Leadership

1
Leadership

• There is nothing more difficult to take in hand,
  more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in
  its success, than to take the lead in the
  introduction of a new order of things.
• Machiavelli

2
Management" versus Leadership

• 'Leadership'
• a road, a way, the path of a ship at sea - a
  sense of direction.
• 'Management' (Latin manus) - a hand, handling a
  sword, a ship, a horse.
• 19thC corporatism and industrialisation -
  managerial agents
• What do managers and leaders do? (Zaleznik 1977)
• Managers focus attention energy on
• how things get done
• their role in events that occur or in a
  decision-making process.
• Leaders more concerned with
• ideas
• relating to others in more intuitive, empathetic
  ways
• what events and decisions mean to people

3
Classical management

• Managers
• plan, organise, direct, control resources to
  achieve objectives.
• follow formal policies, rules procedural
  regulations of their employing organisation
  (administration gt management?)
• handle and physically direct resources
• money, materials, machinery, equipment, space,
  facilities,
• information and technology
• use of time
• people
• Telling people what to do and how to do it more
  than vision and giving a sense of direction?

4
Leadership 'messages'

• Managers have 'subordinates' and communicate
• enable others to understand information,
  instructions or ideas
• seek order and control
• Leaders have followers. They
• envision, influence, inspire.
• tolerate, promote creativity and imagination
• Bring order from chaos
• influence people towards objectives and desire
  to achieve
• gain voluntary commitment over compliance
• win hearts and minds

5
Bennis (1989)

• Managers
• Administer and copy
• Maintain
• Focus on systems structure
• Rely on control
• Short-range view - bottom line
• Ask how and when
• Accept the status quo
• Classic good soldier
• Do things right

• Leaders
• Innovation and originality
• Develop
• Focus on people
• Inspire trust
• Long-range view - the horizon
• Ask what and why
• Challenge the status quo
• Own person
• Do the right things

'the liberation of talent rather than restraint
by rule Leaders aim at 'winning hearts and
minds'. Mere managers aim at optimising the use
of 'resources'. (Peters Austin, 1985).
6
Leadership organisational effectiveness

• Common-sense research link between manager-
  leadership behaviour subordinate performance.
• belief that business success has much to do with
  'leadership'.
• management development programmes emphasise
  manager and leadership style.
• Can leadership and problem-solving skills really
  be developed from
• simulated experienced in a field (outward bound
  approach)?
• assessment centre activity (workshop-like
  selection development)?
• coaching and mentoring
• going on a leadership course?
• Reading a book, watching the TV?
• Playing rugby or football?

7
Practitioners, academia and recipes

• a mix of traditional and behavioural science
  approaches
• few analytical studies of leadership offer much
  to the practical manager (Adair)
• academic doubts
• textbooks tend to
• Report 'theories'
• Some query the validity of particular approaches
• Imply prescriptions
• An industry selling
• prescriptive 'leadership development' and
  interpersonal skills packages motivating,
  listening, participative problem solving,
  assertiveness and transforming skills

8
Leadership behaviour effect on performance.

• Change involving 'people' is associated with
  leadership
• What competencies can be meaningfully described
  as 'leadership'?
• Managers politicians generalise - 'we know it
  when we see it'.
• Correlate the skills and success of particular
  personalities.
• Mayo and Hawthorne experiments (Roethlisberger
  Dickson, 1939)
• 'permissive' leadership behaviour leads to
  greater output
• Kurt Lewin (1939)
• Autocratic, Laissez faire, Democratic leader
  styles the behaviour/performance of youth
  groups
• language 'model' linking styles --gt
  subordinate performance

9
Unitary (vs. pluralistic) frame of reference

• Unitary
• One set of values, beliefs, commitments
• Shared understanding commitment to objectives
• One source of leadership
• Team members - All pulling in the same direction
• Potential for harmony is assumed if leader
  communicates well
• Disagreements è the result of misunderstanding
• Dissidents "rabble" hypothesis

Alan Fox Research Paper to Donovan Commission
1968
10
Change the people in post

• Selection and job change can profoundly effect
  organisational effectiveness. Peters and
  Waterman (1982)
• ' Hewlett-Packard Way' 'MbWA (Management by
  walk about)
• Pascale Athos (1982) compare 'styles' and
  effect
• compared the styles and management practices of
• founder of Matsushita (National Panasonic)
• American CEOs
• 'good' and 'bad' leadership styles
• Konosuke Matsushita E. Carlson - United
  Airlines ('good')
• Harold Geneen at ITT (short-term effective,
  long-term bad).
• Margaret Thatcher vs. Tony Blair?

