Psychology Of The Workplace - Leadership

Front 1

Leadership has been studied in different ways and there are a variety of approaches:

Back 1

Positional Power: e.g. study how the position of president has changed over time. The Leader: Focuses on the leader themselves
The Led: Different followers elicit diff behaviors in leaders. Influence Process: There are different ways to influence people
coercion (modify by force)
manipulation (e.g. by only giving some information not everything)
Authority – using your position of authority to influence
Persuasion – show them the reasoning behind the argument
The situation: 3 theories that influence leadership
Leader emergence vs Leader effectiveness: usually someone always emerges as a leader but just because you’re a leader it doesn’t mean you’ll be effective

Front 2

Research indicates leaders are motivated by 3 things. What are they?

Back 2

Power - desire to influence, control events
Achievement - desire to solve problems, attain results
Affiliation - desire to associate or affiliate with others

Front 3

Research indicates leaders have 3 particular skills. What are they?

Back 3

Technical
Interpersonal
Conceptual

Front 4

Research indicates certain personal characteristics are common among leaders. What are they? (STEE)

Back 4

Self confidence
Tolerance for stress
Emotional Maturity
High energy

Front 5

Describe trait approach to leadership.

Back 5

In favor in the 1900s, the idea was if we can figure out what characteristics make good leaders, we can choose them. Leaders born, not made.

Front 6

Problems with trait theory

Back 6

Traits difficult to measure
Traits difficult to change
Relative importance of traits will depend on interaction with situation
Difficult to understand how leader traits can affect subordinate motivation unless we examine how traits are expressed by leaders

Front 7

The trait approach was replaced by focusing on leader behavior (behavioral approach). What was the idea behind this?

Back 7

If you focus on what leaders do rather than have, you can focus on training them better.

Front 8

U of M and OSU both did well known research on leaders. What was the U of M research?

Back 8

U of M research suggested leaders were employee-centered (people focused) or job-centered (focusing on getting the work done). According to U of M, a leader was one or the other but not both.

Front 9

What was the OSU research?

Back 9

OSU research focused on:
consideration which means being supportive of followers, concerned about their growth, concerned about interpersonal issues
Initiating structure (similar to job-centered)

OSU stated that leaders could be both consideration or initiating structure (they could be both at the same time) in contrast to the U of M study.

Front 10

It became evident that the behavioral approach interacted in complex ways with other factors, such as the skill level of employees. This realization led to the next approach to leadership, the Power & Influence approach. What was that?

Back 10

It asserts that leadership is an exercise of power by one person over others.

Front 11

French and Raven (1960) did a classic study which proposed power comes from 5 sources. What are they?

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Reward power: leader gets power through being able to offer rewards for desirable behavior.
Coercive power: power to punish employees for undesirable behavior
Legitimate power: employees believe power over then is legit (eg students agree when profs set deadlines but not peers)
Expert power: Employees assume leaders have expertise and will defer to the leader’s judgment.
Referent power: most abstract type of power and difficult to acquire. People are influenced because they have a sense of admiration for a person

Front 12

Yukl 1994 showed that success is a matter of degree, i.e. there are 3 main outcomes that can result from leadership. What are they?

Back 12

Commitment
Compliance
Resistance

Front 13

What is the Leader-Member Exchange theory?

Back 13

Based on the nature of the r/ship between a leader and subordinates. Leaders put their subordinates into 'in' and 'out' group by differentiating them on:
Competence and skill
Trust (the extent to which they may be trusted)
Motivation (to assume greater responsibility)

Front 14

The Leader-Member Exchange theory suggests some subordinates are in the in and out groups. Dansereau, Graen & Haga suggested that some employees are the favorites and others are in the out group. Discuss.

Back 14

Subordinates are not homogenous. We can’t act as if everybody is experiencing the leader in the same way. Leaders differentiate their subordinates, who is in the ‘in’ group and who in the ‘out’ group?

Competence and skill -employees who are very skilled or competent may get into 'in' group.

Trust - if the leader feels the employees are trustworthy, they are likely to be brought into the in group.

Motivation - those who are motivated to assume responsibility are also more likely to be brought into the in group.

Front 15

Dienesch & Liden concluded that there are 3 psychological bases for the exchange bw supervisor and subordinate. What are they?

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Personal contribution - the perception of the amount, direction and quality of work-oriented activity each member puts forth toward the mutual goals of the dyad.
Loyalty - the expression of public support for the goals and personal character of other member of the dyad.
Affect - the degree of liking members of the dyad have for each other.

Front 16

Subordinates with the right attributes go into the in group. What does that involve?

Back 16

Going beyond formal job duties
receiving more attention, support and sensitivity from leader

Front 17

Subordinates without the right attitudes go into the out-group. What does that involve?

Back 17

Do more mundane, routine tasks
Leaders influence by formal authority

Front 18

What are the 3 situational theories of leadership?

Back 18

Fiedler's LPC
House's Path-Goal theory
Hersey & Blanchard's Situational Leadership

Front 19

Describe Fiedler's LPC?

Back 19

Uses LPC scale to match leader personality & situation
What is important is whether leader is task or person oriented

Front 20

How does the LPC scale work?

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It measures leadership style by having person describe a coworker with whom they had difficulty completing a job. This does not need to be a co-worker you disliked a great deal, but rather someone with whom you least like to work. The LPC instrument then asks you to describe your coworker on 18 sets of adjectives.

Front 21

What are characteristics of low LPCs?

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They are task oriented, primary needs are to accomplish tasks and whose secondary needs are focused on getting along with people. In a work setting, they are concerned with achieving success on assigned tasks, even if at the cost of having poor interpersonal relation- ships with coworkers. Low LPCs gain self-esteem through achieving their goals. They attend to interpersonal relationships, but only after they first have directed themselves toward the tasks of the group.

