ABC of EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP

A PRACTICAL OVERVIEW OF LEADERSHIP THEORIES
By Shaun Killian (MEd, MLead), Australian Leadership Development Centre
©2005-2007 Australian Leadership Development Centre. You may link to this article. You may print and share this entire article for non-commercial purposes, provided you acknowledge the author, the copyright holder and this copyright message in the printed material. You can quote or paraphrase from up to 10% of the article, provided your work cites such references either as web links or in traditionally accepted means (eg APA or Harvard). 
  
With over 35,000 research papers, articles and books written on leadership it safe to say we know quite a bit about what is involved in leading well. However, the sheer volume of information available, coupled with the lack of evidence behind many popularised notions on leadership can be confusing and unhelpful. Leadership has been studied and therefore explained from a number of different perspectives, each with its own insights as well as its own limitations. These perspectives include:

• Leadership as power
• Personal characteristics of leaders
• Leadership behaviors
• Leadership styles
• Situational leadership models
• Transformational leadership models

Collectively these perspectives provide a rich understanding of what is a complex concept. This article synthesises what we know about effective leadership in a practical and insightful way. You can choose to:

• Read the entire article by scrolling through this page
• Download a print friendly pdf version of the article here.
• Go straight to the topic you are interested in by clicking on the relevant topic below (click the sub-heading) 

Introducing Leadership

Leadership defined

Effective Leadership & Power

Power as a Source of Leadership Influence

Types of Power

Personal Characteristics of Effective Leaders

Personality

Intelligence

Leadership Styles

Balancing Concern for People with Concern for Results

The Leadership Grid

Scandinavian Studies

Situational Leadership

Fielder's Contingency Theory

The Situational Leadership Model 
Vroom's Normative Participatory Model - Deciding How Participatory to Be

Transformational Models

Personal Characteristics of Transformational Leaders
Behavioural Components of Transformational Leadership
Transformational vs Transactional Leadership
Research Support for Transformational Leadership

The Future of Leadership Theory

A Plausible Prediction

Suggested Reading

Peter Northouse - Leadership: Theory & Practice
Blake & Mouton - The Managerial Grid
Ken Blanchard - The One Minute Manager
Bernard Bass - Transformational Leadership
Jay Conger - The Charismatic Leader

Introducing Leadership

Leadership defined

Academics continue to argue of over a precise definition of what leadership is; yet management commentator, the late Peter Drucker - renowned for his to-the-point inight, observed that the only definition of a leader is someone who has followers.

The ALDC builds on this simple yet powerful insight to define leadership as:

...  any behaviour that influence the actions and attitudes of others to achieve certain results.

Leadership is neither inherently good nor bad. This depends on both the results being pursued and the means used to influence others.

Effective Leadership & Power

Power as a Source of Leadership Influence

Your capacity to influence others is dependent on the power you have. Without some form of power will not be able to have any influence over others.

Types of Power

It is important for you as a leader to be clear about your positional authority. This includes a solid working knowledge of relevant laws, awards and industrial agreements. This knowledge provides the parameters within which you can exercise command and control. There is no doubt that positional authority is a legitimate and prevalent form of influence within organisations. The evidence demonstrates that positional authority is still the most used form of power by managers and it also the most common reason for staff compliance. Staff born between 1920 and 1945 were quite accepting of doing things a certain way because that is ‘what the boss said’. However, the impact of such influence has been eroded with changes in generational attitudes. This is compounded in those countries, such as Australia, whose national culture places high emphasis on participatory workplaces. Effective leaders therefore expand their power-base beyond the limits of positional authority.

Leaders also use rewards to shape the attitudes and behaviours of staff. The use of financial rewards to shape behaviour is largely the province of an organisations HR staff. However, all leaders can make use of non-financial reward systems to shape the behaviour of their staff.  The use of positive rewards to encourage desired behaviours is one of the simplest yet most powerful forms of power a leader can exert. Kouzes and Posner, when researching their book, Encouraging the Heart, interviewed staff about the most important non-financial reward they could receive at work; the answer was a simple thank-you. For those interested in doing more than just thanking people, the evidence suggests that rewards are most effective when:

• Rewards are given for specific behaviours that managers would like to see repeated.
• They are things that matter to the person being thanked (eg knowing they like the movies – hence buying movie tickets).
• Rewards are given at random rather than fixed intervals.
• The nature and scale of the reward varies in response to the nature and scale of the behaviour.

