LEADING

Leading – is that management function which “involves influencing others to engage in the work
behaviors necessary to reach organizational goals”.
Leading – refers to the function.
Leadership – refers to the process.
HOW LEADERS INFLUENCE OTHERS
Engineer managers are expected to maintain effective work forces.
Leaders are said to be able to influence others because of the power they possesses.
Power – refers to the ability of a leader to exert force on another.
Bases of Power
The power possessed by leaders may be classified according to various bases. They are as follows:
1. Legitimate Power – a person who occupies a higher position has legitimate power over
persons in lower positions within the organization.
2. Reward Power – when a person has ability to give rewards to anybody who follows orders or
requests, he is said to have reward power.
 Material Power – refer to money or other tangible benefits like cars, house and lot, etc.
3. Coercive Power – when a person compels another to comply with orders through threats or
punishment, he is said to possess coercive power.
4. Referent Power – when a person can get compliance from another because the latter would
want to be identified with the former, that person is said to have referent power.
5. Expert Power – experts provides specialized information regarding their specific lines of
expertise.
THE NATURE OF LEADERSHIP
Leadership – may be referred to as “the process of influencing and supporting others to work
enthusiastically toward achieving objectives”.
Traits of Effective Leaders
1. A high level of personal drive – persons with drives are those identified as willing to accept
responsibility, possess vigor, initiative, persistence, and health.
2. The desire to lead – there are some persons who have all the qualifications for leadership, yet
they could not become leaders because they lack one special requirement: the desire to lead.
3. Personal Integrity – a person who is well-regarded by others as one who has integrity
possesses one trait of a leader.
According to V.K. Saraf, integrity means and includes “honesty, honor, incorruptibility,
rectitude, righteousness, uprightness, and similar virtues.
4. Self-confidence – the activities of leaders require moves that will produce the needed outputs.
Mckinsey and company “almost inevitably consummate salesmen who radiates enormous
contagious self-confidence”.
Wess Roberts “a chieftain cannot win if he loses his nerve. He should be confident and self-
reliant and even if he does not win, he will know he has done his best”.
5. Analytical ability or judgment – leaders are, oftentimes, faced with difficulties that prevent
the completion of assigned tasks.
6. Knowledge of the company, industry or technology – a leader who is well informed about
his company, the industry where the company belongs.
7. Charisma – when a person has sufficient personal magnetism that leads people to follow his
direction, this person is said to have charisma. Napoleon Bonaparte, Julius Caesar, Adolf
Hitler, George Washington, Elvis Presley have charisma.
8. Creativity – Ronnie Millevo defines creativity as “the ability to combine existing data,
experience, and preconditions from various sources in such a way that the results will be
subjectively regarded as new.
9. Flexibility – people differ in a way they do their work.
Leadership Skills
Leaders need to have various skills to be effective. They are:
1. Technical Skills. These are skills a leader must possess to enable him to understand and
make decisions about work processes, activities, technology.it is a specialized knowledge
needed to perform a job.
2. Human Skills. These skill refer to the ability of a leader to deal with people, both inside and
outside the organization.
3. Conceptual Skills - These skill refer to “the ability to think in abstract terms, to see how parts
fit together to form the whole”.
BEHAVIORAL APPROACHES
Those in positions of leadership exhibit a pattern of behavior that is unique and different from other
patterns. This total pattern of behavior is called leadership style.
There are several approaches used in classifying leadership styles.
1. According to the ways leaders approach people to motivate them.
2. According to the way the leader uses power.
3. According to the leader’s orientation toward task and people.
Ways Leaders Approach People
There are two ways a leader may approach people to motivate them.
1. Positive Leadership. When the leader’s approach emphasizes rewards, the style used is
positive leadership.
2. Negative Leadership. When punishment is emphasized by the leader, the style is said to be
negative leadership.
Ways Leaders Uses Powers
Leadership style also vary according to how power is used.
1. Autocratic Leaders – leaders who make decisions themselves, without consulting
subordinates.
2. Participative – when a leader openly invites his subordinates to participate or share in
decisions, policy-making and operation methods.
3. Free-rein – leaders who set objectives and allows employees or subordinates relative freedom
to do whatever it takes to accomplish these objectives.
Leaders Orientation toward Tasks and People
Leaders may be classified according to how they view tasks and people.
1. Employee Oriented – a leader is said to be employee oriented when he considers employees
as human beings of “intrinsic importance and with individual and personal need” to satisfy.
2. Task Oriented – a leader is said to be a task oriented if he places stress on production and
technical aspects of the job and the employees are viewed as the means of getting the work
done.
CONTINGENCY APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP STYLE
The Contingency Approach is “an effort to determine through research which managerial practices
and techniques are appropriate in specific situations”
The various contingency approaches are as follows:
1. Fiedler’s Contingency Model
2. Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Model
3. Path-Goal Model of Leadership
4. Vroom’s Decision Making Model
Fiedler’s Contingency Model
According to Fred Fiedler, “leadership is effective when the leader style is appropriate the situation”.
The situational characteristics is determined by three principal factors:
1. The relation between leaders and followers
2. The structure of the task
 3. The power inherent in the leader’s position
The situational characteristics vary from organization to organization. To be effective, the situation
must fit the leader. If this is not so, the following may be tried:
1. Change the leader’s trait or behavior
2. Select leaders who have traits or behaviors fitting the situation
3. Move leaders around in the organization until they are in positions that fit them.
4. Change the situation.
Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Model
The situational leadership model developed by Hersey and Blanchard suggests that the most
important factor affecting the selection of a leader style is the development (or maturity) level of
subordinate. The leader should match his or her style to this maturity level.
Maturity has two components
1. Job skills and knowledge
2. Psychological maturity
Blanchard and others elaborated the leadership styles appropriate for the various maturity level of
subordinates. They are as follows:
Step 1: Directing – is for people who lack competence but are enthusiastic and committed.
Step 2: Coaching – is for people who have some competence but lack commitment.
Step 3: Supporting – is for people who have competence but lack confidence or motivation.
Step 4: Delegating – is for people who have both competence and commitment.
Path-Goal Model of Leadership
The path-goal model leadership espoused by Robert J. House and Terence A. Mitchell, stipulates
that leadership can influence subordinate’s perceptions of their work goals, personal goal, and path to
goal attainment.
By using the path-goal model, it is assumed that effective leaders can enhance
subordinate motivation by:
1. Clarifying the subordinate’s perception of work goals
2. Linking meaningful rewards with goal attainment
3. Explaining how goals and desired rewards can be achieved.
Leadership Styles. The leadership styles which may be used by path-goal proponents are as
follows:
1. Directive Leadership – where the leader focuses on clear task assignments, standard of
successful performance, and work schedules.
2. Supportive Leadership –where subordinates are treated as equal in a friendly manner while
striving to improve their well-being.
3. Participative Leadership – where the leader consults with subordinates to seek their
suggestions and then seriously considers those suggestions when making decisions.
4. Achievement-Oriented Leadership – where the leader set challenging goals, emphasize
excellence, and seek continuous improvement while maintaining a high degree of confidence
that subordinates will meet difficult challenges in a responsible manner.
Vroom’s Decision Making Model
Vroom’s model of leadership is one that prescribes the proper leadership style for various situations,
focusing on the appropriate degrees of delegation of decision making authority.
Five distinct decision-making styles are identified under the Vroom Model. Two of them are
autocratic, two others are consultative, and one is group directed.