MODELS OF LEADERSHIP

Contingency Approaches
These models depend on diagnosis of situation, group and leader
 Fiedler’s Contingency Model
• Main assumption is that any leadership style cannot be considered
suitable for all situations and all kinds of subordinates.
• He states that effectiveness of leadership is based on his ability to
act in terms of situational requirements.
• Fiedler talks about two styles of leadership
– Human Relations or Lenient Style: It is directed towards achieving good
interpersonal relations and position of personal prominence
– Task Directed or Hard Nosed Style: It is concerned with achieving task
performance
• Fiedler believes that group performance is contingent upon
appropriate matching of leadership style & degree of favorableness
of group situation for the leader.
Favorableness of Situation: It is the degree to which a given situation enables
the leader to exert influence over a group.

Three dimensions of favorableness of situation are:

• Leader-Member relations - The degree to which the leaders is trusted and

liked by the group members, and the willingness of the group members to

follow the leader’s guidance

• Task Structure - The degree to which the group’s task has been described

as structured or unstructured, has been clearly defined and the extent to

which it can be carried out by detailed instructions

• Position Power - The power of the leader by virtue of the organizational

position and the degree to which the leader can exercise authority on
group members in order to comply with and accept his direction and

leadership
• Situations are favorable if all three dimensions are high.

• E.g. If leader is well accepted, if task is very structured, if

great deal of authority is given to leaders position.

• If opposite state exists , then situation is very unfavorable

for leader.

• Fiedler states that:

– Task oriented leaders perform best in situations that are

either very favorable or very unfavorable to the leader.

– Human Relation Oriented leaders perform best in

situations that are intermediate in favorableness.
 Advantages & Disadvantages
Advantages:
• It indicates that leadership effectiveness depends upon various elements in
group environments.
• Effectiveness of group performance can be affected by changing leadership
style for the situation in accordance with described relationships.
• This helps in designing selection and training programs for managers to be
suitable for given situation.
Disadvantages:
• It reverts back to single continuum of leadership style, suggesting that there
are only 2 leadership styles.
• It is not necessary that leader who is high on one dimension is low on other
dimension; rather combination of two can be found.
 Hershey & Blanchard’s Situational Leadership
• According to this theory, leadership style varies according to
maturity of subordinates.
• Maturity: It is defined as desire for achievement, willingness to
accept responsibility, acquisition of necessary skills etc.
• They studied leaders behaviour as an action of combinations of 2
variables.
– Task behaviour refers to leaders behaviour where he has to guide and
direct his subordinates on how to perform their tasks, & it is mainly a one
way communication.
– Relationship behavior means the manner in which leader provides
psychological, emotional, personal support to subordinates and there is
two way communication.
• Hersey & Blanchard’s
model states that, a
relationship between
manager and subordinates
moves through 4 phases.

• As subordinates develop
m a t u r i t y, a c c o r d i n g l y
managers vary their
leadership style with each
successive stage.
• 1st Phase: Subordinates are new to task, are in experienced and

immature. They need to be instructed in their jobs and told about

rules, procedures etc. Leader has to adopt high task behaviour.

High task – Low relation style is appropriate where leader is just

TELLING subordinates what to do.

• 2nd Phase: As subordinates learn tools and techniques of work,

their immaturity starts reducing and leaders develop confidence in

them. But as they are not in position to accept full responsibility,

leader still has to maintain high task behaviour. High task – High

relation style operates here; also called as SELLING behaviour.

• 3rd Phase: Subordinates move further in both learning,

maturity and confidence. Leader is not required to give

directions but only support them. Leadership style changes to

high relationship - low task behaviour.

• 4th Phase: Subordinates attain full maturity, they are

skilled, confident and ready to assume full responsibility and

can manage things on their own. Leadership style changes to

low task – low relation behaviour. Here leader is just

delegating.
 Evaluation

• Theory is dynamic in nature.

