WEEK 1 LECTURE: Mechanisms of Leadership
What do we mean by mechanisms? “Leader-focused research often directly links leader behaviors to
organizational outcomes (often related to followers), implicitly assuming a relationship of some sort
between leader’s and followers’ behaviors. However, such an approach often fails to answer how, and
why certain behaviors work.” (Lee & Wei, 2008). Understand through which mechanisms certain
leadership behavior (input) leads to certain follower’s behavior (output).
Behaviorism: input → output
The cognitive revolution: input → black box → output (more interested in why and how certain
behavior occurs)
Leadership mechanism Description
1 Social learning Learn behavior from watching and imitating behavior.
2 Social identity theory Identify with a group and take over group behavior.
3 Reciprocity theory Do a favor, return a favor, or not.
4 Social exchange theory Every interaction is a form of exchange in which each
participant gives the other “more than he had himself
posessed”.
5 Perceived organizational Degree you feel the organization supports you.
support
6 LMX theory Dyadic relationship between a leader and a follower.
7 Self-efficacy theory How well one’s can execute tasks.
8 Learned helplessness/ …
optimism When you succeeded earlier, this helps for optimism.
9 Psychological safety & danger Safe culture to engage in individual risk-taking behavior, leads
to team learning or opposite, which is psychological danger.
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,1) Social learning theory (Albert Bandura)
People can learn new information and behaviors by watching other people. This is known as
observational learning or learning from observing a role model. 2 types:
1. Inhibition: Learning what not to do. Withhold behavior because you observe negative
consequences for others.
2. Disinhibition: Show behavior that you first wanted to withhold because you see positive
consequences for others. If he can do it I can do it!
Necessary conditions for observational learning (ARRM):
1. Attention: being able to watch the role model.
2. Retention: being able to remember the behavior.
3. Reproduction: being able to copy the behavior.
4. Motivation: the will. The reinforcement of the behavior (reward or punishment) decides if
certain behavior will be inhibited or not.
VB: In 1983, David Phillips of UCSD, published a paper in American Sociological Review reporting that
the US national homicide rate increased by an average of 12.46% after a heavy weight championship
fight. The largest increase was 31.2% following Muhammad Ali’s fight with Joe Frazier in October
1975.
Over imitation: imitation behavior when it’s not necessary. VB: ticking on a box so that it opens but of
course it does not open. A mechanism for cultural transmission → behavior got passed on through
different generations.
“Keltner et al. (2008) proposed that the goals, actions, and emotions of the powerful serve as a
"prioritization device" in coordinating interdependent action. That is, those goals, actions, and
emotions send a robust signal to lower-power members about what matters and what does not in
the context of an interdependent group, thereby suggesting a standard for sorting the relevant and
central from the irrelevant and peripheral. When the goals, actions, and emotions of the powerful
reflect a concern with collective goals, we would therefore expect the group as a whole to prioritize
and be oriented toward collective outcomes and collective improvement.”
2) Social identity theory (Henri Tajfel + John Turner)
Refers to a person’s sense of who they are based on their group membership(s). The group (social
class, football team etc.) that people belong to are an important source of pride and self esteem.
Groups give us a sense of social identity: a sense of belonging to the social world. When social
identity is salient (zichtbaar), people begin to act as representatives of a group rather than just as
individuals. Once people identify with a group, their behavior change. ME → WE.
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, Self-esteem explains the ‘why’
Social identity theory proposes that group formation goes through 3 stages:
1. Self-categorization: Categorizing yourself as part of a group.
○ Ingroup (your group) vs. outgroup (others)
2. Social identification: Adopting the identity of the group. When you absorb the culture,
norms, values of the group and start noticing the differences between the members of the
in/out-group. Find identify with the ingroup and you find yourself different and deidentify
with the out-group.
○ Culture, norms, values.
3. Social comparison: Comparing the group (favorably) to other groups. One starts to think of
their in-group as better than and superior to the out-group.
○ Positive distinctiveness.
VB: Sherif’s (1954) Robbers Cave Experiment demonstrates the importance of working together on
shared goals to overcome intergroup conflict. 12 year old boys were going to summer camp and they
split the group. In a week the groups showed different behavior. And then they had to do activities
against each other (?) which caused conflict. Then they did activities together but the conflict
remained. Then they made up activities with shared goals because. They needed to work together to
fix the water. That’s when they did start working together. You need goals that goes beyond the group
differences.
Main take away = getting people to share activities is not enough to increase the cohesion between
the in- and outgroup, but shared goals and get them jointly focused can reduce the barriers and
increase cohesion between the 2 groups.
Optimal distinctiveness = in some situations you want to blend in (strange situations), in other
situations you want to stand out (familiar situations). Struggle to find the optimal balance.
When to apply social identity?
- When there is high diversity: social identity can bind people together: If there is an organization
with a lot of diverse people, you must create a social identity that everyone feels they belong to.
- When there is an in-group and out-group: provide shared goals and get both teams to focus jointly
which will reduce the barriers and increase the cohesion between the groups.
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, Low social identity
salience, you’re not
endorsement more to
follow the leader
because you don’t
recognize yourself.
Endorsement =
willingness to follow
the leader.
Grafiek! Salience en
(perceived) effectiveness
Leadership endorsement of followers due to social identity salience:
- Leadership is seen as a group process generated by social categorization, prototype-
depersonalization and social identity. Social identity theory suggests that leadership
endorsement is predicted by which group member is the most prototypical of the group,
because people are socially attracted to them. This is moderated by the group salience.
- Prototypicality alone does not imply active leadership. Prototypical members don’t actively
lead, but appear to have influence. The social attraction and depersonalization facilitate
active influence.
- Followers also attribute the leader’s influence/status/popularity internally to the leader’s
personality, which constructs a charismatic leadership personality for the leader. This
reinforces the leader-follower status differential. With a high-status role, the leader can
actively innovate.
3) Reciprocity principle
Humans have an evolved sensitivity to fairness and can easily detect unfairness.
Reciprocity: an essential psychological principle of building and maintaining healthy relationships. It is
the bedrock (fundament) of cooperation between people.
“There is no duty more indispensable than that of returning a kindness, all men (and women) distrust
one forgetful of a benefit.”
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