a. You have to trust that the extra work you’ve been doing will be recognized in
your performance appraisal.
b. In contemporary organizations, where less work is closely documented and
specified, voluntary employee contribution based on trust is absolutely necessary.
c. And only a trusted leader will be able to encourage employees to reach beyond
themselves to a transformational goal.
B. The Outcomes of Trust
1. Trust encourages taking risks.
a. Whenever employees decide to deviate from the usual way of doing things, or to
take their supervisors’ word on a new direction, they are taking a risk.
2. Trust facilitates information sharing.
a. One big reason employees fail to express concerns at work is that they don’t feel
psychologically safe revealing their views.
3. Trusting groups are more effective.
a. When a leader sets a trusting tone in a group, members are more willing to help
each other and exert extra effort, which further increases trust.
4. Trust enhances productivity.
a. The bottom-line interest of companies also appears positively influenced by trust.
Employees who trust their supervisors tend to receive higher performance ratings.
C. Trust Development
1. Trust isn’t just about the leader; the characteristics of the followers will also influence
the development of trust.
2. What key characteristics lead us to believe a leader is trustworthy? Evidence has
identified three: integrity, benevolence, and ability. (Exhibit 12-6)
a. Integrity refers to honesty and truthfulness. It seems the most critical of the three
in assessing another’s trustworthiness.
b. Benevolence means the trusted person has your interests at heart, even if yours
aren’t necessarily in line with theirs.
c. Ability encompasses an individual’s technical and interpersonal knowledge and
skills.
D. Trust Propensity
1. Trust propensity refers to how likely a particular employee is to trust a leader. Some
people are simply more likely to believe others can be trusted.
2. Time is the final ingredient in the recipe for trust. Trust doesn’t happen immediately:
we come to trust people based on observing their behavior over a period of time.
3. Trust can also be won in the ability domain simply by demonstrating competence.
4. Leaders who break the psychological contract with workers, demonstrating they
aren’t trustworthy, will find employees are less satisfied and less committed, have
higher intentions to turnover, engage in less citizenship behavior, and have lower task
performance.
E. Trust and Culture
1. Does trust look the same in every culture? Using the basic definition of trust,
certainly it does. However, in the work context, trust in an employment relationship
may be built on very different perceptions from culture to culture.
2. In individualistic societies, we might expect that paternalistic leadership will rankle
many employees who prefer not to see themselves as part of a hierarchical family
workgroup.
F. The Role of Time
1. Time is the final ingredient in the recipe for trust. Trust doesn’t happen immediately:
we come to trust people based on observing their behavior over a period of time.
2. Trust can also be won in the ability domain simply by demonstrating competence.
G. Regaining Trust
1. Managers who break the psychological contract with workers, demonstrating they
aren’t trustworthy leaders, will find employees are less satisfied and less committed,
have a higher intent toward turnover, engage in less OCB, and have lower levels of
task performance.
2. Leaders who betray trust are especially likely to be evaluated negatively by followers
if there is already a low level of leader–member exchange.
3. Once it has been violated, trust can be regained, but only in certain situations and
depending on the type of violation.
a. If the cause is lack of ability, it’s usually best to apologize and recognize you
should have done better.
b. When lack of integrity is the problem, apologies don’t do much good.
4. Regardless of the violation, saying nothing or refusing to confirm or deny guilt is
never an effective strategy for regaining trust.
5. Trust can be restored when we observe a consistent pattern of trustworthy behavior by
the transgressor. However, if the transgressor used deception, trust never fully returns,
not even after apologies, promises, or a consistent pattern of trustworthy actions.
H. Mentoring
1. A mentor is a senior employee who sponsors and supports a less-experienced
employee (a protégé).
2. Successful mentors are good teachers.
a. They present ideas clearly, listen well, and empathize with protégés’ problems.
Mentoring relationships serve both career functions and psychosocial functions.
(Exhibit 12-7)
b. Traditional informal mentoring relationships develop when leaders identify a less
experienced, lower-level employee who appears to have potential for future
development.
