Leadership

PSYCH 485 blog

Billie Jean King – Paving the way for women

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Leaders come in all a variety of packages. Some are easily recognizable due to the title that they are afforded, such as the President of the United States or the CEO of a large corporation. There are others that are considered leaders due to their contributions to society. For many women they look to the tennis legend, Billie Jean King as a leader and role model for many changes that she has helped to facilitate since the kick-off of her professional career in the late 60’s and early 70’s.

Billie Jean did not come naturally to tennis, as she tells the story on her interview on TEDWomen (King, 2015). She started playing tennis at age 11 and when she was 12 years old she stated she had an epiphany, “I decided that what I really wanted to do was spend the rest of my life fighting for opportunities for equal rights for men and women and boys and girls.” (Dill, 2014) Billie Jean made good on her promise. She created the Women’s Tennis Association and helped to pave the way for equal prize money for women in sports (biography.com, 2016).

Kirkpatrick and Locke described a specific set of traits that they felt were apparent within a leader. Those traits are drive, desire to lead, honesty and integrity, self-confidence, cognitive ability, and knowledge of the business (Northouse, 2016). From that time when she was a 12-year-old girl who had just begun to play tennis and realizing that she also wanted to dedicate her life to helping others for equal rights, shows her motivation, ambition, passion and desire. Billie Jean made it a point to know her sport and was not afraid to ask the questions that others did not want to ask.

When one listens to Billie Jean talk about her life and her work in the new Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative, its clearly visible that she embodies these same traits. Her Initiative is to help pave the way for people to be authentic in every dimension of their life. As she stated in her interview, many people have 2 jobs and one of them is just trying to fit in every day at work (King, 2015). She believes that everyone should be able to just be themselves and be able to be accepted for this. She states that she has great hopes for the millennial generation. In her research and data, she has found that the millennials want connection, engagement, and solutions, which will help them to be problem solvers. Will that generation be able to make big changes? We will begin to discover this answer in the next 10-15 years as she reminds us that 75% of the global work force will be these millennials (King, 2015).

Billie Jean King has been influential in her years as an athlete and that has not diminished over the years, earning her the respect of many in not only in her sport of tennis, but in many others as well and she continues to be an inspiration for women everywhere.

 

References

biography.com. (2016). Billie Jean King. Retrieved from biography.com: http://www.biography.com/people/billie-jean-king-9364876

Dill, K. (2014, Nov 20). Billie Jean King Launches Initiative to Promote Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace. Retrieved from forbes.com: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathryndill/2014/11/20/billie-jean-king-launches-initiative-to-promote-diversity-and-inclusion-in-the-workplace/#42cf0ce13894

King, B. J. (2015, May). Billie Jean King: This tennis icon paved the way for women in sports. (Pat, Interviewer) https://www.ted.com/talks/billie_jean_king_this_tennis_icon_paved_the_way_for_women_in_sports#t-650146

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc.

Leadership Power Struggles: Hope for the Psychodynamic Theory at Work

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Power Struggle

By: Susan Hicks

You may be faced with power struggles any day and at any time with those who work under you. There is always one person who ‘bucks the system’ or doesn’t seem to want to stay ‘in-check’ with the team or with the leader’s position, power, authority, or ability to influence others toward meeting management goals. We could refer to modernist conflict resolution techniques but what if they don’t always work. Is it possible to look back to the Psychodynamic Theory for help? This is a real-life example of why we should not completely discredit the theory in modern workforce issues.

The scene 6 months ago….

Mary, a middle-management employee in a large company, provides direction for the other offices under which she is responsible.  Rena works beside Mary providing support under Mary’s leadership. Mary is in her mid-40’s with less than 10 years with the company while Rena is in her early-50’s with almost 20 years with the company. Mary is a firm, fair, and consistent leader with great responsibility and Rena is a narcissist who rejects being told what to do from someone who is less senior, younger, and who is perceived to be just as stubborn as herself. Power struggles ensue when Mary has to direct Rena to do something vitally needed in the company.

