Leadership and Power

Leadership and Power Despite the overwhelming belief in the importance of leadership in organizations, no one has been able to develop a uniformly accepted theory of leadership behavior.

Leadership Theories • Traits – intelligence, responsibility (Boy Scout handbook) • But no one set of traits can be used to distinguish leaders • What does a leader do? What does a leader look like?

Leadership Styles – what do leaders do? Authoritarian – strong control over decisions, tasks, issue and enforce orders Democratic – guidance, shared authority Laissez-faire – relinquish virtually all control of decisions, group processes to subordinates – available for consultation with problems, issues

Blake/Mouton (1964) – styles according to degree of concern for people and production (grid page 100) Outside grid- opportunist – adopts style required to accomplish self-interest, self-promotion (9,1 or 1,9) Paternalistic (9,9) combined style – rewards loyalty w/ support, encouragement Punish those who deviate

Ideal style for effectiveness? 9/9? 5, 5 – sees production and people as competing concerns Criticism of this model – assumes that any one style can be effective in any situation

Situational/contingency – no one style ideal Hersey and Blanchard, 1982 – described 2 basic styles: attitudinal Job centered – task orientation Employee centered

Gender of leader may mediate effectiveness of given style Helgesen 1990 – differences in leadership style between men and women Fairhurst 1993 – women have ways to demonstrate concern for relationships in interactions with subordinates

LMX – Leader-member exchange ALS – average leadership style: assume leaders behave in consistent manner toward all group members LMX – assumes leaders discriminate significantly in behavior toward subordinates

Leadership and motivation – leadership has much to do with ability to motivate subordinates • 5 major conclusions about supervisors: • Better supervisors • tend to be more communication-minded • Tend to be good listeners • Tend to ask or persuade not tell or demand • Tend to be sensitive to feelings of others • Tend to be more open in passing on information, explaining reasons

POWER – organizations run on subservience Differences in power, status are a fact of life Status: rank, importance of position in group Power: means/resources used to gain compliance, cooperation from others; gets people to do something they would not otherwise do

Types of power • Reward/coercive • Those things that can be controlled: salary, promotion, assignments • Person has coercive power to extent that is perceived as being willing and able to apply rewards/ punishments

Referent power – depends on identity – A has referent power if B wants to be like A: • modeling behavior, adopting someone’s attitudes, beliefs, style • 3. Expert power – based on perception of special knowledge • 4. Legitimate – based on acceptance of internal norms, values regarding authority and right to exercise authority

We accept influence/power of others if we believe they have the RIGHT to exercise authority • Most power is GIVEN, not TAKEN • Thoughts on power: • Political activity, including quest for and exercise of power, constitutes much of organizational life • Power exists on surface and deep within organizations

3. *** Communication plays a vital role in development of power relations and exercise of power 4. Manipulation and exercise of power is expressed as organizational games Power arises from deep structural rules of organization, is arrived at by controlling those rules There is nothing quite so powerful as the assumption within a group that things are, or should be, a certain way

Hegemony – relational system where one group dominates over others; group in power (manager) convinces repressed group (employees) to identify dominant group’s interests as its own Why would people go along with this? Distorted communication – distorts reality of situation, legitimizes hegemony – ideology

Ideology • Represents sectional interests as universal (interests of manager as those of employees) • Denies contradictions – “all equal here” • Presents constructed reality as real (concrete)

Focus Groups Research used to help companies understand customer’s perceptions, motivations, feelings, perceptions Over past 25 years, focus groups have become less controversial and more accepted

To put on a focus group requires much work in Design Execution Interpretation of results Not just a group discussion Trained, objective facilitator most important piece

Process: 8 to 12 people brought together for round table discussion Participants given incentive to attend Participants carefully chosen to be cross-section Often use 2 or more sessions with different groups, to allow comparisons

Skill of moderator very important – must get respondents to interact so as to elicit information • Open-ended group interaction • Leads to: • Roles – brings out useful information • Stimulation – create excitement, synergy • Flexibility – surprise information

Putting it together: expose and accentuate differences and similarities between people Best for: Exploration “fishing expedition” – attempting to attract a new group of patients Investigation – looking for answer to particular question, explanation for phenomenon Why do people stop going to the chiropractor?

Identification of present practices – how people are using a service New idea generation – Word of mouth research –

Tips: • You can never do too much planning • Manage recruitment process to get the right mix • Don’t pre-judge participants • Find an objective moderator who is good at process, facilitation, drawing out questions • The fewer people the better

Be sure you know your objectives before beginning the session – what do you want to accomplish? • Carefully review results – don’t discount surprises

Leadership and Power