Summary of all lectures of the course Leadership (EBM072A05). It's an elective course of the MSc HRM that is offered by the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (RUG) / University of Groningen.
Lecture #1 – Leadership traits, skills & behaviour (ch. 1-4)
Major approaches to define leadership (in leadership research):
- Trait approach
- Skills & behaviours approach
- Situational or contingency approach
- The ‘new’ leadership? Integrative approach
Definition that most researchers will agree with:
Leadership = process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve common goals
Major approaches to leadership integrated (course in a nutshell)
Leadership effectiveness conceptualized at 5 levels:
- Central question = what makes a leader effective?
- Criteria for effective leadership differ across scholars/researchers
- We can conceptualize and evaluate leadership effectiveness in terms of consequences of
leadership for the:
• Leader him/herself (intra-individual level)
• Individual followers (dyadic level)
• Team or group (team level)
• Organization (organizational level)
• Sector or even country (macro level)
Are leaders born or are they made?
- Debate going on for centuries/millennia (e.g. Socrates & Carlyle)
Trait approach to leadership
= certain inborn (= aangeboren) qualities and characteristics make someone a leader
• Big five and its relation with leadership effectiveness
, • Intelligence and its relation with leadership effectiveness (positive up to a certain point)
How useful is the trait approach?
- Strengths:
• Intuitively appealing
• Substantial empirical support
• Practical for leader selection (you can make candidates do a personality test and make decisions based on that)
- Weaknesses:
• Far from perfect predictive validity
• Inexhaustive and ‘subjective’ list of traits
• Lack of ‘when’ (moderation)
Curvilinear relationships
Interaction between traits
• Lack of ‘why’ (mediation)
• Unpractical for leader development
Skills approach
= certain knowledge, skills, and abilities that can be learned/developed are important to leadership
• Skills model of leadership
How useful is the skills approach?
- Strengths:
• Intuitively appealing
• Broadened view of leadership
• Practical for leader development
Although traits still play a role
- Weaknesses:
• Large and generic number of components
Skills not necessarily relevant for leadership
Overlap with trait approach (individual attributes)
• Lack of ‘when’ (moderation)
Does it work across all leadership contexts?
• Lack of ‘why’ (mediation)
Behavioural approach
= focuses on how leaders behave, and assumes that these traits can be copied by other leaders
• Traits
Indirect (distal) determinants of effectiveness (needs to find expression in behaviours)
• Behaviours
Direct (proximal) determinants of effectiveness (more suitable than traits)
,- Ohio State University Leadership Studies
• Developed questionnaires to measure frequency with which leaders engage in leader
behaviours
Leaders are relatively consistent in their behaviours
• Identified 2 main categories of leadership behaviour:
1) Initiating structure (task-oriented)
The degree to which the leader establishes structure for group members: assigning tasks, clarifying expectations,
scheduling work, and specifying procedures
2) Consideration (relations-oriented)
The degree to which the leader creates an environment of emotional support, friendliness, trust, and warmth
➔ Served as a blueprint for other leadership styles
➔ High/high = employees are satisfied and perform better
➔ High/low = employees have more complaints
- Managerial Grid (Blake & Mouton, 1964)
, How useful is the behavioural approach?
- Strengths:
• Focus from traits and skills to behaviours
More proximal to leader effectiveness
• Substantial empirical support
• Parsimonious approach
Task- and relation-oriented meta-categories
- Weaknesses:
• High-high style always the best approach?
• Lack of curvilinear relationships
Moderate levels of leader behaviours
• Lack of ‘when’ (moderators)
Are leader behaviours effective across all situations?
Integrating trait, skills and behavioural approaches
- Which leader traits and behaviours are related to effective leadership?
- Do traits (indirectly) influence effective leadership through behaviours?
- How are leader traits and behaviours related?
• Traits
Indirect (distal) determinants of effectiveness (needs to find expression in behaviours)
• Behaviours
Direct (proximal) determinants of effectiveness (more suitable than traits)
• Traits relate to leader effectiveness through behaviours
Summary
- Are leaders born or made? ➔ BOTH!
• Born because they have certain traits that dictate leader effectiveness (comes naturally)
• Made because certain skills and behaviours can also be developed (contextual influences)
- And to what extent are leaders born/made?
• Research by Arvey et al. (2006; 2007) estimates that 30% of leader emergence can be
explained by genetic factors
• Environmental factors (including developed skills and behaviour) account for around 70%
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