All about leadership and psychology of leading

1. Leadership

2. Issues in defining
leadership
 Behaviors or functions
 Influence/ compliance/ resistance
 Leadership or management

3. Leadership in
organizational settings
 Stephen P. Robbins (1998) defines “leadership as the
ability to influence a group towards the
achievement of goals.” The source of this influence
may be formal (by virtue of the position in the
organization) or informal (arising from its
acceptance by the followers because of the power,
expertise or charisma of the leader).
 Koontz and Weihrich ( ) have also emphasized on
this leadership influence in very lucid terms.
According to them “leadership is defined as
influence , that is, the art or process of influencing
people so that they will strive willingly and
enthusiastically towards the achievement of group
goals.”

4. Power bases and
influence
A leader may have one or all of these power bases, to decide the level
of influence he may have over his followers in the group. The
availability and optimum utilization of these power bases add to the
effectiveness of the leader. The power bases are:
 Coercive power is the power to threaten or punish the followers to
get their compliance.
 Reward power is the power to offer rewards for desired behavior
 Referent power is the ability to be the role model for the followers
and thus, being their role model through one’s own example.
 Expert power is the power of specialized knowledge, skill or ability
possessed by the leader.
 Legitimate power is the ability to exercise power by virtue of the
formal position one holds in the group or the organization
 Informational & prestige power

5. Power, influence in group
LEADER POWER INTERNALIZATION EXECUTION IN
THEBASE BY FOLLOWERS GROUP
 Reward conformity
 Coercive Compliance
efficiency
 Legitimate
gp.performance
 Referent Identification
cohesiveness
 Expert Knowledge/ Skills
competence

6. Leader Influence behavior
Development of task objectives and
strategies
Implementation of task objectives and
strategies
Group maintenance and identification
Organizational culture

7. Leader Vs Manager
 Attitude towards goals: is impersonal in case of managers whereas,
leaders take a personal and active attitude towards goals
 View of the work: managers tend to view work as an enabling
process involving some combination of people and ideas,
interacting to establish strategies and take decisions. Leaders work
from high risk positions as they are temperamentally high on risk
taking, this holds more true when the situation demands risk taking
and the associated rewards are high.
 Relating with people: managers prefer to work with people
according to the role they play in the decision making sequence.
Leaders relate to people in more intuitive and empathetic way
 Coping with complexity Vs coping with change: management is
about coping with complexity in as much as bringing about
consistency by formalization, structuring, monitoring results etc.
Leaders establish direction by developing a vision of the future,
communicating with followers about it and inspiring them to
achieve.

8. Importance of leadership
 Providing strategic direction and vision to group:
future planning, channelizing productive
behaviors, meeting relevant strategic objectives.
 Motivation & coaching behaviors: work related
problems, providing directions to encourage
workers to achieve them.
 Enforcement & interpretation of organizational
policies: serve as linking pins to management and
workers, informal policing in group for
organizational rules and procedures
 Obtaining resources: uses persuasive skills to
obtain resources from organizations’ internal &
external environment

9. LEADERSHIP THEORIES
There are four groups of theories explaining effective
leadership
 Trait approach
 behavioral theories
 contingency and situational theories
 modern approaches

10. TRAIT THEORY
The approach of listing leadership qualities to
identify a leader is the “trait theory of leadership”.
These theories emphasize on leaders’ inherent
and learned qualities as essence of effective
leadership.

11. Some prominent leader traits
 Zaccaro et al. (1991): accurately read social dynamics, adapt
behaviors to social demandshigh need for dominance& self monitors.
 Yukl & fleet(1992): high energy levels, stress tolerance, integrity,
emotional maturity, self confidence
Warren Bennis (2004): 90 leaders studied over a period of five years
revealed that leaders share four basic traits:
 Management of attention: the ability to communicate a sense of
outcome, goals or direction that attracts followers
 Management of meaning: the ability to create and communicate
meaning with clarity and understanding
 Management of trust: the ability to be reliable and consistent
 Management of self: the ability to know oneself and using personal
skills and abilities within one’s strengths and weaknesses.

12. The “big five model” of personality has wide
organizational acceptance for identifying
managerial traits, when put to test for leader trait
identification met with mixed success. Among the
five factors only
 extroversion,
 conscientiousness and
 openness to experience could predict leadership
but
 agreeableness and
 emotional stability failed to meet with success.

