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Evolving theories of leadership

1. Great Man Theories: this is the granddaddy of leadership concepts. The


earliest studies of leadership adopted the belief that leaders (who were
always thought of as male) were born with certain heroic leadership traits
and natural abilities of power and influence. In organization, social
movements, religions, governments, and the military, leadership was
conceptualized as a single “Great Man” who put everything together and
influenced others to follow along based on the strength of inherited traits,
qualities, and abilities.

2. Trait Theories: studies of these larger-than-life leaders spurred research


into the various traits that defined a leader. Beginning in the 1920s,
researchers looked to see if leaders had particular traits or characteristics,
such as intelligence or energy, that distinguished them from non-leaders
and contributed to success, It was thought that if traits could be identified,
leaders could be predicted, or perhaps even trained. Although research
failed to produce a list of traits that would always guarantee leadership
success, the interest in leader characteristics has continued to the present
day.

3. Behavior Theories: the failure to identify a universal set of leadership traits


led researchers in the early 1950s to begin looking at what a leader does
rather than who he or she is. One line of research focused on what leaders
actually do on the job, such as various management activities, roles, and
responsibilities. These studies were soon expanded to try to determine
how effective leaders differ in their behavior from ineffective ones.
Researchers looked at how a leader behaved toward followers and how
this correlated with leadership effectiveness or ineffectiveness.

4. Contingency Theories: researchers next began to consider the contextual


and situational variables that influence what leadership behaviors will be
effective. The idea behind contingency theories is that leaders can analyze
their situation and tailor their behavior to improve leadership effectiveness.
Major situational variables are the characteristics of followers,
characteristics of the work environment and follower tasks, and the
external environment. Contingency theories, sometimes called situational
theories, emphasize that leadership cannot be understood in a vacuum
separate from various elements of the group or organizational situation.
5. Influence theories: these theories examine influence processes between
leaders and followers. One topic of study is charismatic leadership, which
refers to leadership influence based not on position or formal authority but
rather on the qualities and charismatic personality of the leader.. Related
areas of study are leadership vision and organizational culture. Leaders
influence people to change by providing an inspiring vision of the future
and shaping the culture and values needed to attain it.

6. Relational Theories: since the late 1970s, many ideas of leadership have
focused on the relational aspect, that is, how leaders and followers interact
and influence one another. Rather than being seen as something a leader
does to a follower, leadership is viewed as a relational process that
meaningfully engages all participants and enables each person to
contribute to achieving the vision. Interpersonal relationships are seen as
the most important facet of leadership effectiveness. Two significant
relational theories are transformational leadership and servant leadership.
A Model of Leadership Evolution

Environment

Stable Turbulent

Era 2 Era 3
Rational Management Team or Lateral
Leadership
 Behavior theories
 Influence theories
 Contingency theories
Scope Organization Organization:
Organization:
 Horizontal
 Vertical hierarchy, organization
bureaucracy
 Cross-functional
 Functional teams
management

Individual Era 1 Era 4


Great Person Leadership Learning Leadership
 Great Man theories  Relational theories
 Trait theories  Level 5 leadership
Organization: Organization:
 Pre-bureaucratic  High-performance
culture
 Administrative
principles  Shared vision,
alignment
 Facilitate change
and adaptation

Personality and leadership


Personality is the set of unseen characteristics and processes that underlie a
relatively stable pattern of behavior in response to ideas, objects, or people in the
environment.
Big Five personality dimensions are five general dimensions that describe
personality: extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability,
and openness to experience.
Extroversion refers to the degree to which a person is outgoing, sociable,
talkative, and comfortable meeting and talking to new people.
Agreeableness refers to the degree to which a person is able to get along with
others by being good-natured, cooperative, forgiving, compassionate,
understanding, and trusting.
Conscientiousness refers to the degree to which a person is responsible,
dependable, persistent, and achievement oriented.
Emotional stability refers to the degree to which a person is well adjusted, calm,
and secure.
Openness to experience is the degree to which a person has a broad range of
interests and is imaginative, creative, and willing to consider new ideas.
Personality Traits and Leader Behavior
Locus of control defines whether he or she places the primary responsibility
within the self or on outside forces.
Authoritarianism: the belief that power and status differences should exist in an
organization.

