Leadership

1. Leadership

2. Introduction • Leadership is at the heart of management. It is basically involved with initiating action. • Leadership is the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of goals. • The source of this influence may be formal, such as that provided by the possession of managerial rank in the organization.

3. Because management positions come with some degree of formally designated authority, an individual may assume a leadership role as a result of the position he or she holds in the organization. • But not all leaders are managers, nor, for that matter, are all managers leaders. • Just because an organization provides its managers with certain rights is no assurance they will be able to lead effectively.

4. Nonsanctioned leadership, that is the ability to influence that arises outside of the formal structure of the organization, is as important as or more important than formal influence. • In other words, leaders can emerge from within a group as well as being formally appointed. • The leadership literature is voluminous, and as much of it is confusing and contradictory.

5. Definition of Leadership • Keith Davis (1967)-- “Leadership is the ability to persuade others to seek defined objectives enthusiastically.” • Robert Kreitner (2000)– “Leadership is a social influence process in which the leader seeks the voluntary participation of subordinates in an effort to reach organizational objectives.” • Terry and Franklin (2003)– “Leadership is the relationship in which one person (the leader) influences others to work together

6. willingly on related tasks to attain organizational goals.” Managers vs. Leaders • Leadership is just one componentof management. It deals with people and their behavior. Management, on the other hand, includes leadership functions to achieve the organizational goals. • A person can be an effective leader but may

7. not be a good manager. A good manager has to have leadership skills. • An organization needs both management and leadership if it is to be effective. • Leadership is necessary to create and direct changes, develop vision, project ideas, motivate people, and develop a long-term view of the organization

8. The leader must have the ability to see ahead and the willingness to try new things to remain competitive. • Management, on the other hand, can help achieve planned and orderly change, keep the organization within existing patterns, enforce uniformity, control processes, and develop realistic view of the organization.

9. Management is a bottom line focus. How can I accomplish certain things? • Leadership deals with the top line. What things I want to accomplish? • In the words of Peter Druker: “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”

10. Thus, both management and leadership have similarities. Yet there are differences between the two. • But these differences between the two are, in no way, mutually exclusive. They are rather mutually supporting.

11. Functions of Leadership • To get the work done through others is the heart of leadership. • A person who insists upon doing everything himself or herself never makes a satisfactory leader. • The purpose of leadership function is to achieve organization’s goals. • At the same time, leadership also has to build an organizational climate that is conducive to better performance.

12. The leadership functions, thus, include: • Directing • Developing • Motivating • Communicating • Maintaining, and • Mediating

13. Directing • Leadership inspires and influences others to give their maximum effort and cooperation for the attainment of group objectives. • Directing function includes sharing organizational mission and goals, defining and setting performance standards, explaining plans and decisions, developing and training members, organizing group activities, solving problems, and exploring the full potential of group members.

14. Developing (supervising & coaching) • This function is concerned with the training, coaching, and development of the group members. • It includes the checkups required to assure the prompt and proper execution of orders, and thus, it is also a part of the controlling function. • Supervising is performed by every member of a management team, from chief executive to first-line supervisors.

15. Coaching relates to helping employees improve their performance to reach their potential. • Leadership can aid them over the long term through day-to-day training, sharing of information, and feedback.

16. Motivating • Creating a good work climate is a natural by-product of good leadership. But it also contributes to employee motivation. • Most people respond to challenging job. They take pride in their accomplishment. • Therefore, real motivation depends upon the pride in one’s job, in the organization’s product or service, upon a personal sense of belonging to the team. Leadership function creates this motivational climate in workplace

17. Communicating • Communicating with employees is a necessary part of the leadership function. • Communication occurs not only through established channels for communicating—up and down the chain of command—but also through the informal channels. • Group functioning is effected if there is poor communication. Good communication helps to reduce conflicts originating from differences of opinions.

18. Maintaining • The maintenance function is related to retaining the members of the group. This is a challenging function of a leader. • The function is concerned with providing safe working conditions and good work environment in the work place. • Thus, if the leadership provides these healthy work conditions, group members will be committed to contribute to group or organizational goals.

19. Mediating • Conflicts are inevitable in groups and organizations. Some disagreements occur among people, which lead to problems of conflict. • If not handle properly, these conflicts could prove to be very harmful to group’s performance. • Therefore, the crucial function of leadership is to mediate between the conflicting members and groups, and solve the problem.