3. The protégé will often be tested with a particularly challenging assignment.
a. If he or she performs acceptably, the mentor will develop the relationship,
informally showing the protégé how the organization really works outside its
formal structures and procedures.
4. If a mentor is not well connected or not a very strong performer, the best mentoring
advice in the world will not be beneficial.
a. Research indicates that while mentoring can have an impact on career success, it
is not as much of a contributing factor as ability and personality.
b. It may feel nice to have a mentor, but it doesn’t appear that having a good mentor,
or any mentor, is critical to your career.
II. Challenges to Our Understanding of Leadership
A. Introduction
1. Much of an organization’s success or failure is due to factors outside the influence of
leadership. In many cases, success or failure is just a matter of being in the right or
wrong place at a given time.
B. Leadership as an Attribution
1. As you may remember from Chapter 6, attribution theory examines how people try to
make sense of cause-and-effect relationships.
a. The attribution theory of leadership says leadership is merely an attribution
people make about other individuals.
b. We attribute to leaders intelligence, outgoing personality, strong verbal skills,
aggressiveness, understanding, and industriousness.
c. At the organizational level, we tend to see leaders, rightly or wrongly, as
responsible for extremely negative or extremely positive performance.
2. One longitudinal study of 128 major U.S. corporations found that whereas
perceptions of CEO charisma did not lead to objective company performance,
company performance did lead to perceptions of charisma.
a. Employee perceptions of their leaders’ behaviors are significant predictors of
whether they blame the leader for failure, regardless of how the leader assesses
himself or herself.
b. A study of more than 3,000 employees from Western Europe, the United States,
and the Middle East found people who tended to “romanticize” leadership in
general were more likely to believe their own leaders were transformational.
3. We also make demographic assumptions about leaders.
a. Respondents in a study assumed a leader described with no identifying racial
information was white at a rate beyond the base rate of white employees in a
company.
i. In scenarios where identical leadership situations are described but the
leaders’ race is manipulated, white leaders are rated as more effective than
leaders of other racial groups.
b. One large-scale summary study (a meta-analysis) found that many individuals
hold stereotypes of men as having more leader characteristics than women,
although as you might expect, this tendency to equate leadership with masculinity
has decreased over time.
c. Other data suggest women’s perceived success as transformational leaders may be
based on demographic characteristics.
d. Teams prefer male leaders when aggressively competing against other teams, but
they prefer female leaders when the competition is within teams and calls for
improving positive relationships within the group.
4. Attribution theory suggests what’s important is projecting the appearance of being a
leader rather than focusing on actual accomplishments.
a. Leader-wannabes who can shape the perception that they’re smart, personable,
verbally adept, aggressive, hardworking, and consistent in their style can increase
the probability their bosses, colleagues, and employees will view them as
effective leaders.
C. Substitutes and Neutralizers to Leadership
1. Data from numerous studies collectively demonstrate that, in many situations,
whatever actions leaders exhibit are irrelevant.
a. Experience and training are among the substitutes that can replace the need for a
leader’s support or ability to create structure.
b. Organizational characteristics such as explicit formalized goals, rigid rules and
procedures, and cohesive work groups can also replace formal leadership, while
indifference to organizational rewards can neutralize its effects.
c. Neutralizers make it impossible for leader behavior to make any difference to
follower outcomes. (Exhibit 12-8)
2. Sometimes the difference between substitutes and neutralizers is fuzzy.
a. If I’m working on a task that’s intrinsically enjoyable, theory predicts leadership
will be less important because the task itself provides enough motivation.
b. But does that mean intrinsically enjoyable tasks neutralize leadership effects, or
substitute for them, or both?
c. Another problem is that while substitutes for leadership (such as employee
characteristics, the nature of the task, and so forth) matter to performance, that
doesn’t necessarily mean leadership doesn’t.
D. Online Leadership
1. The questions of how do you lead people who are physically separated from you and
with whom you communicate electronically? These questions need research.
2. Today’s managers and employees are increasingly linked by networks rather than
geographic proximity.
