LEADERSHIP

5.1 Introduction

 Leadership calls for the ability of one to unite people for them to collectively attain organization objectives.
 KEITH DAVIS: “Leadership is the ability to persuade others to seek defined objectives enthusiastically.”
 LEADERSHIP VS. MANAGEMENT

LEADERSHIP - primarily deals with influence

- Leader has no specific duties and responsibilities

MANAGEMENT - involves planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling

- Manager has formal authority by virtue of his or her position

 A manager is not necessarily a good leader just as a leader may not be a good manager.
 Successful leadership depends on the actuations rather than on the character traits of a person.
 TASK AND PSYCHOLOGICAL SUPPORT
 Leaders provide both task and psychological support their followers
 ROLE MODELING
 Leaders serve as role models for their subordinates who tend to act in about the same manner that
the leaders do.

Leadership Styles

1. Autocratic Leadership - characterized by centralization of power and decision-making in the leader, who takes
full authority and assumes full responsibility for what transpires within his jurisdiction.
Advantages:
 It provides strong motivation and reward for the leader.
 It results in quick decisions.
 Less competent employees can be employed to carry out orders.

Disadvantages:

 Frustration, dissatisfaction, fear and conflict develop easily

 Employees feel that they produce on account of pressure rather than being spurred by motivations.
 Creativity of employees is stifled.
2. Participative Leadership - characterized by decentralization of authority. Decisions arise from consultation of
followers and participation by them. Employees are informed about matters affecting their jobs which
encourage freedom in the expression of suggestions and ideas.
3. Free-reign Leadership - generally avoids power and responsibility, leaving the group to establish their own goals
and work out solutions to their problems.

Leadership Styles with employees

1. Employee orientation – leaders who are concerned with the human needs of his employees and who try to
build teamwork and help employees solve their problems, secure better performance and job satisfaction
among the employees.
2. Task orientation – leaders get result by keeping their personnel busy, thereby realizing greater productivity.

5.2 TRAIT APPROACH

“Effective leaders are born, not made”

 According to trait leadership theory, certain integrated patterns of personal characteristics nurture consistent
leader effectiveness in a group of people.
  These traits include dimensions of personality and motives, sets of skills and capabilities, and behavior in social
relationships.

 Leader Traits
Most leader traits can be organized into four groups:

 Personality: adaptability and comfort with ambiguity, and dispositional tendencies, such as
motives and values.
 Demographic: In this category, gender has received by far the most attention in terms of
leadership; however, most scholars have found that gender is not a determining demographic
trait, as male and female leaders are equally effective.

 Task competence: Hoffman groups intelligence, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and

emotional stability into this category.

 Interpersonal attributes: According to Hoffman and others (2011), traits such as extroversion
and agreeableness are included in this category.

Other core traits defined:

 Achievement drive
 Leadership motivation
 Honesty and integrity
 Self-confidence
 Cognitive ability
 Knowledge of business
 Emotional Maturity
 Charisma, creativity and flexibility

5.3 The Ohio State Studies

 LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOR DESCRIPTION QUESTIONNAIRE (LBDQ)

 Is a questionnaire that is use to identify the behavior of designated leader in formal organizations. The
LBDQ contains items, each of which describes a specific way in which a leader may behave.
 developed by the staff of the Personnel Research Board, the Ohio State University, as one project of the
Ohio State Leadership Studies, directed by Dr. Carroll L. Shartle.
 There were two concepts how leaders carry out their role:
• Consideration - showing concern and support to employees, recognizing and providing them
welfare
• Initiating Structure - also called the task-oriented behavior; involves planning, organizing and
coordinating to the work of employees

 MICHIGAN LEADERSHIP STUDIES

 Is a behavioral leadership theory conducted at the University of Michigan that focuses in determining
the principle and methods of leadership that led to productivity and job satisfaction.

