W5 - Leadership Flashcards
what is leadership
- goal of leaders is to help employees achieve their best and meet organisational targets
three main approaches to leadership
- trait approach
- behavioural approach
- situational approach
trait approach
- focuses on identifying different traits or characteristics that are linked to successful leadership
- this idea investigates the nature of effective leadership (‘great man theory’ - ppl are born leaders)
- modern approaches measure traits - look at trait in relation to 3 things:
1. leadership effectiveness
2. leader emergence / perceptions of whether someone is leader like
3. leadership role occupancy
leaderless group discussion (part of trait approach)
- used to study leader emergence and leadership potential
- group of individuals problem solve or have a informal discussion with no appointed leader - observe who takes the natural leadership role
- certain traits: extraversion, intelligence and masculinity emerge as a leader
cognitive intelligence (trait approach)
- found to predict leader emergence
- difference between the effects of actual intelligence (IQ) and observer rated intelligence (perceives intelligence by others)
- meta analysis (judge et al, 2004) both predicted leader emergence but perceived was stronger
- more important to be seen as intelligent than actually intelligent
physical traits and leadership
- physical height - perceived as dominant healthy and intelligent more likely to be leaders
- facial attractiveness - can affect voting preferences those who are more attractive are likely to ear the respect and attention from others (pretty privelage)
- gender - dependent on the taks depends on whether the leader is male or female (more emotionally sensitive roles go to women) / sex related barriers are shown through economic data - preconception men should be leaders (dominance)
why do these traits make us more likely to be leaders
- people share general beliefs about leader characteristics
- if a particular individual matches the stereotype they are more likely to be viewed as leader
- ILT mentions within a culture people have a set of characteristics that describe a leader
- an individual matching these traits is likely to be perceived as leader
behavioural approach to leadership
- behavioural focuses on what leaders do rather than who they are
- provides a clearer framework for leadership training and development (if you understand what good leaders do you can train others to do the same)
- leader behaviour seems to be more effective than leader traits
Ohio and Michigan Studies
- switch from trait to behaviour began with studies based on the theory that effective leaders perform certain behaviours towards others
OHIO
- leadership behaviour was split in two categories:
1. consideration
2. initiating structure
consideration = extent to which a leader is concerned of the welfare of others (friendly/ equal treatment)
initiating structure = extent to which a leader specifies group member roles, organises activities (scheduling deadline/ defining standards of work)
MICHIGAN
- carried out a similar study and found the categories were:
- task centered
- follower centred
- adding to credibility
transformational leadership
- defined as a process where leaders and followers support each other in morals and motivation
four elements of transformational leadership:
1. individualised consideration - degree to which the leader tends to each followers needs, listens to concerns, gives empathy.
2. intellectual stimulation - degree to which the leader challenges assumptions, takes risks and solicits followers ideas (encourage creativity / no mistakes)
3. inspirational motivation - the degree to which the leader provides a vision that is appealing and inspiring to followers (creates sense of purposes)
4.idealised influence - provides a role model for high ethical behaviour, gains respect and trust
critique of transformational leadership
- not clear how these different dimensions combine to form transformational leadership
- theory fails to specify how each dimension has a distinct influence on processes and outcomes
- most frequently used surveys fail to reproduce the dimensional structure and fail to result in measurement that is different from other leadership skills that are not transformational (no alignment between theory and evidence)
ethical leadership
- focuses on whether or not a leader is perceives to lead with strong morals and show ethical behaviour
measured using these items:
- defines success not by results but the way they were obtained
- discussed business ethics or values with employees
- best interest of employees in mind
- ethical leadership has a positive effect on followers outcomes - task performance
limitations of behavioural leadership
- vast majority of work does not capture the actual behaviour of leaders
- if surveys are not accurate they end of measuring perceived leader effectiveness rather than actual leadership
- highly subjective and may not reflect the actual behaviours of their leader - no. leadership styles - newly introduced styles are too similar to existing ones (lacks validity)
- if an individual marks a leader as a style that has attributes of two leadership styles don’t know which to chose
improvements
- improving experimental designs
- feedback is an important driver
