Leadership Styles

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Leadership styles and Rational Behavior Thomas Vengal

Jul 11, 2008

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Leadership Styles

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Abstract The days of conventional manager and management process is taken a twist in the recent years and often talked about as leaders and leadership. The movement is happening on the leadership styles to inspire follower their ideas, words and behaviors. There are multiple styles of leadership which are followed by different successful leaders such as Attribution theory, Princely leadership, Transactional leadership, Charismatic leadership, Transformational leadership, Authentic leadership, Servant leadership etc. It’s almost three decades since the Burns (1978) has published the concepts of transformational and transactional leadership. He wrote (cited from Colbert et al, 2008) that “The function of the leadership is to engage followers, not merely to activate them, to commingle needs and aspirations and goals in a common enterprise, and in the process to make better citizens of both leaders and followers” The most prevalent contemporary leadership roles are charismatic and transformational leadership roles. John .F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Jack Welch, Steve Jobs, Ratan Tata, N.R. Narayana Murthy, Colin Powell are few of the cited leaders. Most often in the global organizations the transformational leadership qualities are preached and recognized in the current times as the organizations consider that the Baby Boomer generation is giving way to the Generation Xers.

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TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP Who is as a leader: A person who is allegedly the most qualified, most knowledgeable, the strongest and sometimes the loudest. People perceive the leader of an organization as the person in charge. (Bromley & Kirschner-Bromley, 2007) Definition of Transactional Leader: “Leaders who guide or motivate their followers in the direction of established goals by clarifying role and task requirements.” (Robbins & Judge, 2007, pg 497) Definition of Transformational leader: “Leaders who inspire followers to transcend their own self interests and who are capable of having a profound and extraordinary effect on followers”. (Robbins & Judge, 2007, pg 497). Transactional versus Transformational Leadership Bass (1999) states that transactional leader cater to their followers immediate selfinterests whereas transformational leaders uplift the morale, motivation and morals of their followers. Another example that Bass state is a transformational leader emphasis what you can do for the country whereas transactional leader emphasis what country can do for you. Even though transactional leadership and transformational leadership looks to be opposite characters, Bass (cited in Robbins & Judge, 2007, pg 497) states not to view both of them as opposite approaches of getting things done but to be viewed as complementary approaches; transformational leadership builds on transactional leadership to produce follower effect which results in higher performance. Robbins also states that best leaders are transactional and transformational. According to the model (Bass et al, 1987) leadership has both lower and higher order changes in subordinates. Hollander (cited in Bass et al, 1987) describes “the lower order of

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change involves leadership as an exchange process, a transactional relationship in which followers’ needs can be met if their performance is as contracted with their leader. This form of leadership depends on the leader’s power to reinforce subordinates for their successful completion of the bargain. By contrast, a higher order of change is also possible”. “Burns (1978) conceptualized the transformational leader as one who motivates followers to work for transcendental goals and for higher-level of self-actualizing needs, instead of working through simple exchange relationships with his/her followers”. Transactional Leader

Transformational Leader

Step1: Laissez-Faire: Avoids making decision

Step 5:Individualized consideration: personal

and give-up responsibilities

attention and individual treatment, coaching and mentoring

Step 2: Management by Exception (Active):

Step 6: Intellectual Simulation: promoting

Close monitoring and corrective actions.

intelligence, rationality and careful problem solving

Step3: Management by Exception(Passive) :

Step 7:Inspirational Motivation: Communicated

Exception handling if not met

high expectation, simplified expressions

Step4: Contingent Reward: Promising &

Step 8:Idealized Influence(charisma): Vision and

promoting good performance by rewards

mission, instills pride, gains respect and trust

Table 1: Characteristics of Transactional and Transformational Leaders as B.M Bass(cited in Robbins & Judge, 2007, pg 437) The first four steps mentioned in Table 1 are on the transactional leadership behavior which are considered to be ineffective and passive, whereas the last four steps are considered to be active and effective leadership model which forms the transformational leadership behaviors.

