Leadership and Change - Essay Example

Matching: 26% Paper ID: Top of Form Suspected Sources http://python.rice.edu/~arb/Courses/750_03_chapt10.pdf http://pq.mydropbox.com/getpaper.pl?id=597577&md5=5266cd5b8615c01b9dcf7099badbc196 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCR/is_2_34/ai_63365181/pg_3 http://www.ipspr.sc.edu/publication/Leadership_Toward_a_Visionary_Approach.doc http://pq.mydropbox.com/getpaper.pl?id=271742&md5=de9fae04ee8114bf2182db4a26e8459a http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/051/empowered.html http://pq.mydropbox.com/getpaper.pl?id=279317&md5=de5910ea91fc7ba6a21c5a2885e38e3d http://pq.mydropbox.com/getpaper.pl?id=254206&md5=861b63323c3336154f7712486ce44bb2 http://www.chl.wales.nhs.uk/pathways/competence/comp-leadership.pdf http://pq.mydropbox.com/getpaper.pl?id=920&md5=d8b1d36d414c574aeb91ee2e1102256f Re-process the paper without these sources Bottom of Form Paper Text Demographic changes, developments in technology and market strategies that occurred throughout the 1990s - early 2000s resulted in grave changes that affected virtually all aspects of a business organisation's functioning. The most evident and celebrated of these changes are never yet seen dynamics of the business and the increased attention to the human resource issues with the companies tending to rely more on skilled and motivated personnel then on technologies and production. As Steve Jobs, legendary CEO of Apple Computers, reasonably noted technologies may be stolen and products may be faked by competitors, so the only way to sustain the company's competitive advantage in such environment is to invest in its personnel. Skilled, loyal and motivated employees remain perhaps the only reliable asset and competitive advantage of modern companies. Consequently, attracting skilled labour and career oriented employees and retaining them in the constantly changing dynamic environment is perhaps the most evident challenge to be faced by modern businesses. Strong and effective leadership is the vital aspect of HRM required to manage the recent changes. Defining what makes a great leader is not a simple task. Leadership is an exceptionally complex phenomenon: the recent explosion of scholarly literature covering various aspects of leading and managing people is one logical outcome of this complexity. Despite huge amount of books and articles dedicated to the issue, there is still a great deal of ambiguity surrounding the true meaning of effective leadership in contemporary organizational environment. In psychology the phenomenon of leadership has traditionally been associated with in-group dynamics of social interactions. In any group, regardless of its size, members differ in their degree of social influence over one another: ``... the person who exerts the most influence on the rest of the group thus affecting group beliefs and behaviour is usually addressed as leader'' (Hollander, 1985: 14). Although this definition of leadership allows the reader to grasp the essence of leadership, it is only one of the numerous of definitions that have been proposed in the existing literature (Northhouse, 2004). Absence of agreement between the scholars is partially due to different methods utilised to explore the phenomenon. partially due to varied purposes of defining leadership. and partially due to the variations in theoretical approaches. There are several major approaches in leadership studies: leadership as the focus of group processes, as personality attribute, as the art of inducing compliance, as an exercise of influence, as a particular kind of act or behaviour, as a form of persuasion, as a power relationship, as an instrument of goal achievement, as an emerging effect of group interaction (`leadership exists when it is acknowledged or conferred by other members of the group), as a differentiated role, as the initiation or maintenance of role structure, or as some combination of all these approaches (Bass, 1990: 6-10). These various approaches may be a way of dividing a broad problem into specific sub-problems for further investigation. Trait Approach One of the earliest approaches to understanding leadership was to search for personality traits that caused some people and not others to become leaders. As a result, early definitions (beginning and first half of the 20th century) tended to view leadership as an innate personal quality of the leader, in line with such highly individual qualities as sense of humour, persistence, or piety. Following this tradition, researchers specified certain traits that made leaders. Some of these were intelligence, achievement, responsibility, participation, status, high self-confidence, energy, initiative, emotional maturity, stress tolerance, belief in internal locus of control, pragmatism, result orientation, knowledge, and fluency of speech. Even physical characteristics, such as height, weight, and features have been sometimes viewed as factors that make leaders (Bass, 1990. Northhouse, 2004). Bass lists around 300 studies which aimed to identify the unique qualities that make leaders. Some of these studies provide the reader with huge inventories of `leader's' traits: thus, one study published in 1940, included a list of 79 items (Madsen, 2001). The trait approach was put in question long ago. Machiavelli was