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Contents
1.
Abstract
2.
Introduction
2.1 Basic assumptions
2.2 Basic requirements to lead
3.
Established leadership theories (1947-1999)
3.1 Trait Theories
3.2 Behaviour based theories
3.3 Situation based approaches
3.4 Contingency principles
3.5 Path - Goal leadership model
3.6 Vroom&Yetton model
3.7 Summary
4.
New trends of leadership
4.1 Attribution leadership model
4.2 Charismatic leadership
4.3 Transformation- vs. Transaction leadership
4.3.1 Example for an executive profile of the
90th
4.3.2 Characterisation of successful leadership in the
21st century
4.4 VDL-Model
4.5 Fiedler's Theory about cognitive resources
4.6 Situational determinants
4.7 Summary
5.
Special Case: International leader potential
6.
Current discussed topics in leadership
6.1 Women as leader
6.2 Empowerment
6.3 Following through companion
6.4 Cultural priorities
6.5 Personal properties and their status in leadership
6.6 Incompetent leaders
7.
Bibliographical reference
1. Abstract
Since of the global market and commercial
interests, the right leadership strategy is understood as being the significant
key for successful and efficient business. This essay will give a fundamental
overview and further interesting ideas about how an efficient leader should
work. New trends are based on current issues from other areas of psychology,
like attribution theories and social influence principles. Potential leaders
for international business share certain properties and can be identified
early. I focused specially on the turnover from established leadership
theories to new trends in leadership theories and the current discussions.
Attribution based leadership, charismatic leadership and transformation
leadership are some of the new trends.
2. Introduction
The following questions come up every
time you here the word "efficient leadership".
What is the best leadership strategy?
What are the new trends coming up the next century?
Which current topics are discussed?
Through which method is it possible to predetermine potential
international leaders?
Which theory offers which training?
I try to give a good and round summary
of established and new leadership theories. To answer the questions highly
sufficient I used the book from Professor Abraham Tesser, Advanced Social
Psychology, which gives a very good and advanced picture of social interactions.
This book shows obvious parallels between social psychology and leadership
theories. Leadership theories are extracted out of social psychology issues.
For the most of the leadership psychology I used the book from Professor
Ansfried Weinert, Organisationspsychology. The psychology processes of
analysing efficient leaders are explained in these books.
2.1 Basic assumptions
First of all I should mention that it
is very difficult to find the right leadership technique. All established
theories have a lack of explanation between cause and effect. But even
though it turns out that to choose the best and favourable
leadership style, it is necessary to contribute the following factors:
| Variables
Kind of work
Level in the hierarchical organisation
Climate at the workplace
Size of the group
Homogeneity of the group
Subordinates values about work
and life
Influence to the superiors
Reward and pay system
Personality of the leader |
Leadership Style
Leadership Behaviour |
Effect
on the work group
Performance
Satisfaction
Motivation
Attitudes
Stay away from work
Discharge
Responsibility
|
|
The variables interact with each other
and thus it is not possible to separate one factor. In other words the
right chosen style of efficient leadership does not depend on one of these
factors, like personality of the leader or the kind of work.
2.2 Basic requirements to lead
Leader have the task to coordinate and to lead group activities.
To do so the leader needs might, recodnizable by himself/herself and by
every fellow worker. Might has typically 7 different sources - typology
of might:
1. Legitimacy might (Position in the hierarchy)
2. Might to give rewards or pay
3. Might based on pressure and force
4. Expert might
5. Reference- and charismatic might (Identification with
the leader)
6. Power to convince
7. Control about information
3. Established leadership theories
There are 6 established leadership theories,
which come up almost chronological. Almost, because they interact with
each other and sometimes newer theories are based on the chronological
older ones. This chapter should give a short review about the beginning
and the history of leadership psychology.
3.1 Trait theories
are based on the assumption that an efficient
leadership is only caused by the innate characteristics of a human.
3.2 Behaviour based theories
are theories which focus the observable
behaviour and style of leadership.
