Leadership

PSYCH 485 blog

Going Above and Beyond: OCB & Transformational Leadership

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As a leader, you are always looking for ways to motivate your followers. Typically, the desire is to motivate your followers to accomplish their job roles and responsibilities effectively. However, what does it take to motivate your followers to go above and beyond? How can a leader foster an environment that supports their followers to engage in acts that are outside of their prescribed roles? Identifying and implementing the appropriate leadership style may be key to facilitating organizational citizenship behaviors within the organizational culture.

Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) are non-mandatory and voluntary acts based on individual initiative where they go above and beyond their prescribed roles (Kim & Park, 2019). Followers who assist their co-workers in problem solving or help with other member’s tasks when it is not formally required of them are prime examples of organizational citizenship behavior (Kim & Park, 2019). OCB has been proven to be positively associated with organizational effectiveness and job satisfaction (Kumari & Thapliyal, 2017). Additionally, these behaviors are not recognized under the organization’s formal reward or punishment system (Kumari & Thapliyal, 2017). This would suggest that employing a transactional leadership style would not be suitable for fostering OCBs among followers.

On the other hand, transformational leadership may be more suited to promoting organizational citizenship behaviors. Transformational leaders maintain a strong moral compass and are perceived as role models (idealized influence); they motivate their followers to commit themselves to the overall vision of the organization through emotional appeals (inspirational motivation); transformational leaders challenge their followers to be innovative when combating issues (intellectual stimulation); finally, they cultivate an environment of active listening and take each follower’s needs into consideration (individualized consideration) (Northouse, 2021). At its core, transformational leadership promotes trust among their followers (Kim & Park, 2019). Engaging in transformational leadership will result in an increase in interpersonal trust among employee’s which has been proven to also increase the number of OCBs (Kim & Park, 2019).

Leaders are seen as direct representatives of their organization. When followers have positive perceptions of their leaders and trust is developed then, by extension, they have a positive perception of their organization which can promote organizational citizenship behaviors because they reciprocate those positive feelings (Kim & Park, 2019). Transformational leadership works to motivate followers to accomplish tasks that are in the interest of the organization rather than simply for themselves (Northouse, 2021). This promotes organizational citizenship behaviors which can have a significant impact on the organization such as an increase in performance quality (Kumari & Thapliyal, 2017). Additionally, because of the extra roles’ followers take on due to OCB leaders are able to allocate more time to securing resources and focusing on strategic goals which ultimately causes the organization to run smoothly (Kumari & Thapliyal, 2017).

 

References

Kim, E. J., & Park, S. (2019). The role of transformational leadership in citizenship behavior: Organizational learning and interpersonal trust as mediators. International Journal of Manpower, 40(7), 1347-1360.

Kumari, P., & Thapliyal, S. (2017). Studying the impact of organizational citizenship behavior on organizational effectiveness. Human Resource Management, 4(1), 9-21.

Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership: Practice and Theory (9th ed.). SAGE Publications.

Servant Leadership: A Feminine Touch

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Servant leadership seems like the idyllic theory of leadership. Servant leaders exhibit empathy toward their followers, put other before their own self-interest, and work to empower their followers to feel autonomous and independent (Northouse, 2021). Servant leadership is synonymous with altruism and predicates that leaders who exhibit servant leadership behaviors must have a strong desire to help others (Northouse, 2021). Servant leadership is rooted in human results rather than organizational results (Reynolds, 2011).

Upon reading about the attributes of servant leadership, my mind quickly associated feminine qualities to some of the behaviors described in Northouse (2021). Women are often associate with being nurturing and caring which underpins the servant leadership behaviors of emotional healing and being sensitive to other’s plights while also being willing to aid them through it (Northouse, 2021). Of note, when women do not exhibit these commonly perceived feminine qualities and instead behave more assertively (i.e., masculine) as a leader, they are viewed more negatively by their followers (Northouse, 2021). This duality that’s inherent in servant leadership – with serving being paradoxical to the role of leading – could have the potential to create space for women to lead effectively (Scicluna Lehrke & Sowden, 2017). Servant leadership could potentially “close the gap between these social roles and create favorable perceptions among followers for women who lead” (Scicluna Lehrke & Sowden, 2017, p. 29).

