Leadership Flashcards
What is leadership?
The ability to influence. “The influence that particular individuals exert on the goal achievement of others in an organizational context.”
What are the two components of leadership? What are they?
Emergence and effectiveness
Emerg: Who becomes a leader, how do they come into leadership?
Effec: What makes an effective leader?
What are some theoretical Perspectives of leadership?
- Universal Approaches
- Contingency Theories
- “Contemporary” Leadership Theories
What are some examples of theories under each perspective?
- Univ:
Trait Approach, Behavioural approach - Conting:
Fiedler’s contingency, House’s Path-Goal Theory - Contemp-
Transformational Leadership
Describe the question of whether or not leadership is a trait or a state.
A trait is something intrinsic to a person that is stable over the long term. A state is a temporary situation a person is in. Are all people in leadership positions leaders? Maybe not. Might just be in one for the time being.
What are the Implications of the Trait Approach?
That to be seen as a leader, be like a leader.
-Implication that effective leaders can, definitively be selected, leading to maximal utilization of human capital. Largest strategic benefit for an organization.
What is an implication of the Behavioural Approach?
If leadership is all in the behaviour, then it can be trained. To be seen as a leader you must simply act like one.
What are the two types of traits trait theory tries to distinguish between?
Traits causing emergence, and effectiveness.
What are some of the different domains of traits?
Domains are Personality (CANOE), Physical (features), Intellectual (IQ), social.
Which Personality Traits tend to indicate leadership?
Emergence- Emotional stability
Extraversion- Highly correlated with emergence, effectiveness
Conscientiousness- Correlated with performance, effectiveness
What effects does narcissism have on leadership ability?
Need be neither high nor low narcissism to be a leader.
Poor performance if either too high or too low narcissism.
Does IQ have an impact on leadership emergence or effectiveness?
Emergence at least yes.
What does the trait approach say with respect to physical features of a leaders face?
From real data:
Higher proportion of leaders are tall, relative to general pop.
-Firms with leaders with wider faces were more successful. (relatively small)
-Baby faces seen to be less likely to be leaders, less competent.
What is prototype Theory?
That things are generalized by very broad categories. Objects are categorized by their elements. A ‘prototypical’ object is one that embodies all or the most of the elements of a category.
Eg: Category: bird Element: beak, wing, feather, singing, clawed feet, small
Prototypical bird: robin. Penguin/Ostrich meet it less
How can prototypes be described?
Prototypes are culturally dependent cognitive schemas..
Prototyping various categories is preliminary to categorization in the first place.
What are the different tiers in categorization theory?
Superordinate level: ‘What is the category” Ex. Leadership
Basic Level: Simple level of differentiation bwtn items in category. Ex. ‘Business leader’ ‘Political Leader’ ‘Education Leader’ etc.
Subordinate Level: Differentiation beyond Basic level
Ex. Political Leader can be either Liberal or Conservative
How is prototype theory applied to Leadership?
The question is, what do people deem the Prototypical Leader? Possible Elements:
- ambitious
- goal oriented
- dominant
- Intelligence
- honesty
- verbally skilled
NOT prototypical:
Happy, helpful, easy-going
Where can prototype theory go wrong?
When people make basic flaws of categorization.
Eg. Someone might stay at work late bc they’re shit at their job, not bc they are hard working and determined and wanted to do more.
What is the difference between ‘Agentic’ and ‘communal’ behaviour?
Agentic behaviour is behaviour of an individual agent- > Self interested, task oriented, dominant and competitive.
Communal behaviour is interpersonally sensitive, kind, helpful, and sympathetic.
How does gender interact with leadership?
Steroetypical male behaviour is more agentic, and more in line with prototypical leader behaviour.
Stereotypical female behaviour is more communal and generally less in lien with whats typically seen as leadership behaviour.
As such, females in leadership roles are often seen as unlikeable, bossy, ineffective.
Only 30% business managers are female.
How did a study indicate that women are less likely to be seen as leaders?
When participants were tasked with encoding (determining motivation for behaviour) leadership behaviour between men and women, the encoding process took significantly longer to encode women as performing leadership roles.
Partc’pnts more likely to remember mens agentic behaviour, more likely to remember womens communal behaviour over agentic behaviour.
What core traits were leaders found to have?
Drive(ambition, achievement, energy) and Motivation (driving DESIRE to lead)
Honesty and Integrity, self confidence and emotional stability (Personal attributes)
High Cognitive Ability, Knowledge of Business (task competence: they CAN lead)
What are some *’s to these findings:
- One core trait alone is not sufficient
Trait theory found to be better at predicting emergence than effectiveness
Some traits might be situation specific
What are the bases of three different studies surrounding the Behavioural Approach to leadership study?
Ohio: “Initiating Structure” and “consideration” as key EFFECTIVE leader behaviours
Michigan: Task-oriented and relationship-oriented leadership
Iowa: Different “styles” of leadership: autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire
