Leadership

PSYCH 485 blog

Overcome Cultural Barriers

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Whenever there is more than one culture or group coexisting in one place, diversity is present. Ethnocentrism and prejudice would occur if each group does not openly accept the other’s culture. The Trump Era has increased the popularity of feminist movements and the frequencies of minority, religious, and LGBTQ protests. These activities strengthen in-group identities, while creating ethnocentric tendencies toward the out-group members. Consequently, prejudiced attitudes persist, or continue to grow, and this adverse effect may even increase group conflicts among employees. If these issues are not handled or prevented, they can inhibit employee relations, goal accomplishment, and organizational performance. As the societal and cultural climate becomes more divided, organizations should prepare their leaders and employees with the abilities to deal with these changes, such as by implementing an adaptive leadership approach. First, this blog will define culture, diversity, and in- and out-group membership. The formation and development of ethnocentrism and prejudice tendencies will also be discussed from the perspective of social psychology to help leaders understand the root of diversity issues. Finally, to prevent potential diversity issues, suggestions will be made on how to utilize the adaptive methods.

Culture refers to the shared qualities, such as beliefs, values, norms and rules, that are common to a group of people (Northouse, 2016). These qualities are learned through interacting with, and emulating other, group members. Often, many cultures or subcultures (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity, age, religion, or sexual orientation) may exist in one place. Diversity is when different cultures or ethnicities coexist in a group or organization (Northouse, 2016). For example, American manufacturing businesses are likely to employ a decent number of migrant and local workers. One group represents non-American culture, while the other group embodies the American culture. Each group member identifies with others who share the same qualities, or in-group members. On the other hand, they view people from the other group who do not possess the common values and norms as the out-group members.

Trump’s election victory and hostility toward trade and immigration have exposed and intensified the racial tension among the two groups of workers (Porter, 2016). The unfriendliness toward immigrants and migrant workers promotes ethnocentric tendencies among people who do not support immigration. It means that the latter group members may give priority and value to those who share their own beliefs above the other group (Northouse, 2016). People would increasingly attach to their own group and be more willing to work on its behalf, which creates a sense of “us” vs. “them” (Aronson, Wilson, Akert, & Sommers, 2013). As a result, both groups would fail to view things from the other group’s perspective, feel suspicious of out-group members, and increase in-group bias or favoritism (i.e., give preferential treatment toward in-group members) (Aronson et al., 2013; Northouse, 2016). In the meantime, the fixed attitude toward out-group members would foster prejudicial tendencies, and form a belief of “they” are all the same. Social psychologists call this presumptuous generalization of the out-group members that are resistant to change out-group homogeneity (Aronson et al., 2013). The consequences of these social behaviors are blaming the victim, and justification. The lack of empathy for others resulted from in-group bias and out-group homogeneity would increase the tendency of blaming the out-group individuals for one’s difficulty (Aronson et al., 2013).

For example, an unemployed person may blame migrant workers for taking his or her job, or a person from minority group may blame white men for not hiring his or her for a job. These situations are circumstantial. The biased accusations are motivated by individuals’ desire to see the world as a fair place (Aronson et al., 2013). In addition, this desire would suppress people’s prejudiced impulses by looking for justifications, and legitimized their biased views. For example, Planned Parenthood supporters and protesters would argue that their view is legitimate and the other group’s view is wrong because the in-group moral standards support their view, and disagree with the out-group’s perspective. As a result, the justifications only strengthen the ethnocentrism within one group and delegitimize the other group. Overall, ethnocentrism, in-group favoritism, prejudice and out-group homogeneity would only prevent employees to accept out-group members’ viewpoint, empathize with each other, appreciate out-group member’s work, and collaboration among different groups. Social psychologists argue that when some people are presented with disconfirming examples (e.g., their prejudice claims are wrong), the evidence would only strengthen the stereotypical beliefs and hold on to the prejudice (Aronson et al., 2013). In other words, when diversity conflicts begin to develop in an organization, the leaders shouldn’t tell one group or the other that they are wrong. A more effective way to reduce or prevent this type of conflicts is to increase collaborations among in- and out-group members, or promote group members’ adaptabilities.