• Skill, experience and motivation of subordinates has
to be continuously assessed in order to determine
leadership style that would be most appropriate
under certain circumstances.
• If style is appropriate, it will motivate subordinates &
will help them move towards maturity.
• Leader must constantly be changing his leadership
style.
TRAIT THEORY OF LEADERSHIP
• Key Assumptions of Trait Theory

• Leaders are Born, Not Made

• Universal Traits

• Leadership Traits are Measurable

• Theory emerged in early 20th Century influenced by

Great Man Theory

• Developed by Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Stogdill

 Common Leadership Traits

Physical Traits
• Energy and stamina
• Appearance and presence
Personality Traits
• Self-confidence
• Emotional stability
• Integrity and honesty
• Ambition and drive
Social Traits
• Charisma
• Interpersonal skills
• Sociability
Cognitive Traits
• Intelligence
• Creativity and problem-solving abilities
• Decision-making skills
Task-Related Traits
• Focus on achieving goals
• Initiative and persistence
Strengths of Trait Theory
1. Simplicity: Easy to understand and apply in various
contexts.
2. Focus on the Leader: Provides insights into the
characteristics that make effective leaders.
3. Predictive Ability: Identifies traits linked to leadership
success, aiding in leader selection and development.
4. Foundation for Further Research: Stimulated the
development of other leadership theories like
behavioral and situational theories.
Criticism of Trait Theory
1. Overemphasis on Traits: Ignores situational and
environmental factors that impact leadership.
2. Inconsistency in Traits: Not all leaders possess the
same traits, and some traits may not guarantee
success.
3. Subjectivity: Traits are often assessed subjectively,
leading to bias.
4. Static Nature: Assumes traits are fixed and does not
account for the development of leadership skills.
Functional Leadership Theory
 Assumptions of Theory
(Hackman & Walton, 1986)

• Leadership is viewed as a process of performing critical

functions or roles required to meet group or

organizational goals.

• Task Oriented Functions

• People Oriented Functions

• Adaptive Functions
 Functional Leadership Model (Adair)

• Action Centred Leadership Model

• Task can be performed only by a Team and not an

individual.

• Team can achieve excellent performance only if all

individuals are fully developed.

• Individuals need the task to be challenged and motivated.

Functional Leadership Model (Adair)
 Functional Leadership Model (Adair)

Task Needs:
• Define the task clearly.
• Plan and allocate work effectively.
• Establish standards and deadlines.
Team Needs:
• Build a sense of unity within the team.
• Maintain discipline and communication.
• Provide feedback and celebrate achievements.
Individual Needs:
• Understand each team member's needs and aspirations.
• Offer coaching, mentoring, and development opportunities.
• Ensure job satisfaction and well-being.
 Application of Functional Leadership Theory

• Emphasizes distributed leadership, where leadership

functions are shared among team members.

• Effective in project-based teams, cross-functional teams, and

matrix organizations where collaboration and adaptability
are critical.

• Encourages leaders to be versatile, addressing both the

technical and emotional needs of their teams.
Leadership and Power
 Introduction

Leadership: The ability to influence, inspire, and

guide individuals or groups to achieve goals.

Power: The capacity to influence the behavior,

attitudes, and decisions of others.

French & Raven’s Five Bases of Power

Legitimate Power:
• Based on position or authority in an organization.
• Example: A manager assigning tasks to employees.
Reward Power:
• The ability to provide rewards for compliance.
• Example: A leader offering promotions, raises, or recognition.
Coercive Power:
• The ability to punish or enforce compliance.
• Example: A manager threatening to demote an employee for
poor performance.
French & Raven’s Five Bases of Power

Expert Power:
• Derived from knowledge, skills, or expertise.
• Example: A senior engineer guiding a team due to
technical expertise.

