CHAPTER 9 ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP

Leaders can be born or made, naturally or artificially. They can be called to the fore by the situations of the time or make the situation itself. Responsibilities of a leader cover three functions 1. Getting things done 2. Keeping cost reasonable 3. Building group spirit

The ability to meet the above responsibilities requires; knowledge of technical details, knack with people, planning and judgement.

The leader at the supervising level needs a good training and knowledge of the first two and some of the third. At the higher executive levels, the last two are very important.

People who have authority are not necessarily leaders. All leaders have authority; but all authoritarians are not leaders. Leaders derive their authority from a group of followers. Still others become leaders by inheritance.

Laird and laird define personal leadership as the activity of influencing people to cooperate toward some goal, which they come to find desirable.

Halloman (1978) has this to say about leadership; the ability to cause to others to follow willingly, usually in initiating change where the leader influences the followers to reach a common goal.

LEADERSHIP is a unique superior position where one has the ability and power to influence people towards cooperating to get things done so as to reach a goal. Groups need a leader to keep them stable and function smoothly, to reduce uncertainty and confusion and to keep them focused on its goal. One person can influence another in his goal achievement activities using legitimate power, expert power, reference power, reward power and coercive power.

LEGITIMATE POWER comes from either the culture or the organization but only if the organization is accepted as legitimate. For example, Congress has the right to pass laws; the president of a civic organization like the Rotary and Lions has the right to launch fund-campaign projects.

EXPERT POWER is based on the authority of knowledge like physicians, lawyers, computer programmers and scientist. Within an organization people with expert power have a great deal of influence.

REFERENCE POWER can be described as the power of identification or charismatic power which is based on the attractiveness of a particular person like Mahatma Ghandi; Imelda Marcos

REWARD POWER is based on the leaders ability to reward a follower. In an industrial organization, reward power is closely linked to the managers legitimate power in promotions and pay increases.

COERCIVE POWER is the power to punish or to dismiss an employee or arrest someone for violating the law.

These five types of power are interrelated and may rest with the same person. The use and misuse of one kind of power affects the other types of power. A leader who uses inappropriately each type of power will soon lose his reserves of power. This has happened with Presidents of countries both in the United States and in Asia.

Leadership in business and industry differs from leaders on the athletic field, political leaders, club leaders and so forth, in that the former type performs certain management functions such as planning, organizing, controlling, staffing, bargaining, representing and mobilizing decision.

LEADERSHIP IN BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY may be defined ideally as a process by which one in a superior position treats his subordinates in a way that they are willing to work cooperatively towards the achievement of a goal.

THEORIES ON LEADERSHIP

TRAIT THEORY

Leadership was not examined in depth as a discipline or a science until the early 40s. At this time the trait theory on successful leadership emerged. It is believed that successful leaders posses certain common dominant traits which bring about their success in handling situations. Researchers found their studies towards inherited physical and mental traits. It is true that certain traits such as intelligence, positive self-image high achievement level, interpersonal skill, fair understanding, perceptive, having high integrity, etc. are characteristics of a successful leaders. But even such traits have not been fully accepted as representative of successful leaders and are not effective in all leadership situations. Leadership in various situation calls for various traits, skills and talents.

Traits most commonly associated with leadership are:

Integrity, knowledge of the job, courage, initiative, decisiveness, tact, dependability, persistence, endurance (requires mental and physical stamina), enthusiasm, unselfishness, resourcefulness, assertiveness, commitment dedication.

THEORY X AND THEORY Y

The theory X and theory Y by Douglas McGregor hold that there are two contradictory sets of assumptions held about human nature and that leader tend to react towards employees according to one or other theories. Bothe theories share two common assumptions.

1. Management is responsible for organizing the elements of production enterprisemoney, materials, equipment, people, -- in the interest of economic needs. 2. With respect to people, this is a process of directing their efforts, motivating them, controlling their actions and modifying their behaviour to fit the need of the organization.

THEORY X is a conventional way of handling people. Workers or subordinates have to be persuaded, rewarded, punished, controlled or directed. This responsibility falls in the hands of the leaders. He gives the order and the employee obeys. This theory X is more inclined to the autocratic type of leadership. This leader is production-centered.

THEORY Y the leader encourages participation of people. He taps on his subordinates potentials, create opportunities for growth and development and guide them to effect productivity. Here the leader is employeecentered.

