7: Leading PEOPLE

Most people think of a single individual - the leader - when they think of leadership. In fact, most research studies on leadership focus on the relationship between leaders and group outcomes.

In America, there also seems to be a universal idea that great leadership = wonderful results. However, a leader without followers is just another individual. Additionally, all of the interactions that combine to result in followers being led take place within a context or environment - and that environment has a big part to play in defining leadership.

When you think about it, it's obvious that leaders do not operate alone... and yet our culture seems to venerate leaders and there is a sense that leaders do it all. Why do you think that is?

When thinking about traits, people often associate those who score on the high or low end of the scale with being the default descriptor for that trait. For example, thinking of introverts as always being shy and reclusive or extroverts as always seeking social situations.

Review this Noba article on Personality Traits: https://nobaproject.com/modules/personality-traits to learn how traits are continuous distributions rather than distinct personality types. An individual can be low, medium, or high on any of the five-factor traits with widely varying results.

Understanding the difference between traits and skills is important in leadership to avoid making assumptions that tie personality to performance; such as stereotyping introverts as not being cut out for management roles. While some personality traits can be antecedents to an emerging leader, the skills or abilities of management can be learned! Communication, for example, is a skill that may greatly influence a leader's influence on others. Everyone can improve their communication skills - it takes practice.

So what's the bottom line here?? Humans WANT traits to matter more (and predict behavior better) than they do in reality - it would make people easier to judge (and our brain wants to judge, because it loves taking shortcuts so it can use less energy to do its work). Traits can still help us understand each other and communicate across differences, but it's much less about performance + predictions than we might like. So, when it comes to giving your followership focus on value alignment since values predict behavior more reliably than traits. When it comes to being or becoming a leader, focus on your related skill development. (Consider this when you think of systems in your life - and who you want to surround yourself with, work for, be, etc. For an OB practitioner, this should change how you HIRE - focus on value fit!, how you TRAIN, etc. etc.!)

Review Chapter 12 Critically (Bauer & Erdogan, 2015)

In this lesson, you need to be an especially critical consumer of our chapter, as current research does not confirm the definition of leadership they're using. The concepts covered are not invalid, and the definition of leadership is very behind the current understanding of leadership as a process.

• Management and leadership are not the same thing, though this chapter confuses the two in several ways. For example, the information on contingency approaches does not match with much of the current ideas of leadership as a process, but instead describes management principles.

• The contemporary approaches section describes mostly very leader-centric ideas and approaches to being a leader. This is a terrible shame, as really they're moderately useless and ignore important considerations about followers and environments at times. It's important to also note that abusive leadership is better described and researched under the term toxic leadership.

Manuscript Excerpt

The following is an excerpt from the literature review section of a manuscript submitted to the Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies by Drs. Lunsford & Brown, 2016.

Leadership Theories

Our work is grounded in the understanding that leadership is more than a person – the leader – and is a process that includes the leader, their followers, and their interactions that are influenced by their organizational context or environment (Padilla & Lunsford, 2013). We assert that leader development efforts need to reflect and promote this understanding of leadership as a process or what Padilla and colleagues (2007) call the leadership triangle.

Leaders

It is often more practical and easier to focus on the leader, despite widespread awareness that leadership is based on complex phenomena (Nohria & Khurana, 2013). Research on leaders tends to emphasize leader traits (Kaiser, Hogan & Craig, 2008). Consequently, much of the literature on leadership focuses on the leader and his or her traits and preferences rather than the process of how leaders engage with followers to achieve an outcome.

There are several reasons for a focus on the leader. First, it is easier to study the traits of one person rather than to study the situation (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Leadership situations have a time dimension, which requires longitudinal study rather than the usual cross-sectional studies employed in leadership research (Hunt & Dodge, 2001). It is also may be more difficult to gain assent from organizational leaders to study broader systemic factors influencing leadership.

