DeChurch et al and Cable and Judge Articles - Article Example

Critical Analysis Critical Analysis: DeChurch et al (2010) and Cable and Judge (2003) Articles Name Instructor’s Name Institution Name Course Name and Code Date Introduction Bass (1985) stated that leadership was a function of how the leader influenced and motivated followers without ignoring the input of others and maintaining the objective.This approach is very much a top down view of leadership and communication. However, Latham (2013) identifies the need to be communicative across all levels to set direction and strategy. The emphasis here is in clearly defining the objective and communicating it effectively at all levels whether it is strategic or to initiate change; something Latham (2013) stresses is difficult to achieve. It has long been held that leadership varies across levels and that there is a need to evaluate this as it relates to effectiveness (DeChurch et al. 2010). Cable and Judge (2003) investigate the idea that upward strategic communication varies depending upon the type of recipient such that how information is communicated is actually as much dependent upon the person communicating as it is the type of manager receiving the information. This paper extensively investigates different leadership styles together with the influence of each leadership style. Summary ‘Leadership across levels: Levels of leaders and their levels of impact’ by DeChurch et al. (2010) conducts a systematic literature review over the previous twenty five years to understand the role of leadership and how this impacts on teams and organisations. DeChurch et al. (2010) states that for leadership to achieve successful outcomes it must be consistent across all levels of an organisation. Accordingly, DeChurch et al. (2010) suggests that leadership research is separated into two distinct categories psychologists and business scholars something that was suggested by Zaccaro and Klimoski (2001). Therefore, DeChurch et al. (2010) approach their research by wanting to look at an integrated approach to leadership so as to formulate ideas for future research in leadership, and not by having a disjunct approach. DeChurch et al (2010) article hinges on the claim that there are three levels of leadership, bottom level which comprise of leadership which is characterized by supervision roles where there are two main responsibilities; to hire and fire and allocate tasks. The middle management level, on the other hand is characterized by the establishment of operational roles together with their coordination. And lastly, the top management level or the strategic leadership which is tasked with vision establishment and/or setting the overall objectives of the organization. From the above establishment, for the organization to achieve the set goals, the leadership across all levels must be consistent. In same line of review, DeChurch et al (2010), article discusses extensively six types of leadership approaches or theories; trait approach for instance strongly suggests that effective leaders have related leadership characteristics. The behavioural perspective approach significantly distinguishes effective leadership behaviours from ineffective leadership behaviours. The third approach claim that leadership is leader-member exchange (LMX); this leadership approach states that leaders form differentiated patterns of relationships with their followers or subordinates that vastly culminate into either an in group or an out group (Sotaruta, Horlings & Liddle 2012). Consequently, there is a transformational leadership approach; this is just but an extension of the behavioural approach, which largely depends on the leaders’ action to incite the subordinates. The upper echelons perspective of strategic management is the fifth approach. The sixth and last approach is leadership as a set of shared and distributed function enacted by multiple leaders. Cable and Judge (2003) in their article ‘Managers upward influence tactic strategies: the role of manager personality and supervisor leadership style’ considers the ‘Big Five Factors’ model that considers managers and personality and how this relates to influencing strategies within organisations. Cable and Judge (2003) undertake there research by conducting a broad survey of 1500 MBA graduates and considered the effects of the ‘Big Five Factors’. Cable and Judge (2003) noted that certain traits were employed with different styles of supervisor or manager, namely a transformational versus a transaction orientated leader. Cable and Judge (2003) vastly discuss the five-factor model of personality (Big Five factors) which includes Extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness stability. Extraversion is hinged on three main factors; sociability, dominance, and positive emotionality as forwarded by Watson and Clark (1997). Extravert leaders are talkative and expressive and they are known to be interactive, assertive, as well as predisposed to positive effect experience. Openness to experience; leaders with this attribute are imaginative, original, unconventional, and artistic (Cable and Judge 2003). Emotional stability; these are leaders who are emotionally stable and they are considered to be secure, calm and above all are