3. We propose that online leaders have to think carefully about what actions they want
their digital messages to initiate.
a. They confront unique challenges, the greatest of which appears to be developing
and maintaining trust.
b. Identification-based trust, based on a mutual understanding of each other’s
intentions and appreciation of the other’s wants and desires, is particularly
difficult to achieve without face-to-face interaction.
c. And online negotiations can also be hindered because parties express lower levels
of trust.
d. We tentatively conclude that good leadership skills will soon include the abilities
to communicate support, trust, and inspiration through keyboarded words and
accurately read emotions in others’ messages.
4. In electronic communication, writing skills are likely to become an extension of
interpersonal skills.
E. Selecting Leaders
1. The entire process that organizations go through to fill management positions is
essentially an exercise in trying to identify individuals who will be effective leaders.
a. You can begin by reviewing the specific requirements for the position such as
knowledge, skills, and abilities that are needed to do the job effectively.
b. Personality tests can identify traits associated with leadership—extraversion,
conscientiousness, and openness to experience.
i. High self-monitors are better at reading situations and adjusting their behavior
accordingly.
ii. Candidates with high emotional intelligence should have an advantage,
especially in situations requiring transformational leadership.
iii. Experience is a poor predictor of leader effectiveness, but situation-specific
experience is relevant.
c. Since nothing lasts forever, the most important event an organization needs to
plan for is a change in leadership.
2. Some organizations seem to spend no time on leadership succession and are surprised
when their picks turn out poorly.
F. Training Leaders
1. Billions are spent on leadership training and development every year.
2. Here are some things management can do to get the maximum effect from their
leadership-training budgets:
a. Leadership training is likely to be more successful with individuals who are high
self-monitors than with low self-monitors.
b. Second, organizations can teach implementation skills.
c. We also can teach skills such as trust building, mentoring, and situational-analysis
skills.
d. There is evidence suggesting that behavioral training through modeling exercises
can increase an individual’s ability to exhibit charismatic leadership qualities.
e. Recent research also indicates that leaders should engage in regularly reviewing
their leadership after key organizational events as part of their development.
f. Finally, leaders can be trained in transformational leadership skills that have
bottom-line results.
III. Summary and Implications for Managers
A. Leadership plays a central part in understanding group behavior, because it’s the leader
who usually directs us toward our goals.
B. Knowing what makes a good leader should thus be valuable in improving group
performance.
C. The Big Five personality framework show strong and consistent relationships between
personality and leadership.
D. The behavioral approach’s major contribution was narrowing leadership into
task-oriented (initiating structure) and people-oriented (consideration) styles.
E. By considering the situation in which the leader operates, contingency theories promised
to improve on the behavioral approach.
F. Contemporary theories have made major contributions to our understanding of leadership
effectiveness, and studies of ethics and positive leadership offer exciting promise.
Specific implications for managers are:
1. For maximum leadership effectiveness, ensure that your preferences on the initiating
structure and consideration dimensions are a match for your work dynamics and
culture.
2. Hire candidates who exhibit transformational leadership qualities and who have
demonstrated success in working through others to meet a long-term vision.
Personality tests can reveal candidates higher in extraversion, conscientiousness, and
openness, which may indicate leadership readiness.
3. Hire candidates whom you believe are ethical and trustworthy for management roles
and train current managers in your organization’s ethical standards in order to
increase leadership effectiveness.
4. Seek to develop trusting relationships with followers, because, as organizations have
become less stable and predictable, strong bonds of trust are replacing bureaucratic
rules in defining expectations and relationships.
5. Consider investing in leadership training such as formal courses, workshops, rotating
job responsibilities, coaching, and mentoring.
Career OBjectives
How can I get my boss to be a better leader?