11
How do different 'styles' affect an organisation?

• wide ranging question
• open to question
• difficult to research - what are the variables?
• difficult to
• separate fact from fiction
• attribute cause and effect in different contexts
  and organisational settings over time
• ambiguity of measures of organisational
  performance
• gap between perception of practitioners and
  behavioural scientists

12
Typology of leadership theory

• Sometimes misleading to group as 'schools'.
  Nuances in original works
• Yet three variables to leadership situations
• leader
• followers
• context/situation in which L/F find themselves

13
Leadership traits approach

• everyday wisdom on common traits.
• can anyone agree?
• do some 'qualities' indicate potential
  differentiate the 'effective from the
  ineffective'
• Wide range of trait descriptors variety of
  'leaders' (heroes and villains) - difficult to
  agree on one list

14
Cartwright and Zander (1968)

• Effective leaders are often
• more intelligent, dependable, responsible, active
  and participative socially
• with higher socioecon. status
• act more often in different ways, or the same way
  to different degrees in some activities?
• give out ask for more information
• make more frequent interpretations of events

Nature over nurture Leadership is learned,
although I cannot explain entirely how ... The
ability to lead and inspire others is .. more
instinctual than premeditated and acquired
somehow through the experiences of one's everyday
life . the nature quality of that leadership
comes out of innate character
personality Harold Geneen ITT
psychometric tests for assessment and selection.
15
Exercise

• Think of three managers you have known. List the
  qualities of those you rate as being more
  effective managers
• Do a separate list for three less effective ones.
  
• What factors, or qualities, recur on each list?
• Select four leaders from national or
  organisational life and list their qualities.
  Which ones keep recurring?
• What factors match those for your effective
  managers?

16
Limitations of 'traits' approach

• when leaders behave towards followers in
  different ways, how much is cause, how much is
  effect?
• non-leaders often possess the same traits as
  leaders.
• Impossible to compile a list of universal traits.
  
• Bird 1940 identified 79 different traits from
  'the literature'. Only 5 common to gt 4 studies
• Conclusion?
• Consider the situation that leadership occurs in.

17
The group dynamics (group process) approach

• leadership as a function of organisation not the
  individual.
• small task groups not whole organisation
• three common functional behaviours
• accomplish the task
• social emotional needs of group
• social emotional needs of individual members.
• failure in one affects the other two (performance
  satisfaction).
• Leader contributions?
• Structuring - integrating
• Calming, supporting
• Controlling
• But one 'leader' may not necessarily perform all
• roles from 'trouble-shooters' to 'counsellors' -
  Belbin roles
• 'Cometh the hour, cometh the man'.

18
Adair Action-centred leadership

• functional emphasis based on task situation and
  socio-emotional needs
• Aware of group processes, people in group,
  nuances of behaviour, interpersonal skills

Task functions
Group maintenance
Individual needs
19
Vertical Dyad Linkage (VDL) Model (Danserau 1975)

• Leader may use different style for member
  (idiosyncrasies)
• Social exchange - leader-member relationships
  (dyads)
• Group a set of vertical linkages
• Two sub-groups of relationships
• In-group members
• For the leader - reliable, effort, initiative,
  open, trust and confidence, autonomy
• Out-group members
• Calculative, do contract only, distant, tension
  dyad
• Leadership - a negotiated VDL role

20
Anthony Jay (1975) - Propositions

• Cohesive groups or teams working as a social
  unit (a 'ten group') achieve more than
  individuals in isolation. Based on
• Anecdotal, experiential evidence
• analogy with primitive tribes animal behaviour
  Morris (1967, 1969), Ardrey (1961, 1967, 1970).
• Share common patterns with baboons, chickens,
  lions?
• Leadership is not a personal quality.
• Some have innate tendency and drive for
  high-status dominance but this is one factor only
• become leader only in relation to specific group
  task
• group leader emerges because the group thinks
  that he/she can best help the group

21
Critique of Group Dynamics approach

• If leadership behaviour is situationally and
  group related what happens when the situation or
  group changes?
• Does the organisation function sub-optimally?
• But
• we comprehend how leaders may relate to followers
  situations
• ignores wider organisational demands on leader
  and group.

