The Leaders Within Us Identifying and Using Your Personal Leadership Strengths.
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Transcript of The Leaders Within Us Identifying and Using Your Personal Leadership Strengths.
The Leaders Within Us
Identifying and Using Your Personal Leadership Strengths
Leadership . . .
• Is a process• Involves influence• Occurs in groups• Includes attention to goals
Leadership as a Process
• Traits – set of properties• Skills or style – contextual & learned
Major Leadership Traits
• Intelligence• Self-confidence• Determination• Integrity• Sociability
LEADERSHIP TRAITS EXERCISE & INVENTORY
Now it’s your turn!
How does the trait approach work at work?
• Designated leadership profiles• “Fit”• Selecting “right” people will increase
organizational effectiveness• Personal awareness and development
Strengths & Weaknesses of Trait Approach
• Intuitively appealing – leader image
• 100 years of research & data
• Focus on leaders• Provides benchmarks
• No definitive set of traits
• Doesn’t take situation into account
• Doesn’t focus on outcomes (e.g. Do leaders with x traits have better results?)
• Not helpful for training & development
What About Skills?
• Skills approach – similar to traits– Leader-centered– Long history
• Distinctive from Trait approach– Focuses on what can be learned– Focuses on knowledge & abilities vs. solely on
personality
Research on Effective Leaders
• Leaders solve organizational problems• Leaders utilize skills in problem-solving• Leaders can learn these skills• Classic research study (Katz, 1955)– Technical Skill– Human Skill– Conceptual Skill
Technical Skill
• Proficiency in specific type of work or activity• Competencies & analytical abilities• Often “hands on” & involved in production
Human Skill
• Knowledge & ability to work with people• Work with peers, supervisees, & supervisors
to achieve organization’s goals• Awareness of own & others’ perspectives &
needs• Creates atmosphere of trust
Conceptual Skill
• Ability to work with ideas & concepts• Put organizational goals into words• Works with abstract ideas or hypothetical
situations to shape policy• Central to vision & planning for organization
LEADERSHIP SKILLS INVENTORYAgain, it is YOUR turn!
Strengths & Weaknesses of Skills Approach
• Leader-centered & process oriented
• Intuitively appealing – democratic
• Expansive & far reaching
• Consistent with leadership education criteria
• Too broad – moves beyond leadership
• Weak in predictive value
• Research was based on military personnel – can this be generalized to all leaders?
How About Style?
• Trait = personality• Skills = capabilities• Style = actions– Task behaviors– Relationship behaviors
Task & Relationship Behaviors
• Setting goals• Accomplishing goals• Helping team meet
objectives
• Help team feel comfortable
• Facilitate atmosphere of respect
• Facilitate atmosphere of trust
Which style is best?
• High relationship• High task• High relationship – high task• Important to look at how the two are
integrated
Leadership GridBlake & Moulton (1985); Blake & McCanse (1991)
Country Club TeamManagement Management(1,9) (9,9)
Middle-of-the-Road Management(5,5)
Impoverished Authority-ComplianceManagement Management (1,1) (9,1)
STYLE APPROACH INVENTORYAgain, it is YOUR turn!
Strengths & Weaknesses of the Style Approach
• Shift focus on leaders’ behaviors
• Significance of task & relationship components
• Allows assessment of leadership dimensions
• Does not link behaviors to performance outcomes
• Implies that high task, high relationship is best, but this is not always the case
Other theories:
• Situational• Contingency• Path-Goal• Leader-Member
Exchange
• Transformational• Team• Psychodynamic• Ethical • Servant
…and many more
One last example: Contingency Theory
Good LM Relations Poor LM Relations
High Task Structure Low Task Structure High Task Structure Low Task Structure
Strong Power
Weak Power
Strong Power
Weak Power
Strong Power
Weak Power
Strong Power
Weak Power
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Middle to High
Task
Middle to High
Task
Middle to High
Task
High Relation
ship
High Relation-
ship
High Relation-
ship
High Relation-
ship
High Task
SO WHAT ???What does this mean for YOUR leadership?
Questions / Comments?