Chapter 12 Flashcards
Difference between management and leadership (John Kotter vs Robert House)
John Kotter: Management means coping with complexity. Leadership, however, means coping with change.
Robert House: He thinks that management’s job is to execute strategies set by leaders, as well as to control, take care of HR and be busy with everyday problems.
Leadership according to the book
Ability to motivate, encourage a group to achieve set goals, vision or strategy.
The role of the leader may be assigned (formal) or deduced by a person from the position he/she occupies in the organization.
Managers are not equal to leaders. Nevertheless, management needs both: effective management and effective leadership.
Trait theories on leadership
Theories based on the concept of distinguishing leaders from non-leaders on the basis of person’s individual qualities and characteristics. These theories claim that leaders are born, not made.
Which 3 traits correlate with leadership? (hexaco)
And which 2 do not correlate high?
- Extraversion is claimed to be the most important trait of leader emergence, not necessarily of leader’s effectiveness. Social people are the better leaders than unsocial.
> Moreover, leaders that are too assertive are less effective. - Conscientiousness
- Openness to experience also show strong, positive correlation to leadership.
Agreeableness and emotional stability are not highly related to leadership.
Emotional Intelligence & Leadership
What is decisive in case of EI’s importance to leadership is EI’s core value: empathy. Effective leaders are empathic leaders (leaders that can read other’s feelings, reactions, are good listeners). Nevertheless, there is more research on other traits, other than EI, and their corrections to leadership.
But… Using traits to predict leadership?
Traits are better predictor of leaders’ emergence rather than effectiveness.
Behavioural theories & Leadership
Theories based on assumptions that certain behaviours distinguish leaders from non-leaders. The limitation of this theory can be proved by theory’s main assumption that people can be trained to be leaders, what is obviously not complete truth. So theories proposed that leadership can be taught.
Name the 2 developed dimensions of leadership behaviour in the Ohio State Studies
- Initiating structure
2. Consideration
Explain the 2 developed dimensions of leadership behaviour in the Ohio State Studies
- Initiating structure
- Consideration
- Initiating structure - task-oriented behaviours that facilitate goal accomplishment.
> Extent, to which a leader defines leader and group member roles, initiates actions, organizes group activities and defines how tasks are to be accomplished by the group. - Consideration – people-oriented behaviours.
> Extent to which a leader exhibits concern for the welfare of the members of the group. This factor is oriented towards interpersonal relationships, mutual trust and friendship
Leaders high in consideration make their followers more job-satisfied, motivated and more respectful.
Leaders high in initiating structure make their followers perform better in groups.
Production oriented leaders:
focus on task-related and technical issues. Associated with lower group productivity and job satisfaction.
Contingency theory & Leadership
This theory states that the leader’s ability to lead is contingent upon various situational factors, including the leader’s preferred style, the capabilities and behaviours of followers and also various other situational factors.
Fiedler Model & Leadership
The model postulates that the leader’s effectiveness is based on ‘situational contingency’, that is a result of interaction of two factors, known as ‘leadership style’ and ‘situational favourableness’ (situational control). For the purpose of the research Fiedler developed the least preferred co-worker (LPC) questionnaire to measure whether an individual is task or relationship oriented. On the scale 1-8, with 16 sets of adjectives employees rate their co-workers. On this basis, the leadership style of the respondent is developed. Fiedler claims that in reality there are combined leadership styles (both task and relationship oriented to different degrees). After fulfilling LPC questionnaire and thus estimating leadership style, a fit between the leadership style and situation has to be found.
Fiedler defined 3 situational factors:
- Leader-member relations (either poor or good) – the better score, the better for leader
- Task structure (either high or low) – the higher structured job, the better for leader
- Position power (strong or weak) – the stronger position power, the better for leader
Complications with LPC questionnaire and practical application of the model. (Fiedler)
The recent update of Fiedler model is cognitive resource theory. The theory focuses on the influence of the leader’s intelligence and experience on his or her reaction to stress, and states that the intelligence and experience can actually reduce stress. But it is the degree of stress that verifies if the intelligence and experience will positively (low stress) or negatively (high stress) influence leadership behavior.
Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Theory
This theory states that depending on employees’ competences and commitment to task as well as on acceptance/rejection of the leader, leadership style should vary from one person to another. It focuses on leader’s followers. In this theory effectiveness of leader depends on followers’ behaviour.
Situational Theory: Name the 4 leader behaviours that depend on followers’ readiness from Hersey and Blanchard
- Unable and willing
- Unable and unwilling
- Able and willing
- Able and unwilling
Situational Theory: Explain the 4 leader behaviours that depend on followers’ readiness from Hersey and Blanchard
- Unable and willing
- Unable and unwilling
- Able and willing
- Able and unwilling
- Unable and willing – leader need to show high task-orientation and high relationship orientation
- Unable and unwilling - leader needs to give unambiguous directions
- Able and willing – leader doesn’t do much
- Able and unwilling – leader need to use motivating, supportive leadership style
The evaluation of the theory was rather under critique. There are inconsistencies in the model and issues with research techniques.
Path-goal theory
A theory which states that a leader’s function is to clear the path towards the goal of the group, by meeting the needs of subordinates. The theory is based on Expectancy Theory of Motivation and on Ohio State Studies (on structure initiating and consideration).
Path-goal theory > R.House, recognized 4 leadership behaviours:
- Directive leader
- Participative leader
- Supportive leader
- Achievement-oriented leader
Explain Path-goal theory > R.House, recognized 4 leadership behaviours:
- Directive leader
- Participative leader
- Supportive leader
- Achievement-oriented leader
- Directive leader - leader lets followers know what is expected of them and tells them how to perform their tasks
- Participative leader - involves leaders consulting with followers and asking for their suggestions before making a decision
- Supportive leader - leader is friendly and approachable, shows concern for the followers’ psychological well being
- Achievement-oriented leader - leader sets challenging goals for followers, expects them to perform at their highest level
Name 2 categories of situational variables from the Path-Goal theory
A category of variables that can be and cannot be controlled by an employee.
- controlled are personal characteristics (locus of control, experience and perceived ability)
- environmental contingency factors that cannot be controlled (task structure, formal authority system and work group).
Critique of contingency theories
they do not take into account followers. Leadership does not when it is considered only from the perspective of a leader, because leadership is a relation between a leader and followers. In reality, leaders act differently towards different people.
Leader-member exchange (LMX) Theory
Focuses on the two-way relationship between supervisors and subordinates. Leaders often develop relationships with each member of the group that they lead, and Leader-Member Exchange Theory explains how those relationships with various members can develop in unique ways. In the group, there are in-groups – trusted followers to who leader pays more attention an out-groups – followers who get less attention, time, and rewards. The relationship between a leader and out-groups are more formally set than those between a leader and in-groups. It is the leader who classifies certain followers to in-groups or out-groups at the beginning of a group’s functioning. This classification is usually driven by absence/presence of common characteristics. This relationship is rather stable.
It is claimed that people in leader’s in-group and the leader share more common features than in case of people in leader’s out-groups.
The evaluation of this theory was rather positive. It is true that leaders do make distinctions between followers. In-groups have better performance, higher satisfaction, more support for leader and higher citizenship behavior.
Decision Theory: Vroom and Yetton’s Leader-Participation Model
Relates leadership behaviour and participation to decision making. Provides a set of rules to determine the form and amount of participative decision- making in different situations. There are now 12 contingency variables in the latest revision of this model. This model is often too complicated for managers/leaders to actually put into place in organizations.
