Article summary with Leadership Research and Theory: A Functional Integration by Chemers - 2000

Introduction

In this article the author gives a functional integration of theories about how good leaders behave and which characteristics provide these behaviours. Therefore he gives an enumeration of historical perspectives. The definition of leadership, used in this article, is as follows: ‘a process of social influence in which one person is able to enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task’.

Before Contingency Theory: Lost in the Wilderness

To declare the field of leadership Western European philosophers looked primarily at characteristics of leaders. The great man theory (Garlyle, 1841/1907) proposes that great leaders have characteristics that distinguish them from followers. So leaders are born, not made.

Traits

The typical research format for these days was to test for differences between leaders and followers on selected trait measures. Stogdill (1948) found that although individual differences were important to identify effective leaders, great diversity of situations made it implausible that any of the traits would be general predictor. This set the stage for combining leader traits and situational contingencies to create theories of leadership.

Behaviours and Styles

After traits, researchers switched to the study of behaviour. They tried to find patterns in the behaviour that regard high productivity or morality. The greatest impact came from a set of studies about developing a behavioural inventory, which is called the ‘Leader Behaviour Description Questionnaire’ (Hemphill, 1950). Halpin and Winer (1957) state that a major part of the variability could be explained by two major clusters:

Consideration:  included behaviours that seem to reflect leader intentions to represent a positive group morale and follower satisfaction.

Initiation of Structure: included behaviours that seem to be related to the focus of the leader on building a structure for task completion.

Unfortunately, this carefully structured method failed in more than completely predicting leadership behaviour.

Legitimacy

Hollander (1964,1970) found that individuals in groups gain status through the illustration of task-related competence and faithfulness to group values. Idiosyncrasy credits can be regarded as units of group acceptance/ trustworthiness that can be used for influencing others and support leeway from group norms to foresee for innovation in group processes and ideas. This work is still relevant (Hogg, 1998: social identity theory), because it contains both cognitive and behavioural elements in its approach.

The Mid-1960s to the Mid-1970s: The Contingency Era

The Contingency Model

The contingency model of leadership effectiveness (Fiedler: 1964,1967) is a new approach to look at leadership theories. The Least Preferred Co-worker (LPC) scale distinguished leaders who viewed bad performing subordinates in negative terms and leaders who viewed them in positive terms.  New studies showed that relationship-orientated leaders had more effective teams than task-orientated leaders. Groups led by task-oriented leaders performed best in situations of high control and predictability/ very low control and predictability. On the other side groups led by relationship-orientated leaders performed best in situations of moderate control or predictability. There was some criticism on this contingency model for it’s complexity and for the assumption that it’s not possible to choose to be both styles oriented as a leader.

Normative Decision Theory

Vroom and Yetton (1973) integrated a leaders’ decision strategy with the situational factors in a model. There are three ranges of decision-making strategies included:

• Autocratic styles: leaders make a decision with minimal input from followers à best

   when the task is clear and the followers are supportive

• Consultative styles: leaders make a decision after getting advice from followers à

   best when task or information is not clear

• Participative/ Group styles: leaders and followers make decisions together (with

   equal weight) à best when the leader lacks follower support

The contingency model and normative decision theory differ in the situation of very low control. The contingency model is more focused on the direct group performance through immediate leader action. Here normative decision theory goes for more participative strategies for a long run supportive environment.

Path-Goal Theory

The path-goal theory states that a leader’s main goal is to motivate followers by supporting them to see a relation between their task-related performances and achieving their personal goal. This path-goal framework attempt to understand if there is an effect on follower’s motivation and performance when the leader’s behaviour is directive (initiation of structure) or supportive (consideration). A leader’s directive behaviour would be motivating when a follower has minimal training/ experience or with a highly complex task. If this is not the case, directive behaviour can become a little ‘pushy’. Supportive behaviour is most effective when the follower need psychological or emotional help to deal with a boring or unpleasant task.

The Mid-1970s to the Mid-1980s: Cognitive Models and Gender Concerns

Leadership Perceptions

Ratings of leaders might strongly biased, Staw (1975) found that if you show two sets of observers the same video and you tell that one group was successful and the other group unsuccessful, that the ratings of the observers were both on supportive and directive leadership higher in the success-condition. Here the attribution theory provided a theoretical framework for investigation of leadership biases. Inter alia, Calder (1977) argued that the leadership theories are most often described in popular language and poorly scientifically valid. Therefore he states that leadership exists primarily as an attribution, instead of a measurable construct. Implicit personality theory: ‘a structure of association about what traits or characteristics are related that guides and organizes perceptions, thoughts, and memories about a phenomenon’ (Hastorf et al., 1970). Lord and his associates manifested leadership attributions are based on recognition and inferential processes. Recognition processes emerge when behaviour of a person would result in the perception of him/ her as a leader. Once you are seen as a leader, selective focus/ memory enhanced that judgment. Inferential processes refer to that implicit theories of leadership are associative with team success with great leadership. Once a person is seen as a leader, the inferential processes are likely to strengthen that perception. If characteristics of a person (such as gender/ race) are contrary with prototypic expectations, these implicit processes will not always hold.

