Lecture 12: Chapter 12: Leadership Flashcards
What is leadership? What are the 2 key components?
Influencing, motivating and enabling others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members
- Motivate through persuasion, influence tactics, communication skills, rewards and other resources
- Enablers: allocate resources, alter work relationships, minimize external disruptions
What is shared leadership?
The view that leadership is a role, not a position assigned to one person.
People within the team and organization lead each other
When does shared leadership work well? (3)
Where formal leaders are willing to delegate power and encourage employees to take initiative and risks without fear of failure
Needs a collaborative culture rather than competitive culture –> need support for shared leadership
Employees need to learn to influence others through informal authority with enthusiasm, logical analyses and involvement of coworkers
What could be an evolutionary explanation for the rise of leadership?
Whenever a group comes together, a leader-follower relationship naturally develops
It’s linked to
- more efficient coordination
- getting the right resources effectively
- better group cohesion (peace keeping) + managing conflicts
It all increases chances of survival
What are the 4 perspectives on leadership?
- Personal attributes
- Managerial
- Transformational
- Implicit
What is transformational leadership?
Perspective that explains how leaders change teams by creating, communicating and modelling a vision for the work unit and inspiring employees to strive for that vision
So basically inspiring and motivating employees
What are the 4 elements of transformational leadership?
- Develop/communicate strategic vision
- Model the vision
- Encourage experimentation
- Build commitment to the vision
What is a vision? What features are common in a strategic vision?
Idealized idea of the future that can motivate employees
- Higher purpose, associated with personal values that fulfill stakeholder’s needs
- Distant abstract and challenging goal
- Unifying: bonds employees together
What is modelling the vision in transformational leadership?
The leader’s behavior must be in line with the vision and this builds trust within the employees
Modelling helps legitimizing vision and demonstrates what it looks like in practice
What are important aspects of communication in transformational leaders?
Relying on symbols, metaphors, stories and other things that transcend plain language. They frame the vsion and guide the listener’s mental model of the situation
What is encouraging experimentation in transformational leadership?
Leader must question current practices and encourage trying new practices
They must support a learning orientation
How can a transformational leader build commitment to the vision?
Communicating and modelling the vision along with rewards, recognition and celebrations
What are 3 benefits of transformational leadership?
- Higher employee satisfaction and commitment
- More organizational citizenship
- Better performance, creativity
What are 3 limitations to transformational leadership?
- Circular logic: transformational leaders defined by their success rather than behavior: no predictive value
- It’s described as universal concept, but it doesn’t apply for all situations. Transformational leadership is more appropriate when organizations have to adapt quickly, than when environment is stable
- Some aspects about communication are more relevant voor north american cultures than others
What is charisma? What are 3 tendencies of charismatic people?
Self-presentational characteristics & nonverbal communication behaviors that generate interpersonal attraction and referent power over others
- Attractive to others
- Influential/inspiring
- Characterized as brilliant and effective communicators
What is deference in charismatic leaders?
Followers see the leader as extraordinary
What 3 things do charismatic leaders have?
- Emotional expressiveness (attuned to the crowd)
- Communication skills
- Air of self-confidence
What is the difference between charismatic leadership and transformational leadership?
Ch: Motivates followers through referent power
Tr: Motivates followers through behaviors that persuade and earn trust
What is a concern of charismatic leadership? How does that relate to transformational leadership?
Create dependency on the leader and leaders that are too intoxicated by own power
Transformational: creates empowerment in followers and leader motivates through behaviors
What is managerial leadership?
Leaders should help employees improve their performance and well-being, with a focus on current objectives and practices
Provide daily activities that support and guide the performance and well-being of employees and the work unit to support current goals
What is the difference between managerial and transformational leadership (2)?
Managerial:
- assumes stable environment, no need for change
- micro-focused on specific performance or unit
Transformational:
- dynamic environment with change
- macro-focused
Which 2 types of behaviors make leaders effective?
- People oriented behaviors
- Task oriented behaviors
What are 4 aspects of people oriented behaviors?
- Concern for employee needs
- Make workplace pleasant
- Recognize employee contributions
- Listen to employees
What are 4 aspects of task-oriented behaviors?
- Assign specific tasks
- Clarify work duties
- Set goals/deadlines, provide feedback
- Establish work procedures and plan future work
What balance in leadership do you need in order to have organizational success?
A mix of transformational leadership (higher level hierarchy) to provide vision and managerial leadership to translate the abstract vision
What are benefits of task vs. person oriented leadership?
