©2007 Prentice Hall Organizational Behavior: An Introduction to Your Life in Organizations Chapter 11 The Challenge of Leadership

©2007 Prentice Hall

Organizational Behavior:An Introduction to

Your Life in Organizations

Chapter 11

The Challenge of Leadership


Preview

• What is leadership, really?• Why are some people leaders while others are

followers?• Can you learn to be a leader?• Will you be an effective leader? As a leader how

would you…?• As a leader, you also need to know how to…• Will you get a chance to lead?• What do we know about leadership cross-

culturally?


A short history of leadership research

• Leaders are studied because they are powerful and they are role models

• Two major streams of research: Those studies that focus primarily on

individual leaders Those that focus on leadership as a dynamic,

interactive influence process among individuals


Understanding individual leaders

• The trait approach: looked for common characteristics like social attributes, physical features, personality traits and abilities

• The behavioral style approach: determine what skills are most important

• The contingency approach: the leader’s effectiveness is contingent upon the situation

• Alternative approaches: understanding shared leadership


A practical definition of leadership

• The ability of individuals to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute to the effectiveness and success of their organizations

• Formal leaders have formal or legal authority to direct others in their organizations

• Emergent leaders exert significant influence over others despite having no formally allocated authority


The choice to lead

• Consider your goals in life

• Consider your own career goals

• Generally leaders earn more than followers

• Do you have the traits typically associated with leadership?


What is your leadership style?

• Most leadership behaviors can be categorized on two dimensions

• Consideration is the degree to which a leader shows concern and respect for followers, looks out for their welfare, and expresses appreciation and support for them

• Structure is the degree to which a leader defines and organizes his or her role and the roles of followers, is oriented toward goal attainment, and establishes clearly-defined patterns and channels of communication

• Goal is to score highly on each dimension


Do you have the potential to be a charismatic leader?

• Charismatic leaders are leaders that exert an unusual amount of influence on their followers, generally because of some combination of their persona, their goals, and some serendipitous extraordinary circumstances

• Major characteristics: Self-confidence Vision Unconventional behavior Environmental sensitivity Sensitivity to followers Role modeling


Do you have the potential to be a transformational leader?

• Transactional leaders are those who manage their followers, contingently reinforcing them based on whether they meet organizational goals

• Transformational leaders motivate their followers to move beyond their personal self-interest for the good of the group or organization


Guide your followers to goals that the company values

• Path-goal theory suggests that leaders motivate their followers to attain work related goals by increasing the number and kinds of personal payoffs to them

• Also motivate by making the paths to these payoffs easier to travel by clarifying them, reducing road blocks and pitfalls, and increasing opportunities for personal satisfaction along the way


Adapt your behavior to the situation

• Work unit leadership theory suggests that leaders should analyze factors in their work unit and act accordingly

• Assess your followers’ environments and abilities and behave in ways that complement them

• Try to compensate for subordinate deficiencies, improve subordinate satisfaction, and enhance individual and group performance


Use your own ideas and knowledge to improve group performance

• Cognitive resource theory proposes that the critical factor that determines which leadership style is likely to be most effective in which situation is whether the situational factors create anxiety and uncertainty for the leader

• Recognize the stress inherent in the situation, and monitor your own responses accordingly


Interact with your followers

• According to leader-member exchange (LMX) theory, the quality of the supervisor-subordinate relationship tells us whether a leader will lead successfully

• Need to assess the relationships


Determine when your leadership is irrelevant

• Substitutes for leadership are factors in organizational life undermine and negate leaders’ ability to influence their subordinates

• When trying to figure out what leadership approach is best for a particular situation, try to keep the factors in Table 11.5 in mind


Practice ethical leadership

• A moral manager: leads others on the ethical dimension lets subordinates know what is expected holds subordinates accountable sets ethical standards communicates ethics messages role models ethical conduct uses rewards and punishments to guide ethical

behavior in the organization• To be effective moral leaders, executives should

model ethical behavior and hold their followers accountable for ethical conduct


Examine the non-rational side of leadership

• Like all human beings, leaders are subject to cognitive and emotional distortions that can lead to irrationality and even intentional destructiveness

• Unconscious fantasies of leaders that can impact corporate culture: Paranoid Obsessive-compulsive Dramatic Depressive Schizoid


Recognize myths about leadership

• Tough leaders are the best leaders

• Leaders must be excellent technical analysts

• Choosing which leaders to emulate and which skills to learn is part of the leadership challenge


What type of leadership does your company need?

• Those operating in stable business environments in which bureaucratic decision making predominates, require transactional leaders

• Those that need to radically change, require charismatic and transformational leaders


What type of leadership is valued in your company?

• Implicit leadership theory is the study of prototypes (that is, the ideal models) of leadership that are held by the individuals in a company

• Traits in the leadership prototype: sensitivity/compassion, intelligence, dedication, and dynamism/energy

• Traits in the leadership antiprototype: tyranny and masculinity


Will your company identify you as a leader?

• Companies overlook potential leaders because certain individuals fail to exhibit traditional leadership characteristics

• Identify hidden leaders by using sociograms and similar analyses of social networks to see who people in a group really talk to


How will your minority status affect your leadership opportunities?

• Leadership potential: Consider each potential leader as an individual and overlook gender or other status categories

• Leadership values: Find an organization that shares your values


Apply what you have learned

• World Class Company: Consumer Products Inc. Hires a Consultant

• Advice from the Pro’s

• Gain Experience

• Can you solve this manager’s problem?


Summary – What is leadership, really?

• Leadership is a form of social influence in which one person influences one or more individuals to enhance the effectiveness of the organization

• Formal leaders have legitimate authority based on their organizational position

• Emergent leaders get things accomplished through others despite having no authority


Summary – Why are some people leaders while others are followers?

• They have standard leadership traits like extraversion, openness to experience, and intelligence

• Not all leaders exhibit the standard set of traits

• Not everyone wants to lead


Summary – Can you learn to be a leader?

• Managers can learn two dimensions: exhibit consideration demonstrate concern and

respect for followers and look out for their welfare define roles and organize people to meet goals and

establishing effective communications

• Charismatic leaders exert an unusual amount of influence on their followers, generally because of their self-confidence, vision, unconventional behavior, and other characteristics – some of these can be learned


Summary – Will you be an effective leader?

• Path-goal theory describes how leaders influence their followers’ perceptions of their path to a valued goal

• Work unit theory shows you how to adapt your leadership style to the situation

• Other important tools are based on cognitive resources theory, leader-member exchange theory, and substitutes for leadership theory


Summary – As a leader, you also need to know how to…

• Practice ethical leadership

• Examine the non-rational side of leadership

• Recognize modern myths about leadership


Summary – Will you get a chance to lead?

• Depends on the type of leadership your company needs and values: Bureaucratic companies need primarily transactional leaders, for example; Companies that need to radically change require transformational leaders.

• Implicit leadership theory tells us that individuals have in their minds prototypes of ideal leaders. The more similar your leadership style is to that of powerful decision makers, the higher the probability that you will be valued as a leader


Summary – What do we know about leadership cross-culturally?

• Project GLOBE asks questions like what is the prototype for outstanding leaders in different cultures around the world?

• More research needs to be done in this area

Documents

©2007 Prentice Hall Organizational Behavior: An Introduction to Your Life in Organizations Chapter 11 The Challenge of Leadership