Leadership: Mobilizing People – Summary
Samirah Bakker
Lecture 1 + readings:
Northouse (2013) H1 + H2
The following components can be identified as central to the phenomenon of leadership:
- leadership is a process
- leadership involves influence
- leadership occurs in groups
- leadership involves common goals
Trait perspective towards leadership → “He/she is born to be a leader”
Process perspective towards leadership suggests that leadership is a phenomenon that resides in the
context of the interactions between leaders and followers and makes leadership available to everyone.
Assigned vs. Emergent leadership:
- Assigned leadership = Leadership that is based on occupying a position in an organization.
- Emergent leadership = not assigned by position, rather it emerges over a period through
communication. Results from what one does and how one acquires support from followers.
5 bases of power:
- referent (personal power)
- expert (personal power)
- legitimate (position power)
- reward (position power)
- coercive (position power)
,Related to leadership is the concept of power, the potential to influence. In organizations there are two
major kinds of power → position power and personal power:
- Position power = the power an individual derives from having a title in a formal
organizational system.
- Personal power = comes from followers and includes referent and expert power.
Leaders in one situation may not necessarily be leaders in another situation.
Mann (1959) suggested that personality traits could be used to distinguish leaders from nonleaders.
His results identified leaders as strong in the following six traits: intelligence, masculinity, adjustment,
dominance, extraversion, and conservatism.
Kirkpatrick & Locke (1991) stated that leaders differ from nonleaders on 6 traits → drive, motivation,
integrity, confidence, cognitive ability, and task knowledge. You can be born with these traits, learn
them, or both.
In the 1900’s researchers began to investigate the leadership traits associated with ‘social
intelligence’. Zaccaro (2002) defined social intelligence as having such capacities as social awareness,
social acumen, self-monitoring, and the ability to select and enact the best response given the
contingencies of the situation and social environment. A number of empirical studies showed these
capacities to be a key trait for effective leaders.
Major leadership traits:
- intelligence
- self-confidence
- determination
- integrity
- sociability
Five- Factor Personality Model and Leadership (OCEAN)
In essence, the trait approach is concerned with what traits leaders exhibit and who has these traits.
The trait approach focuses exclusively on the leader and not on the followers or situation.
,Derue et al. (2011): Trait and behavioral theories of leadership: An integration and meta-
analytic test of their relative validity.
The study reviews and integrates the literature on leader traits and behaviors, and takes a first step
toward an integrative theory of how leader traits and behaviors influence leadership effectiveness.
- Overall they found that leader behaviors had a greater impact on leadership effectiveness
criteria than leader traits.
- Their results suggest that although having certain traits may predispose individuals to certain
behaviors, behaviors are the more important predictor of leadership effectiveness.
Lecture 1
What is leadership? → The ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to
contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members.
Leaders vs. Managers
Leaders Managers
Establish direction Plan and budget
Align people Organize and staff
Motivate and inspire Control and solve problems
Are concerned with productive or adaptive Produce consistency and order
change
Effective leaders in organizations motivate and enable others to achieve organizationally relevant
goals.
, These organizationally goals can be/are:
1. Productive output of a unit meets the standards of quantity, quality, and timeliness of its
clients.
2. High levels of social integration within a unit.
3. High levels of continuous learning and well-being of unit members.
4. Goals and means to achieve goals are ethical.
The trait approach:
A trait is a stable characteristic of a person → psychological (e.g., extraversion, intelligence) &
physical (e.g., gender, height)
- The trait approach suggests that leaders are born and there is little organizations can do to
develop effective leaders. Organizations should therefore select people with high cognitive
abilities and a leader personality profile into leadership positions.
- The trait approach explains which people are more likely to raise to leadership positions and
which people are the most effective leaders. However, it is unclear why this may be the case
(trait => behaviors, or trait => leader acceptance, or both??)
- The problem with the trait approach is that it doesn’t account for situational variables e.g.
what about cultural, organizational, and industrial context?
