein, 1997; Hackman, 1986). Managers who have previous, especially longtime, experience in more traditional leadership roles often find sharing leadership, and trusting in team members’ competency to make their own decisions, to be the most difficult aspect of making this paradigm shift (Druskat & Wheeler, 2003).

As we have learned, power relations and influence enacted through employee recognition, rewards, and motivation (Yukl , 1989) traditionally flow coercively from the top down. Yet the cooperative leadership engaged in by external leaders and empowered teams calls for a more egalitarian approach. Instead of issuing demands, external team leaders engage in a more consultative, facilitative role wherein the leader’s ability to promote knowledge sharing, constructive listening, and dialogue and to provide relevant and accepted advice more closely resembles a reciprocal, bottom-up approach (Courtright, Fairhurst, & Rogers, 1989; Druskat & Wheeler, 2003).

This cooperative style of external leadership is typically most effective when offering indirect influence. Manz and Sims (1987) couched this hands-off style of consultative leadership in terms of the six most commonly used encouraging behaviors, wherein external team lead- ers encourage and facilitate the development of team members’ capacity to self-lead:

1. Self-expectation. The leader encourages group members to have high expectations for group performance and their contributions to group efforts.

2. Self-goal setting. The leader encourages group members to actively participate in setting performance goals that are personally meaningful.

3. Self-observation and assessment. The leader encourages group members to maintain awareness of, monitor, and evaluate their own performance.

4. Self-criticism. The leader encourages group members to engage in constructive self- criticism and be accountable for group tasks and goals.

5. Self-reinforcement. The leader encourages group members to be supportive and reinforce effective group functioning and process with positive reactions and praise.

6. Self-rehearsal. The leader encourages group members to think through activities before actually engaging them in performance.

Another aspect of external leadership in empowered team settings involves providing a buffer between external forces and the team. Positioned at the boundary between teams and the organization, external team leaders represent a strategic link between members and the organizational resources and systems that support them (Druskat & Wheeler, 2003). External leaders effectively serve as team ambassadors by lobbying for resources, protecting the team from external pressure, and garnering outside support on behalf of the team. As part of their function as a buffer, external team leaders build relationships both inside and outside of their jurisdiction. This provides a two-way street that, when managed effectively, screens interaction so that the parties on each side get what they need for constructive performance, while neither has to deal with distracting, irrelevant, or potentially dysfunctional elements.

Next, we examine the changes in organizational structure that have occurred as a result of contemporary cooperative-power and leadership practices.

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Section 9.3 Leading in Contemporary Organizations

Changes in Organizational Structure A shift from traditional to cooperative power and leadership cannot be accomplished without some radical changes to organizational culture and structure. As we will discuss in Chapter 10, true organizational change cannot be accomplished without comprehensive support across all levels of the organization. While it is possible to create and profit from employee empowerment and self-managed teams without a wholesale organizational revolution, achieving long-term effectiveness and high performance will entail significant structural change if copacetic systems are not already in place.

Supporting Employee Empowerment Silver, Randolph, and Seibert’s (2006) comparison of effective versus stalled empowerment strategies revealed nine essential principles for creating and sustaining employee empowerment in contemporary organizations:

1. Clarify the expectations surrounding empowerment and use these to develop a broad change strategy in which empowerment is an important component but not the sole end product. Remember that employee empowerment is the means to an end—in this case, to benefits such as enhanced commitment and productivity—not the end in itself. Define the actual outcomes and improvements that are desired and set goals in multiple areas that empowerment can enhance, such as leadership, customer service, and performance effectiveness.

2. Get expert help to initiate the empowerment process and to achieve key progress points in it. External experts are unhindered by preexisting organizational culture, procedure, and norms. They can thus more easily take and share an objective view and help with the initial clarification of expectations, responsibilities, and roles during the strategy-building process. They can also provide training and feedback at critical points in the cycle.

