Chapter 2 Leadership Theories and Styles Flashcards
Machiavelli
“ the man succeeded best who knows best how to play the fox. But it is a necessary part of this nature that . . . you must be a great liar and hypocrite”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
“The presidency is . . . preeminently a place of moral leadership.
Definitions of Leadership:
o “Effective leadership is the ability to successfully integrate and maximize available resources within the internal and external environment for the attainment of organizational or societal goals.“ (Ogbonnia, 2007)
Key Questions: Leadership Theories and Styles
o Is leadership an innate characteristic?
o Can leadership be learned?
o Are there leadership role models?
o Need leaders to be popular to be effective?
o Or is it impossible to be effective and well-liked?
Three Schools of Leadership Theory
1) Trait Theories: The individual is more important than the situation. There are distinguishable characteristics of successful leaders.
2) Style Theories: The right management style makes the difference. Employees will work harder for the manager who chooses the appropriate approach.
3) Contingency Theories: Other variables (e.g. situations, group dynamics , position) explain the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of leaders.
Trait Theories
1) Initiative,
2) Intelligence should be above average but not of genius level. Particularly important: ability to solve ‘abstract’ problems.
3) High self-confidence
4) High perceived level in society
5) Good health
6) The helicopter factor
7) Enthusiasm
8) Sociability
9) Integrity
10) Courage
11) Imagination
12) decisiveness
13) determination
14) energy
15) faith
16) virility
Style Theories:
1) Leadership styles range wildly from authoritarian or structuring to democratic or supportive styles
such as
1) Exploitative authoritarian system
2) Benevolent authoritarian system
3) Consultative system
4) Participative (group) system
2) There is some evidence that supportive styles lead to employee satisfaction
Use of authority by leader vs areas of freedom for subordinates
From Authority to freedom for subordinates:
- Tells: Makes decisions, announces
- Sells: Makes decisions, explains
- Consults: Gets suggestions, and makes them, then decides
- Shares: Defines limits, group decides
- Delegates: Subordinates function within defined limits
Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y (1960): X
X. Management must counteract an inherent
human tendency to avoid work. Theory X is
the style that predominated in business after
the mechanistic system of scientific
management had swept everything before it
in the first few decades of the 20th century.
Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y (1960): Y
Y. Participative style of management which
assumes that people will exercise selfdirection and are committed to the objectives.
Douglas McGregor Quote
a leader cannot
avoid the exercise of authority any more than he
can avoid the responsibility for what happens to his
organization.” Douglas McGregor
Roles, Styles and Stereotypes:
- Personnel managers have been found task-oriented
- First-line production managers are often human relations-oriented
- Female senior executives frequently task-oriented
The best fit approach
Leaders must consider these factors before choosing a style
- the leader: his preferred style
- The employees: their preferred style
- The task: the objective, the technology
- The environment: the organisational context
The Leader’s Role: managing tensions
Task needs, team maintenance needs, individual needs
Transformational Leadership:
“Transformational leadership occurs when one or
more persons engage with others in such a way
that leaders and followers raise one another to
higher levels of motivation and morality. . . .
That people can be lifted into their better selves is
the secret of transforming leadership”
‘occurs when people, through engaging with each other raise their motivation’
