Practical connection Assignment
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Organization Leader & Decision Making
Week 14 – Executive Practical Connection Assignment
At UC, it is a priority that students are provided with strong educational programs and courses that allow them to be servant-leaders in their disciplines and communities, linking research with practice and knowledge with ethical decision-making. This assignment is a written assignment where students will demonstrate how this course research has connected and put into practice within their own career.
Assignment:
Provide a reflection of at least 600 words (or 2 pages double spaced) of how the knowledge, skills, or theories of this course have been applied, or could be applied, in a practical manner to your current work environment. If you are not currently working, share times when you have or could observe these theories and knowledge could be applied to an employment opportunity in your field of study.
Requirements:
Provide a 600 word (or 2 pages double spaced) minimum reflection.
Use of proper APA formatting and citations. If supporting evidence from outside resources is used those must be properly cited.
Share a personal connection that identifies specific knowledge and theories from this course.
Demonstrate a connection to your current work environment. If you are not employed, demonstrate a connection to your desired work environment.
You should not, provide an overview of the assignments assigned in the course. The assignment asks that you reflect how the knowledge and skills obtained through meeting course objectives were applied or could be applied in the workplace.
Don’t forget that the grade also includes the quality of writing.
TextBook:
Title: Organizational Leadership
ISBN: 9781529715460
Authors: John Bratton
Publisher: SAGE
Publication Date: 2020-02-10
Edition: 1st ED.
Organizational Leadership
John Bratton
1
Part 2
Leadership theories
Relational and distributed theories of leadership
Chapter 8
3
Learning outcomes
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
Explain the nature of, and the benefits of follower-centric approaches to understanding leader-follower relations and the leadership process.
Understand positivist/entity and social constructionist perspectives on relational leadership.
Explain how the dyadic and group relationships dynamics influence the leadership process.
Critically discuss the competing views of what distributed leadership represents in organizations.
Engage critically with important themes in team leadership.
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Introduction
Follower-centric approaches cultivate the opinion that followers’ self-concept – how we perceive ourselves through attitudes, values, perceptions, emotion – directly influences the leader-follower relationship and effectiveness, which has given rise to relational and distributed leadership theories.
Follower-centric theories explore leadership as an interdependent relationship that involves the leader and follower (s), entwined in a socially constructed purposeful relational process of influence (Adair 2008; Shamir et al. 2007; Riggio et al., 2008).
5
Introduction
Distributed theories of leadership shift the focus away from leaders in hierarchical positions within the organization to viewing followers as reflective and proactive: as leaders across the organization.
6
Classical relational studies
Individuals not only shape the relations they engage in, but also are simultaneously shaped by reciprocal human interactions.
For Simmel (1858-1918), society is constituted of a web of interactional forces between individuals and groups, and his focus on the concept of reciprocity emphasized that every single social phenomenon has meaning only through its relationships with others.
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Classical relational studies
Simmel investigated the influence of numbers upon human relationships, whereby the size of a group influences how individuals interact with one another (refer Figure 8.1).
In general, the larger the size of the group, the more its members can become dissimilar to each other, and more independence and intellectual development can take place. However, Simmel observed that the individual’s inner personal unity is based upon the interaction and connection of many elements and determinants.
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Classical relational studies
9
Classical relational studies
Mead analyzed in detail how the human self is created by social processes, emphasizing that the human mind developed thanks to co-operation and complex social relationships.
He also wrote that, “We attempt…to explain the conduct of the individual in terms of the organized conduct of the social group, rather than…in terms of the conduct of the separate individuals belonging to it” (1934, p. 7).
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Classical relational studies
Mead’s theory of self incorporates the crucial condition of “reflexiveness” – the ability to unconsciously turn-back the experience of the individual upon himself – for the development of the human mind.
Mead views the mind in terms of what it does, the role it plays in human interaction. He emphasized the significance of human intersubjectivity: a myriad of human interactions, individual self-reflection and meaning that is modified through social interaction.
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Contemporary theories of relational leadership
The focus is on dynamic leadership relationship between leaders and followers in which influence is interactionally and dialectically achieved leading to reconfiguration of management practices and relationship development.
Subsequently, the focus is extended onto the nature of the vertical interactions leaders engage in with each of their followers because leadership effectiveness depends on the ability of a leader to create high-quality relationships with others in the organization.
Where leadership is always dependent on the context, the context is established by positive symbiotic relationships.
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Relational leadership has been defined as:
A social influence process through which emergent coordination (i.e. evolving social order) and change (e.g. new values, attitudes, approaches, behaviours, and ideologies) are constructed and produced (Uhl-Bien, 2006, p. 655).
This definition proposed that a ‘relational’ orientation to understanding leadership starts not with an individual leader or follower but with social interaction, and views leadership as relationally co-constructed (Fairhurst, 2007).
Contemporary theories of relational leadership
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Ontology and relational leadership
‘Does social reality exist independent of our perceptions?’
‘Is what passes for reality merely a set of mental constructions?’
If we lean more to the first question, the more we move towards the positivist position. This view maintains that there is such a thing as social reality and it is the researcher’s job to discover what that reality is.
If we lean more to the second question, the more we move towards the social constructionist position, whereby the view is that there are no facts, only interpretations.
Contemporary theories of relational leadership
14
‘Is social reality largely fixed, something that individuals and groups have to confront but over which they little or no control, akin to the weather?’
‘Is social reality not necessarily pre-existing but fluid, and open to be shaped by individuals and groups through their social interactions and agency?’
The same conclusion is reached here as the first set of questions asked.
Contemporary theories of relational leadership
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Contemporary theories of relational leadership
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Positivist dyadic relational perspectives
Leaders and followers are treated as stable entities that have different roles in the organizational context.
Leader-member exchange (LMX) theory focuses on the quality of the dyadic relationship between a leader and an individual (see Figure 8.3). It argues that because followers are uniquely different, leaders should establish a special relationship with each of her or his followers, rather than treating followers as a homogeneous group.
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Antecedents of dyadic relationship quality:
Role of contextual forces and organizational imperatives
Leader attributes
Follower characteristics
Interactional factors between leader and follower – Perceived Congruence and Psychological Contract
Concept of equity
Differentiated LMX Relationships
In-group – relationships based on expanded role responsibilities
Out-group – relationships based on restricted role responsibilities
Positivist dyadic relational perspectives
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Positivist dyadic relational perspectives
19
Social constructionist group-level relational perspectives
Through positivist perspective, 3 distinct streams of differentiated LMX theorizing are produced:
perceived LMX differentiation (Hooper and Martin, 2008) – seeks to capture perceived variability within a group
relative LMX (Hu and Liden, 2013) and group-level LMX differentiation (Erdogan and Bauer, 2010) – analyzes dyadic relationships in work groups, characterized by complexity and interdependency
These studies underscore the importance of context and role conditions.
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Through a social-cultural prism, a constructionist position is adopted to view relationships:
Self-concept is vital
Leadership does not exist as an entity but rather it emerges through processes of interaction and co-construction
Sensemaking shapes human relationships
Leadership is not possessed by an individual but “leadership resides… in the between space of the relationship” (Epitropaki et al. 2018, p. 125, emphasis added)
Social constructionist group-level relational perspectives
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Social constructionist group-level relational perspectives
22
The growth of distributed leadership
Shifts the focus from hierarchy to heterarchy; from heroic to ‘post heroic’ leadership – leadership resides in every individual of the organization, who takes on the role of leading a group, not just those positioned at the top of the organization.
Propose ‘lead from behind’ through employee empowerment (Spillane, 2006).
Facilitate than being an ‘all-knowing’ expert (Hill, 2008).
Most effective when tasks are interdependent, complex and leader capabilities within the organization and teams have developed.
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The growth of distributed leadership
Distributed Leadership – an interactive process disassociated from the hierarchy.
Self-management work teams (SMWT) movement proclaimed the need for redesigning organizations to allow members to undertake a wider range of tasks, including self-inspection, decision-making and leadership responsibilities.
Team Leadership – any behavior that helps the team identify task-related or person-related problems and generate and implement in solutions.
