Leadership in Organizations and Management

Leadership in Organizations

• Leadership is the ability to influence people towards achieving organizational goals. It involves reciprocal influence among people focused on achieving goals.
• Leadership is important in shaping employee attitudes, influencing job satisfaction and organizational commitment.
• Leadership styles vary based on individual differences, followers' needs and the organizational context.

Management vs. Leadership

• Management and leadership are distinct, but often overlap.
• Management focuses on stability, order, problem-solving within existing systems and structures.
• Leadership promotes vision, creativity and change, challenging outdated norms and practices.
• Leadership complements, but does not replace management.

Leader Qualities

• Leaders possess visionary, passionate, creative, flexible, inspiring, innovative, courageous, experimental, imaginative, change-initiating, and powerful personal characteristics.

Manager Qualities

• Managers are rational, consulting, persistent, problem-solving, tough-minded, analytical, structured, deliberate, authoritative, and stabilizing. They often use position power.

Trait Theory of Leadership

• Leadership is believed to be a combination of inherent traits.
• Seven traits associated with successful leadership include drive, desire to lead, honesty and integrity, self-confidence, intelligence, job-relevant knowledge and extraversion.
• However, these traits do not consistently predict leadership success across all situations.

Behavioural Theories of Leadership

• Behavioural theories focus on identifying effective leadership behaviours.
• The Ohio State Studies identified two key behaviours: Consideration (people-oriented) and Initiating Structure (task-oriented).
• The Michigan Studies identified similar dimensions: employee-oriented and production-oriented.

University of Michigan Studies

• Two dimensions of leadership:
  • Employee-oriented (employee-centered). This involves emphasizing interpersonal relations, acknowledging individual differences, and showing concern for employees.
  • Production-oriented (job-centered). This places emphasis on task completion and efficient production processes and less concern for the human element.

Leadership Grid

• The Leadership Grid (Blake & Mouton) presents 81 leadership styles.
• A 9, 9 style (Team Management) is considered the most effective.
• It prioritizes work output and employee satisfaction.
• 1,1 (Impoverished management) shows little effort toward work or interpersonal relations.

Components of the Leadership Grid

• Team Management (9,9): Focuses on both work output and employee satisfaction.
• Country Club Management (1,9): Prioritizes employee needs and satisfaction over work output.
• Authority-compliance Management (9,1): Emphasizes efficiency and minimum human interference in work processes.
• Middle-of-the-road Management (5,5): Balances the concerns for work and employee satisfaction.

Leadership Power and Influence

• Power is the potential to influence others.
• Influence is the effect of actions on others' beliefs and behaviour.
• Sources of power include:
  • Position power (legitimate, reward, coercive power)
  • Personal power (expert, referent power)

Types of Leadership

• Charismatic: Inspiring followers to transcend their normal limits.
  • Characteristics: visionary, risk-taking, sensitive to followers’ needs, unusual behavior.
• Transformational: Inspiring radical change and improvement.
  • Characteristics: lead change, has charisma, promotes innovation, attentive to followers’ needs, communicates high expectations.
• Transactional: Focuses on goal achievement through reward and punishment systems.
  • Characteristics: uses rewards/punishments, and efficient goal completion