Solutions to Assignments
MBA and MBA (Banking & Finance)
MMPC 001 - Management Functions and Organisational Processes
MMPC-004/TMA/JULY/2022
Question No. 5. Briefly describe and discuss modern theories of leadership and the difference between successful vs. effective leader.
A. Charismatic Leadership Theories
Charismatic leadership is a throwback to the old conception of leaders as
being those who “by the force of their personal abilities are capable of having
profound and extraordinary effects on followers.” Although the charismatic
concept, or charisma, goes as far back as the ancient Greeks and is cited in
the Bible, its modern development is often attributed to the work of Robert
House. On the basis of the analysis of political and religious leaders,
House suggests that charismatic leaders are characterized by self-confidence
and confidence in their associates, high expectations for associates,
ideological vision, and the use of personal example. Followers of charismatic
leaders identify with the leader and the mission of the leader, exhibit extreme
loyalty to and confidence in the leader, emulate the leader’s values and
behaviour, and derive self-esteem from their relationship with the leader.
Bass has extended the profile of charismatic leaders to include superior
debating and persuasive skills as well as technical expertise and the fostering
of attitudinal, behavioural, and emotional changes in their followers.
Charismatic leaders will produce in followers’ performance beyond
expectations as well as strong commitment to the leader and his or her
mission. Research indicates that the impact of such charismatic leaders will
be enhanced when the followers exhibit higher levels of self-awareness and
self-monitoring, especially when observing the charismatic leaders’ behaviours and activities and when operating in a social network. House and
his colleagues provide some support for charismatic theory and research finds
a positive effect on desirable outcomes such as cooperation and motivation,
and recent conceptualization proposing that alternative forms (personalized
versus socialized) are relevant to successful implementation of mergers and
acquisitions. However, as with the other leadership theories, complexities are
found and more research is needed. For example, one study that assessed
charismatic leader behaviours, individual level correlates, and unit-level
correlates (outcomes) in the military yielded only limited support for the
theory’s propositions and led the researchers to conclude that greater
sensitivity to multiple constituencies of leaders is needed in theories and
studies focused on charismatic leadership. Also, extensions of the theory are
being proposed. For example, Conger and Kanungo treat charisma as an
attributional phenomenon and propose that it varies with the situation. Leader
traits that foster charismatic attributions include self-confidence, impression management skills, social sensitivity, and empathy. Situations that promote
charismatic leadership include a crisis requiring dramatic change or followers
who are very dissatisfied with the status quo. For example, a study in a
university setting revealed a situation in which a charismatic leader was able
to successfully implement a technical change, but at the same time suffered
through major political turmoil, which appeared to be side effects of the
technical change.
This suggests that studies of charismatic leadership must be considered in the
context in which the leader operates, and the nature of the task or work being
performed should be included in the analysis.
B. Transformational Leadership Theory
Many years ago James MacGregor Burns identified two types of political
leadership: transactional and transformational. The more traditional
transactional leadership involves an exchange relationship between leaders
and followers, but transformational leadership is based more on leaders’
shifting the values, beliefs, and needs of their followers.
More recently, the “charisma” characteristic of transformational leadership
has been changed to “idealized influence.” This was done to not confuse
transformational with charismatic leadership, which Bass treats as different
theories. Although there are a number of contrasts between the two theories,
the major differentiators are how followers are treated. Key to
transformational leaders is that they seek to empower and elevate
followers(i.e., develop followers into leaders) while charismatic leaders may
try to keep followers weak and dependent on them (i.e., instill personal
loyalty to the leader rather than developing them to attain ideals).
In contrast to transactional leaders that behave in one of the ways Avolio
notes that transformational leaders characterized by idealized leadership,
inspiringleadership, intellectual stimulation, and individualized
consideration represent a cluster of interrelated styles aimed at the following:
1) Changing situations for the better
2) Developing followers into leaders
3) Overhauling organizations to provide them with new strategic directions
Inspiring people by providing an energizing vision and high ideal for moral
and ethical Conduct.
