Leadership

Chapter 12 Leadership Page

CHAPTER12Leadership

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After studying this chapter, students should be able to:

1. Contrast leadership and management.2. Summarize the conclusions of trait theories of leadership.3. Identify the central tenets and main limitations of behavioral theories.4. Assess contingency theories of leadership by their level of support.5. Contrast charismatic and transformational leadership.6. Define authentic leadership.7. Demonstrate the role mentoring plays in our understanding of leadership.8. Address challenges to the effectiveness of leadership.

INSTRUCTOR RESOURCES

Instructors may wish to use the following resources when presenting this chapter:

Learning Catalytics Questions: Instructor Directions and Follow-Up

Organizational Behavior Concept

LC Question Instructor Directions and Follow-Up

Leadership skills What leadership skill do you think is most important for leaders today?

Start the leadership section by asking this question. Debrief the word cloud by pointing out any leadership behaviors or any skills that are dependent on context. Make connections between the student answers and other theories in this chapter (e.g., if a student answers “change skills,” you would connect this with transformational leadership).

Leadership and contemporary theories of leadership

Identify and upload an image of a contemporary leader whom you admire. Be prepared to discuss why you admire this leader.

Provide this question as you introduce charismatic and transformational theories of leadership. Connect their examples and reasons with explanations in the textbook of contemporary leadership theories.

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.

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Text Exercises

• glOBalization!: Leaders Broaden Their Span of Control in Multinational Organizations• Myth or Science?: “Top Leaders Feel the Most Stress”• An Ethical Choice: Holding Leaders Ethically Accountable• Point/Counterpoint: Heroes Are Made, Not Born• Questions for Review• Experiential Exercise: What Is Leadership? • Ethical Dilemma: Undercover Leaders

Text Cases

• Case Incident 1: Leadership Mettle Forged in Battle • Case Incident 2: Leadership by Algorithm

Instructor’s Choice

This section presents an exercise that is NOT found in the student's textbook. Instructor's Choice reinforces the text's emphasis through various activities. Some Instructor's Choice activities are centered on debates, group exercises, Internet research, and student experiences. Some can be used in class in their entirety, while others require some additional work on the student's part. The course instructor may choose to use these at any time throughout the class—some may be more effective as icebreakers, while some may be used to pull together various concepts covered in the chapter.

Web Exercises

At the end of each chapter of this Instructor’s Manual, you will find suggested exercises and ideas for researching OB topics on the Internet. The exercises “Exploring OB Topics on the Web” are set up so that you can simply photocopy the pages, distribute them to your class, and make assignments accordingly. You may want to assign the exercises as an out-of-class activity or as lab activities with your class.

Summary and Implications for Managers

A. Leadership plays a central part in understanding group behavior, because it’s the leader who usually directs us toward our goals.

B. Knowing what makes a good leader should thus be valuable in improving group performance.

C. The early search for a set of universal leadership traits failed. D. However, recent efforts using the Big Five personality framework show strong and

consistent relationships between leadership and extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience.

E. The behavioral approach’s major contribution was narrowing leadership into task-oriented (initiating structure) and people-oriented (consideration) styles.


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F. By considering the situation in which the leader operates, contingency theories promised to improve on the behavioral approach, but only LPC theory has fared well in leadership research.

G. Research on charismatic and transformational leadership has made major contributions to our understanding of leadership effectiveness. Specific implications for managers are below:1. For management positions, hire candidates who exhibit transformational leadership

qualities and who have demonstrated vision and charisma.2. Tests and interviews can help you identify people with leadership qualities.3. Hire candidates whom you believe are ethical and trustworthy for management roles

and train current managers in your organization’s ethical standards in order to increase leadership effectiveness.

4. Seek to develop trusting relationships with followers, because, as organizations have become less stable and predictable, strong bonds of trust are replacing bureaucratic rules in defining expectations and relationships.

5. Consider investing in leadership training such as formal courses, workshops, rotating job responsibilities, coaching, and mentoring.

The chapter begins with a discussion about the leadership style of Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon. Bezos has always focused on customer satisfaction as the key to business success, and even includes a chair at meetings to symbolize the presence of the customer. His strategy has proved to be hugely successful, making him one of the richest men in the world. But Bezos has also been heralded for his visionary and servant leadership, expecting of others what he expects of himself.

BRIEF CHAPTER OUTLINE

I. What Is Leadership?A. Leadership is the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of a vision or set

of goals. 1. The source of this influence may be formal, such as that provided by managerial rank

in an organization. 2. But not all leaders are managers; nor, for that matter, are all managers leaders. Just

because an organization provides its managers with certain formal rights is no assurance they will lead effectively.

3. Nonsanctioned leadership—the ability to influence that arises outside the formal structure of the organization—is often as important or more important than formal influence. In other words, leaders can emerge from within a group as well as by formal appointment.

B. Organizations need strong leadership and strong management for optimal effectiveness. 1. We need leaders today to challenge the status quo, create visions of the future, and

inspire organizational members to want to achieve the visions. 2. We also need managers to formulate detailed plans, create efficient organizational

structures, and oversee day-to-day operations.II. Trait Theories

A. Strong Leaders1. Trait theories of leadership focus on personal qualities and characteristics.


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2. The search for personality, social, physical, or intellectual attributes that differentiate leaders from nonleaders goes back to the earliest stages of leadership research.

3. Big Five traitsa. A breakthrough, of sorts, came when researchers began organizing traits around

the Big Five personality framework (see Chapter 5). b. Most of the dozens of traits in various leadership reviews fit under one of the Big

Five (ambition and energy are part of extraversion, for instance), giving strong support to traits as predictors of leadership.

c. A comprehensive review of the leadership literature, when organized around the Big Five, has found extraversion to be the most important trait of effective leaders, but it is more strongly related to the way leaders emerge than to their effectiveness.

B. The trait approach does have something to offer. 1. Leaders who like being around people and are able to assert themselves (extraverted),

who are disciplined and able to keep commitments they make (conscientious), and who are creative and flexible (open) do have an apparent advantage when it comes to leadership, suggesting good leaders do have key traits in common.

C. Another trait that may indicate effective leadership is emotional intelligence (EI), discussed in Chapter 4. 1. Advocates of EI argue that without it, a person can have outstanding training, a highly

analytical mind, a compelling vision, and an endless supply of terrific ideas but still not make a great leader.

2. This may be especially true as individuals move up in an organization. Why is EI so critical to effective leadership?

3. A core component of EI is empathy. 4. The link between EI and leadership effectiveness may be worth investigating in

greater detail. D. Based on the latest findings, we offer two conclusions.

1. First, contrary to what we believed 20 years ago and thanks to the Big Five, we can say that traits can predict leadership.

2. Second, traits do a better job predicting the emergence of leaders and the appearance of leadership than actually distinguishing between effective and ineffective leaders.

III. Behavioral TheoriesA. Introduction

1. The failures of early trait studies led researchers in the late 1940s through the 1960s to wonder whether there was something unique in the way effective leaders behave.

2. Trait research provides a basis for selecting the right people for leadership. 3. Behavioral theories of leadership implied we could train people to be leaders.

B. Ohio State Studies1. The most comprehensive theories resulted from the Ohio State Studies in the late

1940s, which sought to identify independent dimensions of leader behavior. 2. Beginning with more than a thousand dimensions, the studies narrowed the list to two

that substantially accounted for most of the leadership behavior described by employees: initiating structure and consideration.

3. Initiating structure is the extent to which a leader is likely to define and structure his or her role and those of employees in the search for goal attainment.


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4. Consideration is the extent to which a person’s job relationships are characterized by mutual trust, respect for employees’ ideas, and regard for their feelings. a. A leader high in consideration helps employees with personal problems, is

friendly and approachable, treats all employees as equals, and expresses appreciation and support.

C. University of Michigan Studies1. Leadership studies at the University of Michigan’s Survey Research Center had

similar objectives: to locate behavioral characteristics of leaders that appeared related to performance effectiveness.

2. The Michigan group also identified two behavioral dimensions: the employee-oriented leader emphasized interpersonal relationships by taking a personal interest in the needs of employees and accepting individual differences among them; and the production oriented leader emphasized the technical or task aspects of the job, focusing on accomplishing the group’s tasks.

D. GLOBE Study 1. Some research from the GLOBE study suggests there are international differences in

preference for initiating structure and consideration. a. Based on the values of Brazilian employees, a U.S. manager leading a team in

Brazil would need to be team oriented, participative, and humane. b. Leaders high in consideration would succeed best in this culture. c. A leader high in initiating structure (relatively task-oriented) will do best and can

make decisions in a relatively autocratic manner. E. Summary of Trait Theories and Behavioral Theories

1. Leaders who have certain traits and who display consideration and structuring behaviors do appear to be more effective.

2. As important as traits and behaviors are in identifying effective or ineffective leaders, they do not guarantee success. The context matters, too.

IV. Contingency TheoriesA. Introduction

1. Tough-minded leaders seem successful in difficult times, but tend to be dismissed when the environment improves.

2. Situational factors that influence success or failure need to be explored further.B. Fiedler Model

1. Introductiona. The first comprehensive contingency model for leadership was developed by

Fred Fiedler, who proposed that effective group performance depends upon the proper match between the leader’s style and the degree to which the situation gives control to the leader.

2. Identifying leadership style a. Fiedler believed that a key factor in leadership success is the individual’s basic

leadership style. He created the least preferred coworker (LPC) questionnaire for this purpose.

b. It purports to measure whether a person is task- or relationship-oriented. c. The questionnaire contains 16 contrasting adjectives (such as pleasant-unpleasant,

efficient-inefficient, open-guarded, supportive-hostile).


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d. It asks respondents to describe the one person they least enjoyed working with by rating him or her on a scale of one-to-eight for each of the 16 sets of contrasting adjectives.

e. Fiedler assumes that an individual’s leadership style is fixed. 3. Defining the situation

a. Leader-member relations—the degree of confidence, trust, and respect members have in their leader.

b. Task structure—the degree to which the job assignments are procedural.c. Position power—the degree of influence a leader has over power variables such

as hiring, firing, discipline, promotions, and salary increases.d. The next step is to evaluate the situation in terms of these three contingency

variables. e. Fiedler states the better the leader-member relations, the more highly structured

the job, and the stronger the position power, the more control the leader has. 4. Matching leaders and situations (Exhibit 12-1)

a. Altogether, by mixing the three contingency variables, there are potentially eight different situations or categories in which leaders could find themselves.

b. The Fiedler model proposes matching them up to achieve maximum leadership effectiveness.

c. Fiedler concluded that task-oriented leaders tend to perform better in situations that were very favorable to them and in situations that were very unfavorable.

d. Fiedler would predict that when faced with a category I, II, III, VII, or VIII situation, task-oriented leaders perform better.

e. Relationship-oriented leaders, however, perform better in moderately favorable situations—categories IV, V, and VI.

f. Fiedler has condensed these eight situations to three. g. Given Fiedler’s findings, you would seek to match leaders and situations. Because

Fiedler views an individual’s leadership style as being fixed, there are only two ways to improve leader effectiveness.

5. Evaluation of Fiedlera. There is considerable evidence to support at least substantial parts of the model. b. There are problems and the practical use of the model that need to be addressed.

6. Other contingency theoriesa. Situational leadership theory

i. Situational leadership is a contingency theory that focuses on the followers. ii. Successful leadership is achieved by selecting the right leadership style, which

is contingent on the level of the followers’ readiness. iii. SLT has an intuitive appeal. Yet, research efforts to test and support the

theory have generally been disappointing. b. Path-goal theory

i. The theory:(a) One of the most respected approaches to leadership is the path-goal

theory developed by Robert House. (b) It is a contingency model of leadership that extracts key elements from the

Ohio State leadership research on initiating structure and consideration and the expectancy theory of motivation.


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ii. According to path–goal theory, whether a leader should be directive or supportive or should demonstrate some other behavior depends on complex analysis of the situation.

c. Leader-participation modeli. The final contingency theory we cover argues that the way the leader makes

decisions is as important as what she or he decides. ii. Victor Vroom and Phillip Yetton’s leader-participation model relates

leadership behavior and participation in decision making. iii. Like path–goal theory, it says leader behavior must adjust to reflect the task

structure. V. Leader-Member Exchange Theory

A. The leader-member exchange (LMX) theory argues that because of time pressures, leaders establish a special relationship with a small group of their followers.

B. These individuals make up the in-group—they are trusted, get a disproportionate amount of the leader’s attention, and are more likely to receive special privileges.