3. Change begins at the top. Senior management must be committed to implementing and modeling both training and behavioral changes. The entire senior management team should be involved in making strategy and modeling behavior from the very beginning. If the visionary leader is then lost, the rest of the team can continue to provide the commitment and modeling necessary to sustain change. Senior managers should be encouraged to develop personal action plans and establish baseline measures and improvement goals for the organization.

4. Train comprehensively. Training for both managers and employees should encompass the reasons behind and expectations for the change strategy. It should cover key principles, practices of empowerment, and the new behaviors, responsibilities, and skills needed to effect and sustain the change.

5. Solicit and encourage employee feedback and suggestions. Senior team members and managers should routinely meet and dialogue with employee groups to share input, discuss process, problem solve emerging issues, and collaborate on ongoing expectations and needs for change at all levels.

6. Generate organizational knowledge and learning. Share individual and group knowledge gained through experience throughout the change process, as well as successes, failures, and innovative practices. This is an excellent opportunity to combine empowerment with employee involvement practices, such as setting “town meeting” discussions or implementing an organizational wiki share space to help generate and share organizational knowledge.

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Section 9.3 Leading in Contemporary Organizations

7. Leverage the helpful aspects of existing organizational culture and institute new practices that support empowerment behaviors and change strategy. Sharing knowledge, mutually monitoring performance and offering feedback, being open to disagreement, discussing failures as constructive problem-solving tactics, taking ownership for failures or mistakes, and striving for mutual accountability are all major assets to sustaining empowerment and organizational change. Cultures that have already emphasized teamwork values will have an enormous advantage, as most of these potential assets are part and parcel with the values and practices associated with teamwork and maintaining a climate of cooperation.

8. Motivate and commit midlevel management to being actively involved. Although change begins at the top, it is largely implemented and sustained through second- and third-level management, which is better placed to lead employees at all levels and is typically most knowledgeable about emerging issues and areas that need change.

9. Recycle and revise. Training, implementing, and assessing empowerment behaviors and change strategy represents a continuous evolution, one that involves ongoing learning about, adapting, and revising both preexisting and newly implemented behaviors and practices.

Source: Adapted from Silver, S., Randolph, W. A., & Seibert, S. (2006). Implementing and sustaining empowerment: Lessons learned from comparison of a for-profit and a nonprofit organization. Journal of Management Inquiry, 15(1), 47–58.

Structuring for Cooperative Power Structuring an organization for cooperative-power and leadership practices often entails flattening traditional organizational hierarchies and aligning organizational systems and structure to effectively support teams. In some cases this can mean embarking on an entirely new method of organizing employees and business processes within the company. This is exemplified by an organizational change experiment that involved holacracy undertaken at Zappos, a highly successful dot-com that pioneered online shoe selling. Instigated by serial entrepreneur Tony Hsieh, holacracy represents a particular take on self-managed teams and empowerment that is based on distributed leadership.

Holacracy is an experimental organizational model that removes power from management hierarchies, distributing it across clear roles that can be executed autonomously, without a micromanaging boss (Robertson, 2007). This idea grew out of the attempt to formalize the type of culture that typically develops in innovative dot-coms and to maintain it as the company grows, thus preventing the appearance of a stifling bureaucracy. In actuality, work is more structured within a holacracy than in a conventional company, just differently so. Teams break up work according to a clear set of rules and processes, and member roles, responsibilities, and associated expectations are also clearly defined.

There are several key tenets that sum up the concept of holacracy:

• Roles are defined around work, rather than people. In a holacracy, roles replace job descriptions. Team members fulfill multiple roles and change roles as the work changes.

• Authority is distributed among team members, rather than delegated by bosses. This allows the organization of work to change rapidly through numerous, small iterations, rather than through infrequent, big organizational changes.

• Finally, holacracy intends to replace office politics with transparent rules accessible to everyone.

