Leadership TraitsPertemuan 13 & 14

Matakuliah : L0244 – Psikologi KepemimpinanTahun : 2010

Looking at Leadership Through Several Lenses

• Studying only leaders provides just a partial view of the leadership process.

• Leadership depends on several factors, including the situation and the followers, not just the leader’s qualities.

• Leadership is more than just the kind of person the leader is or the things the leader does.

• The clearest picture of the leadership process occurs only when you use all three lenses to understand it.

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The Interactional Framework for Analyzing Leadership

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The Interactional Framework for Analyzing Leadership (continued)

• Depicts leadership as a function of three elements:– The leader– The followers– The situation

• A particular leadership situation scenario can be examined using each level of analysis separately.– Examining interactions in the area of overlaps can lead to better

understanding.• Leadership is the result of complex interactions among

the leader, the followers, and the situation.Bina Nusantara University 5

The Interactional Framework for Analyzing Leadership (continued)

• Leader-Member Exchange Theory describes two kinds of relationships that occur among leaders and followers:– In-group members– Out-group members

• LMX theory has broadened to include entire continuum of relationships that leaders may have with members.

• The theory looks at the nature of the relationship between the leader and the followers.

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The Leader• Individual aspects of the leadership equation:• Unique personal history

– Interests– Character traits– Motivation

• Effective leaders differ from their followers, and from ineffective leaders on elements such as:– Personality traits, cognitive abilities– Skills, values

• Another way personality can affect leadership is through temperament.

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The Leader (continued)• Leaders appointed by superiors may have less

credibility and may get less loyalty.• Leaders elected or emerging by consensus from ranks

of followers are seen as more effective.• A leader’s experience or history in a particular

organization is usually important to her or his effectiveness.

• The extent of follower participation in leader’s selection may affect a leader’s legitimacy.

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The Followers• Certain aspects of followers affect the leadership process:

– Expectations– Personality traits– Maturity levels– Levels of competence– Motivation

• Workers who share a leader’s goals and values will be more motivated to do their work.

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The Followers (continued)• The number of followers reporting to a leader can

have significant implications.• Other relevant variables include:

– Follower’s trust in the leader.– Follower’s confidence or lack thereof in leader’s interest

in their well-being.

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Changing Roles for Followers• The leader-follower relationship is in a period of dynamic

change.– Increased pressure to function with reduced resources.– Trend toward greater power sharing and decentralized

authority in organizations.– Increase in complex problems and rapid changes.

• Followers can become much more proactive in their stance toward organizational problems.

• Followers can become better skilled at “influencing upward,” flexible and open to opportunities.

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The Situation• Leadership often makes sense

only in the context of how the leader and followers interact in a given situation.

• The situation may be the most ambiguous aspect of the leadership framework.

““You’ve got to give loyalty down, You’ve got to give loyalty down, if you want loyalty up.”if you want loyalty up.”

~ Donald T. Regan,~ Donald T. Regan,Former CEO and White House Former CEO and White House

chief of staffchief of staff

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Are Good Women LeadersHard to Find?

• Women are taking on leadership roles in greater numbers than ever before.

• Problems still exist that constrain the opportunity for capable women to rise to the highest leadership roles in organizations.

• Research shows that there are no statistically significant differences between men’s and women’s leadership styles.

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Are Good Women LeadersHard to Find? (continued)

• Differences that were found:– Women had significantly lower well-being scores.– Women’s commitment to the organizations they worked

for was more guarded than that of their male counterparts.

– Women were more likely to be willing to take career risks by going to new areas of the company where women had not been before.

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Research on Second-Generation Managerial Women

• Research suggests that many women appear to be succeeding because of characteristics originally considered too feminine for effective leadership.

• Tend to use interactive leadership, based on– Enhancing others’ self-worth.– The belief that the best performance results out of

satisfaction at work and higher sense of self-worth.– Style developed due to women’s socialization experiences

and career paths.Bina Nusantara University 15

The Shift Toward MoreWomen Leaders

• Factors that explain the shift toward more women leaders:– Women themselves have changed.– Leadership roles have changed.– Organizational practices have changed.– Culture has changed.

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Leadership and Management RevisitedLeaders Managers

Innovate Administer

Develop Maintain

Inspire Control

Long-term view Short-term view

Ask what and why Ask how and when

Originate Initiate

Challenge the status quo Accept the status quo

Do the right things Do things right

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Leader-Follower-Situation Interactions

• Leaders create environments where follower’s innovations and creative contributions are welcome.

• Leaders encourage growth and development in their followers beyond the scope of the job.

• Leaders are generally more interested in the big picture of followers’ work than managers.

• Leaders motivate followers through more personal and intangible factors.

• Leaders redefine the parameters of tasks and responsibilities.

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Manager-Follower-Situation Interactions

• Managers are more likely to emphasize routinization and control of follower’s behavior.

• Managers tend to assess followers’ performance in terms of explicit, fairly specific job descriptions.

• Managers motivate followers more with extrinsic, even contractual consequences.

• Managers tend to accept the definitions of situations presented to them.

• Managers are likely to affect change officially, through control tactics.

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Leadership and Management as Solutions to Different Kinds of Problems

• Heifetz offers that we often face challenges for which the problem-solving resources already exist.– Technical problems – Though complex, there are expert

solutions or experts available to solve them.– Adaptive problems – They can only be solved by changing the

system itself.• Adaptive problems involve people’s values.• Adaptive leadership: Finding solutions requires the active

engagement of people’s hearts and minds, not just the leader’s.

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Leadership and Management as Solutions to Different Kinds of Problems (continued)

• A challenge is wholly or mostly adaptive in nature:– When people’s hearts and minds need to change.– By a process of elimination.– If there is continuing conflict among people struggling with

the challenge.– A crisis may be a reflection of an underlying or

unrecognized adaptive problem.

What’s the work? Who does the work?

Technical Applying current know-how

Authorities

Adaptive Discovering new ways The people facing the challenge

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A Final Word• Fairholm offers that an organization needs two

different kinds of people at the helm: good leaders and good managers.

• Kotter suggests the development of leader-managers.– May be particularly important with regard to

developing the talents of younger leader–managers.

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There is no Simple Recipe for Effective Leadership

• Leadership must always be assessed in the context of the leader, the followers, and the situation:– A leader may need to respond to various followers

differently in the same situation.– A leader may need to respond to the same follower

differently in different situations.– Followers may respond to various leaders quite differently.– Followers may respond to each other differently with

different leaders.– Two leaders may have different perceptions of the same

followers or situations.Bina Nusantara University 23

Drawing Lessons From Experience

• The right behavior in one situation is not necessarily the right behavior in another situation.

• Though unable to agree on the one best behavior in a given situation, agreement can exist on some clearly inappropriate behaviors.

• Saying that the right behavior for a leader depends on the situation differs from saying it does not matter what the leader does.

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Summary• Leadership involves dynamic interaction between leaders

and followers in a particular situation.• Study of leadership must include the followers and the

situation.• The interactive nature of leader-followers-situation can help

us better understand– The changing nature of the leader-follower relationship.– The increasingly greater complexity of situations leaders and

followers face.• Good leadership can be enhanced by greater awareness of

factors influencing the leadership process.Bina Nusantara University 25

Reference• Hughes., Ginnett., & Curpy. (2009). Leadership: Enhancing

The Lesson of Experience. 6 eds. McGraw-Hill. Boston.

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