Leadership Decision Making

1
Leadership Decision Making

• Psychology Department
• Liverpool Hope University

2
Objectives Question

• Define the term Leadership
• Question what makes a good leader
• Determine different types of leadership
• Examine the function of leaders
• Consider processes involved in group decision
  making

3
What do we mean by leadership?

• Basic definition someone who takes charge at
  a macro to micro level
• CEO of an Organisation / Shop Floor
• Government / committee
• Group project / night out .
• Who in popular culture springs to mind as a good
  leader?
• What is it about these examples that makes them
  good leaders?
• Think about this in terms of your group work
• whats worked?
• what hasnt?!

4
Personality Traits Grand Person Theory (GPT)

• Approach advocates leaders have unique
  characteristics
• GPT -Innate and learned qualities
• Examples might be Mandela, Churchill
• Innate vision and capability to rally
• Conversely not all vision is seen as politically
  positive / advantageous
• Both Hitler Stalin - vision / rally
• genocide
• Such leaders tend to be above average in
• Attractiveness, height, self-confidence,
  sociability/talkativeness/IQ
• Stogdill (1974) found an average correlation of
  .3
• Big 5 personality dimensions

5
Effective / Ineffective Leadership

• Characteristics of effective / good leadership
  include
• Vision, integrity, decisive, competent
• Characteristics Ineffective/poor leadership
• Devalue /ignore those around them, indiff. to
  suffering of others, reactive to criticism,
  grandiose (Mayer, 1993)
• Think about Rev. Jim Jones (Jonestown) Diff.
  leadership styles Social influence lecture
• Jones ? typifies poor characteristics led
  through indifference of others suffering / by
  exerting fear - megalomaniac

6
Situational Perspective

• Perspective looks at context what is
  historically privileged / needed at a given time
• We tend to know of great leaders through
  Biography
• WWII Political / Physical threat Churchill
• 70s/80s Economic Recession Thatcher
• Contemporarily US history presidential campaign
  1st Black (Barack Obama)/ Female (Hilary
  Clinton) president
• Best man for the job
• Cult membership e.g. Jonestown is best understood
  in the context of its time

7
Categorising Leaders?

• Classically we talk about 3 leadership styles
  (Lippitt and White,1943)
• Autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire styles
• Autocratic Leaders
• Task orientated
• Gives orders
• Democratic Leaders
• Relationship/people orientated
• Consults and takes on board thoughts feelings of
  others
• Laissez-faire Leaders
• Play orientated
• Whatever .. Happy to go with the flow,
  disinterested in how as long as whatever gets
  gone
• Task Specialist / Socio-Emotional Specialist
  (Bales,1950)
• Ohio State Leadership Studies (1970s)
  independence on both scales
• Initiating structure and consideration

8
Contingency Theory (Fiedler, 1964)

• Basic premise - leadership style is dependent /
  determined by situational factors or demands
• Least Preferred Co-worker Scale (LPC)
• 3 dimensions
• The quality of leader-member relations
• The clarity of task structure
• power and authority - position of leader
• Hi LPC ? respondent relationship orientated
• Lo LPC ? respondent task orientated
• LPC Leadership style contingent with situation
• Lo LPC extreme / fuzzy conditions excel ?
  direction
• Hi LPC intermediate condition excel ? social
  relations/morale

9
Transactional Leadership

• leaders and followers?
• Criticism of contingency theory
• Business / economic arrangement (Downton, 1973)
• Leadership as transactional
• Interaction of mutually beneficial social
  exchange/relations (Basss, 1985)
• Set objectives, goals, around how these
  expectation can be achieved Burns (1978)
• Equity and balance is transacted through group
  members social approval, praise, respect and so
  on
• Walster, Walster Berscheid, 1978)
• Reciprocal transaction

10
Transaction TheoriesLMX Theory

• LMX Leader Member Exchange theory (Graen
  Uhl-Bien, 1995 Sparrowe Liden, 1997)
• HI LMX Lo LMX
• Hi Mutual trust, respect
• Lo formal terms / contract of e.g. employ
• Individuals benefit from sharing Hi LMX
• Material / psycho rewards/benefits
• Groups benefit group coherence/effectiveness
• Problematic around dyadic assumptions
• Organisational setting process
• Role-taking
• Role-making
• Role routinisation
• Criticism ? its assumptions based on dyadic
  relationship

11
Transaction Theories Idiosyncratic Credit
(Holland 1958)

• Type of behaviour L/ship ? innovative / creative
  
• Leaders build up credit ? allows creativity etc
• How?
• 1. Conforms to group norms
• 2. Democratically elected leader
• 3. Seen to be competent
• 4. Identify with groups beliefs values etc
• Meet criteria incr. credit rating deviation
  from norms e.g. innovative/creative
• SIT conforming to grp norms one of us
  (Platow van Knippenberg (2001)
• Best man for the job

12
Transformational Leaders

• Differentiate between Transactional and
  Transformational Leadership
• Transactional reward ? extrinsic / material
• Transformational vision / change (Judge Bono
  2000)
• Very popular in Organisational Psychology (Yukl
  2002)
• 3 key components of transformational leadership
  (Avolio Bass, 1987, 1993)
• Individualised consideration
• Intellectual stimulation
• Charismatic/inspiring leadership
• But are all charismatic leaders moral role
  models?
• Good - Socialised charisma morally uplifting
• Bad - Personalised charisma breaks down
  groups (OConnor et al, 1995)
• Think about this in respect of Hitler, Stalin and
  Rev Jim Jones .

