LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOUR

Blanchard and Hersey characterised leadership style in terms of the amount of direction and of support that the leader gives to his or her followers, and so created a simple grid:

Directing Leaders define the roles and tasks of the ‘follower’, and supervise them closely. Decisions are made by the leader and announced, so communication is largely one-way.

Coaching Leaders still define roles and tasks, but seeks ideas and suggestions from the follower.  Decisions remain the leader’s prerogative, but communication is much more two-way.

Supporting Leaders pass day-to-day decisions, such as task allocation and processes, to the follower.  The leader facilitates and takes part in decisions, but control is with the follower.

Delegating Leaders are still involved in decisions and problem-solving, but control is with the follower.  The follower decides when and how the leader will be involved.

Effective leaders need to be able to move around the grid according to the situation.

…organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together.

The basic rationale for such organizations is that in situations of rapid change only those that are flexible, adaptive and productive will excel. For this to happen, it is argued, organizations need to ‘discover how to tap people’s commitment and capacity to learn at all levels’ (ibid.: 4).

While all people have the capacity to learn, the structures in which they have to function are often not conducive to reflection and engagement. Furthermore, people may lack the tools and guiding ideas to make sense of the situations they face. Organizations that are continually expanding their capacity to create their future require a fundamental shift of mind among their members. 

When you ask people about what it is like being part of a great team, what is most striking is the meaningfulness of the experience. People talk about being part of something larger than themselves, of being connected, of being generative. It become quite clear that, for many, their experiences as part of truly great teams stand out as singular periods of life lived to the fullest. Some spend the rest of their lives looking for ways to recapture that spirit. (Senge 1990: 13)

For Peter Senge, real learning gets to the heart of what it is to be human. We become able to re-create ourselves. This applies to both individuals and organizations. Thus, for a ‘learning organization it is not enough to survive. ‘”Survival learning” or what is more often termed “adaptive learning” is important – indeed it is necessary. But for a learning organization, “adaptive learning” must be joined by “generative learning”, learning that enhances our capacity to create’ (Senge 1990:14).

The dimension that distinguishes learning from more traditional organizations is the mastery of certain basic disciplines or ‘component technologies’. The five that Peter Senge identifies are said to be converging to innovate learning organizations. They are:

Systems thinking

Personal mastery

Mental models

Building shared vision

Team learning

He adds to this recognition that people are agents, able to act upon the structures and systems of which they are a part. All the disciplines are, in this way, ‘concerned with a shift of mind from seeing parts to seeing wholes, from seeing people as helpless reactors to seeing them as active participants in shaping their reality, from reacting to the present to creating the future’ (Senge 1990: 69). It is to the disciplines that we will now turn.

Source: www.infed.org/thinkers/senge.htm

1. Those entities that perform one or more acts of leading.
2. The ability to affect human behavior so as to accomplish a mission.
3. Influencing a group of people to move towards its goal setting or goal achievement. (Stogdill 1950: 3)

Types of leadership styles

The bureaucratic leader (Weber, 1905) is very structured and follows the procedures as they have been established. This type of leadership has no space to explore new ways to solve problems and is usually slow paced to ensure adherence to the ladders stated by the company. Leaders ensure that all the steps have been followed prior to sending it to the next level of authority. Universities, hospitals, banks and government usually require this type of leader in their organizations to ensure quality, increase security and decrease corruption. Leaders that try to speed up the process will experience frustration and anxiety.

The charismatic leader (Weber, 1905) leads by infusing energy and eagerness into their team members. This type of leader has to be committed to the organization for the long run. If the success of the division or project is attributed to the leader and not the team, charismatic leaders may become a risk for the company by deciding to resign for advanced opportunities. It takes the company time and hard work to gain the employees’ confidence back with other type of leadership after they have committed themselves to the magnetism of a charismatic leader.

The autocratic leader (Lewin, Lippitt, & White, 1939) is given the power to make decisions alone, having total authority. This leadership style is good for employees that need close supervision to perform certain tasks. Creative employees and team players resent this type of leadership, since they are unable to enhance processes or decision making, resulting in job dissatisfaction.

The democratic leader (Lewin, Lippitt, & White, 1939) listens to the team’s ideas and studies them, but will make the final decision. Team players contribute to the final decision thus increasing employee satisfaction and ownership, feeling their input was considered when the final decision was taken. When changes arises, this type of leadership helps the team assimilate the changes better and more rapidly than other styles, knowing they were consulted and contributed to the decision making process, minimizing resistance and intolerance. A shortcoming of this leadership style is that it has difficulty when decisions are needed in a short period of time or at the moment.

