Save Link Assignment Synthesis Paper – Leadership Style

Save Link Assignment Synthesis Paper – Leadership Style

ave Link Assignment Synthesis Paper – Leadership Style

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Synthesis is the act of creating something new from multiple existing entities. Synthesis of research, then, is creating a new idea from existing ideas. It is a process developed through time and practice. In this assignment, you will apply the synthesis process to the course journal readings and your selected readings. As you synthesize, consider how leadership style influences leadership practice and results. For example, leadership style effects followers through the choice of public vs. private engagement or the use of public praise vs. active coaching. In some cases, what a leader does not say or do can have a significant effect on both the sense of value and the motivation of group members.

General Requirements:

Use the following information to ensure successful completion of the assignment:

Refer to the annotated bibliography and outline you created in the Module 2 assignment along with the assignment feedback from your instructor. Locate at least two additional, topically-related, empirical articles. Use “Empirical Research Checklist” to guide your selection. This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion. Doctoral learners are required to use APA style for their writing assignments. The APA Style Guide is located in the Student Success Center. You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin. Refer to the directions in the Student Success Center.

Directions:

Locate the annotated bibliography and outline you created in the Module 2 assignment. Using the outline you developed, the information from the annotated bibliography, and the feedback provided by your instructor, write a paper (2,000-2,250 words) that synthesizes three of the articles assigned in the first two modules of this course with the two (or more) topically-related, empirical articles you selected. Do that by including the following:

A statement of at least three common themes addressed in all of the articles. A statement of the conclusions that can be drawn when the articles are taken together as a single entity. What is the overall message of the group of articles? Focus specifically on the connection between leadership style and leadership theory in areas such as individual identity, culture, and worldview. What are the potential effects of these and other individual leadership characteristics and style; how do they influence the methods leaders choose to guide groups or organizations?