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Identify the central tenets and main limitations of behavioral theories
Learning Outcomes: Discuss the influence of culture on organizational behavior; Summarize the major theories of
and approaches to leadership
AACSB: Diverse and multicultural work environments; Reflective thinking
My boss is the CEO, and she’s a gossipy, in-your-business oversharer. She’s always asking our
top management team personal questions and shares information with anyone. The other day, I
caught her e-mailing my colleague about my salary and career prospects! What should I do about
her poor leadership? — Phil
Dear Phil,
Nobody likes an oversharer! Perhaps your boss isn’t aware of the impact of her behavior and
thinks she is just being friendly. Assuming this is the case, you might be able to make her think
first before sharing. If you’re comfortable addressing her, you may suggest a private meeting to
discuss your concerns. You should bring a list of the types of information she solicits and shares
—with an example or two—and, if she’s open to discussion, problem-solve with her about her
habit. She may see that her “open book” approach is undermining her leadership effectiveness.
Another tactic might start with your researching the best privacy practices, laws, and business
guidelines. Be sure to source your organization’s HR handbook for any mentions of privacy
expectations. Then in your meeting you could present your research findings. With both direct
approaches, you run the risk of offending your boss, which may very well happen if she becomes
embarrassed. Moreover, she may defend her behavior if her oversharing is actually strategic
gossip and not see the problem, which could have ramifications for what she then thinks and says
about you!
These approaches still might be worth trying, but from what you’ve said about her, it’s highly
unlikely she will change her general behavior. Research indicates that her personal tendencies
will prevail over time. It sounds like she is extraverted, for instance—you’re not going to change
that. She may be clever and manipulative, purposefully leveraging her information for personal
gain without a concern for others (high-Machiavellian or narcissistic). In that case self-awareness
can help, but her behavior won’t change unless she is willing to practice self-regulation.
Perhaps most importantly, it doesn’t seem that you like your boss. This may be a real problem
that you cannot surmount. How are you going to build a relationship of trust with her, trust that
will be needed for you to continue to feel motivated and work hard? Unfortunately, if you cannot
thrive in this environment, it may be best to move on.
Good luck for your best possible outcome!
Sources: A. E. Colbert, M. R. Barrick, and B. H. Bradley, “Personality and Leadership Composition in Top Management Teams: Implications
for Organizational Effectiveness,” Personnel Psychology 67 (2014): 351–87; R. B. Kaiser, J. M. LeBreton, and J. Hogan, “The Dark Side of
Personality and Extreme Leader Behavior,” Applied Psychology: An International Review 64, no. 1 (2015): 55–92; and R. Walker, “A Boss Who
Shares Too Much,” The New York Times, December 28, 2014, 7.
Myth or Science?
“Top Leaders Feel the Most Stress”
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Describe the contemporary theories of leadership and their relationship to foundational
leadership
Learning Outcomes: Discuss the influence of culture on organizational behavior; Summarize the major theories of
and approaches to leadership
AACSB: Reflective thinking
Leaders of corporations fight pressures from their boards, customers, managers, and employees.
Wouldn’t it stand to reason they are the most stressed people in their organizations? Apparently
not. According to studies from Harvard University, the University of California–San Diego, and
Stanford University, leadership brings a blissful relief from the stress felt by individuals who are
not in managerial roles. Not only did leaders report less anxiety than non-leaders, but their
cortisol (stress hormone) levels were also lower, indicating they biologically are less likely to
register stress. Another study found that individuals in higher-status occupational groups
registered less perceived stress and lower blood pressure readings than those in lower status
occupations.
If you’re thinking this is one more reason why “it’s better at the top,” you may be right, if only
partially. It is true that leaders appear to show fewer signs of stress by virtue of being leaders,
regardless of higher income or longer job tenure. However, researchers found no “magic level”
in an organization at which employees feel a reduction in stress levels.
One study found that stress reduction correlates with feelings of control. Leaders with more
subordinates and greater power felt less stress than other individuals who knew they had less
control over outcomes. Top leaders who control the resources of their corporations and have
plenty of employees to carry out their directives therefore can fight stressors before they affect
them.
Sources: M. Korn, “Top-Level Leaders Hhave Less Stress Tthan Others,” The Wall Street Journal (October 3, 2012), p. B6; G. D. Sherman, J. J.
