Chapter 16: Managers as Leaders

Question 1

Define leader and leadership.

Answer 1

• Leader - Someone who can influence others and who has managerial authority.
• Leadership - What leaders do; the process of influencing a group to achieve goals.
• Ideally, all managers should be leaders.

Question 2

What are the leadership traits?

Answer 2

• Drive
- Leaders exhibit a high effort level. They have a relatively high desire for achievement, they are ambitious, they have a lot of energy, they are tirelessly persistent in their activities, and they show initiative.
• Desire to Lead
- Leaders have a strong desire to influence and lead others; they demonstrate the willingness to take responsibility.
• Honesty and Integrity
- Leaders build trusting relationships with followers by being truthful or non-deceitful and by showing high consistency between word and deed.
• Self-Confidence
- Followers look to leaders for an absence of self-doubt. Leaders, therefore, need to show self-confidence in order to convince followers of the rightness of their goals and decisions.
• Intelligence
- Leaders need to be intelligent enough to gather, synthesize, and interpret large amounts of information, and they need to be able to create visions, solve problems, and make correct decisions.

• Job-Relevant Knowledge
- Effective leaders have a high degree of knowledge about the company, industry and technical matters. In-depth knowledge allows leaders to make well-informed decisions and to understand the implications of those decisions.
• Extraversion
- Leaders are energetic, lively people. They are sociable, assertive and rarely silent or withdrawn.

Question 3

What are the contemporary views of leadership?

Answer 3

• Transactional Leadership
- Leaders who guide or motivate their followers in the direction of established goals by clarifying role and task requirements.
• Transformational Leadership
- Leaders who inspire followers to transcend their own self-interests for the good of the organization by clarifying role and task requirement.
• Charismatic Leadership
- An enthusiastic, self-confident leader whose personality and actions influence people to behave in certain ways.
- Characteristics of charismatic leaders:
 Have a vision.
 Are able to articulate the vision.
 Are willing to take risks to achieve the visions.
• Visionary Leadership
- A leader who creates and articulates a realistic, credible, and attractive vision of the future that improves upon he present situation.
• Team Leadership
- Having patience to share information.
- Being able to trust others and to give up authority.
• Team Leader’s Job
- Managing the team’s external boundary
- Facilitating the team process

Question 4

How to manage power?

Answer 4

– Legitimate power
• The power a leader has as a result of his or her position.
– Coercive power
• The power a leader has to punish or control.
– Reward power
• The power to give positive benefits or rewards.
– Expert power
• The influence a leader can exert as a result of his or her expertise, skills, or knowledge.
– Referent power
• The power of a leader that arises because of a person’s desirable resources or admired personal traits.