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Chapter 9 Summary and Resources

The organizational work process naturally brings about tensions among people and roles. Rather than being seen as undesirable, holacracy views these tensions as unavoidable and as opportunities to improve. Smaller tensions can be resolved through tactical meetings that help synchronize the actions of the team and determine subsequent actions. When tensions grow or become recurrent, governance meetings are called to change the role structure in place. This brings about continuous change and helps improve the organization.

Even though Zappos was already an unconventional, dynamic dot-com, it wasn’t easy to implement holacracy (Greenfield, 2015). The organiza- tion underwent a massive cultural change, which included eliminat- ing positions of authority that come with the perks of power and higher salaries. It also produced confu- sion about who was responsible for what (Lam, 2016). Zappos offered all employees who did not wish to adopt holacracy the option to leave the company with a generous 3-month severance package, and about 18% of Zappos employees took the company up on this offer (Gelles, 2016; Lam, 2016). While holacracy is still thriv- ing at Zappos, the jury is still out on its effectiveness, and it has not yet been normalized as an organizational practice. Aligning organizational systems to support teamwork—a process called team-based organizing—is a far more popular alternative, and one that has been proved effective. Chapter 10 examines this process in depth and further discusses organizational change, learning, and innovation.

Chapter 9 Summary and Resources

Power and influence are potent elements, and both leaders and followers should be mindful of related positive and negative effects and consequences. Leadership is most effective when it engages people to act cooperatively and share ownership over their attitudes and actions. Cooperative-power and leadership practices have increasingly become the norm in contemporary organizations, as teams and teamwork values have proved effective vehicles for organizational growth, productivity, and innovation. In the next chapter, we examine the profound connection between teams and the organization in which they are embedded, and the contemporary shift toward team-based organizations.

Chapter Summary

• The distinct sources of power by which we can affect others include coercive, reward, legitimate, referent, expert, and informational power.

• The ways in which we can be influenced include reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, apparent authority, liking, and scarcity value.

James Leynse/Corbis via Getty Images

In holocratic organizations, like Zappos, the powers traditionally reserved for executives and managers are spread across all employees. Holocracy essentially flattens the traditional organizational hierarchy.

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Chapter 9 Summary and Resources

• In conformity, individuals accept influence because they want to. In compliance, individuals accept influence because they must. The concepts and behaviors of con- formity and compliance correlate to two nearly opposite power paradigms: coopera- tive power and power as control.

• While the power-as-control model of leadership is asymmetric, the cooperative- power model of group leadership emphasizes reciprocal properties, such as exchange and negotiation.

• Although there are many perspectives on leadership, contemporary experts tend to agree that effective leadership should inspire more conformity than compliance, and work within cooperative-power practices.

• Organizational process changes geared toward cooperative-power and leadership practices include using teams as a basic work unit, focusing on teamwork values, and implementing strategies for employee involvement.

• Changes in management practices geared toward cooperative-power and leadership practices include developing and enabling employee empowerment and managing self-managing teams in a practical way.

• Changes in organizational structure geared toward cooperative power and leadership include developing an organizational culture and systems that support employee empowerment, using cooperative-power practices, and adopting teams and teamwork values throughout the organization.

Posttest

1. Compliance behaviors are more likely to occur __________. a. among high-status members b. in groups with low cohesion c. when choice of groups is limited d. in the absence of significant consequences

2. Pfeffer’s follower-centric perspective significantly impacted leadership theory and practice by establishing the idea that leadership involves all of the following EXCEPT __________. a. associating oneself with negative outcomes b. the actions and influence of both leaders and followers c. managing both real and symbolic actions d. assigning power and recognition to salient individuals

3. The context within which teams function is complex; most empowered teams __________. a. do not need an external leader to weigh them down b. perform best under an autocratic leadership structure c. engage in cooperative management practices d. do not perform well in organizational settings

4. Managing an empowered team requires all of the following, EXCEPT __________. a. managers’ acceptance of shared leadership b. a nontraditional management approach c. a consultative, facilitative leadership role d. previous experience in traditional leadership roles

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Chapter 9 Summary and Resources