not nervous (Beck & Cowan 2005). The agreeableness leadership factor is a dimension of interpersonal behaviour; leaders who possess this attribute as Cable and Judge (2003) claim are altruistic, warm, generous, trusting, and extremely cooperative. Conscientiousness factor describes those leaders who ever ambitious, practical, task-focused and always persistent to achieve, like planning for their activities, careful and more importantly they are organized in their work (Beerel 2013). Discussion DeChurch et al. (2010) broad and extensive assessment of the research literature formed the basis of their hierarchical analysis of individual leadership individuals, leadership of units and teams in organisations by associating those traits and how they are enacted in the specific situations, much like that of Andersen (2006). For instance, DeChurch et al (2010) claim that leadership in any organization is in three levels that are largely determined by the time factor; the first level which is considered to be the bottom level is associated with supervisory leadership that is mainly characterised with hiring and firing and allocating tasks. These tasks require less time to make decisions. The middle and second level managers or leaders are tasked with setting operational goals and coordination of the efforts needed to achieve these goals. The third level is the strategic leadership, which is tasked with setting the organization’s overall vision. Strategic leaders plan for an extended period of time as compared to other levels. However, Andersen (2006) restates the conclusions drawn in the research and offers no original contribution like DeChurch et al. (2010). In addition, DeChurch et al. (2010) considered leadership behaviours and transformational leadership. Here there are similarities to Daft and Pirola-Merlo (2009) who researched the past 100 years to identify what was considered a good leader. Cable and Judge’s (2003) research was far more narrow in terms of participants only 189, but was broad in that it was across 140 organisations and it confirmed that leadership extraversion not charisma specifically was more important in creating inspiration. Furthermore, Cable and Judge (2003) also noted that certain specific leadership behaviours were employed in terms of strategic influence dependent upon the leadership style of the superior they were working with. Extraversion in the Five Factor Model (FFM) is something that corresponds with a positive energy and energy according Singh (2007) is one of three characteristics of leadership, and for agreeableness trust is an attribute, which for Latham (2013) is a leadership characteristic. However, Daft (2008) stated that extraversion was not a leadership trait and would be detrimental to effective leadership. In their study DeChurch et al. (2010) found leadership traits as the predominant factor in leadership followed by behaviour, however they never identify what those traits are. Bass and Avolio (1994) found that inspirational motivation was the most effective leadership behaviour; again DeChurch et al. (2010) do not confirm this only that there is a need to understand organisational behaviour in its entirety and not look at individual behaviours. Cable and Judge (2003) agree with Judge and Bono (2000) that transformational leadership is dependent upon leadership personality and for that reason Andersen (2006) asserted that the FFM characteristics were super traits and similarly agrees that these are essential in leadership. However, much like DeChurch et al. (2010) Andersen (2006) do not state which specific traits impact on organisations more than others and more importantly that future leaders could not be selected from personality traits alone. Conversely, Cable and Judge (2003) believe that managers personalities that employ the correct tactics can be used in specific leadership styles can affect change and can impact on leaders and organisations. DeChurch et al. (2010) answers their four research questions from the standpoint of examining the research literature and finds that while leadership research has been individualised strategic management research has only focused on organisational outcomes. DeChurch et al. (2010) looks to affirm certain hypothesis as to the lack of integration of leadership but also by looking at it across levels and is acknowledging the need for embracing a cohesive approach, which is contrary to Jacobs, and McGee (2001) model that characterises management strategy where the top tier is drives vision and change. This is supported by Waldman et al. (1998) that noted change occurs from a senior level of management, whereas DeChurch et al. (2010) stated that organisational change needs to occur from leadership at every level and for it to be successful front line and middle management cannot be solely transactionally focused. This is not only important but seems to confirm Cable and Judge (2003) who stated that for managerial success and indeed to achieve organisational outcomes, how management and leadership influence followers needs to be better understood and yet limited research has been conducted. Therefore, it would confirm that there was inherent value in DeChurch’s et al. (2010) research. As Cable and Judge (2003) draw conclusions