Leadership Theories

Dr. Niharika Gaan

LEADERSHIP
A Social influence process in which the leader seeks the voluntary participation of subordinates in an effort to reach organizational objectives. The ability to influence a group towards the achievement of goals.

Leaders Vs Managers
Personality Dimensions Attitude towards goal Manager
Has an impersonal, passive, functional attitude; believes goal arise out of necessity

Leader
Has personal and active attitude; believes goal arise out of desire and imagination

Conceptions of work

Views work as An enabling Process that combines people, ideas, and things; seeks moderate risks

Looks for fresh Approaches to old Problems; seeks high risk positions

Contd.
Personality Dimensions Relationship with others Manager
Avoids solitary Work activities, Preferring to Work with Others, avoids close, intense relationships

Leader
Is comfortable in Work activity Solitary; encourages Close, intense Working relationships; is not Conflict averse

Sense of Self

Is once born; makes a straight Forward life adjustments; Accepts life as it is

Is twice born; Engages in a struggle For a sense of order in life; Questions life

Charismatic Leadership
A certain quality of individual performance by virtue of which a person is set apart from ordinary person and considered to have supernatural and super human power and qualities.

Key Characteristics
 Vision and Articulation  Personal Risk  Sensitivity  Unconventional Leaders

Pierre Trudeau
 Canadian Prime Minister  He was youthful, free-spirited and

unconventional in his shirt sleeves and sandals; he was an awesome speaker in both English and French and displayed a healthy disdain for conventional politics and media.  Viewed as a champion of civil liberties,

Transactional Leaders
 Contingent Reward exchange of rewards

for effort  Management by Exception(active) watches and searches for deviations from the rule, takes corrective action.  Management by Exception (passive) intervenes only if standards are not met.  Laissez-faire abdicates responsibilities, avoids making decisions.

Transformational Leaders
 Charisma provides vision and sense of

mission  Inspiration communicates high expectations, uses symbols to focus efforts, expresses important purposes in simple ways.  Intellectual Stimulation promotes intelligence, rationality and creative problem solving.  Individualized consideration gives personal attention, treats each employee individually, coaches and advises.

Great leaders don not always score high on charisma and leverages their influence by using the power and the authority but they influence the followers through their idea, their conviction, the example they set, and their extraordinary ability to mobilise people and make things happen.

Lee Kuan Yew

 he shaped and drove Singapore's

development, catapulting the city-state from a Third World backwater, to the front ranks of the First World  his role as a strategist -labour-intensive import substitution, to labour-intensive, export-oriented manufacturing, sought the citizens' inputs, thus helping to strengthen the people's sense of identity with the vision set out by the leaders.

 aversion to strong ideologies-Whether

Singapore Airlines gets nationalised or privatised, but, how the airline performs was his concern.  his accent on meritocracy in government.  unconventional and practical approach stood out sharply with respect to policies in human resources- primary and secondary education would, to the extent possible, be universalised.

Leadership Theories
Trait Theory - Leaders are born not made. A leader trait is a personality characteristic that differentiates a leader from followers.  Ambition and Energy  Drive to Lead  Honesty and Integrity  Self Confidence  Intelligence  Job Relevant knowledge  High Self motivators.

Behaviour Theories
Ohio-State Studies : There are two independent dimensions of Leader behaviour. Initiating Structure Organizing and defining what group members should be doing. Consideration creating mutual respect and trust with followers.

University of Michigan Studies

 Employee oriented: emphasize on

interpersonal relationship and individual differences among members.

 Production oriented: Tend to emphasize on

technical or task aspects of the job.

Behaviour Theories
Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid (5 quadrants) 1.Country Club Management thoughtful attention to needs of people leading to a comfortable, friendly organization. 2. Impoverished Management leader fails to provide necessary structure. Shows little consideration for employee needs and wants

Behaviour Theories
Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid (5 quadrants) 3. Organization man management adequate organization performance is possible through balancing the necessity to get the work done. Employee morale is maintained at satisfactory level. 4. Authority-obedience primary importance is placed on structuring employee tasks while leader demonstrates little consideration for employees.

Behaviour Theories
Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid (5 quadrants) 5. Team Management the leader provides a lot of guidance on how work is to be done. Also demonstrates high consideration for people.

Contingency approaches to Leadership

Fielders Contingency Model- emphasizes the situational aspects of specific leadership styles. Analysis of the situation facing the leader would determine the most appropriate style of leadership. Situational favourability consists of : 1. Leader member relations 2. Degree of task structure 3. The leaders position power

Least preferred co-worker (LPC)

The leadership style the leader, thus, fixed and measured by what he calls the least preferred co-worker (LPC) scale, an instrument for measuring an individuals leadership orientation

Recommendations of Fielders Contingency Model

In either highly favourable or highly unfavourable situations, a task-oriented , tough natured leader is most effective. 2. In moderately favourable/ unfourable situations, people oriented, lenient leader is most effective.
1.

Jack Stahl, a former chief executive at Coca-Cola and Revlon

The most common leadership deficiency, according to Stahl, is an inability or unwillingness to focus on the details needed to implement any strategic approach. The best leaders, he believes, are situational they are able to step into any circumstance and recognize whether they need to engage at the strategy level or dive into the nittygritty.

Indias 3 Best non-owner Corporate Leaders

RS Sharma, Chairman & MD, ONGC comprehensive insurance policy, crisis management skills YC Deveshwar, Chairman, ITC stretch ITC brand name famous for tobacco to other food products. rural initiatives such as e- Choupal adjudged as Businessperson of the year 2006 award by the UK Trade and Investment Organization. Sanjeev Aga, Chairman & MD, Idea the pillar in wireless industry, logical, analytical, ethical and straightforward.

Corporate Leaders

Transformational leadership to me means leadership in its highest form, such that it transcends the trappings of hierarchies, authority, power, as well as, formal and informal systems of reward and recognition and in the political sphere Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla

Hersey and Blanchards Situational Theory

The maturity level of subordinates should determine the leadership style. Maturity of followers refers to the task specific combination of employee competence and motivation to perform.

Situational Leadership Recommendations

1.

Low Ability, Low Willingness 2. Low Ability, High Willingness 3. High Ability, Low Willingness 4. High Ability, High Willingness

1. Telling

High Direction, Low Support

1. Selling/ Coaching

2.

High Direction, High Support

1. Participating/ Supporting

3.

Low Direction, High Support

1. Delegating

4.

Low Direction, Low Support

Leader Member Exchange Theory

A leader develops a unique one-to-one relationship with each each of the persons reporting to them, favouring some over the others. This creates an in-group and an out-group. Members in the in-group show higher commitment, job satisfaction and job performance than out-group.This relationship becomes stronger when tasks are complex. This influences career outcomes such as promotability, salary level and bonus.

Path-Goal Theory
Leader behaviour is acceptable when it provides a path to achieve followers goals. A leader should : 1. Reduce roadblocks that interfere with goal accomplishment 2. Provide the guidance and support needed by employees 3. Tie meaningful rewards to goal accomplishment.

Leadership Styles
Directive tells subordinates what is expected of them and specifies how tasks can be achieved most effectively. 2. Supportive- concerned with subordinates needs. 3. Participative consults and uses suggestions of followers. 4. Achievement-oriented leader gives challenging tasks to subordinates and expects them to show their best performance.
1.

Leadership Styles
However, there are two contingency variables that affect the behaviour outcome relationship.  Environmental factors culture in the organization, formal authority system.  Personal characteristics of the subordinates locus of control, experience etc.