Front 22

What are characteristics of high LPCs?

Back 22

are motivated by relationships. These individuals derive their major satisfaction in an organization from getting along with people-inter- personal relationships. A high LPC sees positive qualities even in the co- worker she or he least prefers, even though the high LPC does not work well with that person. In an organizational setting, the high LPC attends to tasks, but only after she or he is certain that the relationships between people are in good shape.

Front 23

Because Fielder's LPC theory is a situational theory, you have to look at 3 things. What are they?

Back 23

Leader power
Leader-member relations
Task structure

Front 24

Task-oriented leaders are best suited to what situations?

Back 24

Best in extreme (high or low favorableness)

Front 25

Person-oriented leaders are best suited to what situations?

Back 25

best in moderately favorableness situations

Front 26

Criticisms of LPC theory?

Back 26

One person's boss from hell might be someone else's mildly irritating
Difficult to measure
Overly simplistic

Front 27

Robert House's Path-Goal Theory

Back 27

Based on expectancy theory
Idea is that a leader's main function is to motivate

House said leaders should be doing 3 things:
Making sure people receive appropriate rewards for meeting goals
Clarifying paths to rewards, i.e. “If you do A, you will get B.” making it very clear.
Help to improve the subordinate’s chances of meeting the goals. If they put in the effort, the leader should make sure they reach a certain level of performance.

Front 28

House's Path-Goal theory is based on expectancy theory which states that there are 3 parts to motivation:

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Expectancy: What is likelihood I will meet this goal? (i.e. 3rd aspect of the House theory, that leaders’ roles are to improve chances of effort leading to performance

Instrumentality: strength of link bw 1st and 2nd level outcomes, so leaders motivate to make sure a certain level of performance was reached and if so, there would be second level outcomes. (i.e. linked to 2nd part of the House theory – clarifying paths to rewards)

Valence: it’s important that the 2nd level outcomes that people get when they perform would be of value to the person. We all have different things that we value so the key thing is that the followers are getting what they find rewarding when they perform.

Front 29

House's Path-Goal theory states that there are 4 general types of leader behavior, depending on the situation. What are they?

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Directive: provides guidance, clarify expectations, paths to rewards.

Supportive leadership: increase people’s expectancies of success, valence of rewards (their feelings of whether they will succeed if they put in the effort).

Participative: subordinate has input, increases valence of job

4. Achievement-oriented l/shp: having leaders set challenging goals , increase valence of job.

Front 30

What is the principle behind House's Path-Goal theory?

Back 30

There are 4 types of leadership, the leader determines which type to use depending on the situation, and the leader will diagnose the situation using those expectancy components of instrumentality, valence and expectancy.

Front 31

Describe Hersey & Blanchard’s situational leadership theory.

Back 31

Based on the idea that the way a leader behaves depends on subordinate maturity level and readiness level (confidence, ability, willingness).

Front 32

Hersey & Blanchard's situational leadership theory suggests what combinations of readiness/task/r/ship orientation?

Back 32

Low readiness:
- high task orientation
- low r/ship orientation
Moderate readiness:
-moderate task orientation
- high rship orientation
High readiness:
- low task orientation
- low r/ship orientation

Front 33

Give an example of Hersey & Blanchard's situational theory in the context of teaching.

Back 33

faculty members act according to the level of the class. Intro classes are usually low on readiness so Dr Waung tends to be high on task oriented but low on r/ship. She gave the example of when she first started, one of her intro students said wow that exam was so hard. I wasn’t expecting it because you seem so nice. With sophomores and juniors, they are trying to figure out careers so she is moderately task-oriented and more relationship-oriented (talking about careers). Seniors are high on readiness.

Front 34

Criticisms of Hersey & Blanchard's theory?

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Little empirical research
ambiguity of 'readiness
theory doesn't explain why these r/ships hold

Front 35

Summarize the situational theories of leadership

Back 35

All the situational theories are based on the idea that the leader should vary his or her behavior depending on the situation. Three theories: Fidlers LPC, House’s Path-Goal Theory and Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Theory.

Widely accepted
Disagreement over which subordinate and env characteristics most important in determining leadership

Front 36

What is the transformational leadership theory?

Back 36

States that leadership is the process of inspiring a group to pursue goals and attain results, and in so doing, empower subordinates who also become leaders in the process of transforming the organization.
Influences major change in attitudes & assumptions
Builds commitment for major change
Empowers subordinates

Front 37

Charismatic leadership theory

Back 37

A conceptualization of leadership that states that leadership is the product of charisma, a trait that inspires:
respect, trust, idolization
unquestioning acceptance
Affection for leader
Willing obedience

Front 38

What are the traits of a charismatic leader?

Back 38

Strong need for power
High self-confidence
Strong convictions

Front 39

What behaviors do charismatic leaders display?

Back 39

Impression management (ensure followers remain confident in leader)
articulation of appealing vision
communication of high expectations of followers
Expression of confidence in followers

Front 40

What is the potential dark side to charismatic leaders?

Back 40

Adjustment problems / psych problems
If charistmatic leaders can sway people so much, they may sway them to do bad things

Front 41

Implicit leadership theory

Back 41

States that leadership is a subjectively perceived construct rather than an objective construct.
Leadership colored by tendency to look for cause and effect so we label "it must be happening because of the leader" e.g. president & the economy even if unrelated

Front 42

Points of convergence on leadership theories

Back 42

in 1994, Yukl looked at all the research on leaders and boiled it down to 3 basic points, 3 things we need leaders to do:

Important that they motivate and influence
Important that they maintain effective relationships
Important that they make decisions