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Chapter Six
Leadership Managerial Function

6.1. An overview of leadership

Definition
- Leadership is defined as the process of influencing group activities toward
the accomplishment of goals in a given situation.
- In this context the leader is viewed as the person in the group who is
capable of influencing group activities with regard to goal formation and goal
accomplishment.

6.2. Theories of leadership

- The theories of leadership are classified into three categories
- These theories are shown graphically here under.

Trait theory
Leadershi
p
Behavioral Theory

Situation Theory

6.2.1. The Trait Theory of Leadership

 Trait leadership refers to what characteristics the leader possesses.

 What are traits?
 Traits are inborn and inherent personal qualities of
individuals.
 The “Trait Theory” therefore believes that leaders possess certain
inborn traits which are inherited rather than acquired.
 The followers of this traditional theory believe that managers or
leaders are born not made.
 The following are some of the traits that are shared by most
successful leaders, according to the trait theory.
a) Intelligence leaders tend to have somewhat higher intelligence than their
followers
b) Social maturity and breadth leader tend to be emotionally mature and
have a broad interest range. They have high frustration tolerance.
c) Inner motivation and achievement drive leaders want to achieve things;
when they achieve one thing, they seek out another.
d) Human relation attitudes. Leaders develop a healthy respect for people
and realize that to accomplish tasks, they must be considerate of others.

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Criticisms of Trait theory. Trait theory is several criticized on the following

grounds.

1. The list of personality traits is painfully long and exhaustive.

Nevertheless, no consistent pattern/patterns have been found.
2. Research of ten disagree over which traits are the most important
for an effective leader. There is no universal list of traits for successful
leaders
3. Leaders cannot be marked different from their followers. Extremes
in personality are not usually associated with leadership.
4. It is difficult to define traits. When posed with the question of
defining a trait, executives often come out with a be wildering variety of
explanations.
5. It is often difficult to measure traits. The measurement tools
employed to quantity traits are open to doubt. For example, some of the
psychological attributes such as intelligence, initiative, etc. cannot be
observed but can only be inferred from the behavior.
6. How much of a trait a person should have remains a puzzling
question.
7. Effective leadership is not a function of traits alone. There are
various significant situational factors that determine leadership behavior.
8. Leadership skills usually vary according to the type of work a
person performs in the organization. A leader may employ three different
types of skills at different levels in the organization: technical, human and
conceptual skills.

6.2.2. The Behavioral Theory of Leadership

As indicated above, trait theory seeks to explain leadership on the basis of what
leaders are. Behavioral theory however attempts to describe leadership in terms
of what leaders do. According to this theory, leadership is shown by a person’s
acts more than by his traits. Some of the major studies which to caused on
behavioral leadership theories include the following.

a) The Michigan Studies

After studying numerous industrial situations the Michigan University research

identified two leadership styles which include:
 Employee-centered, and
 Production-centered task oriented.
- Production-centered / Task-oriented leadership style: emphasizes more
on the technical aspects of job, work standard, close supervision, considering
employees as tools in the production process.
- Employee-oriented / people centered / leadership style: focuses more on
treating subordinates as human beings, encouraging them in goal setting, and
shows concern for their well being.

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- The Michigan research prescribed employee-oriented style of leadership

to increase productivity.
- They contended that supervisory controls and production – centered
leadership style will be frustrating to the employees; affects their morale
leading to unsatisfactory performance on the job.
b) The Ohio State University studies:
- The Ohio State University studies identified two leadership behaviors,
which include:
 Initiating structure, and
 Consideration
i. Initiating structure (IS) refers to the extent to which the
leaders structure and define the activities of subordinates so that
organizational goals are accomplished.
ii. Consideration on the other hand, refers to the ability
of the leader to establish rapport, mutual respect and two-way
communication with employees. The leader is friendly, approachable, and
listens to the problems of employees and allows them to suggest.

The relationship of these two leadership dimensions is plotted in the following

figure.