Social perception and Attributions


Perception: the process people use to make sense out of the environment by
selecting, organizing, and interpreting information.
Perceptual distortions
Perceptual distortions are errors in judgment that arise from inaccuracies in the
perceptual process.
Stereotyping is the tendency to assign an individual to a broad category and then
attribute generalizations about the group to the individual.
Halo effect is an overall impression of a person or situation based on one
characteristic, either favorable or unfavorable.
Projection is the tendency to see one’s own personal traits in other people.
Perceptual defense is the tendency to protect oneself by disregarding ideas,
situations, or people that are unpleasant.
Attributions are judgment about what caused a person’s behavior - either
characteristics of the person or of the situation.
Fundamental attribution error is the tendency to underestimate the influence of
external factors on another’s behavior and overestimate the influence of internal
factors.
Self-serving bias is the tendency to overestimate the influence of internal factors
on one’s successes and the influence of external factors on one’s failures.

Working with different personality types


Some simple guidelines:
 Understand your own personality and how you react to others ;
 Treat everyone with respect ;
 Acknowledge each person’s strengths ;
 Strive for understanding ;
 Remember that everyone wants to fit in ;
Leadership Mind and Heart
To succeed in today’s environment requires whole leaders who use both their
head and their heart. Leaders have to use their head to tend to organizational
issues such as goals and strategies, production schedules, structure, finances,
operational issues, and so forth. They also have to use their heart to tend to
human issues, such as understanding, supporting, and developing others.

Emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence refers to a person’s abilities to perceive, identify,
understand, and successfully manage emotions in self and others.

Leading with love versus leading with fear


Fear-based motivation is motivation based on fear of losing a job.
Love-based motivation is motivation based on feeling valued in the job.

Followership: role of followers


Follower and leader have a mutual relationship, without follower who would they
lead? Who would become a leader if they were not first a follower. Leader and
Follower have is a supportive bond.
Followers have enormous value to an organization as collaborators with leaders in
achieving organizational success. We expect our leaders to provide motivation,
direction, and influence. Leaders expect followers to get the work done and achieve
results.It is a mutually beneficial relationship and impossible to have one without the
other. For any project or organization to succeed, there must be people who
willingly and effectively follow
Beside that, Effective followers can shape productive leadership behavior just as
effective leaders develop employees into good followers.

Developing personal potential


Personal development is a lifelong process. It is a way for people to assess their
skills and qualities, consider their aims in life and set goals in order to realise and
maximise their potential

1. Developing a personal Vision:


Personal development can simply be for fun. Most of us, however, find it easier
to motivate ourselves to learn and improve if we have a purpose in doing so.
Developing your personal vision - a clear idea of where you want to be in a few
months or years, and why - is a crucial part of developing this purpose.
. Planning your personal development:
Once you are clear about where you want to be, you can start planning how to get there.
Drawing up a personal development plan is not essential, but it does make the planning process
more realistic
3. Starting the improvement process:
There are a number of different ways in which you can learn and develop.
4. Recording your personal development:
It is often a good idea to keep a record of your personal development. By writing
down key developments in your learning and development as and when they
occur, you will be able to reflect on your successes at a later date.

Strategies for managing up


Managing up means consciously and deliberately developing a meaningful, task-
related, mutually respectful relationship with your direct superiors ; offering
insight, information, guidance, and initiative ; and challenging your superiors
when necessary in order to enable or members to do their best work for the
organization.
Strategies for managing up: understand the leader
Effective followers seek out all the information they can about their leader from
talking to the boss, talking to others, and paying attention to clues in the leader’s
behavior, so that they are sensitive to the leader’s work style and needs.
Strategies for managing up: tactics for managing up
To be effective, followers develop a meaningful, task-related relationship with
their bosses that enables them to add value to the organization even when their
ideas disagree with those of the leader.
1. Be a resource for the leader
o Determine the leader’s needs
o Zig where leader zags
o Tell leader about you
o Align self to team purpose/vision
2. Help the leader be a good leader
o Ask for advice
o Tell leader what you think
o Find things to tank leader for
3. Build a relationship
o Ask about leader at your level/position
o Welcome feedback and criticism, such as “what experience led you
to that opinion?”
o Ask leader to tell you company stories
4. View the leader realistically
o Give up idealized expectations
o Don’t hide anything
o Don’t criticize leader to others
o Disagree occasionally