22
The leadership style approach

• Hawthorne experiments origin
• Leader 'style' affects morale and output.
• Relay Assembly room - increased output caused by
  'permissive' management of researchers
• Bank Wiring room - links management style and
  employee attitudes and behaviour
• Kurt Lewin et al 1939 - adult leaders in boys'
  hobby club
• Autocratic, laissez faire, democratic leaders and
  follower behaviour
• Democratic style reflects dominant social values
• Impetus for further study - Michigan and Ohio
  State

23
Ohio State studies (two factor-theory)
Flieshman 1953 Stogdill (1948, 1956)

• two (independent) L-dimensions
• initiating structure (task centred)
• consideration (interpersonal relationships)
• "measure" perceptions style preferences in
  various settings ---gt inventories development
  prescriptions
• effectiveness reflects
• task completion
• member satisfaction
• High task supervisors - productive but high
  turnover, lower morale
• High consideration supervisors - high morale, low
  productivity
• Over-generalised conclusions
• ideal leader high on initiation
  consideration.
• participative styles preferred

24
Ohio State findings - balancing initiation
consideration

• crews superiors rate aircraft commanders by
• technical competence
• effectiveness in working with other crew members
• performance under stress
• conformity to standard operating procedures
• overall effectiveness as crew members
• Crews senior officers differed in perception of
  commander styles effectiveness
• Superiors judge leader competence in terms of
• formal traditional standards
• high initiating low or indifferent
  consideration.
• Subordinates give less significance to
  initiating. High satisfaction under
  'considerate' commanders (seen as more
  competent).

25
Linking Pin (Likert)
o

• Effective leaders fulfil group needs functions
  in a situation
• Frustration, low productivity, absentees
  turnover if formal-L cant perform all these.
• Formal tasks.
• instrumental competencies motives
• technical know-how, innovation, sense of
  achievement, concern for quality customer care
• Affiliation
• interaction, support expressive needs
• Weak formal-L. Informal alternative emerges
• If L-behaviour best fits group situation, what if
  this changes?
• Can formal leader adapt?
• will group, dept, nation (led by alternative)
  perform optimally?

o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
26
Critique of Ohio State Studies

• Did not use peer group evaluation by commanders
  or non-evaluative measures of performance.
• output measures can often be favourably affected
  in the short term by authoritarian leadership.
• Usual problems of social research
• Hawthorne effect
• Abstracted empiricism
• likelihood that a change in performance is
  related to more than one variable

27
Michigan Leadership Studies
Managerial Grid

• programmes for changing style org. culture
• 'proprietary' approaches to assessment training
• Diagnosis and treatment
• Blake - Mouton Managerial Grid (1968)
• Extended with contingency focus
• Tannenbaum 1958
• Reddin (1970)
• Hersey Blanchard (1977)

1.9
9.9. the ideal one-best style
High
Concern for people
5.5.
1.1
9.1.
Low
High
Low
Concern for production
28
Tannenbaum-Schmidt Continuum
Boss-centred
Follower-centred
use of authority by leader
decision making action freedom for followers
Continuum based on situational factors value
system, wants, confidence, willingness.
29
Exercise

• Review your experiences of working under
  different leadership styles. Advantages
  disadvantages of a shift to a more
  'participative' style?
• What departments in your organisation appear to
  operate with different 'leadership cultures'?
  Account for the differences.

30
Critique of style theories

• Universality of the style approach?
• Ambiguous evidence for usefulness of ' style'
  theories
• Style changes often assoc. with changes in org.
  structure other mgt competencies .
• Fiedler (1967) questions whether participative,
  considerate styles are better than trad.
  authoritarian or directive.
• Ineffective L-training - weak transfer of
  behaviour change from directive to participative.
• Organisational work pressures - own other
  people's expectations.

31
Contingency approach - Fiedler (1967)

• Defines L-effectiveness as behaviour that ---gt
  high task performance by group. Depends on
• preferred style of leader
• group situation as much as leader
• contextual variables
• Quality of L-member relations
• Work structure (high to low)
• Leader position power

• Respected leaders have personal power. No need to
  use position power (authority)
• High structure? non- compliance? Easy
  intervention. Unstructured, hard measure? Cannot
  easily enforce. Less power
• extent of formal authority over rewards and
  sanctions Power is not just dependent
  leader-follower relationships.

32
Fielder development prescription

• Measure preferred style
• least preferred co-worker LPC instrument
• 8 scales e.g. cooperative-uncooperative,
  friendly-unfriendly, supportive-hostile
• High LPC - relationships oriented
• Low LPC - task oriented
• - External circumstances affect L ability to
  influence
• - Change leader (personality?) to fit situation
  or restructure to reflect strengths?

