Lecturer : Sokkunthea Pos

Name : Ly Danet
Room 33
Homework
Summary point 5 : Leadership skills and styles

5. Leadership skills and styles

5.1 Trait or 'qualities' theories
Early theories suggested that there are certain personal qualities common to 'great men' or
successful leaders. In other words, 'leaders are born, not made'.
Trait theory has been more or less discredited.
• The premise that certain traits (or qualities) are absolutely necessary for effective
leadership has never been substantiated.
• The lists of traits proposed for leaders have been vast, varied and contradictory.
• Trait theories ignore the complexities of the leadership situation, and not everybody
with leadership 'traits' turns out to be a good leader.

5.2 Style theories of leadership

Leadership styles are clusters of leadership behaviour that are used in different ways in
different situations. They mainly relate to the extent to which the leader is focused primarily
on task/performance (directive behaviour) or relationships/people (supportive behaviour).
Key style models include
• The Ashridge Model: tells, sells, consults, joins
• Blake and Mouton's Managerial Grid: concern for task, concern for people

5.2.1 The Ashridge Management College model

The Research Unit at Ashridge Management College distinguished four different
management styles
➢ Tells (autocratic) : The leader makes all of the decisions and issues instructions which
must be obeyed without question.
➢ Sells (persuasive) : The leader still makes all of the decisions but believes that
subordinates have to be motivated to accept them and carry them out properly.
 ➢ Consults : The leader confers with subordinates and takes their views into account
but retains the final say.
➢ Joins (democratic) : The leader and followers make the decision on the basis of
consensus.

5.2.2 Blake and Mouton's Managerial Grid

Robert Blake and Jane Mouton carried out research into managerial behaviour and observed
two basic dimensions of leadership: concern for production (or task performance) and
concern for people. Blake and Mouton modelled these permutations as a grid. One axis
represented concern for people, and the other concern for production. Blake and Mouton
allotted nine points to each axis, from 1 (low) to 9 (high).
The extreme cases shown on the grid are:
• 1.1 impoverished: the manager is lazy, showing little interest in either staff or work.
• 1.9 country club: the manager is attentive to staff needs and has developed satisfying
relationships. However, there is little attention paid to achieving results.
• 9.1 task management: almost total concentration on achieving results. People's
needs are virtually ignored.
• 5.5 middle of the road or the dampened pendulum: adequate performance through
balancing (or switching between) the necessity to get out work with team morale.
• 9.9 team: high work accomplishment through 'leading' committed people who
identify themselves with the organisational aims.

5.2.3 Evaluating the managerial grid

The grid thus offers a number of useful insights for the identification of management training
and development needs. It shows in an easily assimilated form where the behaviour and
assumptions of a manager may exhibit a lack of balance between the dimensions and/or a
low degree of concern.

However, the grid is a simplified model, and as such has practical limitations

– It assumes that 9.9 is the desirable model for effective leadership.

– It is open to oversimplification. Scores can appear polarised, with judgements
attached about individual managers' suitability or performance.
– Organisational context and culture, technology and other 'givens' (Handy) influence
the manager's style of leadership, not just the two dimensions described by the grid.
– Any managerial theory is only useful in so far as it is useable in practice by managers:
if the grid is used only to inform managers that they 'must acquire greater concern for
people', it may result in stress, uncertainty and inconsistent behaviour.

5.2.4 Limitations of style approaches

Huczynski and Buchanan note that 'There is therefore no simple recipe which the
individual manager can use to decide which style to adopt to be most effective.'
 It is the consideration of this wide set of variables that has led to the development of the
contingency approach to leadership.

5.3 Contingency approaches to leadership

Contingency theory sees effective leadership as being dependent on a number of variable
or contingent factors. There is no one right way to lead that will fit all situations. The
ability of a manager to be a leader, and to influence their subordinate work group,
depends on the particular situation and will vary from case to case.