13. Critique of trait approach
 There is no universally acceptable complete list of
leader traits. Even after fifty years of research a
set of traits that can differentiate leaders from
non leaders is not there.
 The relative importance of traits in leader
effectiveness is not clear.
 The cause and effect relationship between the
traits and behavior is not clear. The situational
factors and followers do not get their right due in
the discussion of the theory.
 Impact of combination of traits within work group
is an important concept to be studied for future:
shared leadership concept.

14. BEHAVIORAL THEORIES
According to the behavioral theories the leader
effectiveness depends not on the traits and
qualities possessed by the leader but his behavior
with the followers. If the leader is able to get their
confidence and cooperation he will be able to
move the group in the desired direction of
achieving goals

15. LEADERSHIP STYLES
The style of a leader is the way a leader consistently interacts
with his followers to guide and inspire them to put their best
performance enthusiastically and confidently
 Autocratic leadership style: leader is the only centre of
power; His main influence over the followers comes from
controlling rewards and punishments. It is goal and task
accomplishment that are important to him rather than his
followers
 Democratic leadership style- the leader actively involves
the group members in the decision making process i.e.
takes all decision in consultation with subordinates, he
discusses the proposed action with them before finally
arriving at a decision himself.
 Free rein or Laissez-faire leadership style: the leader
empowers his followers to take their own decisions. He is
least seen on the scenes for decision making and action.
There is very little or no control.

16. The applications of the relevant leadership style in the
organizational contexts depend upon:
 The leader or the manager: The managerial
leader’s personality traits, experience in leading
followers in different situations, his value system,
tolerance for ambiguity and confidence in the
subordinates are important dimensions of the leader.
 Followers or the employees: the followers or the
employees’ abilities, skills, maturity, responsibility,
commitment and confidence level trust in leader
and job involvement and satisfaction levels are also
deciding forces, are also deciding forces
 The prevailing situations in the organization: Similarly
the situational factors prevailing in the organization
like: structure and type of organization
(bureaucratic, flexible or self managed work teams),
task structure (fixed or flexible), task requirement
(emergency or normal situation) also play their role.

17. Likerts’ System Four Management Styles
The research on leadership styles was carried forward by
Likert (1967), who proposed four managerial leadership
styles on the basis of the two leader dimensions:
authoritative and democratic. The four styles suggested
by Likert are:
 exploitative- authoritative
 benevolent – authoritative
 consultative- democratic
 participative- democratic

18. OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY STUDIES
 Initiating structure refers to the leader’s behavior
delineating the relationship between him and members of
the work group and in endeavoring to establish well
defined patterns of organization, channels of
communication and methods and procedures. On the
other hand
 consideration refers to behavior indicative of friendship,
mutual trust, respect and warmth in the relationship
between the leader and the members of his staff.
 the Ohio state studies suggested that the “high-high” style
generated positive outcomes, but enough exceptions
were found to indicate that situational factors needed to
be integrated into the theory.

19. MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY STUDIES
 Employee oriented leaders emphasized interpersonal relations;
they took a personal interest in the needs of their subordinates and
accepted individual differences among the members.
 Production oriented leaders tended to emphasize the technical or
task related aspects of the job. Their main concern was to
accomplish group’s task and the group members were a means to
the end.
 On analysis it was found that employee oriented leaders were
associated with higher productivity and job satisfaction.
 However, a critical analysis of the theory shows that there
is a failure to suggest whether leader behavior is the cause
or effect of productivity and satisfaction. Also, the
behavioral styles suggested by the theory are considered
to be static, which is not true.

20. BLAKE AND MOUTON MANAGERIAL GRID
Blake and Mouton (1969) attempted to expand the Michigan
and Ohio models of leadership to organizational work
situations, the model is known as managerial grid. The two
dimensions of leadership adopted by them: concern for
people and concern for production
 5X5 style: the right balance between the two dimensions of
people and production is necessary to get the effective
leader behavior
 9X9 style: people need to work as a team with complete
commitment to the goal.
 9X1 style: efficiency of operations results from arranging
conditions of work in such a way that human element
interference is minimal. People are regarded as instrument
of production
 1X9 style: thoughtful attention to the needs of the people,
satisfactory relationships which lead to a friendly
organizational work environment. Social relationships
among the group members are given preference over
work.
 1X1 style: exertion of minimum efforts to get the required
work done and sustain organizational membership.

