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Questions for Review
12-1. What are the conclusions of trait theories of leadership?
Answer: Trait theories of leadership focus on personal qualities and characteristics.
effective and ineffective leaders. In other words, trait theories help us predict leadership,
but they don’t fully explain leadership.
AACSB: Reflective thinking
12-2. What are the central tenets and main limitations of behavioral theories of leadership?
Answer: The failures of early trait studies led researchers in the late 1940s through the
sought to identify independent dimensions of leader behavior. Beginning with more than
a thousand dimensions, the studies narrowed the list to two that substantially accounted
mutual trust, respect for employees’ ideas, and regard for their feelings. Leadership
studies at the University of Michigan’s Survey Research Center had similar objectives: to
the production oriented leader emphasized the technical or task aspects of the job,
focusing on accomplishing the group’s tasks. Some research from the GLOBE study
context matters too.
Learning Objective: Identify the central tenets and main limitations of behavioral theories
12-3. What are the contingency theories of leadership?
Answer: After assessing leadership style, it is necessary to match the leader with the
situation:
Leader-member relations—the degree of confidence, trust, and respect members have
in their leader.
situations are grouped into three but the logic behind the LPC scale is not well
understood.
builds on the idea that leaders can compensate for followers’ limited ability and
motivation. So far though, research to test and support the theory has been disappointing.
organization.
Finally, the leader-participation model provides a set of rules to determine the form and
AACSB: Reflective thinking
12-4. How do the contemporary theories of leadership relate to the earlier foundational
theories?
behaviors. The theory relies on leaders’ ability to inspire followers to believe in them. In
contrast, Fiedler’s model, situational leadership theory, and path-goal theory describe
arouse, and inspire followers to put out extra effort to achieve group goals.
Transformational leadership is built on top of transactional leadership—it produces levels
to make them more effective leaders using concepts that have been found to contribute to
leadership relationships.
foundational leadership
Learning Outcome: Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadership
AACSB: Reflective thinking
12-5. In what ways can leaders create ethical organizations?
Answer: Leadership is not value-free. In assessing its effectiveness, we need to address
standards. Socialized charismatic leadership is characterized by leaders who model
ethical behaviors. Servant leadership focuses on serving the needs of others
AACSB: Reflective thinking
12-6. How can leaders have a positive impact on their organizations through building trust and
mentoring?
leader needs to be a mentor or a senior employee who sponsors and supports a
less-experienced employee (a protégé). Mentors are good teachers who present ideas
establish and maintain trust in a virtual environment is challenging.
Learning Objective: Describe how leaders can have a positive impact on their organizations through
building trust and mentoring
AACSB: Reflective thinking
12-7. What are the challenges to our understanding of leadership?
Learning Objective: Identify the challenges to our understanding of leadership
Learning Outcome: Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadership
AACSB: Reflective thinking
Experiential Exercise
What’s in a Leader?
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Describe the contemporary theories of leadership and their relationship to foundational
leadership
Learning Outcome: Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadership
AACSB: Reflective thinking
Instructions
12.8. Break the class into (or allow the class to volunteer to join) one of five groups: GROUP
A: Government Leaders (president, senator, governor, representative, assemblyperson);
GROUP B: Business Leaders (CEO, president, leader in business); GROUP C: University
Leaders (university president, provost, dean, professor); GROUP D: Sports Leaders
(coach, informal team leader, team captain); GROUP E: Social/Thought Leaders
(activists, whistleblowers, authors).Each group selects one leader from popular culture or
history to serve as an example that is appropriate for the group. The group discusses that
person, identifying the defining characteristics or traits of the leader, not simply by
brainstorming, but by drawing upon examples that most of the group agrees are defining
characteristics of the person.
his/her characteristics for each group. For each column, ask the students whether they
believe these traits or attributions would lead to good or bad leader effectiveness for the
group’s type of leader? Why or why not? What would the opposite or alternative
effective?
Answer: Responses to this question will depend on the results of the previous questions.
Teaching Notes
This exercise is applicable to face-to-face classes or synchronous online classes such as
(http://docplayer.net/19442732-Effective-use-of-collaboration-tools-for-online-learning-jennifer-pontano-ke-anna-sk
ipwith-drexel-university-e-learning-2-0-conference-march-2011.html) for more information.
Ethical Dilemma
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
This exercise contributes to:
people in the organization who depend on them and their leadership skills to remain successful.
Also, leader departures can cause their attached subordinates to become detached, and think
about leaving as well. But one can understand why CEOs might leave or change careers. For
example, Mohamed El-Erian, the CEO of Pimco, left the firm in 2014 when his daughter handed
These reasons can just-as-easily apply to leaders.