• Re-structure the work - How?
• position power - depending on L. assessment, give
  subordinates near-equal 'rank' (experts) or
  assign several ranks below
• Loosen or tighten communication and
  decision-making
• leader-member relations - leader can be similar
  or dissimilar to members (social, educational or
  ethnic background, values or attitudes)
• A history of harmony or conflict? Assign a leader
  whose style fits group
• Fiedler and Garcia 1987 pp 49-55
• See Chapter 13 Rollinson

33
Fiedler leader-members, task structures,
position power
34
Implications and critique of Fielder

• If Fielder is right
• dont try to change people arrange task power
  to fit situation
• select leaders identify preferred styles.
  Diagnose situation and change it for - best fit
  leader-match concept
• But
• can a manager really choose a style, change
  'personality' and a virtuoso with different
  styles?
• Leadership training targets this. Are they
  training pigs to fly?
• LPC scores may indicate attitudes or personality
  but not actual behaviour
• Task performance is sole criterion for evaluating
  effectiveness (neglects follower satisfaction)
• L-processes are more sophisticated than this
  theory. Mixed evidence on validity - other
  variables ignored
• However
• a deeper study which breaks the 'one-best-style'
  view and addresses contextual variables

35
Exam Questions

• Evaluate the significance of Fiedler's 'social
  engineering' approach to the development of
  thinking on leadership and manager development
  practice.
• Evaluate how the Fiedler 'contingency and social
  engineering approach' to leadership could work
  in any organisation known to you.

36
Reddin's 3-D model (a style-contingency approach)
High
Effectiveness
High
Low
Relationships
Low
High
Low
Task

• Is Blake - Mouton (1968) 9.9 style ideal?
• style is more/less effective in situation

37
Situational leadership model (Hersey Blanchard
1977, 1982)

• A contingency approach with follower maturity as
  critical situational variable for
  L-effectiveness.
• two major dimensions
• task style
• relationship style
• Four styles
• telling, selling, participating, delegating.
• follower maturity
• degree of achievement motivation
• willingness to take on responsibility
• education or experience

• Theoretically weak
• no proper rationale for the hypothesised
  relationships
• Maturity - an over-simplified factor - lacks
  empirical support (Yukl, 1981 Graeff, 1983
  Blank et al, 1990).

38
Path-goal theory (contingency approach)

• Main idea
• Effective-L smooths subordinates' path goals
  using appropriate style, contingent on
  situational variables
• differs from Fiedler
• various styles - directive, supportive,
  participative and achievement-oriented - can be
  used by the same leader in different situations
  to
• influence subordinates' perceptions of the
  situational factors
• motivate by focusing on payoffs
• coaching and direction
• clarifying goals and expectancies
• reducing frustrations/barriers.
• the research is not conclusive

• House Mitchell 1974
• Based on expectancy theory of motivation

39
Problems with contingency theories

• what causes what in real life?
• As with style theories, it is difficult to
  understand why there should be a favourable
  climate towards the leader in some groups.
• It could be argued that 'permissive' leadership
  is the result, rather than the cause, of group
  effectiveness.

40
Social learning theory and leadership

• a model for continuous interaction between the
  environment (macro variables subordinates and
  the leader's behaviour, perceptions and
  cognitions.
• leader subordinates/followers have negotiable,
  interactive relationship
• They learn how they can modify or influence each
  other's behaviour by giving or holding back
  desired rewards
• Davis and Luthans, 1980
• Sims and Lorenzi, The New Leadership Paradigm,
  Sage, 1992

41
Why the persistent search ?

• exercising effective-L is becoming more and more
  difficult
• economic shifts Pacific Rim and China etc.
• political change South Africa, Soviet Union,
  Italy, Japan and Europe
• less natural goodwill and traditional deference
  towards leaders
• Many skills and techniques of today's senior
  executives are being superseded.
• Competition changing markets, products,
  technologies and expectations dictate
  adaptability and innovation in strategic decision
  making, marketing, organisation - and leadership

42
Are successful leaders redefining their role?

• projecting a particular ethos and culture
• powerful vision of where their companies or their
  societies are heading.
• E.g. Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamed's vision
  of Malaysia in the year 2020
• former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew's vision of
  Singapore as The Switzerland of the East by 1999.
  
• What does this imply for leadership behaviour?
• Managers and senior executives who are successful
  leaders will not only respond to change
  positively but also actively create change.
• Leaders with a particular drive, a desire to
  bring order out of chaos, or, if something is too
  cosy, to create chaos in order to bring change.

43
Transformational leadership theory

• Context? late-20thC national global pol-econ.
  change
• Contributors Downton (1973), Burns (1978), Bass
  (1985), Bennis Nanus (1985), Tichy Devanna
  (1986)
• Bass surveyed 70 execs"In your careers, who
  transformed you in Burns' terms (raised
  awareness, move up Maslow hierarchy . to
  transcend self-interest).
• Answer usually an organisational superior.