5. __________ is based on our association or affiliation with others. a. Cooperative power b. Referent power c. Apparent authority d. Self-empowerment

6. Leadership is primarily a process of __________. a. style b. influence c. personality d. power

7. __________leaders influence their followers by motivating them to an extraordinary extent. a. Transformational b. Salient c. Charismatic d. External

8. Social proof represents a principle of influence guided by the process of __________. a. cooperative power b. peer pressure c. social conditioning d. social comparison

9. To effectively lead and influence others, team members must first be able to __________. a. effectively lead themselves b. plan and rehearse team activities c. conquer existing social conditioning d. make accurate social comparisons

10. Employee involvement is associated with all of the following outcomes EXCEPT __________. a. increased buy-in and commitment to the organization b. enhanced capability for autonomous work c. unilateral decision making regarding organizational strategy d. collaborative identification and resolution of issues

Critical-Thinking Questions

1. Consider an experience you have had working within a group. How would you char- acterize the leadership style developed within that group? Would that style translate to an appealing leadership style in the workplace? Why or why not?

2. Identify some of the different ways you have seen people assert power in organiza- tions. Which of those were most productive? Which were least productive? What do you think characterized the difference between these assertions of power?

Answers: c, a, c, d, b, b, c, d, a, c.

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Chapter 9 Summary and Resources

3. In 1974 sociologist Phillip Kunz sent out handwritten Christmas cards and a family photo to 600 randomly selected strangers. Within a few weeks, Kunz received more than 200 replies, many of which were handwritten and contained personal information about the senders’ own families, as if Kunz was a regular contact on the recipients’ Christmas card list. In fact, Kunz did become a regular on those lists— and continued to receive Christmas cards from these total strangers for the next 15 years. Using the concepts from this chapter, explain this phenomenon and why it occurred.

Additional Resources Links

• Leadership and Influence: http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2016/05/31/12-experts -discuss-the-difference-between-leadership-and-inf luence/#24d31bc17c24

• Being an Effective Manager: http://www.forbes.com/sites/universityofphoenix/2016/05/31/avoiding -leadership-letdown-5-ways-to-be-a-more-effective-manager/#18a532cc39a4

• Teamwork Values for Leadership: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jpmorganchase/2016/05/13/lessons-in-life-and -leadership/#3b6770ca524c

• Leading Others: http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2016/05/17 /effective-leadership-how-to-be-more-than-just-a-boss/#5828dc712b29

• Women on the Rise in Leadership Roles: http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelmcgaughy/2016/05/12/women-leaders -another-reason-to-invest-in-emerging-markets/#f ba72cc24204

• Shifting from Leader to Team Member: http://www.forbes.com/sites/dailymuse/2016/05/23/5-ways-to-keep-your -leadership-tendencies-in-check-when-youre-not-in-charge/#4a7d2b1117cf

• The Art of the Self-Managing Team: http://fortune.com/2012/12/05/the-art-of-the-self-managing-team

• The Velvet Revolution: A Perfect Example of Shared Leadership: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/200911 /the-velvet-revolution-perfect-example-shared-leadership

• Blake Mouton Managerial Grid: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_73.htm

Videos • The World’s Most Powerful Women Define Power:

https://youtu.be/C8EJXUZmW74 • Creating a Movement: Leadership as a Force for Good:

https://youtu.be/v75Z-mgVhCw • Simon Sinek: How Great Leaders Inspire Action:

https://youtu.be/qp0HIF3SfI4 • Shared Leadership for Community Change: Andre Leroux at TEDxRichmond:

https://youtu.be/1WN0ubhx4Bg • Self-Managing Teams: Debunking the Leadership Paradox:

https://youtu.be/GBnR00qgGgM

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http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2016/05/31/12-experts-discuss-the-difference-between-leadership-and-influence/#24d31bc17c24

http://www.forbes.com/sites/universityofphoenix/2016/05/31/avoiding-leadership-letdown-5-ways-to-be-a-more-effective-manager/#18a532cc39a4