21. Critique of behavioral
theories
 The two broad categories of leader behaviors
are: independent or negatively related?
 Some leader behaviors are difficult to classified as
any of the two categories, complex behaviors?
 Researches focusing on behavioral theories are
unable to identify a set of leader behavior that
rare consistently related to leader effectiveness.
 No universal set of leader behaviors across
situations and this set the stage for situational /
contingency theories.

22. CONTINGENCY OR SITUATIONAL THEORIES
The contingency or situational theories offer an alternative
approach to the understanding of leadership. They proceed
on the assumptions:
 situational variables play an important role in determining the
leader characteristics.
 no single optimal psychographic profile of the leader exists,
rather the leader behavior is a function of leader
characteristics and followers.
 There are a number of theories that isolate key situational
variables which play an important role in determining the
effective style of leadership.
 The theories combine the leadership styles and traits to match
them with the situational factors

23. FIEDLER’S CONTINGENCY MODEL:
Fiedler’s contingency model is the most popular contingency
approach postulated by Fiedler (1967). It proposes that “effective
leader performance” depends upon the proper interaction
between the leader’s style and situational favorableness. The
main postulates to the approach are:
 There are two basic leadership styles: relationship oriented & task
oriented
 Style of the leader is fixed
 The leadership style can be identified with LPCQ
The situation according to Fiedler, depend upon three contingent
factors:
 leader- follower relations,
 task structure and
 power the leader enjoys by virtue of his position.

24. Contingency model
Task
oriented
leader
Relation
ship
oriented
leader
Situatio
nal
factors
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Leader-
follower
relations
hip
good good good good poor poor poor poor
Task
structur
e
struct
ured
struct
ured
unstru
ctured
unstru
ctured
struct
ured
struct
ured
unstru
ctured
unstru
ctured
Leader-
power
position
strong weak strong weak strong weak strong weak

25. HERSEY AND BLANCHARD’S
SITUATIONAL THEORY
This situational theory of leadership suggests four
leadership styles and four levels of follower
development. For effectiveness, the leadership
style must match the appropriate level of follower
development. Thus, the leader behavior is a
function not only of the characteristics of the
leader but characteristics of the followers as well.

26. The main postulates of the
theory are:
Leadership styles: task oriented or relationship
oriented
 High task- high relations
 High task- low relations
 Low task- high relations
 Low task- low relations

27. The maturity of the followers:
 ability to do a task: is the knowledge,
experience and skill pool the
individual or group brings to a task or
activity that the group or the
individual has to accomplish with the
leader.
 willingness or the sense of responsibility
towards a task is the extent to which a
group or the follower has confidence,
commitment and motivation to
accomplish a particular task

28. Leader- follower situation
matched
Readiness Level
I
High task low
relationship
Directive style
Readiness Level
II
High relation and
task
Supportive style
Readiness Level
III
Low task high
relations
Participative style
Readiness Level
IV
Low task and low
relationship
Free rein style
Unable and
unwilling
Unable and
willing
Able and
Unwilling
Able and willing
Insecure confident insecure confident

29. path goal theory
Leadership styles: directive, supportive,
participative and achievement oriented
Follower’s characteristic: locus of control,
attitudes and expectations, satisfaction
with the leader behavior for
accomplishing goals, acceptance of the
leader, satisfaction with the leader
behavior for accomplishing goals,
acceptance of the leader
Situation: job environment, job complexity,
subordinate needs, diversity and
individual differences etc.

30. Path – goal theory
 Blends leadership and employee motivation
 The role of a leader is to help his/ her subordinates
become successful
 A leader must adapt to his followers and situations to be
successful, thus, path to goal.
 Leader should be capable of using all four styles:
directive, supportive, participative and achievement
oriented.
 The leadership style can be chosen on the basis of:
characteristics of work environment: prevailing environmental
norms , task structure, nature of work group.
characteristics of subordinates: personality& ability
 Leader success raises subordinates’ expectancy( efforts
lead to performance).