Mary has power given by to her by the company while Rena also has power as she can decide to willfully follow and complete the task with amazing efficiency and accurateness or with lethargy and with no enthusiasm to detail. How does Mary influence Rena to work mutually with her toward management goals and elicit the necessary enthusiasm toward efficiency and precision needed in the organization?

Mary resorted to Conflict Resolution as she attempted to cultivate a collaborative attitude under differentiation that “airs differences” in order to open the lines of communication in order to see differences as “natural and helpful” (Folger, Poole, & Stutman, 2009). The problem was that differentiation (airing of differences) never led to integration (resolution) because Rena epitomizes a narcissist who took great pride in her own accomplishments aside from that of the group. She had her own concept of her job duties and how she related those duties within the company apart from that relationship with Mary.  Rena did not see Mary’s attempt to recognize their difference as helpful, rather she felt it as a personal attack on Rena’s lower ranking position. Mary couldn’t understand how someone could be so defiant and unreasonable so she turned to Psychodynamic Theory.

The Psychodynamic approach focuses on the relationship between the leader and the follower and cannot be taught in a traditional sense (Northouse, 2013).  Mary looked at her own leadership personality under the theory but since the theory also looks at the relationship of the leader in congruence with the follower, she looked at Rena.  It was found that Mary needed to not get into these power struggles with Rena on an ego level. She needed to relax her power in order for Rena to fulfill her needs yet allow them to flex their power in a way that promotes the collectivity of their knowledge. They needed not to compete.  Mary also found through this backward-looking theoretical approach and by being inquisitive, that Rena grew up in an unstable environment with dominating narcissistic parents. She really had a low self-esteem which she overcompensated with her narcissistic behavior. Rena constantly had to tell others of her accomplishments because she was never given praise as a child. Her failure to work within a team framework was her rejection of group congruency that stemmed from the delusions of persecution she experienced from watching her parents fight. She projected to others what she learned as a child.  With this information in hand provided by the Psychodynamic Approach, Mary also took another look at the Big Five Personality Factors of leadership. She found that Agreeableness, the “tendency to be accepting…and nurturing” was a part of her personality that she lacked (Northouse, 2013). Although this factor may be considered weakly associated with leadership, this led Mary to developing the leadership trait most valued by her associates.

Today…

We should not only look to those leadership traits and skills that allow us to aspire to, hire, train, and develop leaders to work within an organizational structure. We need to look outside the box toward Psychodynamic Theory in leadership conflict situations, in order to provide us additionally useful tools in which we can see alternative ways in dealing with leadership situations. These tools may be based in a form of psychology that may not be seen as relevant to the organizational needs of today or one that provide us a way of assessing our leaders for their qualities or traits, however, the awareness and acceptance of its existence by leaders can provide a missing link to understanding relational influence necessary in our modern leadership roles.

From the insight of Psychodynamic Theory, Mary and Rena work closely together today in fulfilling the needs of the company with Mary’s instruction and with Rena’s willingness to help. Mary found that her best asset is to be empathetic to Rena’s upbringing and now accepts Rena for how she became who she is. Mary now appreciates the productivity and input that Rena adds to everyday tasks. Mary constantly praises Rena for efficiency and accuracy (fulfilling Rena’s need for accomplishment recognition in which she take great pride) but yet also allows Rena to identify personal vision as being congruent to the visions of the company. Mary is now a highly productive and respected employee of management. Rena is a model employee and considers Mary now to be her leader, her mentor, and most remarkably…her friend.

References:

Folger, J.P., Poole, M.S., & Stutman, R.K. (2009). Working Through Conflict: Strategies for Relationships, Groups, and Organizations. (4th ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing.

Northouse, P. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.

