Leadership

Unit 7.3
By: Ally, Ruhansa, Luke, Christine
 TOPICS COVERED:

01 Leadership

02 Theories Leadership

03 Emotional Intelligence/Quotient
 Leadership
● The ability for an individual or a group of individuals to influence
and guide followers or other members of an organization.

● May not always belong to one person, and may be a team, but
people look to a leader for guidance to show them what to do

● The purpose of leadership:

- Deciding organisation objectives
- Providing expertise
- Setting standards for the organisation
- Determining organisational structure
- Becoming role models for individuals within the
organisation
 Leadership roles in a business include:
Directors
● Department/division head
● Supervises and leads group of managers
and employees in a certain area of an
organization
● E.g. human resources, marketing,
production and information technology
Managers
● Supervisor
● Leads and oversees an organization or a
department's employees and operations
● Ensures production, efficiency, organization
in day-to-day activities
Work Representatives
● Chosen by employees/appointed by
management
● Give and receive info to management
teams and employees
● Major decisions, pay and conditions, etc.
Supervisors
● A supervisor is an individual immediately in
line after management
● Responsible for monitoring and regulating a
company's staff in their performance of
delegated duties
● Particularly, they oversee the daily
performance of a small group, team or
department
A leader's ability to implement change in an organisation may depend on:
● Amount of support received from others within the organisation
● Resources available to implement change, e.g. funds for training or recruitment
● Employees’ understanding of the need for change
● Support from other senior managers

Qualities of a good leader:

The modern view of a ‘good leader:
➔ A strong, decisive character ➔ Charismatic, with a flair for
➔ An ‘expert’ in the relevant field public relations
of business ➔ Possessing principles; for
➔ An autocrat (to a significant example, taking ethical
degree) decisions
➔ Focus on profits and financial ➔ Excellent communicator, and a
success good listener
➔ Good communicator, but most ➔ Welcoming advice and support
comfortable with downward from specialists
communication ➔ Flexible and able to flourish in
a changing environment
Theories of Leadership
Over time many theories have
evolved and presented altering
views in leadership, reflected by
the changing approaches to
leadership adopted by many
businesses.

Key leadership theories:

● Trait
● Behavioural
● Contingency
● Power and Influence
● Transformational
 Trait:
All leaders should have certain traits and characteristics, but there is some disagreement
as to the precise nature of these traits. Generally agreed that certain personality traits
differentiate a good leader from other people, such as:

● Being informed and knowledgeable

● Having the ability to think creatively and innovatively
● Possessing inner motivation and the desire to achieve
● Having the ability to act quickly and decisively
● Projecting an air of authority.

Decline in popularity of trait theories is due to successful leaders exhibiting different

characteristics from each other.
 Behavioral:
Focus on how a leader behaves, identifying the right way of
leading rather than what a leader is like as a person. A key factor
in differentiating between behavioural leadership styles is
communication.
● Autocratic leaders:
- Take decisions without consulting their subordinates
- Communication is likely to be downward-only as the leader or
manager ‘instructs’ their subordinates as to their duties.
● Democratic leaders:
- Invite opinions from subordinates before taking any decisions
- Likely to result in two-way communication, as consultation
and ‘selling’ of the final idea take place
● Laissez-faire leaders:
- Allow subordinates to take decisions without interfering
- May result in relatively little communication, as the
problem or task may be outlined with subordinates
having considerable freedom thereafter.
Contingency:
States that a leader’s efficiency depends on whether
or not their specific leadership style matches the
situation. Whilst a leader may be effective in one set
or circumstances, they might not be in another.
Contingency theories identify multiple factors that
can determine the circumstances a leader may face,
such as:
● The nature of the subordinates who are being
led
● The tasks facing the employees
● The business’ objectives.
 Situational demands can be deemed favorable or not by :
1. Relationships between the leader and subordinate members
2. Task structure
3. The leader’s position power

Business and management psychologist Fred Fielder developed a method in which leaders and their leadership
styles can be categorised by which employees a leader would and wouldn’t want to work with. From this, he
determined two more contingency leadership theories and traits:

Task-orientated:

● Such leaders perform well in situations where it is vital to complete a particular job, and they can build teams
to achieve this.

People-oriented:

● These leaders are good at building relationships with people and in maintaining harmonious working
relationships.