20. Leadership Styles • Leadership styles vary widely among leaders and among organizations. Much depends on the philosophy, attitude, personality, and experience of individual leader as well as on the organizational climate and features. • There are four main leadership styles: Authoritarian, Paternalistic, Participative, and Laissez-Faire

21. Authoritarian Style (Leader-Centered) • This leadership style is also called dictatorial or autocratic style. • Leaders with this style get others to do. They may use fear, threat, authority, and prestige inherent in their organizational position, or the strength of their personality to get things done. • They do not bother about the ideas and feelings of others and get things done in their own way.

22. They often take credit for accomplishments but put the blame for failure on their subordinates. • The autocratic leaders rule with unlimited authority. They are naturally inclined to keep the bulk of power and influence in the decision-making process to themselves. • There is little, if any, feedback for subordinates. Thus, misunderstandings may often occur and result in costly mistakes and wasteful practices.

23. Subordinates are humiliated under such leadership. This style virtually kills subordinate’s initiatives. Paternalistic (Leader-Centered) • This leadership style is also called benevolent autocratic style. The leader works as a father figure, acting like a family head. The leader guides, protects, and treats subordinates like children.

24. The leaders make decisions but deal more kindly with subordinates and allow them some flexibility. • The level of trust between the leader and subordinates remains low, limiting upward communication. • Subordinates are likely to do exactly as they are told, but will seldom be creative.

25. Participative Style (group-centered) • This style is also called democratic or consultative style. • The leaders practicing this style operate in much different way. they seek to lead mainly by persuasion and examples rather than by force, fear, status, or power. • They consider the opinions and feelings of their subordinates, make them feel important, and encourage participative decision-making.

26. Subordinates’ ideas and opinions are sought before setting goals and making decisions. • Subordinates feel encouraged to, get an opportunity to demonstrate and develop their abilities, and cooperate wholeheartedly. • They tend to support the decisions and strive harder to implement the decision. • The leaders share information freely and encourage discussions. They rely on rewards than on punishments.

27. A relationship of trust develops, encouraging two-way communication. • Subordinates have a lot of control over their work and trust between subordinates and leaders at all level of management. • On the whole, democratic leadership help people to grow, to become responsible for their own work, and to take initiatives.

28. The leaders following this style benefit by obtaining the best information, ideas, and experiences from their subordinates. • As a result, better subordinate attitudes are generated and productivity tends to increase. The subordinates have a feeling of personal satisfaction and accomplishment. • The risk with this style is that at times it is time-consuming. Too much discussion and lack of consensus may result in a complete breakdown of management control.

29. Laissez-Faire Style (individual-centered) • This style is also called free rein. Here the subordinates have complete freedom of choice and can do, a they like. • Laissez-Faire leaders do not get involved at all. They let the group run by itself. These leaders allow the subordinates to decide. They do not intervene. • The subordinates are left to themselves to establish their own goals. Free rein leaders encourage to operate freely with no direction

30. unless the subordinates ask for help. • While the group itself may be in the short-term think this approach is wonderful. It will probably leave the group no real direction toward achievements. • This style creates more anxiety and tension among subordinates. • This style can be disastrous for the leader if the subordinates are not qualified or willing to accept the responsibilities and authorities that are delegated to them.

31. Approaches to Leadership • Leadership has been a subject of great interest to sociologists, organizational theorists, management scientists, and others from the very early days of human organization. • Various studies have been conducted to analyze the different dimensions of leadership. • What makes a good leader? There are several answers. The first answer is thetraitapproach to leadership.

32. The idea in trait approach is that good leaders are people who have particular personality traits, like intelligence, wisdom, knowledge, skills, etc. • The second answer says leadership is about behavior rather than traits. • The third answer is more conditional. It suggests that good leadership is contingent on people and the situation.

33. We can, thus, identify three different approaches to leadership. These approaches are: (1) the trait approach, (2) the behavior approach, and (3) the situational approach.

34. The Trait Approach • This approach is also known as the great-man theory of leadership. This is the oldest leadership perspective. • The first organized approach to studying leadership analyzed the personal, psychological, and physical traits of strong leaders. • The trait approach assumed that some basic trait or set of traits existed that differentiated leaders from non leaders. If those traits could

35. be defined, potential leaders could be identified. • Researchers thought that leadership traits might include intelligence, self-confidence, assertiveness, above average height, good vocabulary attractiveness, and similar attributes. • During the first several decades of this century, researchers conducted hundreds of studies in an attempt to identify important leadership traits.