The use of coercive power – that is negative consequences following undesirable or unacceptable behaviour has been shown to be effective in reducing the instances of such behaviour. It has a place in manager’s repertoire, yet it should be used with care and judgement as it has also been shown to have a significant negative impact on subsequent relationships. Some simple guidelines:

• Always allow one sleep before punishing people or even threatening to punish them if they do not do as they are told.
• For less experienced managers, talk with your boss or experienced colleagues about the situation before deciding to use punishments or threats.
• Use a verbal reprimand, before a written one and reprimand people in private.
• Describe the specific behaviour and the impact of that behaviour.
• Start by catching people doing things right and balance negative feedback with positive feedback using a 4:1 ratio.

Expertise is also a source of power. People will put more weight on your words when they believe you know what you are talking about. Early levels of leadership typically involve leading staff who have the same professional function as their leader – accountants leading accountants, teachers leading teachers or engineers leading engineers. Therefore first level leaders typically have significant expertise power. As your leadership career progresses you will find yourself leading people whose functional expertise is different and superior to yours. Expertise will not be sufficient on its own, however you can continue build your expertise power base by:

• Keeping up to date with and sharing information on strategic initiatives.
  
• Progressively building your reputation as a competent leader.

Interpersonal power refers to your ability to influence others' behaviour simply because of the relationship they have with you. A thank-you from somone who counts is more powerful than a thank-you from someone who doesn't. Expressed dissapointment by someone a staff member holds in high regard is more effective than the same statement made by someone the staff member does not care about. In fact, research shows that interpersonal power is the most effective form of influence within an organisational setting and with younger generations placing more value on loyalty to relationships than they do on loyalty to organisations, the importance of relational power is sure to increase.

Personal Characteristics of Effective Leaders

Personality

Early research on leadership sought to identify a list of personal characteristics that set effective leaders apart from other people. No single list has been found to hold true for every leader in every context. As a result leadership research moved on in a different direction – focusing instead on what effective leaders do. For decades traits were largely ignored. However, despite lacking 100% generalisability, contemporary leadership scholars have recognised that personal characteristics are important to effective leadership – particularly intelligence and aspects of personality such as dominance, extraversion, sociability, self-confidence, high levels of energy and resilience[8]. The concept of intelligence is expanded upon further in the next section, and a more comprehensive list of personality traits associated with effective leadership is shown below: 

For those seriously interested in developing leadership, it is important to appreciate the impact of personality. Greek philosopher, Aristotle once said that “we are the sum of our behaviours; excellence therefore is not an act but a habit.” Personality is a key driver of our day-to-day habitual behaviours and as such can help or hinder our leadership effectiveness. Leaders should:

1. Be aware of how their personality helps and hinders their leadership effectiveness, then
2. Find leadership positions where their strengths are called for, then
3. Offset their weaknesses through a combination of tapping others' strengths and their own development

Intelligence

Effective leaders typically have higher than average levels of intelligence – specifically reasoning and memory. During World War I, the armed forces used IQ tests to select potential officers and they continue to be used as a recruitment tool in many contemporary organisations such as Microsoft. A high IQ does not make you an effective leader. There are many case studies of leaders with high IQs, who due to a lack of personal or interpersonal competence have failed as leaders. However, even Daniel Goleman admits that a higher than average IQ is necessary foundation or ‘threshold competency’.

Research*** in the late 1990s has shown that effective leaders are also likely to be emotionally intelligent. Specifically effective leaders are likely to:

• Be accurately aware of themselves – their emotions, tendencies, strengths and weaknesses.
• Use emotions to enhance thinking and decision-making.
• Consciously regulate emotions and moods in intelligent ways.
• It has been claimed that emotional intelligence is a better predictor of leadership success than IQ.
  

More recently social intelligence, previously considered a sub-part of emotional intelligence, has been shown to be the single largest factor impacting on leadership effectiveness. 

Leadership Behaviours

Two Well Known Behavioural Frameworks

This behavioral approach also underpins the leadership competency models adopted in many organizations today, with key contemporary roles including strategic thinking, change manager, relationship builder and talent developer [13].

Whilst the behavioral approach has helped to focus attention on learnable skills, the effective execution of those skills is often grounded in who the leader is as a person and their personal characteristics[14].