arguably the first thinker who argued that leadership was rather a relationship between leaders and their followers than a sum of inborn personal characteristics. The recent variant of the trait approach also does not go to extremes, and rather aims to identify such combinations of personal characteristics that help individuals carry out leadership functions. Thus, Yukl summarizes the contemporary shift in the trait approach as follows:''The focus of much of the recent trait research has been on managerial motivation and specific skills, whereas earlier research focused more on personality traits and general intelligence. Some researchers now attempt to relate traits to specific role requirements for different types of managerial positions'' (Yukl 1989: 260). Howard Gardner (1987) proposes a very interesting variation of the trait theory. Instead of focusing upon inborn characteristics of leader, Gardner argues that much of the leader's traits can be taught and learned. Therefore, Gardner specifically investigates personal development and education of leaders, and claims that educational experience plays critically important role in their becoming leaders (Gardner, 1987. 1993). Yet, further research is required to support this very interesting and promising theory. Skills and Behaviour Approach Behaviour approach postulates that the leader does not necessarily possess unique personal characteristics. instead, it focuses upon the nature of managerial work performed by the leader. This approach emerged in the first half of the last century and apparently owes a debt to increased influence of behaviourism on psychological research. The key difference that distinguishes the behaviour approach from the trait theory is the notion that leader's behaviour can be learned and changed through practice - a person can be trained to become leader (Northhouse, 2004). Psychologists at Ohio State and the University of Michigan conducted pioneering research in the behavioural understanding of leadership. Thus, Stogdill et al. (1948) asked employees to evaluate numerous aspects of behaviour characteristic to their leader and indicate to which degree a specific statement in the questionnaire reflected the behaviour of their leader. Based upon a series of similar studies, Stogdill argued that there were two different kinds of leader behaviours - ``initiating structure'' (task-oriented) and ``consideration'' (relation oriented) - and defined leadership as ``the initiation and maintenance of structure in expectation and interaction'' (Stogdill, 1974: 15, cited in Madsen, 2001: 12). Despite certain achievements, skill and behavioural theory of leadership largely failed to fully explain or accurately predict behaviour of leaders (Northhouse, 2004). Yet the behavioural approach has considerable practical value. Thus, one of the most popular models of effective leadership developed by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner (2003) is based upon the research of leaders' behaviour. The authors list five fundamental practices and ten commitments observed in successful leaders: I. Challenging the Process: Search for Opportunities + Experiment and Take Risks II. Inspiring a Shared Vision: Envision the Future + Enlist Others III. Enabling Others to Act: Foster Collaboration + Strengthen Others IV. Modelling the Way: Set the Example + Plan Small Wins V. Encouraging the Heart: Recognize Individual Contribution + Celebrate Accomplishment. (I provided this classification as you required, but how could I paraphrase it if Posner outlined precisely these practices and commitments? If I use synonyms it would not be Posner’s classification any more. For example, if I provide Aristotle’s classification of political regimes – tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy and indicate that it is Aristotle’s one provided in his book On Politics will I be accused of plagiarism too? Do you see my point? The author and source of this classification is indicated, how this can be considered plagiarism?) Within the framework of this model leadership is defined as ``the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations'' (Kouzes & Posner, 1995: 30). Based upon analysis of leaders' behaviour, Yukl (1989) specified several leadership skills that make a good leader. These skills fall into four broad areas: relationship building (networking and managing conflict), influencing people (motivating and persuading others), decision making (planning, solving problems, and consulting), and effective communication (controlling information flows within group, listening, and clarifying). The well known five-element TEACH (Technical, Ego-management, Administrative, Conceptual and Human relations skills) model of leadership used for training of potential leaders apparently owes a debt to Yukl's research. A series of works published over the last decade by Goleman (1995), Gardner (1993a), and Sternberg (1988) are usually addressed as the ``leadership intelligence'' theory. These authors argue that successful leaders possess a wide variety of specific `leadership' skills with various forms of intelligence being the key factors that make a good leader. Thus, Sternberg specifies analytic, practical and creative forms of intelligence, while Gardner and Goleman pay particular attention to the ``intrapersonal'' intelligence. These forms of intelligence are impossible to measure with the help of IQ tests because they comprise a number of sub-skills, such as empathy, excellent communicability, ability to manage conflicts, high-adaptability, innovative thinking, etc. Goleman (2000) indicates the following fundamental elements of the `intrapersonal' intelligence: 1. Self-Awareness (including the ability to read and understand your emotions, a realistic evaluation of your strengths and weaknesses, and a strong and positive sense of self-worth.) 