Chapter 3: Skills for Developing Yourself as a Leader

THE NEW LEADER ONBOARDING ROAD MAP

BEFORE YOU THE FIRST DAY THE FIRST TWO THE FIRST TWO THE THIRD
START WEEKS MONTHS MONTH
Prehire data Meet your boss Meet team Obtain Establish
gathering members external culture
Meet your perspectives, Team off-site:
Posthire entire team Meet peers strategy, - Values
activities structure, and - Strategy
Meet stars staffing - Operating
Rhythm
Other meetings Socialize
Improvement
decisions
areas
Get feedback Sub team
analyses

(This is a road map to help people make successful transitions into new leadership
positions.)

BEFORE YOU START: DO YOUR HOMEWORK

• A candidate should prepare for the interview.
• The candidates should gather as much information about their potential company as
they can.
• Sources of information include Websites, annual reports, press releases, and
marketing literature.
• Can also use Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, and other social networking sites to set up
informational interviews with people inside the organization.
• These informational interviews will help the candidates to learn more about the
organization’s history and culture and provide important insight about the vacant
position.

THE FIRST DAY: MAKING A FIRST IMPRESSION

The first meeting with the boss happens in the boss’s office and lasts an hour.

The key topics to address in the meeting are:

1. Identifying the team’s key objectives, metrics, and important projects.
2. Understanding the boss’s view of team strengths and weaknesses.
3. Working through meeting schedules and communication styles.
4. Sharing plans for the day and the next several weeks.

THE FIRST TWO WEEKS: LAY THE FOUNDATION

The new leaders should meet people both inside and outside the team.

Key objectives for these meetings are:

• Learning as much as possible
• Developing relationships
• Determining future allies

One-on-one meetings with key team members should provide the leader with answers to
critical questions:
• What is the team member working on?
• What are the team member’s objectives?
• Who are the “stars” a level or two down in the organization?
• What are the people issues on the team?
• What can the team do better?
• What advice do team members have for the new leader, and what can the new leader
do to help team members?

a. New leaders should minimize their personal interactions with direct reports during
their first two months on the job.
b. They should discuss the following during meetings:
c. Their peers’ objectives, challenges, team structure, etcetera
d. Their perspectives on what the new leader’s team does well and could do better
e. Their perspectives on the new leader’s team members
f. How to best communicate with the boss
g. How issues get raised and decisions made on their boss’s team

During the first two weeks, new leaders should also try to meet with individuals who were
once part of the team but have taken positions in other parts of the organization.

These individuals can offer unique insights into the history of the team and its team
members, and this source of information should not be overlooked.
 The two other pieces of organization new leaders should gather during the first two
weeks are what the organization sees as the critical roles on the team and if they were
any internal candidates for the team leader position.

New leaders should need this information to ensure they have the best talent filing key
roles and to see if anyone on the team may be hoping to fail.

FIRST TWO MONTHS: STRATEGY, STRUCTURE, AND STAFFING

• It is essential for the Leader to gather more information, determine the direction, and
finalize the appropriate structure and staffing for the team for the next six weeks.
• The first 90 days on the job provide a unique window for driving change and leaders
should know how to “socialize” their strategy, structure, and staffing ideas with their
bosses and peers before making any personnel decisions.

The tasks to be performed include:

a. Gathering benchmarking information from other organizations
b. Meeting with key external customers and suppliers
c. Meeting with the former team leader, if appropriate

New leaders need to be able to articulate:

a. Where the team has been and where it needs to go over the next one to three
years
b. What the team needs to accomplish and what changes will be needed to make
this happen
c. Their expectations for team members
• Once the proposed changes have been agreed to, new leaders need to have one-on-
one meetings with all team members affected by any strategy, structure, and staffing
decisions.
• The new leaders should seek feedback from peers and recruiters.