Lee, A. J. C. Cuddy, et al. “Leadership Is Associated with Lower Levels of Stress,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America (October 30, 2012), pp. 17903–-17907; and E. Wiernik, B. Pannier, S. Czhernichow, H. Nabi, et al., “Occupational
Status Moderates the Association between Current Perceived Stress and High Blood Pressure: Evidence from the IPC Cohort Study,”
Hypertension (March 2013), pp. 571–-577.
Class Exercise
1. Divide students into groups of three to five.
2. Ask students to extend the discussion in this feature by looking at the two perspectives of
stress and top leaders at:
http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/management/stress-management-for-the-ceo-
20090713-di4d.html
http://www.inc.com/tom-searcy/how-to-beat-ceo-burnout.html
3. Based on this information, ask each group to develop recommendations to help an
organization deal with stress at different levels of management.
4. Ask each student to reflect on his or her ability to effectively control stress in a leadership
role.
Teaching Notes
This exercise is applicable to face-to-face classes or synchronous online classes such as
BlackBoard 9.1, Breeze, WIMBA, and Second Life Virtual Classrooms. See
http://www.baclass.panam.edu/imob/SecondLife for more information.
Personal Inventory Assessments
Ethical Leadership Assessment
If you’ve ever worked for someone who was an unethical leader, you know the importance of
ethical leadership for positive outcomes. Take this PIA to explore ethical leadership further.
An Ethical Choice
Holding Leaders Ethically Accountable
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Discuss the roles of leaders in creating ethical organizations
Learning Outcomes: Discuss the influence of culture on organizational behavior; Summarize the major theories of
and approaches to leadership
AACSB: Ethical understanding and reasoning; Reflective thinking
No one thinks leaders shouldn’t be accountable. Leaders must balance many and conflicting
stakeholder demands. The first, largely unspoken, demand is for strong financial
performance; leaders are probably terminated more often for missing this goal than for all
other factors combined. Leaders balance the extreme pressure for financial performance with
the desire most leaders have to act ethically, even when there is no formal accountability.
Given that pressure, ethical leadership may be under-rewarded and depend solely on the
leader’s innate decency.
Ethical leadership is a relatively new area of research attention. Demonstrating fairness and
social responsibility and abiding by the law even run counter to many old-school models of
leadership. Consider, for example, legendary management guru Peter Drucker’s advice
(1967): “It is the duty of the executive to remove ruthlessly anyone—and especially any
manager—who consistently fails to perform with high distinction. To let such a man stay on
corrupts the others.” Modern ethical leadership guidelines say this cut-throat mindset fails to
consider the moral implications of treating people as objects at an organization’s disposal.
While few organizations still require “performance at all costs,” anymore, financiers,
shareholders, and boards have the reward power to teach leaders which outcomes to value.
Ethical leadership resounds positively throughout all organizational levels, resulting in
responsible and potentially highly profitable outcomes, but the ultimate ethical test will come
when shareholders—and leaders—show signs of balancing these accountabilities themselves.
Sources: T. E. Ricks, “What Ever Happened to Accountability?” Harvard Business Review (October 2012), pp. 93–100; J. M. Schaubroeck
et al., “Embedding Ethical Leadership Within and Across Organizational Levels,” Academy of Management Journal 55 (2012), pp.
1053–1078; and J. Stouten, M. van Dijke, and D. De Cremer, “Ethical Leadership,” Journal of Personnel Psychology 11 (2012), pp. 1–6.
Class Exercise
1. Divide the class into teams of three to five students each.
2. Ask each team to read the article at
http://www.sullivanadvisorygroup.com/docs/articles/Practicing%20Servant
%20Leadership.pdf
3. Each team should prepare a training plan to develop organizational managers to the
servant leadership style.
4. Have each group present its plan for a training program.
Teaching Notes
This exercise is applicable to face-to-face classes or synchronous online classes such as
BlackBoard 9.1, Breeze, WIMBA, and Second Life Virtual Classrooms. See
http://www.baclass.panam.edu/imob/SecondLife for more information.
Point/Counterpoint
CEOs Start Early
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objectives: Describe the contemporary theories of leadership and their relationship to foundational
leadership; Summarize the conclusions of trait theories of leadership; Contrast contingency theories of leadership
Learning Outcome: Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadership
AACSB: Reflective thinking
Point
We often ascribe heroic qualities to our leaders. They are courageous in the face of great risk.
