The Leaders Within Us

Identifying and Using Your Personal Leadership Strengths

Leadership . . .

• Is a process• Involves influence• Occurs in groups• Includes attention to goals

Leadership as a Process

• Traits – set of properties• Skills or style – contextual & learned

Major Leadership Traits

• Intelligence• Self-confidence• Determination• Integrity• Sociability

LEADERSHIP TRAITS EXERCISE & INVENTORY

Now it’s your turn!

How does the trait approach work at work?

• Designated leadership profiles• “Fit”• Selecting “right” people will increase

organizational effectiveness• Personal awareness and development

Strengths & Weaknesses of Trait Approach

• Intuitively appealing – leader image

• 100 years of research & data

• Focus on leaders• Provides benchmarks

• No definitive set of traits

• Doesn’t take situation into account

• Doesn’t focus on outcomes (e.g. Do leaders with x traits have better results?)

• Not helpful for training & development

What About Skills?

• Skills approach – similar to traits– Leader-centered– Long history

• Distinctive from Trait approach– Focuses on what can be learned– Focuses on knowledge & abilities vs. solely on

personality

Research on Effective Leaders

• Leaders solve organizational problems• Leaders utilize skills in problem-solving• Leaders can learn these skills• Classic research study (Katz, 1955)– Technical Skill– Human Skill– Conceptual Skill

Technical Skill

• Proficiency in specific type of work or activity• Competencies & analytical abilities• Often “hands on” & involved in production

Human Skill

• Knowledge & ability to work with people• Work with peers, supervisees, & supervisors

to achieve organization’s goals• Awareness of own & others’ perspectives &

needs• Creates atmosphere of trust

Conceptual Skill

• Ability to work with ideas & concepts• Put organizational goals into words• Works with abstract ideas or hypothetical

situations to shape policy• Central to vision & planning for organization

LEADERSHIP SKILLS INVENTORYAgain, it is YOUR turn!

Strengths & Weaknesses of Skills Approach

• Leader-centered & process oriented

• Intuitively appealing – democratic

• Expansive & far reaching

• Consistent with leadership education criteria

• Too broad – moves beyond leadership

• Weak in predictive value

• Research was based on military personnel – can this be generalized to all leaders?

How About Style?

• Trait = personality• Skills = capabilities• Style = actions– Task behaviors– Relationship behaviors

Task & Relationship Behaviors

• Setting goals• Accomplishing goals• Helping team meet

objectives

• Help team feel comfortable

• Facilitate atmosphere of respect

• Facilitate atmosphere of trust

Which style is best?

• High relationship• High task• High relationship – high task• Important to look at how the two are

integrated

Leadership GridBlake & Moulton (1985); Blake & McCanse (1991)

Country Club TeamManagement Management(1,9) (9,9)

Middle-of-the-Road Management(5,5)

Impoverished Authority-ComplianceManagement Management (1,1) (9,1)

STYLE APPROACH INVENTORYAgain, it is YOUR turn!

Strengths & Weaknesses of the Style Approach

• Shift focus on leaders’ behaviors

• Significance of task & relationship components

• Allows assessment of leadership dimensions

• Does not link behaviors to performance outcomes

• Implies that high task, high relationship is best, but this is not always the case

Other theories:

• Situational• Contingency• Path-Goal• Leader-Member

Exchange

• Transformational• Team• Psychodynamic• Ethical • Servant

…and many more

One last example: Contingency Theory

Good LM Relations Poor LM Relations

High Task Structure Low Task Structure High Task Structure Low Task Structure

Strong Power

Weak Power

Strong Power

Weak Power

Strong Power

Weak Power

Strong Power

Weak Power

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Middle to High

Task

Middle to High

Task

Middle to High

Task

High Relation

ship

High Relation-

ship

High Relation-

ship

High Relation-

ship

High Task

SO WHAT ???What does this mean for YOUR leadership?

Questions / Comments?