Q. Who is a Leader?

Ans. Leadership is the art of motivating and influencing others to exert the best of their
labors towards achieving a common, shared goal.

Q. What do the best Leaders do?

 Challenge the process. They challenge conventional beliefs and practices and create
constructive change.
 Inspire a shared vision. They appeal to peoples values and motivate them to care
about an important mission.
 Enable others to act. They give people access to information and give them the
power to perform to their full potential.
 Model the way. They do not just tell people what to do but are living examples of the
ideals they believe in.
 Encourage the heart. They show appreciation, provide rewards, and use various
approaches to motivate people in positive ways.

Vision, with reference, to Leadership is a clear choice of positive values that communicate
and inspire pride among individuals among the organization for achieving a desirable future
state. A vision should be both ideal (communicating standards of excellence) and unique
(different than other organizations).
 A leader must have a vision
 Effective articulation required for achieving shared values and goals
 Making clear where the organization is heading
 A sound vision is not based on personal needs, but those of stakeholders,
 Leaders should stay abreast of environmental changes

Q. Differentiate between a leader and a manager.

 Managers
o Focus on work (technical and conceptual skills / informational and decisional
roles)
o Have workers (theory X)
o Plan, organize and control
o Focus on day-to-day complexities, survival and profits
 o Authoritative, risk-averse, dominant
o Structuring the organization, staffing, monitoring performance
 Leaders
o Focus on people (interpersonal skills and roles)
o Have followers (theory Y)
o If they lead along with planning, organizing, and controlling then both
o Long term prosperity and success
o Democratic, open communicator, feedback provider
o Inspiring people to accomplish a great vision

Supervisory Leadership involves basic management functions of providing support.

Guidance and corrective feedback for day-to-day activities.

Strategic Leadership incorporates ‘true leadership’ activities which give purpose to an

organization i.e., a mental image for the positive future (vision).

Effective followers
 Volunteer to handle tasks or help accomplish goals
 Accept assignments in a willing manner
 Exhibit loyalty to the group
 Voice differences of opinion, but support the group’s decisions
 Maintain a positive attitude
 Work effectively as members
 Think independently but also committed to group targets and organizational goals
 Hold performance standards higher than required or set

Power is the capability and authority over others to influence them.

 Legitimate power
o Right to control the actions of others, employees formally obligated to comply
o Leads to compliance
 Reward Power
o Compliance for rewards – when leader controls rewards
o Leads to compliance
  Coercive Power
o Compliance to avoid punishments – when leader can take punishing corrective
action – rises as you climb the hierarchical ladder
o Leads to resistance
 Referent power
o Leading by example / personality or characteristics that people want to follow
– compliance for desires of approval, admiration, learning to be a leader
o Leads to commitment
 Expert Power
o Exceptional skills in some specific field – specialist
o Leads to commitment

There are three approaches to understanding and studying leadership.

