Leadership

PSYCH 485 blog

Children: The Ever Changing Situation

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When we think of leaders often think of people in a position of power or authority. Kings, Queens, Presidents, Prime Ministers, CEO’s, General’s, etc. What we tend to forget is that the first leaders we were exposed to and ones that play the most vital roles in our lives.  I am talking about our parents. Even for those that may not be as fortunate to be raised by their parents, there is still a parental figure in most people’s lives. Parents are tasked with a  very difficult task. One that requires many qualities to be effective. One that even more so consists for many different situations where the parents has to apply different forms of leadership to be successful or at least provide their child with proper guidance.

 

The Situational Approach fits in nicely with the complex relationship that exists with not only being a parent but the various stages of life that children go through. Northouse talks about a continuum that employees go through regarding the development of skills and ability throughout their career. With children this happens very rapidly and in waves. When a child is born they are at the lower end of the development scale D1 from the Situational Leadership II chart (Northouse, 2012, pg. 100). Normally speaking the leader would take on a Directing Style, but the parent-child relationship is much more complex and a coaching style would be effective due to the high directive and high supportive behavior.


As the child gains control of the speech, fine motor skills and coordination they start to become more self-sufficient (as a child) and move along the continuum to where parents can take on a more Supporting Style. However as the child enters each new stage of life. Making friends outside of the family, playing in public, starting school, studying, playing sports, driving a car, romantic relationship, , college, career choices, marriage, etc., there are constant changes throughout their lives. During each of these stages, parents play a very important role that goes beyond the basic leadership level. However what doesn’t change is that their form of leadership needs to change as the situation changes.

 

One problem that arises is miscommunication which is important and the videos in the lesson commentary (Penn state, Lesson 5) point out. Sometimes one party may not understand why a form of leadership is applied, therefore becoming concerned or upset with the situation due to lack of or too much interaction from leaders. Child rearing is a very difficult task that most people take on without acknowledging the difficult while others don’t appreciate the work that is put in to raising our children.

 

References

Penn State World Campus (2013). PSYCH 485 Lesson 5:Styles and Situational Approaches. Retrieved on June 20, 2013, from

https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/su13/psych485/002/content/05_lesson.html

Northouse, P. (2012). Leadership: Theory and practice. (6 ed.). Thousand Oaks,

California: Sage Publishing.

 

All the right Skills

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The Skills approach is an interesting way to look at the study of leadership. It offers a perspective that trait approach fails to recognize, and that is that leadership goes beyond what the characteristics that a person is born with and focuses on the behaviors that make a leader successful. This is key in helping to bring a different variety of leaders to the forefront. An argument may be that some people are more naturally comfortable with being in a leadership position and do have the skills necessary to do so without extensive training. 

However while a person may not display or possess the skills necessary, through training they can acquire a learned behavior. This person may understand the position they are in and work to be successful at their role.  This can be seen with children early on in life that will act and behave differently depending on the situation that they are in. A child may be quiet and mild tempered at home yet throw tantrums when taken out in public. (http://www.examiner.com/article/situational-behavior-your-kids-really-do-behave-better-for-other-peopler). Learned behavior is not a new concept and has been around since Classical and Operant Conditioning.

I find this to be quite interesting as it seems that people almost pick up multiple identities. I have several coworkers that I have befriended over the years. These people will act a certain way in the comfort of their own home, i.e. easy going, relaxed, personable, jovial, etc. Yet when we return to the workplace they are task oriented, focused on the company goals and take on a more serious role. This creates an interesting dilemma for Leadership selection. If a person as a subordinate does not display leadership qualities, it may be due to being in a subordinate position.  If this is the case they may be overlooked when the chance for promotion arises.

A popular example of role conformation is the Stanford Prison Experiment (http://www.prisonexp.org/). Where students played both the roles of prisoners and guards. The students acted a certain way depending on the role they held versus their normal behaviors.

This is a situation that I have been witness to on multiple occasions to a slightly less degree. The “wrong” people continue to get promoted due to their success in tasks that have no bearing on what kind of leaders they will be. People often carry the misconception that if a person excels at a particular task then they will be able to guide others in doing the same. One of the key features to the Skills approach is Katz (1955), Human factor or “people skills” (Lesson 4). Many potential leaders lack this ability otherwise known as tact.

I believe that if leadership is more accepted as a set of behaviors and not particular traits that are ingrained, appropriate assessments can be developed to select the most qualified candidates that can then continue to be trained throughout their careers to be effective and successful leaders.

 

References

Penn State World Campus (2013). PSYCH 485 Lesson 4:Skills Approach. Retrieved on June 20, 2013, from

https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/su13/psych485/002/content/05_lesson.html

 

Northouse, P. (2012). Leadership: Theory and practice. (6 ed.). Thousand Oaks,

California: Sage Publishing.