High High consideration High consideration

low structure High structure
Consideration

2 3
Low consideration Low consideration
Low structure High structure
1 4

Low

Low High
Initiating structure
- The Ohio State University researchers hypothesized that the most effective
leadership style would be the one that gave high concern for both
consideration and structure.
- Thus, a high consideration and high consideration and high structure style
was associated with high performance and employee satisfaction.
- Some studies however, revealed that this style resulted in excessive
absenteeism, low employee satisfaction and poor performance.
6.3. The Situational / Contingency theory of leadership
- According to the advocates of this leadership theory, leadership is a
complex social and interpersonal process; and to understand if fully we need
to see the situation in which a leader operates.
- The contingency theory of leadership stresses that no single leadership
style is effective in all situations.

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- Thus, an effective leader must be flexible enough to adapt to the

differences among subordinates and situations.
6.4. Leadership Styles
6.4.1. What is a leadership style?
 Leadership style is the behavior exhibited by a leader during supervision
of subordinates.
 There are different leadership styles.
6.4.2. Positive Versus Negative Leadership Styles
 Positive leadership styles give emphasis to praise and recognition,
monetary rewards, increase in security, and addition of responsibility.
 Negative leadership styles on the other hand emphasize penalties, loss of
jobs, suspension, and public reprimands / critics
 The commonly known and/or practiced leadership styles are: Autocratic,
Democratic and Free-rein.
a. Autocratic / Authoritative/ Directive style
 An autocratic leader centralizes power and decision-making in him-self
and exercises complete control over the subordinates.
 Such a lender usually shows high concern for the task and low concern for
the people.
 Rigidity and / or inflexibility characterize such a leader.
 The common characteristics of autocratic leaders include the following:

i) The leader is highly conscious of his/her position.

ii) He/she has little trust and faiths in subordinates.
iii) The leader believes that pay is just a reward for working and the only
reward that will motivate employees.
iv) Orders are issued to be carried out with no questions allowed and no
explanations.
v) Subordinates are expected to do what they are told.
vi) Production is good when the leader is present, but poor in the leader’s
absence.
b) Democratic / Participative leadership style
 The leader shows high concern for both task and people.
 A manager with this style usually shares decisions with the group
encourage participation and supports the task efforts of subordinates.
 Democratic leadership has the following characteristics:
 Decision making is shared by the leader and the group
 If forced to make a decision alone the leader explains
his/her reason to the group.
 Objective criticism and praise is given
 New ideas / change proposed by a group are respected
 Develops a feeling of responsibility with in the group
 Increases the quality of work and productivity.
 The group feels successful

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c) Free – rein / Laissez faire / Abdicative leadership style

 The leader shows a low concern for both people and
work.
 A manager with this style gives full decision-making
authority to the group and shows little interest in the work process or its
results
Free – rein / Laissez faire leadership style has the following major characteristics:

 The leader does not set goals to the group

 Decisions are made by who ever in the group
willing to do if.
 Individuals may have little interest in their
work.
 Morale and teamwork are generally low.
 Usually productivity is low and work is sloppy
(messy)
The following figures demonstrate the features of the leadership styles described
above:

L L L

Autocratic Participative
Free – Rein

Qualities of an Effective Leader

Some authorities in the field point out that an effective leader is required to
possess the following basic qualities.

a) Ability to understand human behavior. A leader should be able to

understand employees needs and problems so as to make them work with
willingness and enthusiasm.
b) Social skill. An effective leader should and know the strengths and
weaknesses of people working with him/her. If he/she is helpful friendly,
encourages other to succeed, and appreciates the group members’
viewpoints, people will certainly cooperate with him/her and work their /
oral best towards the achievement of the organizational goals.

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c) Teaching ability (being model). The best way to lead is guiding

practically. A leader should not be in a position to push his subordinates
from behind.
d) Readiness to accept responsibility / criticisms and to take appropriate
corrective measures – An effective leader or manager should understand that
error is human but repeat is a mistake. What so over a leader tries to be
systematic, mistakes are created but he should be able to take remedial
measures and take control over the situation.
e) Emotional stability and fairness – The effective leader poses resolutions
indiscriminately after gathering sufficient information and investigating the
possible causes. Moreover, he is relatively fuae from bias and prejudice and
takes consistent actions.