Person: lower absenteeism, low turnover, low job dissatisfaction, less stress
Task: higher job performance
What is servant leadership?
The view that leaders serve followers, rather than vice versa
It’s similar to people oriented leadership
Leaders help fulfill their needs and are coaches of employee development
What are 3 key features of servant leadership?
- Natural desire to serve others: help others in personal growth
- Humble, egalitarian, accepting relationship with followers
- Ethical decisions and behavior: sensitivity of moral values
What is a contigency theory on the relationship between situation and leader?
The most appropriate leadership style depends on the situation. So leaders should try to adapt their style to fit the situation
E.g. during crises: directive leaders
What is the path-goal theory?
The effectiveness of the leader depends on how well the leader complements the environment in which subordinates work
Effective leaders choose the most appropriate leadership style, depending on employee and situation
It’s the dominant model that applies this contingency to managerial leadership
What are the 2 employee contingencies in the path-goal theory? And what are the 2 environmental contingencies
Employee:
- Skills/experience
- Locus of control
Environment:
- Task structure
- Team dynamics
What are the 4 leadership styles in the path-goal theory?
- Supportive: people-oriented, support
- Directive: task-oriented, efficient, structured
- Participative: shared leadership, involve employees in decisions
- Achievement-oriented: encourage peak performance, seek improvement
What are the 3 leader effectiveness outcomes of the path-goal leadership model?
- Employee motivation
- Employee satisfaction
- Acceptance of leader
Which path-goal theory leadership styles fit with low skill/experience?
Directive and supportive
(high: participative, achievement)
Which path-goal theory leadership styles fit with internal locus of control?
Participative, achievement
(external: directive, supportive)
Which path-goal theory leadership styles fit with non routine task structures?
Directive: non-routine and inexperienced
Participative: non-routine and experienced
Supportive: routine
Which path-goal theory leadership styles fit with low cohesion in team dynamics? And which fit with negative norms in team dynamics?
Supportive: low cohesion
Directive: negative norms
Participative: positive norms
What is the situational leadership theory (SLT)? What is an important side note?
Effective leaders adapt their leadrship style based on the situation
It lacks empirical support
What is locus of control?
Internal = people believe they have control over their work environment
External = people believe their performance is due to luck and fate
What is Fiedler’s contingency model? What are 5 important aspects?
Leader’s natural style must be a good match for the situation
5 aspects for the match:
1. Situational control
2. Leader-member relations
3. Position power
4. Situational favorableness
5. Task structure
What is the leadership substitutes theory?
Argues that the situation either limits the leader’s ability to influence employees or makes a particular leadership style unnecessary
It argues there are other conditions one can use things to substitute task-oriented and people-oriented leadership
According to the leadership substitutes theory, what are the 6 potential substitutes for task oriented leadership styles?
- Performance based rewards
- Skilled/experienced employee
- Guidance from coworkers
- Team norms reinforce task goals
- Intrinsically motivating work
- Self-leadership in employee
According to the leadership substitutes theory, what are the 4 potential substitutes for people oriented leadership styles?
- Supportive coworkers
- Skilled/experienced employee
- Enjoyable work
- Use effective stress coping strategies
What is the evidence on the leadership substitutes theory?
Mixed:
- Some substitutes do replace the need for task/people oriented leadership, others don’t
- Difficulties of statistically testing if leadership substitutes account for problems
Overall conclusion: leadership substitutes might reduce the need for managerial leadership behaviors, but don’t completely replace managers
Explain the effect of crisis on perception of charisma in leaders with an example of George W. Bush
After 9/11 George W. Bush had a greater attribution of charisma. So a crisis can make behavior of leaders more charismatic and also how people perceive it
What is the difference between crisive-responsive leaders and visionary charismatic leaders?
Crisis-responsive: don’t engage in charismatic rhetoric and only benefit temporarily of being seen as charismatic (as long as the crisis is salient) (Bush)
Visionary charismatic: leaders who continuously use charismatic behaviors (Obama)
What is the difference between socialized charismatic leaders and personalized charismatic leaders?
Socialized: care about followers’ collective interest, empower followers (Mandela)
Personalized: care about self-interest, use others as source, cerate dependence of their followers (Hitler)
What is the implicit leadership theory?
The effectiveness of a leader is based on the extent to which their characteristics go along with the preconceived prototype of a leader and that the influence of leaders is overestimated
What are leadership prototypes? How does this contribute to how we look at someone who acts like our prototype and why?
