Leadership

Elgievon E. Peñol and Marjun Millona

Nature of leadership and the leadership process

The many definitions of leadership each have a different emphasis. Some definitions consider leadership
an act or behavior, such as initiating structure so group members know how to complete a task. Others
consider a leader to be the center or nucleus of group activity, an instrument of goal achievement who
has a certain personality, a form of persuasion and power, and the art of inducing compliance. Some
look at leadership in terms of the management of group processes. In this view, a good leader develops
a vision for the group, communicates that vision, orchestrates the group’s energy and activity toward
goal attainment, “[turns] a group of individuals into a team,” and “[transforms] good intentions into
positive actions.

Leadership is frequently defined as a social (interpersonal) influence relationship between two or more
persons who depend on each other to attain certain mutual goals in a group situation. Effective
leadership helps individuals and groups achieve their goals by focusing on the group’s maintenance
needs (the need for individuals to fit and work together by having, for example, shared norms) and task
needs (the need for the group to make progress toward attaining the goal that brought them together).

Managers and Leaders often differ in terms of the types and sources of the power they exercise.
Managers commonly derive their power from the larger organization. Virtually all organizations
legitimize the use of certain “carrots and sticks” (rewards and punishments) as ways of securing the
compliance of their employees. In other words, by virtue of the position that a manager occupies
(president, vice president, department head, supervisor), certain “rights to act” (schedule production,
contract to sell a product, hire and fire) accompany the position and its place within the hierarchy of
authority. Leaders can also secure power and the ability to exercise influence using carrots and sticks;
however, it is much more common for leaders to derive power from followers’ perception of their
knowledge (expertise), their personality and attractiveness, and the working relationship that has
developed between leaders and followers.

It is important to note that while managers may be successful in directing and supervising their
subordinates, they often succeed or fail because of their ability or inability to lead. As noted above,
effective leadership often calls for the ability to manage, and effective management often requires
leadership.

The processes associated with people coming to leadership positions

Leadership is a process, a complex and dynamic exchange relationship built over time between leader
and follower and between leader and the group of followers who depend on each other to attain a
mutually desired goal. There are several key components to this “working relationship”: the leader, the
followers, the context (situation), the leadership process, and the consequences (outcomes) Across
time, each component interacts with and influences the other components, and whatever consequences
(such as leader-follower trust) are created influence future interactions. As any one of the components
changes, so too will leadership.
The Leader

Leaders are people who take charge of or guide the activities of others. They are often seen as the focus
or orchestrater of group activity, the people who set the tone of the group so that it can move forward
to attain its goals. Leaders provide the group with what is required to fulfill its maintenance and task-
related needs.

The Follower

The follower is not a passive player in the leadership process. According to Edwin Hollander, after many
years of studying leadership, suggested that the follower is the most critical factor in any leadership
event. It is, after all, the follower who perceives the situation and comes to define the needs that the
leader must fulfill. In addition, it is the follower who either rejects leadership or accepts acts of
leadership by surrendering his power to the leader to diminish task uncertainty, to define and manage
the meaning of the situation to the follower, and to orchestrate the follower’s action in pursuit of goal
attainment.

Follower behavior plays a major role in determining what behaviors leaders engage in. For example,
followers who perform at high levels tend to cause their leaders to be considerate in their treatment
and to play a less directive role. Followers who are poor performers, on the other hand, tend to cause
their leaders to be less warm toward them and to be more directive and controlling in their leadership
style.

The Context

Situations make demands on a group and its members, and not all situations are the same. Context
refers to the situation that surrounds the leader and the followers. Is the task structured or
unstructured? Are the goals of the group clear or ambiguous? Is there agreement or disagreement
about goals? Is there a body of knowledge that can guide task performance? Is the task boring?
Frustrating? Intrinsically satisfying? Is the environment complex or simple, stable or unstable? These
factors create different contexts within which leadership unfolds, and each factor places a different set
of needs and demands on the leader and on the followers.
The Process

The process of leadership is separate and distinct from the leader (the person who occupies a central
role in the group). The process is a complex, interactive, and dynamic working relationship between
leader and followers. This working relationship, built over time, is directed toward fulfilling the group’s
maintenance and task needs. Part of the process consists of an exchange relationship between the
leader and follower. The leader provides a resource directed toward fulfilling the group’s needs, and the
group gives compliance, recognition, and esteem to the leader. To the extent that leadership is the
exercise of influence, part of the leadership process is captured by the surrender of power by the
followers and the exercise of influence over the followers by the leader. Thus, the leader influences the
followers and the followers influence the leader, the context influences the leader and the followers,
and both leader and followers influence the context.

The Consequences

A number of outcomes or consequences of the leadership process unfold between leader, follower, and
situation. At the group level, two outcomes are important:

Have the group’s maintenance needs been fulfilled? That is, do members of the group like and get
along with one another, do they have a shared set of norms and values, and have they developed a good
working relationship? Have individuals’ needs been fulfilled as reflected in attendance, motivation,
performance, satisfaction, citizenship, trust, and maintenance of the group membership?