Integrity Leads

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According to John Maxwell, “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way” (Maxwell, 2010). I, honestly, did not believe this statement before I began my new job at a car dealership in January. For the previous 8 years, I had worked for a company that was led by a man that could be the poster child for “Do as I say, not as I do.” He appeared to know the way because he insisted his employees did it, but he fell very short on going the way himself and showing us the path. After 8 years of his leadership, I honestly believed that all leaders were evil and could not be trusted. My view was completely changed by my new leader, Mr. Synder (pseudonym), within 48 hours of starting my new job.

It was 9:35 on a Tuesday morning. From my office, I heard someone screaming in the showroom, demanding to speak to the man in charge. As I stood there, mouth agape, Mr. Synder  the “man in charge” stepped in quickly to resolve the problem. The customer then proceeded to call him a colorful variety of names and terms. Mr. Synder very calmly led the customer into his office and closed the door. Within five minutes, the angry customer left the dealership not only happy, but laughing and apologizing to Mr. Synder for the way he had acted. It turned out that the customer was upset over the fact that they thought they were supposed to have a truck cover for their recently purchased Ford Escape. Mr. Synder took them directly to the parts department and got the cover for them, even though it wasn’t included in the model of the Escape that they had purchased. When I asked him later why he gave the customer something they had not paid for, he reminded me gently that “Susan, our customers are all we’ve got. If they’re not here, neither are we.”

After this incident, I found myself doubting my belief that all leaders were not to be trusted.  By settling this customer’s complaints in a professional manner, Mr. Synder had put his integrity on display for the whole world to see. According to Northouse, Mr. Synder’s ability to take the blame for the customer’s problem and strive to fix it immediately displays his integrity (Northouse, 2013, Pp.25). By taking the action of not only listening to what the customer’s problem was, but also resolving the problem as promised, Mr. Synder showed his integrity not only to the customer, but also to all of his team members.  By seeing Mr. Synder’s behavior, it made me want to work harder for him because he truly believes in the vision that he reminded me of on my second day of work. By him “showing” me the way, I wanted to go the way. His vision of customer satisfaction and determination to make it happen became my own.

Beyond that, by seeing Mr. Synder’s willingness and effort to help a customer, someone he had never met before, I knew that he would do anything within his power to fulfill any promise he made to me.

References:

Maxwell, J.C. (2010). The Right to Lead: Learning Leadership Through Character and
Courage. New York: Thomas Nelson.

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

There is more to leadership than leaders

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The trait approach and the skills approach are both important pieces of the leadership process. Combined they show that many successful leaders start out with desired traits (trait approach) and that those traits can be developed and behaviors can be learned to make the leader more effective (skills approach) (Northouse, 2013). But what about the follower? These two leader-centric approaches can only be a piece of a bigger puzzle because leaders are only a piece of the leadership process. A leader cannot be a leader without followers no matter what they have for skills and traits. And what about the situation? Again, the trait and skills approaches are missing a major factor in the leadership process–context. Leaders and followers react differently depending on the situation. There are some situations in which one person is the leader and there are some situations where a different person is the leader. The process of leadership includes not just leaders, but followers and situations as well.

 

I think that for leaders to be successful they have to understand both the followers and the situation, meaning leaders must be able to identify what response the situation invokes in themselves and their followers. Leaders who look to be effective in many situations must be prepared to identify the needs of their followers in a specific situation and adapt accordingly. That’s what I like about the situational leadership and path-goal approaches. The situational leadership approach mandates that leaders “match their style to the competence and commitment of the subordinates” in a specific situation (Northouse, 2013, p. 99). In the path-goal approach the leader determines his or her behavior depending on the characteristics of the follower and the characteristics of the task being performed (Northouse, 2013). If only the leader’s traits and skills are taken into account two entire sections of the leadership process are ignored. For example in the path-goal leadership diagram below, taken from Northouse 2013, there would be no way for a leader to reach the level at which he or she can motivate subordinates to reach their goals and be productive without insight on the characteristics of the subordinate and of the task being performed.

pathgoalleadership.png

I think that leader-centric leadership approaches are a good start and combined with other theories leader-centric approaches are very effective. However, leader-centric approaches like the trait and skills theories can never and should never be the sole leadership theory applied in producing leaders. Effective leadership cannot exist without the consideration of the leader, the follower, and the situation.

Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: theory and practice (6th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

One Approach to Rule Them All

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Now familiar with three approaches of leadership: the trait approach, the psychodynamic approach, and the skills approach, I think the best approach is actually a combination of all three. Many leadership approaches were developed due to gaps in previous theories; however, each new theory has its own set of holes. I think it’s difficult to have one specific approach describe the process of leadership. Leadership is complicated and there are too many variables between the leader, the followers, and the situation. If the weakness of many of these theories is that they are not true for all situations, and people can agree that a number of these theories are correct in certain situations, then it makes sense that combining these situationally valid theories would be effective.

 

Regarding the trait approach, for example, theorists identified certain traits that they believe define a great person or leader and that these special leader traits are innate (Pennsylvania State University, 2012). This idea that great leaders are born and not made is attractive, but has its downfalls. For example, there is no finite, objective list of leadership traits (Northouse, 2013). Theorists could sit around for eternity battling over what makes a good leader, coming up with new traits and conflicting examples of established traits. Also mentioned in Northouse (2013), the trait approach misses the importance of learning and developing as a leader. If leaders are born great what do they have left to learn? And what about followers and situations? Those aspects of leadership affect the effectiveness of the leader; however the trait approach is leader-centric. Although there are many criticisms of the trait approach, traits are important to the leadership process because they give people a base from which to develop their leadership abilities. To me the trait approach serves to define more of HOW a leader can lead, and not IF a leader can lead.

 

The psychodynamic approach has some similarities to and difference with the trait approach. In Pennsylvania State University (2012) the psychodynamic approach is identified as an “extension” of the trait approach, where the trait approach describes who leaders are in a theoretical sense, and the psychodynamic approach gives leaders the tools to identify their strengths and weaknesses and analyze how those characteristics play into different situations with different followers (p. 3). The psychodynamic approach picks up where the trait approach left off because it recognizes the relationship between the leader and the followers. The psychodynamic approach is also presumably universal and objective, which is another area where the trait approach falls short (Northouse, 2013). However, an important hole in the psychodynamic approach that the trait approach doesn’t fill is taking into consideration learning and developing as a leader.

 

Enter skills approach. The skills approach is based more on behavior whereas the trait and psychodynamic approaches focus on personality (Northouse, 2013). The skills approach indicates that leaders need specific skills and abilities to be successful with certain followers and in certain situations; however because skills are behaviors and not inherent traits they can be developed (Pennsylvania State University, 2012). In other words, leaders do not need to be born; they can also be made. The idea that leadership can be taught is less limiting and gives people more control. In contrast with the idea that society has to wait for nature to provide it with great leaders, the skills approach gives people the opportunity to develop into great leaders even if they aren’t born exhibiting a specific personality. The skills approach does have its own criticisms, though; one being that the theory is so expansive and includes so many different components it becomes too general and difficult to accurately measure and predict (Northouse, 2013).

 

I don’t think it’s feasible to imagine one very specific leadership approach defining and explaining the idea of leadership. Combining the factors of the leader, the followers, and the situations, it is impossible that all possibilities of each factor could be taken into consideration in the creation of one theory. However, I can imagine that there are certain patterns of leadership that can be identified using a vast array of leadership-defining tools that are consistent, conflicting, and constantly evolving with humans as we move through our existence. The trait, psychodynamic, and skills approaches are just three of those tools, and I think the other approaches to come will probably fit together and compliment each other in similar ways.

 

References:

Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: theory and practice (6th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Pennsylvania State University. (2012). PSYCH485: Leadership in work settings. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa12/psych485/001/toc.html

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