Motivation and empowerment


Motivation refers to the forces either internal or external to a person that arouse
enthusiasm and persistence to pursue a certain course of action.
People have basic needs, such as for friendship, recognition, or monetary gam,
which translate into an internal tension that motivates specific behaviors with
which to fulfill the need. To the extent that the behavior is successful, the person
is rewarded when the need is satisfied. The reward also informs the person that
the behavior was appropriate and can be used again in the future. Rewards can
be either intrinsic or extrinsic and meet both lower and higher-level needs.
Intrinsic rewards come from the internal satisfaction and enjoyment a person
receives in the process of performing a particular action.
Extrinsic rewards are given by another version, typically a supervisor, and
include promotions and pay increases.
Positive and negative motives:
Extrinsic I. Extrinsic positive approach III. Extrinsic negative
Rewards such as pay raises, bonuses, approach
praise Threats and
punishments

Intrinsic II. Intrinsic positive approach IV. Intrinsic negative


Help people enjoy their work and get a approach
sense of accomplishment Tap into self-doubts,
anxieties

Pleasure/growth Pain/fear

Positive reinforcement is the administration of a pleasant and rewarding


consequence following a behavior.
Negative reinforcement is the withdrawal of an unpleasant consequence once a
behavior is improved.
Punishment is the imposition of unpleasant outcomes on an employee following
undesirable behavior.
Extinction is the withdrawal of a positive reward, meaning that behavior is no
longer reinforced and hence is less likely to occur in the future.
Empowerment refers to power sharing, the delegation of power or authority to
subordinates in the organization.

Motivation theories
Need-based theories of motivation
Hierarchy of needs theories: Maslow’s theory proposes that humans are
motivated by multiple needs and those needs exist in a hierarchical order.
Two-factor theory: 2 entirely separate dimensions which are hygiene factors and
motivators. Hygiene factors involve working conditions, pay, company policies,
and interpersonal relationships. Motivators involve job satisfaction and meeting
higher-level needs such as achievement, recognition, and opportunity for growth.
Hygiene factors work in the area of lower-level needs, and their absence causes
dissatisfaction. Inadequate pay, unsafe working conditions, or a noisy work
environment will cause people to be dissatisfied, but their correction will not
cause a high level of work enthusiasm and satisfaction. Higher-level motivators
such as challenge, responsibility, and recognition must be in place before
employees will be highly motivated.
Acquired needs theory: McClelland’s theory that proposes that certain types of
needs (achievement, affiliation, power) are acquired during an individual’s
lifetime.
Other motivation theories
Reinforcement theory: a motivational theory that looks at the relationship
between behavior and its consequences by changing or modifying followers’ on-
the- job behavior through the appropriate use of immediate rewards or
punishments.
Expectancy theory: a theory that suggests that motivation depends on
individuals’ mental expectations about their ability to perform tasks and receive
desired rewards.
Equity theory: a theory that proposes that people are motivated to seek social
equity in the rewards they receive for performance.

Communicating in a crisis
Being Crisis-ready
Communication is a key part of a leader’s job, to be prepared for a
communicating in crisis, leaders can develop 4 skills :
1. Stay Calm: The most important part of a leader’s job in a crisis situation is
to absorb people’s fear and uncertainties. No matter what is going on
around you, you have to be cooler than cool.
2. Be visible and supportive: being a leader means stepping out immediately,
both to reassure followers and respond to public concerns. Their presence
and support during crisis is important.
3. Tell the truth : Rumor controlling is critical, Leader do their best to
determine the fact , and then get the awful truth out to employees and the
public as soon as possible.
4. Communicate a vision for the future : People need to feel that they have
something to work for and look forward to. Moment of crisis present
excellent opportunities for leaders to communicate a vision for the future
that taps into people’s emotions and unites them towards common goals.
Teams in an organization
A team is a unit of two or more people who interact and coordinate their work to
accomplish a shared goal or purpose for which they are committed and hold
themselves mutually accountable.
A functional team is a team made up of a supervisor and subordinates in the
formal chain of command.
A cross-departmental term is made up of members from different departments
within the organization.
A special-purpose team is a team that focuses on a specific purpose of high
importance and disbands once the project is completed; sometimes called a
project team.
Self-directed teams are teams made up of members who work with minimum
supervision and rotate jobs to produce a complete product or service.
The value of teams: when tasks are highly interdependent, a team can be the
best approach for ensuring the level of coordination, information sharing, and
exchange of materials necessary for successful task accomplishment. When they
are effective, teams can provide benefits for both organizations and employees
through higher productivity, quality improvements, greater flexibility and speed, a
flatter management structure, increased employee involvement and satisfaction,
and lower turnover.