C. The theory proposes that early in the history of the interaction between a leader and a given follower, the leader implicitly categorizes the follower as an “in” or an “out” and that relationship is relatively stable over time. 1. How the leader chooses who falls into each category is unclear. 2. The leader does the choosing on the basis of the follower’s characteristics.3. In groups have similar characteristics. (Exhibit 12-2)

D. The theory and research surrounding it provide substantive evidence that leaders do differentiate among followers.

VI. Charismatic Leadership And Transformational LeadershipA. Introduction

1. View leaders as individuals who inspire followers through their words, ideas, and behaviors.

B. Charismatic Leadership1. What is charismatic leadership?

a. According to House’s charismatic leadership theory, followers make attributes of heroic or extraordinary leadership abilities when they observe certain behaviors .(Exhibit 12-3)

b. Charismatic leaders have vision, are willing to take personal risk, are sensitive to followers’ needs, and exhibit extraordinary behaviors.

2. Are charismatic leaders born or made? a. Individuals are born with traits that make them charismatic.b. People can learn to be a charismatic leader.

i. First, an individual needs to develop the aura of charisma by maintaining an optimistic view; using passion as a catalyst for generating enthusiasm; and communicating with the whole body, not just with words.

ii. Second, an individual draws others in by creating a bond that inspires others to follow.

iii. Third, the individual brings out the potential in followers by tapping into their emotions.

3. How charismatic leaders influence followers a. Articulating an appealing vision.


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i. Vision statementii. High performance expectationsiii. A new set of values

4. Does effective charismatic leadership depend on the situation? a. A strong correlation between charismatic leadership and high performance and

satisfaction among followers.b. Charisma appears to be most appropriate when the follower’s task has an

ideological component or when the environment involves a high degree of stress and uncertainty.

c. This may explain why, when charismatic leaders surface, it’s more likely to be in politics, religion, wartime; or when a business firm is in its infancy or facing a life-threatening crisis.

d. Another situational factor apparently limiting charisma is level in the organization.

e. Finally, people are especially receptive to charismatic leadership when they sense a crisis, when they are under stress, or when they fear for their lives.

5. The dark side of charismatic leadershipa. Don’t necessarily act in the best interest of their companies.b. Many have allowed their personal goals to override the goals of the organization.

i. The results at companies such as Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, and HealthSouth were leaders who recklessly used organizational resources for their personal benefit and executives who violated laws and ethical boundaries to inflate stock prices and allow leaders to cash in millions of dollars in stock options.

c. It’s little wonder research has shown that individuals who are narcissistic are also higher in some behaviors associated with charismatic leadership.

d. It’s not that charismatic leadership isn’t effective; overall, it is. C. Transformational Leadership

1. Introductiona. A stream of research has focuses on differentiating transformational and

transactional leaders.b. The Ohio State studies, Fiedler’s model, path-goal theory, and the leader

participation model—have concerned transactional leaders. c. Transformational leaders inspire followers to transcend their own self-interests

for the good of the organization. (Exhibit 12-4)d. Transactional and transformational leadership complement each other.e. The best leaders are transactional and transformational.

2. Full range of leadership model (Exhibit 12-5)a. Laissez-faire is the most passive and least effective type.b. Management by exception is slightly better.c. Contingent reward leadership can be effective.d. The remaining four correspond to transformational leadership:

i. Individualized considerationii. Intellectual stimulationiii. Inspirational motivationiv. Idealized influence


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3. How transformational leadership worksa. Transformational leaders are more effective because they are more creative, but

also because they encourage those who follow them to be creative, too. b. Companies with transformational leaders have greater decentralization of

responsibility, managers have more propensities to take risks, and compensation plans are geared toward long-term results—all of which facilitate corporate entrepreneurship.

c. Companies with transformational leaders also show greater agreement among top managers about the organization’s goals, which yields superior organizational performance.

d. Transformational leaders are able to increase follower self-efficacy, giving the group a “can do” spirit.

e. Just as vision helps explain how charismatic leadership works, it also explains part of the effect of transformational leadership.

f. Finally, transformational leadership engenders commitment on the part of followers and instills greater trust in the leader.

4. Evaluation of transformational leadership a. Transformational leadership has been impressively supported at diverse job levels

and occupations (school principals, teachers, marine commanders, ministers, presidents of MBA associations, military cadets, union shop stewards, sales reps).

b. Transformational leadership isn’t equally effective in all situations. c. Transformational leaders also obtain higher levels of trust, which reduces stress

for followers. d. In short, transformational leadership works through a number of different

processes. e. Transformational leadership theory is not perfect. Contingent reward leadership

may not characterize transactional leaders only. f. In summary, transformational leadership is more strongly correlated than

transactional leadership with lower turnover rates, higher productivity, lower employee stress and burnout, and higher employee satisfaction. Like charisma, it can be learned.

g. The GLOBE study—of 18,000 leaders from 825 organizations in 62 countries— links a number of elements of transformational leadership with effective leadership, regardless of country. i. This conclusion is very important because it disputes the contingency view

that leadership style needs to adapt to cultural differences. ii. Universal elements are:

(a) Vision(b) Foresight(c) Providing encouragement(d) Trustworthiness(e) Dynamism (f) Positiveness(g) Proactiveness

iii. The GLOBE team concluded “effective business leaders in any country are expected by their subordinates to provide a powerful and proactive vision to


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guide the company into the future, strong motivational skills to stimulate all employees to fulfill the vision, and excellent planning skills to assist in implementing the vision.”

VII. Authentic Leadership: Ethics and Trust A. What Is Authentic Leadership?

1. Authentic leaders know who they are, what they believe in and value, and act on those values and beliefs openly and candidly.

2. The result: people come to have faith in them.3. Recent research indicates that authentic leadership especially when shared among top

management team members, created a positive energizing effect (see affective events theory in Chapter 4) that heightened firm performance.

B. Ethical Leadership1. Only recently have ethicists and leadership researchers begun to consider the ethical

implications in leadership. 2. Ethics touches on leadership at a number of junctures. 3. Leaders who treat their followers with fairness, especially by providing honest,

frequent, and accurate information, are seen as more effective. a. Related to this is the concept of humbleness, another characteristic ethical leaders

often exhibit as part of being authentic. b. Research indicates that leaders who model humility help followers to understand

the growth process for their own development. 4. Leaders rated as highly ethical tend to have followers who engage in more

organizational citizenship behaviors and who are more willing to bring problems to the leaders’ attention.

5. A recent research review found that role modeling by top leaders positively influenced managers throughout their organizations to behave ethically and fostered a climate that reinforced group-level ethical conduct. a. The findings suggest that organizations should invest in ethical leadership training

programs, especially in industries with few ethical regulations. b. The researchers furthermore advised that ethical leadership training programs to

teach cultural values should be mandated for leaders who take foreign assignments or manage multicultural work teams.

6. To convey their beliefs, leaders should learn to express their moral convictions in statements that reflect values shared with their organization’s members.a. Leaders can build on this foundation of trust to show their character, enhance a

sense of unity, and create buy-in from followers.7. Leadership effectiveness needs to address the means that a leader uses in trying to

achieve goals as well as the content of those goals. Leadership is not value free. 8. Efforts have been made to combine ethical and charismatic leadership into an idea of

socialized charismatic leadership.C. Servant Leadership

1. Scholars have recently considered ethical leadership from a new angle by examining servant leadership.

2. Because servant leadership focuses on serving the needs of others, research has focused on its outcomes for the well-being of followers.

3. Servant leadership may be more prevalent and more effective in certain cultures.


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D. Trust and Leadership 1. Trust is a psychological state that exists when you agree to make yourself vulnerable

to another because you have positive expectations about how things are going to turn out.

2. Trust is a primary attribute associated with leadership. 3. When trust is broken, it can have serious adverse effects on a group’s performance. 4. Followers who trust a leader are confident their rights and interests will not be

abused. 5. In a simple contractual exchange of goods and services, your employer is legally

bound to pay you for fulfilling your job description. a. But today’s rapid reorganizations, diffusion of responsibility, and collaborative

team-based work style mean employment relationships are not stable long-term contracts with explicit terms.

b. Rather, they are more fundamentally based on trusting relationships than ever before.

E. How Is Trust Developed?1. Trust isn’t just about the leader; the characteristics of the followers will also influence

the development of trust.2. What key characteristics lead us to believe a leader is trustworthy? Evidence has

identified three: integrity, benevolence, and ability. (Exhibit 12-6)F. Trust as a Process

1. Trust propensity refers to how likely a particular employee is to trust a leader. Some people are simply more likely to believe others can be trusted.

2. Time is the final ingredient in the recipe for trust. Trust doesn’t happen immediately: we come to trust people based on observing their behavior over a period of time.

3. Trust can also be won in the ability domain simply by demonstrating competence.4. Leaders who break the psychological contract with workers, demonstrating they

aren’t trustworthy, will find employees are less satisfied and less committed, have higher intentions to turnover, engage in less citizenship behavior, and have lower task performance.

G. What Are the Consequences of Trust?1. Trust encourages taking risks.

a. Whenever employees decide to deviate from the usual way of doing things, or to take their supervisors’ word on a new direction, they are taking a risk.

2. Trust facilitates information sharing. a. One big reason employees fail to express concerns at work is that they don’t feel

psychologically safe revealing their views.3. Trusting groups are more effective.

a. When a leader sets a trusting tone in a group, members are more willing to help each other and exert extra effort, which further increases trust.

4. Trust enhances productivity. a. The bottom-line interest of companies also appears positively influenced by trust.

Employees who trust their supervisors tend to receive higher performance ratings.


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VIII. Leading for the Future: MentoringA. Mentoring

1. A mentor is a senior employee who sponsors and supports a less-experienced employee (a protégé).

2. Successful mentors are good teachers. (Exhibit 12-7) 3. The protégé will often be tested with a particularly challenging assignment. 4. Why would a leader want to be a mentor?

a. Many feel they have something to share with the younger generation and want to provide a legacy.

b. Mentoring also provides unfiltered access to the attitudes of lower-ranking employees, and protégés can be an excellent source of early warning signals that identify potential organizational problems.

c. You might assume mentoring is valuable for objective outcomes like compensation and job performance, but research suggests the gains are primarily psychological.

IX. Challenges to the Leadership ConstructA. Introduction

1. Much of an organization’s success or failure is due to factors outside the influence of leadership. In many cases, success or failure is just a matter of being in the right or wrong place at a given time.

B. Leadership as an Attribution1. As you may remember from Chapter 6, attribution theory examines how people try to

make sense of cause-and-effect relationships. 2. The attribution theory of leadership says leadership is merely an attribution people

make about other individuals.3. Attribution theory suggests what’s important is projecting the appearance of being a

leader rather than focusing on actual accomplishments. C. Substitutes and Neutralizers to Leadership (Exhibit 12-8)

1. Data from numerous studies collectively demonstrate that, in many situations, whatever actions leaders exhibit are irrelevant.

2. Experience and training are among the substitutes that can replace the need for a leader’s support or ability to create structure.

3. Neutralizers make it impossible for leader behavior to make any difference to follower outcomes.

4. Sometimes the difference between substitutes and neutralizers is fuzzy. D. Online Leadership

1. The questions of how do you lead people who are physically separated from you and with whom you communicate electronically? This question needs research.

2. Today’s managers and employees are increasingly linked by networks rather than geographic proximity.

3. We propose that online leaders have to think carefully about what actions they want their digital messages to initiate. a. In electronic communication, writing skills are likely to become an extension of

interpersonal skills.


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4. Identification-based trust, based on a mutual understanding of each other’s intentions and appreciation of the other’s wants and desires, is particularly difficult to achieve without face-to-face interaction.

5. We believe good leadership skills will soon include the ability to communicate support, trust, and inspiration through electronic communication and to accurately read emotions in others’ messages. a. In electronic communication, writing skills are likely to become an extension of

interpersonal skills.X. Finding and Creating Effective Leaders

A. Selecting Leaders1. The entire process that organizations go through to fill management positions is

essentially an exercise in trying to identify individuals who will be effective leaders. 2. Items of consideration during selection include:

a. Reviewing the specific requirements for the position such as knowledge, skills, and abilities that are needed to do the job effectively.

b. Personality tests can identify traits associated with leadership—extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience.

c. High self-monitors are better at reading situations and adjusting their behavior accordingly.

d. Candidates with high emotional intelligence should have an advantage, especially in situations requiring transformational leadership.

e. Experience is a poor predictor of leader effectiveness, but situation-specific experience is relevant.

f. Since nothing lasts forever, the most important event an organization needs to plan for is a change in leadership.

