Pre-master BA – Leadership & Management
Summary
Victor Roos
Content
Topic Page
Introduction 2
§1 Leadership 3
§2 Motivation 13
§3 Creativity & Innovation 20
§4 Stress & Occupational health 26
§5 Decision-making & Work in the digital age 32
§6 Proactive behavior 40
,Leadership & Management – Pre-master BA - Summary
Introduction to leadership
Lecture 1.1
The focus of the course is on the combination of Organizational Behavior (OB) and Human Resource
Management (HRM). OB is about understanding how people and groups in organizations behave. HRM
is the managers’ activities to attract and keep employees and ensure that they perform at a high level
and in line with organizational goals. So, the main focus is people in organizations.
L&M is important because in order to construct high-performing organizations, we need the right
people to lead and be led in the right way, so that employees stay motivated, and cooperate and
perform well (collectively).
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Victor Roos
,Leadership & Management – Pre-master BA - Summary
§1 Leadership
Lecture 1.2-1.4, Article 1.1-1.4
Due to the complex nature of leadership, a broadly accepted definition has not been found yet. In this
course, two definitions are used:
- A process of social influence whereby a leader steers member of a group towards a goal
(Bryman, 1992).
- A process of social influence in which one person is able to enlist the aid and support of others
in the accomplishment of a task (Chemers, 2000).
When discussing leadership in organizations it is good to know how leadership is different or similar to
power and management.
- Power: power refers to the means that leaders have to potentially influence others to obtain
a certain goal. There are different types of power: referent power (influence people because
they identify with you), expertise power (influence people because they see you as an expert)
and coercive power (influence people because you are able to punish or reward them).
- Management: some argue that leadership is purpose-driven, while management is
objective/goal-driven. Others argue that managers are focused on day-to-day operations,
while leaders are looking for future solutions. Others argue that the two are complementary
and that leadership goes beyond management. Conclusion: as a good leader you need to do
both.
Leadership research has developed throughout the years:
- Up to the late 1940’s: trait theories of leadership. Who is the leader? (§1.1)
- Late 1940’s – 1960’s: leadership behavior. What does a leader do? (§1.2)
- Late 1960’s – 1980’s: contingency theories. It all depends on the situation. (§1.3)
- > 1990: charismatic and transformational leadership. Vision, charisma, inspiration: where do
we want to go? (§1.4)
- > 2000: ethical, servant. The moral side (skipped for now).
- > 2015: meaning-based leadership. How do we pursuit our purpose (§1.5).
The types of leaderships build on each other. Most measurements come from American researchers,
which may cause a cultural bias.
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Victor Roos
, Leadership & Management – Pre-master BA - Summary
Article 1.1
Leadership: past, present, and future
David V. Day & John Antonakis, 2003
The main idea is that leadership is complex, diverse and difficult to make a cohesive view of, even
though a clearer picture is beginning to emerge. This study uses the accumulated knowledge to
describe the nature of leadership, its antecedents and its consequences. They conclude by defining
leadership as a requirement to direct and guide organizational and human resources toward the
strategic objectives of the organization and ensure that organizational functions are aligned with the
external environment.
Why/research gap
Leadership is a complex and diverse field of knowledge and it is still difficult to define precisely. As it is
so complex, a specific and widely accepted definition of leadership does not exist and might never be
found. However, most leadership researchers agree about the following: leadership can be defined as
the nature of the influencing process that occurs between a leader and followers. A definition of
leadership requires it to be differentiated from power and management. This research summarizes
scientific studies that studied the theoretical foundations of leadership research: how did we get to
this point? What are the major theoretical paradigms of leadership? Where is leadership research
heading. The intention is to provide general understanding of how leadership theory evolved into the
major paradigms presented in this book/article.
Outcomes
Leaderships discussed in the article, but not in the lectures are:
- Skeptics-of-leadership school
- Information processing
- Biological/evolutionary
The how and key constructs can be found in the article summary. The outcomes can be found throughout §1.
§1.1 Trait theories of leadership
Lecture 1, Article 1.1
The trait theories suggest that leaders are born as leaders. The theory considers how personality,
social, physical and/or intellectual traits may differentiate leaders from non-leaders.
- Personality has not been found to very predictive, but in terms of the big five personality
framework, extraversion is found to be the most important factor of the big 5 (it doesn’t say
anything about the leadership effectiveness) along with conscientiousness and openness (this
does say something about leadership effectiveness).
- Certain physical traits, such as height, have been positively associated with leadership.
Overweight, on the other hand, has been negatively associated with leadership. There is a
possible evolutionary explanation for this (physical = better leader).
Traits are better at predicting leadership emergence than effectiveness. Traits help us to predict
leadership, but not to explain leadership. There is always an indirect effect between a trait and the
outcome of leadership
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Victor Roos