6.4. Motivation

6.4.1. Meaning of Motivation

The ward motivation comes from the Latin word movere, which means to move.
Motivation is enfore an inspiration process which impels the members of the
team, to pull their weight effectively to give their loyalty to the group, to carry
out properly the tasks that they have accepted and generally to play an effective
part in the job that the group has undertaken. It is the process of indoctrinating
employees with unity of purpose and the need to maintain harmonious
relationship among people.

6.4.1. Characteristics of motivation

Motivation comprises the following three common characteristics.

a) It is concerned with what activities human behaviors
b) Motivation is also concerned with what direct this behavior toward a
particular goal.
c) The third characteristics is that motivation is concerned with how this
behavior is sustained.
Motivation is usually analyze using the following causative sequence

Achievement
Need Drives / Motives
of goals
In motivation, needs produce motives, which lead to accomplishment of goals.
Needs are usually caused by deficiencies which can be either physical or
psychological. For example, a physical need arises when an individual goes
with out sleep for 48 hours; a psychological need on the other hand exists when
an individual is left without friends or companions.

Motive. Is an inner force within an individual that drives him toward goal
oriented action. It activates or moves a person to act or behave in a person to act

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or behave in a certain way. For example lack of sleep (the need) activates the
physical changes.

6.4.1. Theories of motivation focusing on needs

The process of motivation usually follows a decision-making and/ or problem

solving approach. The following are the common steps followed in the
motivation process.

i. Identification of the basic necessity for motivation

ii. Identification of possible methods of motivation
iii. Selection of the best motivating tool
iv. Making follow-up evaluating the result

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs

Maslow tried to provide an explanation about motivation by classifying human
needs in hierarch and the theory of human motivation that links these needs to
general behavior.
The basic concepts of Maslow’s motivation theory include the following:

 Needs form hierarch: lower level needs must at least be partly

satisfied before higher level needs emerge.
 Higher level needs can be satisfied in many more ways than can be
lower level needs.
 A satisfied need is not a motivator. It lower level need is satisfied a
higher level need emerges
 People seek growth: people want to more up the hierarchy of
needs.
 Adult motives and complex. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs can be
demonstrated as follows.

Self-actualization
Needs

Esteem
Needs

Social/ love
Needs

Safety
Needs
Physiological

Needs
i) Physiological needs- they are biological needs required to preserve human life
- food, water, clothing and shelter.

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ii) Safety needs – they include protection from physiological dangers (fire,
accident), job or economic security (benefits, health, insurance), smooth
working atmosphere, etc.
iii) Social / love needs – people want to belong to associate, to gain acceptance
from associates, to give and receive friendship and affection.
iv) Esteem needs – they include those for self-confidence, achievement, etc
v) Self-actualization needs – are the needs for realizing one’s potentialities, for
continued self-development, for being creative in the broadest sense of that
term.
- Self – fulfilling people are rare individuals who are close to living up to
their full potential with high achievement.
- Self-actualization is the desire to become what one is capable of becoming.
A musician must make music, a poet must write, a general must win battles,
an artist must paint, a teacher must teach is he is to be ultimately happy.
What a man CAN be he must be.

6.6. Communication

6.6.1. Definition:
- Communication is the transfer of information from one person
(sender) to another (receiver) to achieve goals.
- Management is concerned with getting things done with and through
others.

6.6.2. The Communication Process

To be an effective communicator a manager should understand the basic

framework of communication process.
- The basic elements of the communication process include the
following.

i. Sender / Communicator:
- The sender or source of message initiated the communication.
Communication within an enterprise acts as a coordinating force and links
the separate departments together.
ii. Encoding
- Encoding takes place when the sender translates the information into a
common language which reflects the idea to be transmitted in a series of
symbols. The encoding action produces message.
iii. The Message
- The message is he encoded information sent by the sender to the
receiver.
iv. The Medium
- The medium (channel) of communication exists between the sender
and the receiver.