2. Self-Management (including the ability to keep your emotions under control, a consistent display of honesty and integrity, the ability to manage yourself, skill at adjusting to changing situations, the drive to meet an internal standard of excellence, and a readiness to seize opportunities) 3. Social Awareness (including empathy with other people's emotions, the ability to read the currents of organisational life, build decision networks, and navigate politics, and the ability to recognize and meet customers' needs). 4. Social Skill (including visionary leadership, ability to influence others, developing other people's skills, skill at listening and at sending clear, convincing, and well tuned messages, proficiency in initiating new ideas and leading people in new directions, managing conflict, proficiency at cultivating and maintaining a web of relationships, and competence in building teams) (Goleman, 2000: 80-82). (the previous comment applies to this classification too) This model illustrates the major drawback of the skill approach which is similar to the core limitation of the trait perspective: the person's ability to lead is associated with some ambiguous skills. Poor measurability of such skills and absence of a standardized scale contributes to failure of this approach as well. The Power-Influence Approach (this is ridiculous – there is NO other name for this approach, I cannot understand how it is possible that the system marks such pieces as plagiarism? For example, if I am going to describe anatomy of a human being and put the chapter’s name Anatomy of human being – will it be also considered a plagiarism? Following this logic you can call each word in this paper plagiarized simply because I have not invented it myself but borrowed it from the English language) Behaviourists' focus on the leader's behaviour and attempts to define styles of leadership drew attention to the issue of how leaders are perceived by their followers. Pioneering research in the field appeared in the 1950s exploring the relationship between leader and follower, including explicit treatment of the followers' response. The power-influence perspective aims to explain the phenomenon of leadership describing the leader's use of his power which also extends to colleagues, peers, superiors and all other persons inside and outside of the leader's environment both private or public. The power-influence approach ``... seeks to explain leadership effectiveness in terms of the amount and kind of power possessed by the leader and how that power is exercised'' (Yukl, 1994: 13). (this is a direct quote marked by quotation marks, the source, and pages – absolutely no way to consider it plagiarism) The power is divided into five categories (reward, coercive, legitimate, referent, and expert) used by the leader either separately of in combination to influence the followers. Thus, coercive power is used as a threat to force the followers into some kind of behaviour. reward power is used to positively stimulate people to perform some task. legitimate power is provided by the law or traditions. referent power of the leader is based upon the psychological phenomenon of identification (when the followers identify themselves with the leader). and finally expert power depends upon the specific knowledge that no one else possess. There is an opinion that the power-influence approach makes it possible to draw a visible line between management and leadership: influence based upon reward, coercive, and legitimate powers should be addressed as management, while referent and expert powers characterize leadership. However, in practice the leader-follower relationship is never characterized by only one type of power: coercive power (management) to some extent will always be present in a relationship that is mostly characterized by referent power (leadership), even though it might `only' be reflected by a threat of losing personal goodwill or acceptance (Madsen, 2001: 14). Contingency Approach The contingency approach (also referred as the situational approach) to understanding of leadership can be addressed as the most comprehensive and promising perspective on leadership. The contingency model first described in the 1960s incorporates a number of achievements from the previous research, and contends that people do not become effective leaders because they possess a unique combination of `leader's' traits but because the combination of traits they possess matches particular situational factors in a particular group. Thus, the combination of traits that makes leaders in the contingency model is contingent upon the circumstances encountered by the leader (Northhouse, 2004). Transactional and Transformational Leadership Model (again, the same thing as for The power-influence