Management essay
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MGT3680LeadershipS19.pptxLeadership Defined
Leadership is…
“A process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal.” (Northouse, 2012, p. 3)
Note that you do not need to have a formal position of authority to be a leader. Anyone who exerts influence over others in the pursuit of organizationally relevant matters is a leader.
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Leadership Defined
| Leader | Manager |
| Deals with the interpersonal aspects of a manager’s job | Planning, investigating, organizing, and control |
| Inspires, provides emotional support, gets employees to rally around a common goal | Concentrate on getting things done |
| Create a vision and strategic plan | Implement the vision and strategic plan |
In general, managers typically perform functions associated with planning, investigating, organizing, and control, and leaders deal with the interpersonal aspects of a manager’s job. Leaders inspire others, provide emotional support, and try to get employees to rally around a common goal. Leaders also play a key role in creating a vision and strategic plan for an organization. Managers, in turn, are charged with implementing the vision and strategic plan.
There are several conclusions to be drawn from this discussion.
First, good leaders are not necessarily good managers, and good managers are not necessarily good leaders.
Second, effective leadership requires effective managerial skills at some level.
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Leadership: Followership
Leadership is socially constructed
by
Leaders and followers
All of the theories discussed in this chapter are leader-centric. That is, they focused on understanding leadership effectiveness from the leader’s point of view.
Note how both leaders and followers are closely linked. You cannot lead without having followers, and you cannot follow without having leaders. Each needs the other, and the quality of the relationship determines how we behave as followers. This is why it is important for both leaders and followers to focus on developing a mutually rewarding and beneficial relationship.
Followers vary in terms of the extent to which they commit to, comply with, and resist a leader’s influence attempts. For example, one researcher identified three types of followers: helpers, independents, and rebels.
• Helpers show deference to and comply with the leadership.
• Independents distance themselves from the leadership and show less compliance.
• Rebels show divergence from the leader and are least compliant.
Leaders obviously want followers who are:
Productive
Reliable
Honest
Cooperative
5. Proactive
6. Flexible
Leaders do not benefit from followers who hide the truth, withhold information, fail to generate ideas, are unwilling to collaborate, provide inaccurate feedback, or are unwilling to take the lead on projects and initiatives.
Followers seek, admire, and respect leaders who foster three emotional responses in others:
• Significance
• Community
• Excitement
That is, followers want organizational leaders to create feelings of significance (what one does at work is important and meaningful), community (a sense of unity encourages people to treat others with respect and dignity and to work together in pursuit of organizational goals), and excitement (people are engaged and feel energy at work).
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Leadership: Trait Theories
Research to identify characteristics or attributes that differentiate leaders from followers
Early research identified:
Intelligence
Dominance
Self-confidence
Level of energy and activity
Task-relevant knowledge
Trait theory is the successor to what was called the “great man” theory of leadership. This approach was based on the assumption that leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., or Mark Zuckerberg were born with some inborn ability to lead.
In contrast, trait theorists believed that leadership traits were not innate, but could be developed through experience and learning.
The trait approach attempts to identify personality characteristics or interpersonal attributes that can be used to differentiate leaders from followers.
What Are the Core Traits Possessed by Leaders? Early research demonstrated that five traits tended to differentiate leaders from average followers:
1. Intelligence.
2. Dominance.
3. Self-confidence.
4. Level of energy and activity.
5. Task-relevant knowledge.
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Leadership: Trait Theories
What are “Dark Side” Traits?
Narcissism is defined as having “a self-centered perspective, feelings of superiority, and a drive for personal power and glory.” Individuals with this trait have inflated views of themselves, fantasies of being in control of everything, and they like to attract the admiration of others. Although narcissistic leaders have an upside of being more charismatic and passionate, they also were found to promote counterproductive work behaviors from others.
Machiavellianism entails the use of manipulation, a cynical view of human nature (e.g., all people lie to get what they want), and a moral code that puts results over principles (e.g., you have to cheat to get ahead). It’s not surprising that this characteristic is associated with counterproductive behavior.
Psychopathy is characterized as a lack of concern for others, impulsive behavior, and a lack of remorse or guilt when one’s actions harm others. It’s no surprise that this type of person is toxic at work.
There are two more conclusions to note about Table 13.1.
First, personality is more important than intelligence when selecting leaders.
Second, displaying the “dark side” traits tends to result in career derailment—being demoted or fired.