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- The media includes: speaking, writing, signaling, gesturing, physical,

contacting, etc.
- The media is the carrier of the message sent by the communicator.
v. The Receiver
- For communication to happen, at least two people are required; the
communicator and the receiver.
- In order for the communication to be effective, the sender should take
into account the receiver’s decoding abilities, understanding capacity.

vi. Decoding
- Decoding refers to the process by which the receiver translates the
message into the terms that are meaningful to him.
- It is the receiver’s interpretation of the message.
- It involves the mental process of asking “what does this mean to me?”
And “what should I do about it?”
- Decoding helps to understand the problem
vii. Feed-back
- Feed-back refers to the response of the receiver to the sender.
- Feed-back helps to decrease the potential and probability of distortion
between the intended and the received message.

B. Organizational Communication

i) Formal Communication – is the type of communication

that follows prescribed channels of communication, through the organization,
typically the chain of command or scalar chain.
- It is the official pattern of communication, designed,
approval and recognized by the organization structure.
- It includes

(a) Upward communication and information about subordinates’

performance, feedback on organization practice, opinion, complaints,
etc. Which flows to supervision.
(b) Horizontal communication – communication between people or work
units at the same level of organizational hierarchy.
(c) Diagonal communication – Communication that takes places between
work units or people at different levels of organization hierarchy.

ii) Informal communication

- It is one aspect of organizational Communication, that is not design
and recognized by management.
- It includes informal discussion of employees about promotions, salary
increment, demotions, etc. in the form of rumors and gossips.
Oral and Written Communication
- Two methods of communicating a message may be oral and written

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a) Oral communication includes: speeches,

formal group discussion, and grapevine.
- Primary advantages of oral
communication include, speed and quick feed-back.
- Disadvantages of oral
communication are that the message may be distorted, and recording it
is very difficult and costly.
b) Written Communication: is permanent,
tangible and verifiable.
- Record is maintained and both the sender and the receiver have
access to the records. Example of written communication include:
memorandum, bulleting boards, forms letters, etc.
- Limitation of written communication: - It is time consuming;
- It doesn’t possess built in feedback mechanism.

Barriers of Communication
Many a time managers say something and the subordinates understand different
thing. Thus, distortion is occurred due to some barrier to communication. Some
of the common barriers are discussed here under.
 Filtering – some studies show that about 75 percent of
communication can be lost in its downward flow from the top to the bottom
of an organization levels.
 Selective perception – The receiver may selectively perceive the
message based on the organizational requirements; the employees’ needs,
characteristics and back ground; etc.
 Emotions – How the receiver feels at the time of receiver of the
information influences effectively how he interprets the information.
 Language – Difference of semantics can create communication
problem. On the other hand, a word spoken in anger can have an entirely
different meaning from the same word spoken in friendliness. For example,
the statement “All right, I will show you how to do the work.” Can be said
with various voices and can be interpreted in different ways.
 Time pressure – when a manager or employee is placed under
severe time constraints, it can create communication problem

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A. Overcoming the Barriers to Communication

In order to make communication effective, managers must attempt to remove
barriers. There are no prescribed techniques or ways of overcoming
communication barriers. However, it is essential to give due consideration to
the following points while communicating within the organization.
a) Feed-back – one common way of overcoming barriers to communication
is to have a feed-back. Thus, the communicator should check whether the
receiver has understood the message either by asking questions or devising
other mechanism that facilitate adequate feedback.
b) Simplifying language – effective communication is achieved when a
message is both received and understood. Managers are therefore required to
avoid complicated jargons, and use a simple language that subordinates can
easily understand.
c) Watch non-verbal cues – many a time, action speaks louder than words.
Therefore, particularly to the case of oral communication, the sender should
observe the actions of the receivers and find whether they go along with the
understanding.
d) Listen carefully- communication problems can arise because of poor
listening. Good removes communication barriers.

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