THIRD MONTH: COMMUNICATE AND DRIVE CHANGE

Things to do include:
a. Articulating how the team will win
b. Identifying the what, why, and how of any needed changes
c. Defining a clear set of expectations for team members

The Major events for the third month:

a. Meet with the entire team
b. Meet off-site with direct reports if the team is large
 The purpose of the first meeting is to enable the leader to share the information he
gathered during the process, vision for the future, staffing model, team structure, his/her
expectations about the team members and any rationale regarding changes in the team.
The change pertains to the tangible actions taken by the leader.

KEY OBJECTIVES OF THE OFF-SITE MEETING:

1) Get agreement on the critical attributes and values of team members. - New leaders
should set-off time to finalize and clearly define the positive and negative behaviors
for all attributes and values they want to see in their members.

2) Create a team scorecard. – New leaders will create the vision and overall objectives for
the future, direct report teams need to formulate concrete, specific goals with timelines
and benchmarks to measure success.

3) Establish an operating rhythm. – Teams need to work on their rules of engagement.

4) Establish task forces to work on key change initiatives. – Issues need to be addressed
by the team can be done on off-site meetings, whereas task forces may be a better
venue for resolving other issues.

LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE

Leadership practitioners can enhance the learning value of experiences by:
• Creating opportunities to get feedback – The most helpful information for developing
leadership comes from feedback regarding perceptions in one’s behavior, and impact on
the group’s overall effectiveness.
• Taking a 10 percent stretch - It conveys the idea of voluntary but determined efforts
to improve leadership skills.
• Learning from others - Leaders can learn a lot by observing how others react to and
handle different challenges and situations.
• Keeping a journal of daily leadership events – Good journal entries give leaders a wealth
of examples they can use.
• Having a developmental plan – Leaders should have a systematic plan outlining self-
improvement goal and help them take advantage of opportunities that they may
otherwise overlook.
 TECHNICAL COMPETENCE
It concerns the knowledge and repertoire of behaviors one can utilize to complete a task
successfully.

Followers with technical competence earn better performance appraisal ratings, exert
influence in their groups, and are more likely to be a member of a leader’s in-group.

This is related to improved managerial promotion rates, better training skills, lower rates of
group conflict, reduced levels of role ambiguity, and higher motivation levels among followers
for leaders.

REASONS WHY FOLLOWERS NEED A HIGH LEVEL OF TECHNICAL COMPETENCE:

• Performance is a function of technical competence.
• Followers with high level of technical competence have a lot of expert power and at
times can wield more influence in their groups than their leader.
• Individuals with high levels of technical competence may be more likely to be of a
leader’s in-group and more likely to be delegated tasks and asked to participate in
decisions.

STEPS IN BUILDING TECHNICAL COMPETENCE:

• Determining how the job contributes to the overall success of the organization.
• Becoming an expert in the job through education, training, observation, asking
questions, and teaching.
• Seeking opportunities to broaden one’s experiences by performing tasks associated with
the other positions in one’s work group and visiting other parts of the organization.

BUILDING EFFECTIVE RELATIONSHIPS WITH SUPERIORS

In order to understand the superior’s world better, followers should:
• Understand the superior’s personal and organizational objectives.
• Realize that superiors do not have all the answers and have both strengths and
weaknesses.
• Keep the superior informed about various activities in the work group or new
developments or opportunities in the field.

ADVANTAGES OF HAVING A GOOD WORKING RELATIONSHIP WITH SUPERIORS:

a. Superiors and followers sharing the same values, approaches, and attitudes will:
- Experience less conflict
 - Provide higher levels of mutual support
- Be more satisfied with superior and follower relationships

b. Followers receive better performance appraisal ratings.