36. For the most part, the results of the studies were disappointing. • For every set of leaders who possessed a common trait, researchers also found a long list of exceptions, and the list of suggested traits soon grew so long that it had little practical value. • Alternative explanations usually existed even for relations between traits and leadership that initially appeared valid.

37. For example, researchers observed that many leaders have good communication skills and are assertive. Rather than those traits being the cause of leadership, however, successful leaders may begin to display those traits after they have achieved leadership positions. • Although most researchers gave up trying to identify traits as predictors of leadership ability, many people still explicitly or implicitly adopt a trait orientation.

38. The Behavioral Approach • Spurred on by their lack of success in identifying useful leadership traits, researchers soon began to investigate other variables, specially the behaviors or actions of leaders. • The new hypothesis was that effective leaders somehow behaved differently than less-effective leaders. Thus, the goal was to develop a fuller understanding of leadership behaviors.

39. Michigan Studies • Researchers at the university of Michigan, led by Rensis Likert, began studying leadership in the late 1940s. • Based on the extensive interviews with both leaders (managers) and followers (subordinates), this research identified two basic forms of leader behavior: job centered and employee centered.

40. Managers using job-centered leader behavior pay close attention to subordinates’ work, explain work procedures, and are keenly interested in performance. • Managers using employee-centered leaderbehavior are interested in developing a cohesive work group and ensuring that employees are satisfied with their jobs. Their primary concern is the welfare of subordinates.

41. The two styles of leader behavior were presumed to be at the ends of a single continuum. • Although this suggests that leaders may be extremely job-centered, extremely employee-centered, or somewhere in between, Likert studied only the two extremes for contrast. • He argued that employee-centered leader behavior tended to be more effective.

42. Job-centered leader behavior is more consistent with rigid and bureaucratic organizations, whereas employee-centered leader behavior is consistent with organic and flexible organizations.

43. Ohio State Studies • At about the same time that Likert was beginning his leadership studies at the university of Michigan, a group of researchers at Ohio State University also began studying leadership. • The extensive questionnaire surveys conducted during the Ohio state studies also suggested that there are two basic leader behaviors or styles: initiating-structure behavior and consideration behavior.

44. When using initiating-structure behavior, the leader clearly defines the leader-subordinate role so that everyone knows what is expected, establishes formal line of communication, and determines how tasks will be performed. • Leaders using consideration behavior show concerns for subordinates and attempt to establish a friendly and supportive climate.

45. Although behaviors identified at Ohio State are similar to those described at the University of Michigan, they differ in important ways. • One major difference is that the Ohio State researchers did not interpret leader behavior as being one-dimensional: each behavior was assumed to be independent of other. • Presumably, then, a leader could exhibit varying levels of initiating structure and at the same time varying levels of considerations.

46. At first, the Ohio State researchers thought that leaders who exhibit high levels of both behaviors would tend to be more effective than other leaders. • A study at International Harvester Co. ( now Navistar International Corp.), however suggested a more complicated pattern. • The researchers found that employees of supervisors who ranked high on initiating structure were high performers but expressed low levels of satisfaction and had a higher

47. absence rate. • Conversely, employees of supervisors who ranked high on consideration had low performance ratings but high levels of satisfaction and few absences from work. • Later research isolated other variables that make consistent prediction difficult and determined that situational influence also occurred.

48. Leadership Grid • Yet another behavioral approach to leadership is the leadership grid. • The Leadership Grid provides a means for evaluating leadership styles and then training managers to move toward an ideal style of behavior. • The horizontal axis of the grid represents concern for production and the verticalaxis represents concern for people.

49. According to this approach, the ideal style of managerial behavior is 9,9, and there is a six-phase program to assist managers in achieving this style of behavior. • The leader-behavior theories have played an important role in the development of contemporary thinking about leadership. • In particular, they urge us not to be preoccupied with what leaders are (the trait approach) but to concentrate on what leaders do 9their behavior).

50. Unfortunately, these theories also make universal prescriptions about what constitutes effective leadership. • When we are dealing with complex social systems composed of complex individuals, few if any relationships are consistently predictable, and certainly no formulas for success are infallible. • Yet the behavior theorists tried to identify consistent relationships between leader behaviors and employee responses in the