Team effectiveness
To lead any team of any area to high performance, leaders incorporate the
following elements:
 A compelling purpose, clear objectives, and explicit metrics
 A diversity of skills and unambiguous roles
 Streamlined team size
 Decision authority over how to achieve goals
 Support and coaching

How leaders decide


There are 5 basis decision-making style for the leader can uses:
1. Decide: you make the decision alone and either announce or sell it to the
group. You may use your expertise in collecting information that you deem
relevant to the problem from the group or others.
2. Consult individually: you present the problem to the group members
individually, get their suggestions, and make the decision
3. Consult group: you present the problem to the group members in a
meeting, get their suggestions and then make the decision.
4. Facilitate : you present the problem to the group in a meeting. You act as
facilitator, defining the problem to be solved and the boundaries within
which the decision must be made. Your objective is to ger concurrence on
a decision. Above all, you take care to show that your ideas are not given
any greater weight than those of others simply because of your position
5. Delegate : you permit the group to make the decision within prescribed
limits. The frou undertakes the identification and diagnosis of the problem,
develops alternative procedures for solving it, and decides on one or more
alternative solutions. While you play no direct role in the group’s
deliberations unless explicitly asked, t=your role is an important one behind
the scenes, providing needed resources and encouragement.

Leading change
Change is necessary if organizations are to survive and thrive.
Most people have a natural tendency to resist change—even when the changes
are ones that could make their lives better. Leaders should be prepared for
resistance and find ways to enable people to see the value in changes that are
needed for the organization to succeed.
The underlying reason why employees resist change is that it violates the
personal compact between workers and the organization. Personal compacts are
the reciprocal obligations and commitments that define the relationship between
employees and organizations.
Many leaders don’t understand why change is so difficult for many people. But
for something new to begin, something old has to end, and most of us have a
hard time letting go of something we value, even if we want something new.
Changing people’s thinking and behavior is possible, and the keys to doing so
incorporate five elements: a positive emotional attractor, supportive relationships,
repetition of new behaviors, participation and involvement, and after-action
reviews.
A framework for change:
1. Light a fire for change
2. Get the right people on board
3. Paint a compelling picture
4. Communicate the change widely
5. Remove obstacles and empower people to act
6. Achieve and celebrate quick wins
7. Keep it moving
8. Make changes stick
Appreciative inquiry is a technique for leading change that engages individuals,
teams, or the entire organization by reinforcing positive messages and focusing
on learning from success.
4 stages of Appreciative Inquiry:
1. Discovery stage is identifying and appreciating “the best of what exists”.
2. Dream stage is imagining “what could be” ; creating vision.
3. Design stage is formulating action plans to achieve “what should be”.
4. Destiny stage is sustaining “what will be” for the future.
Effective leaders find ways to promote creativity and innovation particularly in the
departments where it is most needed. Creativity is the generation of ideas that
are both novel and useful for improving efficiency or effectiveness of an
organization.
Instilling creative values
Foster a creative culture by encouraging corporate entrepreneurship. Corporate
entrepreneurship is internal entrepreneurial spirit that includes values of
exploration, experimentation, and risk taking.
Everyone has rough creativity potential. The problem is that many people don’t
use that potential. Leaders can help individuals be more creative by facilitating
brainstorming, promoting lateral thinking, enabling immersion, allowing pauses,
and nurturing creative intuition. Brainstorming is a technique that uses a face-to-
face group to spontaneously suggest a broad range of ideas to solve a problem.
Lateral thinking is a set of systematic techniques for breaking away from
customary mental concepts and generating new ones. Immersion means to go
deeply into a single area or topic to spark personal creativity.
Promote collaboration by speedstorming. Speedstorming means using a round-
robin format to get people from different areas talking together, generating
creative ideas, and identifying areas for potential collaboration.
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