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Leadership - Lecture notes 7
Business Management (King's College London)
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Leadership
What is leadership?
Leadership: the process of influencing the activities of an organized group in its efforts towards goal-
setting and goal achievement.
Six perspectives
1. Trait-spotting: identifies the personality traits and related attributes of the effective leader, in
order to facilitate the selection of leaders.
2. Style-counselling: characterizes different leadership behaviour patterns to identify effective and
ineffective leadership styles, in order to improve the training and development of leaders.
3. Context-fitting: contingency theories argue that the leadership effectiveness depends on aspects
of the organizational and cultural setting.
4. New leadership: ‘new leaders’, ‘super leaders’ and ‘transformational leaders’
5. Distributed leadership: leadership behaviour is not confined to those with formal senior roles
but can be observed across all organizational levels.
6. Who needs leaders? Transformational leaders can destabilize an organization by driving too
much change too quickly, causing burnout and initiative fatigue; middle managers with change
implementation skills can be more effective.
Leaders V.S Managers
Leaders Managers
- Leaders do the right thing - Managers do things right
- Visionaries who drive new initiatives - Maintain order and stability
- Prophet, catalyst, mover-shaker and - Technician, administrator and problem-
strategist solver
- Influences others to sign up to their - Establishes plans and budgets, designs
vision and staffs the organization, monitors and
- Inspires them to overcome obstacles controls performance and delivers order
- Generates positive changes and predictability
Managers roles include framing (deciding, focusing, establishing the context in which others work) and
scheduling (slicing up concerns, deciding how to allocate time). The work involved in fulfilling roles takes
place on planes: information, people and action.
Plane of managerial work Management roles
Information Communicating, controlling
People Leading, linking to others
Action Getting things done, negotiating, building
coalitions
“Management is about coping with complexity. Leadership, by contrast, is about coping with change”
Downloaded by Sinenkosi Mthembu ()
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Trait theories
Trait theories of leadership: theories that consider personal qualities and characteristics that
differentiate leaders from non-leaders. Leaders are born. E.g. the big five model.
Throughout history, strong leaders – Buddha, Mao, Churchill
- South Africa’s Nelson Mandela
- Virgin Group CEO Richard Branson
- Apple Co-founder Steve Jobs Charismatic, enthusiastic and courageous
Physical characteristics
- Height
- Appearance
- Gender
Psychological
- Authoritarianism
- Intelligence
- Self-confidence
Personality and leadership
- The big five personality
- Conscientiousness and openness to experience are positively related to leaders’ self-efficacy,
which explained most of the variance in subordinates ratings of leader performance
- Like being around people and are able to assert themselves (extraverted)
- Disciplined and able to keep commitments they make (conscientious)
- Creative and flexible (open) do have an apparent advantage
Emotional intelligence (EI) a person can have outstanding training, a highly analytical mind, a
compelling vision and an endless supply of terrific ideas but still not make a great leader
- Empathetic leaders can sense others’ needs, listen to what followers say and read the reactions
of others.
- A leader who effectively displays and manages emotions will find it easier to influence the
feelings of followers by both expressing genuine sympathy and enthusiasm for good
performance and by using irritation for those who fail to performance.
Emotional intelligence model
Self-awareness: our own unique ability to understand our individual tendencies, perceive our
emotional state and proceed to behave in certain way
Social awareness: the ability to recognize other people’s emotions and inner thoughts. Helpful
with relationship management
Self-management: being able to keep flexible and aware of our own emotional state so as to
insure positive and constructive behaviour.
2
Downloaded by Sinenkosi Mthembu ()
Leadership - Lecture notes 7
Business Management (King's College London)
StuDocu is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university
Downloaded by Sinenkosi Mthembu ()
, lOMoARcPSD|4568621
Leadership
What is leadership?
Leadership: the process of influencing the activities of an organized group in its efforts towards goal-
setting and goal achievement.
Six perspectives
1. Trait-spotting: identifies the personality traits and related attributes of the effective leader, in
order to facilitate the selection of leaders.
2. Style-counselling: characterizes different leadership behaviour patterns to identify effective and
ineffective leadership styles, in order to improve the training and development of leaders.
3. Context-fitting: contingency theories argue that the leadership effectiveness depends on aspects
of the organizational and cultural setting.
4. New leadership: ‘new leaders’, ‘super leaders’ and ‘transformational leaders’
5. Distributed leadership: leadership behaviour is not confined to those with formal senior roles
but can be observed across all organizational levels.
6. Who needs leaders? Transformational leaders can destabilize an organization by driving too
much change too quickly, causing burnout and initiative fatigue; middle managers with change
implementation skills can be more effective.
Leaders V.S Managers
Leaders Managers
- Leaders do the right thing - Managers do things right
- Visionaries who drive new initiatives - Maintain order and stability
- Prophet, catalyst, mover-shaker and - Technician, administrator and problem-
strategist solver
- Influences others to sign up to their - Establishes plans and budgets, designs
vision and staffs the organization, monitors and
- Inspires them to overcome obstacles controls performance and delivers order
- Generates positive changes and predictability
Managers roles include framing (deciding, focusing, establishing the context in which others work) and
scheduling (slicing up concerns, deciding how to allocate time). The work involved in fulfilling roles takes
place on planes: information, people and action.
Plane of managerial work Management roles
Information Communicating, controlling
People Leading, linking to others
Action Getting things done, negotiating, building
coalitions
“Management is about coping with complexity. Leadership, by contrast, is about coping with change”
Downloaded by Sinenkosi Mthembu ()
, lOMoARcPSD|4568621
Trait theories
Trait theories of leadership: theories that consider personal qualities and characteristics that
differentiate leaders from non-leaders. Leaders are born. E.g. the big five model.
Throughout history, strong leaders – Buddha, Mao, Churchill
- South Africa’s Nelson Mandela
- Virgin Group CEO Richard Branson
- Apple Co-founder Steve Jobs Charismatic, enthusiastic and courageous
Physical characteristics
- Height
- Appearance
- Gender
Psychological
- Authoritarianism
- Intelligence
- Self-confidence
Personality and leadership
- The big five personality
- Conscientiousness and openness to experience are positively related to leaders’ self-efficacy,
which explained most of the variance in subordinates ratings of leader performance
- Like being around people and are able to assert themselves (extraverted)
- Disciplined and able to keep commitments they make (conscientious)
- Creative and flexible (open) do have an apparent advantage
Emotional intelligence (EI) a person can have outstanding training, a highly analytical mind, a
compelling vision and an endless supply of terrific ideas but still not make a great leader
- Empathetic leaders can sense others’ needs, listen to what followers say and read the reactions
of others.
- A leader who effectively displays and manages emotions will find it easier to influence the
feelings of followers by both expressing genuine sympathy and enthusiasm for good
performance and by using irritation for those who fail to performance.
Emotional intelligence model
Self-awareness: our own unique ability to understand our individual tendencies, perceive our
emotional state and proceed to behave in certain way
Social awareness: the ability to recognize other people’s emotions and inner thoughts. Helpful
with relationship management
Self-management: being able to keep flexible and aware of our own emotional state so as to
insure positive and constructive behaviour.
2
Downloaded by Sinenkosi Mthembu ()