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The growth of distributed leadership
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Practising distributed and shared leadership
Structural and Work Design
Structural Design: the planning and implementation of a structural configuration of roles and modes of operation, often displayed in an organizational chart.
Job/Work Design: the process of assigning tasks to a job, including the interdependency of those tasks to other jobs.
HRM Policies and Practices
The core of this subject can assist the development of distributed/team leadership (Danford et al., 2008).
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The Role of Appointed Leaders
Empowering employees is the key.
Organizational Culture and Climate
Vital influences.
Practising distributed and shared leadership
27
Organizational Leadership
John Bratton
1
Part 3
Managing people and leadership
2
Talent management and leadership
Chapter 10
3
Learning outcomes
After completing this chapter, you should be able to explain and evaluate:
The nature of talent and the complexities and organizational challenges surrounding talent management.
Leaders’ and line manages’ roles in talent management and capacity building.
The value and limitations of talent collaborations, and.
The critical research that challenges the mantra of ‘talent are our most valuable asset’.
4
The nature of talent and talent management (TM)
Early conceptualization of TM focused on human resource planning and recruitment activities.
Meyers and van Woerkom (2014, p.192), argue that TM comprises ‘the systematic utilization of human resource management…activities to attract, identify, develop, and retain individuals who are considered to be ‘talented’’ – reflects the potential scope of TM, which often extends to HRM practices such as employer branding (to attract talented people), training, rewards, employee engagement designed to motivate and retain talent and, where recognized, engage with trade unions.
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The nature of talent and talent management (TM)
Contemporary definitions of TM encompass a complex range of policies and practices that often pervade every aspect of the ‘employment journey’ from the point of entry – attracting and recruiting talented people – through to ensuring high performance, commitment and retention – and ultimately long-term growth through work.
Crowley-Henry and Ariss (2018) depicted that managers must first agree how to define talent in order to create a framework for shaping TM.
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Who are ‘talent’?
The extent to which an organization relies upon its ability to recruit high-quality candidates from its external labour market (Swailes et al., 2014)
The extent to which it needs or wishes to grow its own talent and develop employees more organically from within the organization (Swailes et al., 2014)
The nature of talent and talent management (TM)
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Exclusive and Inclusive Talent Management
Exclusive – targets people within the organization based on either their current high performance or predicted high potential to fulfil critical roles
Inclusive – targets everyone within the organization through providing fair and equal access to career development and progression opportunities to all employees (Swailes et al., 2014)
The nature of talent and talent management (TM)
8
Leading and managing talent
Avedon and Scholes (2010, p.92) note that ‘Nothing defines success better than when the talent management practices are so ingrained in the organization that they are part of the management culture’. This illustrates the importance of both senior leaders and line managers of mobilizing and managing an organization’s talent, especially through their daily actions.
Workforce planning – leaders know what is lacking and required to fill the gap.
Talent attraction – quite depending on the reputation of an organization plus a strong employee value proposition (EVP) to attract the people who are likely to perform best within its culture.
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Leading and managing talent
Performance and reward management – a process utilized to identify, rate and reward talent and high potential, and to formulate learning and career development plans that are reflective of performance ratings.
Talent development – investing in talent training and development in order to update employee skills, improve job performance, and develop the competencies and dynamic capabilities that employees need to meet the strategic objectives of their organizations.
Talent mobilization – to facilitate continuous development and mobilization of talent applicable as required.
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Collaborative talent management
Within an organization (intra-organizational collaboration) or it may span two or more independent organizations (inter-organizational collaboration).
Advantages:
Facilitate the sharing and generation of new knowledge and innovation
Improve the efficacy of working practices through pooling resources such as technology, facilities and finance – indirectly avoiding unnecessary duplication and improving the end-to-end journey of the customer or service user
11
Critiquing the talent management debate
Much of HRM research did not adequately emphasize structured antagonisms and contradictions (Thompson and McHugh, 2009).
Mainstream HRM and TM researchers have routinely neglected or marginalized those most directly impacted by HR policies and practices – the employees (e.g. Delbridge and Keenoy, 2010; Thunnissen et al., 2013).
Many mainstream HRM researchers have largely failed to subject HR practices to a critical scrutiny of unintended consequences and paradox theory (Bratton and Gold, 2017), or the ‘collateral damage’, resulting from their application (Delbridge and Keenoy, 2010, p.803).
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Critiquing the talent management debate
Leaders need to address the question of ‘talent for what?’ (Thunnissen, 2016).
There has been a failure to critically scrutinize the ‘unintended consequences’ and, in particular, how the ‘talent paradox’ plays out between the actors (Daubner-Siva et al., 2018, p.75).
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Organizational Leadership
John Bratton
Part 3
Managing people and leadership
2
HRM and leadership
Chapter 9
3
Learning outcomes
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
Define human resource management (HRM) and its relation to organizational leadership.
Appreciate the scope and functions of HRM.
Explain and evaluate the different theoretical approaches to studying HRM.
Assess the contribution of HRM to individual and organizational performance.
Critique assumptions found in mainstream HRM literature.
4
Introduction
Organizations are dependent on suitably talented people who have knowledge and skills, working with physical and financial resources, which will add value and create a viable business or service.
By understanding the role of HRM, it helps to provide a framework understanding subsequent chapters on managing and developing people and leading change (Chapters 12-17).
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The nature of HRM
The early studies exposed ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ versions of HRM (Legge, 1989):
‘Soft’ approach – highly relevant to leadership as it emphasizes human interactions, focusing on motivation, development, communications and thus, the quality of leader-follower relations.
‘Hard’ approach – views people as a commodity or ‘human resource’ that has a price (wage) and needs to be managed in the same way as other factors.
6
The nature of HRM
Bratton and Gold (2017) defined HRM as:
A strategic approach to managing employment relations which emphasizes that leveraging people’s capabilities and commitment is critical to achieving sustainable competitive advantage or superior public services. This is accomplished through a distinctive set of integrated employment policies, programmes and practices, embedded in an organizational and societal context’ (p. 5).
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The nature of HRM
This definition:
emphasises the goals that underpin the processes, that applies organizational behaviour (OB) and leadership knowledge to leverage people’s potential capabilities to enhance individual and organizational performance.
conceives HRM as embedded in a capitalist society and its associated ideologies and global structures.
remind leaders that human knowledge and skills are a strategic resource that needs investment and adroit management.
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Scope and functions of HRM
Managing employment relationships in the workplace is the core of HRM.
3 major subdomains of HRM knowledge were identified (Boxall et al., 2008):
Micro (MHRM) – largest subdomain, managing individual employees and small work groups.
Strategic (SHRM) – revolves around the processes of linking HR strategies with business strategies and measures the effects on organizational performance (see Chapter 2).
International (IHRM) – focuses on the management of people in global companies operating in more than one country.
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Micro HRM activities
Key MHRM:
Workforce planning
Recruitment and selection
Performance appraisal
Training and development
Rewards
Employee relations
HR strategy and leadership
10
Theorizing HRM
Models are important because they provide an analytical framework for studying HRM.
The Michigan Model of HRM (Fombrun et al., 1984)
Focus: selection, appraisal, training and rewards.
The Harvard Model of HRM ( Beer et al., 1984)
Focus: situational factors, stakeholder interests, HRM policy choices, HR outcomes, long-term consequences and a feedback loop through which the outputs flow directly into the organization and to the stakeholders.
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Theorizing HRM
The Storey Model of HRM (Storey, 2007)
Focus: beliefs and assumptions, strategic qualities, critical role of managers and key levers.
The Ulrich Business Partner Model (Ulrich, 1997)
Focus: strategic partner, change agent, administrative expert, employee champion.
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HRM & leadership
How does HRM contribute to the leadership process?
Does HRM make a difference to individual and organizational performance?
13
Critiquing the HRM discourse
Ambiguities in the ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ schools of HRM (Legge, 2005).
Selection ‘best’ HR practice has tended to be viewed in terms of standardizing and objectifying the selection process (Townley, 1994).
Conflict is structured into the management of pay.
‘Trust relationships between managements and workforces are typically lacking’ observes Hutton (2015, p. 181).
