week 5 Flashcards
What is leadership
Leading others towards a shared goal by fostering motivation, co-ordinating the process, giving direction and organising the process
Good leaders
Integrity, competence, decisiveness, vison
Bad leaders
Dark triad traits of narcissism, Machiavellian psychopathy
Other traits for good leadership
Sociability, confidence, intelligence, need for dominance
Linked to the big five
Judge et al. (2002) – Reviewed 73 papers and applied statistical techniques to see an effect across the studies:
Moderate correlation across all traits and leadership.
Extraversion, open to experience and conscientiousness: strongest correlations.
Linked to dark triad
Diller et al. (2021) explored relationship between dark triad traits and level of leadership.
Dark triad traits were positively correlated with higher leadership levels.
Intercorrelation between the dark triad traits.
Importance of promoting ethical values, and the important of trust and teamwork.
Volmer et al. (2016) investigated the impact of dark triad traits on employee outcomes.
Longitudinal study (over 3 months) and 811 employees.
Narcissism associated with no adverse impact.
Machiavellianism and psychopathy: poorer wellbeing and career outcomes for employees.
Situational perspectives
That anyone can be a leader in the correct situation
And that it is related to specific personality traits
Lippit & White (1943)
Study involved children (young boys) in after-school clubs.
There were “leaders” trained in specific leadership styles.
Clubs were assigned a leader with different leadership style.
After seven weeks the leaders were swapped with a new leader using the same leadership style
This helped to account for individual differences.
Leadership styles:
Autocratic: giving orders; aloof; task oriented.
Democratic: consultation; discussed plans; work with group members.
Laissez-Faire leaders: minimal involvement; left group members to own devices.
Different leader types
Autocratic leaders
Created an aggressive and self-oriented environment
High productivity – only when leader was present.
Democratic leaders
Friendly, task-oriented atmosphere, focus on the group.
Leadership style was liked more than other two styles.
High productivity regardless of presence of leader.
Laissez-faire leaders
Friendly, focus on the group, and focus on fun / play.
Productivity was low.
More productive when leader was absent.
Fielder’s Contingency Theory
Leadership is dependent on the situation.
Different leadership styles are better suited to different settings.
Task-oriented leaders:
Authoritarian
Self-esteem comes from accomplishing the task.
Relationship-oriented leaders:
Relaxed, friendly and sociable
Self-esteem comes from a happy group that works well together.
Relationship-oriented leaders
Rated the co-worker more favourably.
Leadership more effective when level of control over a situation is not at the extremes.
lest-preferred co-worker scale
Assesses attitudes towards a least preferred co-worker
Task oriented leaders
Rated the co-worker less favourably.
Leadership style most effective control over a situation is low (need a directive leader) or when it is high (no need to consider morale).
Evidence for social identity perspective
Social Identity Theory of Leadership (Hogg, 2001)
People pay attention to the “prototype” of a group they identify with.
Prototype defines the group identity.
Prototypical members = more influential and effective leaders
Trust is a main attribute of prototypical leaders (Hogg et al. 2012).
Trust allows leaders to be innovative and change group norms.
Prototypical leaders better at motivating change.
Glass cliff theory
Haslam & Ryan (2008)
Women seen as a better candidate for a senior position or leadership position for leadership for a company that is failing.
May also be associated with belief that women are better suited for “crisis management”.
More likely to be seen as “golden opportunities” because of the limited opportunities available to women.
Glass cliff theory evidence
Cook & Glass (2013a)
Post-promotion experiences of CEOs from under-represented groups.
40 of the worlds largest companies headed by racial-ethnic minorities (36 men).
21 of the largest companies headed by women (4 women were racial-ethnic minorities).
Supporting evidence that people from racial-ethnic minority groups more likely to be made CEOs of companies experiencing difficulties.
Negative performance leads to replacement with White men.
Cook & Glass (2013b)
Dataset of all changes in CEOs of worlds leading companies over 20 years.
Companies based on appearing on Fortune 500 list.
Diversity in decision makers predicts promotion of women to CEOs – not firm performance.
Women being on board of directors and women CEOs tenure.
All or mostly male boards male CEOs.
Impact of leadership
Montano et al. (2017) – Thorough review of original research, dissertations and books between 2000-2014
Applied statistical techniques to explore impact of leadership on outcomes of mental health related outcomes of employees.
Certain leadership styles associated with positive outcomes!
Positive association with outcomes of wellbeing and psychological functioning
Negatively associated with burnout, stress and poor health.
Transformational leadership: leaders who motivate followers; charismatic and inspirational leaders
Destructive leadership styles e.g., aggressive, authoritarian etc.
Associated with negative outcomes!
Positive leadership styles
Authentic Leadership Styles
Promotes “positive psychological capacities and a positive ethical climate” to foster:
Greater self-awareness
Relational transparency
Internalised moral perspective
Balance processing…a pattern of leader behaviour
(Walumbwa at el. 2008, p. 94).
Servant leadership styles
Servant Leadership Styles
“Place needs of their subordinates above their own”.
Try to develop employees to their fullest potential.
Dimensions of “servant” leaders:
Conceptual skills
Empowering
Helping “subordinates” succeed
Putting subordinates first
Behaving ethically
Emotional healing
Creating value for community
(Liden et al. 2008)
Ethical leadership styles
Ethical Leadership Styles
Normatively appropriate conduct e.g., trustworthy and honest
Dependent on perspective of what is “normatively appropriate.
Open discussion around ethical conduct and allowing others to be part of dialogue.
Reflecting on the ethical implications of their decisions.
(Brown et al. 2005)
Positive leadership research
“A fatal flaw”: Positive leadership style research creates causal illusions.
Measures for leadership style do not only capture leadership styles.
Concepts of leadership styles are subjective.
Need to separate leader behaviours from leadership styles.
Leadership styles are more related to what leaders do and how they are evaluated as leaders.
Transactional and transformational leadership
Transactional leadership
Contingent reward e.g., being rewarded if an outcome is achieved.
Active management by exception e.g., controlling and monitoring tasks and performance – failure = punishment..
Passive management by exception e.g., more autonomy and freedom but there is still punishment for failure.
Transformational leadership
Idealised influence e.g., exemplarily role models.
Individualised consideration e.g., provide encouragement and support to achieve own goals.
Intellectual simulation e.g., promote critical thinking and innovation.
Inspirational motivation e.g., inspire and motivate to achieve company goals.
Multi-factor leadership questionnaire
Multi-factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ)
Measures three leadership styles:
Laissez-Faire: non-leadership style.
Transactional: based on rewards
Transformational: based on charisma and inspiration
Respond to 45 items on a five point scale (“not at all” to “frequently if not always”
Some critique of the psychometric properties.
MLQ is widely used but criticised (Batista-Fouget et al 2021)
Concerns over construct validity due to intercorrelations with subscales (Tejeda et al. 2001)
High levels of multicollinearity with other transformational scales – do not measure underlying constructs (Antonakis et al. 2003)
Leadership styles questionnaire
Leadership Styles Questionnaire
Based on three styles of leadership
Authoritative
Democratic
Laissez-Faire
18 items representing statements which are aligned with the different “leadership styles”
Rate statement 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree.
Developed to help people identify their own leadership style (Northouse, 2021)
Psychometric properties of leadership scales
Carlson et al. (2021)
Conducted a review of literature using leadership scales in the specific setting of health professionals.
33 scales were identified as having psychometric testing with this population.
Only three were tested multiple times:
E.g., Multi-factor Leadership Scale
Limited evaluation of:
Test-re-test reliability
Acceptability
Cross-cultural validity
Convergent validity
Limited scales validated to the specific work context.
