Key Concepts in Leadership

Question 1

What is the definition of Leadership?

Answer 1

The ability to get others to follow willingly.

Question 2

What are the 5 leadership theories?

Answer 2

1.) Personality/trait theory
2.) Style theories
3.) Contingency/situational theories
4.) Transactional/transformational theories
5.) Distributive theory.

Question 3

Features of the Personality trait theories (leaders share these common traits):

Answer 3

• Above-average intelligence
• Initiative
• Motivation
• Self-assurance
• Helicopter factor(rise above situation and see bigger picture)

Question 4

What are the limitations of personality theory?

Answer 4

• lists of traits proposed for leaders have been vast, varied and contradictory
  -It is far-fetched to assume that just because a person has certain personality traits they will automatically become a leader.

Question 5

What is the Style Theory?

Answer 5

• Is concerned with styles that a leader may use when interaction with those they want to lead
  Continuum of behaviours:
• Wholly-task focused (directive leadership)
• Wholly people focused (supportive,relational behaviours.

Question 6

What are the 4 different management styles that Ashridge Management College model labelled?

Answer 6

1.) Tells
2.) Sells
3.) Consults ( Most favourable method)
4.) Joins

Question 7

What are Rensis Likert’s four management styles or systems?

Answer 7

1.) Exploitative Authoritative = leader has no confidence or trust in subordinates.
2.) Benevolent Authoritative = leader only has superficial confidence or trust in subordinates
3.) Consultative = leader has some confidence in subordinates, listens to them but controls
4.) Participative = Leader has complete confidence in subordinates who are allowed to make decisions for themselves.
- Likert suggest successful managers use both 3 & 4.

Question 8

What three styles of leadership did Lewin identify?

Answer 8

• Authoritarian
• Democratic
• Laissez-faire

Question 9

What are the 4 limitations of style theories?

Answer 9

• does not consider all the variables that contribute to the practice of effective leadership
• manager’s personality may not be flexible enough to utilise different styles effectively
• demands of task,team, technology, organisational culture and other managers constrain the leader in a range of styles effectively open to them
• Consistency is important to subordinates. If manager adapts style to different situations, employees may perceive manager to be fickle, creates mistrust.

Question 10

What is Fiedler’s contingency model?

Answer 10

• That leader could at any time be people oriented or task oriented but not both.
  -Decision on whether to be people/task oriented depend on:
  1.) Leader/member relations
  2.) Task structure
  3.) Leader position power
• Situation is favourable to leader when:
  1.) Leader is liked and trusted by group
  2.) Tasks of group is clearly defined
  3.) Power of leader to reward/punish with organisation backing is high

Question 11

Out of what elements do maturity consist of?

Answer 11

• Desire for achievement
• Willingness and ability to accept responsibility
• Education,experience and skills for task

Question 12

Explain Transactional leaders and Transformational leaders:

Answer 12

1.) Transactional leaders = see relationship of following in terms of a grade, give followers a reward in exchange for service,loyalty and compliance. Focus on systems and controls,seek improvement rather than change
2.)Transformational leaders = see role as inspiring and motivating others to work at levels beyond mere compliance. Said to change team/organisation culture and create new change.

Question 13

According to Byrd, what are the 5 skills a transformational leader needs?

Answer 13

1.) Anticipatory skills - proactive in changing environment
2.) Visioning skills - persuade staff members of need for change
3.) Value-congruence skills = reconciling organisation’s needs to those of staff
4.) Empowerment skills = delegating and sharing power effectively
5.) Self-understanding skills = understanding own needs as well as those of staff

Question 14

What are some key features of Disruptive leadership?

Answer 14

• Form of leadership that spreads role of leading team among a number of team members, with power no longer solely residing on appointed leader.

Question 15

The presence of which 3 elements encourage the disruptive leadership approach?

Answer 15

1.) All team members clearly understand team’s main objective (shared purpose).
2.) Degree of social support (emotional and psychological).
3.) Level of involvement team members have in deciding how team meets its objectives (voice).

Question 16

What are the 3 steps to Lewin’s three-stage model to address worker resistance to change?

Answer 16

1.) Unfreeze = breaking up current state of affairs= removing staff from current positions and routines, confronting perceptions,creating positive agenda surrounding change.
2.) Change = new working methods, systems and cultures will be implemented.
3.) Refreeze = New state embedded by = habituation as staff become accustomed, positive reinforcement as compliance is rewarded, negative reinforcement if non-compliance is punished.

Question 17

What are the 4 leadership styles based on business stage in life cycle according to Clarke and Pratt?

Answer 17

1.) Champion = Need a leader to push the business forward to win orders or inspire team to work harder.
2.) Tank commander = Leaders needs to build a supportive workforce capable of exploiting future growth opportunities.
3.) Housekeeper = maturity stage. Focus shifts towards matters of organisational control.
4.) Lemon-squeezer = been in business for long time, may enter decline. Requires strong leadership to effectively squeeze most out of situation. Focus on innovation and cost cutting.

Question 18

What is a Virtual Teams?

Answer 18

Team which is geographically dispersed and which makes use of communications technology to facilitate team working.

Question 19

What are some issues of virtual teams?

Answer 19

• Loss of control
• Lose track of progress
• Loss of daily contact

Question 20

Name 5 skills that virtual leaders should have?

Answer 20

1.) Strong communicator
2.) Good at developing relationships built on trust
3.) Good at delegating work
4.) Strong time management skills
5.) Sensitive to individual and cultural differences