Leadership Styles

Balancing Concern for People with Concern for Results

Another behavioral approach focused less on specific roles and more on leadership styles. In the mid-twentieth century, the University of Michigan, under the supervision of Rensis Likert, identified what they viewed as two opposing styles of leadership – leaders who focus on:

• Results and the tasks that need to be done to achieve those results
• The people responsible for achieving those results

At about the same time as the University of Michigan studies, the Ohio State Univeristy, under the supervision of Ralph Stogdill, identified four leadership styles, by considering the same two aspects of leadership, without assuming a leader had to be just one or the other:

• High concern for results and high concern for people.
• High concern for results and low concern for people.
• Low concern for results and a high concern for people.
• Low concern for results and a low concern for people.
• Low concern for results and a low concern for people.

The Leadership Grid

The leadership grid, formerly known as the managerial grid model, is a more recent model [16] of leadership identifies five styles based on a comination of either high, medium or low consideration for people and results.

• A 1,1 style shows a low concern for results and a low concern for people
• A 9,1 style shows a high concern for results and a low concern for people
• A 1,9 style shows a low concern for results and a high concern for people
• A 9,9 style shows a high concern for results and a high concern for people
• A 5,5 style shows a moderate concern for results and a moderate concern for people

Grid theory asserts that the most effective leaders adopt a 9-9 style of leadership, showing both a high concern for people and a high concern for results. Research supports the Grid theory’s assertion that 9-9 leadership is always effective, however this impact is not always high and there are some specific instances were other leadership styles are more effective[17].

Balancing the task and relationship aspects of leadership remains a central tenet of contemorary approaches to leadership, and the differentiating of management and leadership. As the late Rear Admiral Grace Hopper said, "You manage things, you lead people."

Scandinavian Studies

Scandinavian studies[18] have added a third dimension to the people-task mix – development. They show how in addition to being focused on achieving results and having good working relationships with staff, effective leaders seek to develop and draw the fullest potential out of every staff member.

Situational Leadership

Situational leadership theories highlight the importance of context in deciding the right leadership approach in any given situation.

Fielder's Contingency Theory

One of the most well validated situational theories is Fielder’s contingency model[19]. Whilst Grid theory advocates adopting a high relationship – high task approach in all situations, contingency theory suggests that leaders should consider three contextual factors before deciding on the best people-task mix to any situation.

1. Leader-member relations - these can be either good or poor. 
2. Task structure - how prescribed and systematized is the action the leader is wanting staff to take. 
3. Leader positional power - the degree of positional authority the leader has over staff in relation to the specific staff at hand.

The model has been shown to work best [20] when situations are classified into one of three categories:

• Favorable 
• Moderately favourable 
• Unfavourable

When the situation is moderately favourable, (either good leader member relations, with low task structure and a low level of positional authority; OR when leader member relations are poor, the task structure is high, and positional authority is high) a task-orientated approach has been shown to be more effective.

In all other situations a relationship-orientated approach works best.

Fielder asserted that leaders have a dominant fixed-style, and that leaders should therefore be matched to the specific situation at hand in a given organizational unit, when selecting leaders. This echoes Peter Drucker's [21] claim that is far easier to turn an average performer into a star performer by finding roles where their natural strengths are called for than it is by trying to develop their weaker areas. Whilst more recent theorists suggest leaders can change their style to suit the situation, achieving such change at a habitual level takes focus, pratcice and persistence. It is well worth considering ways to change the situation to suit your style first. Consider McDonalds as an example of a multi-billion dollar organistion whose structured systems allow it to virtually run by teenagers.

Situational Theory

Hersey and Blanchard’s situational leadership theory also asserts that different styles of leadership are more suited to some circumstances and not others. They identified four different leadership styles by rating a leaders concern for both the task at hand and the people involved as either high or low.

1. A delegating style (low task – low relationship) involves handing the work over to others without having to show much concern for either the task or the people involved.
2. A supportive style (low task – high relationship) of leadership involves motivating staff and getting them on board, without having to pay too much attention to the telling the staff how to go about the task.
3. A directive style (high task – high relationship) of leadership involves telling people how to go about the task with little concern people like it or not.
4. A coaching style (high task – high relationship) of leadership involves helping willing people learn how to go about the necessary tasks.

