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Chapter 6

Current Era in Leadership:

Inspiration and Connection to
Followers

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 Learning Objectives
• Discuss the distinguishing elements of the new era in
leadership research and practice
• Understand charismatic leadership, explain the leader,
follower, cultural, and situational characteristics that
contribute to its development, and discuss its positive and
negative implications
• Distinguish between transactional and transformational
leadership and explain factors that contribute to
transformational leadership
• Describe the value-based approaches to leadership,
including servant, authentic, and positive leadership

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COLLECTIVE
LEADERSHIP
 Context for 21th Century Leadership
• Demographic, social, technological and global changes
– Elderly population
– Different generations in workforce
– Diversity (people of different races, religions, genders, ages and
cultures)
– Incrased migration
– Mindset change in transtional and eastern economiees
– Power shift from West to East
– Complexity of globalization
– Cross-cultural challanges & opportunies
– Economic crisis and political instabilities
– Need for energy and sustainability
– Climate & environmental changes
– Pandemics
– Governance, ethics & CSR 6-5
 Context for 21th Century Leadership
As a result of new context
• Increasing competition and new factors for competitive advantage
• Addressing the responsibility of businesses not only to their stakeholders but to all
shareholders affected by their activities
• Issues such as innovation, creativity, customer satisfaction, as well as the
standardization, effectiveness and efficiency of processes have become important.
• Workplace differences (diversity), toxic emotions, bullying, emotional and physical
abuse, social isolation and alienation, abuse of power by leaders, and unethical
behavior become issues identified and emphasized

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 Benefits of the New Era Approaches

• They allow us to look at a different aspect of leaders and their

role as inspirational visionaries
• They emphasize the affective as well as the cognitive aspects of
leadership
• They highlight the importance of followers’ emotional
reactions
• They focus on vision, change and future.
• They focus on leaders at top levels as well as other types of
leaders

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 The Leadership Question

Charisma is considered a positive trait for a

leader, and charismatic leaders are sought after.
Are charismatic leaders always effective and
desirable? Is it a necessary element of
leadership?

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 Requirements of Charismatic
Leadership

Leader characteristic

Follower
characteristics Situational factors

Charismatic
leadership

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 Characteristics of Charismatic
Leaders

• High self-confidence
• Strong convictions about ideas
• High energy and enthusiasm
• Expressive
• Excellent communication
• Active image-building

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 Characteristics of Followers of
Charismatic Leaders

• Intense emotional bond

• High degree of respect, affection, and
esteem for the leader
• Loyalty and devotion to the leader
• Identification with leaders
• High performance expectations
• Unquestioning obedience

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 Elements of the Charismatic
Situations: External Factors

• Perceived need for change

• Sense of actual or imminent crisis
• Opportunity to articulate ideological goal
• Availability of dramatic symbols
• Opportunity to articulate followers’ role

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Elements of the Charismatic Situations:
Organizational Factors

• Organizational life cycle (early and late)

• Type of task
• Reward structure
• Organizational structure and culture

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 Culture and Charisma

• More common in cultures with prophetic

traditions of a savior
• Manifested differently in different cultures
• Can be seen as either positive or negative

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Ethical or Socialized Charisma

• Focus on organizational goals

• Message built on common goals
• Encourage and seek divergent view
• Open and two-way communication
• Accepting of criticism
• Impression management used to energize and
motivate followers
• Describe the actual need for change

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Unethical or Personal Charisma

• Focus on personal goals

• Message built on leader’s goals
• Censors, discourages, or punishes divergent
views
• One-way, top-down communication
• Closed to criticism
• Impression management used to deceive
• Followers
• Create or exaggerate the sense of crisis
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 The Leadership Question
Revisited

• Charisma is a positive trait for leaders in many

cultures
• It has many positive aspects and a destructive
potential
• Charisma can bring an emotional high, but it does not
necessarily lead to effective leadership

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 Practical Implications of
Charismatic Leadership

• Charismatic leadership can be powerful

and impactful
• Based on the personality of the leader
• Focus on connecting with followers
• Remain open to followers’ input

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 Transactional and Transformational
Leadership
How do leaders create and sustain revolutionary change in
organizations?
What style of leadership is needed to motivate followers to
undertake organizational transformations?

Several researchers proposed transformational leadership concepts

to answer these questions and to describe and explain how leaders
succeed in achieving large-scale change in organizations.

Originally developed by Bums (1978) who proposed it as a moral

form of leadership, transformational leadership was introduced to
organizational behavior to suggest that some leaders, through their
personal traits and their relationships with followers, go beyond a
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 Transactional Leadership
 Transactional leadership is based on the concept of exchange
between leaders and followers.
 The leader provides followers with resources and rewards in
exchange for motivation, productivity, and effective task
accomplishment. (Exchange between leader and followers)
 The leader focus on day-to-day activities,
 This exchange and the concept of providing contingent rewards
are at the heart of motivation, leadership, and management
theory and practice and is an essential component of effective
leadership.
 Two styles of transactional leadership are Contingent Reward
(CR) and Management by Exception (MBE).

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 Transactional Leadership
Two styles of transactional leadership:
Contingent Reward (CR):
Leaders provide followers with promised rewards when followers
fulfill their agreed-upon goals.