3. Some organizations seem to spend no time on leadership succession and are surprised when their picks turn out poorly.

B. Training Leaders1. Billions are spent on leadership training and development every year. 2. Here are some things management can do to get the maximum effect from their

leadership-training budgets: a. Leadership training is likely to be more successful with individuals who are high

self-monitors than with low self-monitors. b. Second, organizations can teach implementation skills. c. We also can teach skills such as trust building, mentoring, and situational-analysis

skills.d. There is evidence suggesting that behavioral training through modeling exercises

can increase an individual’s ability to exhibit charismatic leadership qualities.e. Recent research also indicates that leaders should engage in regularly reviewing

their leadership after key organizational events as part of their development.f. Finally, leaders can be trained in transformational leadership skills that have

bottom-line results.XI. Summary and Implications for Managers

A. Leadership plays a central part in understanding group behavior, because it’s the leader who usually directs us toward our goals.


450


B. Knowing what makes a good leader should thus be valuable in improving group performance.

C. The early search for a set of universal leadership traits failed. D. However, recent efforts using the Big Five personality framework show strong and




H. Research on charismatic and transformational leadership has made major contributions to our understanding of leadership effectiveness. Specific implications for managers are below:1. For management positions, hire candidates who exhibit transformational leadership





EXPANDED CHAPTER OUTLINE

I. What Is Leadership?A. Leadership is the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of a vision or set

of goals. 1. The source of this influence may be formal, such as that provided by managerial rank

in an organization. 2. But not all leaders are managers, nor, for that matter, are all managers leaders. Just

because an organization provides its managers with certain formal rights is no assurance they will lead effectively.

3. Nonsanctioned leadership—the ability to influence that arises outside the formal structure of the organization—is often as important or more important than formal influence. In other words, leaders can emerge from within a group as well as by formal appointment.

B. Organizations need strong leadership and strong management for optimal effectiveness. 1. We need leaders today to challenge the status quo, create visions of the future, and

inspire organizational members to want to achieve the visions. 2. We also need managers to formulate detailed plans, create efficient organizational

structures, and oversee day-to-day operations.


451


II. Trait TheoriesA. Strong Leaders

1. Trait theories of leadership focus on personal qualities and characteristics. 2. The search for personality, social, physical, or intellectual attributes that differentiate

leaders from nonleaders goes back to the earliest stages of leadership research. a. Early research efforts to isolate leadership traits resulted in a number of dead

ends. b. A review in the late 1960s of different studies identified nearly 80 leadership

traits, but only 5 were common to 4 or more of the investigations. c. By the 1990s, after numerous studies and analyses, about the best we could say

was that most leaders “are not like other people,” but the particular traits that characterized them varied a great deal from review to review.

d. Identifying leadership traits remained a challenge.3. Big Five Traits

a. A breakthrough, of sorts, came when researchers began organizing traits around the Big Five personality framework (see Chapter 5).

b. Most of the dozens of traits in various leadership reviews fit under one of the Big Five (ambition and energy are part of extraversion, for instance), giving strong support to traits as predictors of leadership.

c. A comprehensive review of the leadership literature, when organized around the Big Five, has found extraversion to be the most important trait of effective leaders, but it is more strongly related to the way leaders emerge than to their effectiveness. i. Sociable and dominant people are more likely to assert themselves in group

situations, but leaders need to make sure they’re not too assertive—one study found leaders who scored very high on assertiveness were less effective than those who were moderately high.

ii. Unlike agreeableness and emotional stability, conscientiousness and openness to experience also showed strong relationships to leadership, though not quite as strong as extraversion.

B. The trait approach does have something to offer. 1. Leaders who like being around people and are able to assert themselves (extraverted),

who are disciplined and able to keep commitments they make (conscientious), and who are creative and flexible (open) do have an apparent advantage when it comes to leadership, suggesting good leaders do have key traits in common. a. One reason is that conscientiousness and extraversion are positively related to

leaders’ self-efficacy, which explained most of the variance in subordinates’ ratings of leader performance.

b. People are more likely to follow someone who is confident she’s going in the right direction.

C. Another trait that may indicate effective leadership is emotional intelligence (EI), discussed in Chapter 4. 1. Advocates of EI argue that without it, a person can have outstanding training, a highly

analytical mind, a compelling vision, and an endless supply of terrific ideas but still not make a great leader.


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2. This may be especially true as individuals move up in an organization. Why is EI so critical to effective leadership?

3. A core component of EI is empathy. a. Empathetic leaders can sense others’ needs, listen to what followers say (and

don’t say), and read the reactions of others. b. A leader who effectively displays and manages emotions will find it easier to

influence the feelings of followers, by both expressing genuine sympathy and enthusiasm for good performance and by using irritation for those who fail to perform.

4. The link between EI and leadership effectiveness may be worth investigating in greater detail. a. Recent research has demonstrated that people high in EI are more likely to

emerge as leaders, even after taking cognitive ability and personality into account. D. Based on the latest findings, we offer two conclusions.

1. First, contrary to what we believed 20 years ago and thanks to the Big Five, we can say that traits can predict leadership.

2. Second, traits do a better job predicting the emergence of leaders and the appearance of leadership than actually distinguishing between effective and ineffective leaders. a. The fact that an individual exhibits the traits and that others consider him or her a

leader does not necessarily mean the leader is successful at getting the group to achieve its goals.

III. Behavioral TheoriesA. Introduction

1. The failures of early trait studies led researchers in the late 1940s through the 1960s to wonder whether there was something unique in the way effective leaders behave.

2. Trait research provides a basis for selecting the right people for leadership. 3. Behavioral theories of leadership implied we could train people to be leaders.

B. Ohio State Studies1. The most comprehensive theories resulted from the Ohio State Studies in the late

1940s, which sought to identify independent dimensions of leader behavior. 2. Beginning with more than a thousand dimensions, the studies narrowed the list to two

that substantially accounted for most of the leadership behavior described by employees: initiating structure and consideration.

3. Initiating structure is the extent to which a leader is likely to define and structure his or her role and those of employees in the search for goal attainment. a. It includes behavior that attempts to organize work, work relationships, and goals. b. A leader high in initiating structure is someone who “assigns group members to

particular tasks,” “expects workers to maintain definite standards of performance,” and “emphasizes the meeting of deadlines.”

4. Consideration is the extent to which a person’s job relationships are characterized by mutual trust, respect for employees’ ideas, and regard for their feelings. a. A leader high in consideration helps employees with personal problems, is

friendly and approachable, treats all employees as equals, and expresses appreciation and support.

b. In a recent survey, when asked to indicate what most motivated them at work, 66 percent of employees mentioned appreciation.


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C. University of Michigan Studies1. Leadership studies at the University of Michigan’s Survey Research Center had

similar objectives: to locate behavioral characteristics of leaders that appeared related to performance effectiveness.

2. The Michigan group also identified two behavioral dimensions: the employee-oriented leader emphasized interpersonal relationships by taking a personal interest in the needs of employees and accepting individual differences among them, and the production oriented leader emphasized the technical or task aspects of the job, focusing on accomplishing the group’s tasks. a. These dimensions are closely related to the Ohio State dimensions. b. Employee-oriented leadership is similar to consideration, and production-oriented

leadership is similar to initiating structure.i. In fact, most leadership researchers use the terms synonymously.

3. At one time, the results of testing behavioral theories were thought to be disappointing. a. However, a more recent review of 160 studies found the followers of leaders high

in consideration were more satisfied with their jobs, were more motivated, and had more respect for their leader.

b. Initiating structure was more strongly related to higher levels of group and organization productivity and more positive performance evaluations.

D. GLOBE Study 1. Some research from the GLOBE study suggests there are international differences in

preference for initiating structure and consideration. a. Based on the values of Brazilian employees, a U.S. manager leading a team in

Brazil would need to be team oriented, participative, and humane. 2. Leaders high in consideration would succeed best in this culture.

a. As one Brazilian manager said in the GLOBE study, “We do not prefer leaders who take self-governing decisions and act alone without engaging the group. That’s part of who we are.” i. Compared to U.S. employees, the French have a more bureaucratic view of

leaders and are less likely to expect them to be humane and considerate. ii. A leader high in initiating structure (relatively task-oriented) will do best and

can make decisions in a relatively autocratic manner. iii. A manager who scores high on consideration (people oriented) may find that

style backfiring in France. b. According to the GLOBE study, Chinese culture emphasizes being polite,

considerate, and unselfish, but it also has a high performance orientation. i. Thus, consideration and initiating structure may both be important.

E. Summary of Trait Theories and Behavioral Theories1. Leaders who have certain traits and who display consideration and structuring

behaviors do appear to be more effective. a. Future research is needed to integrate these approaches.

2. As important as traits and behaviors are in identifying effective or ineffective leaders, they do not guarantee success. The context matters, too.

IV. Contingency TheoriesA. Introduction


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1. Tough-minded leaders seem successful in difficult times, but tend to be dismissed when the environment improves.

2. Situational factors that influence success or failure need to be explored further.B. Fiedler Model

1. Introductiona. The first comprehensive contingency model for leadership was developed by

Fred Fiedler, who proposed that effective group performance depends upon the proper match between the leader’s style and the degree to which the situation gives control to the leader.

2. Identifying leadership style a. Fiedler believed that a key factor in leadership success is the individual’s basic

leadership style. He created the least preferred coworker (LPC) questionnaire for this purpose.

b. It purports to measure whether a person is task- or relationship-oriented. c. The questionnaire contains 16 contrasting adjectives (such as pleasant-unpleasant,

efficient-inefficient, open-guarded, supportive-hostile). i. It asks respondents to describe the one person they least enjoyed working with

by rating him or her on a scale of one-to-eight for each of the 16 sets of contrasting adjectives.

d. Fiedler believes that based on the respondents’ answers to this questionnaire, he can determine their basic leadership style. i. If the least preferred coworker is described in relatively positive terms (a high

LPC score), the respondent is primarily interested in good personal relations with this coworker.

ii. If the least preferred coworker is seen in relatively unfavorable terms (a low LPC score), the respondent is primarily interested in productivity and thus would be labeled task-oriented.

iii. About 16 percent of respondents cannot be classified as either. e. Fiedler assumes that an individual’s leadership style is fixed.

3. Defining the situation a. After assessing leadership style, it is necessary to match the leader with the

situation. Fiedler has identified three contingency dimensions: i. Leader-member relations—The degree of confidence, trust, and respect

members have in their leader.ii. Task structure—The degree to which the job assignments are procedural. iii. Position power—The degree of influence a leader has over power variables

such as hiring, firing, discipline, promotions, and salary increases.b. The next step is to evaluate the situation in terms of these three contingency

variables. i. Leader-member relations are either good or poor. ii. Task structure is either high or low. iii. Position power is either strong or weak.

c. Fiedler states the better the leader-member relations, the more highly structured the job, and the stronger the position power, the more control the leader has.


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4. Matching leaders and situations (Exhibit 12-1)a. Altogether, by mixing the three contingency variables, there are potentially eight

different situations or categories in which leaders could find themselves. b. The Fiedler model proposes matching them up to achieve maximum leadership

effectiveness. c. Fiedler concluded that task-oriented leaders tend to perform better in situations

that were very favorable to them and in situations that were very unfavorable. d. Fiedler would predict that when faced with a category I, II, III, VII, or VIII

situation, task-oriented leaders perform better. e. Relationship-oriented leaders, however, perform better in moderately favorable

situations—categories IV, V, and VI. f. Fiedler has condensed these eight situations to three.

i. Task-oriented leaders perform best in situations of high and low control. ii. While relationship-oriented leaders perform best in moderate control

situations. g. Given Fiedler’s findings, you would seek to match leaders and situations. Because

Fiedler views an individual’s leadership style as being fixed, there are only two ways to improve leader effectiveness. i. First, you can change the leader to fit the situation. ii. The second alternative would be to change the situation to fit the leader.

5. Evaluation of Fiedlera. There is considerable evidence to support at least substantial parts of the model.

i. If predictions from the model use only three categories rather than the original eight, there is ample evidence to support Fiedler’s conclusions.

b. There are problems and the practical use of the model that need to be addressed. i. The logic underlying the LPC is not well understood and studies have shown

that respondents’ LPC scores are not stable. ii. Also, the contingency variables are complex and difficult for practitioners to

assess. 6. Other contingency theories

a. Situational leadership theoryi. Situational leadership is a contingency theory that focuses on the followers. ii. Successful leadership is achieved by selecting the right leadership style, which

is contingent on the level of the followers’ readiness. (a) The term readiness refers to “the extent to which people have the ability

and willingness to accomplish a specific task.”(b) A leader should choose one of four behaviors depending on follower

readiness.(i) If followers are unable and unwilling to do a task, the leader needs to

give clear and specific directions. (ii) If they are unable and willing, the leader needs to display high task

orientation to compensate for followers’ lack of ability and high relationship orientation to get them to “buy into” the leader’s desires.

