Chapter 11: Leadership and Trust

Question 1

What is a leader?

Answer 1

Someone who can influence others and who has managerial authority.

Ideally all managers should be leaders.

Question 2

What is leadership?

Answer 2

The process of leading a group and influencing that group to achieve its goals.

Question 3

What traits to leaders have?

Answer 3

Hard to pinpoint, there are various qualities which people associate with leadership.

Peoples responses represent trait theories of leadership.

Question 4

What are trait theories of leadership?

Answer 4

Theories that isolate characteristics (traits) that differentiate leaders from non-leaders.

Question 5

What are the 7 traits shown to be associated with leadership?

Answer 5

. Drive
. Desire to lead
. Honesty and integrity 
. Self-confidence 
. Intelligence 
. Job-relevant knowledge 
. Extraversion

Question 6

What behaviours do leaders exhibit?

Answer 6

It was hoped that the behavioural theories of leadership approach would provide more definitive answers about the nature of leadership, and if successful, also have practical implications quite different from those of the trait approach.

Question 7

What are behavioural theories of leadership?

Answer 7

Theories that isolate behaviours that differentiate effective leaders from ineffective leaders.

A number of studies looked at behavioural styles, the three most popular include:
. Kurt Lewin studies at the University of Iowa
. The Ohio state studies and
. The University of Michigan studies.

Question 8

What did the University of Iowa studies tells us about leadership behaviour?

Answer 8

In theses studies, the researchers explored three styles of leadership behaviours:
. Autocratic
. Democratic
. Laissez-faire

Question 9

What is the autocratic style of leadership?

Answer 9

A leader who centralises authority, dictates work methods, makes unilateral decision and limits employee participation.

Question 10

What is the democratic style leadership?

Answer 10

A leader who involves employees in decision making, delegates authority, encourages participation in deciding work methods and uses feedback to coach employees.

Question 11

What is the laissez-faire style of leadership?

Answer 11

A leader who generally gives employees complete freedom to make decision and to complete their work however they see fit.

Question 12

What did the Ohio State studies tell us about leadership?

Answer 12

These studies sought to identify independent dimensions of leader behaviour. Beginning with more than 1000 dimensions, the researchers eventually narrowed the list down to 2 categories that accounted for most leadership behaviour described by employees, being:
. Initiating structure and
. Consideration

Question 13

What is initiating structure?

Answer 13

The extent to which a leader defines and structures his or her role and the roles of employees to attain goals.

Question 14

What is consideration?

Answer 14

The extent to which a leader has job relationships characterised by mutual trust, respect for employees’ ideas and regard for their feelings.

Question 15

How did the University of Michigan studies differ?

Answer 15

These studies had similar research objectives to those being conducted in Ohio State, being:
To locate the behavioural characteristics of leaders that were related to performance effectiveness.

The Michigan group also cam up with two dimensions of leadership behaviour, which they labelled:
. Employee oriented and
. Production oriented

Question 16

What is employee oriented leadership?

Answer 16

A leader who emphasises the people aspects.

Leaders who were employee oriented emphasised interpersonal relations.

Employee-oriented leaders were associated with higher group productivity and high job satisfaction.

Question 17

What is production oriented leadership?

Answer 17

A leader who emphasises the technical or task aspects.

These leaders were mainly concerned with accomplishing their group’s tasks and regarded group members as a means to the end.

Production-oriented leaders were associated with lower group productivity and lower worker satisfaction.

Question 18

What is the managerial grid?

Answer 18

A two-dimensional grid for appraising leadership styles.

Question 19

What do the contingency theories of leadership tell us?

Answer 19

Page 309

Question 20

What is the Fiedler contingency model?

Answer 20

Leadership theory proposing that effective group performance depends on the proper match between a leaders style and the degree to which the situation allowed the leader to control and influence.

Question 21

There’s more…

Answer 21

Page 310-313

Question 22

What is leadership like today?

Answer 22

In this sections we look at four contemporary views of leadership:
. Leader-member exchange (LMC)
. Transformational-transactional leadership
. Charismatic-visionary leadership and
. Team leadership.

These contemporary views of leadership are interested in describing what it takes to be an effective leader. These views of leadership have a common theme: leaders who interact with, inspire and support followers.

Question 23

What is the leader-member exchange (LMX) theory?

Answer 23

A leadership theory that says leaders create in-groups and out-groups and those in the in-group will have higher performance ratings, less turnover and greater job satisfaction.