13
Rev Jim Jones Transformational or Transactional
leader?

• Originally transformational
• Vision initially did good
• Charismatic
• Longevity suggests he built up idiosyncratic
  credit (he determined the groups norms)
• Processes of Commitment (Kanter, 1972)
• LMX
• Faithful few
• But large group so problematic
• Became the father / lover way to control
• Leadership started to be questioned
• Breakdown in conformity / obedience
• Megalomania group destruction

14
The Appeal of Do

• GPT? - to his followers prob yes - huge appeal
  shared vision
• Sit. perspective scientific knowledge - product
  of its time Contingent
• Transformational
• Charismatic yes shared vision
• Democratic Leader
• Shared knowledge
• Scientifically driven
• Like minded
• Shared norms
• People left cult voluntarily and were allowed to
• Smaller cult democratic
• Shared belief around Hale-Bopp Comet
• Idiosyncratic credit probably but shared
  values/ norms
• SIT ..

15
Group Decision Making

• Individuals V group decision making
• Socially Influenced through group affiliation/
  membership - direction
• Social Decisions Schemes model (Davis, 1973)
• Unanimity
• Majority wins
• Truth wins
• Two-thirds majority
• First shift
• Social situation determines which rule applies
• Rule strictness / power dynamics in the group

16
Brainstorming (Osborn, 1957)

• Two heads are better than one
• Rapidly generate as many ideas as poss.
• Supposedly sparks innovative creative thinking
• Unsupported by research (Strobe Diehl, 1987,91,
  94)
• Illusion of group effectivity
• Why?
• Evaluation apprehension
• Social loafing free riding
• Production matching
• Production blocking
• (Paulus et al, 1993)

17
Group Memory

• Alumni/Friends Reunited/Juries
• Group recall
• Complex task process loss
• Memory / story construction
• Transactive memory (Wegner,
  1987, 95)
• Socially and context driven
• Stereotypical Schemas
• Category based

18
Group Think (Janis, 1972)

• Retrospective analysis of previous decision
  processes
• Groupthink poor conclusions
• Objective reach unanimous outcome
• Heavens Gate / Jonestown
• Research is mixed in support of this theory
• Poor decisions result if
• Risk are taken
• Poor leadership
• Coping strategies/ Defensive responses

19
Group Polarisation

• Risky shifts (Stoner, 1961)
• Group polarisation (Moscovici Zavolloni, 1969
• Persuasive Arguments Theory
• Novel information compounds existing info/opinion
• Social Comparison Theory
• Social approval shift direction to group norm
  bandwagon effect
• Pluralistic ignorance
• Self-Categorisation Theory SIT
• Conformity to in-group norm
• Polarises with perception of out-group

20
Group Decision Making Cults

• Consider the importance of cult leader
• Social influence conformity obedience
• Type of people searching/ situational perspective
  
• Group decision making processes
• Plausible Argument
• Social decision schemes
• SIT Self Categorisation
• Polarised views
• Transactive Memory

21
Transformational/Transactional Starter Refs

• Judge, T.A. Piccolo, R.F. (2004)
  Transformational and Transactional leadership A
  meta-analytic test of their relative validity,
  Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 89(5), pp.
  755-768.
• Bono, J.E. Judge, T. A. (2004) Personality and
  Transformational and Transactional leadership A
  meta-analysis, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol
  89(5), pp. 901-910.
• Eagly, A.H., Johannesen-Schmidt, M.C. van
  Engen, M.L. (2003) Transformational,
  transactional and laissez-faire leadership
  styles A meta analysis comparing women and men,
  Psychological Bulletin, Vol 129(4), pp. 569-591.
• Turner, N., Barling, J. Epitropaki, O. (2002)
  Transformational leadership and moral reasoning,
  Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol 87(2), pp.
  304-311.

22
Starter Refs Group Decision Making

• Group Decision Making
• Brainstorming
• Camacho, L. M. Paulus, P. B. (1995) The role of
  social anxiousness in group brainstorming.
  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol
  68(6), pp. 1071-1080.
• Paulus, P. B., Nakui, T. Putman, V.L. (2006)
  Effects of task instructions and brief breaks on
  brainstorming. Group Dynamics Theory, Research,
  and Practice, Vol 10(3), pp. 206-219.
• Polarisation
• - Brauer, M., Judd, C. M. Gliner, M. D. (1995)
  The effects of repeated expressions on attitude
  polarization during group discussions. Journal of
  Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 68(6), pp.
  1014-1029.
• Postmes, T., Spears, R. Lee, A.T. (2005)
  Individuality and Social influence in groups
  Inductive and deductive routes to group identity.
  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol
  89(5), pp. 747-763.
• Transactive Memory
• Wegner, D.M., Erber, R. Raymond, P. (1991)
  Transactive memory in close relationships.
  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol
  61(6), pp. 923-929.
• Hollingshead, A. B. (1998) Retrieval processes in
  transactive memory systems, Journal of
  Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 74(3), pp.
  659-671.
• Hollingshead, A.B. (2001) Cognitive
  interdependence and convergent expectations in
  transactive memory, Journal of Personality and
  Social Psychology, Vol 81(6), pp.
  1080-1089.Austin, J.R. (2003) Transactive memory
  in organisational groups The effects of content,
  consensus, specialisation and accuracy on group
  performance, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol
  88(5), pp. 866-878.