(iii) If followers are able and unwilling, the leader needs to use a supportive and participative style.

(iv)If they are both able and willing, the leader doesn’t need to do much.


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iii. SLT has an intuitive appeal. Yet, research efforts to test and support the theory have generally been disappointing.

b. Path-goal theoryi. The theory

(a) One of the most respected approaches to leadership is the path-goal theory developed by Robert House.

(b) It is a contingency model of leadership that extracts key elements from the Ohio State leadership research on initiating structure and consideration and the expectancy theory of motivation.

(c) It is the leader’s job to assist followers in attaining their goals and to provide the necessary direction and/or support to ensure that their goals are compatible with the overall objectives of the firm.

(d) The term path-goal is derived from the belief that effective leaders clarify the path to help their followers achieve their work goals.

ii. According to path–goal theory, whether a leader should be directive or supportive or should demonstrate some other behavior depends on complex analysis of the situation. It predicts the following:(a) Directive leadership yields greater satisfaction when tasks are ambiguous

or stressful than when they are highly structured and well laid out.(b) Supportive leadership results in high performance and satisfaction when

employees are performing structured tasks.(c) Directive leadership is likely to be perceived as redundant among

employees with high ability or considerable experience.iii. In a study of 162 workers in a document-processing organization, researchers

found workers’ conscientiousness was related to higher levels of performance only when supervisors set goals and defined roles, responsibilities, and priorities.

iv. Other research has found that goal-focused leadership can lead to higher levels of emotional exhaustion for subordinates who are low in conscientiousness and emotional stability.

v. These studies demonstrate that leaders who set goals enable conscientious followers to achieve higher performance and may cause stress for workers who are low in conscientiousness.

c. Leader-participation modeli. The final contingency theory we cover argues that the way the leader makes

decisions is as important as what she or he decides. ii. Victor Vroom and Phillip Yetton’s leader-participation model relates

leadership behavior and participation in decision making. iii. Like path–goal theory, it says leader behavior must adjust to reflect the task

structure. iv. The model is normative—it provides a decision tree of seven contingencies

and five leadership styles for determining the form and amount of participation in decision making.

d. As one leadership scholar noted, “Leaders do not exist in a vacuum”; leadership is a symbiotic relationship between leaders and followers.


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i. But the theories we’ve covered to this point assume leaders use a fairly homogeneous style with everyone in their work unit.

V. Leader-Member Exchange TheoryA. The leader-member exchange (LMX) theory argues that because of time pressures,

leaders establish a special relationship with a small group of their followers. B. These individuals make up the in-group—they are trusted, get a disproportionate amount

of the leader’s attention, and are more likely to receive special privileges. C. The theory proposes that early in the history of the interaction between a leader and a

given follower, the leader implicitly categorizes the follower as an “in” or an “out” and that relationship is relatively stable over time. 1. How the leader chooses who falls into each category is unclear. 2. The leader does the choosing on the basis of the follower’s characteristics.3. In groups have similar characteristics. (Exhibit 12-2)

D. The theory and research surrounding it provide substantive evidence that leaders do differentiate among followers.

E. Research to test LMX theory has been generally supportive, with substantive evidence that leaders do differentiate among followers. 1. These disparities are far from random; and followers with in-group status will have

higher performance ratings, engage in more helping or “citizenship” behaviors at work, and report greater satisfaction with their superior.

2. One study conducted in both Portugal and the United States found that leader–member exchange was associated especially strongly with followers’ commitment to the organization when the leaders were seen as embodying the values and identity of the organization. a. These positive findings for in-group members shouldn’t be surprising, given our

knowledge of self-fulfilling prophecy (see Chapter 6). b. Leaders invest their resources with those they expect to perform best. And

believing in-group members are the most competent, leaders treat them as such and unwittingly fulfill their prophecy.

3. Conversely, a study in Turkey demonstrated that when leaders differentiated strongly among their followers in terms of their relationships (some followers had very positive leader–member exchange, others very poor), employees responded with more negative work attitudes and higher levels of withdrawal behavior. a. Leader–follower relationships may be stronger when followers have a more active

role in shaping their own job performance. b. Research on 287 software developers and 164 supervisors showed leader–

member relationships have a stronger impact on employee performance and attitudes when employees have higher levels of autonomy and a more internal locus of control.

VI. Charismatic Leadership and Transformational LeadershipA. Introduction

1. View leaders as individuals who inspire followers through their words, ideas, and behaviors.

B. Charismatic Leadership1. What is charismatic leadership?

a. Charismatic leadership theory proposed by Robert House.


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b. Followers make attributes of heroic or extraordinary leadership abilities when they observe certain behaviors. (Exhibit 12-3)

c. General characteristics are they have vision, are willing to take personal risk, are sensitive to followers’ needs, and exhibit extraordinary behaviors.

2. Are charismatic leaders born or made? a. Individuals are born with traits that make them charismatic.b. Most experts believe individuals can learn to be charismatic leaders.c. A three-step process is suggested:

i. First, an individual needs to develop the aura of charisma by maintaining an optimistic view; using passion as a catalyst for generating enthusiasm; and communicating with the whole body, not just with words.

ii. Second, an individual draws others in by creating a bond that inspires others to follow.

iii. Third, the individual brings out the potential in followers by tapping into their emotions.

3. How charismatic leaders influence followers a. Articulating an appealing vision.

i. Vision statementii. High performance expectationsiii. A new set of values

4. Does effective charismatic leadership depend on the situation? a. A strong correlation between charismatic leadership and high performance and

satisfaction among followers.b. Charisma appears to be most appropriate when the follower’s task has an

ideological component or when the environment involves a high degree of stress and uncertainty.

c. This may explain why, when charismatic leaders surface, it’s more likely to be in politics, religion, wartime; or when a business firm is in its infancy or facing a life-threatening crisis.

d. Another situational factor apparently limiting charisma is level in the organization.

e. Finally, people are especially receptive to charismatic leadership when they sense a crisis, when they are under stress, or when they fear for their lives. i. Charismatic leaders are able to reduce stress for their employees, perhaps

because they help make work seem more meaningful and interesting. ii. And some peoples’ personalities are especially susceptible to charismatic

leadership. iii. Consider self-esteem:

(a) An individual who lacks self-esteem and questions his or her self-worth is more likely to absorb a leader’s direction rather than establish his or her own way of leading or thinking.

5. The dark side of charismatic leadershipa. Don’t necessarily act in the best interest of their companies.b. Many have allowed their personal goals to override the goals of the organization.

i. The results at companies such as Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, and HealthSouth were leaders who recklessly used organizational resources for their personal


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benefit and executives who violated laws and ethical boundaries to inflate stock prices and allow leaders to cash in millions of dollars in stock options.

c. It’s little wonder research has shown that individuals who are narcissistic are also higher in some behaviors associated with charismatic leadership.

d. It’s not that charismatic leadership isn’t effective; overall, it is. i. But a charismatic leader isn’t always the answer. ii. Success depends, to some extent, on the situation and on the leader’s vision. iii. Some charismatic leaders—Hitler, for example—are all too successful at

convincing their followers to pursue a vision that can be disastrous.C. Transformational Leadership

1. Introductiona. A stream of research has focuses on differentiating transformational and

transactional leaders.b. The Ohio State studies, Fiedler’s model, path-goal theory, and the leader

participation model—have concerned transactional leaders. i. These kinds of leaders guide or motivate their followers in the direction of

established goals by clarifying role and task requirements. c. Transformational leaders inspire followers to transcend their own self-interests

for the good of the organization. i. They change followers’ awareness of issues by helping them to look at old

problems in new ways; and they are able to excite, arouse, and inspire followers to put out extra effort to achieve group goals.

ii. Transformational leadership is built on top of transactional leadership—it produces levels of follower effort and performance that go beyond what would occur with a transactional approach alone. (Exhibit 12-4)

d. Transactional and transformational leadership complement each other.i. They aren’t opposing approaches to getting things done. ii. Transformational leadership builds on transactional leadership and produces

levels of follower effort and performance beyond what transactional leadership alone can do.

e. The best leaders are transactional and transformational.2. Full range of leadership model (Exhibit 12-5)

a. Laissez-faire is the most passive and least effective type.b. Management by exception is slightly better.c. Contingent reward leadership can be effective.d. The remaining four correspond to transformational leadership:

i. Individualized considerationii. Intellectual stimulationiii. Inspirational motivationiv. Idealized influence

3. How transformational leadership worksa. Transformational leaders are more effective because they are more creative, but

also because they encourage those who follow them to be creative, too. b. Companies with transformational leaders have greater decentralization of

responsibility, managers have more propensities to take risks, and compensation


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plans are geared toward long-term results—all of which facilitate corporate entrepreneurship. i. One study of information technology workers in China found empowering

leadership behavior led to feelings of positive personal control among workers, which increased their creativity at work.

c. Companies with transformational leaders also show greater agreement among top managers about the organization’s goals, which yields superior organizational performance. i. The Israeli military has seen similar results, showing that transformational

leaders improve performance by building consensus among group members. d. Transformational leaders are able to increase follower self-efficacy, giving the

group a “can do” spirit. i. Followers are more likely to pursue ambitious goals, agree on the strategic

goals of the organization, and believe the goals they are pursuing are personally important.

e. Just as vision helps explain how charismatic leadership works, it also explains part of the effect of transformational leadership. i. One study found vision was even more important than a charismatic (effusive,

dynamic, lively) communication style in explaining the success of entrepreneurial firms.

f. Finally, transformational leadership engenders commitment on the part of followers and instills greater trust in the leader.

4. Evaluation of transformational leadership a. Transformational leadership has been impressively supported at diverse job levels

and occupations (school principals, teachers, marine commanders, ministers, presidents of MBA associations, military cadets, union shop stewards, sales reps). i. One study of R&D firms found teams whose project leaders scored high on

transformational leadership produced better-quality products as judged 1 year later and higher profits 5 years later.

ii. Another study looking at employee creativity and transformational leadership more directly found employees with transformational leaders had more confidence in their ability to be creative at work and higher levels of creative performance.

iii. A review of 117 studies testing transformational leadership found it was related to higher levels of individual follower performance, team performance, and organizational performance.

b. Transformational leadership isn’t equally effective in all situations. i. It has a greater impact on the bottom line in smaller, privately held firms than

in more complex organizations. ii. Transformational leadership may be most effective when leaders can directly

interact with the workforce and make decisions than when they report to an external board of directors or deal with a complex bureaucratic structure.

iii. One study showed transformational leaders were more effective in improving group potency in teams higher in power distance and collectivism.

iv. Other recent research using a sample of employees both in China and the United States found that transformational leadership had a more positive


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relationship with perceived procedural justice among individuals who were lower in power-distance orientation, which in turn related to a stronger transformational leadership-citizenship behavior relationship among those higher in power distance.

c. Transformational leaders also obtain higher levels of trust, which reduces stress for followers.

d. In short, transformational leadership works through a number of different processes. i. One study examined how different types of transformational leadership can be

effective depending on whether work is evaluated at the team or the individual level.

ii. Individual-focused transformational leadership is behavior that empowers individual followers to develop, enhance their abilities, and increase self-efficacy.

iii. Team-focused transformational leadership emphasizes group goals, shared values and beliefs, and unified efforts.

iv. Evidence from a sample of 203 team members and 60 leaders in a business unit found individual transformational leadership associated with higher individual-level performance, whereas team focused transformational leadership drew higher group-level performance.

e. Transformational leadership theory is not perfect. Contingent reward leadership may not characterize transactional leaders only. i. Contrary to the full range of leadership model, the four I’s in transformational

leadership are not always superior in effectiveness to transactional leadership (contingent reward leadership sometimes works as well as transformational leadership).

f. In summary, transformational leadership is more strongly correlated than transactional leadership with lower turnover rates, higher productivity, lower employee stress and burnout, and higher employee satisfaction. Like charisma, it can be learned. i. One study of Canadian bank managers found branches managed by those who

underwent transformational leadership training performed significantly better than branches whose managers did not receive training. Other studies show similar results.

g. The GLOBE study—of 18,000 leaders from 825 organizations in 62 countries— links a number of elements of transformational leadership with effective leadership, regardless of country. i. This conclusion is very important because it disputes the contingency view

that leadership style needs to adapt to cultural differences. ii. Universal elements are:

(a) Vision (b) Foresight (c) Providing encouragement(d) Trustworthiness (e) Dynamism (f) Positiveness


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(g) Proactiveness iii. The GLOBE team concluded that “effective business leaders in any country

are expected by their subordinates to provide a powerful and proactive vision to guide the company into the future, strong motivational skills to stimulate all employees to fulfill the vision, and excellent planning skills to assist in implementing the vision.”

iv. A vision is important in any culture, then, but the way it is formed and communicated may need to vary by culture.