Preconceived beliefs about the characteristics of effective leaders
If a person looks/acts like our leader prototype, we are more willing to accept them as a leader and believe he’s effective
Why do we do that: it simplifies the organization of one’s expectations about the behavior of others
Why do people overestimate the influence of leaders?
It’s easier to ascribe success or failure to just 1 individual
What is romance of leadership? Why do we do this (2)?
Our tendency to attribute great successes and great failure to leaders
- Simplify life events and explain organizational successes and failures
- Believe that life events are generated more from people than from uncontrollable forces (illusion of control)
How is the fundamental attribution error related to implicit leadership?
People use the fundamental attribution error and give credit or blame to leaders, rather than other external factors
Why do we give more power to dominant people?
Dominant people are perceived as more competent
What are 7 characteristics that fit with the leader prototype?
- Confidence
- Dominance
- High self-esteem
- Generalized self-efficacy (belief in one’s abilities)
- Intelligence
- Extraversion
- Empathy
Why aren’t there consistent lists of personality traits that fit with good leadership?
Methodological problems and inconsistent definitions
What are 8 leadership attributes?
- Personality
- Self-concept
- Drive
- Integrity
- Leadership motivation
- Knowledge of the business
- Cognitive/practical intelligence
- Emotional intelligence
Which 2 personality traits fit best with good leaders?
- Extraversion
- Conscientiousness
What is important about the self-concept in leaders (4)?
- Positive self-evaluation
- High self-esteem, high self-efficacy
- Complex internally consistent self-concept
- Internal locus of control
What are 2 important aspects about the drive in leaders?
- Inner motivation to pursue goals
- Inquisitiveness, action-oriented, bold
What 2 aspects are important about integrity in leaders?
- Truthfulness, strong moral principles
- Consistency in words and actions
What is important in leadership motivation in leaders?
High need for socialized power to achieve organizational goals (not personalized power)
What 2 things are important in knowledge of business in leaders?
- Understand external environment
- Aid intuitive decision making
It’s about the competence of a leader
What 2 things are important in cognitive/practical intelligence in leaders?
- Above average cognitive ability
- Able to solve real-world problems
What is important about emotional intelligence in leaders?
Recognizing and regulating emotions in self and others
What is authentic leadership? What are 3 ways to know yourself and 3 ways to be yourself according to the personal attributes perspective?
The view that leaders should seek to understand their own personality, values and self-concepts and then use them to develop a personal leadership style
Know yourself:
- Engage in self reflection
- Feedback from trusted sources
- Know your life story
Be yourself:
- Develop own style
- Apply your values
- Maintain positive core self-evaluation
What are limitations of the personal attributes perspective (3)?
- Assumes all effective leaders have same personality characteristics that are equally effective in all situations
–> Leadership is too complex to have a universal list - Assumes leadership is within the person, but it’s also about relations with others
- Attributes refer to leadership potential, not necessarily performance
What is the best predictor of performance and why? What is also a good predictor?
Best = structured interview because it’s easy to compare to others and you ask all relevant questions
Cognitive ability is also a good predictor, because it’s connected to learning
Why is leadership more complex than just the 8 attributes?
Some personal characteristics might only affect our perception of a leader and not per se if this leader is actually effective
What are some characteristics of narcissistic leaders?
Overconfidence, dominance, sense of uniqueness, charisma, charm, high self-esteem, extraversion, egocentrism, risk taking, arrogance, exaggerated sense of self-importance, lack of empathy, exploitativeness
How do leaders themselves reinforce belief of romance of leadership?
Taking credit for organizational successes
Why are their cultural variations in leadership styles?
Culture influences norms and values of leaders and their actions. The leader prototype is also different
What leadership style seems to be culturally universal?
Charismatic visionary seems to work everywhere
Which leadership style seems to work differently in different cultures?
Participative leadership:
–> Works better in low power distance cultures
Which gender uses participative leadership more often?
Female leaders, they have better interpersonal skills
What is the difference between men and women in task- and people oriented leadership?
They are similar in both genders
How are female leaders evaluated?
- Less positive evaluations as leader due to prototypes and gender stereotypes
- Evidence says they’re good at emerging leadership styles (coaching, teamwork, empowering)
What is the difference between glass ceiling and glass cliff concerning women in organizations?
Ceiling = actual barrier in place within organizational settings that limits the upward mobility of women with respect to pay/promotions
Cliff = tendency for women to be more likely than men to be appointed to leadership positions that are risky and precarious
What is socialized power?
Wanting power to lead others in accomplishing organizational objectives