Requires followers to adapt to the superior’s style by:
Clarifying expectations about their role on the team, committee, or work group
Listing major responsibilities and using the list to guide discussions with superiors about
different ways to accomplish tasks and relative priorities of the tasks
Being honest and dependable

BUILDING EFFECTIVE RELATIONSHIPS WITH PEERS

Research suggests that a key requirement of leadership effectiveness is the ability to build
strong alliances with others.
WAYS TO ESTABLISH AND MAINTAIN GOOD PEER RELATIONSHIPS:
- Recognizing common interests and goals
- Understanding peers’ tasks, problems, and rewards
- Practicing a theory Y attitude
- Recognition of an individual’s strengths and weaknesses

DEVELOPMENT PLANNING
It is a systematic process of building knowledge and experience or changing behavior.
Peterson and Hicks believe that there are five interrelated phases to developmental
planning:
1. Identifying development needs
2. Analyzing data to identify and prioritize development need
3. Using prioritized development needs to create a focused and achievable development
plan
4. Periodically reviewing the plan, reflecting on learning, and modifying or updating the
plan as appropriate
5. Transferring learning to new environments

CONDUCTING A G-A-P-S ANALYSIS

G – goals, A – abilities P- perceptions S – standards
• The first phase in the planning stage.
• This helps the leader to gather and categorize all pertinent development planning
information.
STEPS IN GAPS ANALYSIS:
1. Identifying career goals
2. Identifying strengths and development needs related to the career goals
3. Determining how one’s abilities, skills, and behaviors are perceived by others by asking
others for feedback or through performance reviews or 360-feedback instruments
4. Determining the standards of one's boss or organization has for one's career
objectives

BRIDGING THE GAPS: BUILDING A DEVELOPMENT PLAN:

Following are the steps for developing a high-impact development plan:
• Working on career and development objectives
• Determining the criteria for success
• Determining action steps
• Deciding whom to involve and reassessing dates
• Stretching assignments
• Using various resources
• Reflecting the knowledge with a partner

SUMMARY
• The first three months give leaders unique opportunities to make smooth
transitions, paint compelling pictures of the future, and drive organizational
change.
• Performance is a function of technical competence.
• Individuals who have good superior-follower relationships are often in the
superior’s in-group.
• Fundamental requirement of leadership effectiveness is the ability to build strong
alliances with others.
• Development planning is the systematic process of building knowledge and
experience or changing behavior.
 Chapter 4: Power and Influence

IMPORTANT DISTINCTIONS:

1) Power - is defined as the capacity to produce effects on others or the potential to

influence others.
• It refers to the function of the leader, the followers, and the situation. It does not
need to be exercised in order to have its effect.
• Attributed to others on the basis and frequency of influence tactics they use and
on their outcomes.

2) Influence - is the change in a target agent’s attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors as

the result of influence tactics.

3) Influence tactics - One person’s actual behaviors designed to change another person’s
attitudes, beliefs, values, or behaviors.
• Apart from leaders, followers can also wield power and influence over leaders as
well as over each other.
• These are overt behaviors exhibited by one person to influence another.

DISTINCTION BETWEEN POWER AND INFLUENCE:

POWER INFLUENCE MEASUREMENT OF

Power is the capacity to
cause change
INFLUENCE
Influence can be measured
Influence is the degree of
by the behaviors or
actual change in a target
attitudes manifested by
person’s attitudes, values,
followers as a result of a
beliefs and behaviors.
leader’s influence tactics.
• Leaders with high amounts of power can cause fairly substantial changes in
subordinates’ attitudes and behaviors.
• Leaders and followers make use of variety of tactics to influence each other’s behavior
or attitudes.
• The amount of power followers has in work situations can also vary dramatically.
• Individuals with a relatively large amount of power may successfully employ a wider
variety of influence tactics.

• Some followers may exert relatively more influence than the leader does in certain
situations.
• Followers often can use a wider variety of influence tactics than the leader.
- This is because the formal leader is not always the person who possesses the most
power in a leadership situation.

POWER AND LEADERSHIP

SITUATIONS THAT CAN AFFECT PERCEPTION OF ONE’S POWER:

• Furniture and arrangement
• Shape of the table used for meetings and seating arrangements
• Prominently displayed symbols
• Appearances of title and authority
• Choice of clothing
• Presence or absence of crisis

SOURCES OF LEADER POWER IN THE LEADER, FOLLOWER, AND SITUATION FRAMEWORK:

• French and Raven identified

five sources or bases of
power by which an individual
can influence another.