Second, psychologists rather than sociologists or political scientists have conducted much of the historical research on leader development (House & Aditya, 1997), with the past decade of research being primarily conducted by those focused on organizational psychology (Karaaslan, 2015). Researchers in this tradition tend to focus on individual traits and preferences rather than on social settings, which comes from psychology’s historical emphasis on the individual (Hilgard, 1987).

Third, a common human belief in personal responsibility contributes to the desire to hold someone responsible for leadership outcomes. We want to blame someone when there are poor outcomes and we want to celebrate a person for successes (Meindl & Ehrlich, 1987). In part, this desire is a feature of individualistic societies, which characterize much of the scholarly work on leadership done thus far. The notion is that people in individualistic societies develop their sense of self and an explanatory style that is person-centered (Dweck, Hong, & Chiu, 1993).

The great man theory of leadership, authentic leadership and leadership identity are examples of theories in the leader-centric tradition. These theories focus on leaders and their traits, competencies, and ability to influence others. Leadership was first conceptualized as the result of leader activities as an inborn trait (Avolio & Hannah, 2008; Northouse, 2016). However, modern theorists prefer to focus on leader competencies with the implication that these competencies may be taught to aspiring leaders and help them establish a personal identity as a leader - once they identify themselves as a leader, they can begin practicing the competencies they need (Day & Harrison, 2007). Some leader-centric theories mention followers, e.g. authentic leadership, however the behaviors of followers are merely considered an outcome of leader influence (Northouse, 2016) and as such we classify authentic leadership as a leader-centric theory.

Followers

Other leadership theories recognize the relationship followers have with leaders as an aspect of leadership. Theories in this tradition are referred to as reciprocal or process theories and include influence or charismatic leadership, relational leadership, and transformational leadership. These theories acknowledge that leadership is not simply a person, but a process in which a group of people strive together toward a common goal (Northouse, 2016). In this vein, followers are active participants in leadership, and may even take on leader roles depending on the circumstances. In these theories, leaders are aware of the relationship between themselves and their followers, and work to make it stronger; they create an environment where each person can utilize their strengths and practice leadership (Rosch & Anthony, 2012). Thus, relationships, emotions, and intrinsic motivations are more important than leader competencies or influence alone.

Environments

In the last decade, researchers have developed a more comprehensive model of leadership, the leadership triangle, which involves leaders and followers interacting in a context (Padilla, Hogan, & Kaiser, 2007). In addition to the leadership triangle theory, servant leadership and the social change model also encompass leaders, followers, as well as environmental or cultural contexts. The dynamic relationship between these three aspects means a definition of leadership is a complex process. The context enters into that process in two ways: as a variable that impacts both leaders and followers, and also as a focus for positive organizational or societal change - creating a better context becomes the goal of leadership (Northouse, 2016; Komives & Wagner, 2009). Researchers have begun to appreciate that leadership is a complex and dynamic process between leaders, followers, and environmental contexts (e.g. Avolio, 2007; Bennis, 2007, Padilla et al., 2007).

Leadership Development Versus Leader Development

There is a difference between ‘leader development’ and ‘leadership development’ (Day, 2000). Leadership development may include a focus on intrapersonal or leader traits and skills or on interpersonal processes between a leader and followers. The scholarship on leadership development is immature (Day, et al., 2014). This approach is in contrast with leader development, which focuses only on the skills and traits of a target individual designated as a leader or emerging leader.

This lack of attention to leadership (versus leader) development may be attributed to the popular opinion that personality is the determining factor of who takes on leader roles. Personality is believed to be relatively fixed, which may have led to the false assumption that leaders either cannot or do not need to be developed, since personality cannot be developed. Avolio and Hannah address this point specifically in their discussion of the extent to which “leaders can be developed” (2008, 333). They rely on a review of twin studies to conclude that genetics appears to account for 30% of what we might refer to as leader development or what they term leader emergence.