HR practices have given rise to a shift from long-term ‘relational’ employment contracts between the employer and the employee towards short-term ‘transactional’ and ‘precarious’ contracts, which contradicts the goal of follower commitment and cooperation and relational leadership values.
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Organizational Leadership
John Bratton
Part 1
Contextualising leadership
Culture and leadership
Chapter 4
3
Learning outcomes
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
Explain the nature of culture and its relationship to organizational culture.
Critically evaluate how organizational leaders seek to change or manage the culture of an organization.
Appreciate critical perspectives on culture and alternative cultural perspectives towards market relationships.
Introduction
Culture is:
Used to describe the internal behaviour and processes in a workplace.
Referred to external socio-economic and political forces that form part of the external context of organizations.
Cultural theorists believe that cultural is central to “all aspects of organizational life” (Alvesson, 2016, p. 26).
The nature of national cultures
Williams (1988) identifies three usages of the word ‘culture’ which are based on social values, norms and assumptions which people may not always be aware of:
As a process of intellectual, spiritual or aesthetic development.
As a reference to a particular way of life.
As reference to the arts.
Giddens and Sutton (2017, p. 995),
defined culture as “the values, norms, habits and ways of life characteristic of a coherent social group”.
The idea of a national identity can be socially constructed, malleable and is being constantly reproduced.
The nature of national cultures
The term “socialization” is used to describe how members of a society learn and embed various layers of culture, both by internalizing the norms, mores and values of society, and also by learning to perform social roles.
Schein (2017) describes culture as a concept directing us to notice the patterns in social engagement and behaviour.
Although the multinational company (MNC) has been theorized as the very embodiment of “disembedded society”, that is, it has severed any dependencies on social institutions in its domestic base (Lane, 2000), business leaders are nonetheless exposed to, and influenced by national cultures.
The nature of national cultures
The nine cultural dimensions found by House et al., (2014):
Uncertainty avoidance or the extent to which the society relies on rules to avoid uncertainty.
Power distance or views about the extent power should be unequally distributed.
Institutional collectivism, which refers to the identification of broader societal interests compared with individual goals.
In-group collectivism- expression of pride in social organizations and families.
Gender egalitarianism, which refers to the promotion of restriction of gender equalities.
The nature of national cultures
Assertiveness, the encouragement of toughness as opposed to submissiveness.
Future orientation, the forward planning and support for change compared with support for traditionalism.
Performance orientation, the extent to which people are encouraged and rewarded for improved performance.
Human orientation, the degree of cultural support for fairness and concern for others.
The nature of national cultures
For example, the Anglo group (US and UK) is found as competitive, results-orientated and less attached to their families in general. They also seemed to favour charismatic/value-based leadership. However, attempting to find cultural values as a general perception overlooks the divisions in societies, which mediate the responses of individuals according to their values linked to class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and region.
Modern pluralistic societies have always been fractured and fractious and values always openly contested (Malik, 2017).
The nature of national cultures
Dominant, subcultures and countercultures
The idea of a dominant culture implies that in a society with diverse cultures and class divisions a ruling class is able to persuade most of the population that its values and worldview should prevail.
It is widely held in many sociological perspectives that a shared belief system or a ruling class ideology has a crucial role in maintaining social order in class societies.
A culture can never be completely dominant as there is always the possibility that competing values will exist or that the experience of some sections of society such as the poor will, through their life experience, fail to be entirely convinced of the legitimacy of the ruling ideology.
The nature of national cultures
Within society, or, indeed, within a work organization, there may be groups who do not share the dominant values but express themselves through different values and symbols such as dress codes or language. For groups who are stigmatized within society their subculture may provide ways of coping and support for their self- respect and identity.
Where a subculture opposes or inverts the values of the dominant culture it may be regarded as counterculture. A counterculture may provide a symbolic resistance to a dominant culture or even a solution for its members as they can find a more positive self-definition within that culture.
Understanding organizational culture
The national cultures embedded within people need to be understood because they interweave explicitly and predictably with peoples’ thinking and action inside the workplace, and for leaders, they provide choices of who to be in various situations (Schein, 2017).
Although national culture is basic to social interaction: “Organizations are typically best seen as existing in a broader cultural context, with a variety of societal, industrial, regional, class, occupation, etc., cultures interplaying” (Alvesson, 2011, p.153).
The current trend in mainstream management literature about ‘corporate culture’ is that a leader’s influence and power causes others to act.
Understanding organizational culture
Central to this vision of corporate culture is the idea that with, “the right corporate vision, mission statement or leader, an organization can build a highly committed, unified culture that fosters productivity and profitability” (Martin 2002, cited in Alvesson, 2016, p.267).
However, while cultural control can help to reduce ambiguity and reinforce organizational processes it can also encourage ‘group think’ and hinder critical thinking and can lead to unproductive activities and mistakes (Alvesson, 2016).
Understanding organizational culture
The term ‘organizational culture’ found in the literature describes a system of ‘shared’ values and beliefs, co-produced by leaders and followers, which seek to reinforce employee behaviour so as to achieve the organization’s goals. However, organizational culture is permeated by the broader social culture as it is made of a multiplicity of cultural orientations.
e.g. Visible artifacts, stories and legends, rituals and ceremonies
The iceberg metaphor illustrating the three levels of organizational culture
Understanding organizational culture
In contrast to organizational culture, which reflects the invisible and intangible dimension of organizational life, organizational climate relates to managers’ and other employees’ evaluation of tangible workplace attributes (Norton et al., 2015).
Schneider and Reichers (1983) define organizational climate as employees’ perceptions of formal policies, the procedures that translate policies into guidelines, and the practices that act upon them. Climate is conceptualized as an artefact of organizational culture (Schein, 1990) as shown in Figure 4.2.
Understanding organizational culture
Organizational culture and organizational climate are:
two complementary constructs, but reveal overlapping nuances in the social and psychological life of complex organizations.
The former tends to take a sociological approach, using qualitative methodology, to examine symbolic and cultural forms of organizations.
Understanding organizational culture
Perspectives on organizational culture
Leadership scholars adopt different perspectives from cultural theorists on the study of organizational culture:
Durkheim’s concern for social solidarity through ideological consensus suggests that culture is the social ‘glue’ binding an organization together whereas Weber emphasizes that individuals behave ‘not out of obedience, but … because … of unreflective habituation to a regularity of life that has engraved itself as a custom’ (Weber, 1922/1968, p. 312, emphasis added).
Contemporary literature identifies four perspectives:
Managerialist
An organization-wide set of values devised by senior managers in order to produce a committed and loyal workforce, through managing employees.
Focus on the role of leaders, their style of leadership and the kinds of culture most appropriate to the achievement of the goals of the organization.
Symbolic-Interactionist
Shared meanings produced by workers and management in regular, routine contact – it is not fixed but subject to negotiation over time.
Perspectives on organizational culture
Contemporary literature identifies four perspectives:
Social Conflict
Rooted in Karl Marx’s analysis of capitalism.
Assumes that conflict is a basic feature of all organizations as members struggle for control over scarce resources.
Perspectives on organizational culture
Values, norms and beliefs are assumed to develop to maintain the power and control of management.
Joanne Martin (1992) found that organizational culture is characterized by so much ephemerality, ambiguity and change, and so exposes the truth claims of monolithic and united corporate cultures – exposing the naivety of thinking that there is no ambiguity in what cultural members believe and do.
Perspectives on organizational culture
Feminist
Gender is a central aspect of organizational analysis.
Gender, defined here as the “patterned, socially produced, distinctions between female and male, feminine and masculine (Ackers, 1992: 250), is crucial for understanding how people encounter support, encouragement and skepticism in organizational contexts (Alvesson and Billing, 2009, p. 1).
Gender analysis is important because some organizations (e.g. schools, media) directly play a part in the socializing processes in which people acquire gender identities (Helm Mills and Mills, 2000).
Perspectives on organizational culture
Organizational culture, climate and leadership
In terms of cultural change strategies, Alvesson (2011, p.152) explores three perspectives on organizational culture and leadership:
The role of leaders in creating an organizational culture.
Leadership as maintenance and reproduction of organizational culture.
Culture as framing and reframing by leadership.