The most important works:
a) Ohio leadership studies
b) Michigan Leadership theory
c) Grid system
d) Four factor leadership model
The first three works have relatively
similar leadership dimensions (or leadership styles), named "concern for
people" and "concern for production". The last model divides between four
factors -
1. Support
2. Improve interaction facilitation for the subordinates
to establish the support
3. Goal emphasis
4. Improve work facilitation to reach the goal
The Grid system is specially interesting for industrial applications,
because it was the first model, which offers a training program to improve
leadership skills.
3.3 Situation based theories
In this theory Hersey&Blanchard make
a difference, like above, between task-concerned-style and human-concerned-style.
But additionally they use the maturity of the workers to divide between
four steps. The steps have a spectrum from naiv-need leadership to skilled-need
encouragement. Depending in which step the group is, you choose between
4 different leader styles to improve the group efficiency.
3.4 Contingency principles
are dependent on 3 different situational
variables.
Fiedler differs between low LPC-leaders
and high LPC-leaders. LPC(least preferred worker) is a value, which describes
a leader with a task orientated behaviour if the value is high or a relation
orientated behaviour if the value is low. He defines a situation with 3
dimensions:
1. Relationship between leader and subordinates
2. Structure of task
3. Position of leader
With these dimensions he can classify
the ideal situation. A low LPC-leader acts better if the situation is very
good or very bad, whereby a high LPC-leader manages normal situation much
better. The criteria's of the result were the efficiency of the group.
3.5 Path-Goal approach
is based on motivation or instrumentality
and expectations. This model is not completely validated, because it is
relatively new. The style of the leadership is determined by two situational
variables. 1. personal characteristics of the group members and 2. the
degree of structure of the task. There are 4 suitable kinds of leadership
for each combination of the situational variables:
a) leadership based on support
b) direct leadership
c) participation leadership
d) performance leadership
The criteria's of the result were the satisfaction of the
group.
3.6 Vroom-Yetton-Modell
The "Participation decision model" allows
subordinates to participate in decisions. This model does only concentrate
on decision making processes and cannot be used to find a global leadership
style. The criteria's of the result were the time, to find a decision.
3.7 Summary
The established theories so far, followed
the same evolution than the general psychology theories. In the very naive
beginning the psychologists tried to describe leadership phenomena by using
disposition, that means to describe personality or attitudes. Later on
situational factors were seen as very important component, too.
4. New Trends of leadership
A lot of new leadership approaches were
developed in the last years, which render a completely new thinking about
the leadership.
4.1 Attribution model (AM) of leadership
To understand Attribution leaderships
models, it is necessary to understand the general attribution theory.
Leaders should distinct between three basic components:
* Person
* Kind of task
* Context
To build attribution a leader needs three information:
1. Distinct criteria (Is this behaviour only
shown in this task?)
2. Consent criteria (Do other fellow workers react in
the same way than he does?)
3. Consistence criteria (How often does the same colleague
show the same behaviour?)
The different combinations of these information
gives the leader an impression or attribution about the reasons of behaviour.
It is very important to know if a bad
work performance is caused by the person itself (motivation or skills)
or by the environment (workflow or structure). Attribution theories offer
a better foundation to find the reasons of behaviour and to have a certain
forecast about the behaviour of a colleague.
In the book from Tesser is a very good introduction about
the logical background of attribution processes.
The AM use the universal logical background
which is represented in the Lewian equation
The task of the leader is to find out,
what the source of a bad (or good) work performance is. And he does this
by attributing situation or disposition. The situation explains external
reasons for a certain performance, for example work environment or
4.2 Charismatic leadership
What is charisma? What is charismatic
leadership? Which properties do charismatic leaders have?
Charisma could be understood as interpersonal attractiveness
and admiration.
This topic was also discussed in our course. The question
was: Which are the most powerful principles that motivate us to comply
with another's request? That is exactly the main characteristic, what a
high charismatic leader has. One principle was physical attractiveness,
which means that good-looking people have an advantage in social interaction,
research findings indicate that we may have sorely underestimated the size
and reach of this advantage. In the discussion was forgotten, that physical
attractiveness is only one part to influence people. Other very important
principles are reciprocity, social validation, consistency, friendship/liking,
scarcity and authority.
Conger&Kanungo(1988) described
charismatic leaders with the following properties: High self-consciousness,
dominance, decisiveness, strong conviction of their own ideas and an intensive
desire of getting might. Additionally more sufficient property description
of charismatic leaders include also a vision, articulation of this vision,
an extraordinary behaviour, the perception by the subordinates that the
leader changes, sensibility towards current opportunities that the environment
offers.