According to situational theory, a leader should change their style according to how:

• Willing
• Able

After considering both will and skill a leader should adopt a:

• Delegating style when both will and skill of staff are high
• Supportive style when the skill is there but the will is lacking.
• Directive style when the staff have neither the will nor skill to do what the leader wants them to do.
• Coaching style when the staff have the will but not the skill to do what the leader is asking.

The situational model has a common sense appeal but lacks consistent empirical support.

Vroom's Normative Participation Model - How Participatory Should You Be

Vroom’s participative model provides a set of rules or norms (hence normative) that determine how participatory a leader should be when making decisions.  After a weighing up various contingencies a leader can choose to:

• Decide on their own, and if necessary sell their decision.
• Consult some staff members individually, gathering some informal ideas and then make the decision themselves.
• Consult the staff as a group, gathering their suggestions but still making the decision themselves.
• Facilitate a meeting where they define the problem and set the limits within which a decision needs to be made, and then uses a consensus approach to make a decision.
• Delegate the decision-making process either to the team or individual responsible for enacting the decision.

The following table can be used to identify the most effective and efficient means of making a decision, when time is short. Vroom also produced a second table that can be used when time is not short, and a leader wants to take the opportunity to develop their staff.

Transformational Leadership Models

Personal Characteristics of Transformational Leaders

Transformational leaders are likely to have many of the following personal characteristics[24]:

• A deep sense of personal purpose coupled with an unshakable self-confidence in the ability to realise this purpose.
• A strong desire to take charge and make things happen, without being overly bossy.
• A strong social presence and superb oral communication skills, often coupled with a reputation of unconventional behavior.
• A sensitivity to how people are feeling and an ability to connect well with people at a personal one-on-one level.
• A willingness to take personal risks and make sacrifices in order realise their vision
• An internal locus of control, with a 'what can I do with what I have now' attitude

These characteristics emerge in different ways with different people as illustrated by such notable figures as Sir Richard Branson, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Aung San Suu Kyi.

Behavioral Components of Transformational Leadership

Behavioral elements of transformational leadership common across various models:

• Being able to communicate a clear vision of the future along with the gap between that vision and current realities, in compelling ways.
• Help people to find purpose and meaning in their life through pursuit of this vision.
• Overtly model the values and attitudes needed in your own behavior.
• Communicate clear and high standards regarding what you expect from those around you.
• Empower staff with the authority create innovative ways of realising the vision, whilst helping staff align their ideas with the broader organizational solutions.
• Engage others in strategic and creative thinking around the realisation of the vision.
• Use a caring and coaching style of leadership in one-on-one settings, empathising with the situation of staff whilst drawing forth creative solutions from the staff themselves.
• Recognise staff achievements and desired behaviors in personally meaningful ways.

Transformational & Transactional Leadership

Transformational leadership does not replace more day-to-day leadership practices advocated by earlier theories. In transformational leadership theory, these are referred as transactional leadership behaviors. Rather transformational leadership adds a new, more futures-orientated and large-scale dimension to transactional behaviors.

Further, it adds the coaching style of leadership, to a leader’s one-on-one leadership repertoire.

Research Support for Transformational Leadership

The research support for transformational leadership is overwhelmingly impressive[25]. However, transformational leadership is not always needed and is not always beneficial, working best when:

• What you want staff to do has a values and attitudinal component.
• The organisation and its staff are experiencing times of hardship, stress or uncertainty.

The charismatic nature of transformational leaders can breed devotion and dependency[26]. When the leader leaves, everything falls apart. This has led leadership researchers[27] to move beyond transformational models to more self effacing and collective leadership approaches.

The Future of Leadership Theory

A Plausible Prediction

Suggested Reading

Northouse	Blake & Mouton	Blanchard	Bass	Conger

Endnote References

¹ Adapted from French, R. P., Jr., & Raven, B. (1959). "The bases of social power". In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Studies in social power. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research.
² Lussier & C. Achua (2004), Leadership: Theory, Application & Skill Development, Thomson.
³ Stephen Robbins, Bruce Millet & Terry Waters-Marsh (2004), Organisational Behaviour, 4th ed, by published by Prentice Hall. 
See for example B. Bass & R. Riggio (2006), Transformational Leadership, Routledge; AND J. Conger (1989), The Charismatic Leader, Jossey-Bass; AND J. Kouzes & B. Posner (1990), The Leadership Challenge, Jossey-Bass; AND J. Kotter (1999) What Leaders Really Do, Harvard Business School Press.: