Leadership in

Organizational
Settings

McGraw-Hill/Irwin
McShane/Von Glinow OB 5e Copyright © 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
The Leadership of Anne Sweeney
Anne Sweeney’s leadership has
been a decisive factor in the
remarkable turnaround of ABC
television network.
“There's great resolve and
strength there.”
“Anne draws upon her optimism
and her grace in keeping her
focus firmly on the future.”
“She'svery concerned about the
people who work for her.”

12-2
Leadership Defined

Leadership is the ability

to influence, motivate,
and enable others to
contribute toward the
effectiveness of the
organizations of which
they are members

12-3
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

12-4
Perspectives of Leadership

Competency
Perspective

Implicit
Leadership BehavioralPers
Leadership
Perspective pective
Perspectives

Transformational Contingency
Perspective Perspective

12-5
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

12-6
Eight Leadership Competencies

• Extroversion, conscientiousness
Personality
(and other traits)

• Positive self-evaluation
Self-concept • High self-esteem and self-efficacy
• Internal locus of control

• Inner motivation to pursue goals

Drive
• Inquisitiveness, action-oriented

• Truthfulness
Integrity
• Consistency in words and actions

more
12-7
Eight Leadership Competencies (con’t)

Leadership • High need for socialized power to

Motivation achieve organizational goals

Knowledge of • Understands external environment

the Business • Aids intuitive decision making

Cognitive/
• Above average cognitive ability
practical
• Able to solve real-world problems
Intelligence

Emotional • Perceiving, assimilating, understanding,

Intelligence and regulating emotions

12-8
Competency Perspective Limitations

1. Implies a universal approach

2. Alternative combinations of
competencies might work just as well

3. Assumes leadership is within the person

• But leadership is also about relations with
followers

4. Competencies refer to leadership

potential, not performance
12-9
Leader Behavior Perspective
 People-oriented behaviors
• Showing mutual trust and respect
• Concern for employee needs
• Looks out for employee well-being

 Task-oriented behaviors
• Assign specific tasks
• Ensure employees follow rules
• Set “stretch goals” to achieve performance capacity

12-10
Leader Behavior Perspective
Limitations
 People-task categories mask subcategories
of leader behavior that may be distinct

 Assumes best leaders display a high level of

both people and task styles
• But best style seems to depend on the situation

12-11
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

12-12
Path-Goal Leadership Styles
 Directive
• Provide psychological structure to jobs
• Task-oriented behaviors
 Supportive
• Provide psychological support
• People-oriented behaviors
 Participative
• Encourage/facilitate employee involvement
 Achievement-oriented
• Encourage peak performance through goal setting and
positive self-fulfilling prophecy

12-13
Path-Goal Leadership Model
Employee
Contingencies
Leader Leader
Behaviors Effectiveness

• Directive • Employee
• Supportive motivation
• Participative • Employee
satisfaction
• Achievement-
• Acceptance of
oriented
leader
Environmental
Contingencies

12-14
 Path-Goal Contingencies

Employee
Contingencies Directive Supportive Participative Achievement

 Skill/Experience low high high

 Locus of Control external internal internal

Environmental
Contingencies Directive Supportive Participative Achievement

Task Structure nonroutine routine nonroutine ?

Team Dynamics–ve norms low cohesion +ve norms ?

12-15
Other Contingency Leader Theories

 Situational Leadership Model

• Effective leaders vary style with follower
“readiness”
• Leader styles – telling, selling, participating, and
delegating
• Popular model, but lacks research support

 Fiedler’s Contingency Model

• Leadership style is stable -- based on personality
• Best style depends on situational control
• Theory has problems, but uniquely points out
inflexibility of leadership style

12-16
Leadership Substitutes

 Contingencies that limit a leader’s influence

or make a particular leadership style
unnecessary.
• e.g.: Training and experience replace task-oriented
leadership
 Research evidence: substitutes help, but
don’t completely substitute for real leadership

12-17
Transformational Leadership at P&G

A. G. Lafley (shown), CEO of

Procter & Gamble, practices
transformational leadership
without using charisma. By
forming and communicating a
clear vision and modeling that
vision, he has transformed the
consumer goods company.

12-18
Transformational vs. Transactional
Leaders
 Transformational leaders
• Leading -- changing the
organization to fit environment
• Change agents

 Transactional leaders
• Managing – achieving current
objectives more efficiently
- link job performance to rewards
- ensure employees have
necessary resources
• Relates to contingency
leadership theories (e.g. path-
goal)

12-19
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

12-20
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, symbols

12-21
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

12-22
Evaluating Transformational
Leadership
 Transformational leadership is important
• Higher employee satisfaction, performance, org
citizenship, creativity

 Transformational leadership limitations

• Some models have circular logic
- Transformational leaders defined by their success
rather than behavior (Result: those models have no
predictive value)
• Universal theory
- Need a contingency-oriented theory
- Recognize differences across cultures

12-23
Implicit Leadership Perspective
Follower perceptions of characteristics of
effective leaders
1. Leadership prototypes
• Preconceived image of effective leader, used to
evaluate leader effectiveness

2. Romance of leadership effect

• Amplify effect of leaders on organizational results
• Fundamental attribution error
• Need for situational control

12-24
Cultural Issues in Leadership

 Societal cultural values and practices affect

leaders:
• Shape leader’s values/norms
• Influence decisions and actions
• Shape follower prototype of effective leaders

 Some leadership styles are universal, others

differ across cultures
• “Charismatic visionary” seems to be universal
• Participative leadership works better in some
cultures than others

12-25
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
• Still receive negative evaluations as leader due to
prototypes and gender stereotypes
• But evidence that they are good at emerging
leadership styles (coaching, teamwork)

12-26
 Leadership in
Organizational
Settings

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.12-27
McShane/Von Glinow OB 5e