Referent Power:
• Based on personal traits, charisma, or relationships.
• Example: A popular leader inspiring others to follow
them.
 Power Dynamics in Leadership
Use of Power in Leadership
• Effective leaders use power responsibly to motivate and empower
their teams.
• Balancing between reward and coercive power is crucial.
Abuse of Power:
• Misusing power can lead to toxic environments, employee
dissatisfaction, and unethical practices.
• Example: Coercive power leading to fear-based compliance rather
than engagement.
Empowerment:
• Leaders who share power encourage autonomy, innovation, and
trust.
• Example: Delegating decision-making authority to team members.
 Power Tactics

• Rational Persuasion: Using logical arguments and

evidence.
• Inspirational Appeals: Appealing to values and
emotions.
• Consultation: Involving others in decision-making.
• Coalition Building: Gaining support from others to
influence decisions.
• Pressure: Using demands or threats to gain compliance.
• Legitimating: Using authority or rules to justify actions.
Leadership and Influence
 Influence in Leadership
Influence is the ability to shape others' behaviors,
attitudes, or decisions through communication, trust, and
persuasion.
Key elements of influence:
• Power: Formal authority, expertise, or connection-
based.
• Credibility: Trustworthiness and expertise.
• Emotional Intelligence: Managing interpersonal
relationships empathetically.
Role of Leadership in Managing Conflict

• Leaders play a critical role in identifying,

addressing, and resolving conflicts constructively.

• Effective leaders transform conflicts into

opportunities for innovation and team cohesion.
 Interpersonal Conflict

A disagreement between two or more individuals arising from

differences in goals, values, or perceptions.

Can occur due to:

• Communication gaps.
• Differing priorities or interests.
• Personality clashes.
• Limited resources.
Types of Interpersonal Conflict
Stages of Interpersonal Conflict
 Impact of Interpersonal Conflict

Positive Impact: Encourages creativity, problem-solving, and

improved communication when managed well.

Negative Impact: Reduces productivity, team morale, and

organizational effectiveness if unresolved.
Groups, Teams and Their Leadership
 Teams Vs. Groups

Sense of Identification

Common Goals

Task Interdependence

Differentiated and Specialised Roles

 Nature of Groups

Two or more persons who are interacting with one another in

such a manner that each person influences and is influenced
by each other person.

People often tend to identify more with groups they belong

to than with the organization they belong to.
Group Characteristics Affecting
Leaders and Followers

GROUP SIZE

GROUP ROLES

GROUP NORMS

GROUP COHESION
 Group Characteristics Affecting
Leaders and Followers

1. Group Size
• It affects probability that any individual is likely to emerge as
a leader.
• As groups become large, cliques develop.
• Role of Leader: Deal with cliques to avoid intra-group conflicts
• It affects Leader’s Behavioural Style.
• Leaders with Larger vs. Smaller Span of Control adopt
impersonal vs personal style
• It affects group effectiveness - Appropriate Group Size Varies
• Decreasing Returns as Group Size Increases (E.g. Additive
Task)
 Group Characteristics Affecting
Leaders and Followers

Process Loss: Inefficiencies created by too many people working

together

Social Loafing: Phenomenon of reduced effort by people when

they are not individually accountable for their work.

Social Facilitation: Working in the presence of others may

increase effort or productivity
 Group Characteristics Affecting
Leaders and Followers

2. Group Roles

• Sets of expected behaviours associated with particular jobs or

positions.

• Multiple roles may stem from groups they are associated with.

• Task Roles: Initiating, Information Seeking. Information

Sharing. Summarizing, Evaluating, Guiding

• Relationship Roles: Harmonizing, Encouraging, Gatekeeping

 Group Characteristics Affecting
Leaders and Followers

Dysfunctional Roles

• Dominating, Blocking, Attacking, Distracting

• Person’s behaviour serves primarily selfish or egocentric

purposes.
 ROLE CONFLICT
• Involves receiving contradictory messages about expected behaviour
thereby affecting person’s emotional well being and performance
• Intrasender Conflict: Same Person Sends Mixed Signals
• Inter-sender Conflict: Someone receives inconsistent signals
from several others.
• Inter-role Conflict: Someone is unable to perform all of his roles
as he would like.
• Person-Role Conflict: Role behaviour is inconsistent with
employee’s values and beliefs.
• Role Ambiguity: Lack of clarity about exactly what the expectations
are.
 Group Characteristics Affecting
Leaders and Followers

3. Group Norms
• Norms are the informal rules groups adopt to regulate and
regularise group members’ behaviours.
• Norms Facilitate group survival
• Simplify or make more predictable what behaviour is expected
of group members
• Help group avoid embarrassing interpersonal problems
• Express central values of group and clarify what is distinctive
about company’s group identity.
 Group Characteristics Affecting
Leaders and Followers

Two Core Norms to be Created to enhance Performance:

• Actively scan environment for opportunities that would

require a change in operating strategy to capitalise.

