Human Behavior in Organizations: Leadership Insights

Human Behavior in Organizations

• Leadership is a critical factor in organizational success, as evidenced by historical and business examples
• Leadership is defined as the process of guiding and directing people's behavior to achieve organizational objectives
• Effective leadership can overcome resource limitations, inspire performance, and ensure alignment with organizational goals
• Leading is a management function, alongside planning, organizing, and controlling
• Management focuses on efficiency, while leadership emphasizes vision and motivation
• Managers are problem-solvers, often focused on procedures, while leaders are more visionary and intuitive
• Leaders are focused on achieving results, while managers manage functions

Leadership

• Leadership is fundamentally important for organizational success
• Leaders like Lincoln, Caesar, and Disney are historical examples
• Leadership is the process of guiding and directing behavior for strategic objectives
• Leaders determine the difference between the success or failure of an organization.
• Leadership helps motivate people to achieve organizational goals and behave effectively.

Kinds of Leadership

• Formal leadership: involves official objectives with formal authority, using reward, coercive, referent, and expert power.
• Informal leadership: focuses on unofficial objectives, lacking formal authority relies on the same influencing power types as formal leaders

Power and the Leader

• Leaders leverage power to influence behavior
• Power can come from either the leader or the team/group.
• Power can be classified into position power and personal power

Position Power

• Legitimate power: arises from the leader's position in the organization (authority to command)
• Reward power: comes from the leader's ability to give rewards for compliance.
• Coercive power: comes from the leader's ability to punish for non-compliance.

Personal Power

• Expert power: stems from a leader's knowledge and specialized skills in a particular domain
• Referent power: arises from the personal characteristics and influence of the leader, creating a personal magnetism.

Theories of Leadership

• Trait theories: focus on common characteristics like sociability, persistence, and intelligence that successful leaders possess.
• Behavioral theories: identify specific behaviors that distinguish leaders from non-leaders.
• Contingency theories: emphasize that the most effective leadership style is dependent on the situation. Leadership styles should match the circumstances, team/group and/or the task

Ohio State University Studies

• Identified two primary dimensions of leadership:
  • Initiating structure: how leaders define their roles and the roles of subordinates.
  • Consideration: the degree to which leaders create a friendly and supportive work environment.

University of Michigan Studies

• Found two styles of leadership:
  • Job-centered: leaders who are focused on tasks and controlling procedures
  • Employee-centered: leaders who are supportive and focus on team member motivations

Yukl Studies

• Identified 19 leadership behaviors

Managerial Grid

• Created by Blake and Mouton, this is a two-dimensional graphical model of leadership styles
• Focuses on managers' concern for both people and production.

Contingency Theories

• Continuum of Leadership Behavior – Tannenbaum & Schmidt : shows seven alternative styles of management decision making.
• Contingency Leadership Model – Fiedler : leadership style matches environmental favorability (leader-member relations, task structure, and position power) to either a task-oriented or relationship-oriented style.
• Path-Goal Model – House & Mitchell : style of management helps followers reach goals.
• Hershey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory : style is matched with the subordinate’s readiness/maturity—a willingness and ability to perform the task
• Leader-Member Exchange Approach: emphasizes the importance of leader-member interactions.
• Normative Decision Model: determines the ideal decision-making style given specific factors
• Muczyk-Reimann Model: four types of leadership styles are offered