4.3 Transaction- vs. Transformation leadership
The difference between a transaction - leader and transformation
- leader does also show the difference between all other leadership theories.
The transaction - leader motivates his subordinates to
follow fixed, accepted and established goals. This characterisation fits
almost always to the here discussed established theories. In contrast to
a transformation - leader, who shows individual support and thoughtfulness
as well as he stimulates intellect.
Sketch 4.3.1 Leadership in change of time
| Characteristics
of managers in these days |
Characteristics
of leaders in the future |
| Administration |
Innovator |
| Copy |
Original |
| continue |
develop |
| Focus
on system and structures |
Focus on
people |
| build on
control |
inspirit
confidence |
| Short-term
perspective |
Long-term
perspective |
| ask how and
why? |
ask what
and why? |
| focus on
financial balance |
look to the
horizon |
| imitate |
start new
things |
| accept the
status quo |
challenge
the status quo |
| the classic
"good soldier" |
is an own
personality |
| do things
right |
do the right
things |
| |
practice
Stewardship |
BASS(1990) tried to define the differences between transaction
- leaders and transformation - leaders.
Dimension of a transaction - leader
- Dependence of the reward : Promises rewards
for a good performance; Acknowledgement of performance
- Management through exceptions (aktiv) : Observes and
looks for abnormality and tries to correct it
- Management through exceptions (passiv) : Intervinates
only if the standards are not reached
- Laissez-Faire : Denies responsibilities; Avoids decision
making
Dimension of a transformation - leader
- Charisma: support with a vision an the feeling
to be on a mission; gives pride, respect and conscioussness.
- Inspiration: Communcicates high expectations; focuse
on efforts; Ablility to communicate his goals clearly
- Intellectual stimulation: Conveys intellectual, rational
and careful problem solving.
- Individual support: Gives individual attention; Treats
everybody as individual; Coach
4.3.1 Example for an executive profile of the 90th
Requirements - Social Competence
- Holistic association with others
- Extraversion
- Emotional Independence form others
- Listen, convince, enforce
- Inter cultural understanding
- To give purpose
Requirements - Knowledge
- Wealth of interests and knowledge
- Ability to adapt
- Systematic thinking and acting
- Plan, organise, control
- Language skills
Requirements - Motivation
- Energy
- Ambition to perform
- Strong self-consciousness
- Desire to ascent and to change (Might)
- Goal - orientated and persevering
- Ability to cope stress
- To sustain contradictions
It is easy to extract the two main skills of a leader in
the 90th, first to think logical and second to be reasonable and continuos
preparedness to learn.
4.3.2 Characterisation of successful leadership in the 21st century
In the time of the industry society, the
main task of leaders was to instruct the subordinates. New beginnings are
based on re-engineering, the introduction of autonomous work groups and
general team orientation. The creativity and the energy of the fellow workers
should be used through the new outsets to reach efficient performance.
This step also makes the company flexible and able to adapt quickly to
new environment.
This idea is not easy to convert,
since it expects an entirely new division from the fellow worker. It needs
a completely new leadership structure that offers a lot of support and
consultation. Now the new tasks consists in clearing the goals descriptions,
taking away dangerous sources, giving the direction and coaching, reducing
frustrating barriers, motivating fellow workers, making them enthusiastic
and reasoning the personal advantages.
To clarify goals and the direction
is even more important in the future, since tasks are getting more complex,
ambiguous and are mutually dependent. In these times leaders often have
a lack of the will to share might and control with the subordinates (empowerment).
The companies are looking for a "Transformation
leader", who has inspiration and charisma, optimism and enthusiasm. He
must be able to convince the others that a change has more advantages against
the catches.
