Marcelo, Irene M.

Signature:
CEIT-15-901E
Chapter 7 Summary
Leadership

Leadership is the process of influencing and supporting others to work

enthusiastically toward achieving objectives. It is determined partially by traits, which
provide the potential for leadership, and also by role behavior. Leaders’ roles combine
technical, human, and conceptual skills, which leaders apply in different degrees at
various organizational levels, their behaviors as followers is also important to the
organization.
The three important elements in the definition are influence/support, voluntary
effort, and goal achievement. Without leadership, an organization would be only a confuse
of people and machines.
The primary role of a leader is to influence other to voluntarily seek defined
objectives. Managers also plan activities, organize appropriate structures, and control
resources. Managers hold formal position whereas anyone can use his/her informal
influence while acting a leader. Managers achieve results by directing the activities of
others, whereas leaders create a vision and inspire others to achieve this vision and to
stretch themselves beyond their normal capabilities.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality test, based on the work of psychologist
Carl Jung, to label managers on four dimensions – as extroverts or introverts, thinkers or
feelers, sensers or intuitors, and judges or perceivers.
The three broad types of skills leaders use are: (1) Technical skills refers to a
person’s knowledge of and ability in any type of process or technique; (2) Human skills is
the ability to work effectively with people and to build teamwork; (3) Conceptual skill is the
ability to think in terms of models, frameworks, and broad relationships, such as long
range plans.
Successful leadership requires behavior that unites and stimulates followers
towards defined objectives in specific situations. All three elements – leader, followers,
and situation. It is evident that leadership is situational. To try to have all an organization’s
leaders fit a standard pattern will suppress creative differences and result in inefficiency.
With few exceptions, leaders and organization are also followers. They nearly
always report to someone else. Leaders must be able wear both huts, relating affect
effectively both upward and downward. Followership behaviors include: (1) Not competing
with the leader to be in the limelight; (2) Being loyal and supportive, a team player; (3) Not
being a “yes person” who automatically agrees; (4) Acting as a devil’s advocate by raising
penetrating questions; (5) Constructively confronting the leader’s ideas, values, and
actions; and (6) Anticipating potential problems and preventing them.
The total pattern of explicit and implicit leaders’ actions as seen by employees is
called leadership style. It represents a consistent combination of philosophy, skills, traits,
and attitudes that are exhibited in a person’s behavior. Each style also reflects, implicitly or
explicitly a manager’s beliefs about subordinate’s capabilities. When leaders enter their
fundamental state, they become more aware, authentic, revitalized, and capable of
transforming others. Practices used frequently by fundamental leaders include reflective
action, authentic engagement, appreciative inquiry, grounded vision, and tough love.

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 Leaders approach people to motivate them in many ways. If the approach
emphasizes rewards - economic or otherwise, the leader uses positive leadership. On the
other hand, if emphasis is placed on threats, fear, harshness, and penalties, the leader is
applying negative leadership.
Leaders apply different leadership styles, ranging from consultative to autocratic.
Autocratic leaders centralize power and decision making in themselves. Consultative
leaders approach one or more employees and ask them for inputs prior to making a
decision. Participative leaders clearly decentralize authority. Participative decisions are not
unilateral, as with the autocrat, because they use inputs from followers and participation
by them.
Two different leadership styles used with employees are consideration and
structure, also known as employee orientation and task orientation.
A number of models have been developed that explain these exceptions, and they
are called contingency approaches. These models state that the most appropriate style of
leadership depends on an analysis of the nature of the situation facing the leader. The four
contingency models are: (1) Fiedler’s Contingency Model; (2) Hersey and Blanchard’s
Situational Leadership Model; (3) Path-Goal Model of Leadership; and (4) Vroom’s
Decision-Making Model.
Several additional perspectives - substitutes and enhancers for leaderships, self
and super-leadership, coaching, and two other approaches. These perspectives provide
useful new ways of looking at leadership.
Substitutes for leadership are factors that make leadership roles unnecessary
through replacing them with other sources. While, enhancers for leadership are elements
that amplify a leader’s impact on the employees.
In another emerging approach to leadership a dramatic substitute for leadership is
the idea of self-leadership. This process has two thrusts: leading one-self to perform
naturally motivating tasks and managing oneself to do work that is required but not
naturally rewarding. While, super leadership begins with a set of positive beliefs about
workers. It requires practicing self-leadership oneself and modelling it for the others to
see.
A rapidly emerging metaphor for the leader is that of a coach. Borrowed and
adapted from the sports domain, coaching means that the leader prepares, guides, and
directs a “player” but does not play the game. The specific areas that most managers
admit needing coaching in are: (1) Improving their interaction style; (2) Dealing more
effectively; and (3) Developing their listening and speaking skills.
Two other perspectives on: (1) Visionary leaders those who can paint portrait of
what the organization needs to become and the use their communication skills to motivate
others to achieve the vision; and (2) A second approach looks at the reciprocal nature of
influence between managers and their employees and studies the exchanges that take
place between them. Since this approach serves as the basis of participative
management, in which both parties give and gain something.
Leaders must first analyze the situation and discover key factors in the task,
employees, or organizations that suggest which style might be best for that combination.
Leaders should also recognize the possibility that they are not always directly needed
because of available substitutes or enhancers. Also, it may be desirable to develop

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employees onto self-leaders through effective coaching and the exercise of super
leadership behaviors.

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