Leadership Traits and Ethics
Leadership Traits and Ethics
Leadership Traits and Ethics
(1)Traits and Personality Traits are distinguishing personal characteristics, while a personality is a
combination of traits that classifies an individuals behavior.
(3)Personality Profiles identify individual stronger and weaker traits. They are used to ensure a proper
match between the worker and the job. They are also used to categorize people as a means of
predicting job success.
Dominance – Wants to be in charge. Not overly bossy or bullying. Affects all other traits.
High Energy – Drive, hard work, stamina, persistence. Tolerate stress well
Self-confidence – trust own judgements, decisions, ideas, capabilities. Related to effectiveness and
advancement
Locus of control – Internal Locus of Control refers to belief in the control of your own destiny. External
Locus of Control regers to beliefs in fate, luck, etc.
Stability – Emotionally in control, secure, positive. Associated with managerial effectiveness and
advancement.
Intelligence – Ability to think critically, solve problems and make decisions. It’s the best predictor of job
performance.
Emotional Intelligence – Self awareness, being conscious of your own emotions and how they affect
your personal and professional life. Social awareness, the ability to understand others. Self
management, the ability to control disruptive emotions. Relationship management, the ability to work
well with others.
Flexibility – change, adjust to changes. The ability to influence others about change.
Sensitivity – understand group members as individuals, communicate well, people centered. Requires
empathy.
(5)Leadership Attitudes are positive or negative feelings about people, things, and issues. Job attitudes
and performance are perhaps the two most central sets of consructs in individual level organizational
analysis research.
(6)Leadership Attitudes:
Theory X and Theor Y – Attempt to explain and predict leadership behavior and performance based on
the leader’s attitude about followers.
Theory X attitude: Employees dislike work and must be closely supervised. Managers display
more coercive, autocratic leadership and use external means of control, such as threats and
punishment.
Theory Y attitude: Employees like to work and do not need to be closely supervised. Managers
display more participative leadership and use internal motivation and rewards (e.g. pride in your
work, feelings of respect from supervisors, personal growth, gaining more trust, doing work that
is enjoyable, feeling of accomplishment, learning something new, expanding competence).
Pygmalion effect – Proposes that leaders’ attitudes toward and expectations of followers, and their
treatment of them, explain and predict followers’ behavior and performance.
Self-concept – Refers to the positive or negative attitudes people have about themselves. Self-efficacy is
the belief in one’s own capability to perform in a specific situation. Both are colsely related to self
confidence, the belief that one can be successful.
(8)Ethics are standards of right and wrong that influence behavior. Business ethics and ethics codes
guide and constrain everyday business conduct.
(9)Personality Traits, Attitudes and Etchics:
Moral deveopment refer to understanding right from wrong and choosing to do the right thing, There
are three levels of moral development:
(11)The Situation and Ethics – People are more likely to act unethically in highly competitive situations;
unsupervised situations; when there is no formal ethics policy; when unethical behavior is not punished
or is rewarded.
Diffusion of responsibility – Using the unethical behavior with no one person being held responsible
Disregard or distortion of consequences – Minimizing the harm caused by the unethical behavior
Attribution of blame – Claiming the unethical behavior was caused by someone else’s behavior
Euphemistic labeling – Using “cosmetic” words to make the behavior sound acceptable
Courage! An ethically courageous leader must focus on a higher purpose, draw strength from others,
take risks without fear of failure, use frustration and anger for good, take action to stop unethical
behavior.
Chapter 3: Leadership Behavior and Motivation
Behavior is based on traits and skills. Relationship between leaders and followers are based on the
leaaders’ traits and attitudes. These realtionships are good predictors of employee behavior and
performance.
Leadership style is the combination of traits, skills, and behaviors leaders use as they interact with
followers.
Autocratic: Leader makes decisions, tells employees what to do, and closely supervises them
Democratic: Leader encourages participation in decisions, works with employees to determine what to
do, and does not closely supervise them.
Job-Centered: Refers to the extent to which the leader takes charge to get the job done. The leader
closely directs subordinates with clear roles and goals; The manager tells subordinates what to do and
how to do it.
Structure behavior focuses on getting the task done, while consideration behavior focuses on meeting
people’s needs and developing relationships.
(5)Leadership Grid:
Middle of the road (5,5) – Medium concern for production; Medium concern for people; The leader
strives for satisfactory performance and morale
Team (9,9) – High concern for people; High concern for production; The leader strives for maximum
performance and employee satisfaction
(6) Motivation is anything that affects behavior in pursuin a ceratin outcome. The pursuit of happiness
and satisfaction is fundamental to motivation. Making employees happier and healthier increases their
effort, contributions, and productivity.
(7)Two-Factor Theory:
Maintenance factors – Extrinsic motivators such as pay, job security, title, working conditions, benefits,
and relationship.
Motivator factors – Intrinsic motivators such as achievement, recognition, challenge, and advancement
Managers must first ensure that the employees’ level of pay and other maintenance factors are
adequate. Once employees are not dissatisfied with their pay (and other maintenance factors), they can
be motivated through their jobs (intrinsic motivators).
Job enrichment refers to building motivators into the job itself by making it more interesting and
challenging.
(9)Equity Theory is based on perceptions of fair management. If management actions are perceived as
unfair, umployees will feel angry, outraged, resentful. Equity Theory proposes that employees are
motivated when their perceived inputs equal outputs.
