Leadership Effectiveness

Effective Leadership

• A leader can become effective by changing followers' perception of the climate to match their behavioral style.
• Another way is to change the climate itself rather than just changing followers' perceptions.

Subordinate Ability and Leadership

• The abilities and attitudes of followers influence leader effectiveness.
• Leaders who adapt their behavior to match the needs of their subordinates will be more effective.
• According to House's path-goal theory, a leader can adopt one of four behavioral leadership styles:
  • Instrumental-style: planning, organizing, and controlling activities.
  • Supportive-style: showing concern for employees.
  • Participative-style: sharing information and involving employees in decision making.
  • Achievement-oriented style: setting challenging goals and rewarding performance.

Leadership Performance

• Research on leadership performance focuses on personal characteristics, including traits, cognitive ability, and needs.
• Traits such as extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are positively related to leader performance.
• Neuroticism is negatively related to leader performance.
• Management, decision-making, and oral-communication skills are highly correlated with leadership effectiveness.
• High self-monitors tend to be better leaders than low self-monitors.

Cognitive Ability and Leadership

• Cognitive ability is most important when the leader is not distracted by stressful situations and uses a more directive leadership style.
• Sternberg's theory suggests that effective leadership requires the synthesis of wisdom, intelligence, and creativity.

Needs and Leadership

• A leader's need for power, need for achievement, and need for affiliation are important personal characteristics.

Essential Skills for Effective Leadership

• Cooper, Kaufman, and Hughes (1996) identified the following skills as essential for first-line supervisors:
  • Organizing
  • Analysis and decision making
  • Planning
  • Communication (oral and written)
  • Delegation
  • Work habits (high-quality work)
  • Carefulness
  • Interpersonal skill
  • Job knowledge
  • Organizational knowledge
  • Toughness
  • Integrity
  • Development of others
  • Listening

Learning Leadership

• If leadership and management are learned through experience, then most people can be trained to become effective leaders.
• Identifying specific behaviors and skills important for effective leadership can help in training leaders.

Leadership Through Decision Making

• Decision making is a specific behavior or skill important for a leader to possess.
• The Vroom-Yetten Model provides a flowchart for leaders to make decisions in a particular situation.

Leadership Through Contract: Management by Walking Around

• Management by walking around (MBWA) is another popular specific behavioral theory.