Thus, what experiences contribute to the remaining 70% of leader emergence? Further, can leadership programming facilitate or enhance leader emergence? The challenge in understanding leader development is that, as Day and colleagues note, leaders do not ‘develop’ in workshops or seminars but rather “in the so-called white space between such leader development events” (2014, 80). Avolio and Hannah (2008) more precisely describe this white space as perhaps consisting of a person’s metacognition about a trigger event that helps an individual construct a narrative about their leadership. In this conceptualization, trigger events are meaningful life events or leadership development experiences. Results of the Multi-institutional Study of Leadership (MSL) indicated that socio-cultural conversations with peers, mentoring relationships, community service, and membership in off-campus organizations were high-impact practices in student leadership development, potentially because they provide opportunities for metacognition of trigger events (Dugan, Kodama, Correia, & Associates, 2013)...

Assessment

Assessment of the effectiveness of leadership development efforts is nascent and more work needs to be done to determine outcomes of leadership as a process versus leader outcomes. However, candidates for assessment efforts include outcomes such as skill development; processes involved in leadership; experiences such as mentoring and coaching; individual leader skill trajectories over time; practice of leadership, and increased self-awareness (Day et al, 2014; Solansky, 2010).

In summary, leadership scholars advance a more complex understanding of leadership as a process between leaders and followers, which is influenced by the environment. There is also a difference between leader (person-centered) development and leadership development.

Terms + Ideas to Remember (instead of those in your textbook)

• Leadership outcomes: Outcomes usually can be labeled as belonging to one of three types: constructive organizational outcomes, destructive organizational outcomes, and leader derailment outcomes. Most outcomes can have more than one label applied.

  • A succinct explanation of leader derailment can be found on the Select Perspectives blog (Parr, n.d.).

  • More information on the two types of organizational outcomes can be found in Padilla, Hogan, & Kaiser, 2007.

• Leader behaviors/skills: Along with a leader's traits + power + influence, etc. their behaviors can contribute to organizational outcomes.

  • The most important leadership behavior/skill is listening (some put this skill under the umbrella of 'communication'; Riordan, 2014).

• Leader effectiveness: Determined by outcomes and long-term group performance. The effect of leaders is determined ultimately by results.

  • Effective leaders use power and influence to improve the performance and well-being of their overall units, while cultivating high-quality relationships with their followers. The effectiveness of a leader is a function of both traits and behavioral styles.

• Leader power: The ability to get one's way or to get things done within organizations; to influence and control others while offsetting or avoiding their influence and control. There are five kinds of power (remember them!).

  • Optional ▸ Further Exploration: 💁 Basics of Leader Power (Brown, Lunsford, & Kalel, 2016)

• Motivation and leadership: Leaders need to make group objectives and goals meaningful in order to motivate followers.

• Ethics and leadership: Moral principles that govern a person's or group's behavior; the moral correctness of a particular course of action.

• Culture and leadership: Culture is a society's memory. It comprises the attitudes, experiences, beliefs, and values of a social organization, group, or nation that have worked in the past and that are passed on from generation to generation.

  • Optional ▸ Further Exploration: 🎧 TED Radio Hour segments: Just a Little Nicer & Disruptive Leadership + 📑 Leading with Cultural Intelligence (this is the textbook we use in LDRV 401: Leadership in a Diverse Environment)

References

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Avolio, B. J., & Hannah, S. T. (2008). Developmental readiness: Accelerating leader development. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 60(4), 331-347.

Bennis, W. (2007). The challenges of leadership in the modern world: Introduction to the special issue. American Psychologist, 62, 2-5.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by design and nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Day, D. V. (2000). Leadership development: A review in context. The Leadership Quarterly, 11(4), 581–613.

Day, D.V., & Harrison, M. (2007). A multilevel, identity-based approach to leadership development. Human Resource Management Review, 17(4), 360-373. doi:10.1016/j.hrmr.2007.08.007

Day, D. V., Fleenor, J. W., Atwater, L.E., Sturm, R.E., McKee, R.A. (2014). Advances in leader and leadership development: A review of 25 years of research and theory, The Leadership Quarterly, 25(1), 63-82.

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Dugan, J. P., Kodama, C., Correia, B., & Associates. (2013). Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership insight report: Leadership program delivery. College Park, MD: National Clearinghouse for Leadership Programs.

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