The adaptive leadership theory can be utilized in encouraging the employees to deal with new challenges and situations, such as learning how to work collectively in a more diverse environment. According to scholars (Northouse, 2016), adaptive leaders can apply a series of actions in motivating their followers to explore, accept and change their values and perceptions. The model of adaptive leadership introduces a three-step-process that would help the followers thrive in a new environment: situational challenges, leader behaviors, and adaptive work.

First, leaders should identify the type of challenges they are facing: technical challenges, adaptive challenges, or both. A technical challenge is a problem that can be fixed using organizational existing rules, whereas an adaptive challenge emphasizes defining the situation and implementing solutions with leaders’ support and encouragement (Northouse, 2016). Confronting prejudice and ethnocentric tendencies would be an example of adaptive challenge.

After identifying the type of challenges, the leaders should select appropriate behaviors, such as “getting on the balcony”, regulating distress, maintaining displaced attention, giving the work back to the people, and protecting leadership voice from below. First, “getting on the balcony” means leaders should act as an observer to see the big picture, and gain a clearer view of the reality (Northouse, 2016). For the cultural conflict scenario, an adaptive leader should detect what would trigger conflict among different groups of employees, and seek shared values. The leader may form an advisory group with members from each culture to spot the source of conflicts from various perspectives. Once the issues are identified, the leader should create a holding environment. It can be a physical or virtual space encourages constructive communication, promotes empathy. In addition, such environment allows a leader to regulate people’s stress and mediate conflict, where all members within the organization can safely and freely discuss sensitive problems cohesively (Northouse, 2016). When members do not want to accept others’ perspectives and legitimacy, or admit their prejudiced impulses, the leader should maintain disciplined attention or focus on the change. For example, leaders may encourage the in- and out-group members to interact on a one-to-one basis, such as discovering shared interests and developing interdependence (Aronson et al., 2013). Furthermore, leaders should give the work back to the people by providing directions and structures in workplace (Northouse, 2016). For example, the leaders should clarify how to work with members from other groups, and emphasize the common goal and equal status for each culture. In a way, the process of adapting changes is also helping the organization creating an egalitarianism value. Finally, the adaptive leaders should continue listening to the ideas and open feedback from each group members. This behavior is called protecting leadership voices from below (Northouse, 2016). The nonconforming voices would ensure all groups are being heard, and everyone is getting used to adapting others’ values and recognizing opposing group’s perspective. This practice can ensure the changes are making effective progress.

The final stage of this framework is adaptive work, where leaders and followers confront possible changes. In other words, adaptive leaders should create a safe environment for the followers to provide open feedback and report the effectiveness of the change process. Finally, leaders may use the model of adaptive leadership to guide the in- and out-group members to learn how to work with each other and prevent future conflicts.

The analysis of culture issues demonstrates that group conflicts are rooted in biased beliefs, such as in-group favoritism, out-group homogeneity, ethnocentrism, and prejudice. Due to these impulses, people may blame on each other, and then, justify their behavior with their own beliefs. The inflexibility prevents in-group and out-group members from accept the other group’s views, and working collaboratively, which would create long-term damage or issues for organizations. As a result, organizations should use the model of adaptive leadership to identify challenges, apply appropriate leadership behaviors, and implement adaptive work. This approach can help leaders to understand the differences, identify conflict triggers, create a space for constructive interaction, create shared interests, encourage collaborations, ensure equal status, and collect honest feedback. Not only do these changes allow members to begin adapting to others’ values and recognizing the opposing group’s perspective, but they also create egalitarian values for the organization. Therefore, the adaptive leadership approach would prepare organizations and employees to deal with cultural conflicts and changing environment.

 

References

Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., Akert, R. M., & Sommers, S. R. (2013). Social psychology. Pearson Education, Inc.

Nothouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Porter, E. (2016, November 8). After the Election, a nation tinged with racial hostility. The New York Times. Retrieved April 17, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/business/after-the-election-a-nation-tinged-with-racial-hostility.html

 

 

 

 

