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Flashcards in Leadership Deck (21)
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1
Q

What is Leadership?

A

The process of influencing the activities of an organised group in its efforts towards goal- setting and goal achievement

2
Q

What is the difference between leaders and managers?

A

Leaders are usually top executives who envision, initiate or sponsor strategic, transformational change. They create a vision and inspire people
Managers are usually functional specialists who carry forward and build support for the vision a leader has laid out. Thus they translate the vision into agendas and actions
Organisations need both strong leadership and strong management to function.
A good leader may tell an organisation where to go, but it takes a good manager to get them there

3
Q

What are the six perspectives of leadership?

A
Trait spotting
Style counselling
CONTEXT FITTING
NEW leaderships
Distributed leadership
Who needs leaders?
4
Q

What is trait spotting?

A

Identifies the personality traits and related attributes of the effective leader, in order to facilitate the selection of leaders
- great man theory

5
Q

What is great man Theory?

A

A historical perspective which argues that the fate of societies and organisations is in the hands of powerful idiosyncratic male individuals

Great men are born leaders, emerge to take power regardless of context.
Research looked at identifying traits of these people
Very vague
Only ability
sociability
and motivation

6
Q

What is style counselling?

A

Characterises different leadership behaviour patterns to identify effective and ineffective leadership styles, in order to improve the training and development of leaders
Two categories of leadership behaviour
Consideration and initiation structure
Independent behaviour patterns, hence one or both can be used by a leader

7
Q

What is Consideration leadership?

A

Sensitivity to relationships and to social needs of employees,
Interested in listening to employees, friendly and apprachable

8
Q

What is Initiating Structure leadership?

A

Emphasises performance of work in hand and achievement of goals
Decides how things are going to get done, structures tasks and assigns work.

9
Q

What is Context fitting?

A

Contingency theories argue that the leadership effectiveness depends on aspects of the organisational and cultural setting

10
Q

What do Tannenbaum and Schmidt argue? (contingency theory)

A

The use of authority by manager vs area of freedom for subordinates is governed by:
Forces in the manager eg personality, value beliefs
Forces in the subordinates, independence, knowledge of problem, tolerance of ambiguity
Forces in the situation: organisation norms, size, location etc

11
Q

What did Fielder argue? (Contingency theory)

A

Leadership effectiveness if governed by
Extent to which the task is structured
Leader’s power position
Nature of relationship between the leader and follower

12
Q

What did Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard’s theory state (contingency theory)

A

Situational leadership:
an approach to determining the most effective style of influencing, considering the direction and support a leader gives, and the readiness of followers to perform the task

13
Q

What are the main arguments of contingency theorists?

A

The most effective leadership style depends on the context
Organisation structures, management skills, employee characteristics, and the nature of their tasks- are all unique
No one style of leadership is universally best

14
Q

What are the criticism of contingency theories?

A

How easy is it for a leader to be able to diagnose situation
Wider structures (e.g culture) are not given emphasis
How easy is it to change personality and in general be able to adapt styles required?
People tend to value consistency

15
Q

What is New leadership theory

A

‘new leaders’, ‘super leaders’ and ‘transformational leaders’ are heroic, inspirational visionaries who give purpose and direction to others; their motivational role is central to strategy and effectiveness

16
Q

What is a transformational leader?

A

Those who inspire followers to transcend their own self interests for the good of the organisation and are capable of having a profound effect on their employees
Builds on top of transactional leadership and produces levels of follower effort that goes beyond what occur with a transactional approach alone
Provides a long term perspective and is emotionally appealing
Focuses on values

17
Q

What is a transactional leader?

A

Those who guide or motivate their followers in the direction of establishing goals by clarifying role and task requirements
Short term exchanges
Rational
Focuses on goals

18
Q

What are the four criteria of transformation leadership?

A

Idealised influence- articulate the mission
o Inspirational motivation- motivate others to put organisation above self interest
o Intellectual stimulation- encourage others to see what they are doing from new perspectives
o Individualized consideration - develop others to higher levels of ability

19
Q

When do charasmatic people make good leaders?

A

Charismatic people usually make good leaders ifthey
o use power to serve others
o align their vision with followers’ needs and aspirations
o consider and learn from criticism
o stimulate followers to think independently and to question the leader’s view
o offer open, two-way communication
o coach, develop, and support followers; share recognition with others
o rely on internal moral standards to satisfy organisational and societal interests

20
Q

What is distributed leadership?

A

the collective exercise of leadership behaviours, often informal and spontaneous, by staff at all levels of an organisation

21
Q

Why can transformation leaders be bad?

A

Can destabilise an organisation by driving too much change too quickly, causing burnout and initiative fatigue
middle mangers with change implementation skills can be more effective