They persevere when few would. They take action when most sit by. Heroes are exceptional
people who display exceptional behavior.
But some social psychologists question this conventional wisdom. They note that heroism can be
found in many spheres of life, including in the behavior of whistleblowers, explorers, religious
leaders, scientists, Good Samaritans, and those who beat the odds. At some time in our lives, we
all show heroism when the situation allows us to. If we want to see more heroic behavior, we
need to create more situations that produce it.
Stanford psychologist Phil Zimbardo goes even further to argue that our romantic view that
heroes are born is misplaced: “The banality of evil is matched by the banality of heroism.
Neither is the consequence of dispositional tendencies. . . . Both emerge in particular situations at
particular times, when situational forces play a compelling role in moving individuals across the
line from inaction to action.”
People exhibit brave behavior every day. The workers who risked their lives to contain Japan’s
earthquake-ravaged nuclear reactors in 2011 are a great example. Thus, we err when we think
leaders are uniquely positioned to behave heroically. We all can be heroes in the right situation.
Counterpoint
Of course heroes are not like everyone else. That’s what makes them heroes.
A generation of evidence from behavioral genetics reveals that “everything is genetic,” meaning
we have yet to discover an important human behavior that does not have genetic origins. Though
we’re not aware of any such study with respect to heroism, it would be surprising if courageous
behavior were not at least partly genetic.
It’s foolish to think courageous people aren’t exceptional because of who they are. Just as we
know there is an entrepreneurial personality and a leader personality, there is a heroic
personality. Research suggests, for example, that people who score high on conscientiousness are
more likely to engage in courageous behavior.
Not all leaders are heroes, but many have exhibited courageous behavior. CEO Richard Branson
may or may not be a hero, but when he launches his latest attempt to set the world record for an
around-the-world balloon flight or sloop sailing, he exhibits the same courageous behavior when
he is leading conglomerate Virgin Group. Virgin Group now includes more than 400 companies,
including Virgin Galactic, a space tourism company, and Virgin Fuels, whose goal is to
revolutionize the industry by providing sustainable fuels for automobiles and aircraft. Same
leader, same heroic behavior—in work and in life.
Are we really to believe that Richard Branson and other courageous leaders are just like
everyone else?
Sources: Z. E. Franco, K. Blau, and P. G. Zimbardo, “Heroism: A Conceptual Analysis and Differentiation Between Heroic Action and
Altruism,” Review of General Psychology 15, no. 2 (2011), pp. 99–113; O. Dorell, “At Nuke Plant, Heroes Emerge,” USA Today (March 25,
2011), pp. 1A, 2A; G. R. Goethals and S. C. Allison, “Making Heroes: The Construction of Courage, Competence, and Virtue,” Advances in
Experimental Psychology 46 (2012), pp. 183–-235; L. J. Walker, J. A. Frimer, and W. L. Dunlop, “Varieties of Moral Personality: Beyond
the Banality of Heroism,” Journal of Personality 78, no. 3 (2010), pp. 907–942; and J. Lehrer, “Are Heroes Born, or Can They Be Made?”
The Wall Street Journal (December 11, 2010), p. C12.
Class Exercise
1. Ask students to read the following web page:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/4636614/AAAS-Heroes-are-born-not-
made-scientists-claim.html
2. The finding of this study seems to imply that “heroes” are people who have naturally
occurring stress controls in crisis situations.
3. Ask student teams of three to five students each to do a search to determine if stress
control can be developed in anyone, making it more likely that he or she will respond
calmly and rationally to a crisis situation.
4. Have each team present its findings to the class.
5. Ask the class to compare and contrast the similarities and differences in each team’s
response. Could anyone in fact be a hero?
Teaching Notes
This exercise is applicable to face-to-face classes or synchronous online classes such as
BlackBoard 9.1, Breeze, WIMBA, and Second Life Virtual Classrooms. See
http://www.baclass.panam.edu/imob/SecondLife for more information.