VII. Authentic Leadership: Ethics and Trust A. What Is Authentic Leadership?

1. Authentic leaders know who they are, what they believe in and value, and act on those values and beliefs openly and candidly.

2. The Result: People come to have faith in them.3. Recent research indicates that authentic leadership, especially when shared among top

management team members, created a positive energizing effect (see affective events theory, Chapter 4) that heightened firm performance.

B. Ethical Leadership1. Only recently have ethicists and leadership researchers begun to consider the ethical

implications in leadership. 2. Ethics touches on leadership at a number of junctures. 3. Leaders who treat their followers with fairness, especially by providing honest,

frequent, and accurate information, are seen as more effective. a. Related to this is the concept of humbleness, another characteristic ethical leaders

often exhibit as part of being authentic. b. Research indicates that leaders who model humility help followers to understand

the growth process for their own development. 4. Leaders rated as highly ethical tend to have followers who engage in more

organizational citizenship behaviors and who are more willing to bring problems to the leaders’ attention.

5. A recent research review found that role modeling by top leaders positively influenced managers throughout their organizations to behave ethically and fostered a climate that reinforced group-level ethical conduct. a. The findings suggest that organizations should invest in ethical leadership training

programs, especially in industries with few ethical regulations. b. The researchers furthermore advised that ethical leadership training programs to

teach cultural values should be mandated for leaders who take foreign assignments or manage multicultural work teams.

6. To convey their beliefs, leaders should learn to express their moral convictions in statements that reflect values shared with their organization’s members.a. Leaders can build on this foundation of trust to show their character, enhance a

sense of unity, and create buy-in from followers.7. Leadership effectiveness needs to address the means that a leader uses in trying to

achieve goals as well as the content of those goals. Leadership is not value free. 8. Efforts have been made to combine ethical and charismatic leadership into an idea of

socialized charismatic leadership.


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C. Servant Leadership 1. Scholars have recently considered ethical leadership from a new angle by examining

servant leadership. a. Servant leaders go beyond their own self-interest and focus on opportunities to

help followers grow and develop. b. They don’t use power to achieve ends; they emphasize persuasion. c. Characteristic behaviors include listening, empathizing, persuading, accepting

stewardship, and actively developing followers’ potential. 2. Because servant leadership focuses on serving the needs of others, research has

focused on its outcomes for the well-being of followers. 3. What are the effects of servant leadership?

a. A study of 123 supervisors found servant leadership resulted in higher levels of commitment to the supervisor, self-efficacy, and perceptions of justice, which all were related to organizational citizenship behavior. i. This relationship between servant leadership and follower OCB appears to be

stronger when followers are focused on being dutiful and responsible. b. Second, servant leadership increases team potency (a belief that one’s team has

above-average skills and abilities), which in turn leads to higher levels of group performance.

c. Third, a study with a nationally representative sample found higher levels of citizenship associated with a focus on growth and advancement, which in turn was associated with higher levels of creative performance.

4. Servant leadership may be more prevalent and more effective in certain cultures. a. When asked to draw images of leaders, U.S. subjects tend to draw them in front of

the group, giving orders to followers. b. Singaporeans tend to draw leaders at the back of the group, acting more to gather

a group’s opinions together and then unify them from the rear. c. This suggests the East Asian prototype is more like a servant leader, which might

mean servant leadership is more effective in these cultures.D. Trust and Leadership

1. Trust is a psychological state that exists when you agree to make yourself vulnerable to another because you have positive expectations about how things are going to turn out.

2. Trust is a primary attribute associated with leadership. 3. When trust is broken, it can have serious adverse effects on a group’s performance.

a. It is evident that it is impossible to lead people who do not trust you. b. Trust and trustworthiness modulate the leader’s access to knowledge and

cooperation. 4. Followers who trust a leader are confident their rights and interests will not be

abused. a. Transformational leaders create support for their ideas in part by arguing that their

direction will be in everyone’s best interests. b. People are unlikely to look up to or follow someone they perceive as dishonest or

likely to take advantage of them.


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c. Thus, as you might expect, transformational leaders do generate higher levels of trust from their followers, which in turn is related to higher levels of team confidence and, ultimately, higher levels of team performance.

5. In a simple contractual exchange of goods and services, your employer is legally bound to pay you for fulfilling your job description. a. But today’s rapid reorganizations, diffusion of responsibility, and collaborative

team-based work style mean employment relationships are not stable long-term contracts with explicit terms.

b. Rather, they are more fundamentally based on trusting relationships than ever before.

c. You have to trust that if you show your supervisor a creative project you’ve been working on, she won’t steal the credit behind your back.

d. You have to trust that extra work you’ve been doing will be recognized in your performance appraisal.

e. In contemporary organizations, where less work is closely documented and specified, voluntary employee contribution based on trust is absolutely necessary.

f. And only a trusted leader will be able to encourage employees to reach beyond themselves to a transformational goal.

E. How Is Trust Developed?1. Trust isn’t just about the leader; the characteristics of the followers will also influence

the development of trust.2. What key characteristics lead us to believe a leader is trustworthy? Evidence has

identified three: integrity, benevolence, and ability. (Exhibit 12-6) a. Integrity refers to honesty and truthfulness. It seems the most critical of the three

in assessing another’s trustworthiness.b. Benevolence means the trusted person has your interests at heart, even if yours

aren’t necessarily in line with theirs. c. Ability encompasses an individual’s technical and interpersonal knowledge and

skills.F. Trust as a Process

1. Trust propensity refers to how likely a particular employee is to trust a leader. Some people are simply more likely to believe others can be trusted.

2. Time is the final ingredient in the recipe for trust. Trust doesn’t happen immediately: we come to trust people based on observing their behavior over a period of time.

3. Trust can also be won in the ability domain simply by demonstrating competence.4. Leaders who break the psychological contract with workers, demonstrating they

aren’t trustworthy, will find employees are less satisfied and less committed, have higher intentions to turnover, engage in less citizenship behavior, and have lower task performance.

G. What Are the Consequences of Trust?1. Trust encourages taking risks.

a. Whenever employees decide to deviate from the usual way of doing things, or to take their supervisors’ word on a new direction, they are taking a risk.

2. Trust facilitates information sharing. a. One big reason employees fail to express concerns at work is that they don’t feel

psychologically safe revealing their views.


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3. Trusting groups are more effective.a. When a leader sets a trusting tone in a group, members are more willing to help

each other and exert extra effort, which further increases trust.4. Trust enhances productivity.

a. The bottom-line interest of companies also appears positively influenced by trust. Employees who trust their supervisors tend to receive higher performance ratings.

VIII. Leading for the Future: MentoringA. Mentoring

1. A mentor is a senior employee who sponsors and supports a less-experienced employee (a protégé).

2. Successful mentors are good teachers. a. They present ideas clearly, listen well, and empathize with protégés’ problems.

Mentoring relationships serve both career functions and psychosocial functions. (Exhibit 12-7)

b. Traditional informal mentoring relationships develop when leaders identify a less experienced, lower-level employee who appears to have potential for future development.

3. The protégé will often be tested with a particularly challenging assignment. a. If he or she performs acceptably, the mentor will develop the relationship,

informally showing the protégé how the organization really works outside its formal structures and procedures.

4. Why would a leader want to be a mentor? a. Many feel they have something to share with the younger generation and want to

provide a legacy. b. Mentoring also provides unfiltered access to the attitudes of lower-ranking

employees, and protégés can be an excellent source of early warning signals that identify potential organizational problems.

c. Although begun with the best intentions, these formal relationships are not as effective as informal ones.

d. Poor planning and design may often be the reason. i. Mentor commitment is critical to a program’s effectiveness; mentors must see

the relationship as beneficial to themselves and the protégé. ii. The protégé, too, must feel he or she has input into the relationship; someone

who feels it’s foisted on him or her will just go through the motions. iii. Formal mentoring programs are also most likely to succeed if they

appropriately match the work style, needs, and skills of protégé and mentor. e. You might assume mentoring is valuable for objective outcomes like

compensation and job performance, but research suggests the gains are primarily psychological.i. Research indicates that while mentoring can have an impact on career success,

it is not as much of a contributing factor as ability and personality. ii. It may feel nice to have a mentor, but it doesn’t appear that having a good

mentor, or any mentor, is critical to your career. iii. Mentors may be effective not because of the functions they provide, but

because of the resources they can obtain: a mentor connected to a powerful network can build relationships that will help the protégé advance.


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iv. Most evidence suggests that network ties, whether built through a mentor or not, are a significant predictor of career success.

v. If a mentor is not well connected or not a very strong performer, the best mentoring advice in the world will not be very beneficial.

IX. Challenges to the Leadership ConstructA. Introduction

1. Much of an organization’s success or failure is due to factors outside the influence of leadership. In many cases, success or failure is just a matter of being in the right or wrong place at a given time.

B. Leadership as an Attribution1. As you may remember from Chapter 6, attribution theory examines how people try to

make sense of cause-and-effect relationships. a. The attribution theory of leadership says leadership is merely an attribution

people make about other individuals. b. We attribute to leaders intelligence, outgoing personality, strong verbal skills,

aggressiveness, understanding, and industriousness. c. At the organizational level, we tend to see leaders, rightly or wrongly, as

responsible for extremely negative or extremely positive performance. 2. One longitudinal study of 128 major U.S. corporations found that whereas

perceptions of CEO charisma did not lead to objective company performance, company performance did lead to perceptions of charisma. a. Employee perceptions of their leaders’ behaviors are significant predictors of

whether they blame the leader for failure, regardless of how the leader assesses himself or herself.

b. A study of more than 3,000 employees from Western Europe, the United States, and the Middle East found people who tended to “romanticize” leadership in general were more likely to believe their own leaders were transformational.

3. When Merrill Lynch began to lose billions in 2008 as a result of its investments in mortgage securities, it wasn’t long before CEO Stan O’Neal lost his job. a. He appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee of

the U.S. Congress for what one committee member termed “a public flogging.” b. Some called him a “criminal,” and still others suggested Merrill’s losses

represented “attempted destruction.” c. Whether O’Neal was responsible for the losses at Merrill or deserved his nine-

figure severance package are difficult questions to answer. d. However, it is not difficult to argue that he probably changed very little between

2004 when Fortune described him as a “turnaround genius” and 2009 when he was fired.

e. What did change was the performance of the organization he led. f. It’s not necessarily wrong to terminate a CEO for failing or flagging financial

performance. g. However, O’Neal’s story illustrates the power of the attribution approach to

leadership: hero and genius when things are going well, villain when they aren’t.


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4. We also make demographic assumptions about leaders. a. Respondents in a study assumed a leader described with no identifying racial

information was white at a rate beyond the base rate of white employees in a company. i. In scenarios where identical leadership situations are described but the

leaders’ race is manipulated, white leaders are rated as more effective than leaders of other racial groups.

b. One large-scale summary study (a meta-analysis) found that many individuals hold stereotypes of men as having more leader characteristics than women, although as you might expect, this tendency to equate leadership with masculinity has decreased over time.

c. Other data suggest women’s perceived success as transformational leaders may be based on demographic characteristics.

d. Teams prefer male leaders when aggressively competing against other teams, but they prefer female leaders when the competition is within teams and calls for improving positive relationships within the group.

5. Attribution theory suggests what’s important is projecting the appearance of being a leader rather than focusing on actual accomplishments. a. Leader-wannabes who can shape the perception that they’re smart, personable,

verbally adept, aggressive, hardworking, and consistent in their style can increase the probability their bosses, colleagues, and employees will view them as effective leaders.

C. Substitutes and Neutralizers to Leadership (Exhibit 12-8)1. Data from numerous studies collectively demonstrate that, in many situations,

whatever actions leaders exhibit are irrelevant. a. Experience and training are among the substitutes that can replace the need for a

leader’s support or ability to create structure. b. Organizational characteristics such as explicit formalized goals, rigid rules and

procedures, and cohesive work groups can also replace formal leadership, while indifference to organizational rewards can neutralize its effects.

c. Neutralizers make it impossible for leader behavior to make any difference to follower outcomes. (Exhibit 12-8)

2. It’s simplistic to think employees are guided to goal accomplishments solely by the actions of their leader. a. Leadership is simply another independent variable in our overall OB model.

