Minor Understanding and influencing decisions in business and society
Period 1: Leadership: Mobilizing people
LECTURE NOTES
Week 1
Lecture 1: Introduction and theories of leadership | August 31, 2020 | Ernst Graaman
Anderson, M. H., & Sun, P. Y. (2017). Reviewing leadership styles: Overlaps and the
need for a new ‘full-range’ theory. International Journal of Management Reviews, 19,
76-96.
Derue, D. S., Nahrgang, J. D., Wellman, N. E. D., & Humphrey, S. E. (2011). Trait
and behavioral theories of leadership: An integration and meta-analytic test of their
relative validity. Personnel Psychology, 64, 7- 52.
How to read scientific articles?
There are 2 types of papers: Reviews & empirical papers
• Empirical paper: Scan the article to identify the structure; abstract, introduction,
methods, results and discussion
o Abstract: You can find the purpose, method, result and conclusion!
o Know where you can find what!
o Take notes while reading
o Know what correlation (correlation is NOT causality), mediation (triangle) and
moderation (T) is
Qualitative research is harder to generalize
Leadership
Definition: “Leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree about
what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individuals and
collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives” (Yukl, 2013)
What leaders can influence…:
• The choice of objective and strategies to pursue → mostly done top down in the
boardroom
• The motivation of members to achieve the objectives
• The mutual trust and cooperation of members (reward systems, charismatic leadership,
whistle ball procedures, make people work together by letting them spend time
together)
• The organization and coordination of work activities
• The allocation of resources to activities and objectives
• The development of member skill and confidence
• The learning and sharing of new knowledge by members
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, • The enlistment of support of cooperation of outsiders
• The design of formal structure, programs and systems
• The shared beliefs and values of members
o Be critical, do you believe this. Do you need to share values in order to be able
to work together? Think critically. You can work together even though you
have different values
Influential theories
• The ‘Great Man’ theories
o This is how leadership research stared. What characteristics do the Great
leaders have (Gahndi), why are they such leaders. But there are different types
of leaders. Is the fact that Gahndi was such a great leader because of the time
he lived in, whould he be the same kind of leader nowadays
o Historians who examined the life of a respected leader for clues leading to that
person’s greatness
o Often focused on major life events and admirable traits (persistence, optimism,
intelligence)
• The trait approaches
o For studying great men, you look at characteristics, traits. Look at intelligence
& personality, there is a high (r = .21) correlation between intelligence and
leadership (Judge et al., 2004). IQ and personality are reliable measurements.
Big Five traits → Neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and
conscientiousness. This correlates with leadership.
• The behavioral approach
o In the early 1950s (Ohio
State University) another
type of research. Look at
what someone does, what
someone’s style is.
o Found 2 styles/emphases:
Initiation structure/task-
oriented or
consideration/relation-oriented. So, task or people focused. Now, digital
leadership is a new leadership style. Democratic leadership, autocratic
leadership et cetera, many different types.
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, o The managerial Grid (Blake &
mounton, 1964, 1982)
▪ Emphasis on the needs of
team members, their
interests, and areas of
personal development
when deciding how to
complete
▪ Or Emphasis on concrete
objectives, organizational
efficiency and high
productivity when
deciding how to
accomplish a task
o Traits & Behaviors: DeRue et al made an overarching model →
o But! Will someone with the right traits/behaviors always be an effective
leader? This can be moderated by the role of the situation. (Moderation = T)
• The contingency approach
o The Least Preferred Coworker Contingency Model (Fiedler, 1967)
▪ Task-oriented leadership preferred in highly (un)favorable situations
▪ Relation-oriented leadership preferred at moderate levels of
situational favorability
▪ For example, during a crisis, democratic leadership style might not be
the best option, there is no time for letting everybody agree
• Situational approach:
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, o The Hersey-Banchars (1977) model of
leadership
▪ Job maturity: subordinate’s job-related
ability, skills, and knowledge
▪ Psychological maturity: the self-
confidence and self-respect of the
subordinate
▪ Task-oriented → Relation-oriented
• New approaches
o LMX (Danseraeau, Gran & Haga, 1975)
▪ Leader-member exchange theory
▪ People go through 3 phases expect the leader to behave in a certain
way; positive attitudes, motivation and performance (?)
▪ Ingroup members have high-quality relationships with their leader and
high latitude for negotiating their work roles; rare use of formal power
or authority
▪ Out-group members have low-quality relationships with their leader
and little latitude for negotiating their work roles leader relies on
formal power and authority
▪ It is hard to leave an outgroup
o Transformational leadership → This is a new approach
▪ Transformation leadership is the interplay between leaders and
followers in which each raises the other to higher levels of ethics,
morality and motivation. The leader transforms the followers by
appealing to their noble motives, such as justice and peace (Burns,
1978)
▪ Bass (1985): components of transformational leaders
• Idealized influence (charisma): behavior that increase
followers identification with the leader, such as setting an
example of courage and making self-sacrifices to benefit
followers
• Inspirational motivation: Communicating an appealing vision,
and using symbols to focus subordinate effort
• Intellectual stimulation: behavior that influences followers to
view problems from a new perspective and look for more
creative solutions
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