Management by Exception (MBE):

 It is a leadership style whereby the leader interacts little with
followers, provides limited or no direction, and only intervenes
when things go wrong.
 Little positive reinforcement or encouragement are given, instead
the leader relies almost exclusively on discipline and punishment.
 Tansactional contracts do not inspire followers to aim for
excellence. They focus on short-term and immediate outcomes.
Long-term inspiration requires transformational leadership
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 Transactional Leadership
• Contingent reward
– Leader provides rewards in exchange for
performance
– Can be very productive
• Management by exception (MBE)
– Leader gets involved only to correct and
provide negative feedback
– Generally not effective

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 Transformational Leadership

Today’s organizations need leadership that inspires followers

and enables them to enact revolutionary change

Transformational leadership
• Focus on change
• Considers emotional bond between leader and followers
• Focus on developing followers potention, motivating them,
making them extra-ordinary performers.

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 Transformational Leadership
Elements of Transformational Leadership:
Charisma and Inspiration: The charismatic leadership relationship creates
the intense emotional bond between leaders and the result is loyalty and
trust in, as well as emulation of, the leader. Followers are inspired to
implement the leader’s vision.
Intellectual stimulation: It is the leader’s ability to motivate followers to
solve problems by challenging them intellectually and empowering them
to innovate and develop creative solutions. The leaders and the group
question existing values and assumptions and search for new answers.
Individual consideration: It leads to the development of a personal
relationship with each follower. The leader treats each follower
differently but equitably, providing everyone with individual attention.
As a result, followers feel special, encouraged, motivated, and
developed, and they perform better.

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 Transformational Leadership

Transformational
leadership
ORGANIZATIONAL
CHANGE
Individual
consideration
Motivate and
encourage
Intellectual
stimulation
New ideas and
empowerment

Charisma and
inspiration
Overcome resistance
to change

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Transformational Leadership
 Transformational Leadership

 Transformational leadership allows for external

adaptation,
 whereas transactional leadership behaviors support
the maintenance of the routine aspects of the of the
organiztion necessary to maintain internal health.

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 Practical Implications of
Transformational Leadership

• Leaders must project confidence in

followers’ ability
• A clear vision is essential
• Encourage creativity through empowerment,
reward experimentation, and tolerate
mistakes
• Set high performance expectations
• Establish personal connection with followers

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 Value-based Leadership:
Servant, Authentic and Positive Approaches

• Leadership is more than a series of behaviors and actions.

Leadership process is spiritual, higly emotional and personal,
and based on fundamental values (e.g. Integrity, caring for, and
service to others.)
• Values, emotions and optimism are some example for some
primary aspects of leadership.

• Some leadership approaches’ focus are wider than

organizational performance and they include followers, culture
and other stakeholders

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 Servant Leadership

• It focus on followers rather than the

organization or the leader.
• It is based on service to followers, and
effectiveness on whether followers were
healthy, free and autonomous.

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Key Characteristics of Servant
Leaders
Focused on
followers
First
Motivated by
among
service
equals

Humble
Servant Empowering
leaders

Authentic Empathetic

Accountable

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 Authentic Leadership

• It emphasizes the importance of leader’s self-

awereness and being true to his or her own values.
• «To be a great leader, you need to be yourselves.»
• They are people who know themselves well and
remain true to their values and belies.
• They have strong values and sense of purpose that
guide their actions and decisions. Their actions
steam from their beliefs and values.
• They have a moral compass and have found their
«true north».

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Components of Authentic Leadership

• Self-awareness of one’s emotions, motives,

abilities, and inner conflicts
• Unbiased or balanced consideration of
issues
• Behaviors reflect personal values and
convictions
• Relational authenticity that allows for
openness and appropriate sharing
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Continuum of Authentic Leadership

Person without Core values Authentic leader:

articulated values Person with strong
Identity
Behavior guided by articulated values that
Preferences guide decisions and
external factors
Emotions behaviors

Person with limited or some

articulated values
Behavior guided by a combination of
internal values and external pressures

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 Positive Leadership

• Its main assumtions come from positive psychology

(Seligman) and positive organization behavior.
(They emphasize strenghts, capabilities and
possibilities, rather than weaknesses and problems.)
• They have roots in the concepts of self-actualization
and focus on human growth and potential.

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Characteristics of Positive Leaders

Focus on
strengths Integrated
Efficacy

Intentional
Perseverance Resilience
behaviors

Affirmative
Optimism bias

Dynamic

Confidence

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 Practicing Positive Leadership

• Optimism
• Encouraging positive deviance
• Focusing on strength
• Creating a positive climate
• Maintaining positive relationships with followers
• Kindness and support
• Having positive communications with affirmative
language
• Dealing with negativity quickly

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 Implications of Value-Based
Approaches

• Focus on values (integrity)

• Focus on followers and address their emotional
needs
• Focus on areas of strengths rather than
correcting weaknesses

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A Critical Look at Value-Based Approaches

• Risks of “delusional optimism”:

– Overestimate strengths
– Exaggerate talents
– Unrealistic about chances for success
– Silence legitimate criticism
• Being positive is not sufficient for
effective leadership

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