The Leadership - Report Example

Leadership List and define the interpersonal managerial leadership roles. There are three interpersonal managerial leadership roles namely; figurehead, leader and liaison. In figurehead role, managers perform their roles when they represent their organizations in legal, social, ceremonial and symbolic activities. The heads of either organizations or departments are usually viewed as figureheads. Leaders in all organizations perform roles such as; signing of official documents, entertaining clients or customers as official representatives and receiving official visitors, informally talking to people and attending outside meetings as an organizational representative and presiding at meetings and ceremonial events. A leader role involves performing management functions to effectively operate the managers’ organization position. This implies that the leader role determines how the leader performs other roles. Some of leader roles include; hiring and training employees, giving instructions and coaching and evaluating performance of his employees among others. Leaders achieve the liaison role when they interact with people outside their organization. Liaison behaviors include networking to develop relationships and gain information and favors. Politics within the organizations play a major part of liaison role. Some of the liaison roles include; serving on committees with members from outside the organization someone is working, attending professional association meeting and calling and meeting people to keep in touch (Lussier & Achua, 2009). 2. Discuss the universality of traits of effective leaders. For managers to be effective leader, they should portray at least these traits. Successful leaders show dominance because they always long to be at the top-level and to be in charge. However someone should not take advantage and be bossy or use a bullying style in leading. Leaders have high energy with positive drive to work hard so as achieve goals. Good leaders take initiative to make improvements, have high tolerance for frustrations and have a lot of enthusiasm. Self confident in a leader is crucial as they are often involved in decision-making, making judgments and coming up with ideas in different situations. Leaders should always display self assurance about their abilities and show confidence among followers. Leaders have to portray integrity (Lussier & Achua, 2009). This is the state of being honest and ethical and makes a person trustworthy. A leader should also have the trait of intelligence which is the ability to think critically, to solve problems and to make decisions. Another crucial characteristic of leaders is flexibility which is the ability to adjust and adapt to different situations. Leaders have to be ahead of the numerous changes in the world so as to be successful. 3. Explain the four types of reinforcement. There are four types of reinforcement which include; positive reinforcement, avoidance reinforcement, extinction reinforcement and punishment reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is a method where by a certain behavior is continuously encouraged by offering attractive rewards to ensure desirable performance. For instance, a manager may thank his junior for being punctual for meetings. The junior fells encouraged thus this acts like reinforcement for punctuality. Positive reinforcement leads to positive results and is one of the best motivator for increasing productivity. Avoidance reinforcement also called negative reinforcement is used to discourage employees from bad behavior. (Lussier & Achua, 2009) This is mainly achieved by designing rules for the employees to adhere to. The rules are not a form of punishment but if an employee breaks them, he/she is punished. Extinction reinforcement attempts to eliminate undesirable behavior by withholding reinforcement when the behavior occurs. Punishment reinforcement is used to provide and undesirable consequences for undesirable behavior. 4.What are three important contributions of the Leadership Grid and high-high research? Leadership Grid and high-high leader research made three vital contributions. The first contribution is that it led to the shift in model to contingency leadership theory. Contingency leadership theory is based on the behavioral theory of production and people leadership styles. The second contribution is the recognition that organizations need both production and people leadership (Lussier & Achua, 2009). A common based production-oriented and people-oriented leadership functions have to be performed to ensure effective organizational performance. The third contribution of this research is it supports co-leadership. This suggested that a manager does not have to perform production and people functions. He/she can have excellent production-oriented skills and be successful if he/she has a co-leader to provide the people oriented functions for him/her and vice versa. This meant that if a manager tends to be more production or people oriented, he should seek for a co-leader to take care of his weaker side. 5. Discuss similarities and differences among the three content motivation theories. Generally, content motivation theories focus in explaining and predicting behavior based on people’s needs. The content motivation theories emphasizes that, leaders should ensure the needs of employees have been met for them to be satisfied. The specific content motivation theories are; hierarchy of needs theory, two factor theory and acquired needs theory (Lussier & Achua, 2009). In Hierarchy theory, Abraham Maslow’s suggests that people are motivated through five levels of needs that are