On the basis of his research findings, Bass concludes that in many instances
(such as relying on passive management by exception), transactional
leadership is a prescription for mediocrity and that transformational
leadership leads to superior performance in organizations facing demands for
renewal and change. He suggests that fostering transformational leadership
through policies of recruitment, selection, promotion, training, and
development will pay off in the health, well-being, and effective performance
of today’s organizations.
A meta-analysis of 39 studies found that the transformational behaviours of
charisma (idealized influence), individualized consideration, and intellectual
stimulation were related to leadership effectiveness in most studies, but,
except for the contingent reward behaviours, the transactional leadership
styles did not enhance leadership effectiveness, and this more positive impact
of transformational over transactional leadership has held through the years.
For example, a recent meta-analysis of 87 studies found transformational
leadership related (.44) to the composite of desired outcomes (follower job
satisfaction, follower leader satisfaction, follower motivation, leader job
performance, group or organizational performance and rated leader
effectiveness). However, in this meta-analysis, contingent reward
transactional leadership also related (.39) to the same composite of outcomes,
and transformational leadership failed to significantly predict leader job
performance.
C. Servant Leadership
A leadership approach coined by Robert K. Greenleaf (1970) in which the
leader has a desire to “serve first” and leads in such a way that those being
served “become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely
themselves to become servants.” Servant leadership exhibits an approach
that is more humanistic and relationally oriented. The development in
humanistic approaches to leadership is taking more progressive steps
currently. Servant leaders lead because they want to serve others and they
practically set examples before giving directions. The focus of servant
leadership is on others rather than upon self and on understanding of the role
of the leader as a servant. As a part of normative theory servant leadership
emphasize the relationship of leaders and followers to each other and the
importance of values on the process of leadership.
Servant leadership has not received as much attention as other leadership
theories in the literature, but in recent years interest in it by the business
organizations has grown. Servant leaders focus more on concern for their
followers by creating conditions that enhance followers’ well-being and
functioning and thereby facilitate the realization of a shared vision. Spears
(1998) read the book on servant leadership by Greenleaf and then he briefed the characteristics of a servant leader. The ten characteristics mentioned are
listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization,
foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building
community. Lastly, the motivational drivers in servant leadership include
valuing people, developing people and building community, displaying
authenticity and sharing leadership.
D. Substitutes for Leadership
Because of dissatisfaction with the progress of leadership theory and research
in explaining and predicting the effects of leader behaviour on performance
outcomes, some of the basic assumptions about the importance of leadership
per se have been challenged over the years. One alternative approach that
received attention proposed that there may be certain “substitutes” for
leadership that make leader behaviour unnecessary and redundant, and
“neutralizers” that prevent the leader from behaving in a certain way or that
counteract the behaviour. These substitutes or neutralizers can be found in
subordinate, task, and organization characteristics. For example, crafts
persons or professionals such as accountants or software engineers may have
so much experience, ability, and training that they do not need
instrumental/task leadership to perform well and be satisfied. Those
employees who don’t particularly care about organizational rewards (for
example, professors or musicians) will neutralize both supportive/relationship
and instrumental/task leadership attempts. Tasks that are highly structured
and automatically provide feedback substitute for instrumental/ task
leadership, and those that are intrinsically satisfying (for example, teaching)
do not need supportive/relationship leadership. There are also a number of
organizational characteristics that substitute for or neutralize leadership.
E. Authentic Leadership
Although there are a number of newly emerging theories such as servant
leadership, political leadership, contextual leadership, e-leadership, primal
leadership, relational leadership, positive leadership, shared leadership, and
responsible leadership, in these times of unprecedented challenges facing
organizational leaders, we (Avolio and Luthans and our colleagues working
with the Leadership Institute at the University of Nebraska) believe that
authentic leadership is a needed approach. Drawing from Luthans’s work on
positive organizational behaviour and psychological capital, and Avolio’s
work on transformational and full range leadership, recently proposed a
specific model of authentic leadership development.
Authenticity has its roots in ancient Greek philosophy (“To thin own self be
true”) and descriptive words include genuine, transparent, reliable,
trustworthy, real, and veritable.