as to how management and leaders interact and for example management adopting both consultative and inspirational approaches to address a transformational leader. DeChurch et al. (2010), on the other hand is focused on the organisational effectiveness and what levels must each be responsible for with senior leaders setting strategy, middle management coordinating and integrating, with front line management engaging and inspiring followers. The inference here is that certain specific activities must be adopted at every level for DeChurch et al. (2010) while Cable and Judge (2003) are noting how leaders engage and followers engage one another is equally important. Cable and Judge (2003) state that laissez-faire leaders have the potential to become disenchanted with forceful managers and the result is the potential for demotivation. Cable and Judge (2003) note that forceful management is not likely to result in effective leadership and can have a negative effect on organisational culture and since organisational culture has become a predominant focus of organisational performance and transformation (Latham 2013). The value of Cable and Judge’s (2003) research seems valid and justified as having significant impact in the study of leadership. Cable and Judge (2003) assert that to influence effective leadership it is necessary to exhibit some of the FFM traits like extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness without which success will not happen. Conversely, DeChurch et al. (2010) assert that leadership on a multi-level approach is necessary for success to occur which affirms Dansereau, Alutto & Yammarino (1984) and Yammarino et al. (2005) writings. DeChurch et al. (2010) identify four precise recommendations, which are focused on lower and middle levels of leadership and specifically how leadership traits influence affects leadership at the lower levels in terms of strategy. DeChurch et al. (2010) research is similar to Waldman et al. (1998) since they consider that understanding the uncertainty of commitment from the lower levels which not only affects transformations but also outcomes. Influence tactics according to Cable and Judge (2003) can affect and will impact on managers differently and some will have greater effect, this seems to be similar to DeChurch et al. (2010) in that how one approaches a manager will vary depending on the type of manager and thus some approaches will be more effective than others. Mumford, Campion and Morgeson (2007) undertook to identify skills across leadership levels as DeChurch et al. (2010) did as to leadership types. What Mumford, Campion and Morgeson (2007) noted was that specific skills were necessary at each level like strategic skills at only the senior levels. This is important as they also hold that leadership skills are more important at higher levels, which seems to infer that leadership is less important at the lower front line level (Fullan, 2011). Now this would seem to correspond to Cable and Judge (2003) in that certain factors of the FFM would then be more important in leaders at a higher level with those factors which correspond to traits being more important than others, namely extroversion which includes energy is highly associated with transformational leadership would be something necessary at a strategic level. Therefore, those with high degrees of extraversion would be sought out as potential transformational leaders, but this seems to contradict the hypothesis of DeChurch et al. (2010) that transformational leadership should occur unilaterally at every level also held by Avolio et al. (2004) Conclusion The two articles under review would seem to approach their research without any corresponding similarity, yet DeChurch et al. (2010) who investigate 11 top leadership journals over a 25 year period to determine hierarchical levels of leadership find that traits and behaviour are more important than the role leadership has had across units and teams. This notion of traits can be found in Cable and Judge (2003) and their analysis using the Big Five Factor Model and how certain aspects of the factors notably agreeableness asserts itself as a predominant leadership trait. Similarity seems to not end there with DeChurch et al. (2010) noting that since less focus has been on building teams and units along with processes and outcomes. Cable and Judge (2003) research reflects a lack of inherent leadership skills or qualities, which are found only at higher levels something Latham (2013) asserts is necessary strategically on all levels. In that, the critical review has proven a similarity and has shown that both sets of research have value and have extended leadership research and have proposed areas to explore in the future. References Andersen, J 2006, ‘Leadership, personality and effectiveness’, The Journal of Socio-Economics’, vol. 35, pp.1078-1091. Avolio, BJ, Zhu, W, Koh, W & Bhatia, P 2004, ‘Transformational leadership and organizational commitment: mediating role of psychological empowerment and moderating role of structural distance’, Journal of Organizational Behaviour, vol. 25, pp. 951-968. Bass, B 1985, Leadership and performance beyond expectations, The Free Press, New York. 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