A primer.(from an Organisational Behaviour course)

It is not who you are but how you behave that creates a leader.

Lippitt and White (1943)*

Lippitt and White believed that an important function of a leader was to◦ create a social climate in the group, and that◦ the group's morale and effectiveness would be

dependent on the nature of the climate engendered.

*One of the earliest and most influential studies of leadership.

Two themes: initiating structure; a consideration for others.

Davies (1972) found that the four general traits related to leadership success were: 

intelligence social maturity achievement drive human relations attitudes Traits model of leadership concentrates on the

person leading rather than on the job to be done.

 (borne out of trait theory e.g. leaders are born and not made).

Nowadays we hear phrases about leadership competencies such as:

• maintain the trust and support of colleagues and team members

• provide the environment for people to excel• nurture individual development• recognise success• encourage enthusiasm.

Stewart (1967) Mintzberg (1973)  Useful summary of possible roles for leaders provided by Krech, Crutchfield and

Ballachey (1962):  co-ordinator - of functions and people planner expert external group representative- to customers/suppliers controller of internal relations controller of rewards and punishments arbitrator and mediator role model ideologists parent figure scapegoat

People in groups have three sets of needs, or leadership functions: 

• the task to be accomplished together• maintaining social cohesion of the group• individual needs of team members

Adair (1982)*

*  An early influential model of leadership in Britain.

Generally these functions are carried out by three types of leader:

autocratric; democratic; laissez faire/free wheeler

• Trait theory (assumes that leadership qualities are innate)

• Style theory (links organisational effectiveness to the balance between the leaders' concern for profit and concern for people)

• Contingency theory (links traits and style to the situation)

• Transformational theory (emphasises the leaders role in empowering employees

 The contingency approach emphasises the importance of

the situation in which leader and group find themselves Fiedler (1967) was the first to use the phrase 'contingency'

in the context of leadership.  Three factors will determine the leader's effectiveness • leader-member relations - how well is the leader

accepted?• task structure - are the jobs of the members routine and

precise or vague and undefined• position power - what formal authority does the leader's

potion confer?

Fiedler then devised a novel device for measuring leadership style - called the Least Preferred Co-worker scale or LPC scale

i.e., a scale that indicated the degree to which people described favourably or unfavourably their least preferred co-worker.

Those who used relatively favourable terms tended towards permissiveness and a human relations orientation and considerate style - he called them high LPC.

Those who used an unfavourable style tended to be managing and task controlling and to be less concerned with the human relations aspects of the job - he called them low LPC.

In the 1980s there was increasing emphasis on leaders rather than managers.

Strategy Structure Systems Style Staff Skills Shared goals

Watson (1983)

Watson suggested that managers tend to rely on:

strategy structure systems

Leaders, use the softer S's of: style staff skills shared goals

Kotter (1982) made perhaps a more detailed distinction.

Kotter saw management as predominantly activity-based,

whereas leadership means dealing with people rather than things.

Management involved:  planning and budgeting organising and staffing controlling and problem solving

Leadership:

creating a sense of direction communicating the vision energising, inspiring and motivating

• First conform to the groups norms and then introduce new ideas

• build up credit with the rest of the group:• this credit is what provides the subsequent

legitimacy to exert influence over those same group members and to deviate from the existing norms.

• Hollander calls this 'idiosyncrasy credit'. Essentially the more credit one builds up the more idiosyncratic behaviour will be subsequently tolerated by the group.

* Based on the work of Hollander 1958; Hollander and Julian 1970; Merei 1949; Hollander 1982

Four main methods:

Adhere initially to the group's norms. Stems from the methods whereby the leader

achieves their position: elected by group or imposed by external authority (more credit if selected by group, democratically)

Leader's competence to fulfil the group's objectives

Leader's identification with the group - share same goals

Merei (1949)

A popular distinction between leaders is that made by Burns (1978) and Kuhnert and Lewis (1987)

They distinguish between◦ Transactional and◦ Transformational leaders.

... use styles of communication and techniques to clarify task requirements and:

ensure that there are appropriate rewards when the task is completed.

Sometimes called command and control type leadership.

... are those who articulate a mission and create and sustain a positive image in others.

They are sometimes called ‘visionary leaders’.

The latter has become the more accepted definition of what leadership is about.

Or - Is creating a vision and energising a workplace enough?

fashionable but ineffective; leaders must also be architects of success, establishing systems and structures

charismatic leaders (charisma is an important dimension of transformational leadership) tend to emerge in times of crisis, with residues of inattention to infrastructure and detail

Bryman 1992

charisma potentially destabilising and difficult to control

(Trice and Beyer 1992)

according to critical theorists, transformational leadership theory is not a scientific breakthrough so much as a celebration and reaffirmation of masculine values

(Alvesson and Willmott 1996)

the leader's role is largely symbolic, literature is guilty of vastly overstating the role

Pfeffer (1977)

Pfeffer believes that leaders have only very limited scope and influence, and indeed have no influence at all over e.g. currency fluctuations, commodity prices, labour market conditions and other external factors.

management literature obscures the unheroic aspects of leadership:◦ reproduces current values, benefits only a few

power holders◦ legitimises existing forms of control◦ reproduces existing power relations◦ literature understates environmental

constraints◦ the leader's own subjugation

Knights and Willmott (1992)

End.