Positive psychologists refer to authenticity as both owning one’s personal
experiences (thoughts, emotions, or beliefs, “the real me inside”) and acting
in accord with the true self (behaving and expressing what you really think
and believe). Authentic leadership in organizations can be defined as:
A process that draws from both positive psychological capacities and a highly
developed organizational context, which results in both greater selfawareness and self-regulated positive behaviors on the part of leaders and
associates, fostering positive self-development. The authentic leader is
confident, hopeful, optimistic, resilient, transparent, moral/ethical, future
oriented, and gives priority to developing associates to be leaders.
F. Abusive Leadership
Abusive leaders exercise power to serve their own interest by dominating and
authoritative ways to achieve what they want. They manipulate others to gain
their purposes. They want to win at any cost. Although they know how to
show that they are loyal and working for the organization, actuality they are
preoccupied to be numberone. Baron and Neuman (1998) explain that
abusive behaviour is the behaviour which is harmful to others.
Ashforth (1994, 1997) defines petty tyranny as a manager’s use of power and
authority cruelly, erratically, and unkindly. He finds following six
dimensions of a petty tyrant: behaving in an illogical and conceited manner;
putting down subordinate; lacking kindness for other; forcing divergence
ruling; discouraging inventiveness and using non-contingent penalty.
Tepper (2000) defines abusive supervision as the perception of subordinates
about the hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviour of their supervisors which
does not include physical abuse. He feels that supervisors may not mean to
cause harm and are forced to act abusively in order to achieve some other
goal.
SUCCESSIVE VS EFFECTIVE LEADER
As we have seen in the preceding discussions, leadership is the activity of
influencing people to strive willingly for group objectives. It is the ability to
persuade others to get something done. So the leader attempts to have some
effect on the behaviour of another, which we call attempted leadership. The
response to this attempt may or may not be successful. A basic responsibility
of managers in any work organisation is to get the work done with and
through people. The success of managers is measured by the output or
productivity of the group they lead. Therefore, we should clearly distinguish
between successful versus effective leader.
In the above figure, A's attempt to influence B to do a certain job can be
judged successful or unsuccessful. B does the job for the reason that A has
position of power and he controls the reward and punishment, then A's
attempted leadership.is successful.
A's style of leadership may not be compatible with B's expectation and B is
made hostile towards A and does the job only because of A's position power;
then we can say A has been successful, but not effective. B does the job
because A can punish him for not doing it or reward him for doing it. B's own
needs are not being accomplished by satisfying the goals of A (the leader) for
the organisation.
On the other hand, A's attempted leadership leads to a successful response
and B does the job because he wants to do it and finds it rewarding, then we
may say, A has both position power as well as personal power. B respects A,
B is consistent with ' some personal goals and B sees personal goals as being
accomplished by the job he does for A.
We can then say A's leadership is
effective.
We should try to understand the difference between success and
effectiveness. Success has to do with how the individual or the group
behaves. Effectiveness describes the internal state or predisposition of an
individual or a group and is thus attitudinal in nature.
You may have noticed that individuals who are interested in success tend to
emphasise their position power. They use close supervision of the work of
their associates. If they have to be effective, they have to use their personal
power as well as their general supervision.
Examples of successful and effective individuals can be noticed if one
understands the underlying acceptance of the superior by the subordinate. In
the examination hall, a certain kind of teachers fear that if they leave the hall
for a while the students will indulge in copying and exchanging notes.
There
are yet another kind of teachers who leave the examination hall, but the
students never behave differently.
Let us work at family level which is a less formal organisation. Parents can
be successful and effective by using their position and personal power. The
children easily accept the goals of the family as their own. Parents who use
position power and a closer supervision, are likely to face a kind of revolt or
disobeying attitude among their children not accepting the goals set by the
parents for the family. With the absence of the parents, the whole house
becomes topsy-turvy. This can never happen in 'a family where parents create
a good deal of trust between them and the children by exercising their
personal power of love and discipline. The children in the absence of parents
do not behave differently than if their parents were there.
Leaders are successful, but ineffective when they have a short-run influence
over the behaviour of others. They must try to be both successful and
effective to have long-term influence for leading others towards productivity
and developing the organisation as a whole. The most important conclusion
from the above discussion is that the managers must understand their own
abilities and their impact on others.
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