Leadership Chapter 12: Personal Characteristics

Leader Emergence

• Leader emergence refers to the idea that people who become leaders have different traits than those who don't become leaders.
• Research suggests that some people are naturally inclined to lead or not lead, with around 17% to 30% of leadership being influenced by genetics.
• Individuals with high leadership motivation tend to obtain leadership experience and have confidence in their leadership skills.

Personal Characteristics Associated with Leadership

• People who are high in openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, masculinity, and authoritarianism, and low in neuroticism, are more likely to become leaders.
• Intelligence plays a role, with smarter people more likely to become leaders.
• People who are good at adapting to different social situations (high self-monitors) tend to become leaders more often.

Leader Performance

• Leader performance involves the idea that leaders who perform well possess certain characteristics that poorly performing leaders do not.
• A combination of abilities and personality traits is more helpful than just one trait or ability.
• Traits such as extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are positively related to leader performance.

Motivation to Lead

• The motivation to lead has three aspects: affective identity motivation, noncalculative motivation, and social-normative motivation.
• Affective identity motivation involves enjoying being in charge and leading others.
• Noncalculative motivation involves seeking leadership positions for personal gain.
• Social-normative motivation involves becoming a leader out of a sense of duty.

Leadership Styles

• Task-oriented leaders focus on setting and achieving goals, and see employees as needing direction and structure.
• Person-oriented leaders care about their subordinates and believe they're motivated, responsible, and capable.
• Impoverished leadership involves being concerned with neither productivity nor employee well-being.
• Middle-of-the-road leadership involves a balanced orientation between people and tasks.

Measuring Leadership Style

• The Leadership Opinion Questionnaire (LOQ) measures a leader's self-perception of their leadership style.
• The Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire (LBDQ) measures perceptions of a leader's style by their subordinates.

Unsuccessful Leaders

• Lack of leadership training can lead to serious consequences.
• Cognitive deficiencies, such as not learning from mistakes or thinking ahead, can make a leader ineffective.
• Personality issues, such as insecurity, can also lead to poor leadership.

Situational Leadership

• The effectiveness of a leader depends on the interaction between the leader and the situation.
• Fiedler's contingency model suggests that a leader's style works best in certain situations.
• The Least-Preferred Coworker (LPC) Scale helps understand a leader's style.

Organizational Climate

• The organizational climate can be characterized by ignorance, despair, anxiety, instability, or crisis.
• Different leadership styles are effective in different climates.
• IMPACT Theory proposes that each leader has one of six behavior styles: informational, magnetic, position, affiliation, coercive, or tactical.

Relationships with Subordinates

• Leader-member exchange (LMX) theory focuses on the interaction between leaders and subordinates.
• Subordinates can be divided into two groups: the in-group, characterized by a high-quality relationship, and the out-group, characterized by a low-quality relationship.

Specific Leader Skills

• Specific leader skills include initiating ideas, informally interacting with subordinates, taking responsibility, developing group atmosphere, organizing and structuring work, communicating formally, rewarding and punishing subordinates, setting goals, making decisions, and training and developing employee skills.### Follower Readiness
• Follower readiness refers to the ability and willingness to perform a particular task
• It is categorized into four levels

Strategies of Leadership

• Vroom-Yetton Model: a theory of leadership that helps leaders make decisions
• Provides a flowchart for decision-making

Leadership Through Decision Making

• Leaders should focus on task-oriented behaviors
• Three dimensions:
  • Contingent Reward Dimension: leaders reward followers for doing tasks
  • Management by Exception-Active: leaders actively monitor performance and take corrective action
  • Management by Exception-Passive: leaders do not actively monitor performance and take corrective action only when problems are serious

Leadership Through Contact

• Leaders are most effective when interacting with employees and customers
• Management by Walking Around (MBWA) is a key aspect of this leadership style

Leadership Through Power

• Leaders have power to obtain more resources, dictate policy, and advance in an organization
• Types of power:
  • Expert Power: power based on knowledge and expertise
  • Legitimate Power: power based on position or authority
  • Reward Power: power to provide rewards
  • Coercive Power: power to punish
  • Referent Power: power based on identification with the leader

Transformational Leadership

• Visionary leadership that changes the nature and goals of an organization
• Good leaders possess five characteristics:
  • Vision
  • Differentiation
  • Values
  • Transmission of Vision and Values
  • Flaws

Cultural Differences in Leadership

• Project GLOBE: a study on cultural differences and similarities in leadership
• Nine dimensions of cultural differences:
  • Uncertainty avoidance
  • Power distance
  • Social collectivism
  • In-group collectivism
  • Gender egalitarianism
  • Assertiveness
  • Future orientation
  • Performance orientation
  • Humane orientation

Leadership Styles

• Six main leadership styles:
  • Charismatic
  • Self-protective
  • Humane
  • Team-oriented
  • Participative
  • Autonomous