People will compare their own perceived inputs and outputs to those they perceive that others receive.
When inequity is perceived, employees will attempt to reduce it by reducing inputs or increasing output.
(10)Expectancy Theory proposes that employees are motivated when they believe they can accomplish
the task. They will get the reward, the rewards for doing so are worth the effort.
Motivating with Expectancy Theory: Clearly define objectives and the required performance to achieve
them; Tie performance to rewards; Be sure rewards are of value to the employee; Make sure employees
believe you will do whay you say you will do; Use the Pygmalion effect to increase expectations.
(11)Reinforcement Theory proposes that through the consequences for behavior, people will be
motivated to behave in predetermined ways.
Types of Reinforcement:
Positive Reinforcement – Encourages continued behavior via attractive consequences (rewards). May be
praise or a bonus, etc.
Avoidance (negative) reinforcement – Encourages desired behavior with negative consequences for
undesired behavior. Rules are designed to get employees to avoid certain behavior.
Punishment – Provides undesirable consequences for undesirable nehavior. Includes reprimands, fines,
suspensions, demotion, firing, etc.; May reduce a specific undesirable behavior but cause others to
appear.
Four types of interval alternatives: fixed interval schedule, Variable interval schedule, fixed ratio
schedule, variable ratio schedule.
Achievement-oriented – The leader provides both high directive (structure) and high supportive
(consideration) behavior. It is appropriate when:
(7) Normative Leadership Model has a time-driven and development-driven decision tree, which enables
a user to select one of five leadership styles (decide, consult individually, consult in group, facilitate and
delegate) appropriate for the situation (seven/questions/variables).
Decide – the leader makes the decision alone and announces it, or sells it, to the followers
Consult individually – The leader tells followers individually about the problem, gets information and
suggestions, and then makes the decision
Consult group – The leader holds a group meeting and tells followers the problem, gets information
and suggestions, and then makes the decision
Facilitate – The leader holds a group meeting and acts as a facilitator to define the problem and the
limits within which a decision must be made; The leader seeks participation and concurrence on the
decision without pushing his or her own ideas
Delegate – The leader lets the group diagnose the problem and make the decision within stated
limits.
Determining the Appropriate Leadership Style:
1. Decision Significance 2. Importance of Commitment 3. Leader Expertise 4. Likelihood of Commitment
5. Group Support for Objectives 6. Group Expertise 7. Team Competence
(9)Feedback Is the process of verifying messages and determining if objectives are being met. Forms of
feedback – Questioning, Paraphrasing, Allowing commnets and suggestions. Feedback allows leaders to
know how they and the organization are progressing to meet objectives, is used to measure
performance.
To improve your performance and get ahead in an organization, you have to be open to feedback
(criticism)
People do not really enjoy being criticized, even when it is constructive
When you get criticism:
View it as an opportunity to improve
Stay calm
Don’t get defensive
Don’t blame others
How to Get Feedback on Messages: Be open to feedback, Be aware of nonverbal communication, Ask
questions, Use paraphrasing.
(10)Coaching is the process of giving motivational feedback to maintain and improve performance. It is
designed to maximize employee strengths and minimize weaknesses and is an important part of
leadership development.
Coaching Guidelines:
Give a praise and recognition; avoid blame and embarrassment; focus on the behavior, not the person;
don’t criticize; give specific and descreptive feedback; have employees assess their own performance;
give coaching feedback; provide modelin and training; make feedback timely, but flexible; develop a
supportive working relationship.
(10)Mentoring - Is a form of coaching in which a more experienced manager helps a less experienced
protégé. It’s more involved and personal than coaching. Mentors can include: A higher-level manager,
Family, Friends, Peers.
Primary responsibilities: Coach the protégé, Provide good, sound career advice, Help develop leadership
skills necessary for a successful management career.
(11) Conflict exists whenever people are in disagreement and opposition. An organization’s success is
based on how well it deals with conflicts.
(12) The Psychological Contract is the unwritten implicit expectations of each party in a relationship. Is
broken for two primary reasons:
We fail to make explicit our own expectations and fail to inquire into the expectations of the other
parties
We further assume that the other party(ies) has the same expectations that we hold
Avoiding Conflict Style a ttempts to passively ignore the conflict rather than resolve it; Is unassertive
and uncooperative; Creates a lose-lose situation.
Accommodating Conflict Style attempts to resolve the conflict by passively giving in to the other party;
Is unassertive but cooperative; Creates a win-lose situation;
Advantages: May maintain relationships that a conflict might damage by going along with the other
party
Disadvantages; May be counterproductive Accommodators are taken advantage of
Appropriately used when: The person enjoys being a follower Maintaining the relationship outweighs
all other considerations; The changes agreed to are not important to the accommodator, but are to the
other party; The time to resolve the conflict is limited
Forcing Conflict Style attempts to resolve the conflict by using aggressive behavior to get his or her own
way; Is uncooperative and aggressive; Creates a win-lose situation.
Negotiating Conflict Style attempts to resolve the conflict through assertive, give-and-take concessions;
Is moderately assertive and cooperative; Creates an “I win some, you win some” situation through
compromise.
Collaborating Conflict Style attempts to jointly resolve the conflict with the best solution agreeable to
all parties; Is assertive and cooperative; Creates a win-win situation.