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The “four I’s” in the transformational behaviors is expected to bring in higher employee engagement thereby resulting in higher performance, motivation, satisfaction and organizational growth. As stated by Bass (1993), transformational leaders integrate creative insight, persistence and energy, intuition and sensitivity to the needs of others to “forge the strategy-culture alloy” for their organizations. According to Bass, in a highly innovative and satisfying organizational culture the transformational leaders who build on assumptions such as: people are trustworthy and purposeful; everyone has a unique contribution to make; and complex problems are handled at the lowest level possible. These leaders exhibit a sense of vision and purpose and align others around the vision and empower others to take a greater responsibility for achieving the vision. According to Hackman(cited in Bromley & Kirschner-Bromley, 2007), there are six central personality characteristics of transformational leaders. They are creativity, interaction, vision, empowerment, passion and ethics. Shamir (cited in Bass, 1999) proposed that transactional leaders focus on pragmatic paths to goals, whereas transformational leaders produce in their followers a higher: (1) salience of the collective identity in their self concept (2) sense of consistency between their self-concept and their perception of the leader and the collective (3) level of self-esteem and a greater sense of self-worth; (4) similarity between their self-concept and their perception of the leader; (5) sense of collective efficacy; and (6) sense of meaningfulness in their work and lives. In a recent study of Transformational leader in Top Management Team by Colbert et al (2008) , the results showed that VP’s who worked with transformational CEOs had higher levels of dyadic goal importance congruence than VPs who worked with less transformational CEOs. The dyadic goal importance congruence was positively related to individual VP attitudes.

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Servant leadership and Transformational leadership Another recent study, by Washington (2007) the concept of servant leadership shares similarities with the notion of transformational leadership. According to the author this occurs when a leader empowers followers to achieve organizational goals. According to Smith et al, (cited in Washington, 2007) Servant leadership shares fewer similarities with the concept of transactional leadership, which is defined as a process of social exchange between leaders and followers that involves reward based transactions for the purpose of meeting expectations established by followers. Servant leadership is positioned as a non-focal position within a group so that resources and support are provided without any expectation of acknowledgement and unlike traditional leaders who are motivated by aspirations, servant leaders are motivated more by desire to serve than to lead(Greenspan, cited in Washington, 2007). In comparison with the transformational leadership, according to Stone (cited in Washington, 2007) the servant leadership incorporates characteristics such as respect, vision, influence, modeling, trust, integrity, delegation, innovation and creativity. Ethics, Character and Authenticity of leaders The ethics, character and authenticity of a transformational leader has been questioned, Bass and Steidlmeier (1999) found that transactional models are grounded in a worldview of self-interest where as an authentic transformational leadership provides a more reasonable and realistic concept of a self-a self that is connected to family, friends and community whose welfare may be more important to oneself than one’s own. The Pseudo transformational leader highlights fictitious ‘we-they’ differences in values and argues that ‘we’ have good morals and values but ‘they’ do not. An authentic transformational leader calls for universal brotherhood. Pseudo transformational idealized leaders seek power and position even at the expense of their

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follower’s achievements and indulge in fantasies of power and success. Pseudo-transformational idealized leaders may see themselves as honest, direct and supportive of the organization mission but their behavior is inconsistent and unreliable. They profess strong attachment to their organization and its people but privately and ready to sacrifice them. According to them, Inauthentic CEO’s downsize their organization, increase their own compensation and weep crocodile tears for the employees who lost their jobs. Inauthentic and pseudo transformational leader may publically give that inwardly and outwardly concerned about the good that can be achieved for the group, organization ad the society for which they are responsible and idealize the followers for it, but privately be concerned about the good that can achieve for themselves. Authentic transformational leaders persuade others on the merits of the issues whereas the pseudo-leader set and control the agenda to manipulate the values of importance to followers often at the expense of others or even harm to them. Relationship between Organizational Culture and leadership behavior Bass (1993) found a way of mapping the different scores for the Organizational Description Questionnaire (ODQ) which had 28 item survey questionnaires of which 14 items dealt with transactional elements in cultures assumptions, processes and expectations; the other 14 dealt with transformational elements of culture such as trust, initiation and innovation. Organizations were then classified with the result of the mean scores from the ODQ.