Fielders conclusion was that the most effective way to manage a given situation is to change the leader to match the
situation factors (leader-member relations, task structure and the leader’s power) or to change the situation to suit
the leader.
Power and Influence
There are different ways that leaders use power and influence to achieve results. As a result, certain leadership styles
are developed, promoting the idea that leadership and power are closely related, as a leader will probably also have
decision-making power. Power also varies based on the leader, as well as how that leader is perceived by others.

Positional Power Personal Power:

➔ Reward power - Leaders offer rewards to employees in a variety of forms
such as financial. These include raises, promotions, project participation or
additional training. However, leaders may run out of rewards, rewards may
not be attractive, etc.
➔ Coercive power- Uses the threat of force to gain compliance from others.
Leaders control subordinates by threatening or sanctioning, e.g. promotion
or bonus refusal. These leaders get low levels of performance and
motivation from employees.
➔ Legitimate power- Comes from appointment or selection for an
authoritarian position. Can even be the role of CEO, and depends on your
position in a hierarchy. This can be unpredictable and temporary, as if job
title and position are lost, power can instantly disappear.
➔ Informational - Processing and controlling info needed by others can be a
power sources. Includes financial performance, specific redundancies, or of
takeover bids. This is growing in popularity, as leaders gain much more info
nowadays, and power comes with its manipulation or concealment.
➔ Expert power - Derives from a person's
knowledge/experience, as employees will
show respect for their efficiency. Much more
durable than other forms, and will remain so
long as a leader is perceived to retain this
expertise.
➔ Referent power - Arises from a leader's
personality, image, charisma, and presence.
Leaders with referent power can influence
followers based on their followers
perceptions on them. More and more
businesses have adopted this form of power
as the organisation adopts more collaborative
styles of working.
 Transformational
Occurs when leaders perform their roles so effectively that they gain the trust, respect, appreciation and loyalty of the people who follow
them. Defined as a process where ‘leaders and their followers raise one another to higher levels of morality and motivation’. Bernard M.
Mass theorised that there were psychological attributes that make a transformational leader and identified a number of key features, such
as:

» set clear and consistent goals Transformational leadership can be viewed as a

process with a number of stages:
» encourage others
» Work with employees to create an attractive vision.
» lead through influence and charisma
» Combine the vision and a strategy to achieve it.
» are models of integrity and fairness
» Develop the vision into smaller elements and actions to
» inspire others to rise to challenges

be completed.
» encourage people to look beyond their self-interest

towards the greater good of the organisation.

 Emotional intelligence/quotient
Emotional intelligence/quotient - is the capacity for recognising our own
feelings and those of others. For motivating ourselves, and for managing
emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships

It is a relatively new managerial model, that received attention following the

publication of Goleman’s book ‘Emotional Intelligence’ in 1995

The EQ concept argues that IQ (intelligence quotient, a conventional measure

of a person’s intelligence) is too narrow as a measure of potential performance
of employees including managers and leaders
The EQ model explained:
● It emphasis that there are areas of emotional intelligence
that determine how well employees will perform,
● A high performing employee needs more than just a high
IQ because it ignores vital elements of a person’s
character and behavioural patterns
● For eg: some employees may have a very high IQ but may
lack personal skills and aren’t able to get along with
others

When researchers measured employee performance

against IQ they discovered:

● Low IQ predicts low performance

● High IQ produces varying levels of performance from very
low to very high
 Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence
Competencies
Goleman’s work evolved to produce a model
of 18 personal competencies grouped into
four clusters

His research tested these competencies

against employee performance and this
showed that possession of these
competencies did coincide with high levels of
employee performance in the workplace
 Emotional intelligence and Business
● Leaders have to be able to motivate and inspire others, establish good relationships and manage
conflicts between subordinate employees.
● Managers have to work within a team, be able to develop others (as part of delegation), be able to
initiate change and also be able to manage conflict. To carry out these roles successfully, leaders
and managers have to possess emotional competencies.
● Training in this area can play an important part in developing all of an organisation’s human
resources.
● Thus, emotional intelligence is increasingly relevant to the development of organisations and
employees, because the EQ principles provide a new way to understand and assess people’s
behaviour, leadership styles, attitudes, interpersonal skills and, most importantly, their potential
performance.