Management Course: Discussion Topic 10

Leadership in Organizational Settings

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

McShane/Von Glinow OB 5e

Copyright © 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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The Leadership of Anne Sweeney

Anne Sweeney’s leadership has been a decisive factor in the remarkable turnaround of ABC television network.

• “There's great resolve and strength there.”
• “Anne draws upon her optimism and her grace in keeping her focus firmly on the future.”
• “She's very concerned about the people who work for her.”

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Leadership Defined

Leadership is the ability to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness of the organizations of which they are members

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Shared Leadership

The view that leadership is broadly distributed rather than assigned to one person

Employees are leaders when they champion change in the company or team

Shared leadership calls for:

• Formal leaders willing to delegate power
• Collaborative culture – employees support each other
• Employee ability to influence through persuasion

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Leadership

Perspectives

Competency Perspective

Contingency Perspective

Implicit Leadership Perspective

Transformational Perspective

Perspectives of Leadership

BehavioralPerspective

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Competency Perspective

• Competencies – personal characteristics that lead to superior performance in a leadership role (e.g. skills, knowledge, values)
• Early research – very few “traits” predicted effective leadership
• Emerging view – several competencies now identified as key influences on leadership potential and of effective leaders

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Self-concept

Drive

• Positive self-evaluation
• High self-esteem and self-efficacy
• Internal locus of control

• Inner motivation to pursue goals
• Inquisitiveness, action-oriented

Integrity

• Truthfulness
• Consistency in words and actions

Personality

• Extroversion, conscientiousness
  (and other traits)

Eight Leadership Competencies

more

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Cognitive/practical Intelligence

• Above average cognitive ability
• Able to solve real-world problems

Knowledge of
the Business

• Understands external environment
• Aids intuitive decision making

Eight Leadership Competencies (con’t)

Leadership Motivation

• High need for socialized power to achieve organizational goals

Emotional Intelligence

• Perceiving, assimilating, understanding, and regulating emotions

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Competency Perspective Limitations

Implies a universal approach

Alternative combinations of competencies might work just as well

Assumes leadership is within the person

• But leadership is also about relations with followers

Competencies refer to leadership potential, not performance

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Leader Behavior Perspective

• People-oriented behaviors
• Showing mutual trust and respect
• Concern for employee needs
• Looks out for employee well-being
• Task-oriented behaviors
• Assign specific tasks
• Ensure employees follow rules
• Set “stretch goals” to achieve performance capacity

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Leader Behavior Perspective Limitations

• People-task categories mask subcategories of leader behavior that may be distinct
• Assumes best leaders display a high level of both people and task styles
• But best style seems to depend on the situation

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Path-Goal Leadership

• Originated with expectancy theory of motivation
• Paths = employee expectancies
• Goals = employee performance
• States that effective leaders ensure that employees who perform their jobs well receive more valued rewards than those who perform poorly

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Path-Goal Leadership Styles

• Directive
• Provide psychological structure to jobs
• Task-oriented behaviors
• Supportive
• Provide psychological support
• People-oriented behaviors
• Participative
• Encourage/facilitate employee involvement
• Achievement-oriented
• Encourage peak performance through goal setting and positive self-fulfilling prophecy

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Path-Goal Leadership Model

Employee

Contingencies

Environmental

Contingencies

Leader
Behaviors

• Directive
• Supportive
• Participative
• Achievement-oriented

Leader Effectiveness

• Employee motivation
• Employee satisfaction
• Acceptance of leader

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Path-Goal Contingencies

• Skill/Experience low high high
• Locus of Control external internal internal

Task Structure nonroutine routine nonroutine ?

Team Dynamics–ve norms low cohesion +ve norms ?

Directive Supportive Participative Achievement

Employee

Contingencies

Directive Supportive Participative Achievement

Environmental

Contingencies

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Other Contingency Leader Theories

• Situational Leadership Model
• Effective leaders vary style with follower “readiness”
• Leader styles – telling, selling, participating, and delegating
• Popular model, but lacks research support
• Fiedler’s Contingency Model
• Leadership style is stable -- based on personality
• Best style depends on situational control
• Theory has problems, but uniquely points out inflexibility of leadership style

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Leadership Substitutes

• Contingencies that limit a leader’s influence or make a particular leadership style unnecessary.

e.g.: Training and experience replace task-oriented leadership

• Research evidence: substitutes help, but don’t completely substitute for real leadership

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Transformational Leadership at P&G

A. G. Lafley (shown), CEO of Procter & Gamble, practices transformational leadership without using charisma. By forming and communicating a clear vision and modeling that vision, he has transformed the consumer goods company.

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Transformational vs. Transactional Leaders

• Transformational leaders
• Leading -- changing the organization to fit environment
• Change agents
• Transactional leaders
• Managing – achieving current objectives more efficiently
• link job performance to rewards
• ensure employees have necessary resources
• Relates to contingency leadership theories (e.g. path-goal)

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Transformational v. Charismatic Leaders

• Is charismatic leadership essential for transformational leadership?

Emerging view -- charisma differs from transformational leadership

• Charisma is a personal trait that provides referent power

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Transformational Leadership Elements

Create a strategic vision

• Depiction of company’s attractive future
• motivates and bonds employees
• Leader champions the vision

Communicate the vision

• Frame message around a grand purpose
• Create a shared mental model of the future
• Use symbols, metaphors, symbols

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Transformational Leadership Elements (con’t)

Model the vision

• Walk the talk
• Symbolize/demonstrate the vision through behavior
• Builds employee trust in the leader

Build commitment to the vision

• Increased through communicating and modeling the vision
• Increased through employee involvement in shaping the shared vision

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Evaluating Transformational Leadership

• Transformational leadership is important
• Higher employee satisfaction, performance, org citizenship, creativity
• Transformational leadership limitations
• Some models have circular logic
• Transformational leaders defined by their success rather than behavior (Result: those models have no predictive value)
• Universal theory
• Need a contingency-oriented theory
• Recognize differences across cultures

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Implicit Leadership Perspective

Follower perceptions of characteristics of effective leaders

Leadership prototypes

• Preconceived image of effective leader, used to evaluate leader effectiveness

Romance of leadership effect

• Amplify effect of leaders on organizational results
• Fundamental attribution error
• Need for situational control

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Cultural Issues in Leadership

• Societal cultural values and practices affect leaders:
• Shape leader’s values/norms
• Influence decisions and actions
• Shape follower prototype of effective leaders
• Some leadership styles are universal, others differ across cultures
• “Charismatic visionary” seems to be universal
• Participative leadership works better in some cultures than others

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Gender Issues in Leadership

• Male and female leaders have similar task- and people-oriented leadership.
• Participative leadership style is used more often by female leaders.
• Evaluating female leaders
• Still receive negative evaluations as leader due to prototypes and gender stereotypes
• But evidence that they are good at emerging leadership styles (coaching, teamwork)