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Narcissism
A self-centered perspective
Feelings of superiority
Machiavellianism
Use of manipulation and cynical view
Moral code puts results over principles
Psychopathy
Lack of concern for others, impulsivity
Lack of remorse or guilt when actions harm others
Leadership: Trait Theories
Perceptions Matter
Implicit leadership theory is based on the idea that people have beliefs about how leaders should behave and what they should do for their followers
These beliefs are summarized in a leadership prototype
Implicit leadership theory is based on the idea that people have beliefs about how leaders should behave and what they should do for their followers.
A leadership prototype is a mental representation of the traits and behaviors that people believe are possessed by leaders.
It is important to understand the content of leadership prototypes because we tend to perceive that someone is a leader when he or she exhibits traits or behaviors that are consistent with our prototypes.
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Leadership: Behavioral Style Theories
Which leader behaviors drive effectiveness?
Attempts to identify the unique behaviors displayed by effective leaders
Task-oriented
Relationship-oriented
Passive
Transformational
Because traits and interpersonal attributes are less amenable to change, it may make sense to focus on patterns of behavior exhibited by effective leaders.
Leaders rely on many different types of behaviors to influence others and to accomplish goals. One researcher, for example, identified 65 distinct categories of leader behavior. The good news is that these behaviors can be boiled down into four categories: task-oriented, relationship-oriented, passive, and transformational.
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Leadership: Behavioral Style Theories
Takeaways from behavioral styles theory
Leader behavior is more important than leader traits
Leader behaviors can be improved and developed
There is no best style of leadership
Leader behavior is more important than leader traits when it comes to effectiveness.
Leader behaviors can be systematically improved and developed. Organizations are encouraged to continue to invest in leadership development programs.
There is no one best style of leadership. The effectiveness of a particular leadership style depends on the situation at hand. = Contingency theory
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Leadership: Situational Theories
Situational Theories
The effectiveness of a particular style of leader behavior depends on the situation
As situations change, different styles become appropriate
Situational leadership theories grew out of the realization that there is not a single “best” style of leadership.
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Leadership: Situational Theories
Fiedler’s Contingency Model
One style is dominant
A leader’s effectiveness is contingent on the extent to which a leader’s style fits or matches characteristics of the situation at hand
Determined by Least Preferred Coworker (LPC) Scale
Leaders have two different styles:
Fiedler believes that leaders have one dominant or natural leadership style that is resistant to change.
A leader’s style is described as either task-motivated or relationship-motivated.
Task-motivated leaders focus on accomplishing goals, whereas relationship-motivated leaders are more interested in developing positive relationships with followers.
To determine an individual’s leadership style, Fiedler developed the least preferred coworker (LPC) scale. The scale asks you to evaluate a coworker you least enjoy working with on 16 pairs of opposite characteristics (such as friendly/unfriendly or tense/relaxed). High scores on the survey (high LPC) indicate that an individual is relationship-motivated, and low scores (low LPC) suggest a task-motivated style.
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Task Motivated
Relationship Motivated
Leadership: Situational Theories
What Are the Takeaways from Fiedler’s Model?
Leadership effectiveness goes beyond traits and behaviors
Organizations should attempt to hire or promote people whose leadership styles fit or match the situational demands
Leaders need to modify their style to fit a situation
Although research provides only partial support for this model and the LPC scale, there are three key takeaways from Fiedler’s model.
Leadership effectiveness goes beyond traits and behaviors. The fit between a leader’s style and the situational demands is important.
If a manager is failing in a certain context, management should consider moving the individual to another situation. Don’t give up on a person simply because he or she was a poor leader in one context.
Arecent study found that too much task-oriented leader behavior was viewed negatively by employees whereas excessive relationship leadership was not. Leaders need to experiment with finding the “right” amount of leadership to exhibit in different situations.
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Leadership: Situational Theories
Path-Goal Theory (House)
“Leader behaviors are effective when employees view them as a source of satisfaction or as paving the way to future satisfaction.”
Leaders:
Reduce roadblocks
Provide guidance and support
Link rewards to goal accomplishment
Path-goal theory holds that leader behaviors are effective when employees view them as a source of satisfaction or as paving the way to future satisfaction.
Leaders are expected to do this by (1) reducing roadblocks that interfere with goal accomplishment, (2) providing the guidance and support needed by employees, and (3) linking meaningful rewards to goal accomplishment.