• Identify behaviours that team members must always do and

those that they should never do.
 Group Characteristics Affecting
Leaders and Followers

4. Group Cohesion
• Sum of the forces that attract members to a group, provide
resistance to leaving it and motivate them to be active in it.
• Greater Cohesiveness leads to lower absenteeism, lower
turnover.
• Highly cohesive groups at times develop goals that are
contrary to larger organizational goals.
• Cohesiveness may result in rigid boundaries between
themselves and others.
Group Cohesion - Associated Problems
• Over-bounding - Blocking use of outside resources that could
make them more effective.
• Group Thinking - Group is concerned with striving for
unanimity rather than objectively appraising different courses
of action.
• Ollieism - Illegal actions are taken by overly zealous and loyal
subordinates believing that what they are doing will please
leaders.
 Symptoms of Group Think
• An illusion of invulnerability - unwarranted optimism and excessive risk
taking
• Unquestioned assumption of group’s morality - No reflection on ethical
consequences
• Collective Rationalization - Discount negative information

• Stereotypes of the opposition as evil, stupid

• Self Censorship - Not expressing ideas that deviate from group consensus

• An illusion of unanimity - Greater unanimity is perceived than really exists.

• Direct Pressure on dissenting members
• Mindguards - Protecting group from adverse information
 Avoiding Group Think
• Leaders should encourage all members to take take on the role

of critical evaluator.

• Leaders should create a climate of open inquiry through own

impartiality and objectivity.

• Independent Groups can be formed to make recommendations

on the same issue.

• Assign one member the role of DEVIL’s ADVOCATE

Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development
Relevance of Tuckman’s Stages

People are in many more leaderless groups then they may

realise.

To adapt leadership behaviour as per stages.

Criticism: All groups may not go through these stages

"You are on a sinking ship with 10 people but only have 5 spots in
the lifeboat. As a group, you must decide who will get a seat and
justify your decision."

A pregnant woman
A 70-year-old scientist
A 10-year-old child
A famous celebrity
A doctor
A soldier
A millionaire
A convicted criminal
A teacher
A disabled person
 Four Types of Teams

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 Problem-Solving Teams
• Group of 5-12 members
• Members are often from the same
department.
• Share ideas or suggest improvements
on how work processes & methods can
be improved.
• These teams are rarely given authority
to unilaterally implement any of their
suggested actions.

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 Self-Managed Work Teams
• Comprises 10-15 employees performing highly-related jobs
• Team takes on supervisory responsibilities:
– Work planning and scheduling
– Assigning tasks
– Operating decisions/actions
– Working with customers

• Fully Self Managed Work Teams may select their own members and
evaluate each others performance.
• Supervisory positions decrease in importance.
• Effectiveness is situationally dependent; they might not work during
organizational downsizing.
• Individuals on this team sometimes report high level of satisfaction
and sometimes higher absenteeism and turnover rates.

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 Cross-Functional Teams
• Members from same level, but diverse areas within and between
organizations come together to accomplish a task.
• Task Force: A temporary cross functional team
• Committees: Groups made up of members from across departmental
line.
• They are effective in
– Exchanging information
– Developing new ideas and solve problems
– Coordinating complex projects

• Their Early Stages of Development may be time-consuming due to

complexity and diversity

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 Virtual Teams • Use Computer technology to tie together physically
dispersed members in order to achieve a common
goal.

• Members communicate through WAN, Video

Conferencing, email etc.

