Leadership Theories and Historical Views Quiz

Leadership Theories and Historical Views

• Leadership involves the ability to influence or guide others towards a common and ethical task.

• Leadership can be viewed as a contested term, with various viewpoints on the concept.

• Leadership is a process of social influence where the power of one party promotes movement/change in others.

• Studies of leadership have produced theories involving traits, situational interaction, function, behavior, power, vision, values, charisma, and intelligence.

• Historical views of leadership include Chinese doctrine, pro-aristocracy thinkers, monarchy, autocratic/paternalistic thought, feminist thinking, Confucianism, and Machiavelli's The Prince.

• Prior to the 19th century, society expected and obtained traditional deference and obedience to lords, kings, master-craftsmen, and slave-masters.

• Industrialization, opposition to the ancien regime, and the phasing out of chattel slavery meant that newly developing organizations evolved a need for a new paradigm to characterize elected politicians and job-granting employers.

• The trait theory of leadership suggests that leadership is based on individual attributes and has been explored for centuries.

• Behavioral and style theories evaluate the behavior of successful leaders, determine a behavior taxonomy, and identify broad leadership styles.

• Positive reinforcement is a successful technique used by leaders to motivate and attain desired behaviors from subordinates.

• Situational theory assumes that different situations call for different characteristics, and that no single optimal psychographic profile of a leader exists.

• Three contingency leadership theories appear more prominently in recent years: Fiedler contingency model, Vroom-Yetton decision model, and the path-goal theory.Overview of Leadership Theories

• Fiedler's contingency model suggests that task-oriented leaders are more effective in extremely favorable or unfavorable situations, whereas relationship-oriented leaders perform best in situations with intermediate favorability.

• Vroom and Jago developed situational contingency theory, which connects leadership styles to situational variables, defining which approach is more suitable to which situation.

• House's path-goal theory identifies four leader behaviors, achievement-oriented, directive, participative, and supportive, that are contingent to the environment factors and follower characteristics.

• Functional leadership theory suggests that the leader's main job is to see that whatever is necessary to group needs is taken care of and identifies five broad functions a leader performs when promoting organizational effectiveness.

• Integrated psychological theory attempts to integrate the strengths of older theories while addressing their limitations, introducing the need for leaders to develop leadership presence, attitude toward others, and behavioral flexibility by practicing psychological mastery.

• Transactional leadership involves an exchange of labor for rewards, while transformational leadership is based on concern for employees, intellectual stimulation, and providing a group vision.

• Leader-member exchange theory addresses the interaction between leaders and individual followers and the creation of in-groups and out-groups.

• Emotions are intertwined with the social influence process of leadership and leaders shape workplace affective events.

• The neo-emergent leadership theory sees leadership as an impression formed through the communication of information by the leader or other stakeholders, not through the true actions of the leader himself.

• Some constructivists question whether leadership exists or suggest that it is a myth equivalent to a belief in UFOs.

• Leadership emergence is the idea that people born with specific characteristics become leaders, and those without these characteristics do not become leaders.

• Leadership traits associated with leadership emergence include assertiveness, authenticity, Big Five personality factors, birth order, character strengths, dominance, emotional intelligence, intelligence, narcissism, self-efficacy for leadership, self-monitoring, and social motivation.Leadership: Characteristics, Styles, and Barriers for Non-Western Female Leaders

• High intelligence may be linked to differences in communication, trust, interests, and values in leadership.

• Self-efficacy for leadership is associated with an increased willingness to accept a leadership role and find success in its pursuit.

• High self-monitors are more likely to emerge as the leader of a group than low self-monitors.

• Individuals who are both success-oriented and affiliation-oriented are more active in group problem-solving settings and are more likely to be elected to positions of leadership.

• Individuals who take on leadership roles in turbulent situations tend to be narcissistic, hostile, self-absorbed, and arrogant.

• Absentee leaders are worse than destructive leaders because it takes longer to pinpoint their mistakes.

• A willingness to participate in a group can indicate a person's interest and willingness to take responsibility for how the group performs.

• Different situations call for different leadership styles, such as autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire, task-oriented, relationship-oriented, paternalistic, servant, transactional, and transformational.

• Men generally assume an agentic leadership style, while women tend to be both task- and relationship-oriented.

• In times of crisis, women tend to lead better than men due to a show of empathy and confidence during briefings and other forms of communication.

• The barriers that affect women's entrance into leadership vary across cultures and include lack of research and literature, maternity leave policies, societal and legal issues, glass ceilings and cliffs, and biased attributions about leadership.

• Leadership performance is important for organizational success, but there is no consistent, overall definition of leadership performance.Understanding Leadership: Traits, Measurements, and Contexts

• Leadership can be defined as the ability to influence a group of people towards a specific result, and it is not dependent on title or formal authority.

• Measuring leadership has proven difficult and complex, and different perceptions of leadership itself may lead to differing measuring methods.

• Most theories in the 20th century argued that great leaders were born, not made, but current studies have indicated that leadership is much more complex and cannot be boiled down to a few key traits of an individual.

• Leadership traits of an individual do not change from situation to situation, but each key trait may be applied to situations differently, depending on the circumstances.

• Self-confidence, integrity, sociability, cognitive capacity, determination, and drive are the main leadership traits found in research.

• Leadership emerges within the context of the informal organization that underlies the formal structure of an organization.

• The informal organization expresses the personal objectives and goals of the individual membership, which may or may not coincide with those of the formal organization.

• In prehistoric times, humanity was preoccupied with personal security, maintenance, protection, and survival, and now, humanity spends a major portion of waking hours working for organizations.

• Self-leadership is a process that occurs within an individual, and it is an expression of who we are as people.

• Leadership has a long evolutionary history, and the same mechanisms underpinning leadership in humans appear in other social species, too.

• Leadership, although largely talked about, has been described as one of the least understood concepts across all cultures and civilizations.

• Leadership is not demarcated by power over people, but rather, it is a power with people that exists as a reciprocal relationship between a leader and his/her followers.