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  • Leadership – Trust

    In the last byte, we began our discussion about the emerging issues in leadership specifically – emotional intelligence. In today’s byte, we look at the role of trust in leadership.

    Trust refers to the willingness to be vulnerable to the actions of another.

    Trust is an essential element of leadership. Trust plays an important role in emotional intelligence.

    The implications of the above definition of trust, is that the followers believe that their leader will act with the followers welfare in mind! In an organizational setting where top-management trusts each other, implementing a strategy would be easier – since the team members trust each other, it would be easier to have a “buy-in” from employees on the direction of the company. If employees trust their leaders, they will have a buy in more readily!

    Note, it is important to note that effective leaders know whom and how to trust. At one extreme we find leaders who trust no one, they are generally lonely. At the other extreme, we find leaders who trust a close circle of advisors, listening only to them and gradually cutting themselves off from dissenting opinions! Leaders need to evaluate both the competence and the position of those they trust, seeking out a variety of opinions and inputs.

  • Emotional Intelligence

    In the last byte, we looked at Charismatic Leadership. In today’s byte, we begin our discussion on emerging issues in Leadership, specifically: Emotional Intelligence.
     
    Emotional Intelligence is important for leaders to be effective. Emotional Intelligence refers to the ability of an individual’s to recognize and manage emotions of one and in others. Emotional Intelligence is equally if not more important than Intelligence or technical skills of a leader.
     
    Emotional intelligence is assumed to be composed of the following competencies:
    1. Self-awareness
    2. Empathy
    3. Adaptability
    4. Self-confidence.
    It is common to develop emotional intelligence as one grows old, but however it could be learnt.

    Emotional Intelligence affects the way leaders make decisions. In conditions of higher stress, leaders with higher emotional intelligence tend to keep their cool and make better decisions, while those leaders with lower emotional intelligence make poor decisions and lose their effectiveness.

  • Charismatic Leadership

    In the last byte, we looked at transformational leadership and how it is different from transactional leadership. In today’s byte, we discuss about charismatic leadership.

    Charismatic Leadership is one where the leader uses his/her personal abilities and talents in order to have profound and extraordinary effects on followers.

    “Charisma” is a Greek word meaning “gift”; the charismatic leader’s unique and powerful gifts are the source of the leader’s great influence with his/her followers. The followers view the charismatic leader as one who possesses superhuman or even mystical qualities. These leaders often rely on referent power! This form of leadership is found to be effective in times of uncertainty.

    Charismatic leaders are believed to chosen born with the “gift” or are those who cultivate the “gift” – i.e. some say: charismatic leaders are born, while other say they are taught.
     
    Charismatic leaders carry not only a great potential for high levels of achievement and performance on the part of their followers but also shadowy risk of destructive courses of action that could harm their followers or others. (e.g. Adolf Hitler)

  • Trasformational Leadership

    In the last byte, we looked at what could be the substitutes for leadership. In today’s byte, we look at the concept of Trasformational Leadership and keep differentiating it from transactional leadership.

    Transactional Leadership is one in which the leader uses rewards and punishments to make deals with their subordinates. On the other hand, Transformational leaders aspire and excite followers to achieve higher levels of performance.
     
    One often wonders if leadership could only be one of the two forms, however this is not the case – Leadership could be both transformational and Transactional. Transformational leadership could strengthen the effects of transactional leadership. However, even the best of transactional leadership cannot be a substitute for transformational leadership.
     
    Transformational leadership is more effective when compared to transactional leadership since the leader encourages the followers to set goals that are congruent with the followers’ own authentic interests and values. This allows the followers to see their work as important and their goals as aligned to their personal aspirations.

  • Substitutes for Leadership

    In the last byte, we looked at the Leader-Member Exchange Theory. In today’s byte, we look at what could act as substitutes for leadership.
     
    A simple question that would definitely arise in anyone’s mind is – Given all the discussion, could we ever substitute leadership?