University of Massachusetts – Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Center for International Education Faculty Publications Center for International Education 2014 Leadership: A Concise Conceptual Overview Joseph B. Berger University of Massachusetts – Amherst, jbberger@educ.umass.edu Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cie_faculty_pubs Part of the Community College Leadership Commons This is brought to you for free and open access by the Center for International Education at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Center for International Education Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact scholarworks@library.umass.edu. Berger, Joseph B., “Leadership: A Concise Conceptual Overview” (2014). Center for International Education Faculty Publications. Paper 18. http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cie_faculty_pubs/18 1 LEADERSHIP: A CONCISE CONCEPTUAL OVERVIEW1 Joseph B. Berger University of Massachusetts Amherst The Massachusetts Community College Leadership Academy (CCLA) is designed to prepare faculty members and administrators working in community colleges with the knowledge, skills and values needed to be better leaders. However, it can be a daunting challenge to master the complexities of leadership. There are literally hundreds of leadership theories and models; a condition that contributes to confusion about how best to define and understand this extremely important concept. Part of the reason for the plethora of theories is that leadership is a very complex phenomena and any one theory only provides a partial view of the complexity involved with leading others (each of whom is a unique individual) within complex environments that often lack clear or consistent values, goals, and methods – particularly in higher education! The existence of numerous leadership models and theories not only creates confusion about which one is ‘right’ or which are ‘best’; it also contributes to the “theory-practice” divide, causing people to get frustrated that no one model fits every context or situation. However, it has been noted that “there is nothing so practical as a good theory” (Lewin, 1951, p.169). A good theory serves multiple purposes, including: • Describes, predicts or explains phenomena • Simplifies complex phenomena • Provides a common language or frame of reference • Knowledge-based guide for action • Legitimizes expertise and authority • Useful for leadership development • Serves as a conceptual tool Focusing on the last point, we can think of any model, theory or approach as a “conceptual tool” and our goal is to not just have one tool, but to be aware of what tools are available and for each of us to develop our own “conceptual tool kit” so that we are well-equipped to meet the complex and diverse challenges that all leaders face. Leadership is a daunting endeavor that requires hard work, multiple tools (conceptual knowledge, practical skills, and value-based integrity), and collective effort. Therefore, the purpose of this short article is to introduce a conceptual map that provides categories of major approaches to leadership with a discussion of how each approach contributes 1 Cite as Berger, J.B. (2013). Leadership: A concise conceptual overview. Massachusetts Community College Leadership Academy. Boston 2 to a more comprehensive understanding of leadership. This article also serves as a quick introductory overview and does not go into great depth on any topic; rather it is designed to provide a conceptual framework of what tools are available and how they relate to each other. The various theories and models of leadership are divided into three major categories, each of which has three sub-categories. The major categories focus on three foundational aspects of leadership – achievement, relationships, and values. Achievement-Oriented Leadership The study and practice of leadership has been dominated by a focus on achievement. The emphasis on achievement is not surprising given that accomplishing goals, both formal and informal, are essential requirements of leadership. The earliest models of leadership focused on individual leadership and the ways in which leaders embodied certain characteristics that enabled them to achieve desired results. Increasingly, scholars of leadership recognized that how a leader behaves is more important than merely focusing on his/her characteristics and that a successful leader matches his/her behavior to the situation at hand as she/he engages in both results-oriented task production and effective relationship behaviors. Over time it has also become clear that there are numerous contingencies (e.g. relationships, structures, and power) that impact the ability of leaders to facilitate the accomplishment of goals. These three perspectives on leadership – individual, behavioral, and contingent – collectively emphasize leadership as an achievement-oriented endeavor that is reliant on a combination of the characteristics of the individual leader, the behavior of the leader, and the contextual contingencies of the work at hand. Each of these factors is discussed in more detail below. Individual Leadership The importance of leadership in its many forms has been recognized for centuries in a wide variety of cultural contexts. In Western society, enduring conceptions of leadership originated in the writings of ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato, and European Renaissance writers such as Machiavelli, among many others. Yet, while Western societies were developing highly individualistic notions about leadership, Eastern philosophers, such as Confucius, were developing more collectivist-oriented definitions. Regardless of the cultural contexts in which ideas about leadership were being developed, these formulations were derived through the observations of particularly successful leaders, and these definitions of leadership were largely philosophical, rather than practical in nature. There was little, if any, rigorously developed or scientifically-based evidence about the nature of leadership. The earliest known empirical studies of leadership emerged out of the Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century and continued to shape popular and enduring conceptions of leadership throughout the twentieth century. Most of these early works focused on individual leaders and the traits they possessed, and were largely prescriptive (what leadership ought to be) rather than descriptive (what leadership is). Many of these approaches fall into what Carlyle (1993) termed the “Great Man Theory” of leadership, which assumes that leaders (almost always males – regardless of cultural context) lead by virtue of talents and traits that they possess. This set of assumptions led to hundreds of studies over the last century that have generated numerous lists which collectively identify dozens and dozens of traits that are associated with successful leadership. Many of these traits are bound by specific conditions – whether they be cultural contexts (i.e. the traits identified in Confucian writings about effective leaders are markedly different from Plato’s 3 analysis of effective leadership traits), historical periods, organizational settings, type of issues involved, etc.. Moreover, it is clear that other factors such as socio-economic status, gender, and other individual characteristics of both leaders and followers influence the effectiveness of any set of particular traits that may be related to effective leadership. As these and other weaknesses were identified over time, attention shifted away from the inherent traits of leaders, and towards skills that could be learned and developed amongst a wider variety of individuals. While this approach enabled leadership theory to move beyond mere traits, it still focused too heavily on individual attributes; yet it remains a popular approach that has branched out to include the identification of gender related, culturally defined, and context specific traits, skills, competencies, and dispositions (attitudes and values). Most recently, “strengths-based leadership” has become a popular approach to identifying and enhancing individual leadership skills in order to improve each leader’s ability to achieve positive results. Behavioral Leadership Building upon the identification of traits and skills as the defining characteristic of leadership, numerous studies of leadership began to focus on the fact that the traits and skills of a leader are less important than the behaviors s/he exhibits in response to various situations. It has become increasingly clear over time that leadership effectiveness is determined by the combination of individual leadership attributes and situational variables—different behavioral styles are more or less effective given particular contextual situations. Decades of research (beginning with the Ohio State and Michigan studies in the 1940s and 1950s) have identified the ways in which leaders can engage in behaviors that are task/production (or directive) and/or relationship (or supportive) oriented. The ways in which leaders behave in terms of being more directive about tasks or more supportive of personal relationships—or some balance of each—impacts