From Transformational to Authentic Transformational leadership

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Ideally, a transformational leader is an altruistic and charismatic individual who can inspire and transform followers by emphasizing the individuals’ intrinsic motivation and personal development, while accomplishing an organizational goal. Throughout the empowerment process, a leader would engage with followers and create a connection that raises the level of morality in both the leader and the follower (Northouse, 2016). This type of leader should possess charismatic characteristics and behaviors. In addition to these attributes, the leader would apply the four transformational leadership factors: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. However, some leaders may have these transformational qualities, but lack a long-term commitment to altruistic values. Terry L. Price (2003) argues that transformational leaders are inauthentic or pseudo-transformational, when they “behave in ways that are out of line with these values” (p.71). Not only would inauthentic leaders act incongruently with the organizational values, but they also would weaken the group’s ethics and morality, which in turn, would lower followers’ commitment in the organizational goal, diminish their trust, and decrease their job satisfaction. As a result, the inauthentic leaders should adopt Bill George’s Authentic Leadership Approach (Northouse, 2016) to develop the essential qualities of authentic leaders that have long lasting effects on the followers and increase leadership effectiveness. This blog will provide an example of an inauthentic leader who possesses transformational leadership qualities, and describe how his incongruent behaviors negatively affected the group’s performance and morality. Finally, the practical authentic leadership approach will be introduced to correct the leader’s mistake.

Executive Chef Matthew (pseudonym) is a talented chief executive chef who is hired to oversee a five-year expansion plan of multiple kitchen facilities in a large country club. In addition to this task, he also has to manage about fifty culinary professionals to improving the quality of food and services at the club, and optimize the operation. Moreover, he displays charismatic characteristics (i.e., having a strong desire to influence others, being dominant, being self-confident, and having a strong sense of moral values), and charismatic leader behaviors (i.e., articulating goals, arousing motives, communicating high expectations and expressing confidence) (Northouse, 2016).

During his first staff meeting, Matthew shared the organization’s grand vision to expand the facilities, and that he was appointed to guide the kitchen employees through this process. In addition, as the new executive chef, his new goal was transforming the kitchen’s outdated operational and management systems (i.e., 25 years old facility) to more efficient and modernized systems, which would make the cooks’ lives easier. Most importantly, he expressed that he resented chefs who would scream at their employees because everything could be resolved constructively. As a result, he encouraged all chefs to reason with their employees. His speech demonstrated that the leader had a strong desire to transform the group with a higher level of moral value. In addition, the leader believed that he possessed the abilities to guide the employees through these changes, which showed the dominant and confident characteristics. After painting a visionary picture, Matthew began articulating each goal, such as laying out the stages of expansion plans, system modernization, and setting higher expectations for performance standards. In the end, he expressed his confidence in accomplishing the goals with the employees’ assistance. The clarified goals and expectations and the leader’s confidence in the followers had aroused and motivated each employee to work toward the organizational goals. Overall, Matthew’s characteristics and behaviors were congruent with charismatic or transformational leadership.

Next, Matthew started to apply idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration during the transformation process. First, idealized influence is when a leader behaves as a role model for the employees. For example, Matthew spent most of his time cooking next to the employees, which allowed him to standardize food and service quality, help people who couldn’t meet their deadlines, and compliment good behaviors with positive feedback. The cooks would observe and copy the leader’s actions because they respected the leader’s involvement, identified with his behaviors, and believed that a leader with high ethical standards can be counted on. In addition, when Matthew helped employees who couldn’t meet their deadlines, it demonstrated that the team should work collectively and beyond individuals’ self-interests. In a way, the leader was expressing higher expectations, and motivating the employees’ commitment to the group vision by using an emotional appeal. This resembled the second factor of transformational leadership, inspirational motivation. As a result, the leader successfully provided the followers with a sense of mission (i.e., idealized influence), and enhanced the team spirit (i.e., inspirational motivation).

In the following weeks, Matthew communicated with each employee about their needs and goals individually, and designed personal challenges and career goals for each follower. This behavior exhibited individualized consideration, which is when the leader listens to an individual’s needs and helps followers to become fully actualized (Northouse, 2016). For the entire culinary team, he promised to build a certified apprenticeship program that would educate, train and mentor employees who desired to become a better chef. This goal was to create intellectual stimulation, or supporting followers by using innovative approaches. Consequently, every employee was enthusiastic to be a part of this team, motivated to work towards their own goals, and focused on improving efficiency and food quality collectively. The organization was thrilled with the transformational changes. Unfortunately, the genuine characteristics started slipping away as soon as Matthew had earned everyone’s trust.