• fresh thinking?
• transformational leader creates conditions for
  followers to want to achieve results and to
  fulfil themselves.
• bridges small group studies leadership by
  movers and shakers who transform organisations

44
From Laissez faire to Transactional

• Laissez-faire not really leaders at all, avoid
  intervention, weak follow up, passivity,
  potential for confusion
• Transactional leaders
• Management by exception
• Passive set standards/objectives, wait for,
  react to, reluctant intervention. Status quo
• Active standards/objectives, monitor, correct,
  look for error,
• enforce rules/procedures. Low initiative and
  risk-taking
• constructive transactions, contingent rewards
• agree standards/objectives, feedback, rewards
  for achievement.
• outcome performance that meets expectations.
• simplified in One-Minute Manager (Blanchard
  Johnson 1982)
• Airport business library

45
Transactional leadership in perspective

• Mixed evidence - it may be desirable, even
  necessary. Contingent rewards underpin PRP
• laissez-faire and transactional in directive,
  consultative, participative delegative styles
• directive Mgt by Exception
• 'These are the rules and this is how you've
  broken them'.
• participative Mgt by exception
• 'Let's work out together the rules to identify
  mistakes'
• Weaknesses
• Carrot/stick rewards, emphasis on plans, targets,
  systems, controls
• management gt leadership
• fails to develop, motivate, bring to full
  potential (Bass)

46
The transformational leader (Basss four 'I's)

• promotes
• follower desire for achievement
  self-development.
• teams, esprit de corps, autonomy, synergy,
  belief, value
• Four 'I's.
• lndividualised consideration (IC)
• Intellectual stimulation (IS)
• Inspirational motivation (IM)
• ldealised influence (charisma) (II)

47
Individualised consideration and Intellectual
stimulation

• IC
• identifying individuals' needs abilities,
  opportunities to learn, delegating, coaching and
  giving developmental feedback. Spend time with
  individuals e.g. mentoring.
• IS
• question status quo, encourage imagination,
  creativity, logical thinking and intuition.
• unorthodoxy in character, symbolise innovation.
• Compare UK motorcycles Swiss watch market to
  Sony

48
Inspirational motivation ldealised influence

• Inspirational motivation
• clear vision, problems as opportunities, language
  symbols
• I had a dream ...
• Ask not what America can do for you. Ask what
  you can do..
• go the extra mile. Iacocca at Chrysler.
• ldealised influence
• Confident in communicating a virtuous vision
• the buck stops here'. Purpose, persistence,
  trust, accomplishment over failure. Respected for
  personal ability

• Leadership .. the priceless gift you earn from
  those who work for you. I have to earn the right
  to that gift, and continuously re-earn (it).
• John Harvey-Jones (ICI)

• Gandhi, Luther King, Thatcher, Blair
• Hitler, Jim Jones

49
Bass's model

• Learn TL!!
• Avolio-Bass training package

• Encouraging TL will
• project confidence, commitment competence
• attract quality staff to the mission challenge
• develop people more fully to respond better to
  competition change

50
Motorola's six-sigma programme.
6S

• Transformational leadership application
• defect-free parts within six standard deviations
• concepts, symbols and vision for world-class
  quality
• IS, IM, IC in promoting awareness,
  responsibility and self-monitoring.

51
Is transformational leadership cross-cultural?

• exporting participative management or Theory Y
  from the USA to authoritarian cultures is like
  'preaching Jeffersonian democracy to managers who
  believe in the divine right of kings'.
• Haire, Ghiselli and Porter 1966
• Leadership - a universal phenomenon?
• context and culture influences
• Bass presents evidence from studies in Italy,
  Sweden, Canada, New Zealand, India, Japan and
  Singapore
• suggests that the model needs only fine-tuning
  across cultures

52
Motivated in spite of leader? Do we really need
'em?

• 1970s dissatisfaction with leadership theory and
  research in explaining effect on motivation
  performance
• 'Substitutes' theory of leadership (Kerr
  Jermier 1978)
• Are there substitutes for leadership making
  L-behaviour unnecessary e.g.
• 'Professional', competent people do not need
  'leadership' to perform well and to be motivated.
  Depends on
• the individuals, the work, the organisation and
  its structure, feedback, intrinsic job
  satisfaction, group cohesion, weak authority or
  remoteness of the leader
• Replace/counteract leader behaviour in
  determining member performance and satisfaction.