approach - NO other name for this model. This is simply the model’s name, there is no other name for it) In 1978, James McGregor Burns introduced a concept of transformational and transactional leaders. The key difference between these two types of leadership is value setting: transactional leaders are more concerned with short-term goals (eg honesty and fairness), while transformational leaders are focused on such ultimate values as equality and justice. Correspondingly, transformational leaders have more potential to satisfy their followers than transactional leaders. Besides, successful transformational leadership leads to the elevation of the followers, while transactional leadership keeps both the leader and the followers in their place (Burns, 1978). Bass (1990) relies and elaborates on the Burns' ideas to produce the Full Range Model of Leadership which includes three leadership styles: transactional, transformational, and non-leadership. Acknowledging the fact that transformational leaders exert more influence on their followers than transactional leaders or non-leaders, Bass argues that neither of these styles can be met in the pure form: any leader exhibits a combination of styles. Based upon his empirical studies of effective leaders, Bass claims that there is an optimal combination that makes leaders successful and effective. Although he can hardly be referred to as advocate of the traits approach, Bass particularly emphasizes the importance of charisma for transformational leaders though admitting that charisma alone is only an element, though important, of effective transformational leadership, while being a true leader requires a wide variety of other qualities, not necessarily inborn. The ability to respect and empower the followers is another critically important element that distinguishes effective leaders because leadership is a process shared between the leader and the followers (Yukl, 1989). In a similar vein, Koehler and Pankowski (1996) argue that effective leadership in organisations is not confined to just making the followers obey orders and instructions. A leader rather ``enables the followers as individuals and teams to act in the best interest of the mission, goals, and objectives of the organisation'' (Koehler & Pankowski, 1996: 16). Correspondingly, leadership is a set of practices aimed at achieving this goal - empowering the followers to do their best. Workers of Influence The key idea of this theory is that leadership may be exhibited by anyone in the organisation in any type of position (Yukl 1989). According to this theory leaders may operate at different levels within the organisation and within the same hierarchical level as their followers. Such perception of leadership conflicts the traditional theories which treat it as a set of attributes and behaviours exhibited by persons with legitimate power. Etzioni (1961) undertook the pioneering research effort to prove existence of leaders operating on the same hierarchical level with their followers. This type of leadership is labelled as `informal' which means the leader does not possess official power over his followers, as opposed to formal leaders-managers that exert influence on subordinates by virtue of their higher hierarchical position. While the important role of informal leaders during organisational changes has been discussed in the literature, little is known about sources of their power and how traditional literature on leadership can be applied to them (Antonakis, Cianciolo, & Sternberg, 2004). Existence of such leaders demonstrates that sources of power for leaders and managers are not necessarily similar. Visionary Leadership Theory The central idea of the visionary leadership is about envisioning the organisation's position for long-term future, conveying this vision to other members of the organisation, motivating individuals to share and commit to this vision, and aligning resources and processes to accomplish it (Bratton, Grint & Nelson, 2005). Visionary leadership has a potential for viewing the processes of leadership from the positions of role theory. Introducing the notion of forces that make a visionary leader, Burt Nanus (1992) have formulated the roles of visionary leaders: 1) direction setter, 2) change agent, 3) spokesperson, and 4) coach. (the same comment about classifications) The first visionary leadership role - direction setter - Nanus (1992) discusses as necessary to being effective is the direction setter. The direction setter role is one where a leader presents a vision, a convincing image or target for an organisation to achieve in the future, and involves people from the get-go: ``As a direction setter, a leader presents a vision, communicates it, motivates worker and colleagues, and convinces people that it is the right direction to proceed and encourages participation on all levels and at all stages of progress towards the vision'' (Nanus, 1992: 13). (direct qoute with marks, source and pages) The second role - change agent - requires the leader to be capable of implementing change. this ability is vitally important for contemporary organisations taking into consideration changeability of the external environment. Economic, social, technological, and political changes occur continuously, some dramatic and others subtle in