Organizational culture, climate and leadership
While HR practices may ostensibly be able to create a particular culture during the organization’s formative years, over time “other complexities and other influences than founder values often undermine the impact of the latter” (Martin et al, 1985, cited in Alvesson, 2011, p.157).
There are also other influential factors such as:
Culture as a constraint on leadership
Ideology as part of culture
The role of employee engagement and voice
Organizational Leadership
John Bratton
1
Part 2
Leadership theories
Trait, behaviour and contingency theories of leadership
Chapter 5
3
Learning outcomes
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the early research on leadership traits, describe the research methods used, and explain why many of the early studies were contradictory or inconclusive.
Explain the University of Michigan, the Ohio State and the Blake and Mouton models of leadership.
Describe and critique early and contemporary contingency theories of leadership including; least preferred coworker theory, path-goal theory and situational theory.
4
Introduction
Early leadership research focused on the role of individual traits to explain differences between leaders and non-leaders and leadership effectiveness – however, generally weak for predictive purposes.
This leads to shift the focus from studying traits that a leader ‘has’ to the study of how leaders ‘behave’, providing the framework for contingency theory which assumed rational analysis of situation or context should determine how a leader behaves.
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Leader traits and attributes
Trait – a variety of enduring characteristics, typically belonging to an individual, including personality tendencies that determine an individual’s behaviour.
4 core properties:
Measurable
Vary across individuals
Exhibit time and situational stability
Help predict attitudes and behaviours
Trait Activation Theory
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Leader traits and attributes
Trait Activation Theory
Focus on personal characteristics, or intellectual attributes that differentiate leaders from non-leaders.
Theories and researches in this matter flourished between the 19th century to mid-20th century, discovering:
specific psychological traits and attributes which would help explain whether an individual will emerge as an informal leader in a group.
how traits and personal attributes are related to leadership effectiveness.
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Leader traits and attributes
Researchers utilized various methods to identify a universal cluster of leadership traits, including intelligence and personality testing, observation, and analysis of biographical data. Though, any interpretation of comparative data might differ because the researchers use different descriptors to describe similar personal characteristics.
Considered singularly, Stogdill (1974) observed that traits have little diagnostic or predictive significance. Rather, specific “patterns of traits” appear to interact in a complex way to give leadership advantage and are a “sensible modification” of the extreme variant of situationalist model (1974, p. 87).
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Leader traits and attributes
Critiques:
Largely neglected the context within which leaders find themselves.
Underplays followership in the leadership process – focused on trait variables and optimum performance and downplaying what it is like to be a human being.
Because of the above, this model also disregarded class, gender and race – leading to studies using intersectionality.
Culturally determined.
Underestimated the challenges of proving causality.
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Leader behaviour and styles
Behavioural Theories
Focus on behaviour and infer people can be trained to be leaders – what they do and how they behave towards followers.
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Leader behaviour and styles
Evolving from a system of “scientific management” to observing a disconnection between employee’s psychological aspirations, management practices and leadership styles, this has lead to majority of the studies comparing different types of leadership styles based on 2 main types of behavior:
Task behaviours – to what extent the leader emphasize productivity targets; also known as ‘producton-centred’ and ‘task-orientated’ leadership styles.
Relationship behaviours – to what extent the leader is concerned about her or his followers as people: their needs, development, and problems; also known as ‘employee-centred’ and ‘person-orientated’ leadership styles.
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Leader behaviour and styles
University of Michigan Studies
Focus: the effect of the leader’s behaviour or style on work performance – identified 2 discrete types of leadership behaviours: production orientation and employee orientation.
From reframing these 2 types to be of opposite ends of a single leadership dimension, these 2 leadership constructs were conceptualized as independent orientations as more research is done.
Employee-oriented leader behaviours were associated with higher group performance and higher job satisfaction among group members.
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Leader behaviour and styles
Ohio State University
Focus: how leaders behaved when they were leading a team or an organization by initial study of aircrews and pilots – results suggested 2 underlying dimensions of leader behaviours: initiating structure and consideration.
Both structures are considered 2 independent dimensions, thus a leader’s behaviour can be flexible and capable of changing as the situations warranted.
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Leader behaviour and styles
Effective leader attempts to increase both initiating and consideration structure and to maintain a balance between the two.
Ohio State’s approach measured both formal and informal variables although its studies shares similarity with Michigan’s – looking into the differences between the leader’s formal responsibility and formal interaction with followers, vice versa.
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Leader behaviour and styles
Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid or Leadership Grid
Based on leader styles similar to those found in the Ohio State studies, they have characterized 2 main activities of leaders: concern for results and concern for people.
These two attitudinal dimensions are independent of each other. In different combinations, they yield a broad range of different leadership styles (see Figure 6.1).
This model differs from Ohio States (descriptive and non-evaluative) that it is normative and prescriptive.
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Leader behaviour and styles
16
Leader behaviour and styles
Critiques:
Unable to identify a universal style of leadership that could be effective in the vast majority of situations.
This approach suggests that the most effective leadership style is the so-called “high-high” style, that is, high results- and high people-oriented behaviour.
It has not adequately demonstrated how leaders’ behaviours are associated with performance outcomes (causal connection; Bryman, 1992).
17
Contingency theories of leadership
Proposes that the appropriate leader behaviour depends on certain factors or contingency variables including the task and the followers. Thus, there is no one best behaviour or style of leadership, but, rather, situation X requires leadership behaviour or style B.
18
Contingency theories of leadership
Fiedler’s Contingency Theory
Assumes that leaders are either task-oriented or relationship-oriented, an orientation that the leader cannot change.
The effectiveness of both types of leaders depends on the favourableness of the situation – classified by the Least Preferred Coworker (LPC) Scale.
Contingency Variables: task structure, position power, and leader-member relations
Criticism: it is a projective technique, with associated measurement biases and low measurement reliability (McMahon, l972; Peters et al. 1985).
19
Contingency theories of leadership
House’s Path-Goal Theory
This theory has its roots in the expectancy theory of motivation (Vroom, 1964). Expectancy theory is based on the notion that work motivation is contingent upon the perception of a link between levels of physical or mental effort and reward (Bratton, 2015).
Here, the main task of the leader is to facilitate the follower’s path to the goal.
Contingency Variables: characteristics of the work environment (situation) and of the followers.
20
Contingency theories of leadership
21
Contingency theories of leadership
Limitations:
The research support for the theory is weak (e.g. Schriesheim et al. 2006).
This theory incorporates so many different aspects of leadership that interpreting the theory can be unclear.
The model neglects to explain adequately the leader-behaviour-follower motivation relationship.
The leader has to provide coaching to help followers achieve their goals, which assumes that the leadership is a one-way process and fails to recognize followers’ initiative and action.
22
Contingency theories of leadership
Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory (SLT)
suggests that the leader’s behaviour must be flexible to reflect the situation, by choosing the right leadership style contingent on the subordinates’ ability and motivation to perform a given task.
SLT requires a leader to appraise her or his subordinates’ and judge how competent and committed or motivated they are to perform and accept responsibility for completing a given task or goal.
23
Contingency theories of leadership
24
Contingency theories of leadership
Critiques:
It facilitates managers and leaders to become more context sensitive, flexible and responsive to peers (Graeff, 1983).
All the theories incorporate multiple factors simultaneously into recommending a preferred leadership style, which is open to wide interpretation.
They do not explain adequately the causal effects underpinning the relationships they draw. The absence of central hypotheses does not allow for a reliable testing of the variability of dependent and independent variables.
25
Organizational Leadership
John Bratton
1
Part 3
Managing people and leadership
Performance management and leadership
Chapter 11
3
Learning outcomes
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
Understand the crucial link between leadership and performance management in organizations.
Explain the importance of context in the changing role of the leader and other stakeholders in the historical development of performance management processes and practices.
Examine innovative leadership influences on performance management activities in contribution to the achievement of contemporary organizational goals.
4
Learning outcomes
Critically evaluate research on the leadership-performance relationship.
Explain some criticisms and paradoxes in relation to performance management.