Women in leadership face a role crisis: if a woman acts in a stereotypical manner (e.g., caring, timid, etc.), then they are praised for being a good woman but are viewed as an ineffective leader (Scicluna Lehrke & Sowden, 2017). However, servant leadership can aid in this role crisis through empowering leaders to exhibit both feminine and masculine behaviors (Reynolds, 2011). A study showcased that when men and women exhibited five servant leadership behaviors, with two attributes being more masculine and three being more feminine, there was no significant difference between their perceived effectiveness as a leader (Scicluna Lehrke & Sowden, 2017). This suggests that servant leadership can be a blueprint for creating a reduced gap between the genders by promoting both feminine and masculine traits into what is considered an effective leader (Scicluna Lehrke & Sowden, 2017).

Servant leadership has the potential to shift the emphasis on masculine characteristics being the only effective means of leading to incorporating a more holistic acceptance and integration of feminine and masculine traits into a leadership style (Reynolds, 2011). It’s noted that due to the communal traits inherent in the practice of servant leadership it could result in women having more access to leadership opportunities (Scicluna Lehrke & Sowden, 2017). Greenleaf (1956, as cited in Northouse, 2021) posits that one must first serve, then lead. Since it’s more socially acceptable for women to serve rather than to lead, servant leadership opens the door for women to gain leadership opportunities by first serving (Scicluna Lehrke & Sowden, 2017). For example, African women adopted servant leadership to rise into leadership positions despite how male-dominated their culture was (Scicluna Lehrke & Sowden, 2017). They were able to marry authoritative leadership (i.e., masculine traits) with their feminine characteristics and become effective leaders in government and education (Scicluna Lehrke & Sowden, 2017).

 

References

Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership: Theory and Practice (9th ed.). SAGE Publications.

Reynolds, K. (2011). Servant-leadership as gender-integrative leadership: Paving a path for more gender-integrative organizations through leadership education. Journal of Leadership Education, 10(2), 155-171.

Scicluna Lehrke, A., & Sowden, K. (2017). Servant leadership and gender. In Servant leadership and followership (pp. 25-50). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Leadership Actions: A Self-Reflection

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As a formal leader within a private organization, where I hold the title of President, it’s important to have effective decision-making skills, aid in developing good team relationships, and keep the team on task towards goal accomplishment. I’ve been in the position for little over two months now, so I’m still learning and enhancing where I can. I lead a team of five people and we meet in person weekly. Through the lens of team leadership, I wanted to employ the Hill Model for Team Leadership regarding past situations I’ve experienced and reflect on how I could have acted differently. Specifically, I aim to focus on the leadership actions section covering situations of task performance, relational development, and environmental factors and the leadership actions that best suit each one (Northouse, 2021).

It’s noted that teams with unambiguous goals paired with a clearly understood structure and standards produce higher task performance (Northouse, 2021). In other words, facilitating trust and open communication leads to less convolution which results in team members executing their tasks effectively. When my council and I first started meeting, there was a lot of discussion and great ideas were being introduced; however, it lacked structure and direction, so it ultimately resulted in a gab session vs. a productive meeting. This situation would warrant a goal focusing intervention (Northouse, 2021). As the President, I should have interjected during the discussion to reaffirm our main goal (i.e., holiday party planning) to ensure the team was focused on the right things. Members would get wrapped up in having great ideas for other morale events or fundraising opportunities, but none of those contributed to the plans of our big holiday party. Therefore, reminding them that we needed to first construct elements of the party (i.e., catering, location, prizes, etc.) would have resulted in a more productive meeting and team members would have clear tasks to focus on and pursue (Northouse, 2021).

Improving task performance is important, but relational aspects are just as important to enhance. For example, managing conflict and addressing power issues can improve interpersonal relationships among team members (Northouse, 2021). The council and I lead busy lives and being a part of this organization is fully voluntary. This can lead to members simply agreeing with the first idea that’s brought up with little to no resistance either because we’re constrained on time, we have another meeting to get to, kids have to be picked up, etc. When this happens, it’s important to initiate an intervention that addresses the negative impacts of not providing complimentary ideas or constructive criticism (Northouse, 2021). Rather than detail the negative effects of groupthink as presented in Northouse’s (2021) example, I would communicate that this is a collaborative space and to have the best idea, each team member should feel empowered to contribute. This action would hopefully result in improved and stronger bonds between team members (Northouse, 2021).

