Lecture 2

In general the researchers Judge, Bono et.al. 2002 found:

Strong relationship between the 5 traits and leadership, it appears that having certain personality traits is associated with being an effective leader.

Extraversion was in their study the strongest link to leadership

Focuses exclusively on leader

-Leader with certain traits is crucial to having effective leadership

-Consequence for organizations: use personality assessments to find people with designated leadership profiles

-Trait assessment can help both organizations and managers

Application

Provides direction as to which traits are good to have if one aspires to a leadership position

Through various tests and questionnaires, individuals can determine whether they have the select leadership traits and can pinpoint their strengths and weaknesses

Can be used by managers to assess where they stand within their organization and what is needed to strengthen their position

Pro

-Intuitively appealing

-Long research tradition supporting differences in traits between

leaders and nonleaders

-Gives benchmark to identify/select future leaders

Contra

-No definitive list of traits after 100 years of research

-Focuses solely on leaders, not on situations and followers

-Invites to formulate new trait lists based on personal experience and anecdotal evidence

-Not useful approach for training and development

-Focus on leader emergence, not leader effectiveness

Shift from innate, stable personality characteristics (trait approach) to learned and developed skills

Leader-centered perspective

Leadership skills: The ability to use one’s knowledge and

competencies to accomplish a set of goals and objectives

Roots of skills approach to leadership in Robert Katz (1955): “Skills of an Effective Administrator” in Harvard Business Review

THC

1. Technical skills

-Knowledge about and proficiency in a specific type of work or activity, analytic abilities

• Examples: knowing software language and programming in a

software company

1. Human skills

-Knowledge about and ability to work with people (social skills, we also know that from the traits approach)

• Example: being aware of own as well as others‘ positions

1. Conceptual skills

-Ability to work with ideas and concepts

• Example: understanding the economic principles that affect the company

Middlemanagement als Schnittstelle

Individual attributes (General cognitive ability, Crystallized cognitive ability, motivation, personality)

-Crystallized cognitive ability = What you have learned. Intellectual ability to acquire knowledge over time and to use it as a solution

-Motivation = Willingness to be successful and to complete a task

Competencies (Problem-solving skills, social judgment skills and knowledge)

-Problem-solving skills = Finding the patterns to create sustainable solutions

-Social judgment skills = Ability to take perspective and use a behavioral toolbox

Leadership outcomes (Performance, effective problem-solving)

-Know how to behave in certain situations

-Draw knowledge from past experiences -> Apply it to find sustainable solutions

-Gives you the confidence to back your decisions

-Earns you respect from you peers which is important for them following your decisions

-Increases your crystallized cognitive ability

-Not so good career experiences are good beaches you can learn from them

Pro

-Stresses importance of developing specific skills

-First approach to conceptualize and create a structure of the process of leadership around skills

-Provides an expansive view of leadership

Contra

-Addresses more than just leadership, thus less precise in explaining leadership performance

-Weak in predictive value, as it does not explain how skills lead to effective leadership performance

-Because of the individual attributes, it is trait-like

-The model is funded in general by using a large sample of military personnel and their performance in the army!

These theories focus on a leader‘s style of action.

Typically categorized with regard to task orientation

emphasizing the achievement of work goals or obejectives and

organizing structures, rules, or designs

and

people orientation – emphasizing interpersonal relationships and consideration of followers

Like traits, these behavioral styles are theorized to be stable properties

of the individual leader and thus invariant to the particular

organizational context or work situation

(Lewin, Lippitt, White, Katz and Kahn, 1939, 1960)

The central purpose of this leadership approach is:

How leaders combine the two kinds of behaviors (task/people) to influence followers in their efforts to reach a given goal

Academic leadership approaches conceptualizing employee and production orientation as opposite ends of a single continuum and later as two independent leadership orientations:

Emphasizes the behavior of the leader

Focuses exclusively on what leaders do and how they act

Composed of two general types of behaviors

– Task behavior (facilitate goal accomplishment)

– Relationship behavior (help subordinates feel comfortable)

Two factors of leadership orientation that explain how leaders help organizations to reach their purposes

Concern for people

Describes how a leader attends to the people in an organization

Concern for production

Describes how a leader is concerned with achieving organizational tasks

Measured on a scale from 1 (no concern) to 9 (maximum concern)

A leadership tool which provides an expansive and more complex view and assessment on leadership behaviors

1st number is production, 2nd number is people

1,1 Leadership doesn’t care. Exaplesn’t have contact to their employees. Exaples: DB, Or company where leader is very far away

1,9 Example maybe tech industry with people that are hard to replace, Highly qualified people know what to do and you need a great company culture, Other example start-up

9,9 Makes priorities clear (Is also a style of transparency, not authoritative leadership)

9,1 Focus is totally on production. Leader sees subordinates as tools and likes to overpower them. Totally result driven, no questions, no emotions

5,5 Balanced approach (Social & Technical side)

-> You need to be able to avoid conflicts

Weakness of the approach (Leadership Grid):

Research in leadership has one big question: What is the universal style of being a good leader (efficient leadership)? What is the skillset?

