Leadership

Concept of Leadership:

Leadership is defined as influence that is, the art or the process of influencing people to that they will strive willingly towards the gaining of group goals. In general it is basically an art of inspiring and influencing the subordinates so that they work hard and corporate enthusiastically in the achievement of group goals.

STEPHEN P. ROBBINS “ Leadership is the ability to influence a group towards achievement of goals.”

Functions of a leader:

Representative of followers
Develops team work and motivates them
manages the resources properly
It is a human factor- an art, an ability and many more as a part of management.

Leadership styles:

Autocratic style
Democratic style or Group-centered
Free Rein Style or Laissez-faire

Autocratic style (leader centered)

Democratic style(equal focus)

Free Rein Style or Laissez-faire(follower centered)

Nature:

Sole decision maker
One way communication
Strict supervision and control
Negative motivation
Total obedience demanded
Order goes from leader to follower

Nature:

Liberal or participative
Power and decision making decentralized
Two way communication
Sharing of information
Value each other
Order goes from leader to follower and follower to leader too.

Nature:

Leader does not hold power and responsibility
Group members themselves prepare implement plans and control
Leader is a coordinator or facilitator.
Useful where staffs are highly dedicated and professional.
Order goes from follower to leader.

Advantages:

Strong motivation
Quick
Frequent implementation
Strict discipline
Chain of command

Advantages:

Better decision
Better employee satisfaction
Increase productivity
Promotion of mutual cooperation

Advantages:

Freedom and autonomy to employees
Effective research
Creativity develop
High employee morale

Disadvantages:

Negative motivation style
Reduce efficiency
Lack of creativity
Instability
Ignore situational needs

Disadvantages:

Delay in decision making
Inefficient and incompetent employees
Absence of discipline
Leaders avoid responsibility

Disadvantages:

Productivity suffers
Avoid responsibility
Poor coordination
Less focus given to goal achievement by subordinates

Leadership theories:

trait theory,
behavioral theory,
Fielder’s contingency theory,
Managerial Grid,
Path-Goal theory

A. Trait theory:

It is the oldest approach which dominated the field of leadership till 1940s. It argues that leadership is largely a matter of personality, a function of specific traits. Differentiates leaders from non-leaders. This approach assumes that ‘leaders are born, not made’. To be a leader a person must possess certain qualities. But in fact there is no scientific prove on this theory.

Traits can be:

Personality oriented
Social oriented
Physical oriented
Intellectual oriented

Basic assumptions:

by birth leaders receive leadership traits
differ greatly from their followers
traits remain unchanged across time

Behavioral theory (late 1940s to 1960s) :

It is based on the premise that effective leadership is the result of effective role behavior. Success of leadership depends more on what the leader does than on his/her unique traits. The leadership effectiveness is determined in terms of how leaders delegate their tasks, how they communicate with and motivate their followers.

Categories of Behavioral theory:

The Michigan Studies
The Ohio State Studies
Managerial Grid

The Michigan Studies:

The Ohio State Studies

Managerial Grid

Basic assumptions:

The Michigan leadership studies were program of research conducted by the university of Michigan.
The goal of this work was to determine the pattern of leadership behaviors that results in effective group performance.

Leadership || Motivation and Leadership || OB

Basic assumptions:

Higher structure behavior resulted in higher performance of employees, but lower level of their job satisfaction.
Higher consideration behavior resulted in lower performance of employees, but had fewer absences from work.

Thus, high-structure and high-consideration style tended to achieve subordinate performance and more satisfaction than other combination leaders.

Leadership

Basic assumptions:

The managerial grid has two dimensions:

Concern for people: deals with human aspects of leader behavior.
Concern for production: deals with task aspects of leader behavior.

The grid is 9*9 matrix different styles of leadership. Five important styles of leadership advocated by Grid approach are explained by help of figure :

Leadership

Employee centered leader

Objective: build effective work groups with high performance goals.

Behaviors:

Treat subordinates as human beings
shows concern for their well being and
involves them in goal setting.

Initiating structure:

It refers to the extent to which a leader is likely to define and structure his or her role and those of subordinates in the search for goal attainment.
Includes behavior that attempts to organize work, work relationships; and goals. More or less centered style.

Impoverished(1,1) style: This style has little concern for both people and production. It is also called laissez-faire management
Country club(1,9) style: this style reflects a minimum concern for production but a high degree of concern for people
Middle road(5,5) style: This style reflects a moderate concern for both. Most of the managers prefer to follow it.
Tasks(9,1) style: This style has the highest concern for production but has the lowest concern for people problems. It is most useful in crisis management period.
Team(9,9) style: It is the best style according to this model. It shows a maximum concern for both production and people.

Production centered leader:

Objective: Effective competition of task.

Behaviors:

Emphasizes technical aspects of job.
Emphasis on work standards
Close supervision
Employees are seen as a tool in the production process

Consideration:

refers to the extent to which a leader has job relationship characterized by mutual trust and subordinates’ ideas and feelings.
high consideration leaders help subordinates’ with personal problems, are friendly and appreciable
similar to employee centered style

Contributions:

This theory can be taught and applied in day to day situations
It helps to improve people’s attitudes
Many organism have adopted training programs to develop 9,9 managers which proved

Fielder’s contingency theory(SITUATIONAL APPROACH):

It states “nature of situation affects leadership.”
Leader behavior should fit with situation demand .
Leadership should be situational.
No universally applicable leader behavior.

There is no one best style of leadership universally applicable to all situations.

If asked to describe the person on a series of bipolar objective scale as given below:

Friendly 8 7 6 5 4 3 3 1 unfriendly

Enthusiastic 8 7 6 5 4 3 3 1 unenthusiastic

Cooperative 8 7 6 5 4 3 3 1 uncooperative

Two main styles of leadership by Fred’s:

Human relations style
Task directed style

Path-Goal theory:

It was developed by R.J. House and Martin Evans. This theory is based on the expectancy the0ry of motivation.

It describes what leaders must do to motivate people to perform well and to get satisfied from their work. The leaders should be able to provide the subordinates with the information, support and other resources and help them to achieve their goals.
The essence of this theory is that it is the leader’s job to assist subordinates attain their goals and to provide the necessary direction or support. It has emphasized on effective leadership styles to clarify the path and help the subordinates to achieve their goal and make journey easier by reducing the obstacles.