Have the group’s task needs been met? That is, there are also important consequences of the
leadership process for individuals: attendance, motivation, performance, satisfaction, citizenship, trust,
and maintenance of their group membership.

Trait perspectives on LEADERSHIP

The GREAT MAN THEORY OF LEADERSHIP states that some people are born with the necessary
attributes that set them apart from others and that these traits are responsible for their assuming positions
of power and authority. A leader is a hero who accomplishes goals against all odds for his followers.
During the early 1900s, scholars endeavored to understand leaders and leadership. They wanted to know,
from an organizational perspective, what characteristics leaders hold in common in the hope that people
with these characteristics could be identified, recruited, and placed in key organizational positions. This
gave rise to early research efforts and to what is referred to as the trait approach to leadership. Prompted
by the great man theory of leadership and the emerging interest in understanding what leadership is,
researchers focused on the leader Who is a leader? What are the distinguishing characteristics of the
great and effective leaders? The great man theory of leadership holds that some people are born with a
set of personal qualities that make truly great leaders. Mahatma Gandhi is often cited as a naturally great
leader.
The [SUCCESSFUL] leader is characterized by a strong drive for responsibility and task completion,
power and persistence in pursuit of goals, venturesomeness and originality in problem solving, drive to
exercise initiative in social situations, self-confidence and sense of personal identity, willingness to accept
consequences of decision and action, readiness to absorb interpersonal stress, willingness to tolerate
frustration and delay, ability to influence other person’s behavior, and capacity to structure social
interaction systems to the purpose at hand.
The last three decades of the 20th century witnessed continued exploration of the relationship between
traits and both leader emergence and leader effectiveness. Edwin Locke from the University of Maryland
and a number of his research associates, in their recent review of the trait research, observed that
successful leaders possess a set of core characteristics that are different from those of other people.
Although these core traits do not solely determine whether a person will be a leader—or a successful
leader—they are seen as preconditions that endow people with leadership potential. Among the core traits
identified are:
Drive—a high level of effort, including a strong desire for achievement as well as high levels of
ambition, energy, tenacity, and initiative
Leadership motivation—an intense desire to lead others
Honesty and integrity—a commitment to the truth (nondeceit), where word and deed correspond
Self-confidence—an assurance in one’s self, one’s ideas, and one’s ability
Cognitive ability—conceptually skilled, capable of exercising good judgment, having strong analytical
abilities, possessing the capacity to think strategically and multidimensionally
Knowledge of the business—a high degree of understanding of the company, industry, and technical
matters
Other traits—charisma, creativity/originality, and flexibility/adaptiveness
Leaders may be “people with the right stuff,” effective leadership requires more than simply possessing
the correct set of motives and traits. Knowledge, skills, ability, vision, strategy, and effective vision
implementation are all necessary for the person who has the “right stuff” to realize their leadership
potential. According to Locke, people endowed with these traits engage in behaviors that are associated
with leadership. As followers, people are attracted to and inclined to follow individuals who display, for
example, honesty and integrity, self-confidence, and the motivation to lead.
Other Leader Traits
SEX and GENDER, disposition, and self-monitoring also play an important role in leader emergence
and leader style.
Much research has gone into understanding the role of sex and gender in leadership. Two major avenues
have been explored: sex and gender roles in relation to leader emergence, and whether style differences
exist across the sexes.
Evidence supports the observation that men emerge as leaders more frequently than women.5 Throughout
history, few women have been in positions where they could develop or exercise leadership behaviors. In
contemporary society, being perceived as experts appears to play an important role in the emergence of
women as leaders. Yet, gender role is more predictive than sex. Individuals with “masculine” (for
example, assertive, aggressive, competitive, willing to take a stand) as opposed to “feminine” (cheerful,
affectionate, sympathetic, gentle) characteristics are more likely to emerge in leadership roles. In our
society males are frequently socialized to possess the masculine characteristics, while females are more
frequently socialized to possess the feminine characteristics.
Recent evidence, however, suggests that individuals who are androgynous (that is, who simultaneously
possess both masculine and feminine characteristics) are as likely to emerge in leadership roles as
individuals with only masculine characteristics. This suggests that possessing feminine qualities does not
distract from the attractiveness of the individual as a leader.
Dispositional Trait
Psychologists often use the terms disposition and mood to describe and differentiate people. Individuals
characterized by a positive affective state exhibit a mood that is active, strong, excited, enthusiastic,
peppy, and elated. A leader with this mood state exudes an air of confidence and optimism and is seen as
enjoying work-related activities.
Self-Monitoring
Self-monitoring as a personality trait refers to the strength of an individual’s ability and willingness to
read verbal and nonverbal cues and to alter one’s behavior so as to manage the presentation of the self and
the images that others form of the individual. “High self-monitors” are particularly astute at reading social
cues and regulating their self-presentation to fit a particular situation. “Low self-monitors” are less
sensitive to social cues; they may either lack motivation or lack the ability to manage how they come
across to others.