In the behavioral approach to leadership, consideration is also referred to as

Kouzes and Posner in a survey with 15.000 managers around the globe have listed some of the traits such managers had: sincere, future oriented, inspiring, competent, fair, supportive, open-minded, intelligent, direct, brave, dominant, etc. 

Leadership is defined as the process by which an individual influences the behavior and attitudes of others. A leadership role is a position in an organization or group that is expected to have special influence in the organization. Leaders exert influence but effective leaders exert influence AND accomplish organizational goals. Individuals in leading positions are not the only ones that exercise leadership; this can be done from other respective individuals that possess influence as well.

In attempting to understand the origins of effective leadership researchers have taken very different and often conflicting approaches. The trait approach emphasizes the personality, abilities, and other personal dispositions. The behavioral approach hypothesizes that effective leaders differ as a function of what the leader does in performing his or her role. The situational approach stresses the organization, task, role, and other factors outside the leader as the crucial determinants. Finally, cognitive approachesemphasize the beliefs and perceptions of the leader and follower.  However no single approach can provide the whole story. All these approaches are synthesized in the contingency theories.

Concepts:

Influence - The process by which people are energized to act in a certain way
Processes - Compliance (social agreeableness); Internalization (converting into own value/attitude); Identification (identification with a significant other).
Results: Resistance; Obedience; Commitment

Leaders create vision, communicate to others, influence behavior and attitude of others, coordinate for achievement goals, and motivate employees.

Leader traits – the trait approach (Motto: What you are)

The most extreme version of the trait theory would propose that leaders are born with innate characteristics that allow them to exercise influence over others. Lord, De Vader, and Alliger concluded that people are seen as leaders to the extent that they are masculine in their personalities, highly intelligent, and dominant. This could be a result of existing stereotypes.

Research on predictors of managerial effectiveness shows that the trait most clearly related to managerial effectiveness is intelligence. In addition to intelligence, personality traits also predict managerial effectiveness. Five broad dimensions of personality traits (the Big Five) were examined: (1) extraversion; (2) emotional stability; (3)agreeableness; (4) conscientiousness (extent to which he individual is careful, responsible, achievement oriented, and preserving); (5) openness (extent to which individual is imaginative, cultured, curious, original, broad-minded). Tett and his associates fund that all of the big five traits were positively related to managerial performance.

Stogdill (1948) found that there is no single trait or group of traits that correlate with effective leadership in all situations. More specific trait than these five categories are needed in selecting leaders. David McClelland and his colleagues at Harvard have concluded extensive research on three traits: need for achievement (nAch), need for power(nPow), and need for affiliation (nAff). Effective managers have higher needs for power and lower need for affiliation than ineffective managers. McClelland speculated that successful manager has both a high need for power and high power inhibition. Power inhibition refers to psychological constraints against exercising power in a coercive or bullying manner. Those who are high on both variables exercise power in a socialized manner, whereas those who are high on need for power but low on power inhibition tend to fail because of their personalized use of power. According to McClelland need for achievement is also related to managerial success.

Although traits appear to predict managerial effectiveness, their relationships tend to vary across different managerial positions and organizations. Future research needs to explore the effects of situation on trait requirements. An example of one such attempt is Cognitive resource theory which presents some possible moderators of the relationship between intelligence and leader effectiveness. Specifically this theory predicts that leader intelligence is more likely to predict success of the group when the leader is directive in his or her approach to leading the group, the group is supportive of the leader, and the group’s task is intellectually demanding.

Research that has compared “women in general” with “men in general,” shows that women do differ from men in their personality traits. Eagly and Johnson concluded that women as a group when compared with men as a group can be described as friendly, pleasant, interested in other people, expressive, and socially sensitive. The most reasonable conclusion so far is that women have as much potential to perform effectively in management as men. The relative lack of women in management is best explained in terms of situational barriers and cultural norms, not in terms of innate deficiencies.

