Introduction to Leadership

Question 1

Conceptualising Leadership

Answer 1

• The focus of group processes
  
  • A personality perspective
  • An act or behaviour
  • The power relationship between leaders and followers
  • A transformational process (how leader help them become something they thought they cant become)
  • A skills perspective

Question 2

Two reasons why we’re interested in the idea of social influence:

Answer 2

1. Leaders have the power to raise performance levels beyond what they would have been were the leaders not present

    2. Leadership is    a skill that is largely learned, and if you can learn this skill, the potential upside is enormous

Question 3

Components of Leadership

Answer 3

• Leadership is a process
• Involves influencing others
• Happens within a context of a group
• Involves goal attainment
• Goals are shared by leaders and followers
  • Suggests that leadership is not a trait or characteristic
    endowed at birth

Leadership is a transactional event between leaders and their followers

Question 4

Leadership as a process

Answer 4

• Leadership is a two-way interactive event between leader and follower.
• Can affect or be affected either positively or negatively.
• Available to everyone, not just those born with it.

Not restricted to one person with formal position power.

Question 5

Trait

Answer 5

• Trait viewpoint emphasizes attributes such as personality, motives, values and skills.
• That certain individuals have special innate characteristics that differentiate them from non-leaders
• Suggests that leadership is inherent in a few select people and restricted to only those with those attributes.

Certain traits leaders have
More than just psychological traits
à Includes height, gender

Question 6

Process

Answer 6

• Process viewpoint implies that leadership is a phenomenon that is contextual.
• That leadership is a property or set of properties possessed in varying degrees by different people.
• Suggests that everyone is capable of exercising leadership and can be learned through observing behaviours.

Question 7

Assigned leadership

Answer 7

Appointment of people to formal positions of authority.

Question 8

Emergent leadership:

Answer 8

Exercise of leadership by a group member due to the manner in which other members react to him/her.

• Exhibited when others perceive the person to be the most
  influential member regardless of the individual’s title, and they support, accept, and encourage the person’s behaviour.
• Does not occur when person is appointed to a formal position, but emerges over time through positive communication behaviours.
• E.g. verbal involvement, keeping other informed, being firm but not rigid, initiation of new and compelling ideas

Question 9

Leadership and Power

Answer 9

• Power is the capacity or potential to influence, the ability to affect others’ beliefs, attitudes and actions.○ It is a relational concern for both leaders and followers.

Question 10

Leadership and Power

Answer 10

Power is the capacity or potential to influence, the ability to affect others’ beliefs, attitudes and actions.

It is a relational concern for both leaders and followers.

Question 11

French and Raven’s (1959) Power Bases

Answer 11

Referent power : liking for the leader

Expert power: competent and knowledgeable

Legitimate power: status for formal job authority

Reward power: capacity to provide rewards

Coercive Power: capacity to penalize or punish

Question 12

Position power

Answer 12

Power that comes from holding a particular office, position or rank.

Power bases: Legitimate, Reward, Coercive

Question 13

Personal power:

Answer 13

The capacity to influence that comes from being viewed as knowledgeable and likeable by followers.

Power bases: Referent, Expert

It is important to know when it is most appropriate to use position power, and to be able and willing to use it.

But overuse of position power may erode the ability of a leader to influence people.

Question 14

Claims and grants of leadership status

Answer 14

We claim leadership roles through the way we think, feel and behave.

Others grant (or deny) legitimacy to your leadership claims by choosing (or choosing not) to follow.

Leadership development is about increasing the chances of having your leadership claims validated and legitimized.

Question 15

Leadership and Coercion

Answer 15

Coercion involves:
Use of force to effect change

Influencing others to do something by manipulating rewards and penalties in the work environment

Use of threats, punishments and negative rewards.

Question 16

Managers

Answer 16

Work with people to solve problems reactively with minimal emotional involvement

Lead using a cerebral face
Stress calculations, views an organisation as components of a portfolio, operates with words and numbers of rationality

Planning and budgeting
Organising and staffing
Controlling and problem
solving

Believe that the decisions they make are determined for them by the organisations they work for, which in turn is determined by the industry or environment in which they operate

Question 17

Pre 1930s: Leaders as heroes

Answer 17

• A property of remarkable individuals capable of radically altering streams of history (Galton, 1859, hereditary genius)
• The history of the world is the biography of great men (Carlyle, 1907, heroes and hero worship)
• Spurred on by the IQ research / individual differences tradition in 1920s.
• Stogdill (1949) took a look and said IQ aside, there are few personality traits that reliably distinguish leaders and non-leaders.