SITUATIONAL THEORY

Came about when management was faced with problems on how one handles people in one situation or the other. In this theory it has been pointed out that a leader in one situation may vary his style in another situation. He shows different ways of handling the same problem in different situation, in other words he assesses all relevant factors to the situation and must be able to understand the situation for the benefit of all involved.

ROSS AND HENDRY CONCEPT OF LEADERSHIP

Leadership is not something that can be imported from the outside. Leadership is something that emerges, that grows and that is achieved. It is not enough to have certain qualities of personality and performance that are associated with leadership, nor is it enough to have experienced leadership acceptance in one or more group in the past. Leadership is functional of the situation, the culture, context, and customs of a group or organization, quite as much as it is a function of personal attributes and group requirements.

The impact of the leader on the employees is just as important as the impact of the employees on them. Here the leader must be able to make an assessment of the situation including the personal needs and anxieties of his subordinates.

VERTICAL DYAD LINKAGE THEORY (VDL)

George Garaen and associates (1975) take into account the uniqueness of leader---- subordinate relationship and the individual role relationships established within the group.

This theory suggests that the behavior a leader directs towards individual members of the group is dependent upon the role relationship that has been established between the leader and each particular subordinate. It incorporates the role-sending by the leader and the differentiation of subordinates into several groupings. Role-sending is carried out in a twoway process between the leader and each subordinate. This involves the negotiation of an informal contact defining the nature of that particular working relationship. Those who perform well early in the formation of the

group are most likely to become part of the leaders in-group and benefit from subsequent behaviours associated with a leadership relationship. (Cashman, J.F. and N.S. Bruning 1980).

This theory assumes that the larger in-group and the smaller the outgroup the more effective will be the leaders performance. Research shows that relegation of an out-group status leads to dissatisfaction of members and eventually a departure from the job. (Garaen 1975)

PATH-GOAL THEORY OF LEADERSHIP

Robert J. House (1971) has formulated a leadership theory which hypothesizes that the leadership function is a supplementary one that is, with respect to performance; the leader merely amplifies or detracts from existing subordinate potential.

THIS THEORY ADVANCES TWO BASIC ASSUMPTIONS

1. Leader behaviour is acceptable and satisfying to subordinates to the extent that subordinates see such behaviour as immediately satisfying, or as instrumental to such future satisfaction. 2. Leader behaviour is motivating if the behaviour makes satisfaction of subordinates contingent on effective performance and provides the coaching, guidance, support and rewards necessary for effective performance.

FUNCTIONAL ROLES THAT LEADERS PLAY

FUNCTIONAL ROLE Comes from the idea that a behavioural act stems from a certain role which it has to satisfy a particular need. The person who helps the group most in achieving a satisfactory state in meeting its objectives may be considered as the leader. Any member of a workgroup may be considered a leader when he or she performs a degree of function in leading the group to accomplish a task. But within each work group someone has to be designated with specific responsibility of getting things done.

Within an organization there are many work groups with different leadership role but each has to work cooperatively to achieve the objectives of the company. Different leaders perform different functions according to workgroup they handle.

TYPES OF FUNCTIONAL ROLE

A leaders functional role is derived from the work group. Their actions are determined by their role in the group. These actions may reflect different kinds of functional roles to keep the group unified and act effectively in execution of its work task.

FUNCTIONS OF THE LEADER

1. Direct, such as choosing the group goal, supervising performances, making decisions, or completing plans or it may be more 2. Complex, such as serving as the group ego.

GROUP EGO develops from the individual egos of the group members; group ego develops by: a. Integrating the groups needs and goals with reality outside the group; b. Satisfying interpersonal needs within the group; c. Creating an atmosphere free of conflict for group member.

IN ADDITION THE LEADER MUST: 1. Know himself and his men. Self-awareness and self-development will increase his understanding of others. 2. Keep his employees informed. Make sure that individual recognizes and understands the goals of his company 3. Set the example 4. Make sound and timely decision. The leader is executive, expert, instructor, personnel technician, stress manager, and custodian of his mens welfare and developments 5. Develop a sense of responsibility among subordinates through proper supervision and delegation of authority and responsibility. Give credits to those deserving 6. Take responsibility of his actions and the action of subordinates

To achieve this, it is important to train workers as a team where success and failure of each member of the team. In situations where the conflicts arise and decisions and actions seem to fail it is better for the leader to take the blame than to pass the buck.