Leader Behavior – the Behavioral Approach (Motto: What you do)

The behavioral approach offers a different perspective. According to this conception of leaderships, success as a leader depends mainly on adopting the right behaviors and these behaviors can be learned. Ohio State University at Michigan generated attributes to describe the behaviors of their leaders. These descriptions were subjected to a statistical procedure called factor analysis. The results revealed that descriptions of leaders could be reduced to two fundamental dimensions: initiating structure and consideration. Initiation of structure was defined as behavior, in which the supervisor organizes and defines group activities and his relation to the group (ex. Makes his or her attitudes clear to the group, emphasizes the meeting of deadlines, lets group members know what is expected of them, etc.). Consideration was defined as behavior indicating mutual trust, respect, and a certain warmth, and rapport between a supervisor and his group (ex. Is friendly and approachable, puts suggestions made by the group into operation, and treats all group members equally). Although this approach described leadership behaviors, it did not predict the outcomes associated with leadership.Ohio State findings revealed that these were independent dimensions. In other words people could be high on both, low on both, or high on one and low on the other. Also they found that those high in both dimensions were more successful. BUT, this is not always true. When satisfaction of employees is examined, a consistent finding is that employees are more satisfied the more considerate their supervisor is.

Blake and Mouton describe leaders along two nine-point dimensions: employee-oriented and task-oriented. Another research in Japan on a two-dimensional model of leadership called the PM theory of leadership. These investigators proposed that to functions are served by the leadership of a group. Initiation of structure, consideration, and other such general behavioural dimensions provide an insufficient basis for recommending specific actions that managers can take to improve their leadership. Particularly important are influence and power, behaviours that we defined earlier as the essential components of leadership.

In French and Raven’s theory of social power five basic sources of influence were set forth: reward, coercive, expert, legitimate, and referent. A distinction can be made between those sources of social power that the organization can provide (position power) and those that come from the unique characteristics of the person (personal power).

Power refers to whether a person can exercise influence, whereas influence tactics refer to what the individual actually does to change others.

The evidence that effective leaders use participation, rational persuasion, and inspiration is consistent with several theories of leadership and power. Katz and Kahn suggested limiting the term leadership to influence that comes from an increment in compliance. 

Jacobs elaborated three types of influence. He defined power as the influence that results from being able to deprive another of rewards or to inflict costs. A second type of influence is authority, which results from the exercise of legitimate power. Leadership, the third type, is described as resulting from a two-way interaction in which the subordinates comply because they have personal respect for the manager. The leader according to this approach is someone who is proactive, who goes beyond power and authority to inspire, to motivate, and to creatively solve problems. 

Kipnis conducted a series of studies demonstrating that position power can corrupt. While power can corrupt, a lack of position power also can create problems.

Communication is among the most basic of all leader behaviours; verbal communication constitutes over half of the typical manager’s daily activities. There is a considerable weight on the communication skills of the leader.The person uses powerful language consisting of a rich vocabulary, expression of certainty, intense language, and verbal immediacy. In contrast “powerless language” is characterized by negative politeness strategies in which the speaker tries to avoid making the recipient feel controlled and includes stating one’s debt to the target, apologizing for imposing, and indirect questions. Powerless language is also expressed in hedges and hypercorrect grammar. Klauss nad Bass found that effective communicators were: (1) careful transmitters in their choice of words; (2) open and two-way with regard to other points of view; (3) frank in saying what they think; (4) careful listeners in the attention given to the recipient of the message; and (5) informal in that they were natural and relaxed when communicating. 

Leadership in an organization involves getting followers to work together in a coordinated effort to achieve the same goals. Conflict is an inevitable part of organizational life.Blake and Mouton distinguished styles of conflict management along the two dimensions of their grid theory: concern for people and concern for task. Withdrawal is a style characterized by low concern for task and low concern for people in which individuals psychologically and physically removes them from the situation. Smoothing is a style characterized by great concern for people but little concern for task in which individuals attempt to minimize differences and emphasize communalities. Forcing occurs when leaders emphasize the task over people. In compromise the leader tries to balance concerns for task and people without maximally satisfying either. Finally, there isproblem solving which Blake and Mouton support as the best approach.

An implicit assumption on leader behaviour is that leaders act the same toward all their subordinates. Graen and his associates present an alternative model of leadership called the LMX (leader-member exchange). They start with the assumption that the immediate supervisor is the primary influence in defining the social role of organizational members. The LMX model proposes that the supervisor will develop a close relationship with some subordinates and serve as a leader for these in-group people.

Situational Leader – the Situational Approach (Motto: Depends on external factors)

The situational approach suggests that whether you are a leader or not is mainly a matter of external events. These situational factors could include your followers (ability, motivation, cohesiveness); the task (extent of variety, structure, autonomy); your position in the organizational hierarchy (lower, middle, higher level management); pressures on your unit to perform (severe deadline); organizational structure (degree of centralization of authority); and the environment of the organization (extent of competition with other organizations).

Leaders influenced by the situation have been well documented. Situation favourability affects the extent of difficulty by which leader manages. Ex: increased stress – leader becomes less considerate and more task oriented; the lower managers are in a hierarchy, the less likely they are to engage in participative leadership; managers of production functions will be more autocratic and less participative than sales or staff managers; etc.

The effects of situational variables on leader behaviour:

1.    The lower managers are in the hierarchy, the less likely they are to use participative leadership and the more likely they are to focus on technical matters and to monitor subordinate performance;

2.    Managers of production functions will be more autocratic and less participative than sales or staff managers;

3.    Leaders are more directive and less participative as the task becomes more structured;

4.    Leaders are less participative and more autocratic as the number of followers they supervise increases;

5.    As the stress of the situation increases the leader becomes more directive and task oriented and less considerate;

6.    As subordinate performance and competence decline, leaders are more likely to react with increasingly close, directive, punishing, and structuring behavior and less consideration and participation.

A second prediction of situational theory is that the performance of the group or organization is determined more by external forces than by the leader.

In contrast to version of situational approach, the substitutes of leadership model by Kerr and Jermier is a more moderate situational position. According to this approach, leaders must carefully assess the situation and determine what they can contribute, if anything, to external forces already at work. Two types of situational factors are distinguished. Neutralizers are factors that prevent a leader from having either a positive or negative effect on followers. The other situational factor is the substitute. Here the situation does not prevent the leader from exercising influence, but it makes leadership attempts redundant.

Cognitive approaches (Motto: how others see you)

The basic assumption behind the cognitive approach is that leadership is the result of people’s attempts to make sense of the world around them. If you believe you are a leader and others share this belief, then you are a leader.

Cognitive categories allow us to group together objects, individuals, events, and social roles that we consider equivalent. Another cognitive structure that can enter into this process is the schema which is a network of perceived relationships among beliefs or ideas.

So:

Cognitive category: allows us to group together objects, people, events and social roles we consider equivalent (through prototypes);
Cognitive Schema: Network of perceived relationships between beliefs or ideas.

Once a person is perceived as a leader, other behaviors and traits are attributed to the person that is consistent with the observers’ conception of a leader. So, in addition to acting like a leader, one must also be seen as one! Once labeled as a non-leader, even a highly qualified individual may find it extremely difficult to overcome this bias!!!

Lord, Foti, and Phillips have explained their cognitive categorization model; people develop cognitive structures that organize the way they think about leadership.

Several management theorists have proposed that the expectations of managers toward their followers have a self-fulfilling effect. Douglas McGregor distinguished between theory X leaders, who have little confidence in the ability or motivation of employees, and theory Y leaders, who believe that employees are hard working and decent. A theory X manager behaves with indolence, passivity, resistance to change, lack of responsibility, willingness to follow the demagogue, unreasonable demands for economic benefits, etc. A theory Y manager provides the opportunity for subordinates to fulfill their self-actualization and esteem needs in the work place, and then they will fulfill the expectations of management with highly responsible, creative, and productive behavior.