Matthew started to spend more time with the club’s upper management and wealthy club members, missed weekly meetings, and ignored urgent issues. In addition, he gave the sales department full authority to add and cancel banquet events at the very last minute without providing notice to the kitchen staff. The increasing number of banquets events forced every kitchen and wait staff to work overtime for months. The banquet department was running at its maximum capacity, which interfered with other restaurants’ operations. Furthermore, the apprenticeship and mentorship programs were never materialized. When supervisors or employees complained to the Matthew, he argued that everything was better than before, and refused to see the root of the problems. Many employees felt betrayed, and turnover rate began to increase. As a result, the employees’ performance, and food and service qualities started to decline. The adversity went unnoticed by the general managers because Matthew was well-liked among the club’s upper management, and could persuade them these changes were a part of the process.

Transformational leadership is a reciprocal process that would elevate a leader’s value and morality to a higher level as he or she inspires the followers to achieve self-actualization, group goals, and higher moral standards. Clearly, Matthew only enforced the new standards and expectations on the followers, while he neglected to apply the same rules to himself. Without conforming to the group rules, the leader was behaving immorally. The incongruent behaviors were motivated by his self-interests (i.e., building relationship with his superiors), which ultimately altered his principles, and warped his leadership to an inauthentic style. Thus, the ethical failure was volitional (Carey, 1992; Hampton, 1989; Cited in Price, 2003). In other words, the leader’s failure happened because he was only outwardly concerned with the group goals and values, but inwardly focused on his own self-interests, and behaved against the group to satisfy self-consumed moral values. According to Price (2003), a leader who has some commitment to altruistic values (group values), but acts against them to satisfy personal goals, is called an incontinent pseudo-transformational leader. This type of leader is inconsistent and unreliable. In addition, leaders are the key to organizational morality. When they act inconsistently and incongruently, the followers would lose faith in the leaders and questions the fairness of the reward system, which in turn, would reduce employee motivation and the effectiveness of leaders’ influences. As a result, the leaders should sacrifice self-interests and incongruent behaviors, and apply ethical standards to themselves and the followers (Price, 2003).

Another approach can be adopted by incontinent pseudo-transformational leaders to prevent adversity, which is called authentic leadership. Authentic leaders exhibit genuine leadership, can self-regulate, reinforce reciprocal process that influence and inspire the leaders and followers, and possess skills and abilities that can be developed over a lifetime. Most importantly, authentic leadership is rooted in the leaders’ positive psychological qualities and strong ethics (Walumbwa et al., 2008; Cited in Northouse, 2016). The practical authentic leadership approach developed by Bill George (Northouse, 2016) focuses on the development of essential qualities of becoming authentic leaders, which include five characteristics: understanding their purpose, having strong values, establishing trusting relationships with others, demonstrating self-discipline and act on their values, and being passionate about the mission.

In Matthew’s situation, the leader was capable of establishing trusting relationships with others. Therefore, he should focus on developing the following characteristics. First, the leader should restate his purpose in the group and organization. As an executive chef, he should spend more time in the kitchens, instead of networking with the executives. Second, Matthew should have a stronger sense of group values by forcing himself to act on the collective principles and obey the same rules as everyone else. Finally, the leader should keep his passion towards the ultimate goals. If incontinent pseudo-transformational leaders could develop these qualities and act on them throughout the transformational process, or a lifetime, they would eventually become authentic leaders.

The analysis of Matthew’s leadership situation reveals that even though some leaders may possess charismatic leader characteristics and behaviors, and can successfully motivate the followers with the four transformational leadership factors, their influences and leadership effectiveness can be poor. Without commitment or adhering to the group values, a transformational leader can become an inauthentic person. The inconsistency and unethical behaviors would lower the followers’ productivity, and lose faith in the leader and the reward system. Therefore, the pseudo-transformational leaders should develop essential qualities that would strengthen their authenticity and adopt authentic transformational leadership.