nature. Indeed, customer needs and preferences change as do those of other organisational stakeholders: ``Effective leaders must be constantly attuned to these changes and think ahead to potential changes and changeability. This ensures that the leader is prepared for any situations or circumstances that may threaten organisational success for the present and, most importantly, for the future'' (Young, 2003: 10). (direct qoute with marks, source and pages) The third role of a visionary leader - spokesperson - is not less important that the previous two: it is central for effective sharing of the leader's vision (goals, objectives, intentions, etc) among the subordinates: ``An effective leader is also a person who knows and appreciates the many available forms of communication available in explaining and building support for a vision of the future. The leader, as spokesperson for the vision, must communicate a message that strikes the right chord with everyone involved with or touched by the organisational vision - internally and externally. It must be a message which is ``worthwhile, attractive, and exciting about the future of the organisation'' (Nanus, 1992: 14). (direct qoute with marks, source and pages) And finally, an effective visionary leader should also be capable of acting out as a good coach. Using this term Nanus implies that a leader must use teamwork to attain the stated vision and goals. A leader empowers his or her ``players'' to work together, to coordinate their efforts or activities, toward ``winning'' or achieving an organisational vision. The leader, as coach, keeps people focused on realizing the vision by directing, encouraging, and building trust among the many players that are crucial to an organisation and its vision of the future. In some cases, it can be argued that the leader as coach, might more appropriately be designated a ``player-coach'' (Nanus, 1992). (however, there are really several sentences here, which I have not paraphrased, my fault) Leadership and Change Highlighting different aspects of leading people the theories of leadership clearly show the huge importance of this process in modern business, particularly in such complex area as organisational change. Classic works in the field of organizational change describe this process from several basic theoretical stances, but the common view is that organizational change plays the key role in maintaining efficiency and competitiveness of organization (Van de Ven & Poole, 1995). However, implementation of the change is associated with numerous difficulties: the change is hard to initiate and sustain, it take much time and it has to overcome the innate resistance of people to change. Perhaps these major problems led to a common misconception that change is not necessary for an organization: the example of Enron, Daewoo Motors, Pan American and several other industrial and technological giant clearly demonstrates what is likely to happen to an organization which fails to recognize the necessity of major change despite the difficulties associated with this process. Resistance is commonly considered to be a natural and practically inevitable response of human being to any major change. People naturally try to defend the existing state of affairs, especially if they feel any threat to their security, position or status. This natural reaction has been labelled as one of the key difficulties in implementing organizational change (Folger & Skarlicki, 1999). People are believed to resist change largely because they have to learn something new, and even if the benefits of the new process or practice implied by the change are absolutely clear, the fear of future, coupled with concerns about the ability to adapt to the new conditions dominates (de Jager, 2001). The resistance may be especially strong in stable and powerful organisational cultures. Organizational culture may be defined as the ``set of values that helps its members understand what the organization stands for, how it does things and what it considers important and understand which actions are considered acceptable and which actions are considered unacceptable'' (Carnall, 2003: 47). According to the other definitions organizational culture may be ``collection of shared beliefs, values, rituals, stories, myths, and specialized language that creates a common identity and sense of community'' or the ``social glue'' that binds an organization's members together'' (Carnall, 2003). Organizational culture includes the following characteristics which may influence employees' behaviour and, hence, contribute to their performance, i.e.: member identity, group emphasis, unit integration, people focus, risk tolerance, control, reward criteria, motivation, etc (Schultz, 2002). Organizational culture depends on traditions and historical context of a company and impacts on the behaviour of employees. Strong organizational culture can shape company's general effectiveness and provide its long-term success through forming compliance and loyalty of the employees and making them more productive Effective leadership seems to be the only tool to overcome the major difficulty in transforming organisational culture. Leaders create vision and general strategies, align group members onto the goals of the group and inspire them to persist in achieving these