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Transactional

+6 to +14

+6 to +14

Predominantly 4 I’s

Moderated 4I’s

High-Contrast

5 to +5

-5 to 5

Loosely Guided

Coasting

Moderated Contrast

-14 to -6

Transformational

-14 to -6

Garbage Can

Pedestrian

Predominantly Contractual

Table2: Frequency of types of cultures according to the ODQ Scores (Bass, 1993)

Predominantly 4I’s means that organization is purely transformational. High-Contrast organization tends to moderate some of the transformational culture and not expected to be low structure and informal leadership efforts. Coasting organization are balanced efforts of self-control and little changes are expected in the organization. Predominantly contractual organization is likely to be stable, centralized, tight, top-down, focus on selfinterest of the each person is more than the interest of the group and much attention on controls, direction and Standard operating procedure Pedestrian organization is moderately transactional and little gets done that is not a part of formal agreements. Garbage organization culture lacks purpose, vision, values, consensus and very less cooperation. (Bass, 1993)

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Case Studies Case 1: Barack Obama versus Hillary Clinton The media has also been evaluation people of the leadership styles. Once of the recent comparison from the US presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton by O’Toole (2008). “His approach of visionary leadership is appealing but risky. Her health-care reform managerialism already has been proven ineffective”. Clinton is known to have carried out a bookish exercise in her earlier roles whereas Obama is providing vision, judgment and inspiration to the public. According to O’Toole “Hence, betting on a candidate's ability to provide transformational leadership entails an element of risk. Yet, judging from what we've seen in both the national and corporate arenas, there's a relatively high degree of certainty that managerialist leadership is unlikely to achieve the deep changes for which the nation's voters are calling.”

Case 2: Carly Fiorina Carly Fiorina, the CEO of Hewlett-Packard during the period 1999-2005 was considered as a charismatic leader but media, employees and Wall Street did not like her (Business Pundit, 2008). She could not survive the long term due to few of the transformational skills that lacked such as trust, empowering people and broke the organizational culture. According to Jung (2003); Waldman(2004) cited in Ling et al (2008) the CEO’s who are transformational leaders are believed to constantly anticipate and adapt to the environmental change. Howell and Higgins (1990) states, citied in Ling et al, Transformational CEO’s are believed to enhance the pro levity by being enthusiastic about innovation. Avolio (2004) by showing how volatility in the firms’ competitive environment can be turned into a vision of opportunity. Fiorina’s failure can be

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Leadership Styles 10 mainly attributed to her disjoint between words and deeds which contribute to a non-authentic leadership behaviour. Case 3: Franklin D. Roosevelt Bass et al (1987) found that Franklin D. Roosevelt illustrated a balance with respect to transformational

and

transactional

leadership;

Roosevelt

played

the

consummate

transformational leader with his inspiring address, encouragement of intellectual solutions and fireside chats. He also played the consummate transactional politician in the give-and-take if the balance of powers among executive, legislative and judiciary functions.

Case 4: Colin Powell General Colin Powell, Chairman (Ret), Joint Chiefs of Staff who was considered a successful leader in the US Defense says “Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.” His 18 principles of leadership are stated as follows: 1. 2.

3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership. Don’t be buffaloed by experts and elites. Experts often possess more data than judgment. Elites can become so inbred that they produce hemophiliacs who bleed to death as soon as they are nicked by the real world. Don’t be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard. Never neglect details. When everyone’s mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant. You don’t know what you can get away with until you try. Keep looking below surface appearances. Don’t shrink from doing so (just) because you might not like what you find. Organization doesn’t really accomplish anything. Plans don’t accomplish anything, either. Theories of management don’t much matter. Endeavors succeed or fall because of the people involved. Only by attracting the best people will you accomplish great deeds.

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Leadership Styles 11 9. 10. 11.

12. 13.

14.

15.

16. 17.

18.

Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing. Never let your ego gets so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it. Fit no stereotypes. Don’t chase the latest management fads. The situation dictates which approach best accomplishes the team’s mission. Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. Powell’s Rules for Picking People: Look for intelligence and judgment, and most critically, a capacity to anticipate, to see around corners. Also look for loyalty, integrity, a high energy drive, a balanced ego, and the drive to get things done. Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand. Part I: Use the formula P=40 to 70, in which P stands for the probability of success and the numbers indicate the percentage of information acquired. Part II: “Once the information is in the 40 to 70 range, go with your gut. The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise. Have fun in your command. Don’t always run at a breakneck pace. Take leave when you’ve earned it: Spend time with your families. Corollary: surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard. Command is lonely.