5
5
The nature and purpose of performance management
CIPD defines performance management as:
the activity and set of processes that aim to maintain and improve employee performance in line with an organisation’s objectives. It is strategic as well as operational, as its aim is to ensure that employees contribute positively to business objectives. Ideally, performance should be managed holistically, throughout the range of HR activities and processes (2018).
6
The nature and purpose of performance management
Bratton and Gold define performance management as:
The set of interconnected practices designed to ensure that a person’s overall capabilities and potential are appraised, so that relevant goals can be set for work and development, and so that, through assessment, data on work behaviour and performance can be collected and reviewed (2017, p. 186).
7
The nature and purpose of performance management
These definitions captures:
Managing the performance of employees is the essence of managing the employment relationship.
It is a ‘continuous process’ (Biron et al., 2011, p. 1295) that not only can determine reward to the employee but also involves training and developing employees in line with organizational strategy and goals (see Figure 13.1).
It yields measurements that can be used to close the ‘gap’ or space between what promised by an employee and what is realized in terms of work performance.
8
The nature and purpose of performance management
Defining PM is not easy because it focuses not just on the task in hand but also on the effort (motivation, behaviour and competencies) involved for the parties in the process.
Techniques deployed in PM practice is vital in businesses these days and the effective management of the performance process is just as critical, but also complicated because it will involve an evolving consideration of four crucial factors for any organization according to Kenerley and Neely (2003): Process, People, Systems and Culture.
9
The nature and purpose of performance management
The purpose of performance management: the integral and strategic element of HRM concerned with getting the best outputs and results for an organization in partnership with its individual talent in practice to achieve competitive advantage in changing global knowledge contexts.
Any performance management process has to therefore be continuous, strategically integrated and cyclical.
It must take cognizance of the context within which the organization operates and consider not only short to medium term goals, but also those in the longer time frame.
10
The nature and purpose of performance management
11
Determinants of employee and organizational performance
Competency of leader
Contextual factors
Good communication
Working conditions
Nature of the work
Reward systems
Development opportunities
Security
Co-workers
Recognition
Levels of autonomy
12
Determinants of employee and organizational performance
13
Historical milestones in performance management
14
Industrialization & Capitalization
Frederick W. Taylor (1856-1915) – Theory of ‘Economy Man’
Henry Ford (1863-1947) – Fordism
Elton Mayo (1920’s) – the Hawthorne Experiments & ‘Social Man’
McGregor (1957) – there existed too unequal a balance of employer power which did not help either motivation or predicted performance output for either party.
Drucker (1955) – Management by Objectives (MBO)
Beer and Ruh (1976) – Performance Management
Human Resource Management (late 1980’s to early 1990’s)
Performance Management Systems (PMS)
Armstrong (2006, p. 12) – challenged the word ‘systems’ & advocated process approach to PM that involves Planning, Acting, Monitoring and Reviewing
Lowry (2002) – performance as a continuous cycle linking together performance with the various HRM processes and practices, which affect the employee life cycle with organisational values
De Nisi and Pritchard, 2006) – redefine PM as an interactive process as it is deemed to be fairer, leading to improve the overall effectiveness with employees
The performance management appraisal process
In practice, performance management typically involves the continuous process of identifying, measuring, and developing the performance of individuals and groups in organizations (Aguinis, 2015), and it involves providing both formal and informal performance‐related information to employees (Selden and Sowa, 2011).
In the form of a formal review meeting, normally scheduled annually or bi-annually.
15
The performance management appraisal process
There are five main elements involved in the process according to the CIPD (2011):
Measurement
Feedback
Positive reinforcement
An exchange of views
Agreement
Criticism: Lack impact in some organizations due to how appraisals are perceived and presented, in that it has little value or meaning attached.
16
Modelling leaders and performance
Contextual Push Factors for Leaders today:
Achieve business objectives
Meet demands of the growing knowledge economy and its associated challenges
Ability to navigate successfully through megatrends like:
The individual
The transition to flexibility
The demography (age)
The demography (gender)
The rapid social and economic change
The social responsibility and sustainability
17
Modelling leaders and performance
How?
Leaders are expected to execute a role which is focused on expected behaviours (refer to Table 13.1) where the focus is heavily on the the individual to have the ability to employ complex intra-personal constructs in order to adapt leadership behaviours to the required contexts (Hannah, Woolfolk and Lord, 2009; Lord et al., 2011).
Leaders will require development and resilience planning to face the complexities of the ever-changing business landscape.
Leaders will need to have the required soft and hard skills.
Leaders must learn to lead themselves.
18
Modelling leaders and performance
19
Problems of methodology and theory
Often perceived that there is direct correlation between leadership effectiveness and performance outcomes in organizations.
Researchers trying too hard to put leaders in theoretical boxes based on specific schools of thought to align with theories.
Effective leadership involves a multi-faceted approach.
20
Criticism and paradox in performance appraisal
PAS is far from neutral in intention and scope of use by leaders.
Lack of continuous attention provided by leaders on the on-going evaluation to ensure relevance and success of PAS.
The growth in usage of PAS has been fuelled by the rise of the HRM model, the decline in trade union membership and collective bargaining and changes in work and organizational design.
Gender issues in pay inequality will continue to be an issue as long as men dominate the higher earning strata in wage distribution.
21
Criticism and paradox in performance appraisal
Disparities increase (across not only receipt of normal pay-roll equalities but also in the ability to access performance related pay) with the number of challenges faced by disadvantaged groups, gender being only one, with disability and ethnicity being the others.
PAS represents the essence of leader-follower power when related to pay, and in so doing weakens bonds of reciprocity, trust and commitment.
22
Organizational Leadership
John Bratton
Part 1
Contextualising leadership
The nature of leadership
Chapter 1
3
Learning outcomes
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
Explain the nature of leadership and the apparent difference between leadership and management
Explain the essence of classical and contemporary trends in leadership theories
Discuss how the trends in leadership theories are connected to changes in global capitalism competing theories of organizational design
4
Introduction
Many of today’s challenges are complex and the public look upon leaders for solutions or for someone to blame when crises present themselves.
With organizational change seems near-constant and necessitates leadership, this book critically examines the role of leaders in managing organizational change and people across different contexts in both private and public organizations and, in an area which is less frequently studied, in promoting innovation and pro-environmental change in the context of managerial rationales, constraints and opportunities.
5
Defining leadership
2000 years ago,
The first serious attempt to develop a theory of leadership can be found in Plato’s The Republic (Grint, 1997).
16th- century,
Machiavelli’s The Prince attached great importance to the role of leaders in shaping societal events.
Over the centuries,
Examples illustrating the central role of individual leaders is repetitively found in English history such as Winston Churchill in the Second World War.
6
Defining leadership
This continuous interest in leadership is the very common assumption that ‘great’ leaders profoundly shape events in society. Plus, the growth of industrial capitalism give rise in the studies of organizational leadership.
20th century,
Leadership research is further driven by both the military and manufacturing demands of two world wars, the development of the capitalist global economy and the preoccupation of organizations and government with competitiveness.
7
Defining leadership
8
Competing Definitions of Organizational Leadership
Behaviour
Leadership may be defined as the behaviour of an individual while he [sic] is involved in directing group activities (Hemphill and Coons, 1957, p. 7).
Leadership… acts by persons which influence other persons in a shared direction (Seeman, 1960, p. 53).
Power
Leadership is a particular type of power relationship characterized by a group member’s perception that another group member has the right to prescribe behaviour patterns for the former regarding his [sic] activity as a member of a particular group (Janda, 1960, p. 358).
Process
Leadership is the reciprocal process of mobilizing by persons with certain motives and values, various economic, political, and other resources, in a context of competition and conflict, in order to realize goals independently or mutually held by both leaders and followers (Burns, 1978, 425).
Leadership is a formal or informal contextually rooted and goal-influencing process that occurs between a leader and a follower, groups of followers, or institutions (Antonakis and Day, 2018, 5).
Traits / Attributes
Interaction Interaction between specific traits of one person and other traits of the many, in such a way that the course of action of the many is changed by the one (Bogardus, 1934, p. 3).