31. The expectancy theory:
Individual efforts individual performance
organizational rewards personal goals
Leader effectiveness
•Employee motivation
•Employee satisfaction
•Leader acceptance
Leader behavior
•Directive
•Supportive
•Participative
•Achievement oriented
Employee
contingencies
•Skill & experiences
•Locus of control
Environmental
contingencies
•Task structure
•Team dynamics

32. L-M-X model
vertical dyad linkage
theory followers can be divided into two groups on
the degree of faith and confidence a leader
places in them in allocating responsibilities
and tasks: in- group and the out- group
 the out- group sees the leader as a formal
figure whereas, the in-group enjoys informal
and personal relations with the leader.
 In group are more privy to information and
discretion, the out group have less
responsibility and desire to perform.
 The exchange in groups occur with: time,
trust, negotiation, mutual similarities, affect ,
loyalty, contribution, professional respect

33. CRITIQUE OF SITUATIONAL
THEORIES
 Lack empirical validity, however, a
commonsensical acceptance cannot
be denied.
 Multiple understanding of the
concept of “situation” minus any
strong interpretation, which has simply
compounded the confusion.
 Leader styles do matter in different
situations in formulation and
implementation of strategies and
group citizenship.
 Impact of culture, politics and power
is unexplored

34. MODERN THEORIES:
charismatic leadership
 motivating and directing followers primarily
by developing their strong emotional
commitment to a vision & a set of shared
values.
 obtain power through follower’s identification
with them or referent power
 distill complex ideas into simple messages,
communicating with symbols, metaphors and
stories.
 Shared vision and values shared identity with
the followers, modeling desired behavior and
creates the impression of self confidence,
social and physical courage, determination,
optimism and innovation.

35. Transformational
leadership
 anticipating future trends, inspiring followers to
understand and embrace a new vision of
possibilities, developing followers to be leaders or
better leaders, and building the organization
 Idealized influence: providing vision, a sense of
mission, instilling pride, gaining respect and trust
something akin to charisma.
 Inspirational motivation: communicating high
expectations, using symbols to focus efforts,
expressing important purposes in simple ways.
 Intellectual stimulation: promoting intelligence,
rationality, careful problem solving on one hand
and creativity and initiative on the other hand.
 Individualized consideration: giving personal
attention, treating each employee individually ,
coaching and counseling him individually.

36. Transactional Vs
Transformational leaders
Factors Transactional leader Transformational
leader
Source of power Reward, legitimate,
expert
Referent, reward
motivation Extrinsic-
reward, recognition
Intrinsic-
self esteem, trust
goals Narrow & quantitative Broad & specific to
leader
Goal commitment Low contingent on
rewards
High
Follower behavior Obedient conforming
group norms
Inspired, committed,
confident
Power tactics used Low High

37. VISIONARY LEADERS
 create and articulate a realistic,
credible and attractive vision of the
future for an organization
 The ability to explain the vision to
others in clear terms of required
actions and aims.
 The ability to express the vision not just
verbally but through the leader’s
behavior so that the vision is
reinforced.
 The ability to extend the vision to
different leadership contexts i.e. ability
to sequence activities so that the
vision could be applied in a variety of
situations.

38. Formulation of vision
and articulate
Implement
the vision
Assess the
status
quo

39. LEADERSHIP IN GROUPS
Team of people with diverse skills from all parts of the
organization assemble to lead a project
More than one person provides direction to the
group as a whole.
More creative openings, reduce costs and
downsizing.
Traditional leader may become expensive, draining
the group resources by suppressing the creativity
unintentionally
A team structure may involve shared leadership or
rotate the leadership
Group leadership examples are the cross functional
teams

40. Behaviors of outstanding
leaders
 Vision: outstanding leaders articulate an
ideological vision congruent with the deeply held
values of the followers, a vision that describes a
better future to which the followers have an
alleged moral right.
 Passion and self sacrifice: leaders have passion
and strong conviction of what they regard as
moral correctness and make sacrifices in the
interest of their missions.
 Confidence and persistence: high degree of faith
in their vision (that challenges the status quo) and
themselves.
 Image building: self conscious of their image and
desirability among the followers is promoted.
 Role modeling: leader is to be perceived as the
role model for the followers to identify.

41.  External representation: they are symbolic
representations of their groups and organization to
the external territories
 Expectations and confidence in the followers:
outstanding leaders communicate high degree of
performance and have confidence and
expectations from the followers to their fulfill them.
 Selective motive arousal: outstanding leaders
selectively arouse the motives of the followers to be
relevant to successful accomplishment of the
mission.
 Frame congruency to link the individual and leader
orientations to become complimentary.
 Inspirational communication: the message is often
communicated in inspirational manner using vivid
stories, symbols and slogans.