 The studies identified two distinct styles of leadership;

• Job-centered Leadership: Managers using job-centered leader behavior pay close attention to
subordinates’ work, explain work procedures and are keenly interested in performance.
• Employee-centered Leadership: Managers using employee-centered leader behavior are
interested in developing a cohesive work group and ensuring that employees are satisfied with
their jobs.
  The Michigan Leadership Studies found that both the styles of leadership led to increase in production,
but it was slightly more in case of production of job-centered style.

 MANAGERIAL (LEADERSHIP) GRID

 Proposed by Robert Blake and Jane Mouton (1960)

 The grid depicted two dimensions of leader behavior, concern for people (accommodating people’s
needs and giving them priority) on y-axis and concern for production (keeping tight schedules) on x-axis,
with each dimension ranging from low (1) to high (9), thus creating 81 different positions in which the
leader’s style may fall.

5.4 FIEDLER'S THEORY: THE CONTINGENCY MODEL OF LEADERSHIP

 The favorablility of the situation of the situation determines the effectiveness of task-and-person oriented
leader behavior.

 Favorability is determined by:

 Followers' respect and trust for the leader

 How the subordinates' responsibilities are structured and performance measured
 The leader's control over rewards

 Task-Oriented Leaders were more effective in highly favorable/unfavorable situations.

 Person-Oriented Leaders were more effective in moderately favorable/unfavorable situations.

 The best leadership style depends on the favorableness to the leader.

 Leaders as Followers - Leaders similarly report to someone on top of them.

 Leadership use of skills –

 Technical skill – individual’s knowledge and ability to pertaining to certain process or techniques
 Human skill – ability to work effectively with others and to bring about teamwork
 Conceptual skill - ability to think in terms of models, frameworks and broad relationships such as may
be called for in long-range planning.
 Goal Setting - the identification of targets to which performance is directed.
3 steps on goal setting
 definition of goals
 setting of goals
 obtaining feedback about goal accomplishments

5.5 THE VROOM’S MODEL

 The Vroom-Yetton-Jago Decision Model was introduced by Victor Vroom and Philip Yetton in 1973 and it was
expanded by supplementation from Arthur Jago in 1988.

 The Vroom-Yetton-Jago Decision Model primarily focuses on the degree of subordinate participation that is
appropriate in different situations. It is to assess how the nature of the group, leader, and situation determine
the degree to which the group is to be included in the decision-making process. It also helps to choose the right
management style in various decision situations.

 Three factors to be considered:

 Decision Quality – The quality of the decision to be taken is about how much impact the decision will
have and how important it is to find the right solution. The higher the decision’s quality, the more
people must be involved in the decision process.
 Team Commitment – Some decisions that you make are going to have a strong impact on your team,
while others will not affect them at all. When thinking about each decision, consider how much of an
affect it is going to have on your team and others within and around the organization.
 Time Constraints – If you are in no particular rush to make the decision, there will be plenty of time to
include others, conduct research, and more. On the other hand, if the matter if time sensitive, you might
not really have the option of going to others for help.

In order to determine the influence each of these three factors will have on a decision, Vroom, Yetton, and
Jago defined the following eight questions.

They must be asked in a specific sequence so that you are able to accurately identify the correct style of
leadership that a particular decision must be presented and managed in.

This sequence is outlined below:

 Quality Requirement (QR): Is the quality of the decision very important? Are the consequences of
possible failure significant?
 Commitment Requirement (CR): Is a successful result dependent upon the team members?
 Leader’s Information (LI): Do you (the leader) have sufficient information to make a high quality
decision on your own?
 Problem Structure (ST): Has the problem been defined and structured properly so it can be easily
understood what needs to be done and what a good solution might be?
 Commitment Probability (CP): When a leader makes the decision himself, is it likely to assume that
the team is sufficiently involved and motivated and will accept the decision?
 Goal Congruence (GC): Are the goals of the team consistent with the goals of the organization that
have been set to define a successful solution?
 Subordinate conflict (CO): If the team has to make a decision, are conflicts expected about the
decision to be made and solution?
 Subordinate information (SI): Do subordinates have sufficient information to make a high quality
decision
5.6 HERSEY-BLANCHARD (SITUATIONAL) LEADERSHIP THEORY