References:

Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

Price, T. L. (2003). The ethics of authentic transformational leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 14(1), 67-81. doi:10.1016/S1048-9843(02)00187-X

 

 

 

 

 

Contingency Theory vs. Path-Goal Theory

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“Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal” (Northouse, 2016, p.6). Sometimes, leading a group of individuals may require different behaviors and styles depending on the situations, tasks, structures, followers’ competence, and followers’ needs. Situational theories believe that leadership effectiveness is reliant on a leader’s ability to influence followers in various work environments. However, not all situational leadership methods assume that leaders’ behaviors can change, and that all leaders can be effective in all situations. Contingency Theory argues that leaders have dominant behavioral tendencies, and certain situations where they can be more effective than others (Fiedler, 1976; Cited in PSUWC, 2017), but this theory has received criticism over the years. The major complaints are that it lacks flexibility, and it fails to explain what organizations should do if there was a mismatch between the leader and the situation (Northouse, 2007). This author recommends organizations should train the managers who are unable to adapt to other leadership behaviors/styles with a more flexible situational theory, namely, the path-goal theory. This post aims to define contingency theory, explain its shortcomings with an example, describe path-goal theory, and why path-goal theory is more flexible than contingency theory.

Contingency theory suggests that leaders are most effective when their dominant behaviors/styles are matched with the right situations. This theory’s framework begins with a leadership style evaluation using Fiedler’s Least Preferred Coworker (LPC) scale (Fiedler, 1976). The high LPC spectrum describes relationship motivated leadership style, and the low LPC spectrum represents task motivated style (Northouse, 2007). After the leader analysis, the next stage is unfolding the situation based on three factors: leader-member relations, task structure, and position power. First, the good leader-member relationship includes high degree of confidence, trust and loyalty, whereas the opposite relationship can contain frictions and unfriendly interactions (Northouse, 2007). Next assessment is task structure, which varies depending on the degree of task requirements and demonstration clarity, and the number of alternatives and solutions. For example, a manufacturing job to pack finished goods into a box has high task structure, because the manager can provide instruction and demonstration with few alternative options and solutions. On the other hand, a manager who leads many consultants on multiple complex projects may have less control on each member’s tasks. This situation has low task structure. The third factor is characterizing a leader’s legitimate power to exercise rewards or punishment. The stronger the position power a leader has, the more authority he or she has to make important decisions such as firing or promoting an employee. The final step of the contingency theory is identifying a leader’s effectiveness by matching his or her LPC score with the three situation variables. The theory suggests leaders who are task motivated can be effective in the two extreme situations in the three dimensions, whereas the relationship motivated leaders are more effective in moderately favorable situations: some relation, task, and power certainties.

As we can see, the contingency theory confines an individual’s leadership style to very specific situations, which is very inflexible. According to Fiedler (1995; Cited in PSUWC, 2017), if we mismatched the leader with a wrong situation, their leadership would be ineffective due to stress, anxiety, and immature reactions. Unfortunately, situations may change in an organization from time to time, and it is unlikely an organization can afford to hire a new leader every time the situation changes. For example, a small factory, SC (pseudonym), in rural America has three reliable task motivated shift managers. The lead-member relations are positive, tasks are highly structured, and each manager has strong authority. Everything has been running smoothly for years. Since the new President has been elected, there have been some frictions between the white and minority workers due to the new administration’s immigration policies. The worker conflict hinders cooperation and productivity. As the leader-member relations deteriorate, while the other two situational factors remain the same, the situation becomes moderately favorable. It now requires relationship motivated leaders to smooth the members’ anxiety, but it is impossible to hire and train three new managers. The contingency theory fails to provide solutions for how to improve or modify leaders’ behaviors in evolving conditions. A better solution for this organization is to teach their managers the path-goal theory and develop other leadership styles.

The path-goal theory is designed to assist leaders in creating a path for each follower to achieve specific goals in workplace. The leaders’ role is helping their followers to avoid obstacles in meeting their goal by providing emotional support and complements, or supplementing what is missing in the work environment (PSUWC, 2017). When the subordinates achieve their goals, each follower would receive a reward they value, which would increase the employee’s satisfaction. This theory suggests that effective leaders should “[select] specific behaviors that are best suited to followers’ needs and to the situation in which followers are working” (Northouse, 2016, p.116).

There are three major components that can increase a leader’s effectiveness: follower characteristics, task characteristics, and leader behaviors. The first component consists of two groups of follower variables. According to Northouse (2016), the first set of characteristics (e.g., needs for affiliation, preferences for structure, and desires for control) determines whether the leader’s behaviors would result in the satisfaction of the followers. The other group of variables measure the followers’ self-perception of their capabilities to accomplish the goals. These sets of characteristics affect the leader because his or her leadership behavior can influence the followers’ motivation.

