Leadership Flashcards
(42 cards)
Leadership
Getting group members to achieve the group’s goals
Great person theory
Perspective on leadership that attributes effective leadership to innate or acquired individual characteristics
Stogdill (1948, 1974): review 30 years research into leadership
No clear of the of individual differences
No specific leader characteristics to make one become a leader
But slightly more intelligent, self-confidence and aware of followers’ needs
This suggests there is a small component individual differences
Judge, Bono, Ilies and Gerhardt (2002): meta-analysis
Using the big five model of personality to see if related to the leadership effectiveness and emergence
Extraversion was the most related and as the best predictors of effective leadership
Trait approach is simplistic and lack consistent evidence
It appears to ignore the situational context
Lewis, Lippitt, & White (1939): adult teachers leadership style on performance of school boys
Come up with three distinct leadership styles
Autocratic leader
Democratic leader
Laissez-fair
Autocratic leader
Leaders who use a style based on giving orders to followers
Democratic leader
More open to followers, take in their opinions, and obtain their agreement and consent
Most favourable and mostly successful
Laissez-fair
Disinterest in followers, followers can do whatever they want
Bales (1950): identified two key leadership roles
Task specialist
Socio-emotional specialist
No one can occupy both roles simultaneously
The person occupy the task specialist role was more likely to be the dominant leader
Task specialist
Tend to be centrally involved
Often by offering opinions and giving directions
Socio-emotional specialist
Tend to respond and pay attention to the feelings of other group members
Sorrentino & Field (1986): conducted detailed observations of 12 problem-solving groups
Found people who can perform in the task and socio-emotional roles were more likely to be elected as leader
Contingency theory (Fiedler, 1964)
Leadership styles changes depending on the situation at any given time
Theories of leadership that consider the leadership effectiveness of particular behaviours or behavioural styles to be contingent to the nature of leadership situation
要變通
Fielder created a scale for leadership: least preferred co-worker scale (LPC)
Measuring leadership style in terms of favourability of attitude to words one’s least preferred co-worker
LPC scale (least preferred co-worker scale)
High score = relationship orientated style, respondent felt favourably inclined to words and fellow member even feel they were not performing well
Low score = task orientated style, because the respondent was harsh on the poorly performing coworker
Three situational aspects to be considered
The quality leader-member relations
Task structure
Position power
Making leadership easy
Good relations
with a clear task
and substantial position power
Making leadership difficult
Poor relations
fuzzy task
Low position power
Transactional leadership
Approach to leadership that focuses on the transaction of resources between leader and follower
External
No attitudes and beliefs change
Hollander (1958): Idiosyncrasy credit
Leaders needed their followers to allow them to be innovative, to be able to experiment with new ideas and new direction - to be idiosyncratic
Leader-member exchange theory (LMX)
the ability of the leader to develop good-quality personalised exchanges relationships with individual members
The quality of exchange relationships
High quality LMX
Leader is supportive and encouraging which increases commitment
Low quality of LMX
Fewer resources leads to dissatisfaction