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jpmorganchase/2016/05/13/lessons-in-life-and-leadership/#3b6770ca524c

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2016/05/17/effective-leadership-how-to-be-more-than-just-a-boss/#5828dc712b29

http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelmcgaughy/2016/05/12/women-leaders-another-reason-to-invest-in-emerging-markets/#fba72cc24204

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dailymuse/2016/05/23/5-ways-to-keep-your-leadership-tendencies-in-check-when-youre-not-in-charge/#4a7d2b1117cf

http://fortune.com/2012/12/05/the-art-of-the-self-managing-team

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/200911/the-velvet-revolution-perfect-example-shared-leadership

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_73.htm

https://youtu.be/C8EJXUZmW74

https://youtu.be/v75Z-mgVhCw

https://youtu.be/qp0HIF3SfI4

https://youtu.be/1WN0ubhx4Bg

https://youtu.be/GBnR00qgGgM

Chapter 9 Summary and Resources

• Beyond Empowerment —Are We Ready for the Self-Managed Organization? Doug Kirkpatrick at TEDxChico: https://youtu.be/Ej4n3w4kMa4

• Everyday Leadership: https://www.ted.com/talks/drew_dudley_everyday_leadership

• What It Takes to Be a Great Leader: https://www.ted.com/talks/roselinde_torres_what_it_takes_to_be_a_great_leader

• The Future of Leadership: http://www.forbes.com/video/4300422156001

Answers and Rejoinders to Chapter Pretest

1. False. Most self-managed teams engage in cooperative management practices in which both internal and external leaders work toward the good of the team.

2. False. While various influences may cause us to feel pressured to conform, only compliance is forced. Individuals who conform choose to accept influence.

3. False. Empowered teamwork holds distinct advantages. Team members who self- regulate have greater task effectiveness. By sharing or distributing leadership roles and responsibilities among team members, managers are able to take a broader focus, manage several teams simultaneously, and engage in cooperative-power relations that support and facilitate effective teamwork. Empowered teams are more flexible and effective, and they make better decisions in complex, dynamic environments.

4. False. While closely related, power and influence are not the same thing. Power implies that a person can both exert influence and impose his or her will on others. Influence, on the other hand, can encourage but cannot impose change.

5. False. Some theories propose that leadership is attached to specific traits—however, history has proved that while many great leaders have some of the specified traits, they tend to have them in different quantities and combinations, and some traits many be missing entirely.

Rejoinders to Posttest

1. Compliance behavior requires the presence of significant consequences and occurs more often when individuals believe they have few or no alternatives in group choice.

2. Pfeffer established the importance of the actions and influence of both leaders and followers, the tendency to assign power and recognition to salient individuals, management of real and symbolic actions, and positive self-presentation.

3. Most empowered teams engage in cooperative management practices in which teams with varying levels of empowerment share management roles and responsibilities with designated team leaders and/or external managers.

4. Managers experienced in more traditional leadership roles often find it difficult to shift to the nontraditional, bottom-up management approach and consultative, facilitative leadership role required by self-managed teams.

5. Referent power is based on the ability to “borrow” authority, status, and influence via affiliation or association with powerful individuals, groups, and organizations.

6. While leaders can and do exercise power, leadership is primarily a process of influence. 7. Charismatic leaders influence their followers by motivating them to an

extraordinary extent.

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https://youtu.be/Ej4n3w4kMa4

https://www.ted.com/talks/drew_dudley_everyday_leadership

https://www.ted.com/talks/roselinde_torres_what_it_takes_to_be_a_great_leader

http://www.forbes.com/video/4300422156001

Chapter 9 Summary and Resources

8. The principle of social proof is based on the process of social comparison, in which we are influenced by comparisons between ourselves and others.

9. The idea that team members must learn to lead themselves before they can effectively influence and lead others supports employee empowerment.

