Dimensions of Effective Leadership Behavior in Modern Organizations

1. Chapter Seven Leadership and Leader Behaviors

2. Reading 15Predicting Organizational Effectiveness with a Four-Factor Theory of Leadership • Research emphasis has shifted from a search for personality traits to a search for behavior that makes a difference in the performance or satisfaction of the followers • In a modern organizational family there is: • Usual task interdependence • Frequent social interdependence

3. Dimensions of Leadership • The concept of leadership is meaningful only in the context of two or more people • Leadership is the behavior by one member of an organizational family toward another member or members of the group, which advances some joint aim

4. Ohio State Leadership Studies • The Halpin and Winer analysis is widely used • The following are identified as “the Ohio State” dimensions of leadership: • Consideration • Behavior indicative of friendship, mutual trust, respect, and warmth • Initiating structure • Behavior that organizes and defines relationships or roles • Establishes well-defined patterns of organization channels of communication, and ways of getting jobs done

5. University of Michigan Survey Research Center Studies • Employee orientation • Behavior of a supervisor, which indicates that he feels that the “human relations” aspect of the job is important • Production orientation • Stresses production and the technical aspects of the job, with employees as means for getting work done

6. Studies at the Research Center for Group Dynamics • Group maintenance functions • Resolves disputes • Provides encouragement • Stimulates self-direction • Increases interdependence among members • Goal achievement functions • Initiates action • Keeps members’ attention on the goal • Makes expert information available

7. Mann’s Three Skills • Human relations skill – Ability and judgment in working with and through people • Technical skill – Ability to use knowledge, methods, techniques, and equipment necessary for performing tasks • Administrative skill – Ability to understand and act according to the objectives of the total organization

8. Comparison and Integration • Support • Behavior that enhances someone else’s feeling of personal worth and importance • Interaction facilitation • Behavior that encourages members of the group to develop close relationships • Goal emphasis • Behavior that stimulates an enthusiasm for meeting the group’s goal • Work facilitation • Behavior that helps achieve goal attainment by activities such as coordinating and planning

9. Table 1Correspondence of Leadership Concepts of Different Investigators

10. Independence of Leadership and Position • Leadership maybe either “supervisory” or “mutual” • Formally designated leaders set the pattern of mutual leadership which subordinates supply each other

11. Discussion and Conclusion • Both managerial and peer leadership characteristics seem important • There are plausible relationships of managerial to peer leadership characteristics. • Leadership is not adequate alone to predict effectiveness • Other constructs required: • Leadership related • Work patterns • Personal and motivational

12. Reading 16Patterns of Leadership Behavior Related to Employee Grievances and Turnover • The study investigates the relationships between: • Foreman behavior • Grievances and employee turnover • Procedure: • The study was conducted in a motor truck manufacturing plant • It included 57 production foremen and their work groups

13. Results: Leader Behavior and Grievances • As consideration drops significantly, grievance rates rise sharply • Extremely high structure and extremely low consideration are most related to high grievances • High consideration can compensate for high structure, but low structure will not offset low consideration

14. Results: Leader Behavior and Grievances • Leader behavior and turnover • It takes higher structure and lower consideration for turnover to occur • Turnover is highest for the work groups whose leaders combine low consideration with high structure • This was true regardless of the amount of emphasis placed on structure

15. Conclusions • Low consideration and high structure go with high grievances and turnover • Grievances and turnover are shown to increase most markedly at the extreme ends of the consideration (low end) and structure (high end) scales • Consideration is the dominant factor in determining leader effectiveness • Leaders with high consideration can increase the level of structure with very little increase in grievances and no increase in turnover

16. Reading 17Leader Self-sacrifice and Leadership Effectiveness • Effective leadership plays an important role in influencing employees’ willingness to exert themselves on the job and to cooperate towards collective goals • Effectiveness of leader self-sacrifice has recently attracted increasing attention from leadership researchers

17. Self-sacrifice and Leadership Effectiveness • Self-sacrifice indicates a person’s willingness “to suffer the loss of types of things to maintain personal beliefs and values” • Van Knippenberg showed that leader’s self-sacrifice (vs. no self-sacrifice) motivated higher task performance • It is suggested that self-sacrificial leadership is positively related to criteria of leadership effectiveness • Collective identification mediated the interactive effect of leader self-sacrifice and procedural fairness on cooperative behavior

18. Leader Display of Self-Confidence as a Moderator • Effectiveness of specific leadership styles or behavior may be contingent on a host of personal, situational and organizational characteristics • Leader’s display of self-confidence may feed into the leader’s effectiveness in pursuit of collective success

19. Present Research • Hypothesis 1: Leader self-sacrifice is positively related to leadership effectiveness and perceptions of charisma • Hypothesis 2: Leader self-confidence is positively related to leadership effectiveness and perceptions of charisma • Hypothesis 3: Leader self-sacrifice and self-confidence interact, such that the effects of self-sacrifice on leadership effectiveness and perceptions of charisma are stronger when self-confidence is high rather than low

20. Present Research • Hypothesis 4: Leader self-sacrifice and self-confidence interact, such that the effects of self-sacrifice on collective identification are stronger when self-confidence is high rather than low • Hypothesis 5: Collective identification mediates the interactive effect of leader self-sacrifice and self-confidence on leadership effectiveness and perceptions of charisma

21. General Discussion • Self-sacrifice and self-confidence had stronger effects in conjunction than on their own on leadership effectiveness and perceptions of charisma • It is important to identify contingencies of the effectiveness of self-sacrificial behavior • Self-sacrifice is, in principle, under the leader’s volitional control and insights into the working leader self-sacrifice may thus feed relatively easily into organizational practice

22. Reading 18Influence of Leader Behaviors on the Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) Relationship • High exchange relationships • Characterized by high-level of trust, liking, and respect, and they involve expectations of mutual exchange • Subordinates are expected to be committed to the work and be loyal to the leader • Low-quality exchange relationships • Subordinates are only expected to perform the formal requirements of their jobs, and extra benefits are not provided by the leader

23. Table 1Definitions of the Leader Behaviors

24. Research on Leader Behaviorand LMX • Hypothesis 1: Supporting is related positively to the quality of LMX • Hypothesis 2 : Developing is related positively to the quality of LMX • Hypothesis 3 : Recognizing is related positively to the quality of LMX • Hypothesis 4: Consulting is related positively to the quality of LMX • Hypothesis 5: Delegating behavior is related positively to the quality of LMX

25. Discussion • Supporting and leading by example were the only transformational behaviors independently related to LMX • Exchange relationship between a leader and subordinate is influenced primarily by relations-oriented behaviors • Recognizing • Consulting • Delegating