A newer approach suggests that we should see turnover as inevitable, even for star performers.
As Professor Finkelstein of Dartmouth College notes, “The bosses I studied also took advantage
of a wonderful paradox: when you stop hoarding your people and focus on creating a talent flow,
you find that more of your top people actually do wind up staying.” Furthermore, when these
organization in the future.
Sources: E. Andersen, “Why top Talent Leaves: Top 10 Reasons Boiled Down to 1,” Forbes, January 18, 2012,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2012/01/18/why-top-talent-leaves-top-10-reasons-boiled-down-to-1/#5eef38a04e43; N. Bozionelos
and S. Mukhuty, “Why CEOs Resign: Poor Performance or Better Opportunities?,” Academy of Management Perspectives 29, no. 1 (2015): 4–6;
R. Derousseau, “5 CEOs who Quit for the Right Reasons,” Fortune¸ October 21, 2014, http://fortune.com/2014/10/21/ceos-quit-right-reasons/;
Management Review 41, no. 3 (2016): 479–502./.
Questions
12-10. What do you think a CEO or leader should do, prior to considering leaving the
organization? What does the CEO or leader owe the employees? Why?
12-11. Do you think there is an appropriate time for a CEO or leader to consider or announce
as well as the student’s view about the characteristics of the CEOs leadership style.
12-12. What can organizations do to retain their CEOs and leaders? Is this an exercise in futility
(in other words, is it meaningless to try to do anything)? Why or why not?
Case Incident 1
Sharing is Performing
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: 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
Replacing Nicholas Dirks as the chancellor of UC Berkeley, Carol T. Christ is taking on a
strategy that her predecessors did not utilize: sharing leadership. Notably, the prior chancellor
and provost would not consult other decision-makers and stakeholders at the university when
they proposed to completely dissolve the College of Chemistry. Christ, on the other hand, met
with Frances McGinley the student vice president of academic affairs, reaching out to “get a beat
on what [student government] was doing and how [she] could help.” This was unusual as
McGinley would often have to track down the other administrators to even get a meeting (or
would be merely delegated work). Another such arrangement between Jill Martin and David
Barrs at a high school in Essex, England, designates special interest areas where each takes the
lead, they both share an educational philosophy, meet daily, have the authority to make decisions
on the spot, and challenge one another.
As Declan Fitzsimons suggests in a Harvard Business Review article, the 21st century moves too
quickly and is too dynamic to be handled by one person. By sharing leadership among multiple
individuals, the organization can more adaptively respond to challenges, share disparate, but
complementary perspectives, and ease the burden experienced by the traditional, charismatic
leader figurehead. However, sharing leadership leads to its own issues and obstacles apparent in
the multiple relationships between team members, subordinates, and other employees; in which
not only do individual identities become involved, but collective, shared identities as a group. It
is also important to recognize that shared leadership is not about delegation, but about putting in
effort to coordinate and collaborate, along with balancing individual and collective goals.
Recent reviews of the research on shared leadership suggest that, overall, shared leadership is
effective at improving team performance, attitudes, and behaviors; especially when the
leadership is transformational or charismatic and when the team tasks are complex.
Sources: J. Bell, P. Cubías, and B. Johnson, “Five Insights From Directors Sharing Power,” Nonprofit Quarterly, March 28, 2017,
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2017/03/28/five-insights-directors-sharing-power/; D. Fitzsimons, “How Shared Leadership Changes our
Relationships at Work,” Harvard Business Review, May 12, 2016,
https://hbr.org/2016/05/how-shared-leadership-changes-our-relationships-at-work; N. Morrison, “Two Heads are Better Than One: A Model of
Shared Leadership,” Forbes, December 21, 2013,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorrison/2013/12/21/two-heads-are-better-than-one-a-model-of-shared-leadership/#d3bfeec540ac; D. Wang, D.
A. Waldman, and Z. Zhang, “A Meta-Analysis of Shared Leadership and Team Effectiveness,” Journal of Applied Psychology 99, no. 2 (2014):
181–198; and T. Watanabe and R. Xia, “UC Berkeley’s new Chancellor is Hailed as a ‘Brilliant Choice’,” Los Angeles Times, March 13, 2017,
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-uc-berkeley-new-chancellor-20170313-story.html..
Questions
12.13. What kind of obstacles would you foresee in taking on a shared leadership approach?
How might they (or can they) be solved?
12.14. If you were deciding whether to implement a shared leadership initiative in a company
where you were the CEO, how would you go about implementing such a program? What
elements of job design and redesign might you draw upon to increase the effectiveness of
the shared leadership initiative?