    The answer seemingly is yes – sometimes situation can neutralize or even replace leader behavior, and this forms the central idea behind finding substitution to leadership. Here are some examples:
    • When one finds a task very satisfying and feedback about performance –  there would be no need for leadership behavior. The satisfaction of the employee comes from the interesting work and feedback there in.
    • Other examples are:
      •     employee’s high skills
      •     team cohesiveness
      •     formal controls on the part of the organization
    • It would be interesting to think of a services settings where employees with extensive contact with customers receive a larger amount of the leadership from the customer and the need for formal supervision would be reduced!

  • Leaders-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory

    In the last byte, we looked at what the meaning of each of the quadrants. In today’s byte, we look at the concept of leaders-member exchange (LMX) theory.

    LMX theory recognizes that leaders may form different relationships with followers. The idea emerges from the observation that, leaders could have two groups of followers – those who are in-group and those out-group. 

    In-group followers are generally similar to the leader and are given greater responsibilities, mode rewards, and more attention. They are seen to be working on the leader’s inner circle of communications. Given this level of comfort, in-group members could be more satisfied, have a lower level of turn-over, and have higher organizational commitment. On the other hand, the out-group members are outside the circle, and are seen to receive less attention and fewer rewards. They are generally managed by formal rules and policies. 

    Employees who have frequent contact with the boss also have a better understanding of what the boss’s expectations are, and this agreement leads to better performance by the employee and reduces misunderstanding between employer and employee. 

    Recent research indicates that in-group members are more likely to support the values of the reorganization and tend to become models of appropriate behavior.

  • Situational Leadership Model 2

    In the last byte, we began our discussion about the situational leadership model. We continue this discussion in today’s byte.

    The model uses two dimensions of leadership behavior that were used in the Ohio studies – task oriented and relationship oriented. Follower readiness is determined by the four levels indicated.

    According to the model, a leader shout use a telling style (s1) when a follower is unable and unwilling to do a certain tasks – instructions and monitoring are crucial here. When a follower is unable but willing and confident of doing the task – in such a case the leader can use a selling style (s2). In case a follower is able to complete a task but may be unwilling or insecure of doing so, then a participatory style (s3) might be suited. In case the follower is able and willing, the leader could use delegating style (s4).

    A key limitation of this model is the absence of a central hypothesis that could be tested, which would make it a more valid, reliable theory of leadership.  However, given its intuitive appeal, this model is widely used an accepted in corporative training and development.

  • Situational Leadership Model

    In the last byte, we looked at the Vroom-Yetton-Jago Model of Normative Decision moving. In today’s byte, we move ahead to discuss about the Situational Leadership Model.

    The situational leadership model was developed by Paul Hersey and Kenneth Blanchard and suggests that leader’s behavior should be adjusted to the maturity level of the followers.
    We could simply visualize the model in the diagram below:

  • Vroom-Yetton-Jago Normative Decision Model 2

    In the last byte, we began our discussion on the Vroom-Yetton-Jago Normative Decision Model. We continue the same in today’s byte.

    We mentioned that the key to normative decision model is that a manager should use the decision method that is most appropriate for a given decision situation.  We could find a more detailed discussion on the model at the following link:
    http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_91.htm
     
    The following figure is an indication of how a manager could choose the decision suitable for the scenario.

  • Vroom-Yetton-Jago Normative Decision Model

    In the last byte, we were discussing about path-goal theory. In today’s byte, we begin looking at Vroom-Yetton-Jago Normative Decision Model.

    The Vroom-Yetton-Jago Normative Decision Model helps leaders and managers known use employees participating in decision making process. This model helps recognize appropriate decision making strategy to use.

    Following are the decision making described in the model:
    • Decide: The manager makes the decision alone either announces it or “sells” it to the group
    • Consult Individually: The manager presents the problem to the group members individually, gets their inputs, and then makes the decision
    • Consult Group: The manager presents the problem to the group members in meeting, gets their inputs, and then makes the decision
    • Facilitate: The manager presents the problem to the group in meeting and acts as a facilitator, defining the problem and the boundaries that surround the decision. The manager’s ideas are not given more weight than any other group member’s ideas. The objective in this approach is really concurrence.
    • Delegate: The manager permits the group to make the decision within the prescribed limits, providing needed resources and encouragement.
    (Points from reference book)