10. Employee involvement builds employee commitment, buy-in, and accountability; increases employee capacity for responsibility and autonomous work; and enhances organizational function via collaborative problem solving and decision making.

Key Terms and Concepts apparent authority Influence based on the tendency to follow people who are in authority positions or have the attributes of authority.

attribution theory A psychological theory that assumes that people tend to analyze circumstances and events to make causal inferences in an effort to manage and predict their environment and interactions.

charismatic leaders Leaders who influence their followers by motivating them to an extraordinary extent.

coercive power An individual’s ability to threaten the use of force to gain compliance from another person.

commitment and consistency Influence based on the tendency to dislike backing out of deals.

compliance A condition in which individuals accept influence because they must.

contingency theory A theoretical approach to leadership under the situation-centric perspective that regards a leadership style’s effectiveness as being contingent on situ- ational conditions.

cooperative power A paradigm that emphasizes a noncompetitive approach in which power is shared among cooperating entities.

employee involvement A catchphrase that encompasses organizational initiatives and practices that enable cross-hierarchical exchange of information and influence within the organization.

empowerment behaviors Leadership activities directed toward the development of subordinates’ self-management skills.

encouraging behaviors A style of empowerment behavior wherein external team leaders facilitate the development of team members’ capacity to self-lead through indirect means.

expert power Authority based on one’s experience and special knowledge, skills, and abilities.

follower-centric perspective A theoretical approach to leadership that assumes that leadership has little to do with a leader’s traits or actions but is attributed to leaders by their followers.

group leadership The process of influenc- ing group members toward collective, inter- dependent goals and coordinating member behavior in pursuit of group goals.

influence The capacity to affect the character, development, attitudes, or behavior of people or processes.

informational power The ability to influence others by disseminating knowledge.

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Chapter 9 Summary and Resources

interactional perspective A theoretical approach to leadership that considers leadership to be a complex phenomenon of social influence explained by the interaction between situational factors and the characteristics, behaviors, and beliefs of both leaders and followers.

leader-centric perspective A theoretical approach to leadership that assumes leadership flows from specific leader characteristics and behaviors.

leadership A process whereby an individual influences others to work toward a common goal.

legitimate power Authority assigned to an individual by custom and law.

liking Influence based on the human preference for saying yes to people they know and like.

path–goal theory A situation approach to leadership that suggests that leaders motivate subordinates to achieve high performance by showing them the path to reaching valued goals or results.

power The ability to influence behavior and events, overcome resistance, and move people to actions they otherwise would not engage in.

power as control The traditional approach to power relations, in which X has some special authority and influence over Y.

reciprocity Influence based on the idea that people tend to feel indebted to those who do something for them or give them a gift.

referent power The ability to “borrow” authority, status, and influence via affiliation or association with powerful individuals, groups, and organizations.

reward power The ability to control the rewards (including recognition) that another individual receives.

salient People, objects, or circumstances that noticeably stand out or contrast with other elements in the environment.

scarcity value Influence based on the economic principle of supply and demand: The less there is of something, the more valuable it is presumed to be.

self-empowering behaviors Physical and cognitive activities that increase self- motivation, job satisfaction, commitment to quality, and self-perceived autonomy.

self-managed team A group of employees that is responsible and accountable for all or most aspects of producing a product or delivering a service.

situational leadership A theory that assumes that leaders can adopt different leadership styles to adapt to differing situations, rather than restructuring or avoiding the situation.

situation-centric perspective A theoretical approach to leadership that assumes that leadership effectiveness depends on its situational appropriateness.

social proof Influence based on the human tendency to use social comparison as a guide to one’s own thoughts and actions.

style theory of leadership A theoretical approach to leadership that places prime importance on a leader’s particular man- ner of and approach to providing direction, motivating others, and implementing plans.

trait theory of leadership A theoretical approach to leadership that suggests leadership resides in specific traits.

transformational leaders Interactional leaders who transform their followers’ perceptions, expectations, and beliefs.

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