The next step of path-goal theory is task characteristic evaluation, which includes the design of the task, the authority system of the organization, and the primary work group of the subordinates (PSUWC, 2017). The path-goal theory suggests that a leader may choose one or more appropriate leadership behavior/s depending on followers’ satisfaction levels and needs, and whether the task variables are clear and repetitive or ambiguous, unclear, and challenging.

Lastly, the leader behaviors have four types: directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented leaderships. The directive leaders provide task instructions, create timelines, sets performance standards, and form clear rules (PSUWC, 2017). They are more effective at managing authoritative subordinates, and ambiguous and complex responsibilities. On the other hand, the supportive leaders are personable, and care about the followers’ needs for affiliation. A repetitive and unchallenging work environment is best suited for supportive leaders. The third type of leaders are participative and encouraging. They invite subordinates to join the decision-making process. The followers who enjoy self-reliance and work in an unstructured environment are the better match for participative leaders. Finally, some followers are highly self-motivated and exhibit high confidence in accomplishing goals, who can take on complex and challenging tasks. These subordinates should be paired with achievement-oriented leaders who can constantly challenge the followers to achieve the highest standards of excellence.

The contingency theory suggests that leaders are only effective when they are matched with the right employees and situation. Hiring leaders with a specific leadership style for certain appropriate jobs can only be sustainable if the situation never changed. As we established earlier, however, people and situations can change swiftly and often. When the situation changes or deteriorates, these leaders’ abilities and skills would immediately become ineffective, which can hinder employees’ productivity and satisfaction. On the other hand, the path-goal theory emphasizes that leaders can adapt one or more types of leadership at any point in time depending on the subordinates and the situations’ requirements (PSUWC, 2017). This versatile approach to leadership can increase leaders’ effectiveness in most situations. Therefore, this author recommends that organizations like SC factory to teach their managers the path-goal theory.

 

 

 

References:

Fiedler, F. E. (1976). The leadership game: Matching the man to the situation. Organizational Dynamics, 4(3), 6-16. doi:10.1016/0090-2616(76)90032-2

Northouse, P. G. (2007). Leadership: Theory and practice (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.

Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2017). Lesson 6: contingency and path theories. Retrieved from PSYCH485: Leadership in work settings: https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/canvas/sp17/21711–17327/content/06_lesson/printlesson.html

 

 

 

 

Reactive and Constructive Narcissists

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The psychodynamic approach includes a clinical paradigm framework that is used to examine how leaders and followers’ deep wishes and perspectives influence their behaviors in an organization, and learn how their emotions affect individuals’ decision-making process. These discoveries are meant to illuminate how the organizations really function. This approach encourages leaders to start by examining their own sub- and unconscious motives. Researchers have proposed that leaders often possess both constructive and reactive narcissistic characteristics. In order to understand the rationale behind each type of narcissistic leader, we must reveal the subconscious forces and developmental experiences that drive their leadership behaviors. I am going to analyze the potential causes of reactive narcissists and what restrains constructive narcissist leaders from crossing the line.

First, there is a type of leader that is fixated on power, status, prestige, and superiority due to under- or overstimulation. They are reactive narcissistic leaders, who are driven toward achievement, and attainment, but tend to neglect challenges, criticism, and followers’ needs. Sometimes, they can be defensive and apathetic. “The result is that reactive narcissists operate in their own reality, and without any measures of control or reality testing, this can wreak havoc in the organization” (Northouse, 2016. p.305). Freud’s psychodynamic theory would argue that these individuals’ childhood experiences may form the reactive narcissistic characteristics. However, sometimes these self-absorbed leaders are created by the organizational environment, and structure, such as commercial kitchens.

I had worked in the culinary and food manufacturing industries for over six years. From my observations in several different facilities, there are two conditions which may cultivate leaders’ excessive narcissistic characteristics. The first condition is that an organization operates under a “Yes culture,” or authoritative culture, which discourages subordinates from challenging their superiors. For example, the rule of thumb in professional kitchens is that when a chef says a command, a subordinate’s response should be “Yes, chef!”, repeat the chef’s order, and follow the exact instructions right away. Since chefs usually hold the ultimate decision power of hiring and firing of cooks, the employees may lose their jobs over questioning their superiors or their methods. The fear of losing one’s job prevents subordinates from questioning the chefs, and strengthens chefs’ authoritative power. After working with submissive employees for years, a chef’s sense of superiority becomes a part of the leader’s reality. Thus, the self-absorbed chefs stop questioning themselves and their behaviors, and become less concerned of employees’ well-being. When subordinates complain about the stressful work environment, a self-absorbed chef would blame the nature of the job, instead of helping employees to regulate their emotions or discovering their needs.