• These five sources include one

that is primarily a function of
the leader, another is the
relationship of the leader and
followers, one is primarily a
function of the leader and
situation, one that is primarily a
function of the situation, and
finally one that involves the three elements.
 FRENCH AND RAVEN’S BASES OF SOCIAL POWER
EXPERT POWER
1) POWER OF KNOWLEDGE
• Some people are able to influence others with their relative expertise in particular
areas.
• Followers may have more expert power than leaders at times.
• If different followers have considerably greater amounts of expert power, the
leader may be unable to influence them using expert power alone.

2) REFERENT POWER
• It refers to the potential influence one has because of the strength of the
relationship between the leader and the followers.
• Takes time to develop but can be lost quickly.
• Desire to maintain referent power may limit a leader’s actions in certain situations.
• The stronger the relationship, the more influence leaders and followers exert over
each other.
• A relative degree of responsiveness is primarily a function of the strength of the
relationship.
• Followers with relatively more referent power than their peers are often
spokespersons for their units and have more latitude to deviate from work-unit
norms.

3) LEGITIMATE POWER
• Depends upon on a person’s organizational role or his or her formal or official
authority.
• Allows exertion of influence through requests or demands deemed appropriate by
virtue of one’s role and position.
• Holding a position and being a leader are not synonymous.
• Effective leaders often intuitively realize they need more than legitimate power to
be successful.
• Followers can use their legitimate power, job descriptions, bureaucratic rules, or
union policies to influence leaders.

4) REWARD POWER
• Involves the potential to influence others through control over desired resources.
• Potential to influence others through reward power is a joint function of the
leader, the followers, and the situation.
 Problems Associated with Rewards:
a. Overemphasizing performance rewards can lead to workers feeling resentful
and manipulated.
b. Extrinsic rewards such as praise or compensation may not have the same
behavioral effects as intrinsic rewards such as personal growth and
development
c. Rewards may produce compliance but no other desirable outcomes like
commitment.

Leaders can enhance their ability to influence others based on reward power by:
a. Determining what rewards are available and most valued by subordinates.
b. Establishing policies for the fair and consistent administration of rewards
for good performance.

Followers can exercise reward power over leaders by:

a. Controlling scarce resources
b. Modifying their level of effort based on the leader’s performance

5) COERSIVE POWER
• It is the potential to influence others through the administration of negative
sanctions or the removal of positive events.
• Reliance on this power has inherent limitations.
• Informal coercion can change the attitudes and behaviors of others.
• One of the most common forms of coercion is a superior’s temperamental
outbursts.
• Followers that use coercive power to influence a leader’s behavior tend to have a
relatively high amount of referent power among co-workers.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS ABOUT FRENCH AND RAVEN’S POWER OF

TAXONOMY

• Leaders can usually exert more power during a crisis than during periods of relative
calm.
• During a crisis, followers may be more eager to receive direction and control from
leaders.
• Research indicates that leaders who rely on referent and expert powers have
subordinates who:
 - Are more motivated and satisfied
- Are absent less
- Perform better

FOLLOWING GENERALIZATIONS CAN BE MADE ABOUT POWER AND INFLUENCE:

• Effective leaders take advantage of all their sources of power.
• Leaders in well-functioning organizations are open to being influenced by their
subordinates.
• Leaders vary in the extent to which they share power with subordinates.
• Effective leaders generally work to increase their various power bases or become more
willing to use their coercive power.

LEADER MOTIVES

• One way of looking at the relationship between power and leadership involves
focusing on the individual leader’s personality.
• People vary in their motivation to influence or control others.
• Need for power is expressed in the following ways:

a. Personalized power – is exercised for personal needs by selfish, impulsive,

uninhibited individuals who lack self-control.

b. Socialized power - is used for the benefit of others or the organization and
involves self-sacrifice.
c. Thematic Apperception Test, a projective personality test, can assess the need
for power.
d. Need for power is found to be positively related to various leadership
effectiveness criteria.