Judgements tend to be susceptible to the fundamental attribution error. This implies that poor performances are more likely to be ascribed to personal causes over (equally plausible) external causes. This effect becomes stronger as the consequence of the performance is more extreme. In real-world workgroups leaders tend to blame followers for poor performance and possibly taken credits for group successes: this are some ego-defensive attributions.

Gender Effects

Are men and women truly different in their leadership orientations/ behaviours and if so, is there a different effect on follower reaction and group performance? There are three explanations for potential differences between male and female leadership.

women and men are biologically different (e.g. hormones)

they are culturally different (gender roles)

and observed differences between men and women and the responses to those differences are structurally determined

Given the fact that there is no evidence for any biological bases for gender differences in social behaviour: it is possible that differences in socialization to gender roles carry over to behaviour: gender role spill over. In actual leadership behaviour women show few differences from men, but they are still delicate to the barriers created by negative stereotypes about female leadership.

The Mid-1980s to the Mid-1990s:

Transformational Leadership and Cultural Awareness Transformational Theories

Burns (1978) differentiated great leaders in:

• Transactional leaders: relationship with followers is based on mutually beneficial transactions

• Transformational leaders: influencing followers to go beyond own interests and transform themselves into agents of collective achievement

House (1977) identified three sets of characteristics that typified charismatic leadership:

1. personal characteristics: strong belief in the moral righteousness of one’s beliefs, high level of self confidence and a strong need to dominate/ influence others

2. behaviours: dramatic goal articulation, role modelling of desired attitudes/ behaviours, image building, exhibiting high expectations of and confidence in followers and arousing follower motives that were consistent with desired behaviour

3. situational influences: high levels of environmental stress or an opportunity to express group goals in moralistic or spiritual terms

Bass (1993) built a questionnaire to measure transformational leadership: the Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). Factor analysis yielded 7 factors: 3 transactional (Contingent Reward, Management by Exception and Laissez-Faire Leadership) and 4 transformational (Idealized Influence, Inspirational Motivation, Intellectual Stimulation and Individualized Consideration). You can see transformational theories as ‘universally’ effective leadership behaviour (all leaders, all conditions), whereas contingency theories show that effective leadership is the result of the fit between specific behaviour and particular situations.

Leadership Efficacy

The combination of the leader’s personal characteristics and situational parameters is an important determinant of a leader’s confident and efficacious behaviour. And this behaviour is the basis for detracting elements of leadership. Transformational leadership measures leadership at the outcome level: dependent variable. Whereas contingency theories focus more on the characteristics level: independent variable.

Cultural Differences

Two streams of thought on cultural differences and the influence on leadership theorizing:

1. This stream is about the effects of culture on social processes. The individualistic cultures (e.g. Western Europe/ English-speaking countries) attach great value to achievement and personal expression. Collectivist cultures (+/- rest of the world) attach great value to collective successes and group harmony. Hofstede (80’,83’) found four dimensions of national values with profound effects on organizational functioning: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism-collectivism and masculinity-feminity. Leaders should be seen as powerful in high power distance cultures, as expert/ orderly in high uncertainty avoidance cultures, as caring in collectivist cultures and as macho in masculine cultures.

2. A more empirical stream: testing varied leadership theories across different national groups. Adapting the LBDQ to Japanese culture we can identify two broad classes of leader behaviour: (1) Performance (work accomplishment through direction and productivity) and (2) Maintenance (maintaining high group morale). Higher scores on both classes of behaviour leads in Japan to better and more productive work groups. Almost the same results were found for Iranian managers.

A Functional Integration

Three major functions that a leader needs to carry out to be successful:

1. Image management

A leader must build on the credibility of the feasibility of his or her authority. This by projecting an image, which evokes feelings of confidence with the followers.

2. Relationship development

A leader must ensure that a relationship is built with the followers, which cause that both followers strive for own and common purposes.

3. Resource deployment.

Leaders must effectively use knowledge, skills and material resources that are present within the group to get the group mission done.

This leadership research-area is influenced by periodic fashions. – Find common findings and streams – what must a leader do to be effective (to influence followers toward foal attainment) – Leadership efficacy and Group collective efficacy may be the most important contributors to each of the functional necessities of leadership performance.