Paternalism/Maternalism:

1.9 + 9.1 uses both, but does not integrate the two styles

organization is like a family – rewarding loyality and punishing

noncompliance

Opportunism:

Using any combination of the basic 5 styles for the purpose of personal advancement (self-interest goes first)

-If the result of the action taken is also beneficial for the employees, it can be justifiable (If it is transparent, an opportunistic leadership style can be effective)

-Opportunistic leadership can harm your people & production sides of the company in the long run

Pro

-Adds leaders‘ behavior to traits and skills

-Contribution to our understanding of the leadership process

-Idea of differentiating between task and relationship process

Cons

-No universal style identified that could be effective in almost every situation

-Only limited support for the notion that „high-high style“ is most

effective

-Most research come from U.S.-centric perspective (reflecting the norms and values of U.S. culture)

Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard first published their Situational

Leadership Model in their 1982 book, Management of

Organizational Behaviour: Utilizing Human Resources

-Focuses on followers, rather than wider workplace circumstances.

-Asserts that leaders should change their behavior according to the type of followers.

-Proposes a 'continuum' or progression of leadership adaptation in response to the development of followers

Directive Leadership behavior (Development Level 1):

-Giving directions

-Creating goals and telling them how to achieve

-You’re defining roles of subordinates & defining methods of evaluation and timelines

-High degree of supervision

-> Low Competence & High Commitment (Enthusiastic Beginner)

Coaching Leadership style (Development Level 2):

-Coach is trying to reduce the weaknesses and boosting/optimizing/maximizing the strengths of a person

-Help people to surpass barriers

-> Insecurities need coaching, Some Competence & Low Commitment (Disillusioned Learner)

Supporting Leadership style (Development Level 3):

-Leaders doesn’t only focus on the goals, he’s motivating with day-to-day delegation

-Leader is supporting subordinate to bring out his strengths

-Supporting is similar to coaching but low directive

-> Moderate to high competence & Variable commitment (Capable but Cautious Performer)

Delegating Leadership style (Development Level 4):

-You can delegate part of you responsibility, not only day-to-day delegation

-> High Competence and High Commitment (Self-reliant achiever)

1.Asking for new ideas

2.Problem solving capacity

3.Listening and praising (Selective praising for great tasks - It shouldn’t lose its meaning)

-More responsibility -> More commitment

-If you know as a subordinate: I have skills to get the job done & the leader values these skills -> The subordinate is proud and committed

Leader has to determine & evaluate the nature of the situation and how to act accordingly. Adapt the style of leadership to the situation

-Leader has to be able to adapt to a broad range of situations

-Leader has to differentiate between subordinates and different approaches to take

Consequences:

-Leader is able to change the leadership style (He has the toolbox)

-Leader is flexible

= degree to which subordinates have the competence and commitment necessary to accomplish a given task or activity.

Employees are at a high development level if they are interested and confident in their work and know how to do the task and vice versa.

CD SD

1. Directing

2. Coaching

3. Supporting

4. Delegating

Important task for leaders is to take the situation into consideration:

1. Determine the nature of the situation

2. Adapt style to situation

To be effective, leaders must determine where the subordinates are on the development continuum

Since development levels vary, leaders must be flexible in selecting

their style

Other examples of situational leadership approaches:

– Continuum of leadership behavior (Tannenbaum & Schmidt, 1958)

– Normative decision model (Vroom & Yetton, 1973)

The model also proposes a 'continuum' or progression of leadership adaptation in response to the development of followers.

-Well known and frequently used for training leaders within organizations

-Approach is practical and easily applicable - the ideas behind the approach are quickly acquired

-It has prescriptive value and a set of guidelines

-The approach reminds us to treat each follower differently and to help followers to learn and grow

-Lack of research - only a few studies have been conducted to justify the assumptions

-Weaknesses in the conceptualization - it is not made clear how commitment is combined with competence to form four distinct levels of development

-How are competence and commitment weighted across different development levels

-Validity of the prescriptions in the approach needs more broader testing

-The approach fails to account for how demographic characteristics (education, experience, age, gender) influence the leader-follower prescriptions of the model