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Module 3 – SLP

Leaders and Leadership

Most of what is written about leadership has been written by western scholars and practitioners—mostly from the United States. Thus, what we have studied in this module so far reflects western assumptions and values about how to improve leadership performance.

But leadership quality, we know, is mostly about perception. If the followers perceive that a person is a leader, that person will be treated with respect and the followers will grant him the power and authority to guide their actions. These perceptions can vary across cultures, and successful global leaders know that leadership is viewed differently in different cultures and modify their behaviors to align with culturally diverse expectations. This is what is called Cultural Intelligence.

(If this is a topic that particularly interests you and you would like to increase your capacity for cultural intelligence, you are encouraged to enroll in LED520: Cross-Cultural Communication and Leadership. This course can serve as an elective in several degree programs.)

Required Reading

The following reading discusses the importance of cultural awareness in increasing organizational effectiveness:

O’Reilly, C. (2013). Why is cultural intelligence important? Retrieved from http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/topic/soft-skills/why-cultuiral-intelligence-important/181942

Assignment

Click on the following link: https://commisceo-global.com/quizzes. You will find a selection of cultural awareness quizzes, business culture quizzes, and country-specific quizzes. Choose one or two quizzes that look interesting to you. (Hint: You will learn the most if you choose a general quiz or one that concerns a country with which you are not familiar, and then choose a quiz that tests your knowledge of a country with which you think you are highly familiar.) After completing the quiz(zes), address the following questions in a 2- to 3-page essay:

  • Which quiz(zes) did you take?
  • Were you surprised at your performance on the quiz(zes)?
  • What strengths do you think you have in the area of inter-cultural awareness?
  • What weaknesses are you able to identify?
  • Create a plan of specific steps you can take to build on your strengths and improve areas of weakness.
  • Why is it important for managers to increase their levels of cultural awareness?

Keys to the Assignment

The key aspects of this assignment that should be covered in your paper include:

  • Complete the assessment according to the guidelines and interpret the results.
  • Include the actual results.
  • Discuss BOTH strengths and weaknesses. If there were gaps between your assessment results and your own thoughts about your level of cultural awareness, why they do these gaps exist?
  • Discuss concrete actions you can take to improve your cultural awareness.

SLP Assignment Expectations

Your paper will be evaluated using the criteria as stated in the SLP rubric. The following is a review of the rubric criteria:

Assignment-Driven: Does the paper fully address all aspects of the assignment? Is the assignment addressed accurately and precisely using sound logic? Does the paper meet minimum length requirements?

Critical Thinking: Does the paper demonstrate graduate-level analysis, in which information derived from multiple sources, expert opinions, and assumptions has been critically evaluated and synthesized in the formulation of a logical set of conclusions? Does the paper address the topic with sufficient depth of discussion and analysis?

Business Writing: Is the essay logical, well organized and well written? Are the grammar, spelling, and vocabulary appropriate for graduate-level work? Are section headings included? Are paraphrasing and synthesis of concepts the primary means of responding, or is justification/support instead conveyed through excessive use of direct quotations?

Effective Use of Information: Does the submission demonstrate that the student has read, understood and can apply the background materials for the module? If required, has the student demonstrated effective research, as evidenced by student’s use of relevant and quality (library?) sources? Do additional sources used provide strong support for conclusions drawn, and do they help in shaping the overall paper?

Citing Sources: Does the student demonstrate understanding of APA Style of referencing, by inclusion of proper citations (for paraphrased text and direct quotations) as appropriate? Have all sources (e.g., references used from the Background page, the assignment readings, and outside research) been included, and are these properly cited? Have all sources cited in the paper been included on the References page?

Timeliness: Has the assignment been submitted to TLC (Trident’s learning management system) on or before the module’s due date?

Module 3 – Background

Leaders and Leadership

All background materials (as well as materials referenced on the home page) are required unless designated as optional or general reference materials.

People have wondered about what makes a great leader since the beginning of recorded history—and undoubtedly long before. The formal study of leadership dates back to the 1950’s,and is probably one of the most researched topics in Organizational Behavior. Today, after decades of study, we believe that:

  • Leaders are made, not born, and leadership can be taught.
  • Leadership occurs in all kinds of organizations and at all levels.
  • To be a great leader, one does not have to be charismatic.
  • There is no one right way to lead that will fit all situations.

In this module, we will review the major theories of leadership that persist to this day. Although some are more complex than others, each seems to have a nugget of truth and adds to our overall understanding of how leadership works and what makes great leadership. The following chart summarizes the major approaches or models that we will cover.

