Leadership in

Organizational
Settings
What is Leadership?
Leadership is the ability to influence,
motivate, and enable others to contribute
toward the effectiveness of the
organizations of which they are members.

©Reuters New Media Inc./Corbis

Shared Leadership
The view that leadership is broadly distributed
rather than assigned to one person
Employees are leaders when they champion change
in the company or team
Shared leadership calls for:
Formal leaders willing to delegate power
Collaborative culture – employees support each other
Employee ability to influence through persuasion
Perspectives of Leadership
Competency
Perspective

Implicit Behavior
Leadership
Perspective
Leadership Perspective
Perspectives

Transformational Contingency
Perspective Perspective
Competency Perspective
Competencies – personal characteristics that lead
to superior performance in a leadership role (e.g.
skills, knowledge, values)
Early research – very few “traits” predicted
effective leadership
Emerging view – several competencies now
identified as key influences on leadership potential
and of effective leaders
Seven Leadership Competencies
Emotional • Perceiving, assimilating, understanding,
Intelligence and regulating emotions

• Truthfulness
Integrity • Translates words into deeds

• Inner motivation to pursue goals

Drive • Need for achievement, quest to learn

Leadership • High need for socialized power to

Motivation accomplish team’s or firm’s goals

more
Seven Leadership Competencies
(con’t)

• High self-efficacy regarding ability to

Self-Confidence
lead others

• Above average cognitive ability

Intelligence • Can analyze problems/opportunities

Knowledge of • Familiar with business environment

the Business • Aids intuitive decision making
Competency Perspective
Limitations
Leadership potential, not performance
◦ Still need to develop leader skills from these
competencies
Implies a universal approach
◦ But some competencies might not be valuable in
all situations
Some traits are subjective (hidden)
◦ Supports implicit leadership theory
Leader Behavioral
Perspective
People-oriented behaviors
◦ Showing mutual trust and respect
◦ Concern for employee needs
◦ Desire to look out for employee welfare

Task-oriented behaviors
◦ Assign specific tasks
◦ Ensure employees follow rules
◦ Set “stretch goals” to achieve performance capacity
Path-Goal Leadership
Originated with expectancy theory of motivation
◦ Paths = employee expectancies
◦ Goals = employee performance

States that effective leaders ensure that employees who perform their
jobs well receive more valued rewards than those who perform poorly
Path-Goal Leadership Styles
Directive
◦ Task-oriented behaviors

Supportive
◦ People-oriented behaviors

Participative
◦ Encouraging employee involvement

Achievement-oriented
◦ Using goal setting and positive self-fulfilling prophecy
Path-Goal Leadership Model
Employee
Contingencies

Environmental
Contingencies
Path-Goal Contingencies
Employee
Contingencies Directive Supportive Participative
Achievement
Skill/Experience low low high high
Locus of Control external external internal internal

Environmental
Contingencies Directive Supportive Participative
Achievement
Task Structure nonroutine routine nonroutine ?
Team Dynamics–ve norms low cohesion +ve norms
?
Other Contingency Leader Theories

Situational Leadership Model (Hersey/Blanchard)

◦ Effective leaders vary style with follower “readiness”
◦ Leader styles – telling, selling, participating, and
delegating

Fiedler’s Contingency Model

◦ Leadership style is stable --based on personality
◦ Best style depends on situational control -- leader-
member relations, task structure, position power
Leadership Substitutes
Contingencies that limit a leader’s
influence or make a particular
leadership style unnecessary.
Examples:
◦Training and experience replace task-
oriented leadership
◦Cohesive team replaces supportive
leadership
◦Self-leadership replaces achievement-
©Mark Garfinkel/The Boston Herald
oriented leadership
Transformational v. Transactional
Leaders
Transformational leaders
◦Leading -- changing the organization to fit environment
◦Change agents

Transactional leaders
◦Managing -- linking job performance to rewards
◦Ensure employees have necessary resources
◦Apply contingency leadership
Transformational v. Charismatic
Leaders
 Is charismatic leadership
essential for transformational
leadership?
 Emerging view -- charisma
differs from transformational
leadership
 Charisma is a personal trait
that provides referent power
Transformational Leadership
Elements

Creating
Communicating
a Strategic
the Vision
Vision

Transformational
Leadership

Building Modeling
Commitment the Vision
 Transformational Leadership
Elements
1. Create a strategic vision
◦ Depiction of company’s attractive future
◦ motivates and bonds employees
◦ Leader champions the vision

2. Communicate the vision

◦ Frame message around a grand purpose
◦ Create a shared mental model of the future
◦ Use symbols, metaphors to communicate the vision
Transformational Leadership
Elements (con’t)
3. Model the vision
◦ Walk the talk
◦ Symbolize/demonstrate the vision through behavior
◦ Builds employee trust in the leader

4. Build commitment to the vision

◦ Increased through communicating and modeling the
vision
◦ Increased through employee involvement in shaping
the shared vision
 Evaluating Transformational
Leadership
Transformational leadership is important
◦ Higher employee satisfaction, performance, org citizenship, creativity

Transformational leadership limitations

◦ Circular research
◦ Transformational leaders identified by their success- when they successfully bring about change
◦ Universal theory
◦ Need a contingency-oriented theory
◦ Recognize differences across cultures
Implicit Leadership
Perspective
Attributing
Leadership

Implicit
Leadership
Perspective
Need for
Stereotyping
Situational
Control Leadership
Cultural Issues in Leadership
Societal cultural values and practices
affect leaders:
◦ Shape leader’s values/norms
◦ Influence decisions and actions

Some leadership styles are universal,

others differ across cultures
◦ “Charismatic visionary” seems to be
universal
◦ Participative leadership works better in
©EPA Photo/EPA/ Kim Ludbrook/Corbis
some cultures than others
Gender Issues in Leadership
Male and female leaders have similar
task- and people-oriented
leadership.
Participative leadership style is used
more often by female leaders.
 Evaluating Female Leaders
Past evidence
◦ Women rated less favorably than equivalent male
leaders due to stereotyping

Recent evidence
◦ Women rated more favorably than men, particularly
on emerging leadership styles (coaching, teamwork)
Leadership in
Organizational
Settings