House’s revised model is presented in Figure 13.4. You can see that leadership effectiveness is influenced by the interaction between eight leadership behaviors and a variety of contingency factors
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Leadership: Situational Theories
Takeaways from Path-Goal Theory
Use more than one style of leadership
Help employees achieve their goals
Modify leadership style to fit employee and environmental characteristics
There are not enough direct tests of House’s revised path-goal theory to draw overall conclusions. Nonetheless, there are three important takeaways from this theory.
Use more than one style of leadership. Effective leaders use multiple types of leader behavior.
Help employees achieve their goals. Leaders are encouraged to clarify the paths to goal accomplishment and to remove any obstacles that may impair an employee’s ability to achieve his or her goals. In so doing, managers need to guide and coach employees during the pursuit of their goals.
Modify your leadership style to fit various employee and environmental characteristics. A small set of employee characteristics (i.e., ability, experience, and need for independence) and environmental factors (task characteristics of autonomy, variety, and significance) are relevant contingency factors.
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Leadership: Situational Theories
Applying Situational Theories
Although researchers and practitioners support the logic of situational leadership, the practical application of such theories has not been clearly developed. A team of researchers thus attempted to resolve this problem by proposing a general strategy that managers can use across a variety of situations. The general strategy contains five steps.
Step 1: Identify important outcomes. Managers must first determine the goals they want to achieve
Step 2: Identify relevant leadership behaviors. Next managers need to identify the specific types of behaviors that may be appropriate for the situation at hand.
Step 3: Identify situational conditions. Fiedler and House both identify a set of potential contingency factors to consider, but there may be other practical considerations.
Step 4: Match leadership to the conditions at hand. There simply are too many possible situational conditions for us to provide specific advice. This means that you should use your knowledge about organizational behavior to determine the best match between leadership styles/behaviors and the situation at hand.
Step 5: Determine how to make the match. Managers can either use guidelines from contingency theory or path-goal theory. You can either change the person in the leadership role or the leader can change his or her style or behavior.
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Identify important outcomes
Identify relevant leadership behaviors
Identify situational conditions
Match leadership to conditions
Determine whether to match person or style
Leadership: Followership
“Followership theory is not the study of leadership from the follower perspective. It is the study of how followers view and enact following behaviors in relation to leaders”
(Uhl-Bien et al., 2013, p. 96)
Proactive follower coproduction beliefs are, the extent of belief in partnering with leaders to…
Advance the mission
Achieve productivity
(Carsten & Uhl-Bien, 2012)
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Leadership: Followership
“Followers should be on the lookout for suggestions they can offer to superiors.’’
“Followers should proactively identify problems that could affect the organization.”
‘‘As part of their role, followers must be willing to challenge superiors’ assumptions.’’
“Followers should be proactive in thinking about things that could go wrong.”
“Followers should communicate their opinions, even when they know leaders may disagree.”
(Carsten, Uhl-Bien, & Jayawickrema, 2013)
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Leadership: Followership
How to be a better follower
Understand your boss
Understand your own style, needs, goals, expectations, and strengths and weaknesses
Conduct a gap analysis between the two
Build on mutual strengths
Adjust to or accommodate the leader’s divergent style, goals, expectations, and weaknesses
Recognize conflict
Enhance success
Attempt to gain an appreciation for your manager’s leadership style, interpersonal style, goals, expectations, pressures, and strengths and weaknesses.
Understand your own style, needs, goals, expectations, and strengths and weaknesses.
Conduct a gap analysis between the understanding you have about your boss and the understanding you have about yourself. With this information in mind, you are ready to proceed to the final step of developing and maintaining a relationship that fits both parties’ needs and styles.
Build on mutual strengths and adjust or accommodate the leader’s divergent style, goals, expectations, and weaknesses.
Recognize Conflict. The fact is, sometimes you may not be able to accommodate a leader’s style, expectations, or perhaps weaknesses, and may have to seek a transfer or quit to reconcile the discrepancy. We recognize that there are personal and ethical trade-offs that one may not be willing to make when managing the leader–follower relationship.
Enhance Success. Finally, recognize the importance of working at being a good follower, when that is your role. We can all enhance our boss’s leadership effectiveness and our employer’s success by becoming better followers, and thus create our own success. Remember, it is in your best interest to be a good follower because leaders need and want competent employees.
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APPENDIX
Making Sense of Leadership Theories
Effective leadership entails the consideration of three issues:
The answer to this question is more complicated than you might think because leadership effectiveness is more than simply gaining commitment with our influence attempts. Assessing leadership effectiveness entails consideration of three issues:
Issue 1. The Content of the Evaluation: “What Criteria Are Being Used to Assess Effectiveness?” Effectiveness depends on what the evaluator wants. For example, the content of effectiveness can entail criteria such as task performance, quality, customer satisfaction, sales, employee job satisfaction, turnover, or an overall evaluation of leadership effectiveness.