 Introduced by Paul Hersey in 1969 and revised by Kenneth Blanchard in 1977

 Suggests that there is no universal leadership style, but rather the best leadership style depends on the situation
 Depends on the task to be performed and the team performing it

 S1 – Directing

 Associated with autocratic leaders

 Leader makes decisions by himself

 S2 – Coaching

 Leader is receptive to feedback and

input from members
 Leader “sells” idea and plans to
members to obtain cooperation

 S3 – Supporting

 Leader participates in decision-

making, but most decisions are
made by the team

 ‘Quiet’ leader

 S4 – Delegating

 Leader provides minimal direction

and guidance

 More concerned with vision rather

than day-to-day

 D1 – Enthusiastic Beginner

 Low competence, high commitment

 D2 – Disillusioned Learner

 Some competence, low commitment

 D3 – Capable but Cautious Performer

 High competence, low/variable commitment

 D4 – Self-reliant Achiever

 High competence, high commitment

 Development Levels change overtime and are taskspecific

5.7 THE PATH-GOAL MODEL OF LEADERSHIP

 The Path-Goal model is a theory based on specifying a leader’s style or behavior that best fits the employee and
work environment in order to achieve a goal (House, Mitchell, 1974).

 It was based on expectancy model.

 Path-goal theory proposes that subordinates’ characteristics and the characteristics of the work environment
determine which leader behaviors will be more effective.
It generally follows these basic steps:

 Determine the employee and environmental characteristics

 Select a leadership style
 Focus on motivational factors that will help the employee succeed

Employee Characteristics

 Locus of control
 Work experience
 Ability
 Need for affiliation

Leader Behaviors

 Directive leadership
 Supportive leadership
 Participative leadership
 Achievement-oriented leadership
 Leaders can establish the path-goal relationship through the following ways:
 By giving better reward for goal attainment;
 By providing feedback about goal accomplishments;
 By improving or greasing the path toward the goal by providing a supportive approach to assist
employees attain their goals
 By providing the needed resources and training
 By helping remove barriers along the way to the goals

5.8 POSITIVE PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES OF AN EFFECTIVE LEADER

 The leader is seen as a partner.

 The leader is free from any biases.
 The leader has the patience and the time to listen.
 The leader welcomes personnel to the organization.
 The leader acts as a mentor or coach.
 The leader must be honest and trustworthy.
 The leader must be flexible and compassionate.
 The leader must show that he is determined to do what is right.
 The leader must always be calm, tolerant and understanding.
 The leader must show positive attitude to change.

5.9 EFFECTIVE SUPERVISION

 SUPERVISOR - is the job title of a low level management position, charged with the responsibility of
supervising non-management employees.
 - Person in the first-line management who monitors and regulates employees in their
performance of assigned or delegated tasks.
 FIVE RULES OF SUPERVISION
 Get involved
 Open channels of communication
 Give your people chance to develop
 Establish standards and stick to them
 Provide feedback
 FIVE DIFFERENT VIEWS OF THE SUPERVISOR’S JOB
 Key person in management – they are key men in directing the accomplishment of work and as such
make decisions, control work, and interpret policies.
 Middle Road Supervisor – supervisors are caught between two social forces, management and labor.
 The Marginal Supervisor – The marginal supervisor finds itself left out or is at the margin of principal
activities and of matters that influence the department's operation.
 As Another Worker – they are also viewed as mere employees as they often have no authority to
make decisions.
 The Behavioral Specialist – they look after the human side of operations while the staff handles the
jobs’ technical aspects.

 PROBLEMS ON WHICH SUPERVISORS SPEND THEIR TIME

 Meeting tight production schedule
 Keeping productions up to establish efficiency standards
 Winning and maintaining the cooperative attitude of employees

 WHY SUPERVISORS FALL

 Poor personal relations with workers or with other management people.
 Individual shortcomings, such as lack of initiative, emotional instability.
 Lack of understanding of the management’s point of view.
 Unwillingness to spend necessary time and effort to improve.
 Lack of skill in planning and organizing work.
 Inability to adjust to new and changing conditions.