goals. These tasks can be successfully fulfilled only by leaders, and the latter should not be confused with managers. Managers always have positional powers, but they may lack what it takes to be effective organisational leaders: managers are better at conserving the processes of the organization and leaders come in handy when the organization needs to face change. Leaders are specialists in motivation and overall assessment and strategy, while managers are seen as better at organization and control (Kotter, 1996). In similar vein, Warren Bennis claims that ``...the difference between managers and leaders is fundamental. The manager administers, the leader innovates. The manager maintains, the leader develops. The manager relies on systems, the leader relies on people. The manager counts on control, the leader counts on trust. The manager does things right, the leader does the right thing'' (Bennis, 1988: 173). By contrast, Thomas argues, ``...increasingly, the people who are the most effective are those who essentially are both managers and leaders'' (Blagg & Young, 2001: 33). (direct qoutes with marks, source and pages) John Kotter, a professor at Harvard Business School and probably the most known authority in leadership and management studies, is the author of many articles and several books which explain the nature of distinctions between the two processes. Kotter's key idea is that while leadership involves the processes of developing vision and forward-thinking strategies, innovations, change, and empowering followers, management deals with the effective functioning of an organizational system, which includes planning, supervising, budgeting, organizing, controlling, staffing, etc. However, he also acknowledges that leading and managing are not mutually exclusive processes: a good leader can be an effective manager as well, while a good manager can be an effective leader to his or her subordinates. References Antonakis, J., Cianciolo, A. T., & Sternberg, R. J. 2004, `Leadership: Past, present, and future', in Antonakis, J., Cianciolo, A.T. & Sternberg, R. J. (Eds.), The nature of leadership , Sage Publications, Inc, 3-15. Bass, B. M. 1990, Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research and Managerial Applications, New York: The Free Press. (And since when listing sources like books and journals are considered plagiarism???? The most apparent nonesense I have ever seen) Blagg, D. & Young, S. 2001, `What Makes a Good Leader', Harvard Business School Bulletin , Vol. 2, 33. Bratton, J., Grint, K. & Nelson, D. L. 2005, Organisational Leadership , Thompson South Western. Burns, J. M. 1978, Leadership , New York: Harper & Rowe. Carnall, C. 2003, Managing Change in Organisations 4th edition , Prentice Hall. Cooper, K. & Sawaf, A. 2000, Executive EQ: Emotional Intelligence in Business , London: Texere. Etzioni, A. 1961, A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organizations on Power, Involvement, and Their Correlates , Free Press. Folger, R. & Skarlicki, D. 1999, `Unfairness and resistance to change: hardship as mistreatment', Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 11, no. 2, 35-50 Gardner, J. W. 1987, `Leaders and Followers', Liberal Education , Vol. 73, No. 2, 4-6. Gardner, J. W. 1993, On Leadership, New York, NY: The Free Press. Gardner, H. 1993a, Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice, New York: Basic Books Goleman, D. 1995, Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ , London: Bloomsbury. Goleman, D. 2000, `Leadership That Gets Results', Harvard Business Review , Vol. 3-4, 78-90. Hollander, E. P. 1985, `Leadership and power', in G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology , Vol. 2, 3rd edition, New York: Random House, 485-537. de Jager, P. 2001, `Resistance to change: a new view of an old problem', The Futurist , vol. 5-6, 24-27. Kotter, J. P. 1996, Leading change , Harvard Business School Press. Kouzes, J. M. & Posner, B. Z. 2003, The Leadership Challenge Journal: Reflections on Becoming a Better Leader , Pfeiffer. Madsen, M. T. 2001, `Leadership and Management Theories Revisited [Electronic version]'. The Danish Management Barometer , Vol. 4 [available online at http://www.hba.dk/fsk/pdfs/0003090.pdf ] Nanus, B. 1992, Visionary Leadership: Creating a Compelling Sense of Direction for Your Organisation , San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Northhouse P.G. 2004, Leadership: Theory & Practice , Sage Publications London. Schultz, D. & Schultz, S. 2002, Psychology and Work Today: An Introduction to Industrial and Organizational Psychology (Eighth Edition) , Prentice Hall. Sternberg, R. (1988). The triarchic mind: A new theory of human intelligences. New York: Viking. Van de Ven, A. & Poole, M. S. 1995, `Explaining development and change in organizations', Academy of Management Review , vol. 20, no. 3, 510-540. Young, R. 2002, Leadership: Toward a Visionary Approach [Electronic version]. Institute for Public Service and Policy Research, USC. Columbia [available online at http://www.iopa.sc.edu/publication/leadership.htm] Yukl, G. A. 1989, `Managerial Leadership: A Review of Theory and Research', Journal of Management , Vol. 15, 251-289. Yukl, G. 1994, Leadership in Organisations, Third Edition , Prentice Hall. LEADERSHIP AND CHANGE PAGE 2 5/20/2007 Read More