Leadership Flashcards
Define leadership
The process of influencing others to achieve group or organizational goals
What does it mean to motivate others?
Uses persuasion and other influence tactics; to use communication skills, rewards, and other resources to energize the collective toward the achievement of challenging objectives
What does it mean to enable others?
To arrange the work environment - such as allocating resources, altering work relationships, and buffering from outside interferences - so employees can achieve organizational objectives more easily
What are some differences between leaders and managers?
> Leaders focus on vision, mission, goals, and objectives, while managers focus on productivity and efficiency
Leaders encourage creativity and risk taking, while managers are preservers of the status quo
Leaders have a long-term perspective, while managers have a short-term perspective
Leaders are concerned with the ends, while managers are concerned with the means
Define trait theory
A leadership theory that holds that effective leaders possess a similar set of traits or characteristics
In trait theory, what are the traits/characteristics effective leaders possess?
> Drive: high levels of effort, characterized by achievement, motivation, initiative, energy, and tenacity
The desire to lead: they want to be in charge and think about ways to influence or convince others about what should or shouldn’t be done
Honesty/integrity: truthfulness and doing what they say they will do
Self-confidence: belief in their own abilities; decisive and assertive
Emotional stability: they remain even-tempered and consistent in their outlook even when things go wrong
Cognitive ability: they have the capacity to analyze large amounts of seemingly unrelated, complex information and see patterns, opportunities, or threats where others might not see them
Business knowledge: understand the key technological decisions and concerns facing their company
What does the Big Five Personality framework indicate about relationships between personality and leadership abilities?
> Extraversion has the strongest positive relation to leadership
Conscientiousness and openness to experience are also positively related to leadership
Agreeableness and emotional stability are not correlated with leadership
True or False: Traits do a better job of predicting the emergence of leaders and the appearance of leadership, and are less useful in distinguishing between effective and ineffective leaders
True
Define behavioral theories of leadership
Leadership effectiveness is determined by leader behavior; behaviors can be taught, traits cannot, therefore leaders are trained, not born
What are two basic leader behaviors central to successful leadership?
> Initiating structure: the degree to which a leader structures the roles of followers by setting goals, giving directions, setting deadlines, and assigning tasks; a leader’s ability to initiate structure primarily affects subordinates’ job performance
Consideration: the extent to which a leader is friendly, approachable, and supportive and shows concern for employees; a leader’s consideration primarily affects subordinates’ job satisfaction
What is Fielder’s Contingency Theory?
A situational approach to leadership that states performance of work groups can be maximized by matching leaders to the situations that best fit their leadership style (the way a leader generally behaves toward followers)
In Fiedler’s Contingency Theory, what are the three leadership styles identified via a questionnaire about the leader’s Least Preferred Coworker (LPC)?
> Relationship-oriented: the respondent describes their LPC in a positive way, indicating he/she is people-oriented or relationship-oriented
Task-oriented: the respondent describes their LPC in a negative way, indicating he/she is task-oriented; given a choice, they’ll focus first on getting the job done and second on making sure everyone gets along
Flexible: the respondent describes their LPC in a more moderate way, indicating he/she is flexible and can be somewhat relationship-oriented or somewhat task-oriented
Define situational favorableness in the context of Fielder’s Contingency Theory
The degree to which a particular situation either permits or denies a leader the chance to influence the behavior of group members
What determines situational favorableness as it relates to leadership?
> Leader-member relations: the degree to which followers respect, trust, and like their leaders
Task structure: the degree to which the requirements of a subordinate’s tasks are clearly specified
Position power: the degree to which leaders are able to hire, fire, reward, and punish workers