FUNCTIONAL BEHAVIOR Functional behaviour of the leader is one that acts as one who must get things done in their proper prospective. He has to identify the goals, weather he does it alone or with the help of his group members. He has to make decision or resolve differences. So one functional behaviour of a leader is that he must be a catalyst or a change agent.

Another functional behaviour of a leader therefore is that he must now be more sensitive to the complexities of the times and thus be more flexible. Being flexible would mean he is adaptable to changes, that he must face the fact that economic reward is not enough to motivate workers to work but that their human potential must be utilized and developed. They must be flexible to venture into the unknown odds of tomorrow for they must set the future in motion by gambling reasonably but fearlessly.

BEHAVIORAL STYLES OF LEADERSHIP

A leadership style is generally reflected in the behaviour patterns of the leader. Proper choice of leadership style will result good followers and high productivity. A wrong choice will result in lack of cooperation of followers, low morale and low productivity.

Behaviour styles of leaders are closely related with their personalities. For example, a leader who does not trust other peoples judgement or may simply want to save time in decision making portrays an authoritarian leadership style. He may have much confidence in himself/herself and towards his/her followers, or would honestly admit that there is unlimited resource of potentials from the rank-and-file so the participative style of leadership emerges. Another example is a leader who leaves everything to his followers to do what is best with minimal guidance. This style of leadership is often to as free-rein or laissez-faire. Styles in which leaders performed as described above are based on the type of control leaders exercise in a group so let us discuss each briefly in order to learn how different kinds of behavior are chosen to satisfy a wide spectrum of needs and desires.

AUTOCRATIC LEADERSHIP

The autocratic leader or X leaders major task is to command or give orders and assume that people will follow. In this way he gets things done fast. This does not mean that he creates an atmosphere of hostility or negativism but rather sureness of will.

Here instructions are given detail with care and precision. Autocratic communication is essentially one-way with nil feedback which may result to misunderstanding and subsequent error. The leader does not know directly what the employees feel and think. He makes decision without consulting others.

PARTICIPATIVE LEADERSHIP

Participative leaders or Y leaders invite the active participation of subordinates to share in decision-making process as much as possible. Their primary concern is to develop group interrelationship as well as getting the job done. Participative communication is a two way process. This requires patience and a great deal of energy on the part of the leader to stir the group into participating in planning and deciding so work may be accomplished effectively.

There are two types of participative leadership:

Democratic Leader one who emphasizes on his subordinates their authority to make decisions and abide by such decisions with no exceptions. It is believed that when people make the decisions that affect their work, they support such decisions enthusiastically and see to it that they work hard to abide by such decisions they make. Their feeling is that their potentials in creative and productive way are being maximized by the leader so they feel more responsible personally on the accomplishment of their work task and find pleasure in doing so.

Consultative Leaders this requires a high degree of involvement from employees but it is clear that they alone have the authority to make the final decisions. They encourage employees to give information, ideas, suggestions, talent and experiences for the leaders to work on before they make the final decisions.

Advantages of Participative Leadership

1. Group interrelationship is high. 2. Members abide by whatever the group decides.

3. It supports decisions more enthusiastically and tries hard to make them work. 4. There is high productivity. 5. It maximizes individuals potential in creative and productive way and experience personal satisfaction and accomplishment of their work tasks. 6. Workers take on more responsibility than their job description calls for.

Disadvantages:

1. Time consuming and requires great deal of energy. 2. Maybe used by people with authority as a guide for shirking from their own responsibilities.

Free-rein Leaders

Free-rein leaders are also referred to as laissez-faire leaders. Free-rein leaders give their subordinates the goals and guidelines of their jobs with little direction and leave the rest of them. The free-rein leader, though possessed with decisions-making authority, may not use such authority but leave everything to his group to carry on what they think is best. (Table 3 shows the differences in leadership styles)

