Prof.

Marco Castellani
A.Y. 2021-2022

Leadership and
Lecture3 [March, 15, 2022] Complex Organizations
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 Power and authority

WHEN WE GRADUALLY SHIFT FROM THE PURE /BASIC FORMS OF

VERTICALLY INTEGRATED ORGANIZATIONS, WE OBSERVE THAT, EVEN
IN CASE OF LEGITIMATE POWER, ORGANIZATIONS TRY TO USE OTHER
SOURCES OF POWER - FOR EXAMPLE COMPETENCE POWER – IN
ORDER TO INCREASE THE EFFORT / COMMITMENT WITH WHICH A
TASK IS CARRIED OUT

• The theory of organization argues that authority might be just a temporary

solution to the problems of coordination that emerge from the continuous
adaptation of a complex organization.
• Legitimate power refers to a set of rules at the basis of the implementation of
authority, also in terms of roles linked with respective positions.
• In modern vertically integrated organizations, authority makes power less
arbitrary, less expensive, more visible and effective.
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 Power
The capacity that A has
to influence the
behavior of B so that B
could act in
accordance to A’s
wishes
Authority
The potential of
power depending
on different
possible sources

Leadership
The ability to influence
a group toward the
achievement of a
vision or set of goals

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 Links between power and autocratic leadership

• What happens when there is little involvement of others and the leader makes choices based on his/her own
ideas, beliefs and judgements?
• The leadership focus is on getting things done, there is often clarity and purpose since one person is leading the
direction in which the organization or team goes.
• Leading in an autocratically style often implies self-confidence (i.e. trusting in one's abilities, qualities, and
judgement), since there is no room for shared views
• Self-confidence often turns to “self-serving effect/bias” (i.e. the common habit of a person taking credit for
positive events or outcomes, but blaming outside factors for negative events. This can be affected by age, culture,
clinical diagnosis, and more. It tends to occur widely across populations).
• So, does autocratic leadership have a place in today’s organizations?

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 Controversies about autocratic leadership

STRATEGIC DECISIONS
• Authoritarian leaders make decisions independently with
little or no input from the rest of the group. When it happens,
decision-making is less creative if compared with other
leadership style.
• Lewin, in an early work, also found that it is more difficult to
move from an authoritarian style to a democratic style than
vice versa.
• Authoritarian leadership is also applied to situations when
there is little time to take decisions or when the leader is the
expert member of the group.

ORDINARY CHOICES
• Autocratic leaders provide clear expectations for what needs
to be done (command / order), when it should be done
(control), and how it should be done. There is also a clear
division between leaders and the followers.

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EVERYDAY CHOICES
(routines) STRATEGIC DECISIONS

Control
decisions

EGO (leader)

Task Complying Alternative /

execution the order supplementary pescription
Explicit order («do X!»)

ALTER (follower)

Basic prescription
Routine
Embedded order / command (routine)
If x… then Choice1… job duties / task
Rule following
If ¬ x… then Choice2… Role within organization
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Controversies about autocratic leadership

• Role: set of typical behaviors that typify a person's

position in work contexts, i.e. the set of
expectations that the person and the other subjects
such as colleagues, superiors, customers, suppliers
have towards that person who holds a specific
organizational position.

• EXPECTED BEHAVIORS as the visible expression of

job duties / task

• This definition allows the role to be read from

different points of view: TECHNICAL-OPERATIONAL
PSYCHO-SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

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 Controversies about autocratic leadership
• Autocratic leadership – the benefits
• Clear scheme of routines
• Workers (followers) know the direction they
are going and what they are required to do
• Autocratic style is often seen as strong leadership and
as a result that could be appreciated by subordinates
• Strong identity with the leader??

• What situations might support autocratic leadership?

• Where clarity of simple tasks is needed
• Where a business or unit is performing poorly and a turn-round in performance is asked
• When quick responses are required
• Some tasks and sectors lend themselves to more autocratic styles for some of their practices, e.g.
military, fire services and emergency services, or manufacturing where some applications are
prescriptive
• Making quickly significant changes can sometimes require autocratic styles
• Could be helpful for unexperienced staff that needs to be clearly directed
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 Controversies about autocratic leadership
• Which are the limitations of autocratic leadership?

• Selective-attention – which is crucial for framing scenarios and

making routine choices - could decline due to inertia (slack) and
groupthnk
• People can feel resentment about the decisions that are imposed
upon them
• Brilliant ideas and views could be suppressed
• People with good leadership skills can be sidelined
• Tends to attract similar kinds of people who like clear leadership and
want clear rules to follow, reducing diversity in the team /
organization
• People can feel they are being “micro-managed” with someone
always looking over their shoulder
• Promotes a dependency culture
• Increased pressure and burden on one the individual leaders
• Doesn’t tend to work well with knowledge workers where
individuals could have more skills than the leader
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Controversies about autocratic leadership

• The research on leadership usually claims that

autocratic leadership does not take care of the
socio-emotional dimensions of groups such as
maintaining group cohesion and promoting the
group as a viable social .

• More precisely, autocratic leaders score

particularly low on tests aiming to verify their
considerations towards followers’ satisfaction,
motivations and emotions.

• Empirical evidence indeed shows that autocratic

leaders negatively influence group stability and
effectiveness, group climate, and feelings of being
content and happy.

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 Controversies about autocratic leadership
• Followers are thus negatively aroused, which holds that people do not
favor autocratic leaders because these leaders do not motivate
followers to exhibit loyalty and dedication toward the leader and the
group.

• This is in line with a motivational account suggesting that followers’

dedication and connectedness to the leader is only promoted if they
are positively aroused (Bass, 1998), (involvement and effort) which is
not the case for autocratic leaders.

• Thus, if a leader is not autocratic, group members will feel attachment

toward the group, and followers will therefore be focused on the
subsequent behavior that the group leader displays.

• Conversely, if a leader is seen as autocratic, subsequent self-sacrificial

behavior is believed to influence followers’ reactions much less.
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 Controversies about autocratic leadership

• Thereason fortheabove consideration is thatautocraticleaders are

often seenas:

1. limiting group members’voice followers’opinions and values;

2. becomingselfish (Russell &Stone, 2002);
3. Making decisions more unilaterally;
4. supervising subordinates’ work activitiesmore closely,while
empathic leaderstend to be more participatory.

• Hence,when autocraticleadersshow amerelydominant style,

without any process of discussing opinions and ideas,theyare
expected to discourage followers’ loyalty and dedication, shifting
towards acoercivepower.
• In these cases, autocratic leadership tend to collapse and
overlap with the coercive style of leadership and power

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 Controversies about autocratic leadership
• Hence the characteristics that can be typical of coercive power are:
• (a) intolerance of ambiguity;
• (b) rigidity;
• (c) poor capacity for abstract reasoning.

• Here the authoritarians are expected to show all the symptoms of the disease as
they deal with their colleagues.

• In particular, in the context of a mobbing or bureaupathy syndrome, they will

behave in a flattering and servile manner towards their superiors, while abusing the
power that their superiors attribute to them, treating subordinates with deep
indignation. According to Ashforth, the six dimensions that define this syndrome are:
– (a) arbitrariness and ostentation,
– (b) denigration of subordinates,
– (c) lack of consideration for others,
– (d) a violent style of conflict resolution,
– (e) discouraging the initiative,
– (f) unpredictable use of punishments / penalties
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 GENERATIVE /
AUTOCRATIC CHARISMATIC
TRANSFORMATIONAL
LEADERSHIP LEADERSHIP
LEADERSHIP

Growing importance of personal/individualtraits

TRAIT THEORIES
OF LEADERSHIP

BEHAVIORAL
THEORIES OF
LEADERSHIP

CONTINGNCY
? GENERATIVE /
AUTHENTIC /
TRANSFORMATIONAL
LEADERSHIP

THEORIES OF
LEADERSHIP