• Virtual Teams Vs Fact To Face Teams:

– Special challenge: Absence of paraverbal & non

verbal cues

– Limited social context

– Ability to overcome time & space constraints

• Problems with Virtual Teams

– Less social rapport

– More task-oriented
– Members less satisfied

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Team Decision Making
Techniques
 Nominal Grouping Technique
• Group Process Involving Problem Identification, Solution
Generation and Decision Making.
• Standard Procedure:
• Introduction and Explanation
• Silent Generation of Ideas
• Sharing Ideas
• Group Discussion
• Voting & Ranking
 Brainstorming
• Group Creativity Technique by which efforts
are made to find a conclusion for specific
problem by gathering list of ideas
spontaneously contributed by its members.

• Incorporation of Six Thinking Hats devised by

Edward De Bono
Six Thinking Hats
 Key Components of Effective Teams

• Context

• Composition

• Work Design

• Process

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 Team Effectiveness
Model

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Leader Development
 AOR Model
• Perception and Reflection
• Fundamental Attribution Error

• Self Serving Bias

• Perception and Observation

• Perceptual Set - A tendency to observe one thing and not

the another.
• Perception and Action

• Self Fulfilling Prophecy - A prediction that comes true

because a person expects it to happen.
Learning from Experience
 Learning from Experience

• Creating Opportunities to get feedback

• Taking a 10 Percent Stretch
• Learning from Others
• Keeping a journal of daily leadership events
• Having a Developmental Plan
GAPS ANALYSIS
Leader Development in Organizational
Settings
 Tools/Interventions
• Leadership Development Programs (Lectures, Case Studies,
Presentations, Role Playing, Simulations, In Basket Exercises).

• Individualized Feedback Based Approaches (IDP)

• Action Learning (Use of actual work issues and challenges as

developmental activities).

• Art Based Approach (Use of Projectives/Legos/Films)

• Technology Based Approach (Video Games/Virtual Reality

Simulations)
 Tools/Interventions
• Development Planning - Provides methodology for leaders to
improve their behaviour.

• Q1: Do leaders know what behaviours need to change?

• Q2: Is the leader motivated to change these behaviours?

• Q3: Do leaders have plans in place for changing targeted

behaviours?

• Q4: Do leaders have opportunities to practice new skills?

• Q5: Are leaders held accountable for changing targeted

behaviours?
 Tools/Interventions
• Coaching: Equipping people with tools, knowledge and
opportunities they need to develop and become more
successful.

• Mentoring: A personal relationship in which a experienced

mentor acts as a guide, role model and sponsor of a less
experienced protege.
 Building Better Relationship With
Supervisors

• Understanding the Superior’s World

• Understand Superior’s Personal & Organizational Objectives.
• Understand that Superiors are not Supermen or Superwomen,
they do not have all answers.
• Keep Superiors informed about activities or new developments.
• Adapting to the Superior’s Style
• Get the role clarified.
• Be honest and dependable
 Building Effective Relationship With
Peers

• Recognising Common Interests and Goals

• Understanding Peer’s Tasks, Problems and
Rewards
• Practicing a Theory Y Attitude
Leading Change
Emotional Approach to Organizational
Change
• Focuses on emotions, motivation, and vision.

• Leaders inspire and connect with employees on an

emotional level.

• Charismatic and transformational leadership

styles play a key role.

• Change is driven by a compelling vision and strong

leadership.
Charismatic Leadership in Change
• Charismatic leaders influence followers through
personal charm.

• They create strong emotional bonds with employees.

• Drive change through vision, passion, and

confidence.

• Inspire commitment and higher levels of

performance.
 Transformational Leadership in
Change
• Focuses on long-term vision and organizational
growth.

• Encourages innovation and adaptability.

• Develops employees by mentoring and coaching.

• Promotes a shared vision and intrinsic motivation

for change.
 Conclusion
• Organizational change requires both rational analysis
and emotional appeal.
• Charismatic and transformational leaders drive
emotional engagement.
• Leaders must balance structure with inspiration for
successful change.
• A combination of approaches leads to sustainable
organizational transformation.