Leadership Model Principles
Trait Model Leaders have special innate qualities. Certain people are “natural leaders.”
Behavioral Models Leaders are concerned primarily with task or relationships, though the best leaders are concerned with both.
Contingency Models Different leader behaviors are effective for different types of followers and situations.
Influence (Power) Models Leadership consists of influencing others.
Transformational Models Leaders are visionaries who change organizations and people’s behavior.

Let’s begin with a PowerPoint presentation that will provide some background on these different models:

Eveland, J.D. (n.d.) Leadership. Trident University International.
The exercise of leadership, by definition, involves compelling people to do something they might not otherwise have done. The manner in which they carry out these tasks varies, however. The degree of motivation and enthusiasm with which a follower performs his or her work is related to the type of leadership that is used. Here are the most common reactions by followers:

  • Commitment is characterized by the internalization of a leader’s goal or request and the follower’s decision to carry it out effectively. Frequently, the follower will go beyond what the leader has asked or expects—in other words, goes the extra mile.
  • Compliance is an apathetic response where the follower does what the leader asks, but exerts no more than the required amount of effort.
  • Resistance is a reaction where the follower opposed the leader’s direction and avoids carrying it out (passively through avoidance or aggressively through rebellion).

Let’s take a look at power, which is closely tied to leadership. Review the sources of power in the following video presentation:

Retrieved April 2017 from Now, consider reactions to leadership’s exercise of power (by type):

Type Most Common Reaction
Reward Compliance
Coercive Compliance or resistance
Legitimate Compliance
Referent Commitment
Expert Commitment

This chart would indicate that the most a leader can hope for if he relies on the power received from holding a position (legitimate, reward, coercive) is compliance with directives. If leaders rely too heavily on coercive power, they risk meeting resistance. If, instead, a leader needs to have the follower’s commitment (the knowledge that a follower will comply with directives regardless of whether or not the follower is being monitored or not), then the leader must rely on personal sources of power—such as referent or expert power.

While commitment is very often the most desired reaction, sometimes compliance is enough to accomplish the leader’s objectives. Resistance, however, is something all leaders should want to avoid as it could render them totally ineffective.

Contingency Models

The Eveland PowerPoint presentation also covered contingency models of leadership. Contingency models are based on the idea that the most effective leadership style is one that matches the demands of the situation. There are three basic models of contingency leadership that we will cover in this module. Each has a slightly different prescription as to the factors that a leader needs to consider when exercising the most successful leadership style.

  1. The Fiedler Model
  2. The Path-Goal Model and
  3. The Normative Decision Model

The Fiedler Model

Unlike the behavioral theorists who came before him Fiedler did not believe that there was one best style of leadership. He agreed that individuals tend to possess either a task-oriented or relationship-oriented leadership style, but that to know the appropriate style for a given circumstance, you also needed to understand the situation:

Situational Factor Characteristics
Leader-Member Relations Do the followers have trust and confidence in the leader?
Task Structure Is the task structured or unstructured?
Leader’s position power Does the leader have the discretion to reward or punish?

Read the following article to learn how these factors combine to indicate which leadership style would be most effective given specific situational constraints, and criticisms of the model:

Fiedler’s Contingency Theory (2016). Leadership-central. Retrieved from http://www.leadership-central.com/fiedler%27s-contingency-theory.html#axzz3OemkTtoM

While Fiedler thought that different leadership styles worked better under different conditions, he did not think that people could change their preferred style. So the important task of management was to match the leader with the right style to the right situation. The next contingency theory of leadership we will examine does not hold that leadership style is static and instead proffers the argument that leaders can change and adapt their style to fit the situation.

Path Goal Model

The path-goal model of leadership proposes four different leadership styles and considers two situational factors (the follower’s capabilities and motivation) to match the most effective leadership style with the characteristics of the situation as follows:

Appropriate Leadership Style Situation
Directive
  • Employee role ambiguity is high.
  • Employees have low abilities
  • Employees have external locus of control
Supportive
  • Tasks are boring and repetitive
  • Tasks are stressful
Participative
  • Employee abilities are high
  • Decisions are relevant to employees
  • Employees have internal locus of control
Achievement-Oriented
  • Employees have high abilities
  • Employees have high achievement motivation

In other words, a leader does not use the same approach with hourly employees with limited skills the same way she would lead employees who are highly educated and highly skilled. Read more about this approach to leadership:

Martin, R. (2012) “PathGoal Theory of Leadership.” Encyclopedia of Group Processes & Intergroup Relations. Ed. John M. Levine and Michael A. Hogg. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2009. 636-37. SAGE Reference Online . Web. 30 Jan. 2012. Retrieved April 2017 from https://studysites.uk.sagepub.com/northouse6e/stud…