Question 18

1940s and 50s: What leaders do

Answer 18

• Ohio state studies by Hemphill and colleagues created the
  Leader Behaviour Description Questionnaire (LBDQ).
• Variability in leader behaviour could be explained by two major clusters (Halpin &Winer, 1957).
  • Consideration is showing concern for the feelings of subordinates, making sure minority viewpoints considered in decision making, reducing conflict.
  • Initiation of Structure is use of standard operating procedures, criticism of poor work, and emphasis on high levels of performance.
• Also see concurrent studies at Michigan & Harvard.

Factors were inconsistent predictors of follower satisfaction and group performance (Fleishmann & Harris, 1962), but see Judge et al. 2004.

Question 19

1940s and 50s: What leaders do

Answer 19

• Ohio state studies by Hemphill and colleagues created the
  Leader Behaviour Description Questionnaire (LBDQ).
• Variability in leader behaviour could be explained by two major clusters (Halpin &Winer, 1957).
  • Consideration is showing concern for the feelings of subordinates, making sure minority viewpoints considered in decision making, reducing conflict.
  • Initiation of Structure is use of standard operating procedures, criticism of poor work, and emphasis on high levels of performance.
• Also see concurrent studies at Michigan & Harvard.
• Factors were inconsistent predictors of follower satisfaction and group performance (Fleishmann & Harris, 1962), but see Judge et al. 2004.

Question 20

1960s and early 70s: Contingency theories

Answer 20

• Fiedler’s (1964, 1967) earliest of contingency theories.
• Least Preferred Co-worker method yielded inconsistent predictions until coded for situational favourability.
• Groups led by task-oriented leaders performed best in situations of high control and predictability or very low control and predictability.
• Groups led by relationship-oriented leaders performed best in the situations of moderate control or predictability.
• Heavily criticised for inductive development and complexity, but well supported empirically.

    ○ Inductive: From a small idea to a grand theory

• Vroom & Yetton (1973) addressed the issue deductively in their normative decision model, which is also well supported.

    ○ Deductive: Sign method – starting from a theory and finding  specific evidence to support it

• House and colleagues in 1970s: Path-Goal theory
• Leader’s main purpose is to motivate subordinates by showing how task-related performance achieves personal goals.
• Structure motivates when environment lacks structure due to insufficient training or experience, but is otherwise seen as micromanaging.
• Consideration best when psychological support is needed to deal with a boring work environment, but unnecessary if work is engaging.
• Considerable research supports the tenets of this model.

Question 21

Qualitative Approach (Weakness and Benefits)

Answer 21

• Weaknesses: Intensive, complex, expensive, time consuming
• Benefits:○ Greater opportunities to examine the process in depth and
  allow for richer descriptions.○ Flexibility to discern other contextual factors and sensitivity of ideas and meanings of the individuals concerned.○ More effective means to investigate symbolic dimensions.○ Increased likelihood of developing empirically supported new ideas with practical relevance rather than verifying old and existing theories.

Question 22

Grounded Theory

Answer 22

• Uses qualitative research methods with the aim of generating theory which is grounded in the data rather than testing existing theories.
• Seeks to produce a social theory of a particular phenomenon drawn from the relational experience of participants within a discrete context.
• Moves in a systematic way from categorizing data related to a phenomenon, toward linking those categories, such that an integrative picture is developed through this process.
• Useful for research related to human behaviour in organisations, groups, and other social configurations.
• Processes of generating Grounded theory move from the empirical data to codes and themes, and to a hierarchy of levels of abstraction.
• This interpretation might utilise metaphors, related concepts, and even unrelated theories to supplement data interpretation.

Question 23

Steps for Grounded Theory

Answer 23

Steps involved (Parry, 1998):

1. Focus on the relational and processual elements of  leadership in a particular context.

2. Apply qualitative analysis to qualitative data using the  grounded theory technique to ensure rigour and to  consider all variables or causal mechanisms.

3. Generate an integrative theory with a hierarchy of  abstraction.

4. Compare the theory to the extant literature and repeat  the research in new contexts with the aim of building a  formal theory.