12.15. Can you think of any instances in which non-shared, traditional approaches to leadership
would be preferable to a shared leadership approach? What are they, and how are they
preferable? What sort of situational or individual factors lead to the traditional approach
being more effective in these instances?
Case Incident 2
Leadership by Algorithm
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
leadershipLearning Outcome: Summarize the major theories of and approaches to leadership
AACSB: Reflective thinking
Is there one right way to lead? Research suggests not, the methods explored in this chapter
suggest not, and common sense suggests a “one size fits all” approach could be disastrous,
because organizations exist for diverse purposes and develop unique cultures. Leadership
development programs generally teach a best-practices model, but experts suggest that
individuals trained in leadership techniques that are contrary to their own natures risk losing the
authenticity crucial to effective leadership. A promising path to leadership may thus lie in
algorithms.
If you’ve ever taken a strengths-based assessment such as the Harrison Assessment, or Gallup’s
Clifton StrengthsFinder, you know that surveys aimed at discovering your personality, skills, and
preferences result in a personal profile. These tools are helpful, but algorithms can take your
leadership development to the next level of personalization and application. They can take the
results from each survey you complete, for instance, and use them to create a leadership program
that matches your needs and abilities.
As the founder of TMBC and author of StandOut, Marcus Buckingham is an expert on the
creating leadership programs. He recommends the following steps:
1. Find or develop the assessment tools. These might include a personality component, such as
a Big Five inventory test, and will include other tests companies can resource or create
according to what leadership characteristics they are seeking to monitor.
2. Identify the top leaders in the organization and administer the test to them. Similarities in
by their similar profiles.
3. Interview the leaders within each profile category to learn about the techniques they use that
work. Often these will be unique, unscripted, and revealingly correlated to the strengths in
their assessment profile. Compile the techniques within each profile category.
4. The results of top leader profile categories and their techniques can be used to create an
algorithm, or tailored method, for developing leaders. Administer the assessment tests to
they share the same profile category.
These steps provide a means for successful leaders to pass along to developing leaders’
techniques that are likely to feel authentic to the developing leaders and that encourage
development course could achieve.
Sources: M. Buckingham, “Leadership Development in the Age of the Algorithm,” Harvard Business Review, June 2012, 86–-94; M. D. Watkins,
“How Managers Become Leaders,” Harvard Business Review, June 2012, 64–-72; and J. M. Podolny, “A Conversation with James G. March on
Questions
12-16. If you have participated in leadership development programs, how effective did you find
them in (a) teaching you techniques and (b) giving you practical strategies you could use?
What could they do better?
Student responses will vary.
12-17. What are some potential negatives of using Buckingham’s approach to leadership
development?
Student responses will vary.
12-18. Would you suggest applying Buckingham’s steps to your organization? Why or why not?
Student responses will vary.
MyLab Management
Assisted-graded writing questions:
12-20. Do you think leaders are more ethical now than ever before? Why or why not?
12-21. MyLab Management Only—comprehensive writing assignment for this chapter.
Instructor’s Choice
Applying Concepts
This exercise contributes to:
AACSB: Reflective thinking
As evidenced by the growing number of corporate scandals of which almost all involve the CEO
and other top officers, corporate America in many cases is missing one essential leadership
psychological profile carried to an extreme. It is, to use an old phrase, doing the right things, not
just doing things right. To learn about character, young executives should go through
character issues.
As plebes in the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, “new” managers of men and women are
taught eleven principles of leadership from the Army’s manual, Principles of Leadership. The
responsibility in your subordinates; (9) Ensure that the task is understood, supervised, and
accomplished; (10) Train your personnel as a team; and (11) Employ your wit in accordance with
leadership.
3. Select a business leader. Do research on the leader’s past managerial and
leadership accomplishments. Once this is completed, match the chosen leader’s profile to
two-page paper.
Instructor Discussion
This exercise asks students to review information provided on the issue of character and
subordinates. Also note that many of the principles are related to character building. The students
should be able to match these principles (even if in an abstract sense) to information provided in
Exploring OB Topics on the Web
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Describe the contemporary theories of leadership and their relationship to foundational
AACSB: Reflective thinking
1. Learn about your personal leadership characteristics by taking the following assessment
instrument at NWLink, “Leadership Self-Assessment Questionnaire,”
2. Go to NWLink, “The Art and Science of Leadership,”
to do additional searches if you need more information.) Bring the paper to class for your
instructor.
3. Find five companies whose CEOs have left (for reasons other than normal retirement) in
number of online services such as CNNfn. What did this exercise tell you? Write a short
paper on what you learned.
4. Leading can be a difficult task. It is hard to know what other leaders are thinking, what is
theory to the writer’s thoughts. Bring it to class for a group discussion.