3. Sometimes the difference between substitutes and neutralizers is fuzzy. a. If I’m working on a task that’s intrinsically enjoyable, theory predicts leadership

will be less important because the task itself provides enough motivation.b. But does that mean intrinsically enjoyable tasks neutralize leadership effects, or

substitute for them, or both? c. Another problem is that while substitutes for leadership (such as employee

characteristics, the nature of the task, and so forth) matter to performance, that doesn’t necessarily mean leadership doesn’t.

D. Online Leadership1. The questions of how do you lead people who are physically separated from you and

with whom you communicate electronically? This question needs research.


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2. Today’s managers and employees are increasingly linked by networks rather than geographic proximity.

3. We propose that online leaders have to think carefully about what actions they want their digital messages to initiate. a. They confront unique challenges, the greatest of which appears to be developing

and maintaining trust. b. Identification-based trust, based on a mutual understanding of each other’s

intentions and appreciation of the other’s wants and desires, is particularly difficult to achieve without face-to-face interaction.

c. And online negotiations can also be hindered because parties express lower levels of trust.

d. We tentatively conclude that good leadership skills will soon include the abilities to communicate support, trust, and inspiration through keyboarded words and accurately read emotions in others’ messages.

4. In electronic communication, writing skills are likely to become an extension of interpersonal skills.

X. Finding and Creating Effective LeadersA. Selecting Leaders

1. The entire process that organizations go through to fill management positions is essentially an exercise in trying to identify individuals who will be effective leaders. a. You can begin by reviewing the specific requirements for the position such as

knowledge, skills, and abilities that are needed to do the job effectively. b. Personality tests can identify traits associated with leadership—extraversion,

conscientiousness, and openness to experience. i. High self-monitors are better at reading situations and adjusting their behavior

accordingly. ii. Candidates with high emotional intelligence should have an advantage,

especially in situations requiring transformational leadership. iii. Experience is a poor predictor of leader effectiveness, but situation-specific

experience is relevant. c. Since nothing lasts forever, the most important event an organization needs to

plan for is a change in leadership. 2. Some organizations seem to spend no time on leadership succession and are surprised

when their picks turn out poorly.B. Training Leaders

1. Billions are spent on leadership training and development every year. 2. Here are some things management can do to get the maximum effect from their

leadership-training budgets: a. Leadership training is likely to be more successful with individuals who are high

self-monitors than with low self-monitors. b. Second, organizations can teach implementation skills. c. We also can teach skills such as trust building, mentoring, and situational-analysis

skills.d. There is evidence suggesting that behavioral training through modeling exercises

can increase an individual’s ability to exhibit charismatic leadership qualities.


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e. Recent research also indicates that leaders should engage in regularly reviewing their leadership after key organizational events as part of their development.

f. Finally, leaders can be trained in transformational leadership skills that have bottom-line results.

XI. Summary and Implications for Managers A. Leadership plays a central part in understanding group behavior, because it’s the leader

who usually directs us toward our goals. B. Knowing what makes a good leader should thus be valuable in improving group

performance.C. The early search for a set of universal leadership traits failed. D. However, recent efforts using the Big Five personality framework show strong and




G. Research on charismatic and transformational leadership has made major contributions to our understanding of leadership effectiveness. Specific implications for managers are below:1. For management positions, hire candidates who exhibit transformational leadership






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glOBalization! Leaders Broaden Their Span of Control in Multinational

Organizations

This exercise contributes to: Learning Objective: Identify the central tenets and main limitations of behavioral theories Learning Outcomes: Discuss the influence of culture on organizational behavior; Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadershipAACSB: Diverse and multicultural work environments; Reflective thinking

In the past twenty 20 years, senior corporate leaders have increased their average number of direct reports from 5 to 10 as their organizations have spread into new multinational territories. You may think this is yet another example of organization bloat. In reality, it has more to do with the desire of today’s CEOs to directly engage with all areas of their business interests, bringing in representatives from new overseas ventures and even eliminating a significant middle layer of hierarchy (the role of the deputy, or COO, is on the decline among Fortune 500 companies). In fact, 80 percent of the new managers reporting to CEOs are functional leaders, who have been increasingly taking on general manager roles.

While the jump from 5 to 10 may not seem big in terms of headcount, the fact that these new direct reports represent diverse corporate interests poses a challenge for leadership. Research suggests the number of direct reports should be fewer than five if significant cross-organizational collaboration is needed, as in most multinational organizations. Experts also advise limiting the CEO’s span of control when organizations are in transition, as globally expanding businesses are by definition.

The type of leadership the organization’s particular CEO embodies should also suggest the optimal span of control, as should the national cultures of top overseas managers. A study from 23 countries showed that, in agreement with leader–member exchange (LMX) theory discussed in this chapter, individuals whose leaders treat them as favorites trust their leaders more in individualistic than in collectivistic cultures. This suggests that a CEO may be effective with a higher number of direct reports when they are from the organization’s Asian business interests, for example, since because the collectivist culture’s respect for authority does not depend on personalized LMX attention. A CEO managing Western-culture direct reports might be better advised to keep the number to five or fewer in order to leverage the positive outcomes of high LMX.

Leadership issues are always at the forefront as companies expand. Companies have stretched and flattened their organizational structures to meet their global aspirations, but few leaders have directly addressed the high need for mental proximity – the ability to connect closely with their key employees, who are, after all, influential leaders themselves.

Sources: B. Groysberg and M. Slind, “Leadership is a Conversation,” Harvard Business Review (June 2012), pp. 76–-84; G. L. Neilson and J. Wulf, “How Many Direct Reports?” Harvard Business Review (April 2012), pp. 112–-119; and T. Rockstuhl, J. H. Dulebohn, S. Ang,


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and L. M. Shore, “Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) and Culture: A Meta-Analysis of Correlates of LMX across 23 Countries,” Journal of Applied Psychology 97 (2012), pp. 1097–-1130.

Class Exercise

1. Divide the class into teams of three to five.2. Ask each group to read the papers at

http://hbr.org/2012/06/leadership-is-a-conversation/ar/1 http://www.harvardbusiness.org/sites/default/files/

HBR_Leadership_Is_a_Conversation.pdf3. Using the model presented in the paper, each team should prepare a presentation to a

group of CEOs to convince them why it is important to change their approach to communication in today’s flatter organizations.

4. Have the class compare and contrast any similarities or differences presented among the groups.

Teaching Notes:

This exercise is applicable to face-to-face classes or synchronous online classes such as BlackBoard 9.1, Breeze, WIMBA, and Second Life Virtual Classrooms. See http://www.baclass.panam.edu/imob/SecondLife for more information.

Myth or Science? “Top Leaders Feel the Most Stress”

This exercise contributes to: Learning Objective: Contrast charismatic and transformational leadershipLearning Outcomes: Discuss the influence of culture on organizational behavior; Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadershipAACSB: Reflective thinking

Leaders of corporations fight pressures from their boards, customers, managers, and employees. Wouldn’t it stand to reason they are the most stressed people in their organizations? Apparently not. According to studies from Harvard University, the University of California–San Diego, and Stanford University, leadership brings a blissful relief from the stress felt by individuals who are not in managerial roles. Not only did leaders report less anxiety than non-leaders, but their cortisol (stress hormone) levels were also lower, indicating they biologically are less likely to register stress. Another study found that individuals in higher-status occupational groups registered less perceived stress and lower blood pressure readings than those in lower status occupations.

If you’re thinking this is one more reason why “it’s better at the top,” you may be right, if only partially. It is true that leaders appear to show fewer signs of stress by virtue of being leaders,


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http://www.baclass.panam.edu/imob/SecondLife

http://www.harvardbusiness.org/sites/default/files/HBR_Leadership_Is_a_Conversation.pdf

http://www.harvardbusiness.org/sites/default/files/HBR_Leadership_Is_a_Conversation.pdf

http://hbr.org/2012/06/leadership-is-a-conversation/ar/1


regardless of higher income or longer job tenure. However, researchers found no “magic level” in an organization at which employees feel a reduction in stress levels.

One study found that stress reduction correlates with feelings of control. Leaders with more subordinates and greater power felt less stress than other individuals who knew they had less control over outcomes. Top leaders who control the resources of their corporations and have plenty of employees to carry out their directives therefore can fight stressors before they affect them.

Sources: M. Korn, “Top-Level Leaders Hhave Less Stress Tthan Others,” The Wall Street Journal (October 3, 2012), p. B6; G. D. Sherman, J. J. Lee, A. J. C. Cuddy, et al. “Leadership Is Associated with Lower Levels of Stress,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (October 30, 2012), pp. 17903–-17907; and E. Wiernik, B. Pannier, S. Czhernichow, H. Nabi, et al., “Occupational Status Moderates the Association between Current Perceived Stress and High Blood Pressure: Evidence from the IPC Cohort Study,” Hypertension (March 2013), pp. 571–-577.

Class Exercise

1. Divide students into groups of three to five.2. Ask students to extend the discussion in this feature by looking at the two perspectives of

stress and top leaders at: http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/management/stress-management-for-the-ceo-

20090713-di4d.html http://www.inc.com/tom-searcy/how-to-beat-ceo-burnout.html

3. Based on this information, ask each group to develop recommendations to help an organization deal with stress at different levels of management.

4. Ask each student to reflect on his or her ability to effectively control stress in a leadership role.

Teaching Notes



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http://www.inc.com/tom-searcy/how-to-beat-ceo-burnout.html

http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/management/stress-management-for-the-ceo-20090713-di4d.html

http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/management/stress-management-for-the-ceo-20090713-di4d.html


An Ethical ChoiceHolding Leaders Ethically Accountable

This exercise contributes to: Learning Objective: Define authentic leadershipLearning Outcomes: Discuss the influence of culture on organizational behavior; Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadershipAACSB: Ethical understanding and reasoning; Reflective thinking

No one thinks leaders shouldn’t be accountable. Leaders must balance many and conflicting stakeholder demands. The first, largely unspoken, demand is for strong financial performance; leaders are probably terminated more often for missing this goal than for all other factors combined. When one balances the often extreme pressure for financial performance with the desire most leaders have to act ethically toward their employees, there is unfortunately little leadership accountability to ensure ethical leadership is happening. Given that pressure, ethical leadership may be under-rewarded and depend solely on the leader’s innate decency.

Ethical leadership is a relatively new area of research attention. Demonstrating fairness and social responsibility and abiding by the law even run counter to many old-school models of leadership. Consider, for example, legendary management guru Peter Drucker’s advice (1967): “It is the duty of the executive to remove ruthlessly anyone—and especially any manager—who consistently fails to perform with high distinction. To let such a man stay on corrupts the others.” Modern ethical leadership guidelines say this cut-throat mindset fails to consider the moral implications of treating people as objects at an organization’s disposal.

While few organizations still require “performance at all costs,” anymore, financiers, shareholders, and boards have the reward power to teach leaders which outcomes to value. Ethical leadership resounds positively throughout all organizational levels, resulting in responsible and potentially highly profitable outcomes, but the ultimate ethical test will come when shareholders—and leaders—show signs of balancing these accountabilities themselves.

Sources: T. E. Ricks, “What Ever Happened to Accountability?” Harvard Business Review (October 2012), pp. 93–100; J. M. Schaubroeck et al., “Embedding Ethical Leadership Within and Across Organizational Levels,” Academy of Management Journal 55 (2012), pp. 1053–1078; and J. Stouten, M. van Dijke, and D. De Cremer, “Ethical Leadership,” Journal of Personnel Psychology 11 (2012), pp. 1–6.

Class Exercise

1. Divide the class into teams of three to five students each.2. Ask each team to read the article at

http://www.sullivanadvisorygroup.com/docs/articles/Practicing%20Servant%20Leadership.pdf

3. Each team should prepare a training plan to develop organizational managers to the servant leadership style.


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4. Have each group present its plan for a training program.

Teaching Notes


Point/Counterpoint Heroes Are Made, Not Born

This exercise contributes to: Learning Objectives: Contrast leadership and management; Contrast charismatic and transformational leadership; Address challenges to the effectiveness of leadershipLearning Outcome: Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadershipAACSB: Reflective thinking

Point

We often ascribe heroic qualities to our leaders. They are courageous in the face of great risk. They persevere when few would. They take action when most sit by. Heroes are exceptional people who display exceptional behavior.