Leaders need to adapt their style to the needs of the team and situation. This is the basis
of contingency approaches such as:

• Fiedler's 'psychologically close' and 'psychologically distant' styles

• John Adair's 'action-centred' leadership model – based on 'situations' or 'functions'

5.3.1 F E Fiedler
Perhaps the leading advocate of contingency theory is Fiedler. He studied the relationship
between style of leadership and the effectiveness of the work group and identified two
types of leader.

1. Psychologically distant managers (PDMs) maintain distance from their subordinates.

– They formalise the roles and relationships between themselves and their superiors
and subordinates.
– They choose to be withdrawn and reserved in their interpersonal relationships within
the organisation (despite having good interpersonal skills).
– They prefer formal consultation methods rather than seeking the opinions of their
staff informally.

PDMs judge subordinates on the basis of performance, and are primarily task oriented:
Fiedler found that leaders of the most effective work groups tend to be PDMs.

Fiedler also argued that the leadership style adopted is relatively stable, and a feature of a
leader's personality that could therefore be predicted.

2. Psychologically close managers (PCMs) are closer to their subordinates.

– They do not seek to formalise roles and relationships with superiors and
subordinates.
– They are more concerned about maintaining good human relationships at work than
ensuring that tasks are carried out efficiently.
– They prefer informal contacts to regular formal staff meetings.
Fiedler suggested that the effectiveness of a work group depended on the situation, made up
of three key variables.

• The relationship between the leader and the group (trust, respect, and so on)

• The extent to which the task is defined and structured

• The power of the leader in relation to the group (authority, and power to reward and
punish)

5.3.2 John Adair: action-centred leadership

John Adair's model (also called 'action-centred’ or 'functional') is part of the contingency
school of thought, because it sees the leadership process in a context made up of three
interrelated variables: task needs, the individual needs of group members and the needs of
the group as a whole.

Adair argued that the common perception of leadership as 'decision-making' was

inadequate to describe the range of action required by this complex situation. He developed
a scheme of leadership training based on precept and practice in each of eight leadership
'activities' which are applied to task, team and individual: hence, the 'action-centred
leadership' model.

• Defining the task • Evaluating

• Planning • Motivating

• Briefing • Organising

• Controlling • Setting an example

5.3.3 Bennis: the distinction between management and leadership

Warren Bennis distinguishes between the manager as someone who 'does things right' and
the leader who 'does the right thing'.

➢ The manager administers and maintains, by focusing on systems and controls and the
short term.
➢ The leader innovates, focuses on people and inspires trust, and holds a long-term
view.

His book Leaders (1985) did not conclude that there is one right way to lead, but it does set
out common competencies displayed by leaders. Bennis calls them:

▪ The management of attention: a compelling cause or vision, to give focus

▪ The management of meaning: the ability to communicate
▪ The management of trust: being consistent and honest
 ▪ The management of self: being aware of personal weaknesses and strengths

Bennis believes that leadership in the modern age is a shared task, with power spread
around rather than centralised. It could be that the most important role of modern leaders is
deciding who will be in their teams.

5.3.4 Heifetz: dispersed leadership

This approach recognises the importance of social relations, the need for a leader to be
accepted and the fact that nobody will be an ideal leader in every circumstance. Also
referred to as 'informal' or 'emergent', it proposes that individuals at all organisational levels
can exert a 'leadership influence'.

Heifetz (1994) distinguishes between the exercise of 'leadership' and the exercise of
'authority'. The leader can only be identified by examining relationships with the 'followers'
in the group – they could quite easily be someone who 'emerges', rather than someone who
has been predefined as the leader from the outset.

This approach is more sociological and political in its basis than traditional management
thinking, drawing as it does upon the prevailing organisational culture and context. A leader's
individual qualities are less important than the leadership process, and the relationships
created and sustained within it.

5.3.5 An appraisal of contingency theory

Contingency theory usefully makes people aware of the factors affecting the choice of
leadership style. However, Schein has pointed out that:

➢ Key variables such as task structure, power and relationships are difficult to measure
in practice.
➢ Contingency theories do not always take into account the need for the leader to have
technical competence relevant to the task.

Perhaps the major difficulty for any leader seeking to apply contingency theory, however, is
actually to modify their behaviour as the situation changes.

THE END