Defining leadership
For the purposes of this book, we use the following definition:
Organizational leadership is a process of influencing within an employment relationship involving ongoing human interaction with others wherein those others consent to achieve a goal.
9
Defining leadership
The definition captures the following information:
Organizational leadership is a dialectical process (act) embedded in a context of both cooperation and structural conflict, which may affect the style of leadership adopted. Process also implies that a leader affects and is affected by the ‘psychological contract’, a metaphor for a perceived set of expectations and understandings between employees and employers, an important concept in people management (Rousseau, 1995).
10
Defining leadership
Leadership is an influencing process occurring both directly and indirectly among others within formal employment relations.
The influence process may involve only a single leader, such as a CEO, or it may encompass numerous leaders in the organization.
It is ultimately concerned with achieving a particular goal, and goal achievement will be a measure of its effectiveness.
11
Leadership and management
Questions like what do managers do and what do leaders do helps us to understand their roles. A manager therefore can undertake a diverse range of roles within an organization. It is important to note here that more than one individual can perform a leadership role. That is, leadership can be shared or distributed in the organization. The opportunity to perform certain roles will depend on the manager’s position in the organization’s hierarchy, the nature of the work undertaken and the level of education of her or his co-workers.
12
Leadership and management
Role of Managers
Central to achieving control and decision by mainstream management literature
Deal with uncertainties, resistance and conflicts by critical studies
Analysing and designing work systems that minimized skill requirements while maximizing management control over the workforce by Frederick W. Taylor (1911)
13
Leadership and management
Classic Fayolian Management Cycle (PDOC) by Henry Fayol
Three set of behaviours by Mintzberg (1989)
Interconnected Three Dimensional Model by Squires (2001)
It is also note that critical studies studies have challenged the universality of managerial behaviour, and have emphasized the importance of factoring into the analysis of management diversity: including gender, race, sexuality and consideration of cultural mores that prevail.
14
Leadership and management
Roles of Leaders
Although both ‘managing’ and ‘leading’ can potentially coexist in the same individual, mainstream leadership scholars since Zaleznik’s (1977) have argued that managers and leaders are in fact different and that leadership and management are different.
15
Leadership and management
Role of Managers Role of Leaders
Acting as the figurehead Establishing direction
Liaising with other managers Communicating direction
Developing subordinates Encouraging emotion
Planning Empowering others
Handling conflicts Influencing
Negotiating Challenging status quo
Monitoring information Motivating and inspiring others
Directing subordinates Modelling the direction
Allocating resources Building a team
Produces potential predictability Produces radical change
Based on Hales (1986), Kotter (2012) and Kouzes and Posner (2017).
16
Leadership and management
Leaders create a vision and the strategy to achieve vs Managers choose the means to implement the vision created by the leader.
Leaders operate at an emotional level, seeking to appeal to followers’ emotions vs Managers operate logically and value rationality.
Leaders encourage empowerment vs Managers encourage compliance.
Leadership is a value-laden activity vs Management is not.
17
Leadership and management
Leaders are change agents associated with ‘episodic’ (Weick and Quinn, 1999) / ‘revolutionary’ (Burke, 2014) / vuja de (never seen before) (Grint, 2006) vs Managers are associated with ‘continuous’ or ‘evolutionary’ change / déjà vu (seen before). Kouzes and Posner (1997), also mentioned that exemplary leadership entails ‘challenging the process’.
Bernard Bass (1990) observed that not all managers lead and not all leaders manage, and an employee, without being a formal manager, may be a leader.
18
Mapping the changing study of leadership
Literatures about what leaders should do – contains theories for leaders – primarily normative, providing how to prescriptions for improving leadership effectiveness.
Literatures about what leaders actually do – contains theories of leadership – primarily analytical, directed at better understanding leadership processes, explaining why they vary in different circumstances and the ‘platforms’ (ship) that leaders create to enable others to act as leaders
(Antonacopulou and Bento, 2011; Dinh et al. 2014; Ford, 2015)
19
Mapping the changing study of leadership
5 Major Categories of Leadership Research (Bryman, 1996)
Trait
Behaviour
Contingency
Charismatic/Transformative
Shared/Distributed
20
The trajectory of leadership theory is not linear, but, rather, follows endless swings between leader-centric and follower-centric models often based on new thinking about work design and organizational change. Thus, theories of leadership and disruptive organizational change are inseparably intertwined (Parry, 2011).
Leader-centred perspectives
Contingency and situational perspectives
Follower-centric perspectives
Mapping the changing study of leadership
21
Critical leadership studies (CLS)
It has always been the case of assuming functionalist approach to leading people as functionalism assumes that organizations are unitary wholes, characterized by compliance, consensus and order.
However, CLS critiques mainstream orthodoxies and the power relations through which leadership dynamics are frequently rationalized, often reproduced and sometimes resisted – viewing organizations as arenas of domination, inequality, tension and conflict. The focus is on power, subordination and exploitation (Tadajewski et al. 2011) and to ‘decolonise’ (Gopal, 2017) prevailing stories, to ask difficult questions of society and ourselves – addressing the intersection of class, gender and race in work, organizational design and power structures that is the reality of organizational life.
Power, leadership and ideology
Gender and leadership
22
The employment relationship
Constructed within work organizations.
A mutually advantageous transaction in a free market, a partnership of employers and employees with shared interests, a negotiation over ‘wage-effort’ between parties with competing interests, or an unequal power relation embedded in complex socio-economic inequalities (Budd and Bhave, 2013).
Ongoing actor relationships
‘Paradox of consequences’
Balance of power between actors
Organized life is recognized as an arena of complex reciprocal human relations
23
Organizational Leadership
John Bratton
1
Part 4
Contemporary leadership
Leadership development
Chapter 12
3
Learning outcomes
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
Explain various meanings of leader and leadership development.
Understand how leaders learn and the value of critical reflection.
Explain how leaders can be assessed for development.
Understand different approaches to the learning and development of leaders.
Provide a case for connecting leader development to leadership development.
4
Leader and leadership development in organisations
Burgoyne et al. (2004) argued for the need to consider specific circumstances in developing leaders, suggesting that development ‘works in different ways in different situations’ (p.49). Examples including:
Large organizations vs SMEs
Advancement in digital technologies used by HQ to organize its multiple branches
5
Leader and leadership development in organisations
Gold et al. (2010) offered two definitions of leadership development:
‘A planned and deliberate process to help leaders become more effective’.
‘A process of learning based on informal opportunities to enable [leaders] to perform as leaders’.
6
Leader and leadership development in organisations
Figure 13.1 Planned v. Informal Leadership Development
7
Learning and reflection for leadership development
How and Where Learning Takes Place?
Transfer learning from formal courses/programmes to everyday work and performance
Models of Experiential Learning – includes emphasis on reflection
With improved understanding, it helps with a leader’s capacity for critique
How to think critically?
to critique rhetoric
to critique tradition
8
Learning and reflection for leadership development
to critique authority
to critique knowledge
The critique of simplification
The critique of identity
These types of critical thinking can help leaders to find new ways of taking action and question whether their conduct is appropriate while working
9
Assessing leaders for development
The programmes created to develop leadership could be formed by theories and models of leadership explained throughout the other chapters of this book or draw on ideas about specific leadership skills that are assumed to be of value.
Competencies of managers are in question for creation of the appropriate leadership frameworks for training.
In the United States, American Management Association.
10
Assessing leaders for development
In the United Kingdom, National Occupational Standards (NOS).
Critiques:
Overly reductionist, encouraging learners (and trainers) to view capabilities atomistically, rather than holistically.
Competencies are not valuable in themselves, but only if they are used at appropriate times.
11
Assessing leaders for development
(Often) a lack of good evidence for the value of the competencies within a framework.
A framework may set an impossible standard, listing an array of competencies that no single individual is likely to be able to possess.