But some social psychologists question this conventional wisdom. They note that heroism can be found in many spheres of life, including in the behavior of whistleblowers, explorers, religious leaders, scientists, Good Samaritans, and those who beat the odds. At some time in our lives, we all show heroism when the situation allows us to. If we want to see more heroic behavior, we need to create more situations that produce it.

Stanford psychologist Phil Zimbardo goes even further to argue that our romantic view that heroes are born is misplaced: “The banality of evil is matched by the banality of heroism. Neither is the consequence of dispositional tendencies. . . . Both emerge in particular situations at particular times, when situational forces play a compelling role in moving individuals across the line from inaction to action.”

People exhibit brave behavior every day. The workers who risked their lives to contain Japan’s earthquake-ravaged nuclear reactors in 2011 are a great example. Thus, we err when we think leaders are uniquely positioned to behave heroically. We all can be heroes in the right situation.

Counterpoint

Of course heroes are not like everyone else. That’s what makes them heroes.A generation of evidence from behavioral genetics reveals that “everything is genetic,” meaning


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we have yet to discover an important human behavior that does not have genetic origins. Though we’re not aware of any such study with respect to heroism, it would be surprising if courageous behavior were not at least partly genetic.

It’s foolish to think courageous people aren’t exceptional because of who they are. Just as we know there is an entrepreneurial personality and a leader personality, there is a heroic personality. Research suggests, for example, that people who score high on conscientiousness are more likely to engage in courageous behavior.

Not all leaders are heroes, but many have exhibited courageous behavior. CEO Richard Branson may or may not be a hero, but when he launches his latest attempt to set the world record for an around-the-world balloon flight or sloop sailing, he exhibits the same courageous behavior when he is leading conglomerate Virgin Group. Virgin Group now includes more than 400 companies, including Virgin Galactic, a space tourism company, and Virgin Fuels, whose goal is to revolutionize the industry by providing sustainable fuels for automobiles and aircraft. Same leader, same heroic behavior—in work and in life.

Are we really to believe that Richard Branson and other courageous leaders are just like everyone else?

Sources: Z. E. Franco, K. Blau, and P. G. Zimbardo, “Heroism: A Conceptual Analysis and Differentiation Between Heroic Action and Altruism,” Review of General Psychology 15, no. 2 (2011), pp. 99–113; O. Dorell, “At Nuke Plant, Heroes Emerge,” USA Today (March 25, 2011), pp. 1A, 2A; G. R. Goethals and S. C. Allison, “Making Heroes: The Construction of Courage, Competence, and Virtue,” Advances in Experimental Psychology 46 (2012), pp. 183–-235; L. J. Walker, J. A. Frimer, and W. L. Dunlop, “Varieties of Moral Personality: Beyond the Banality of Heroism,” Journal of Personality 78, no. 3 (2010), pp. 907–942; and J. Lehrer, “Are Heroes Born, or Can They Be Made?” The Wall Street Journal (December 11, 2010), p. C12.

Class Exercise

1. Ask students to read the following web page: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/4636614/AAAS-Heroes-are-born-not-made-scientists-claim.html

2. The finding of this study seems to imply that “heroes” are people who have naturally occurring stress controls in crisis situations.

3. Ask student teams of three to five students each to do a search to determine if stress control can be developed in anyone, making it more likely that he or she will respond calmly and rationally to a crisis situation.

4. Have each team present its findings to the class.5. Ask the class to compare and contrast the similarities and differences in each team’s

response. Could anyone in fact be a hero?

Teaching Notes



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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/4636614/AAAS-Heroes-are-born-not-made-scientists-claim.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/4636614/AAAS-Heroes-are-born-not-made-scientists-claim.html


Questions for Review

12-1. Are leadership and management different from one another? If so, how?Answer: Both leadership and management are essential for organizational success. They are often used synonymously, but they are not the same. Leadership is the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of goal. Management is the use of authority inherent in designated formal rank to obtain compliance from organizational members.Learning Objective: Contrast leadership and managementLearning Outcome: Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadershipAACSB: Reflective thinking

12-2. What is the difference between trait and behavioral theories? Are those theories valid?Answer: Proponents of trait theories believe that a leader is “born.” They often describe leaders in terms of their personal characteristics, such as “charismatic” and “driven.” Behaviorists believe leadership can be taught, or nurtured, by providing the necessary skills to an individual to be an effective leader. There are no universal traits that predict in all situations. Traits predict behavior more in “weak” situations than in “strong” situations. The evidence is unclear in separating cause from effect. Finally, traits do a better job at predicting the appearance of leadership than in actually distinguishing between effective and ineffective leaders. These limitations have led researchers to look in other directions. Learning Objective: Summarize the conclusions of trait theories of leadershipLearning Outcome: Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadershipAACSB: Reflective thinking

12-3. What are the main limitations of behavioral theories of leadership?Answer: The failures of early trait studies led researchers in the late 1940s through the 1960s to wonder whether there was something unique in the way effective leaders behave. While trait research provides a basis for selecting the right people for leadership, behavioral theories of leadership implied we could train people to be leaders. The most comprehensive theories resulted from the Ohio State Studies in the late 1940s, which sought to identify independent dimensions of leader behavior. Beginning with more than a thousand dimensions, the studies narrowed the list to two that substantially accounted for most of the leadership behavior described by employees: initiating structure and consideration. Initiating structure is the extent to which a leader is likely to define and structure his or her role and those of employees in the search for goal attainment. Consideration is the extent to which a person’s job relationships are characterized by mutual trust, respect for employees’ ideas, and regard for their feelings. Leadership studies at the University of Michigan’s Survey Research Center had similar objectives: to locate behavioral characteristics of leaders that appeared related to performance effectiveness. The Michigan group also identified two behavioral dimensions: the employee-oriented leader emphasized interpersonal relationships by taking a personal interest in the needs of employees and accepting individual differences among them, and the production oriented leader emphasized the technical or task aspects of the job, focusing on accomplishing the group’s tasks. Some research from the GLOBE study suggests there are international differences in preference for initiating structure and


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consideration. Leaders who have certain traits and who display consideration and structuring behaviors do appear to be more effective. As important as traits and behaviors are in identifying effective or ineffective leaders, they do not guarantee success. The context matters, too.Learning Objective: Identify the central tenets and main limitations of behavioral theoriesLearning Outcome: Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadershipAACSB: Diverse and multicultural work environments; Reflective thinking

12-4. What is Fiedler’s contingency model? Has it been supported in research?Answer: After assessing leadership style, it is necessary to match the leader with the situation. Fiedler identified three contingency variables to match the leader with the situation: Leader-member relations—The degree of confidence, trust, and respect members

have in their leader. Task structure—The degree to which the job assignments are procedural. Position power—The degree of influence a leader has over power variables such as

hiring, firing, discipline, promotions, and salary increases.Considerable evidence does support the model especially when the original eight situations are grouped into three but the logic behind the LPC scale is not well understood. Learning Objective: Assess contingency theories of leadership by their level of supportLearning Outcome: Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadershipAACSB: Reflective thinking

12-5. How do charismatic and transformational leadership compare and contrast? Are they valid?Answer: In Charismatic leadership theory, proposed by Robert House, followers make attributes of heroic or extraordinary leadership abilities when they observe certain behaviors. General characteristics of charismatic leaders are: they have vision; they are willing to take personal risk; they are sensitive to followers’ needs; and they exhibit extraordinary behaviors. Transformational leaders inspire followers to transcend their own self-interests for the good of the organization. They change followers’ awareness of issues by helping them to look at old problems in new ways; and they are able to excite, arouse, and inspire followers to put out extra effort to achieve group goals. Transformational leadership is built on top of transactional leadership—it produces levels of follower effort and performance that go beyond what would occur with a transactional approach alone. These descriptions imply that charismatic leadership is based on a person’s behavior, when observed by others, is defined as charismatic leadership. Transformational leadership, on the other hand, is a concept that can be taught to people to make them more effective leaders using concepts that have been found to contribute to leadership relationships.Learning Objective: Contrast charismatic and transformational leadershipLearning Outcome: Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadershipAACSB: Reflective thinking

12-6. What is authentic leadership? Why do ethics and trust matter to leadership?


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Answer: Authentic leadership is a style based on trust. Authentic leaders are ethical people who know who they are, know what they believe in and value, and act on those values and beliefs openly and candidly. Ethics touch on many leadership styles. As the moral leaders of organizations, CEOs must demonstrate high ethical standards. Socialized charismatic leadership is characterized by leaders who model ethical behaviors. Trust is the positive expectation that another person will not act opportunistically. Trust is comprised of a blend of familiarity and willingness to take a risk. The five key dimensions are: integrity, competence, consistency, loyalty, and openness.Learning Objective: Define authentic leadership Learning Outcome: Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadershipAACSB: Reflective thinking

12-7. How is mentoring valuable to leadership? What are the keys to effective mentoring?Answer: Mentoring and virtual leadership are all contemporary roles for leaders. A leader needs to be a mentor or a senior employee who sponsors and supports a less-experienced employee (a protégé). Mentors are good teachers who present ideas clearly, listen, and empathize. Mentoring has two functions: career that includes coaching, assisting, sponsoring and psychosocial that involves counseling, sharing, acting as a role model. Finally, online leadership or virtual leadership is the ability to lead people who are physically dispersed. The ability to effectively communicate, and establish and maintain trust in a virtual environment is challenging.Learning Objective: Demonstrate the role mentoring plays in our understanding of leadership Learning Outcome: Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadershipAACSB: Reflective thinking

12-8. How can organizations select and develop effective leaders?Answer: Organizations can help build effective organizations through their selection and training areas.Selection1. Review specific requirements for the job.2. Use tests that identify personal traits associated with leadership, measure self-

monitoring, and assess emotional intelligence.3. Conduct personal interviews to determine candidate’s fit with the job.4. Keep a list of potential candidates.

Training1. Recognize that all people are not equally trainable.2. Teach skills that are necessary for employees to become effective leaders.3. Provide behavioral training to increase the development potential of nascent

charismatic employee.Learning Objective: Address challenges to the effectiveness of leadership Learning Outcome: Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadershipAACSB: Reflective thinking

Experiential Exercise


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What Is Leadership?

This exercise contributes to: Learning Objective: Contrast leadership and managementLearning Outcome: Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadershipAACSB: Reflective thinking

InstructionsBreak the class into six groups: GROUP A: Government Leaders (president, senator, governor, representative, assembly-

person) GROUP B: Business Leaders (CEO, president, leader in business) GROUP C: School Leaders (class president, informal leader) GROUP D: Sports Leaders (team captain, informal team leader, coach) GROUPS E and F: Effective Managers (manager who demonstrates

competence/effectiveness in position).

12-9. Each group is to identify its defining characteristics, not simply by brainstorming, but by deciding upon descriptors that most of the group agrees are defining characteristics.Answer: Responses to this question will depend on the opinions of the group, but these lists should comprise adjectives that showed up more than once in the set of responses. It is possible that more than 12 adjectives will appear on this list. Come to a consensus about the top 12 adjectives on the group list.

12-10. Reconvene the class. Draw six columns for each group and list the characteristics for each group. What similarities do you see between the lists? From the results of this exercise, does it appear that what it takes to be a good leader is different from what it takes to be a good manager? Does this mean leadership and management are different? Answer: Responses to this question will depend on the results of the previous questions.

Teaching Notes


Ethical Dilemma Undercover Leaders


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This exercise contributes to: Learning Objectives: Contrast leadership and management; Address challenges to the effectiveness of leadershipLearning Outcome: Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadershipAACSB: Ethical understanding and reasoning; Reflective thinking

As you saw in one of the Chapter 1 cases, the television show Undercover Boss features a leader working undercover in his or her own company to find out how the organization really works. In Chapter 1, we considered the show as an example of management by walking around (MBWA). Here, we consider the ethical leadership lessons it might offer.

Executives from DirecTV, Hooters, 7-Eleven, NASCAR, Chiquita, and Choice Hotels have been featured on the show. Typically, the executive works undercover for a week. Then the employees with whom and under whom the leader has worked are summoned to company headquarters and rewarded, or punished, for their actions.

In one episode, Waste Management’s president Larry O’Donnell, sporting gray stubble and work clothes, works the back of a trash truck. Later, he sorts recyclables from a fast-moving conveyer belt. Under the barking orders of a supervisor, he even cleans a long line of portable toilets.

Some criticize the show for its faux realism. The CEOs know they are on camera, so every word and facial expression is for the cameras. Many employees know they are on camera, too. One critic commented, “Because the series’ very existence requires cooperation from the executives that it purports to make suffer for their sins, it has to raise them higher, in the end, than it found them at the start.”