Discussion The relationship between organizational culture and behavior has a close link to the leadership style. Many times, such a culture is created by the founders of the organization and is often difficult to change unless a charismatic transformational leader is in charge. A true leader should be well balanced with all the natural virtues- prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance along with innovative capacity and authenticity. Even though a good transformational leader need not a transactional leader, but the present day organizations would

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Leadership Styles 12 require a well balanced transformational and transactional leaders like Roosevelt. This observation is mainly due to the fact that the mixed leader will be considered as a true leader by everyone (such as Ratan Tata and Narayana Murthy- who never compromised on ethics); otherwise technical staff or an administrator would not find his genes in the projected leader and thereby increasing the probability to find few followers. A true transformational leader naturally will also encompass the transactional, charismatic and authentic behaviors. A transactional leader or a charismatic leader will not be able to succeed just with transactional or charismatic behaviors to achieve the transformational process to win the competitive advantage and lead any organization in the long run. As a true transformational leader to win the competitive markets, one must go on the learning ramp and continuing growing, being energetic and set goals that are attainable, interacting with people and empowering them which are based on ethics and morals. A transformational leader will be able to communicate a consistent sense of the organizational visions and strategic goals, generate motive arousal by engaging a follower with the sense of self-esteem, professional efficacy and non conscious motives for the follower such as achievement, recognition, power, growth etc without violating individual rights and trust. This motive arousal would result in increased commitment which in turn results in self-engagement and goal achievements along with organizational alignment and thereby setting examples or ‘walk the talk’ to be emulated by their followers.

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Leadership Styles 13 References Robbins, Stephen P & Judge, Timothy A (2007): Organizational Behavior. Twelfth Edition, Prentice-Hall India Bromley, Howard R & Kirschner-Bromley, Victoria A (2007): Are you a transformational Leader. The Physician Executive: November .December 2007 Tucker, B. A. & Russell, R.F (2004): The Influence of the Transformational Leader. The Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 10, No. 4 Dowton, James V (1973): Rebel Leadership: Commitment and Charisma in the Revolutionary Process, Macmillan O'Toole, James (2008, February 11): Obama vs. Clinton: Leadership Styles. Business Week Online, 16 BusinessPundit(2008): 10 Reasons People Hate Carly Fiorina. Retrived Jun 24, 2008 from http://www.businesspundit.com/10-reasons-people-hate-carly-fiorina/ Ling,Y., Simsek, Z., Lubatkin, M., & Veiga, John (2008): Transformational Leadership’s Role in Promoting Corporate Entrepreneurship: Examining the CEO-TMT Interface. Academy of Management Journal Vol.51, No 3, 557-576 Bass, Bernard (1985): Leadership: Good, Better, Best. Organizational Dynamics, Winter85, Vol. 13 Issue 3, 26-40 Bass, M Bernad, Avoilo, B J & Goodheim, L(1987): Biography and the assessment of Transformational Leadership at World-Class Level. Journal of Management Vol.13, No 1, 7-19 Seltzer, J & Bass, Bernard M (1990): Transformational Leadership: Beyond Initiation and Consideration. Journal of Management Vol.16, No4, 693-703 Bass, Bernard M.; Avolio, Bruce J..(1993): Transformational Leadership and Organizational Culture. Public Administration Quarterly, Vol 17, Issue 1, 112-121 Bass, Bernard (1997): Personal Selling and transactional/transformational leadership. Journel of Personal Selling and Sales Management, summer 97, Vol.17, Issue 3, 19-28 Bass, Bernard (1999): Two Decades of Research and Development in Transformational Leadership. European Journal of Work & Organizational Psychology; Mar1999, Vol. 8 Issue 1, 9-32

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Leadership Styles 14 Bass, Bernard M & Steidlmeier, Paul (1999): Ethics, Character, and authentic transformational leadership behavior. Leadership Quarterly; Vol 10, Issue 2, 181 Colbert, A E , Kristof-Brown, A L , Bradley, BH & Barrick M R (2008): CEO Transformational Leadership: The Role of Goal Importance Congruence in Top Management Teams. Academy of Management Journal, Vol 51, No 1, 81-96 Washington, RR (2007): Empirical Relationships between Theories of Servant, Transformational, And Transactional Leadership. Academy of Management Proceedings, 2007, 1-6 Oren Harari: Leadership principles retrieved July 10, 2008 from http://www.btm.com.au/Web-SiteResources/Collin%20Powell%20on%20Leadership.ppt/

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