Leaders classify staff in this manner early in the relationship
The groups tend to remain stable over time
Anointed ones get rewards and others don’t
The ‘in’ group feels good about life, but what about the ‘out’ group?

Question 24

What is the transformational-transactional leadership?

Answer 24

Transactional leaders - leaders who lead primarily by using social exchanges (or exchanges). They guide or motivate followers to work towards established goals by exchanging rewards for their productivity.

Transformational leaders - leaders who stimulate and inspire (transform) followers to achieve extraordinary outcomes. Employees prefer Transformational leaders and they usually flourish under this style of leadership.

Question 25

What is charismatic-visionary leadership?

Answer 25

Charismatic leaders - enthusiastic, self-confident leaders who personalities and actions influence people to behave in certain ways. Charismatic Leaders inspire their employees who will follow them.

Charismatic Leaders have:
. a vision 
. articulate their vision well 
. take risks to achieve that vision 
. sensitivity to environmental constraints and followers’ needs 
. behave out of the ordinary

Visionary Leaders - have the ability to create and articulate a realistic, credible and attractive vision of the future that improves on the present situation. The vision should energise employees to get involved and they can achieve great leaps into the future for the enterprise.

Question 26

What is team leadership?

Answer 26

Because leadership is increasingly taking place within a team context and more organisation’s are using work teams, the role of the leader in guiding team members has become increasingly important.

One study looking at organisations that had reorganised themselves around employee teams found certain common responsibilities of leaders, being:
. Coaching
. Facilitating
. Handling disciplinary problems
. Reviewing team and individual performance
. Training and
. Communication.

Effective team leaders have mastered the difficult balancing act of knowing when to leave their teams alone and when to get involved.

Question 27

What issues do today’s leaders face?

Answer 27

. Empowering employees
. Cross-cultural leadership and
. Emotional intelligence and leadership.

Question 28

Explain the following issue today’s leaders face: Empowering employees.

Answer 28

Managers are increasingly leading by not leading, meaning they are empowering their employees.

Empowerment - the act of increasing the decision-making discretion of workers.

Reasons for employee empowerment:
. The need for quick decisions by those who are most knowledgeable about decisions
. Organisational downsizing shave left many managers with larger spans of control
. Technology

Question 29

Explain the following issue today’s leaders face: Cross-cultural leadership.

Answer 29

Effective leaders do no use a single style. They instead adjust their style to the situation.

National culture is certainly an important situational variable in determine which leadership style will be most effective.

National culture affects leadership style because it influences how followers will respond.

Question 30

Explain the following issue today’s leaders face: Emotional intelligence.

Answer 30

Leaders need basic intelligence and job-relevant knowledge.

It’s possession of the 5 components of emotional intelligence that allows am individual to become a star performer. Without emotional intelligence, a person cannot be a great leader.

Question 31

What are the five components of emotional intelligence?

Answer 31

. Self-awareness
. Self-management 
. Self-motivation 
. Empathy and 
. Social skills

Question 32

Why is trust the essence of leadership?

Answer 32

In today’s uncertain environment, leaders need to build, or even rebuild, trust and credibility.

Research has shown that trust in leadership is significantly related to positive job outcomes including job performance, organisational citizen behaviour, job satisfaction and organisational commitment.

Question 33

What is credibility?

Answer 33

The degree to which followers perceive someone as honest, competent and able to inspire.

Surveys show that honesty is consistently singled out as the number one characteristic of admired leaders. If people are going to follow someone willingly, they want to assure themselves that the person is worthy of their trust.

In addition to being honest, credible leaders are competent and inspiring. They are personally able to effectively communicate their confidence and enthusiasm, which helps win their follower’s trust.

Question 34

What is trust?

Answer 34

The belief in the integrity, character and ability of a leader.

Followers who trust a leader are willing to be vulnerable to the leader’s actions because they are confident that their rights and interest will not be abused. Research has identified the 5 dimensions that make up the concept of trust.

Question 35

What are the 5 dimensions that make up the concept of trust?

Answer 35

. Integrity - honesty and truthfulness
. Competence - technical and interpersonal knowledge and skills
. Consistency - reliability, predictability and good judgment in handling situations
. Loyalty - willingness to protect a person, physically and emotionally
. Openness - willingness to share ideas and information freely

Question 36

What are good suggestions for building trust?

Answer 36

. Practice openness 
. Be fair
. Speak your feelings
. Tell the truth
. Be consistent 
. Fulfil your promises
. Maintain confidences 
. Demonstrate confidence