Factors outside of the team must also be considered on how they impact the success of the team. Teams that are in sync with their environment as well as guarded from it turn out to be more productive (Northouse, 2021). One of our biggest concerns is ensuring that we have enough funds to put on a holiday party for approximately 300 people. Since the party is less than two months away, the team was concerned about the amount of work we would have to put in to raise enough funds and that we wouldn’t have enough time. Therefore, I adapted the intervention of negotiating with higher level leadership to secure the necessary funds (Northouse, 2021). I included the team in the meeting to discuss the issues and we ultimately secured the funds for the party. This leadership action led to my team members feeling supported by their outside environment and motivated to accomplish their goal.

The Hill Model for Team Leadership is apt at identifying and prescribing a kind of “how-to” guide when it comes to leadership within a team setting (Northouse, 2021). Albeit I didn’t focus on every aspect of the model, the leadership actions section is full of vital information for leadership interventions, covering a wide range of situations (Northouse, 2021). Moving forward, the Hill Model will remain in my leadership toolkit to aid me throughout my tenure as President.

 

Reference

Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership: Theory and practice (9th ed.). SAGE.

Understanding Generational Gaps

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Within the path-goal theory, the main purpose is for leaders to aid followers in achieving their goals by managing their leadership style to best compliment the situation and the follower’s needs (Northouse, 2021). This ensures that followers feel motivated and empowered to be successful (Northouse, 2021). For example, if there is a new person who is still learning and is unfamiliar with their tasks, taking a directive leadership approach to help clearly define tasks and expectations (Northouse, 2021). One of the main components with path-goal theory is that leaders understand and are aware of their follower’s goals and needs (Northouse, 2021). This requires the leader to conduct feedback with their followers so that they stay appraised of everyone’s goals. However, sometimes that isn’t feasible depending on the number of subordinates one leader might have. Additionally, one of the limitations within the path-goal theory is that it fails to include gender and race within the conversation (Northouse, 2021).

I work within a government organization (United States Air Force) that has plenty of generational gaps between the ranks. This is also true of most organizations and, typically, organizations are known to have four different generations at one time (Jones et al., 2018). Within my own organization, I would assume there is a range from Gen Xers to Millennials and then down to Gen Z. Since path-goal theory doesn’t include gender or race, it could be assumed that it fails to incorporate generational differences as well (Northouse, 2021). This consideration could be incorporated into the path-goal theory framework because generational cohort differences may account for worker’s differences in values, goals, and attitudes (Sessa et al., 2007). These differences have been noted within work values across generations with Gen-Xers wanting faster promotions over their Baby Boomer counterparts (Sessa et al., 2007). Since the aim of the path-goal theory is for leaders to assess their follower’s needs and adapt a leadership style to best suite them, it stands to reason that understanding generational differences may allow for a better understanding and securing the right leadership style (Northouse, 2021; Sessa et al., 2007).

To illustrate, Baby Boomers are reported as being the developers of the participative decision-making process and they place a high value on a democratic workplace (Jones et al., 2018). With that knowledge, a leader, under the path-goal framework, could adopt the participative leadership style and ensure that followers are consulted on decisions and their contributions are directly applied to the organization (Northouse, 2021). Millennials are noted as wanting an amicable relationship with their leadership (Sessa et al., 2007). These values could be handled best with a supportive leadership style where Millennial’s needs and goals are put under thoughtful consideration and the leader is focused on their well-being (Northouse, 2021).

Within my own workplace experience, I’ve witnessed Gen X leaders exhibit frustration at their Millennial subordinates, citing that they’re “entitled and lazy”. This endearment is known to be a common label for Millennial workers because they’re hard-pressed to accomplish work that they deem is meaningless, which grants them the label of “entitled” (Alsop, 2008, as cited in Schullery, 2013). If leaders would engage with their followers to find out what they value and the kind of characteristics they exhibit, then they would be equipped to adapt their leadership style accordingly (Northouse, 2021).

 

References

Jones, J. S., Murray, S. R., & Tapp, S. R. (2018). Generational differences in the workplace. The Journal of Business Diversity, 18(2), 88-97.

Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership: Theory and Practice (9th ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.

Schullery, N. M. (2013). Workplace Engagement and Generational Differences in Values. Business Communication Quarterly, 76(2), 252-265.

Sessa, V. I., Kabacoff, R. I., Deal, J., & Brown, H. (2007). Generational differences in leader values and leadership behaviors. The Psychologist-Manager Journal, 10(1), 47-74.

Objectivity and Empowerment to Combat Toxicity

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Toxic leadership constructs an environment where followers feel compelled to agree with their leader for fear of reprimand if they don’t (Mehta & Maheshwari, 2014). Additionally, rather than organizational needs being what the unit works towards, it’s the leaders needs and motives that the followers are attempting to meet (Mehta & Maheshwari, 2014). However, this is notably the more extreme behaviors of a toxic leader since the definition is hard to pinpoint. The lens of toxic leaders shifts depending on the level of toxicity, how that leader is perceived and the type of situations that elicit toxic behaviors (Mehta & Maheshwari, 2014). Furthermore, it could be argued that followers who exhibit passive traits (i.e., are “sheep”), where they conform to the leader’s vision and needs, could be just as responsible for enabling a toxic leader (Kelley, 1992, as cited in Northouse, 2021; Northouse, 2021). This is supported through the reversing the lens framework that addresses how followership behavior affects the leader’s behavior and shapes their perception of how followers will respond (i.e., followership outcomes) to their leadership style (Northouse, 2021). If a toxic leader perceives their followers as meek and docile, then they will use that to their advantage to ensure that their vision is realized. Since toxic leaders are usually synonymous with influential leaders, its easy to see why a more passive follower would be blinded by their manipulation to continue to follow their lead (Mehta & Maheshwari, 2014). Traits such as intelligence and self-confidence could be attributed to the toxic leader (Northouse, 2021). A toxic leader can be highly intelligent and effective at their jobs, which is a trait positively associated with competent leadership (Tavanti, 2011; Northouse, 2021). This makes toxic leaders, through the perspective of followers, that much harder to navigate because of the fluctuations between potential effective leadership traits paired with destructive traits.

This notion that followers further perpetuate toxic leaders, and their behaviors is supported through Lipman-Blumen’s (2005) exploration of destructive leaders from the followership perspective (Northouse, 2021). One psychological factor of note is how followers have a sense of powerlessness when it comes to challenging their leader’s harmful actions (Lipman-Blumen, 2005, as cited in Northouse, 2021). Racial prejudice and discrimination can be among those harmful actions. It’s supported that many victims would rather deal with and accommodate the discrimination than risk reprimand (Crosby et al., 2003). Since victims are unlikely to come forward, its important to have objective processes built into the organization to address this discrimination as well as active leaders and managers to identify and address the toxicity (Crosby et al., 2003; Tavanti, 2011). Through the social program of Affirmative Action, discrimination is addressed through objective means of aggregate data that allows for a more objective approach to discovering toxic leaders and practices (Crosby et al., 2003). Additionally, Tavanti (2011) states that organizations should adopt “toxin detectors” which would help with the identification of toxicity and helps empower subordinates to have a voice (p. 133). Another means of combating toxic leaders is, as a follower, fostering the inherent leadership qualities within and seeking democratic leaders and processes (Lipman-Blumen, 2005, as cited in Tavanti, 2011). Working from being a passive follower to an exemplary follower could alleviate the effects from a toxic leader since there is a re-alignment of aversion to criticism and instead offering it up and taking on a more active role vs. being a meeker follower that simply blindly follows (Northouse, 2021).

 

References:

Crosby, F. J., Iyer, A., Clayton, S., & Downing, R. A. (2003). Affirmative action: Psychological data and the policy debates. American Psychologist, 58, 93-115.

Mehta, S. & Maheshwari, G. C. (2016). Toxic Leadership: Tracing the Destructive Trail. International Journal of Management, 5(10), 18-24.

Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership: Theory and Practice (9th ed.). SAGE Publications.

Tavanti, M. (2011). Managing toxic leaders: Dysfunctional patterns in organizational leadership and how to deal with them. Human Resource Management, 2011, 127-136.

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