In addition, when narcissism takes over a leader’s decision making process, they tend to make mistakes. For example, an acquaintance of mine, used to manage an upscale fine dining establishment, is a reactive chef, and opened his own restaurant. His new business was a casual dining establishment in a small city, where consumers preferred simple and traditional flavors. The chef insisted on following his old management style and constantly developed new dishes without worrying about the food and operation costs. In addition, he assumed the restaurant’s prime location could attract enough business without marketing. When his friends and employees gave him advice on how to increase productivity and revenue, he became defensive and fired the employees who questioned his leadership. Ignorance and narcissism consumed this chef’s decision-making process. Seven months later, he ran out of cash due to high overhead and lack of marketing. If this chef had self-awareness and repressed narcissism behaviors for the benefit of his business, the company would be better off.

On the other hand, Peter (pseudonym) was a leader who had constrained his negative behaviors and became a constructive narcissist leader. As a young man, Peter was an introvert and often suppressed his emotions. When he first bought two small cheese plants in rural Wisconsin 25 years ago, he was the only person in the company who had Bachelor and MBA degrees. He was capable to lead the business, but his lack of communication skills made his leadership style seem authoritative.

Over the years, Peter tried to overcome his shortcomings as a leader. On one hand, he practiced to become more of an extrovert, and made conscious effort to interact with each employee. On the other hand, he encouraged his employees to provide feedback about his leadership abilities and behaviors. Eventually, he gained self-awareness of his own behaviors and how they affected others. More importantly, his communication skills, relationships with the followers, and overall performance improved dramatically. These changes had transformed Peter into an assertive and confident leader.

Five years ago, Peter’s company combined the manual factories and their entire workforce into one large automated facility. Many employees had trouble adjusting to the new operation, while conflicts and communication issues kept rising. Peter decided to lead a weekly staff meeting and group coaching session to resolve the communication problems between departments. In these meetings, he often used himself as an example to explain how he had overcome his communication problems and difficulties to accept feedback. Each manager, and sometimes employees, were encouraged to describe their fears and frustrations in detail. As a group, they created alternative solutions. After two years of group activities, the followers in Peter’s company were inspired to communicate constructively, regulate their emotions, cooperate with others, and focus on common goals. Once the company started consistently making a profit, Peter changed his focus to coaching managers to become better leaders by becoming more self-aware of their own behaviors and they affect others.

Therefore, a constructive narcissistic leader can create a supportive environment that gives subordinates a safe place to discuss adversity, and control their own actions and unconscious emotions. Peter’s patience and persistence prove that long inter- and intra-personal processes will eventually pay off. In addition, the group activities allow the leader and followers to interact and practice regulating their emotions, approaching problems with an open-mind, and creating solutions that may be mutually beneficial to the company. Moreover, the followers’ performance, satisfaction, and behaviors will have improved. If the reactive narcissist chef could be self-aware of his negative characteristics and the behaviors that strain leader-follower relationships, then he can be a constructive leader as well.

Reference:

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Chapter 11: Adaptive Leadership. Leadership: theory and practice (7th ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. pp. 295-323

 

 

 

6 Major Traits

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The trait approach is a school of leadership studies that analyze the personality traits and behavioral characteristics that leaders share or should avoid. The early theories, such as the Great Man Theory, were based on the belief that leadership traits were innate qualities (Northouse, 2013). Since then, many theorists have expanded their research to identify traits beyond heredity. One of the most interesting studies was conducted by Kirkpatrick and Locke (1991). They identified six characteristics that differentiate leaders and non-leaders (PSUWC, 2017). Any individual who possessed or acquired some, if not all, of the six traits could have the potential to be a good leader in formal and informal leadership roles. In addition to this theory’s leader quality component, a leader’s potential would have to count on followers’ behaviors and situations during the leadership process.