Preparing leaders for development
Leaders need to be ready to respond to feedback provided, as it affects their self-awareness – be feedback seekers and have a learning-goal orientation in developing new skills (though still depends on context)
12
Approaches to leaders’ development
Training, Courses and Programmes
Executive Coaching
Work-based Learning
Evaluation
13
Approaches to the development of leaders
This section covers activities that leaders can undertake to develop leadership abilities in others, and thus enhance leadership throughout their organization, through collaborative learning and its dissemination throughout the organization:
Coaching and mentoring
Action learning
14
planned
and
deliberate
leadership
development
Informal
leadership
development
planned and deliberate
leadership development
Informal leadership
development
Organizational Leadership
John Bratton
1
Part 1
Contextualising leadership
Power and leadership
Chapter 3
3
Learning outcomes
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
Recognise and explain the types of power within leadership processes
Understand and explain the different perspectives on power
Describe the evolution of studies of power and leadership as a field of learning
Understand and explain the concept of organisational politics, its relationship to power and leadership
Identify contemporary challenges around power and leadership
4
Introduction
What is power? Power is generally defined as the capacity or the potential to influence others in relation to their beliefs, attitudes or activities.
Critical leadership scholars contend that orthodox leadership theories (trait, behavioural, contingency, charismatic) adhere to traditional hierarchical and bureaucratic control systems and take the asymmetrical power relationship within the leader-follower dyadic as natural and unproblematic (Collinson, 2011; Gordon, 2011; Hardy and Clegg, 1996).
5
Introduction
The literature on non-traditional follower-centric and team theories of leadership espouses the sharing of power between leaders and followers.
Critical organization scholars, however, contend that non-traditional approaches ‘blur’ power relations and generally continue to adopt an apolitical perspective to power.
6
Conceptualizing power
Karl Marx
The making of history is made not just in relation to the physical world but also through the struggles that some social groups engage against others in circumstances of domination.
He argued that “class interests” – capitalist versus workers – follow from the social relations concerning the ownership and control of the means of production, and there conflict and power is structured into organization design.
7
Conceptualizing power
Max Weber
The probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests.
Theory of legitimate domination through legally enacted policies and regulations, found in modern bureaucracies, with two central elements:
the legitimacy of the organizational leader’s power, and the perception by followers that the leader’s authority was legitimate for those who were subject to it.
the creation of an “administrative apparatus” in which followers carry out the commands of the leader.
8
Conceptualizing power
Max Weber
The treatment of ‘power’ as ‘authority’ to mean institutionalized ‘authority’ (from the mistranslated ‘Herrschaft’) became the basis for orthodox studies of power, in which power relates to authority, as a phenomenon informally rather than formally developed in the organization.
The ‘formal-informal’ distinction thus becomes the focus where “authority is the potentiality to influence based on a position, whereas power is the actual ability to influence based on a number of factors including, organizational position” in the hierarchy.
9
Conceptualizing power
Orthodox studies of ‘power’ in work organizations have located the bases of power in some relationship with, such that they enable ‘power’ to be ‘exercised’ or in specific socially authorized ‘resources’ that a worker may control.
E.g. , ‘A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do’ (Dahl, 1957, pp. 202–3). Power ‘over’, whether individually or collectively, refers to the control of one agent over others, and power ‘to’ is the capacity to realize ends.
Tendency to focus on ‘power over’ by critical scholars due to the concentration of its oppressiveness and injustice. However, Hearn (2012) argues that ‘power over’ and ‘power to’ are “inextricably bound together … it is the increase in power over, in ever more extensive and complex forms of hierarchic social organization, which has yielded massive increases in our power to”.
10
Conceptualizing power
French and Raven
Focuses on the potential ability of one individual to influence another within a certain social situation.
This theory assumes that the particular ‘resource’ possessed by the individual that will have a utility in one situation, will have that usefulness in all situations.
It also assumes perfect knowledge on the part of all concerned being able to judge correctly the utility of the all resources in all situations (Clegg and Dunkerley, 1980).
11
Conceptualizing power
Five bases of power – referent, expert, legitimate, reward and coercive
Giddens (1985) notes that all individuals may “have power”, but in an organizational context, power is influenced and constrained by the distribution of different types of resource.
E.g. “allocative resources” – control over physical things such as monetary reward, and “authoritative resources” – involve control over management practices.
12
Conceptualizing power
Stephen Luke
Power is a “three-dimensional” phenomenon.
The one-dimensional view of power focuses on the individual’s ability to enact commands in observable conflicts.
A two-dimensional view of power extends the analyses by examining the ability of the social actors to control the agenda, which is a source of power overlooked in the pluralist model, one-dimensional perspective.
The three-dimensional view is the social processes in which those with power induce the powerless to behave or believe as the former wish, without coercion. This is achieved by a complex infrastructure of persuasion or justification.
13
Different perspectives on power
Foucault
Power operates at all social institutions, at all levels of social interaction and through all individuals.
Power does not intrude from powerful individuals; it exudes from within.
Followers are not the victims of others’ power; rather, they are both the perpetrators and the victims of the very power that constrains their behaviour.
Power is associated with the web of policies, practices and procedures found within organizations.
14
Different perspectives on power
Conceptualizing power as a relational activity, rather than as a possession, widens the focus of attention from the ‘who’ and the ‘why’ to ‘how’ of power, HR policies and practices, for instance, by which it operates.
Power also prevents some behaviours while at the same time positively encouraging others, both at the broadest political and historical levels and at the deepest level of individual identity.
Power constitutes what we know as a society, including, of course, how we think about work organizations – emphasizing that power and knowledge are closely interconnected, serving to reinforce each other.
Power is all-pervasive.
15
Different perspectives on power
Gramsci
‘Hegemony’ that acknowledges the complexity and mixture of consensus and conflict, and hence power relations in a broad sense. This term expresses two types of power relations:
A group’s domination over other groups.
A group’s leadership.
16
Different perspectives on power
It expresses the relationships of leadership and domination that produce a general sense of coordinated reality for most people. Besides that, it also represents an active, social process in which alternatives resistance against incorporation.
No leader can guarantee that followers will follow and any discussion of power and leadership has to acknowledge that leader-follower relations are inevitably characterized by structured power, cooperation and conflict.
17
Different perspectives on power
Weber’s & Lukes’s concepts of power Foucault’s and Gramsci’s concepts of power
Power is possessed by the individual Power is relational & pervasive
Power resides in social elites Power is found in everyday social practice
Powerful dominates powerless, resistance is futile People build their own web of power, resistance challenges elites
Power is negative and repressive Power is creative & contributes to social order
18
Different perspectives on power
Table 3.1 Traditional and Non-traditional Conceptualizations of Power
Source: Source: Adapted from Buchanan, D.A. and Badham, R.A. (2008) Power, Politics and Organizational Change: Winning the Turf Game, London: Sage.
Weber’s & Lukes’s concepts of power Foucault’s and Gramsci’s concepts of power
Power is visible, exercised when needed Power is imperceptible through everyday routines
Knowledge of power sources is empowering Knowledge buttresses the web of power
19
Power and management
Obedience is central to an analysis of the construction of power in leader-follower relations (Clegg, 1998).
In organization situations, French and Raven’s coercive power commonly implies the ability of a leader to inflict on subordinates feared penalties for disobedient behaviour or control over subordinates. Crucially, it is the subordinate’s dependency for coercion to be effective. However, uses of power imbalance to coerce may involve bullying behaviours that undermine a subordinate’s dignity and self-esteem (Bolton, 2005).
20
Power and management
Bassman (1992, p. 2) observes, “one common thread in all abusive relationships is the element of dependency. The abuser controls some important resources in the [target’s] life; the [target] is dependent on the abuser”. There are also research evidences that suggest that leader-coercive behaviour and bullying behaviours occur in workplaces because of the inability of the victim to defend her or himself due to a power imbalance (Branch et al., 2013). It is the analysis of dependency, the processes of social interaction, the minutiae of everyday work experience and the often misogynistic norms that informs its conduct that provide a more cognizant understanding of leader-coercive and bully behaviours in organizations.
21
Power and management
This also serves as a reminder that not all of leader-follower social interactions rest upon charismatic appeal or the ritual of deference or adulation. They also remind us that leaders perpetrate coercive-bully acts and too often this is interpreted as representing a “few bad apples”, as though socio-cultural influences are of no importance. But they are embedded within organizational cultures and processes, which in turn form part of wider societal processes (Bolton, 2005). Bolton also highlighted that the vagueness of the employment contract gets intensified within the cauldron of coercion and abuse.