Individuals vary in their motivation to manage.

Miner describes motivation to manage in terms of the following composites:
• Maintaining good relationships with authority figures
• Wanting to compete for recognition and advancement
• Being active and assertive
• Wanting to exercise influence over subordinates
• Being visibly different from followers
• Being willing to do routine administrative tasks
• Miner’s Sentence Completion Scale or M S C S measures a person's motivation to
manage.
• The overall composite M S C S score consistently predicts leadership success in
hierarchical or bureaucratic organizations.
• Findings concerning need for power and motivation to manage have several
implications for leadership practitioners:
- Not all individuals like being leaders
- High need for power or motivation to manage does not guarantee leadership
success

• High need for socialized power and a high level of activity inhibition may be required
for long-term leadership success.
• Followers and leaders differ in the need for power, activity inhibition, and motivation
to manage.

TYPES OF INFLUENCE TACTICS BASED ON THE INFLUENCE BEHAVIOR QUESTIONNAIRE:

1) Rational persuasion: When logical arguments or factual evidence is used to influence

others.
2) Inspirational appeals: When a request or proposal is designed to arouse enthusiasm or
emotions in targets.
3) Consultation: When targets are asked to participate in planning an activity.
4) Ingratiation: When an agent attempts to get a target in a good mood before making
a request.

Pressure Legitimizing
Personal Exchange Coalition
Tactics Tactics
Appeals Tactics
When threats
When a target When a target When agents When agents
or persistent
is asked to do a is influenced seek the help make requests
reminders are
favor out of through the of others to based on their
used to
friendship. exchange of influence the position or
influence
favors. target. authority.
targets.
 INFLUENCE TACTICS AND POWER
• If power is the capacity to influence others, influence tactics pertain to the actual
behaviors used by an agent to change the attitudes, opinions, or behaviors of a
target person.
• Various instruments have been developed to study influence tactics, but the Influence
Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ) was the most promising.
• A strong relationship exists between the relative power of agents and targets and
the types of influence tactics used.
• Leaders with high referent power generally do not use legitimizing or pressure tactics.
• Leaders with only coercive or legitimate power tend to use coalition, legitimizing, or
pressure tactics.

Hard Tactics are Used When: Soft Tactics are Used When:
a. An influencer has the upper a. One is at a disadvantage
hand b. Resistance is expected
b. Resistance is anticipated c. There is personal benefit if the
c. The other person’s behavior attempt is successful
violates important norms

• Using influence tactics is a social skill.

• People select influence tactics as a function of their power relationship with another
person.
- Relationship holds true universally across different social domains.

OTHER WAYS TO SUCCESSFULLY INFLUENCE SUPERIORS:

a. Thoroughly preparing beforehand
b. Involving others for support or coalition tactics
c. Persisting through a combination of approaches

A CONCLUDING THOUGHT ABOUT INFLUENCE TACTICS

An important lesson for leaders is the value of being conscious of what influence
tactics one uses and what effects are typically associated with those tactics.
Knowledge of such effects can help a leader to make better decisions about her or his
manner of influencing decision.
 Leaders should pay attention to the actual influence tactics they use and why they
believe particular methods are effective.
• Influence efforts intended to build others up more frequently lead to positive
outcomes than influence efforts intended to put others down.

SUMMARY:
• By reflecting on their different bases of power, leaders may better understand
how they can affect followers and even expand their power.
• Leaders can improve their effectiveness by finding ways to enhance the value of
their personal contribution to their team.
• Leaders should discourage in-group and out-group rivalries from forming in the
work unit
• Exercise of power occurs primarily through the influence tactics leaders and
followers use.
• Leadership practitioners should always consider why they are using a particular
influence attempt before they actually use it.