The laissez-faire (“let do”) leader (Lewin, Lippitt, & White, 1939) gives no continuous feedback or supervision because the employees are highly experienced and need little supervision to obtain the expected outcome. On the other hand, this type of style is also associated with leaders that don’t lead at all, failing in supervising team members, resulting in lack of control and higher costs, bad service or failure to meet deadlines.

The people-oriented leader (Fiedler, 1967) is the one that, in order to comply with effectiveness and efficiency, supports, trains and develops his personnel, increasing job satisfaction and genuine interest to do a good job.

The task-oriented leader (Fiedler, 1967) focus on the job, and concentrate on the specific tasks assigned to each employee to reach goal accomplishment. This leadership style suffers the same motivation issues as autocratic leadership, showing no involvement in the teams needs. It requires close supervision and control to achieve expected results. Another name for this is deal maker (Rowley & Roevens, 1999) and is linked to a first phase in managing Change, enhance, according to the Organize with Chaos approach.

The servant leader (Greenleaf, 1977) facilitates goal accomplishment by giving its team members what they need in order to be productive. This leader is an instrument employees use to reach the goal rather than an commanding voice that moves to change. This leadership style, in a manner similar to democratic leadership, tends to achieve the results in a slower time frame than other styles, although employee engagement is higher.

The transaction leader (Burns, 1978) is given power to perform certain tasks and reward or punish for the team’s performance. It gives the opportunity to the manager to lead the group and the group agrees to follow his lead to accomplish a predetermined goal in exchange for something else. Power is given to the leader to evaluate, correct and train subordinates when productivity is not up to the desired level and reward effectiveness when expected outcome is reached.

The transformation leader (Burns, 1978) motivates its team to be effective and efficient. Communication is the base for goal achievement focusing the group in the final desired outcome or goal attainment. This leader is highly visible and uses chain of command to get the job done. Transformational leaders focus on the big picture, needing to be surrounded by people who take care of the details. The leader is always looking for ideas that move the organization to reach the company’s vision.

The environment leader ( Carmazzi, 2005) is the one who nurtures group or organisational environment to affect the emotional and psychological perception of an individual’s place in that group or organisation. An understanding and application of group psychology and dynamics is essential for this style to be effective. The leader uses organisational culture to inspire individuals and develop leaders at all levels. This leadership style relies on creating an education matrix where groups interactively learn the fundamental psychology of group dynamics and culture from each other. The leader uses this psychology, and complementary language, to influence direction through the members of the inspired group to do what is required for the benefit of all.

Source: Wikipedia

According to Senge:

Real learning gets to the heart of what it means to be human. Through learning we re-create ourselves. Through learning we become able to do something we never were able to do. Through learning we repercieve the world and our relationship to it. Through learning we extend our capacity to create, to be part of the generative process of life. There is within each of us a deep hunger for this type of learning.

The reality each of us sees and understands depend on what we believe there is. By learning the principles of the five disciplines, teams begin to understand how they can think and inquire their realities, in a way that enhances collaboration in discussions and in working together towards creating the results that matter (to all them).

In the Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge describes learning organizations as places “where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole (reality) together”. They do so by:

• Seeing, learning and practicing to work with interrelations (circles of causality or “feedback”) as well as processes of change (or the time (delays) it takes for change to happen). The extent to which we see and work with these feedbacks and delays hinges on the frames or lenses we are using to help us make sense of our realities. Are we learning to see (practice) the “whole story” or a part of it (linear cause-effect)? The extent to which we see our frames determines the extent to which we understand our realities.

• Sharing a set of tools / methodologies and theories: A learning organization creates a common and agreed upon understanding of terms, concepts, categories and keywords that apply within that organization that facilitates this work. See: http://www.lopn.net/60_Tools.html.

• Building Guiding Ideas: Leaders and members in a Learning Organization, see primacy of the whole (understand complexities), the generative power of language (generative conversations by recognizing one’s frames that get in the way of seeing another’s frames) and the community nature of self (seeing oneself and the connectedness to the whole and the world). The true learning organization is redesigning itself constantly or not merely led by the leader (and his frame). A leader in the organization instead supports this redesigning by acting as a steward (stewarding persons’ visions), teacher and designer (bringing different views together for all of us to see the extent of the system (or ship)as compared to the merely being the captain of the ship). See article below on “The Leaders’ New Work”

Source: Wikipedia