 The trait approach studies the common characteristics that effective leaders share
o Drive
 Need for achievement, improvement, ambition
o Leadership Motivation
 Want and commitment to lead
 High need for power to influence others to derive satisfaction from
leading
 Power exercised in moral and socially constructive ways is an
important aspect of effective leadership
o Integrity
 Honesty improves trust and credibility – induces follower commitment
o Self – Confidence
 Overcoming stress
 Bouncing back in uncertainty
 Self - management
o Knowledge Pool
 Expert power
 Interpretation abilities
 Thinking capacity beyond average minds
 Great comprehension
 o Emotional Intelligence
 Understanding other’s emotions and objectives (empathy)
 Social skills, social awareness
 The behavior approach attempts to identify how leaders conduct themselves or act,
especially towards others. Three general categories of behavior approaches are:
o Task Performance is about the leader’s efforts to meet deadlines, budgets,
targets etc. It focuses on quantity, quality, time, cost and accuracy.
 Concern for production
 Directive leadership
 Initiating structure
 Closeness of supervision
o Group maintenance focuses on how leaders execute their interpersonal roles
and utilize their ‘people’ skills.
 Concern for people
 Supportive leadership
 Harmonious work environment
 Social stability of workplace
 Satisfaction of group members
 Leader – member exchange theory (LMX) importance of sound
behavior towards individuals on personal basis
 Overall comfort, appreciation and stress reduction
 Mutual obligation, respect, open communication are cornerstones of a
satisfied group
o Participation in Decision Making
 agile shifting between democratic (mutual decision making – group
maintenance) and autocratic (virtual decision making – task
performance)
 mixture of the elements of both in relevant situations
 laissez – faire (characterized by an absence of managerial decision
making)
o Blake and Mouton’s Leadership Grid (link)
 Features (Five Leadership Styles)
  Impoverished Management (1,1) more of a laissez faire
approach, minimal effort on management
 Country Club Management (1,9) friendly atmosphere /
workers expect leniency and results in lower performance
 Middle-of-the-Road Management (5,5) satisficing task and
maintenance behavior to get work done with resolved conflicts
and satisfactory production levels and morale
 Authority Compliance – Task Management (9,1) targets
achieved but difficult to sustain same behavior in the longer
term as employee morale is low – human elements interfere to
a minimum degree – more autocratic- theory X
 Team Management (9,9) McGregor theory Y, productivity,
then enhanced productivity due to increase morale and
motivation. Mutual respect, commitment to people and work.
 Criticisms
 9,9 not ideal every time
 Over simplistic – impression that no other style exists
 Leadership styles are dynamic forces cannot be put on some
grid
 Advantages
 Guiding principal for studying management and implementing
it.
 Flexile organizations adapt according to needs and sustain
competitive advantages
 Situational Approach implies that universal traits and behaviors do not exist, and that
leadership is not an absolute concept restricted to some specific criteria. Depending
on the situation leadership behavior varies accordingly.
o Fiedler’s Contingency Model (link)
 There is no one best style of leadership / leader’s effectiveness depends
on the situation
 Result of two factors
 Leadership Style
 o Leadership style is fixed and can be measured using a
scale called Least Preferred Co-worker (LPC) scale.
o The scale can be used to generate a cumulative score
based on the leader’s perception of a co-worker’s
attitude, traits and character.
 Situational favorableness
o Leader – Member relationship – trust, loyalty,
confidence the team puts in the leader – favorable
o Task structure
 Clear and defined, structured
 Vague and ambiguous, unstructured if
teammates do not possess the relevant
knowledge – favorableness
o Leader’s position power (strong or weak) to direct,
reward or punish
 Greater power more favorableness
 Application of the model
 Identify your leadership
o Low LPC – task oriented (primary emphasis is on
completion of task, meeting deadlines, accomplishing
goals, matching targets) – effective when factors are
very unfavorable or very favorable
o High LPC – relationship oriented (maintenance
behaviors) - effective when factors are middle of the
road
 Identify the extent of situational favorableness
o Leader - member relations good or poor – level of trust,
loyalty
o Task structured or unstructured - Expertise of solving
problems and giving structure to unstructured tasks
o Strong or weak power over team
 Determine the effective leadership style
 Advantages
  Extremely well-researched and relevant
 A flexible theory (contingency theory)
 Disadvantages
 LPC scale is subjective
 LPC score is valid to only closely supervised groups
 Not valid in every situation – complex / having many
components of measurement
 Leaders cannot change their styles but be assigned to situations
of their favorableness.
 Leader placement rather than policy placement and formulation
o Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Theory
 theory postulating that measuring employee’s psychological and job
maturity determine maintenance or task-oriented behaviors’ relevance.
 Life cycle theory of leadership
 Job maturity
 Level of skill and expertise employees possess for doing their
tasks
 psychological maturity
 Self-confidence and self-EQ
 Application
 Highly - mature followers require neither - do not need to be
reminded of deadlines and targets – less task performance
behavior needed – put their trust in the leader – less
maintenance behavior required
 Medium maturity followers require personal attention and
maintenance
 Low maturity – performance related
 Advantages
 Fairly simple
 Treat different people differently reminder
 Then treating same individual differently as he gets more
mature
 Disadvantages
  Fairly straightforward
 Ignores other aspects – relations, power, task structure
Charismatic Leader: One who is positively dominant, self-aware, and has a strong
conviction in the moral righteousness of his beliefs. They incorporate an inspiring, clear
vision into their agenda and arouse a sense of excitement and adventure in followers.

Transformational leaders strive to transform people’s personal interests into organizational

values, revitalizing organizations.

Transactional Leaders believe management is similar to accounting with a series of

transactions which involve their legitimate, reward and coercive powers. However,
management is more inclined towards human science, comprehension and its effective
administration.

Level 5 Leadership considered to be the ultimate leadership style which uses a combination
of strong professional determination and humility that builds enduring greatness. It is a blend
of flexible approaches incorporating elements of both transactional and transformational
leaderships. Leader expands his satisfaction source from fulfilment of personal needs to
fulfillment of organizational goals and objectives.

Authentic Leadership follows the common good for common people approach and leaders
transcend their personal objectives to organizational goals and objectives. They care about
‘public’ interests on a macro level (community, organizational, or group). They are ethically
mature.

Pseudo-transformational leaders will throw great stories of communal achievements but in

reality, will only focus on personal needs and let personal interest take precedence over
followers’ needs.