Normative Decision Model: Vroom-Yetton-Jago decision tree

The last contingency model we will consider is the Normative Decision Model, so called because it gives leaders a tool to use to decide exactly which of five leadership styles is appropriate for a given circumstance to ensure that the highest quality alternative is selected and the followers have the greatest likelihood of acceptance of that alternative. By asking a series of questions and following the answers through a decision tree, the leader can select the style that is most likey to yield the response she desires. The five leadership styles are:

Decision Style Characteristics
A1: Autocratic Leader gathers information and decides alone.
A2: Autocratic Leader gets information from followers but decides alone.
C1: Consultative Leader shares problem with individual followers, asks for input, but decides alone.
C2: Consultative Leader shares problem with group of followers, asks for input, but decides alone.
G2: Group based Leader shares problem with group, seeks consensus on solution.

Find out what the key questions are and see how the decision tree works by reading the following article. Be sure to try out the interactive tool that allows you to try out the decision tree for yourself!

Vroom-Yetton-Jago Decision-making Model of Leadership (2013). Leadership-central. Retrieved from http://www.leadership-central.com/Vroom-Yetton-Jago-decision-making-model-of-leadership.html#axzz3OjpF9lI8

Transformational leadership

Transformational leaders are people who inspire followers to exert their greatest efforts toward achieving a vision for the future of the organization. To do this, the transformational leader needs to clearly communicate his vision for the organization and this vision must be linked to strong values that followers will find motivating. The transformational leader works hard to build trust with his followers – so that his “open area” of the JoHari Window is maximized. (See Module 2 for an explanation of the JoHari Window.)

Although he does not use the term “transformational,” Leadership expert Simon Sinek is clearly describing what constitutes this type of leadership in the following TED talk:

TED (2010) Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action

Much of what is written about transformational leadership focuses on the role of top management – particularly CEO’s – as transformational. But what about the rest of us who lead people on a daily basis, but from the middle of the organization? Does the model of transformational leadership have anything to offer individuals who are not at the top of the leadership “food chain”?

The following article does just that by making clear how managers at all levels of the organization can become more effective leaders by infusing transformational principles into the meaning of work. Drawing on the Job Characteristics Model (remember this from module 1?), the authors show how “transformational leaders promote (i.e., shape) subordinates’ perceptions of work by influencing their perceptions of key job characteristics.” (p. 354)

Dean J., Cleavengera, D.J., and Munyonb, T.P. (2013). It’s how you frame it: Transformational leadership and the meaning of work. Business Horizons 56(3), 351-360.

You can find this article in the Trident University Library.

Required Reading

Commisceo Global. Country specific quizzes. Retrieved from http://www.commisceo-global.com/quizzes/cultural-awareness-quizzes?view=qcategory&cat_id=41

Commisceo Global. Cultural awareness quizzes. Retrieved from http://www.commisceo-global.com/quizzes/cultural-awareness-quizzes?view=qcategory&cat_id=39

Dean J., Cleavengera, D. J., and Munyonb, T. P. (2013). It’s how you frame it: Transformational leadership and the meaning of work. Business Horizons 56(3), 351-360

Eveland, J. D. (n.d.) Leadership. Trident University International.

Fiedler’s Contingency Theory (2016). Leadership-central. Retrieved from http://www.leadership-central.com/fiedler%27s-contingency-theory.html#axzz3OemkTtoM

Martin, R. (2012) “PathGoal Theory of Leadership.” Encyclopedia of Group Processes & Intergroup Relations. Ed. John M. Levine and Michael A. Hogg. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2009. 636-37. SAGE Reference Online . Web. 30 Jan. 2012.Retrieved April 2017 from https://studysites.uk.sagepub.com/northouse6e/study/materials/reference/reference7.2.pdf

O’Reilly, C. (2013). Why is cultural intelligence important? Retrieved from http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/topic/soft-skills/why-cultuiral-intelligence-important/181942

Vroom-Yetton-Jago Decision-making Model of Leadership (2013). Leadership-central. Retrieved from http://www.leadership-central.com/Vroom-Yetton-Jago-decision-making-model-of-leadership.html#axzz3OjpF9lI8

Videos

French and Raven’s Five Forms of Power. Retrieved April 2017 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSb06mh7EHA

TED (2010) Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action

Optional Reading

Center for Creative Leadership Website. (2015) Retrieved from http://www.ccl.org/index.shtml

McNamara, C. (2017) All about Leadership. In Free Management Library. Retrieved from http://managementhelp.org/leadership/