TABLE 3. Comparison on Three Types of Leadership

Autocratic Style or X Theory

Democratic Style or Y Theory

Free-rein or Laissezfaire
neither of the two let alone develops self and let others develop themselves fast decision no supervision does not care to know authority given to group guidelines set by leader alone to group to follow or not

work oriented employee-oriented particular in details generalizing interested interested in self-growth in employee growth

fast decision close supervision knows the product authority on self guidelines set by leader closely followed task specialist

slowdown decision general supervision knows the people authority shared with group guidelines set by leader and group maintenance specialist

no particular specially

Other Leadership Styles

Laird and Laird believe that types of leadership have a relationship with the family upbringing, therefore, has a psychological basis. They mentioned four methods of leadership as: 1. Coercive leadership. This is considered the lowest grade of leadership. It tells subordinate to do this or else . . . Subordinates are forced to obey what the leader tells them for fear of losing their jobs or be ridiculed in front of fellow workers. Fear and intimidation are used to enforce blind obedience. Leaders of this kind are generally hated. 2. Leadership by assignment. The leader gives definite assignments and responsibilities to his subordinates and expects them to do what has been assigned. This is much better than the coercive type. The leader gets more cooperation and the only disadvantage here is that he does not build team work. 3. Leadership by teaching and explaining . Here the leader takes pain in teaching and explaining to the group what is to be done and what he expects from them. Members of the work force may approach him freely for any further explanation. This helps the workers develop their skills and become loyal to the leader. 4. Leadership by inspiring and molding ideas . This is considered the highest form of building good relationship. The leader is creative and innovative. He seeks to bring out the potential of his subordinates and stimulates them for personal growth. This leader maintains group unity and high productivity.

LEADERSHIP SKILLS TO DEVELOP

The following suggestions were made by Dr. John K. Hemphill in his modern study of leadership. These six groups of skills are all focused in mobilizing the mental and social forces in the group to motivate workers to achieve group goals they understand and accept. SIX CARDINAL SKILLS TO DEVELOP A. B. C. D. E. F. Set groups goals with the members. Help them reach the group goals. Coordinate the members. Help members FIT INTO THE GROUP. INTEREST IN THE GROUP, not self. HUMAN-NESS.

No one best personality for leadership has yet been found. A wide variety of personalities can become leaders because there is a wide variety of people to be led. The people with whom the leader works vary more than do tools or materials. Different types of work may call for different types of leadership methods.

LEADERSHIP IN MANAGEMENT
Leadership in management influencing and causing people to take effective action. The ability to lead people by directing their energies toward the achievement of specific goals is perhaps the most satisfying of the four functions of management. Success is enhanced by the managers ability to help others find challenge and satisfaction in the work they do to achieve the organizations objectives. People usually work best when they do the work because they want to , not because they have to. The manager, as an effective leader Builds productive relationships with others; Influences activities towards achievement of goal; Maintains and builds mutual respect; Develops the knowledge and skills levels of the team.

Managers are responsible for influencing and guiding people toward the achievement of results. Leadership is considered to be that process of influence. This influence is a result of interactions between the leader, the needs and aspirations of team members, and the nature of the work. In the final analysis, managers lead only by their ability to develop, motivate and communicate with people and help them to reach decisions which they can implement. Choice of Leadership Styles Which kind of leadership style should you use? Buren Uris, advises the would be leader as follows: The skill with which you apply the three basic tools of leadership Autocratic, Democratic and Free-rein techniques determine your personal success as a leader. What then are the conditions to be considered in the choice o a particular leadership style? There are many, some of them are the following: Personality Not all people can function well under the same kind of leadership. There are for example many people whose personalities make them unfit for a group of individual centered style. Studies indicate that childhood marked by unfortunate sexual experience and domination by an overbearing prudish father had left him sharply though unconsciously ambivalent toward authority. Consequently, he worked well under the supervision of an authoritative leader but invariably becomes careless when he was given substantial freedom on the job. A study of Medalla on authoritarianism in military groups supported the hypothesis that people with strong authoritarian tendencies will be more likely to accept formal military leader with the conventional traits of the good officer than with people with weak authoritarian tendencies. This suggests a relation between personality and leadership style.