22
Power and management
The effect of leader-coercive behaviour and bullying on recipients:
can range from psychological stress-related symptoms to physical harm (Hogh et al., 2011).
can also affect employees’ loyalty, commitment, and performance (Rayner, 1997).
affect organizational performance through an increase in absenteeism, high turnover and the cost of recruitment and training interventions, as well as loss of productivity (Salin and Hoel, 2011).
E.g. Tesco executives Chris Bush and John Scouler
23
Power and management
Gordon (2002; 2011) found that power in leadership is generally debated in two perspectives:
Traditionally, power is seen as a phenomenon within hierarchical structures and control systems of organization.
Second focus is on the role of dispersed leadership theories and their emphasis on the promotion of empowerment through the transfer of leadership responsibilities to lower levels with post-bureaucratic organizations (Bryman, 1996).
24
Power and management
Orthodox Theories
Presents leaders with dualistic position of privilege within organisations – considered to be superior to other followers either through natural ability or particular attributes.
The historical nature of power is deemed to be ‘natural’ and ‘unproblematic’ – leading to limitations to reflections of surface-level issues and occurrences. Gordon (2011, p. 200) added on that the theme describes of what is occurring or what ‘ought’ to occur and lacks of abundant insight into the problematic interplay between leadership and power.
Power is assumed to be legitimate for leadership figures but illegitimate for organizational followers or for trade unions challenging managerial prerogative.
25
Power and management
Dispersed Leadership Theories
Focus primarily on self-leadership and team-based leadership approaches:
Self-leadership – employees take responsibility for their own work processes and direction.
Team-leadership – centres around autonomous work teams, each of which has their own leader.
26
Power and management
The sharing of leadership responsibilities ensures that the emphasis is put on the process of leadership rather than the attributes or behaviours of the ‘leader’.
However, this also assumes that power must also be shared and that the process of sharing power will be unproblematic.
Power is something that is embedded historically and socially in the structures around organisational actors; it is closely related to the concept of dependency and therefore pervades activity and impacts on attempts to disperse leadership.
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Power and management
Flemming and Spicer (2014) illustrated that there is a clear distinction in the literature between episodic theories of power (where power is directly exercised) and systematic forms of influence (where power is concealed within often enduring institutional structures), through identification of four sites of organizational power:
Power ‘in’ organisations
Power ‘through’ organisations
Power ‘over’ organisations
Power ‘against’ organisations
They also recognized that there are roles of other types of authority within organizational leadership, how they interlink and overlap or contrast within.
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Power and management
Weberian social theory,
the bureaucratic organization is viewed as a ‘social tool’ and an expression of rational thought and action. Any follower in a large organization will encounter a complex flow of power down, up and across organization hierarchies (Clegg, 1998). Power is part of the ‘rules of the game’ that both enable and constrain social action in the workplace (Clegg, 1975).
McKinlay and Starkey (1998),
found that Foucault’s conception of power is that it is most potent and efficient when it operates through bureaucratic rules rather than coercion or ‘force majeure’. Power is associated with practices and procedures – control of human capability rather than coordination of resources.
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Power and management
Townley (1994),
discovered that following Foucault, for individuals to be manageable, they must be known and to be known, they must be rendered visible – thus conceptualizes human resources management (HRM) is designed to close the gap between the expectation of performance and what is realized.
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Organizational Leadership
John Bratton
Part 1
Contextualising leadership
2
Strategic management, innovation and leadership
Chapter 2
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Learning outcomes
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
Explain the external and internal contexts of work organizations and the potential implications for leader-followers relations and behaviours;
Discuss the proposition that neoliberalism has shaped the role of leadership
Analyze the factors driving innovation and the leaders’ roles in facilitating the process
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Introduction
Until recently, academic interest in the role of context has been ‘limited’ to examining the links between economic-political crises and charismatic leadership (Conger, 2011). This is because few leadership scholars have a ‘macro’ or political economy background and, further, any contextual investigations are complicated by the fact that individual leaders and followers will perceive the relative importance of any contextual changes differently.
The aim of this chapter is to provide a sketch of the contexts that affects leadership dynamics. But we also have to bear in mind that corporate leaders attempt to change the external context. The chapter proceeds to examine innovation, its drivers and the role of leadership in promoting innovation.
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Strategic management
Whether in private or public sector organizations, a successful strategy is consistent with the organization’s environment and with its internal goals, resources, capabilities and shared values. But an important antecedent is corporate ideology that influences strategic decisions by senior executives.
Strategic management is best defined as a continuous process that requires the constant adjustment of three major, interdependent poles: the values of senior management, the resources available and the environment (Figure 2.1).
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Strategic management
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Strategic management
Environment operates at macro (external to an organization, i.e. industry level, economic) and micro level (specific environment, i.e. processes within the organization). Elements in the macro environment constantly penetrate into the micro environment, and affect an individual organization.
Conventional Strategic Management Process:
Mission and Goals
Organization’s direction and outcomes to be accomplish
Environmental Analysis
Macro – STEEPLE
Micro – SWOT or PRIMO-F
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Strategic management
Strategic Formulation
Evaluation of factors and choices made to meet goals
Strategy Implementation
Leadership – adaptation and development of a strategy, and gaining support and commitment of those who are expected to carry it out
Strategy Evaluation
Activity that determines whether the actual change and performance matches what has been planned to what extent
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Strategic management
However, this process only shows how strategic management should be done rather than describing what is actually done by senior managers.
Again, strategy is a political process undertaken by people with power and who are influenced by ideology.
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Macro environment
Socio-cultural, Technology, Economic, Ecology, Politics, Legal, Ethical
Micro environment
People, Resources, Innovation, Marketing, Operations – Finance & Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
A framework for studying strategy and leadership
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A framework for studying strategy and leadership
A hierarchy of strategy
Corporate-level strategy
Business-level strategy
Functional-level strategy
Team-level strategy
Levels of leadership
Organizational performance
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A framework for studying strategy and leadership
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The nature of innovation
Innovation can be defined as the process of coming up with good, new ideas and making them work technically and commercially (Tidd and Bessant, 2018). Innovation therefore only counts as innovation, if it produces something that ultimately will be sold to customers, or, in the public sector, that will result in ‘more for less’ (Parker, 2018, p. 30).
Incremental innovations enable organizations to ‘do things better’. Over time, and in cumulative form, incremental innovations can produce significant changes. Breakthrough innovations enable organizations to ‘do things different’ (Bessant, 2003).
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The nature of innovation
Product innovation
Process innovation
Disruptive innovation is a common pattern of innovation (Christensen, 2016).
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The external and internal contexts driving or disables innovation
External
Globalization
Market opportunities
Competitive pressures
Changes in laws and regulations
Changes in available technologies
Internal
Available knowledge and resources
Positive innovation strategies
Organizational cultures and practices
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The leaders’ roles in innovation processes
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The leaders’ roles in innovation processes
Individuals in leadership roles therefore need to be able to work well together in order to exercise shared leadership (Bolden and O’Regan, 2016).
Leadership of different types is thought to be needed at different stages of the innovation process.
There need to be a balance of exploration (search for new knowledge and ideas) and exploitation (of what is already known), also known as ambidexterity to realize an innovation process.
E.g. Transformation and transactional leadership
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Evaluation and criticism
Neoliberalism has been criticised as not just as something that has created the atomization of labour through strict regulation and strengthen management’s ‘right to manage’; it is also emphasized to be more than just the economic system – it has a political and ideological agenda.
This leads to corporate ideology where the major beliefs and values provided by leaders form the frame of reference for decision-making and action (lets us to understand how the employment relationship is managed).
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Evaluation and criticism
This idea continues to be aided by other organizations such as business schools, ‘think tanks’ and the media as “apparatus of justification” to continue spreading and formulation of these neoliberal ideas, such as shareholder value – illustrating that this is the way to do things and how the world is viewed.
Power blind becomes an important matter in discussion of the strategy literature.
Charismatic leaders also are romanticized as innovation enablers, while other key variables such as employees with creativity or the state is being ignored or downplayed.
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