In view of the leadership of the 21st
Desirable characteristics of leaders in the 21st
century can be summarised into five clusters:
I. Requirements to the administration
Decisiveness
Planing
Organising
Controlling
Delegate
II. Requirements to the interpersonal/social competence
Communication skills
Ability to compete
Corporation/Team capability
Able to negotiate/sensibility/listen
Social objectivity
To give purpose
Inter cultural understanding
III. Requirements to the cognitive competence
Ability to learn (out of mistakes)
Creativity
Wealth of knowledge and interests
Systematic thinking and acting
Language skills
IV. Requirements to the motivational competence
Need to develop oneself
Initiate
Energy
Ambition to perform
Motivation to perform/Desire to change
Carefulness/Work standard
Goal orientation/Drive
V. Requirements to the stability/coping competence
To sustain contradiction
Tolerance about Suspense/Uncertainty
Ability to adapt
Everlasting
Emotional independence
Strong self-conscience
Leaders in these days have to give up
their strength that helps them to manage the past requirements. Real leaders
of the 21st built visions, show the sense and meaning to the
others, who have to live and work in this visions.
4.4 VDL-Model
This model from GRAEN says that the relationship between
the leader and every single fellow work should be absuluteley individual.
That means there should be a 1:1 relationship - a vertical dyade.
That's why this approach is also called leadership model
of vertical dyade connections (VDL).
4.5 Fiedler's theory about cognitive resources
All theories so far always explain some sort of characteristic
or philosophy that a leader should have. But in assessment-center-methods
the selection processes focus more on intelligence, competence and experience.
Cognitive resources are important here, like intellectual skills, technical
competence, knowledge and experience. The theory is about under which circumstances
do intelligence, technical competence and task-relevant skills lead to
a efficiency.
The model shows that effective planning and developping
good strategies increase the group performance. The aim of this model is
(1) to explain the prozess, how a leader gains good performance and (2)
to correct dereliction from the contingency model.
4.6 Situational determinants
4.7 Summary
5. Special Case: International leader potential
The rising market of global business makes
it necessary to identify potential leaders. The international word for
these people is "expatriates". A significant role plays the development
of international valid criteria and premises. Or in other words, a measurement,
which identifies likely leaders in an inter cultural environment. The following
list of factors explain success or abortion of an "expatriate":
- Sense for unknown/spirit of adventure (open
to new cultures and experiences; opportune)
- Brave / Self-consciousness (own opinions; belief in
himself)
- Action orientated (push success and results; take the
initiative)
- Analytic flexibility (to take apart complexity; want
to know how something works)
- Special skill in association with people (make people
following someone; creation of a team)
- Bright respect (against other; positive influence to
others)
- Knowledge of his/her own business (strong expert knowledge;
knows how things fits together)
- Shows enthusiasm (shows commitment; willing to sacrifice)
- Wealth of ideas (originally ideas; flexibility)
- Learning from mistakes (constructive dealing with mistakes;
take responsibility)
- Open to learn (from others) (react to feedback; ask
others; thinking about what the others do different)
We know by far too less about how these
factors influence a successful foreign dispatch. But we can certainly say
that a successful leadership at home has rarely something to do with international
encouragement. Finally we have to ask ourselves, what do someone individually
need to be personally successful in new situations? The Japanese former
chief of McKinsey answered as follows: " We don't need economic students
with best academic results, but instead globetrotters with different experience,
who get to know a lot of cultures, who handle conflicts with unfamiliarity,
who are folksy and sociable and emotional intelligent as well as willing
to tackle something on their own".
6. Current discussed topics in leadership
6.1 Woman as leader
6.2 Empowerment
6.3 Following through companion
6.4 Cultural priorities
6.5 Personal properties and their status in leadership
6.6 Incompetent leader
7. Bibliographical reference
| [1] |
Abraham Tesser, Advanced Social
Psychology, United States of America : McGraw-Hill, 1995
|
| [2] |
Ansfried Weinert, Organisationspsychologie,
Weinheim : Psychologie Verlags Union, 1998
|
| [3] |
Bourne,Lyle E., & Ekstrand,
Bruce R. Einführung in die Psychologie. Eschborn bei Frankfurt am
Main :
Klotz, 1992
|
| [4] |
Hillig, Axel Schüler Duden,
Die Psychologie. Mannheim; Leipzig; Wien; Zürich : Dudenverlag, 1996 |
Spezialfall Auslandsentsendung S.338
Persönlichkeit und Führung S.85
Führung und Führungsstil S.373
Entgleiste Führung S.337
Anforderungen an Führungskräfte in den 90-er
Jahren S.273