physiological, safety, belongingness, esteem and self actualization. Frederick Herzberg combined lower level needs and classified them as maintenance factors e.g. pay, job security, and working conditions. He classified high level need as motivator factors e.g. achievement, recognition, challenge and advancement. In his two-factor theory suggests that people are motivated by motivator rather than maintenance factors. Acquired needs theory suggests that people are motivated by their needs for achievement, power and affiliation. Motivating employees with high achievements can be achieved by giving them non-routine challenging tasks with clear objectives and giving them fast and frequent feedback on their performance. Employee with high power can be motivated by allowing them to plan and control their jobs while those with high affiliation can be motivated by allowing them to work as a team (Lussier & Achua, 2009). 6. Describe how attitudes are used to develop four leadership styles. Leaders’ attitude about others includes theory Y (positive) and theory (negative) attitudes. The leader’s attitude about him or herself includes a positive self-concept or negative self-concept. Combinations of these variables are used to identify the four leadership styles. Theory Y positive self-concept where the leader gives and accepts positive feedback expects other to succeed and lets others to do the job their way. Theory Y negative self-concept where the leader is afraid to make decisions, is unassertive and is self blaming when things go wrong. Theory X positive self-concept is a situation where the leader is bossy, pushy and impatient. Finally, Theory X negative self-concept where the leader blames others when things go wrong is pessimistic about resolving personal problems and promotes a feeling of hopelessness among followers (Lussier & Achua, 2009). 7. Describe similarities and differences between the University of Michigan and Ohio State University leadership models. University of Michigan leadership model identifies two leadership styles. The job centered and the employee centered style. Job centered style has scales which measure emphasis and work facilitation goals which are job-oriented behaviors. The employee centered style measures employee based behaviors of supportive leadership and interaction facilitation. Ohio State University leadership model identifies four leadership styles which are; low structure and high structure consideration, high structure and high consideration (Lussier & Achua, 2009). Leaders with high structure and low consideration behavior use one-way communication and decision are made by managers whereas leaders with high considering and low structure use two-way communication and tend to share decision making (Lussier & Achua, 2009). 8. Discuss the major similarities and differences between the behavioral and contingency leadership theories. Behavioral leadership focuses on the nature of management work therefore the theory aims at explaining distinctive styles used by effective leaders. Research on this theory focuses on coming up with ways of classifying behavior that will facilitate the understanding of leadership. Behavioral leadership theory helped identify task-oriented and people-oriented leadership behaviors which are vital in accounting leadership effectiveness. Contingency leadership theories attempt o explain the appropriate leadership style in the leader, follower and situation. This theory emphasizes on situational factors, nature of work performed, the external environment and the traits of followers (Lussier & Achua, 2009). The research in this theory aims at reviling extend to which managerial work is the same or different across different types of organization, level of management and cultures. 9. Describe the contingency leadership theory variables. There are three contingency leadership theory variables or forces namely; the boss, subordinates and situation or time. The force of boss means the leader’s personality and behavioral preferred style. Factors such as experience, expectation, values, background, knowledge, feelings of security and confidence in the subordinates are considered in selecting leadership style. Depending on the personality and behavior of the leader, some tend to be more autocratic and others more participative. The second variable is the subordinates who are the followers of the leaders. Their preferred style of the leader is based on personality and behavior of their leader. The more willing and able the followers are to participate, the more freedom of participation should be used and vice versa (Lussier & Achua, 2009). The third variable is situation which entails environmental considerations such as the organization’s size, structure, climate, goals and technology which have to be considered when selecting leadership style. Time availability is important in that, participative decision making takes more time and when there is no time to involve followers in decision making, the top-level management use autocratic leadership style. 10. List which contingency leadership models are prescriptive and descriptive, and explain why they are classified as such. Contingency and normative leadership model are prescriptive models because they tell the user which leadership style to use in a given situation. Descriptive models include the continuum and pat-goal model leadership model. Because they identify contingency variables and leadership styles without specifying which style to use in a given situation (Lussier & Achua, 2009). Reference Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2009). Leadership: Theory, Application, & Skill Development (4 ed.). Cengage Learning. Read More