Realistic or not, the series continues to be popular. And the effects on the bosses featured in the episodes – and their employees – are profound. After CEO Mitchell Modell of the sporting goods chain Modell’s spent days struggling to keep up with his lowest-paid employees in the warehouse and the office, he reported, “I tell everybody if you’re fortunate enough to be on Undercover Boss to do it in a heartbeat,” he said. “If you’re not fortunate enough, then go work on the front lines. It’s an eye-opening experience.” As a result of the insight he gained, Modell overhauled the company’s approach to customer service and learned new ways to increase profitability and organization performance. He said, “As CEO, one of the things you always wonder about is what your associates (employees) are really thinking and what their days are like. It was a great education.”

The idea has moved beyond television too. Recently, the Australian government created a program that places CEOs undercover in their own workplaces. One participating CEO, Phil Smith of clothing retailer Fletcher Jones, said tearfully, “I learned a lot from this that I wouldn’t have found out any other way.”

Sources: K. Jones, “CEOs Go Undercover over Workplace Safety,” SafetyAtWorkBlog (February 5, 2011), downloaded June 10, 2011, from http://safetyatworkblog.wordpress.com/; W. Kern, “The Fakery of CEOs Undercover,” Bloomberg BusinessWeek (February 15, 2010), pp. 78–79.

Questions


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12-11. Do you think it is ethical for a leader to go undercover in his or her organization? Why or why not?Answer: The student’s answer to this question will depend on his or her ethical view. In general, students may see the “hidden CEO” as a potential negative to the concepts of trust. When they find the CEO was watching without revealing his or her position, then the employee is placed in a position of concern about things he or she said that might be viewed as negative.

12-12. Do you think leaders who work undercover are really changed as a result of their experiences? Answer: This answer also depends on students’ beliefs about the characteristics of the CEOs leadership style. They may suggest that a transformational leader would approach the experience as a learning experience and would find the information to assist them in better fulfilling his or her role as a leader.

12-13. Would you support a government program that gave companies incentives to send leaders undercover?Answer: This answer will depend on a student’s political view. A liberal student will see a government program to force such programs as a good option for government to influence the relationships between employees and upper managers. Conservatives will see a government program like this to be an intrusion on the economic basis of this country.

Case Incident 1 Leadership Mettle Forged in Battle


In 2008, facing a serious shortage of leadership-ready employees at the store management level, Walmart decided to recruit from the U.S. military. The company sent recruiters to military job fairs and hired 150 junior military officers, pairing them with store mentors to learn on the job. The result: Walmart claims that it’s been able to bring in world-class leaders who were ready to take over once they had learned the retail business that Walmart could easily teach them. Other organizations that have heavily recruited from the military in recent years include GE, Home Depot, Lowe’s, State Farm Insurance, Merck, and Bank of America.

It’s not really surprising to see companies turn to the military for leadership potential. A long tradition of books and seminars advises leaders to think like military leaders ranging from Sun Tzu to Norman Schwarzkopf. And military veterans do have a variety of valuable skills learned through experience. General David Petraeus notes, “Tell me anywhere in the business world


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where a 22 or 23-year-old is responsible for 35 or 40 other individuals on missions that involve life and death . . . They’re under enormous scrutiny, on top of everything else. These are pretty formative experiences. It’s a bit of a crucible-like experience that they go through.” Military leaders are also used to having to make due in less than optimal conditions, negotiate across cultures, and operate under extreme stress.

However, they do have to relearn some lessons from the service. Some may not be used to leading someone like an eccentric computer programmer who works strange hours and dresses like a slob, but who brings more to the company’s bottom line than a conventional employee would. Indeed, in some companies like Google, there is nothing like the chain of command military leaders are used to. Still, most forecasts suggest there will be an ample supply of battle-tested military leaders ready to report for corporate duty in the near future, and many companies are eager to have them.

Sources: B. O’Keefe, J. Birger, and D. Burke, “Battle Tested,” Fortune (March 22, 2010), p. 108–118;B. Whitmore, “Hiring Military Veterans Is Good Business,” Huntington WV Herald-Dispatch (November 6,2010), www.herald-dispatch.com ; and B. Wansink, C. R. Payne, and K. van Ittersum, “Profiling the HeroicLeader: Empirical Lessons from Combat-Decorated Veterans of World War II,” Leadership Quarterly 19, no. 5 (2008), pp. 547–555.

Questions

12-14. Do you think leaders in military contexts exhibit the same qualities as organizational leaders? Why or why not?Answer: The answer to this question relies on the student’s viewpoint. But the student should point out whether or not a similarity exists between leadership in business and leadership in military situations. Students will likely suggest that there are significant differences between the two situations. They may suggest that military leadership tends to be autocratic in style. In business, other leadership styles can be important to success. A key factor in the difference is the life and death outcomes associated with following commands in the military, whereas the same consequences are not present in most business situations.

12-15. In what ways not mentioned in the case would military leadership lessons not apply in the private sector? What might military leaders have to relearn to work in business?Answer: This answer can vary widely among students. Leadership in combat situations focuses on rapid accurate performance of command in order to have the best chance for success and survival. Military leaders might need to develop skills in transformational leadership where they would be more open to listening to employees or concerns and suggestions. Similarly, because military leadership is very top-down, situations that require more creative thinking could be challenging to military leaders.

12-16. Are specific types of work or situations more likely to benefit from the presence of “battle-tested” leaders? List a few examples.Answer: Responses to this question will vary by student. Some students may list examples such as firefighter, law enforcement, or other positions where decisions can be life and death choices.


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Case Incident 2 Leadership by Algorithm

This exercise contributes to: Learning Objectives: Contrast leadership and management; Summarize the conclusions of trait theories of leadership; Identify the central tenets and main limitations of behavioral theoriesLearning Outcome: Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadershipAACSB: Reflective thinking

Is there one right way to lead? Research suggests not, the methods explored in this chapter suggest not, and common sense suggests a “one size fits all” approach could be disastrous, since because organizations exist for diverse purposes and develop unique cultures. Leadership development programs generally teach a best-practices model, but experts suggest that individuals trained in leadership techniques that are contrary to their own natures risk losing the authenticity crucial to effective leadership. The real path to leadership may lie in algorithms.

If you’ve ever taken a strengths-based assessment such as the Harrison Assessment, or Gallup’s Clifton StrengthsFinder, you know that surveys aimed at discovering your personality, skills, and preferences result in a personal profile. This tool is helpful in leadership development, but algorithms can take your leadership development to the next level of personalization and application. They can take the results from each survey you complete, for instance, and use them to create a leadership program that matches your needs and abilities.

As the founder of TMBC and author of StandOut, Marcus Buckingham is an expert on the creating leadership programs. He recommends the following steps:1. Find or develop the assessment tools. These might include a personality component, such as

a Big Five inventory test, and will include other tests companies can resource or create according to what leadership characteristics they are seeking to monitor.

2. Identify the top leaders in the organization and administer the test to them. Similarities in their profiles may not emerge across the broad spectrum of all top leaders. This step is not to determine what all the leaders have in common, but to group the top leaders into categories by their similar profiles.

3. Interview the leaders within each profile category to learn about the techniques they use that work. Often these will be unique, unscripted, and revealingly correlated to the strengths in their assessment profile. Compile the techniques within each profile category.

4. The results of top leader profile categories and their techniques can be used to create an algorithm, or tailored method, for developing leaders. Administer the assessment tests to developing leaders and determine their profile categories. The techniques from successful leaders can now be shared with the developing leaders who are most like them since because they share the same profile category.

These steps provide a means for successful leaders to pass along to developing leaders techniques that are likely to feel authentic to the developing leaders and that encourage creativity. The techniques can be delivered in an ongoing process as short, personalized,


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interactive, and readily applicable tips and advice, for results no two-week leadership development course could achieve.

Sources: M. Buckingham, “Leadership Development in the Age of the Algorithm,” Harvard Business Review (June 2012), pp. 86–-94; M. D. Watkins, “How Managers Become Leaders,” Harvard Business Review (June 2012), pp. 64–-72; and J. M. Podolny, “A Conversation with James G. March on Learning About Leadership,” Academy of Management Learning & Education 10 (2011), pp. 502–-506.

Questions

12-17. If you have participated in leadership development programs, how effective did you find them in (a) teaching you techniques and (b) giving you practical strategies you could use? What could they do better?Answer: Responses to this question will vary based on student experience.

12-18. What are some potential negatives of using Buckingham’s approach to leadership development?Answer: Responses to this question will reflect the opinions of students. Some may suggest that Buckingham’s approach could stifle the leadership potential of some individuals if their particular style does not match the selected assessment tools. Other students may dislike the objective approach in what they may consider a highly subjective situation. Still others may wonder whether approach overlooks the impact of situation and circumstances.

12-19. Would you suggest applying Buckingham’s steps to your organization? Why or why not?Answer: Responses to this question will vary by student. Some may believe that the approach would be quite successful, while others will probably suggest that Buckingham’s approach would be inappropriate for their organizations.

Instructor’s Choice Applying Concepts

This exercise contributes to: Learning Objective: Contrast leadership and managementLearning Outcome: Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadership


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AACSB: Reflective thinking

As evidenced by the growing number of corporate scandals of which almost all involve the CEO and other top officers, corporate America in many cases is missing one essential leadership ingredient—character. Character building may well be one of the new buzz words that will be heard across the airways and Internet in the next few years as a prescription for what is wrong with our current state of top management. Corporate leadership has failed its character test in the last few years and has some ground to make up in the future. Character is not just a manager’s psychological profile carried to an extreme. It is, to use an old phrase, doing the right things not just doing things right. To learn about character, young executives should go through self-awareness training, study, and, most importantly, experiential training with respect to character issues.

As plebes in the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, “new” managers of men and women are taught eleven principles of leadership from the Army’s manual, Principles of Leadership. The principles (summated) are as follows: (1) Know yourself and seek self-improvement; (2) Be technically and tactically proficient; (3) Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions; (4) Make sound and timely decisions; (5) Set the example; (6) Know your subordinates and look out for their well-being; (7) Keep your subordinates informed; (8) Develop a sense of responsibility in your subordinates; (9) Ensure that the task is understood, supervised, and accomplished; (10) Train your personnel as a team; and (11) Employ your wit in accordance with its capabilities. Following these principles can certainly improve one’s character.

1. Write a one-page paper on your views toward the importance of character in effective leadership.

2. Using the eleven principles of leadership in the exercise, list which principles would be most instrumental in developing character in a leader.

3. Select a business leader. Do research on the leader’s past managerial and leadership accomplishments. Once this is completed, match the chosen leader’s profile to the eleven principles listed in the exercise. Discuss your findings in a short one- to two-page paper.

Instructor Discussion

This exercise asks students to review information provided on the issue of character and character building as an ingredient in effective leadership. One of the chief reasons for a leader to ascribe to the philosophy of Management by Wandering Around (WBWA) is so that the leader will constantly be exposed to subordinates and what they are doing and accomplishing. Note that many of the eleven principles can be directly related to the management and involvement of subordinates. Also note that many of the principles are related to character building. The students should be able to match these principles (even if in an abstract sense) to information provided in almost any historical profile of an industry leader. More difficult to


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determine is whether the industry leader has a character positive or a character flaw. Students should be encouraged to discuss the issue of character as it relates to leadership.

Exploring OB Topics on the Web


1. Learn about your personal leadership characteristics by taking the following assessment instrument at http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/survlead.html. The survey is designed to provide you with feedback about your level of preference or comfort with leadership characteristics and skills. Note what your strengths are and areas for development.

2. Go to http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leader.html. This website provides free access to extensive materials on group leadership. Once at the website, scroll down through the topics and choose one that interests you. Write a two-page paper on the topic. (Feel free to do additional searches if you need more information.) Bring the paper to class for your instructor.

3. Find five companies whose CEOs have left (for reasons other than normal retirement) in the past 12 months. Assess their company’s profit performance against the average for their industry group. Using terms such as “CEO” + “turnover” or “resignation” will yield a number of results. To find the stock price performance, you can then use any of a number of online services such as www.cnnfn.com. What did this exercise tell you? Write a short paper on what you learned.

4. Leading can be a difficult task. It is hard to know what other leaders are thinking, what is important to them, and how they do it day in and day out. Visit the U.S. Coast Guard’s website and read how leaders do their job every day from their own essays. Go to http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-w/g-wt/g-wtl/essays/index.htm. Select two essays and print them. Apply a leadership theory to the writer’s thoughts. Bring it to class for a group discussion.


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Leadership

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Transcript of Leadership