Leaders also need to manage what others believe about their leadership. Effective leadership becomes creating the right image and shaping the belief in superiors, subordinates, peers, and clients that the leader deserves credit for the successes of the group but not the blame for the failures. This is impression management. Impression managementcould be a means of enhancing the self-respect and confidence of followers.

Contingency Theories (Motto:  Depends on the situation)

The answer of the contingency approach is “it all depends.” No one theory is sufficient to account for the complexity of leadership in an organization. Contingency theorists attempt to predict the type of leadership needed in specific situations. The three contingency models that have generated the most research are Fiedler’s contingency theory, House’ path-goal theory and Vroom/Yetton/Jago’s decision model of participative leadership. An approach that has received more attention is the Hersey and Blanchard situational theory of leadership.

Fiedler’s Contingency Theory

Fred Fiedler proposes in his contingency theory of leadership that the most effective type of leadership depends on the leader’s traits and the favorability of the situation. Situation favorability affects the ease with which leaders can manage and results from task structure, leader-member relations, and position power. It is easier to be a leader, Fiedler argues, when there is a high degree of task structure, followers have great respect for the leader, and the leader has considerable amounts of reward, coercive, and legitimate powers than when there is a lack of these conditions. How the leader behaves, according to Fiedler’s Contingency Theory, depends on the combination of leader personality traits and the situation’s favorability.

Path-Goal Theory of Leadership

This model of leadership proposes that the most important function of the leader is to motivate followers to invest effort in achieving organizational goals. The leader’s behavior is predicted to influence followers as a consequence of the same factors stated in the VIE model of motivation. According to path-goal theory of leadership, the leader should carefully examine the situation and act in ways that will increase the employees’ expectations that effort will lead to positively valued outcomes. Propositions for four dimensions of leader behavior: (1) directiveness (structuring); (2) supportiveness (consideration); (3) participativeness, and (4) achievement orientation.

Leader directiveness: this dimension of behavior is essentially the same as initiating structure. A directive approach is needed when the task is unstructured and subordinates have a high need for structure. Research has supported these predictions.

Leader supportiveness: this dimension of behavior is very similar to leader consideration. Supportive leadership will be associated with higher job satisfaction when the job is dissatisfying than when it is intrinsically satisfying. Supportive leadership will have a more positive relationship to job satisfaction when the task is stressful than when it is nonstressful.

Leader participativeness: is the degree to which the leader allows subordinates to get involved in decision making process.

Achievement-oriented leadership: an achievement-oriented leader, according to House and Mitchell, sets challenging goals, expects subordinated to perform at their highest level, seeks improvement in performance, and shows a high degree of confidence that subordinates will assume responsibility.

Vroom/Yetton/Jago’s Decision Model of Leadership

More organizations are attempting to involve employees in decision making in order to improve productivity and quality. The Vroom/Yetton/Jago model was developed to help managers decide when they should involve followers in decisions and the level of this involvement. They suggest that the degree of follower participation should vary with the situation. Vroom and associates present five levels of participative decision making that range from the most autocratic (AI) to the most participative (GII).

Overall effectiveness is calculated in the following manner:

Overall Effectiveness = Decision effectiveness – Cost + Development

Decision effectiveness is a function of (1) importance of the technical quality of the decision, (2) the degree to which followers must be committed to the solution, and (3) the extent to which the time involved incurs a penalty. In addition to decision effectiveness, a manager must also consider a second factor – the costs of the participation itself. Cost is a function of the time and effort required to implement the decision alternative. The third factor is development. This refers to the value added from employee participation as the result of increased understanding of the problem, possible payoffs for teamwork, and increased identification with the organization. The more participation, the greater the developmental gains of the decision process.

Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Model

A contingency that many practicing managers would support is the maturity of followers. The idea of adjusting leadership style to the maturity of the followers is consistent with Hersey and Banchard’s situational theory. Hersey and Blanchard describe leadership in terms of two dimensions that they call task orientation and relationship orientation. They recommend that less task orientate on and more relationship orientation are needed as the maturity of followers increases, up to the point that the group reaches a moderate level of maturity. A highly mature group is most effective with a leader who has a low-relationship/low-task orientation. A moderately mature group is more effective with a high-relationship/low-task orientation leader. A group with a somewhat less than moderate level of maturity needs a high-task/high-relationship orientation leader. Finally, a highly immature group is most effective with a leader who is high in task orientation and low in relationship orientation.

Charismatic, inspirational, and transformational leadership

Some theorists have come to believe that there is something to the romantic view that research and theory need to recapture. Bass (1990) distinguished among three concepts of leadership: charismatic, inspirational, and transformational leadership.

The concept of the charismatic leader can be traced to the writings of Max Weber who described the charismatic leader as set apart from ordinary mend and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least exceptional powers and qualities, which are not accessible to the ordinary person. House proposed that charismatic leaders are more likely in their communications to refer to basic values, and collective identity of the organization, long-term goals, and followers’ worth an efficacy as individuals. They are likely to convey confidence in their own abilities as well as those of their followers. As a consequence followers are motivated to achieve high levels of performance.

Inspirational leader is more influenced by the goals of the leader rather than his or her personal attributes. According to Bass and inspirational leader is likely to state uplifting goals and then instill in followers confidence in their ability to achieve these goals. Envisioning is a crucial skill in inspirational leadership and involves creating of an image of a desired future organizational state that can serve as a guide for interim strategies, decision, and behavior. Inspirational leaders know how to enable and empower followers b obtaining resources they need, removing constrains, and showing them how to accomplish their objective.

Burns (1978) differentiated between transformational leader and transactional leader. A transactional leader is one who influences followers through an implicit or explicit exchange. The leader and follower strike a bargain in which followers devote energy and time to pursuing goals set forth by the leader and in return the leader provided them with material rewards and security.

In contrast, the transformational leader changes the values, needs, beliefs, and attitudes of followers.

The transactional leader: Recognizes what it is that we want to get from work and tries to ensure that we get it if our performance merits it; Exchanges rewards and promises for our effort; Is responsive to our immediate self interests if they can be met by getting the work done.

The transformational leader: Raises our level of awareness, our level of consciousness about the significance and value of designated outcomes, and ways of reaching them;Gets us transcend our own self-interest for the sake of the team, organization or larger polity; Alters our need level (after Maslow) and expands our range of wants and needs.Behaviors associated with transformational leadership fall into the following six categories: identifying and articulating a vision; providing an appropriate model; fostering the acceptance of group goals; high performance expectations; providing individual support; and intellectual stimulation. List of transformational leadership characteristics: charisma, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration.

List of transactional leadership characteristics: contingent reward, management by exception – active (corrective action anticipation), management by exception – passive (corrective action after problems).

The worst leader is laissez-faire leader who is simply the leader who doesn’t want to get involved. Simply the title is enough! In addition, emotional intelligence is very important. Leaders must pay attention to: Understand the role and influence of leader’s mood in the follower/s; Effectively regulate the group
affective tone; Effectively regulate own mood.

Also self-confidence/self-efficacy is very important: Image management: Appearing confident; Relationship development: Being confident helps leader to be less concerned about judgments; Resource deployment: High confident people are better able to cope with demands, stress, and risks; Self-efficacy can create collective efficacy which is positively related to team performance.

Which of the following behaviors is associated with consideration?

Which leadership approach includes the concept of initiating structure and consideration?

Which leadership approach takes into account the role of the situation in the exercise of leadership?

What is the central purpose of the behavioral approach?