Individuals reared under an authoritarian culture work best under an authoritarian leader; those reared under a democratic culture, generally would be effective under a democratic leader. Emergency/Critical Conditions Authoritarian leadership would be more effective in critical situations since fast decisions have to be made. When there is peace and stability, the democratic or group-centered style proved to be more effective. The nature of the task to be performed is another condition. The group centered leadership style is more appropriate when there is more than one solution to solve the problem which requires a considerable amount of interpersonal cooperation. A situation in which most of operators are strongly authoritarian and the task is a simple one requiring little cooperation the authoritarian style would be more effective. The Role of Intelligence An experiment done on Effects of Leadership Style and Members Intelligence Upon Group Performance in Twenty Question Game reveal that Brights did their best under a group-centered style and the Dulls under a leader-centered style. The relation was especially marked for Dulls whose problem-solving efficiency was only half as high under group-centered leadership as under authoritarian leadership. Task Roles What are the roles of the leaders and followers: They fall into three broad categories: roles peculiar to the superior, roles peculiar to the subordinate and mixed roles, whose functions are performed by either or both. Each category implies a different style of leadership. Group Characteristics Groups develop their own norm and group goals which may be accompanied by fairly powerful mechanisms for improving the groups will upon its members and upon the outside world. These play a large part in determining the success of the various leadership styles.

Are Leaders Born or Made?

Leaders are both born and made. James Cibbing, researcher and lecturer on leadership examined more than 3,000 studies and offered the following conclusions: 1. Leadership seems to emerge when the situation demands it and the qualities of leader converge. 2. Leaders have vision: leaders lead. They are continually pushing to the front, determined to get things done. They are intensely result-oriented and they have the ability to focus clearly on their goals and then concentrate with single-mindedness or intensify of purpose. The kind of visions that enables someone to uplift and inspire others is always aimed at being or doing something that makes a difference. Vision is focused outward and upward. When average people become obsessed about the possibility of creating something exciting and important, they start to lead. Some say that leadership is the ability to get followers. Leaders are invariably those who can tap into the deeper emotions of others and get them

to rise above and beyond anything they may have accomplished in the past. 3. Leaders engage in transformational leadership , the deployment and management of people and resources to get results. Leadership at the highest end of the spectrum is transformational leadership that arouses emotion, that can elicit extraordinary performance from ordinary men and women. Empowerment is the key function of leadership as the work force becomes dominated by younger members who are seeking meaning and purpose in their careers. They are not impressed by authority and hierarchy. Transformational leadership is what provides the emotional glue that causes organizations and people in them to excel. It delegates high levels of responsibilities picking the right people matching them to the right jobs. When this happens the conditions for exceptional performance have been created. Another behavior of transformational leaders their confident attitude of positive expectations. They radiate a belief in themselves and in the ability of their subordinates to succeed. They empower others by keeping them freely informed on everything that affects their jobs. People want and need to feel that they are insiders, that they are privy to whats really going on. Another characteristics of empowering behavior is regular feedback on performance and results. People need to know how theyre doing so they can improve if performance is below standard and so they can be proud of their success.

The Difference Between Leaders and Managers

The managers and the leaders are two different people especially in their motivations and personal history. Abraham Zalenznich, a management theorist from the Harvard Business School believes that a manager and a leader are different in the ways they think and act. He suggest that managers tend to adopt a impersonal, almost passive attitude toward company goals. Leaders on the other hand, actively embrace them, often inject a touch of personal passion. Managers view their work as an enabling process, one that would sustain people, resources and ideas into a forward moving whole. Leaders are mostly concerned with ideas and seem predisposed to work from high positions, especially when they sense extraordinary reward and opportunity. Managers prefer to work with people from an organizationally confused role positions, as links in the decision-making chain. Leaders relate to people and events in a more instinctive and emphatic way, putting their personal stamp on actions. Leaders may be part of a company, but theyll be owned but the company. Practicing managers recognize that good leadership is essential to the success of their business, as well as to the success of other institutions that shape our lives.

TABLE 4. LEADERS & MANAGERS

PERSONALITY DIMENSION MANAGER LEADER

Attitude towards

Has an impersonal,

Has a personal and

goals

Conceptions of work

Relation with Others

Sense of Self

passive, functional active attitude; attitude, believes believes goals arise goals arise out of from desire an necessity and reality imagination Views work as an enabling process Looks for fresh that combines approaches to old people, ideas, and problems; seeks things; seeks high-risks positions, moderate risk especially with high through coordination payoffs and balance Avoids solitary work Is comfortable in activity, preferring solitary work activity to work with other; encourages close, avoid close, intense intense working relationships, avoid relationships; is not conflict conflict averse Is twice born; Is once born; makes engages in a a straight forward struggle for a sense life adjustment; of order in life, accepts life as it is questions life