Leadership Test 1 Flashcards
Dunbar Number
anthropologist Robin Dunbar, suggests that 150 is the upper limit of family, friends, and colleagues we can really know at any point in time
Leadership vs management
leadership: culture, vision, process
management: strategy, metrics, results
Grint’s 4 ways of leadership
Person
Focus on individual traits and decision-making skills. Someone has primary responsibilities, makes final decisions, and is accountable for those decisions. Not a focus on the constraints any individual leader might have. This is tendency to identify organizations with individuals—e.g., Steve Jobs as Apple
Grint’s 4 ways of leadership
Process
How goals are defined and accomplished, and a vision executed. Leadership is a pathway to goal-completion. Process can be controlled; results, not always.
Grint’s 4 ways of leadership
Position
The role itself, an authorized position in an organizational hierarchy. The authority role has a limited scope. For example, a grocery store manager has no authority to enforce traffic laws.
Grint’s 4 ways of leadership
Results
They are not everything, but there must be some tangible organizational effort toward positive outcomes. It is great to have visionary leadership, but if a leader does not produce, they will lose authority and legitimacy
Theories of leadership 19th century
Sun Tzu
1) Concentrate first on the problem in front of you, not just the execution of your grand aspirations—the little things matter.
2) A plan is fine, but planning is better—planning allows for flexibility.
3) In rare circumstances, a leader must remove all other options to focus on results and success.
Theories of leadership 19th century
Confucius
- Study ancient thinkers for their wisdom—the present has a way of repeating past patterns.
- Acknowledge your mistakes and make an honest effort to fix them.
- Be a mentor, one who helps create the next generation of leaders.
Theories of leadership 19th century
Lao Tzu
- Don’t try to control everything.
- When you hire people, let them do their job; don’t micromanage.
- Trying to solve problems can have unintended negative consequences and may make things worse.
Theories of leadership 19th century
Bhagavad Gita
- Your duties and responsibilities have priority over what you want.
- Process > Results.
- Self-regulation is key for a leader: manage your emotions first before you lead others.
Theories of leadership 19th century
Plato
- Philosophers should lead, as they are not driven by their appetites.
- Focus on the collective good, not the particular biases of the individual.
- Leadership is for the intellectual elite, because they can design a society organized along rational lines.
Theories of leadership 19th century
Cicero
- Leaders must cultivate positive virtues, as they are the path to good behavior.
- Trust is social glue, imperative for any worthwhile organization.
- Fear should not be in the leader’s toolkit.
Theories of leadership 19th century
Machiavelli
- Realism, and perhaps cynicism, is the guiding principle for leadership.
- Ethical living is fine for most people, but leaders have to make hard choices.
- Counterintuitively, it is only by being a hard-headed (and perhaps hard-hearted) realist that socially positive change occurs.
Theories of leadership 19th century
Thomas Carlyle
- True leadership is a rare trait.
- Some few persons are born with heroic qualities and are natural leaders.
- These natural leaders are worthy of their authority.
Skim through unit 1 - interview: cicero’s view of leadership vids
play on 1.5 lol
Power definition
ability to get other to do what you want, has some measure of control. Morally neutral term, but can be used for good and bad.
Authority definition
right to make demands on others. One way to separate authority from power is to recognize that people or groups can have authority without power
Legitimacy definition
justified right to make demands on others. Legitimacy implies a measure of earned trust through transparent mechanisms (e.g., elections) for establishing authority
authority + good reasons for that authority = legitimacy
Max webber types of authority
Traditional
The past establishes the future.
Society based on consensus.
Max webber types of authority
Charismatic
Leadership is a single, magnetic leader.
A new vision of society is proposed, breaking with the past.
Max webber types of authority
Legal-rational
Most common form of authority today.
Leadership is a role, and all society is ordered through transparent law.
5 bases of power
Reward: Based on promises for good work/behavior.
Coercive: Based on threats of possible punishment.
Legitimate: Based on formal roles in organizations or social structures (companies, elections) but limited to the particular situation.
Expert: Based on privileged access to information or a knowledge asymmetry (only so many people know how to perform open heart surgery, e.g.).
Referent: Based on a person’s charismatic gifts, a sense of being part of that person’s dynamic personality.
Key Ideas of Hobbes
State of nature
The origin of society and civilization. We were “thrown” into the world without law, direction or sociability. Here we have complete freedom and complete fear.
Key Ideas of Hobbes
social contract
A necessary fiction that we all agree to adhere to, that is essential to living with strangers. It forms the basis of a stable social order.
Key Ideas of Hobbes
common power
This is the state. We sacrifice part of our natural liberty in order to have security of our persons and property. We made this revolutionary in Hobbes’ time is that the power did not have to be a monarch.
Key Ideas of Hobbes
legitimate violence
The common power/state has the monopoly on violence. Any violence not committed by the state would be considered criminal. One reason to transfer all permitted violence to the state is to end personal revenge.