Issue 2. The Level of the Evaluation: “At What Level Are The Criteria Being Measured?” As you know from the Integrative Framework, effectiveness can be measured at the individual, group, or organizational levels. Evaluations at different levels also can produce difference conclusions.
Issue 3. The Rater’s Perspective: “Who Is Doing the Evaluation?” Assessments of effective leadership can be made by different people or groups, and their view of effective leadership may vary. For example, a manager may be perceived as effective by a direct report, but not by the entire work unit or the boss.
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The content of the evaluation:
What criteria are being used to assess effectiveness?
The level of the evaluation:
At what level are the criteria being measured?
The rater’s perspective:
who is doing the evaluation?
Making Sense of Leadership Theories
An integrated model of leadership
Figure 13.1 presents an integrated model of leadership. Starting at the far right of the model, you see that leadership effectiveness is the outcome we are trying to explain in this chapter. Note that effective leadership is influenced by four types of leadership behavior: task-oriented, relationship-oriented, passive, and transformational. Effective leadership also is affected by a combination of task-oriented traits and interpersonal attributes.
Moreover, Figure 13.1 represents how demographic characteristics such as gender and age, task-oriented traits, and interpersonal attributes influence an individual’s use of leader behaviors. The final component (situational factors) influencing leadership effectiveness involves our earlier discussions of contingency theory. That is, effective leadership requires using the “right” behavior at the “right” time.
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Trait Theories
What is the Trait Approach?
Recent research using meta-analysis techniques discovered the following attributes:
If you believe in making conclusions based on science, then OB researchers have come up with an answer to the question at hand by using a statistical technique called meta-analysis. A meta-analysis is a statistical procedure that effectively computes an average relationship between two variables.
Table 13.1 is a summary of what we know from this research. Instead of the five basic traits from early research, note the emphasis on task-orientation and the expansion into interpersonal attributes
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Leadership: Trait Theories
What are the takeaways from Trait Theory?
Do not ignore the implications of leadership traits
Cultivate positive traits and avoid “dark side” traits
Organizations should include personality testing and trait assessments in hiring and promotion
It is important to develop a “global mind-set”
We can no longer afford to ignore the implications of leadership traits. Traits play a central role in how we perceive leaders, and they ultimately impact leadership effectiveness. More and more companies are using management development programs to build a pipeline of leadership talent.
The list of positive traits and “dark side” traits shown in Table 13.1 provides guidance regarding the leadership traits you should attempt to cultivate and avoid if you want to assume a leadership role in the future.
Organizations may want to include personality and trait assessments into their selection and promotion processes.
Developing a “global mind-set” increasingly is becoming a positive task-oriented trait. As more and more companies expand their international operations, or simply hire more culturally diverse people for domestic operations in the US, companies desire to enhance employees’ “global mind-set.”
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Leadership: Behavioral Style Theories
Consideration
Involves leader behavior associated with creating mutual respect or trust and focuses on a concern for group members’ needs and desires
Empowerment
Extent to which a leader creates perceptions of psychological empowerment in others
Reflects employees’ beliefs that they have control over their work
As with initiating structure, this type of leader behavior was identified by researchers at The Ohio State University.
Consideration involves leader behavior associated with creating mutual respect or trust and focuses on a concern for group members’ needs and desires.
This is an important type of behavior to use in addition to task leadership because it promotes social interactions and identification with the team and leader. In fact, researchers at Ohio State initially proposed that a high–initiating structure, high-consideration style would be the one best style of leadership.
Overall, research results did not support this prediction. On its own, however, considerate leader behavior has a moderately strong positive relationship with measures of leadership effectiveness.
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Leadership: Behavioral Style Theories
Servant-Leadership (Greenleaf, 1970)
Focuses on increased service to others rather than to oneself
Characteristics of the servant-leader:
The term servant-leadership was coined by Robert Greenleaf in 1970. Greenleaf believed that great leaders act as servants, making the needs of others, including employees, customers, and community, their first priority.
Because the focus of servant-leadership is serving others over self-interest, servant-leaders are less likely to engage in self-serving behaviors that hurt others.
Servant-leadership is expected to promote leadership effectiveness because it focuses on providing support and growth opportunities to employees, people generally reciprocate with increased effort aimed at collective performance when they feel supported.
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Listening
Empathy
Healing
Awareness
Persuasion
Conceptual Thinking
Foresight
Stewardship
Growth of People
Building Community
Leadership: Behavioral Style Theories
Task-Oriented Leader Behavior
Ensure that people, equipment, and other resources are used efficiently
Types:
Initiating structure – organize group activities to maximize output
Transactional leadership – clarify roles and tasks, and provide positive and negative rewards
The “primary purpose of task-oriented behaviors is to ensure that people, equipment, and other resources are used in an efficient way to accomplish the mission of a group or organizations.”
Although there are a host of behaviors under this category such as planning, clarifying, monitoring, and problem solving, researchers have predominantly studied two types of task-oriented behaviors: Initiating structure and transactional leadership.
Initiating Structure. This type of leader behavior was identified by researchers at The Ohio State University. They defined initiating structure as leader behavior that organizes and defines what group members should be doing to maximize output. This form of leadership has a moderately strong positive relationship with measures of leadership effectiveness.
Transactional Leadership. Transactional leadership focuses on clarifying employees’ role and task requirements and providing followers with positive and negative rewards contingent on performance. Further, transactional leadership encompasses the fundamental managerial activities of setting goals, monitoring progress toward goal achievement, and rewarding and punishing people for their level of goal accomplishment. Transactional leadership is based on using rewards and punishment to drive motivation and performance.
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Leadership: Behavioral Style Theories
Relationship-Oriented Leader Behavior
enhance employees’ skills
create positive work relationships
Relationship-oriented behaviors
Consideration – mutual respect
Empowerment – sense of control over work (psychological)
Servant-leadership – service to others
The purpose of relationship-oriented leadership is to enhance employees’ skills and to create positive work relationships among coworkers and between the leader and his/her employees. Examples include behaviors that are supporting (e.g., helping people deal with stressful events), developmental (e.g., providing career advice or assign people to assignments that allow them to learn), appreciative (e.g., providing positive praise or an award), and empowering (e.g., allowing employees to make decisions).
OB researchers have primarily investigated the impact of three relationship-oriented behaviors:
• Consideration
• Empowerment
• Servant-leadership
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Leadership: Behavioral Style Theories
Relationship-Oriented Leader Behavior
Passive Leadership
Called laissez-faire leadership
Failure to take responsibility for leading
Passive leadership is best illustrated by what OB scholars call laissez-faire leadership. Laissez-faire leadership represents a general failure to take responsibility for leading.
Examples of laissez-faire leadership include avoiding conflict, failing to provide coaching on difficult assignment, failing to assist employees in setting performance goals, failing to give performance feedback, failing to address issues associated with bullying, or being so hands-off that employees have little idea about what they should be doing.
Laissez-faire leadership had a greater negative impact on employees’ perceptions of leadership effectiveness than did the unique positive contributions from positive leadership traits, initiating structure, transactional leadership, consideration, and transformational leadership.
Laissez-faire leadership can be demoralizing and it makes employees feel unsupported.
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Transformational Leadership
Transformational leaders transform followers:
To pursue organizational goals over self-interests
Use behaviors that appeal to followers’ self-concepts
Values
Motives
Personal identity
Transformational leadership represents a broad type of leader behavior that goes beyond task and relational leadership. Its origins date back to the 1940s when German sociologist Max Weber discussed the pros and cons of charismatic leadership.
Charisma is a form of interpersonal attraction that inspires acceptance, devotion, and enthusiasm.
Transformational leaders transform followers to pursue organizational goals over self-interests.
They do this by using leader behaviors that appeal to followers’ self-concepts—namely their values, motives, and personal identity.
There are four key behaviors of transformational leaders. Figure 13.4 provides a sketch of how transformational leaders rely on these four key leader behaviors (second column from left): inspirational motivation, idealized influence, individualized consideration, and intellectual stimulation.
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Transformational Leadership: 4 Behaviors
Inspirational Motivation
Use of charisma
Attractive vision of the future
Idealized Influence
Sacrificing for the good of the group
Being a role model with high ethical standards
Individualized Consideration
Pay special attention to needs of followers
Find ways for people to develop and grow
Intellectual Stimulation
Encourage creativity, innovation, and problem-solving
Inspirational motivation, which includes the use of charisma, involves establishing an attractive vision of the future, the use of emotional arguments, and exhibition of optimism and enthusiasm. A vision is “a realistic, credible, attractive future for your organization.” According to Burt Nanus, a leadership expert, the “right” vision unleashes human potential because it serves as a beacon of hope and common purpose. It does this by attracting commitment, energizing workers, creating meaning in employees’ lives, establishing a standard of excellence, promoting high ideals, and bridging the gap between an organization’s present problems and its future goals and aspirations.
The focus of idealized influence is to instill pride, respect, and trust within employees. Managers do this by sacrificing for the good of the group, being a role model, and displaying high ethical standards.
Individualized consideration entails behaviors associated with providing support, encouragement, empowerment, and coaching to employees. These behaviors necessitate that leaders pay special attention to the needs of their followers and search for ways to help people develop and grow. You can do this by spending time talking with people about their interests and by identifying new learning opportunities for them.
Intellectual stimulation involves behaviors that encourage employees to question the status quo and to seek innovative and creative solutions to organizational problems. This behavior aims to encourage employee creativity, innovation, and problem solving. If used effectively, employees are more likely to view organizational problems as “my problems” and to proactively attempt to overcome performance roadblocks.
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Transformational Leadership
Implications
Establishment of a positive view of the future - vision
The best leaders are not just transformational
Transformational leadership affects outcomes at the individual, group, and organizational levels
Transformational leadership works virtually
Transformational leadership can be ethical or unethical
The establishment of a positive vision of the future—inspirational motivation—should be considered a first step at applying transformational leadership. The vision represents a long-term goal, and it is important for leaders to begin their influence attempts by gaining agreement and consensus about where the team or organization is headed. It also is critical to widely communicate the vision among the team or entire organization.
The best leaders are not just transformational. Effective leaders also rely on other task-oriented and relationship-oriented behaviors, and they avoid a laissez-faire or “wait-and-see” style.
Transformational leadership affects outcomes at the individual, group, and organizational levels. Managers can thus use the four types of transformational leadership shown in Figure 13.4 (second column from left) as a vehicle to improve a host of important outcomes. The key point to remember is that transformational leadership transforms individuals as well as teams and work groups, ultimately creating widespread positive influence.
Transformational leadership works virtually. If you lead geographically dispersed people, then it is important to focus on how you can display the four transformational leader behaviors in your e-mails, tweets, webinars, and conference calls.
Transformational leaders can be ethical or unethical. Whereas ethical transformational leaders enable employees to enhance their self-concepts, unethical ones select or produce obedient, dependent, and compliant followers.
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Leadership: Situational Theories
What is Path-Goal Theory?
Figure 13.4 (2nd Ed) shows that two contingency factors—employee characteristics and environmental factors—are expected to cause different leadership behaviors to be more effective than others.
• Employee characteristics. Five important employee characteristics are locus of control, task ability, need for achievement, experience, and need for clarity.
• Environmental factors. Two relevant environmental factors are task structure (independent versus interdependent tasks) and work group dynamics.
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Leadership: Followership
The role of followers in the leadership process
| What Do Leaders Want From Followers? | What Do Followers Want From Leaders? |
| Productivity | Significance |
| Reliability | Community |
| Honesty | Excitement |
| Cooperativeness | |
| Proactiveness | |
| Flexibility |
All of the previous theories discussed in this chapter have been leader-centric. That is, they focused on understanding leadership effectiveness from the leader’s point of view.
Note how both leaders and followers are closely linked. You cannot lead without having followers, and you cannot follow without having leaders. Each needs the other, and the quality of the relationship determines how we behave as followers. This is why it is important for both leaders and followers to focus on developing a mutually rewarding and beneficial relationship.
Followers vary in terms of the extent to which they commit to, comply with, and resist a leader’s influence attempts. For example, one researcher identified three types of followers: helpers, independents, and rebels.
• Helpers show deference to and comply with the leadership.
• Independents distance themselves from the leadership and show less compliance.
• Rebels show divergence from the leader and are least compliant.
Leaders obviously want followers who are:
Productive
Reliable
Honest
Cooperative
5. Proactive
6. Flexible
Leaders do not benefit from followers who hide the truth, withhold information, fail to generate ideas, are unwilling to collaborate, provide inaccurate feedback, or are unwilling to take the lead on projects and initiatives.
Followers seek, admire, and respect leaders who foster three emotional responses in others:
• Significance
• Community
• Excitement
That is, followers want organizational leaders to create feelings of significance (what one does at work is important and meaningful), community (a sense of unity encourages people to treat others with respect and dignity and to work together in pursuit of organizational goals), and excitement (people are engaged and feel energy at work).
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