their effectiveness. Initially, these studies identified various behavioral styles possessed by different leaders, including: • Directive = high concern for productivity and low concern for relationships • Country Club = low concern for productivity and high concern for relationships • Impoverished = low concern for productivity and low concern for relationships • Middle-of-the-Road = balanced concern for productivity and relationships • Team = high concern for productivity and high concern for relationships While the early studies listed above provided a foundation for defining leadership as being dependent on styles matched to situations that provided a behavioral-basis leadership, it was the work of Ken Blanchard that fully developed Situational Leadership as the dominant form of Behavioral Leadership that continues to be widely used in a wide variety of contexts. Figure 1 demonstrates how situational leadership builds upon the concept of leadership styles by identifying how leaders can adapt their behavior to match the needs and levels of development of their followers. Followers with low levels of development (e.g. being new to a specific job or organization or lacking experience, knowledge, skills and/or confidence) is a situation that requires leaders to use directing behavior. As the development of followers increases, leaders can begin being less directive and more supportive, moving from coaching to supporting and ultimately to delegating (very low levels of direction and high levels of support) as the followers take charge of their own direction. 4 Figure 1 – Situational Leadership (adapted from Northouse, 2012) The following characteristics define Behavioral Leadership: • Leaders are responsible for managing others in order to accomplish tasks • Successful leaders know how and when to focus on the production of tasks and/or relationships among people • Successful leaders match their behavior to the situation. Subsequent research has shown that leaders do not need to restrict their behavioral approaches to the four behavioral strategies suggested by Blanchard (1997) and other proponents of situational leadership. There are numerous other behavioral styles which can be used that range from authoritarian to parental or mentoring, and many more. The key point to remember is that leaders who match their behavior to the situation tend to be more successful in achieving desired goals. The term behavioral is preferable to situational for this type of leadership because it emphasizes the importance of the leader being aware of the situation and adapting his/her behavior appropriately. Changing a situation does not necessarily improve achievement; however, appropriate behavioral adjustments by the leader are essential to enhancing achievement. Contingent Leadership While Individual and Behavioral Leadership theories focus primarily on whom a leader is and what a leader does – contingent models emphasize the contextual factors that influence leadership and productivity. Early contingency theories were built on behavioral models by looking at how not only task structure and interpersonal relationships impact leadership, but also how other situational variables also impact the achievement of goals. For example, the seminal work on contingency theory that was developed by Fiedler (1978) also emphasizes the importance of authoritative power (strong or weak formal authority over followers) in addition to the structure of the task (simple or complex), and how relationships with followers (good or 5 poor) also influence how a leader should behave in a complex environment. Contingency theory focuses less on how a leader ought to behave in a given situation and more on how contingencies shape the ways in which leaders’ preferences (either more task-oriented or more relationshiporiented) match the context. This particular theory is based on research which indicates that not all leaders are capable of adapting their behavior to any situation. Rather, leaders have preferences and need to be able to assess their chances of success given how their preferences match the set of contingencies. In many ways, this model is a combination of the individual characteristics (i.e. traits and skills) and the behavioral tendencies of leaders. Figure 2 depicts a summary of how combinations of contingencies match leaders’ preferred behavioral styles. Figure 2 – Contingency Theory (adapted from Northouse, 2012) Path-Goal theories are another well-known group of conceptual models that provide an even more complex set of contingencies, as this group of models requires leaders to think about and engage in behaviors that motivate followers and remove structural obstacles in order to meet group/organizational goals. Figure 3 summarizes how Path-Goal models incorporate all of these elements together. In addition to the contingencies described above (leader-member relations, follower characteristics, and task structure), Path-Goal models also focus on a more complex understanding of position power, and take other factors such as organizational culture into account as influences on a leader’s preferred and enacted behavior styles. From this perspective, position power is not merely either weak or strong; but varies by the type of power held by the leader. Key types of power include formal authority, coercion (ability to punish), reward, referential (charisma or the ability to have others look up to the leader), expertise, seniority, or group power (obtained through membership in powerful groups or through coalition building). Additionally, Path-Goal models focus on whether an organizational culture is weak (limited shared values and norms) or strong; leaders typically have less power in strong cultures. 6 Figure 3 – Path Goal Models (adapted from Northouse, 2012) Key assumptions of these models include: • Contingent factors – such as power, follower (or subordinate) relationships, and nature of the task structure – impact leadership effectiveness • Successful leaders can identify key contingencies in a given situation that enable or constrain the ways in which people can accomplish goals Figure 3 demonstrates some of the key contingencies that impact how leaders need to shape their leadership behavior and ability to achieve goals. Summary of Achievement-Oriented Leadership The three types of models – individual, behavioral and contingent –all focus on the ways in which leaders are defined by their ability to achieve goals. The individual models focus on the traits, skills, competencies, and dispositions within leaders. Recognizing the importance of leadership as behavior in response to particular situations, behavioral models emphasize how leaders can match their behaviors in terms of styles (consistent patterns of behavior that match the leaders’ preferences and/or aptitudes) or situations. Contingent models build on our understanding of objectives that are achieved by emphasizing other contingent factors which leaders must pay attention to as they match their abilities and behavior to larger contexts. Taken together, these models focus on how leaders are responsible for achieving results (the assumption inherent in all of these models is that “the buck stops” with the leader). These models are often used to identify which individuals will be effective for particular leadership roles. While these models developed over time in a manner that recognizes the increasingly complex challenge of providing achievement-oriented leadership (as we move from merely focusing on the leader to her/his behavior to the contingent factors that the leader must somehow control), they all focus strictly on a specific individual as a leader who is ultimately responsible for success or failure. Relationship-Oriented Leadership Leadership is a human endeavor and any achievements that result from the efforts of leaders occur because of the contributions of followers and the quality of the relations among the people involved in the collective endeavor. The leadership models covered in the section on 7 Achievement-Oriented Leadership recognizes that relationships matter, but only in a utilitarian manner in which they were viewed as a means to the end of achieving results. However, leadership is not only defined by the achievement of goals, but also by the quality of relationships. This section focuses on the transactional nature of relationships between leaders and followers, the need to be inclusive in our relationships so that we embrace a diverse array of talent, and the important insights that arise from feminist approaches to leadership that help combat the ubiquitous forces of gender inequity that cut across all societies as we strive to enhance the range of leadership capacities and possibilities for all. Transactional Leadership While Achievement-Oriented models of leadership focus almost exclusively on the individual leader, transactional leadership shifts the emphasis to an understanding of how leadership occurs as a relationship between leaders and followers. Initial attention on leader-member relations focused on exchanges among individuals, and these approaches (such as LMX theory) are defined by transactions (social exchanges)

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