These are not the traits you are looking for.

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The Trait Approach is an interesting and common sense approach to the question of what makes a good leader. Throughout life we come across many leaders, parents, friends, teachers, role models, and the list goes on. Our definition of what makes a good leader varies from one person to another. While we may agree on the components of leadership as mentioned in Lesson 1 commentary of this course: Leadership is a process, involves influence, occurs within a group context and involves goal attainment (Penn State, Lesson 1). Even coming up with a definition of leadership as presented by Northouse “Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal” (Northouse, 2013, pp. 5).  Knowing the definition of Leadership and understanding the components that make up the Leadership-Followership environment is only part of the dynamic of the relationship between leaders and followers.

Having a theory that can help put together the puzzle that makes up leadership is very important. This is where trait approach steps in. Even though people have different opinions and experiences that shape the way they view the world, most people can agree on the qualities that they look for in leaders, generally speaking.  The Major Leadership Traits covered by Northouse are Intelligence, Self-Confidence, Determination, Integrity and Sociability (Northouse, 2013, pp. 23). While these characteristics are important and seem like the right ingredients, they do not always provide the right product.

People will often describe characteristics that they wish they would see in a leader, supervisor, manager etc., yet be unsatisfied when their requests are fulfilled. What I am attempting to say is that a person might want a leader to have intelligence yet may not want to get corrected when they make a mistake. A person may want the leader to be self-confident and have determination but may feel that the leader is over confident and too stubborn when accomplishing goals. Even integrity may be viewed negatively when a subordinate, follower or employee does something that they should be reprimanded for, yet want to be “let off” or given a warning instead of the reprimand.  

I have personally witnessed this in my life when working for a company whose leadership had little interaction with employees. People would discuss quite frequently how they hoped there would be better leadership that would be more involved and committed to the company and its employees. Well, ask and eventually you will receive. The company brought in new leadership that was more involved but in doing so raised the standards. The employees were initially happy but then some became disgruntled again due to the new leadership.

It is important to remember that understanding leadership and creating ways of studying leadership such as the Trait Approach is only half of the puzzle. Steve Jobs who is viewed by many as a great leader once said “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them” (Mui, 2011). While people may think they want leaders to possess certain traits, it is not always the case. It is important to understand the Leader-Follower dynamic, it is through this that the best leaders may be selected for each situation.

 

Mui, C. (2011, October 17). Five Dangerous Lessons to Learn From Steve Jobs. Retrieved from Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2011/10/17/five-dangerous-lessons-to-learn-from-steve-jobs/

 Penn State World Campus (2013). PSYCH 485 Lesson 1: Introduction to 

            Leadership. Retrieved on June 19, 2013, from

https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/su13/psych485/002/content/01_lesson.html

 Penn State World Campus (2013). PSYCH 485 Lesson 2: Trait Approach. Retrieved     

            on June 19, 2013, from

https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/su13/psych485/002/content/02_lesson.html

 Northouse, P. (2012). Leadership: Theory and practice. (6 ed.). Thousand Oaks,

California: Sage Publishing.

 

 

Power and Influence, the best influence tactics

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French and Raven (1959) listed five ways we influence others: Expert Power, Referent Power, Legitimate Power, Reward Power, and Coercive Power (PSU WC L. 7).  The types of influence tactics are: Rational Persuasion, Inspirational Appeals, Consultation, Ingratiation, Personal Appeals, Exchange, Coalition Tactics, Pressure Tactics; but which have the greatest success?  In pursuit of the answer we may review other work by Yukl for the outcomes of each tactic used alone and also look at their uses in combination. 

If our leadership tactics desire true commitment by the follower, and we consider compliance as our second desire, and resistance as least favorable outcome, then we want to know which tactics are best. The most effective tactics were consultation and inspirational appeals.  Rational persuasion is usually effective in combination with consultation, inspirational appeals, and ingratiation.  The least effective were pressure, legitimating, and  coalition tactics(C. Falbe and G. Yukl, 1992).   Of our possible tactics, the tactics that are given from authority and forced on followers (Hard tactics) are in fact the least effective.  They may best be applied to tasks such as wearing safety glasses, but not for buy-in. A summary of pairing tactics also shows that those hard tactics still are least effective in soliciting commitment from followers.

In my goal becoming a great leader, the influence tactics I will prefer to use will be inspiration, consultation, personal appeals, exchange, ingratiation, and rational persuasion.  I will use only as needed Legitimating, coalition and pressure.

References:

The Pennsylvania State University. (2012). Lesson 7: Power and Influence. In the Pennsylvania State University, PSYCH 485: Leadership in Work Settings (pp. 1-13). State College, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.

Academy of Management Journal, 1992, Vol. 35, No.3, 638-652 Consequences for Manager of Using Single Influence Tactics and Combination of Tactics

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