Leadership
The nature of Leadership;
Anthropological
evidence indicates that "there are known societies without leadership in
at least some aspects of their social life"
for the sack of argument and congruent discussion we can
define leader[leadership] as those who act in the best interests of a group
with the consent of the group
Leadership is a form of power, but power with people rather than over
people: it represents a reciprocal
relationship between he leader and the led.
Group dynamists believe "the born leader"
exaggerates the strength of the relationship between one's personal qualities
and one's leadership potential. Trait
vs Situational factors
Reciprocal, Transactional, Transformation, Cooperative,
Goal-Seeking
Ohio State University Leadership Studies for example
investigators first developed a list of nine key types of behavior that seemed
to characterize military and organizational leaders They then narrowed this
list down to four factors or dimensions; Consideration, initiating structure,
production emphasis, and sensitivity.
of these four factors the first two seemed to be the most important
together they accounted for over 80% of the variation in followers' ratings of
their leaders. Ohio state researchers
used the Leader Behavior Description
Questionnaire [LBDQ]
We see again the idea of task and relationship
leadership... We go beyond this to Mintzber's list of managerial behaviors:
1.Figurehead; acting as the representative at social
functions or ceremonies
2. Motivator and trainer: guiding the development of group members
3. Liaison:
making and maintaining contacts with individuals outside of the immediate
group
4. Monitor; seeking out info about the group
5. Disseminator: relaying information to the
subordinates through memo, meetings etc.
6. Spokesperson: providing info about the group to
individual outside the group
7. Entrepreneur:
identifying business opportunities, expanding
8. Disturbance
handler: solving problems as they arise
9. Resource allocator: making budgeting decision,
allocating resources
10. Negotiator: mediating disputes between group
members...
Other studies support that there are two clusters of
behaviors that are associated with leaders; Relationship behaviors, ie
socioemotional and Task behaviors.
Leadership emergence; Hemphill suggests that leaders appear in groups when
1. members feel that success on the group task is within
their reach
2. rewards for success are valued
3. the task requires group rather than individual effort
4. an individual with previous experience in the
leadership role is present.
A final determinant
of the need for the leader role is the presence or absence of leadership
substitutes
Who will lead?
Physical characteristics: there is a correlation [not a
prerequisite] between height and leaders.
Also, leaders tend to weigh more and lastly age may play a part of who
is the leader.
Gender; 1981-86 studies. Show there is still a gender bias and that tin discussion groups
you will find the men out number the females in leadership roles and the both
leaders and subordinates tended to view female leaders as less dominate than
male leaders. {note if the group is warned about this in the beginning then it will tend to change the
outcome of who is leader.}
Intelligence; there is a small correlation between
intelligence and leadership but the margin is very small.
Personality traits. After much research reviewers found
that the correlation between personality traits and leadership vs too small to
serve any predictive purpose. However,
after reviewing 163 studies Stogdill concluded that leaders, relative to
followers were higher in achievement orientation, adaptability,, ascendancy,
energy level, responsibility taking, self confidence and sociability. not the question maybe more are those
abilities more learned than the genetic component.
Task Abilities;
Possessing skills and abilities that are
1. valued by the group 2 increase the group's chance for
achieving success
Field studies of leadership in organizational and
military settings suggest that individuals who posses valued skills are more
often recognized as leaders
Note worthy the statistics tend to show that people who
participate more tend to emerge as leaders but it appears that quantity rather
than quality is a significant factor.
People who make useless remarks are more likely to emerge as leaders
than individuals who; make relatively few useful remarks.
Leadership effectiveness;
Fieldler's contingency model
Fred Fielder model assumed that leadership effectiveness
was contingent on both the personal
characteristics of the leader and the nature of the group situation. His early research led him in the direction
that leaders can be divided into two different camps. Those that are Relationship-motivated and try to find acceptance
within their groups. Those who are
Task-motivated who concentrates on completing the task as the primary goal of
the group. He developed the idea of the
Lest preferred co-worker [LPC] this being the person who the leader least likes
working with. He developed the Least
preferred Coworkers Scale. A
person-leader scoring a person low on this scale would be considered a task
motivated leader were as if scoring the LPC high the leader would be considered
a relationship motivated leader. Fielder
theory if you remember thought that the situation was also important. He
highlights 3 factors that effect the situation;
1.
Leader-member relations
2.
Task structure
3.
Position power-the leaders
power over the group members.
Fielder's motivational hierarchy hypotheses assumes the
leader seek a series of goals but that some goals have a higher priority than
others. Moreover, high- and low- LPC
leaders posses different priorities;
the high LPC leader gives greatest priority to establishing maintaining
satisfying interpersonal relations within the group but the low-LPC leader
stresses successful completion of task.
Therefore in an unfavorable situation the low-LPC leader is concerned
with driving the group toward task completion and vs versa for the
high-LPC. and therefore being
ineffective in the task completion.
Robert Blake and Jane Mouton rejects the
High-relationship and the High task leader will be effective in all groups and
all situations. Rather, the groups
benefit from leadership that meshes with the needs of their members. They coined the idea of group maturity. and
as the group matures the change of the group needs for task and relationship
orientation change.
Autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire leadership
styles.