According to Kirkpatrick and Locke (1991; Northouse, 2013), the six traits that differentiate leaders from non-leaders are drive, the desire to lead, honesty/integrity, self-confidence, cognitive ability, and knowledge of the business. First, drive refers to exerting high levels of effort in aspects such as achievement motivation, ambition, energy, tenacity and initiative. Second, the desire to lead emphasizes the personalized and socialized power motives. On one hand, a leader should have the intrinsic need to lead followers. On the other, he or she should have the desire to motivate followers and gain cooperation from them to complete the common goal. Third, followers often question a leader’s ability to lead, particularly if his or her words were not truthful or always differed from their behaviors. Therefore, honesty and integrity are the foundation of building a trusting relationship between a leader and their followers (Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1991). In addition, a leader’s confidence in solving problems and decision-making processes affects followers’ commitments to the common goal. Moreover, an individual’s intelligence and the perception of his or her cognitive ability are two factors that are highly related to effective leadership. Finally, an individual who has extensive knowledge about the company, industry, and technical aspects of the business would have higher successful rate of being a leader. These traits can be seen among leaders in informal and appointed positions.

For example, Dick Hoyt was a courageous father who completed over a thousand marathon races with his son, Rick, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, and couldn’t speak or walk (Team Hoyt, 2015). The father was determined to provide a normal life for his son. First, he taught Rick sledding, swimming, and the alphabet and basic words. At age 13, Rick could use an interactive computer to type words and communicate with his parents. With his “new found” ability, Rick could attend public school and graduate from Boston University. In 1977, Rick expressed that he wanted to participate in a half marathon. Dick agreed to push his son in wheelchair and they finished the race (Team Hoyt, 2015). Since then, Dick and Rick have completed more than 1000 races including duathlons, triathlons, and The Boston Marathon. They even inspired other runners to join the race with disabled children and sponsors to support The Hoyt Foundation (i.e., a non-profit organization that helps other disabled young people to join family and community activities).

This story is very moving because Dick Hoyt is a dedicated father who has one simple goal in his life. He’s not a CEO or manager who is hired to lead a group of employees. His achievements, ambitions and energy are driven by providing a normal life for his son. Initially, his goal only involves one follower, Rick. Dick is intrinsically motivated to teach Rick abilities and skills, and his drive inspired Rick to keep trying new things. In addition, Dick was consistently making confident decisions as a leader. For example, when Rick wanted to participate in a marathon, Dick said yes without questioning himself or his son because he is driven to accomplish any challenges to make Rick happy. Moreover, Dick has the intelligence to modify or create gears for Rick to complete any race. In a triathlon, Dick would tow Rick in a boat with a bungee cord attached to his vest for the swimming stage (Team Hoyt, 2015). Over the years, Dick has always kept his word and continued to participate races with his son. His honesty and integrity formed a trusting relationship with Rick. In addition, he has accumulated knowledge in helping Rick and others to live a life beyond the wheelchair. Not only have his drive, desire to lead, honest/integrity, self-confidence, cognitive ability, and knowledge inspired others to join the races, but they also encouraged Dick and Rick to organize The Hoyt Foundation to help others in need.

Dick may or may not be a charismatic extravert, but even without knowing much about his personality, we can still analyze his leadership success based on Kirkpatrick and Locke’s (1991) six major traits. This implies that when we evaluate leadership traits, we can look beyond the “innate qualities” and focus on the effective leadership traits. In addition, Northouse (2013) and researchers (e.g., Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1991; Bligh, 2009) stress that the trait approach only emphasizes the leader component of the leadership process. In Team Hoyt’s story, Rick has played a key part to the leadership process. His positive responses to his father’s leadership and his ambition to live a life beyond the wheelchair also inspired other followers to join their team and foundation. Therefore, a leader’s traits are only a small part of leadership success.

 

References:

Bligh, M. C. (2009). Personality theories of leadership. Encyclopedia of group processes and intergroup relations. Sage Publications. pp 639-641

Kirkpatrick, S. A., & Locke, E. A. (1991). Leadership: Do traits matter? The Executive, 5(2), 48-60. doi:10.5465/AME.1991.4274679

Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2017). Lesson 2: trait approach. In PSYCH 485: leadership in work settings. Retrieved January 22, 2017, from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/canvas/sp17/21711–17327/content/02_lesson/printlesson.html

Team Hoyt. (2015). In About Team Hot. Retrieved January 22, 2017, from http://www.teamhoyt.com/About-Team-Hoyt.html

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