Intelligence and leadership:
There’s still no universally accepted definition of intelligence. An example of one of the definitions is:
“The ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from
experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought”.
- Intelligence seems important, but less so than commonly assumed (small to medium sized
relations to effectiveness).
- Apparent intelligence may be more important than actual intelligence.
Personality and leadership: The Big Five (OCEAN)
- Openness → People that score highly on openness are characterized by diverse interests.
- Conscientiousness → Conscientious people are aware of their responsibility for their job and
they work ambitiously to reach their goals.
- Extraversion → Extraverts are usually gentle, adventurous, talkative, and tend to socialize
effortlessly with others.
- Agreeableness → Agreeable persons are very trusting and avoid confrontation with others.
- Neuroticism → Highly neurotic people are anxious, nervous, worried and easily lose their
temper under pressure.
Personality seems more important for leadership than commonly assumed and more important than
intelligence. But what about emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence → The ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions to assist
thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge and to reflectively regulate emotions to
promote emotional and intellectual growth.
Samirah Bakker
Lecture 1 + readings:
Northouse (2013) H1 + H2
The following components can be identified as central to the phenomenon of leadership:
- leadership is a process
- leadership involves influence
- leadership occurs in groups
- leadership involves common goals
Trait perspective towards leadership → “He/she is born to be a leader”
Process perspective towards leadership suggests that leadership is a phenomenon that resides in the
context of the interactions between leaders and followers and makes leadership available to everyone.
Assigned vs. Emergent leadership:
- Assigned leadership = Leadership that is based on occupying a position in an organization.
- Emergent leadership = not assigned by position, rather it emerges over a period through
communication. Results from what one does and how one acquires support from followers.
5 bases of power:
- referent (personal power)
- expert (personal power)
- legitimate (position power)
- reward (position power)
- coercive (position power)
,Related to leadership is the concept of power, the potential to influence. In organizations there are two
major kinds of power → position power and personal power:
- Position power = the power an individual derives from having a title in a formal
organizational system.
- Personal power = comes from followers and includes referent and expert power.
Leaders in one situation may not necessarily be leaders in another situation.
Mann (1959) suggested that personality traits could be used to distinguish leaders from nonleaders.
His results identified leaders as strong in the following six traits: intelligence, masculinity, adjustment,
dominance, extraversion, and conservatism.
Kirkpatrick & Locke (1991) stated that leaders differ from nonleaders on 6 traits → drive, motivation,
integrity, confidence, cognitive ability, and task knowledge. You can be born with these traits, learn
them, or both.
In the 1900’s researchers began to investigate the leadership traits associated with ‘social
intelligence’. Zaccaro (2002) defined social intelligence as having such capacities as social awareness,
social acumen, self-monitoring, and the ability to select and enact the best response given the
contingencies of the situation and social environment. A number of empirical studies showed these
capacities to be a key trait for effective leaders.
Major leadership traits:
- intelligence
- self-confidence
- determination
- integrity
- sociability
Five- Factor Personality Model and Leadership (OCEAN)
In essence, the trait approach is concerned with what traits leaders exhibit and who has these traits.
The trait approach focuses exclusively on the leader and not on the followers or situation.
,Derue et al. (2011): Trait and behavioral theories of leadership: An integration and meta-
analytic test of their relative validity.
The study reviews and integrates the literature on leader traits and behaviors, and takes a first step
toward an integrative theory of how leader traits and behaviors influence leadership effectiveness.
- Overall they found that leader behaviors had a greater impact on leadership effectiveness
criteria than leader traits.
- Their results suggest that although having certain traits may predispose individuals to certain
behaviors, behaviors are the more important predictor of leadership effectiveness.
Lecture 1
What is leadership? → The ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to
contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members.
Leaders vs. Managers
Leaders Managers
Establish direction Plan and budget
Align people Organize and staff
Motivate and inspire Control and solve problems
Are concerned with productive or adaptive Produce consistency and order
change
Effective leaders in organizations motivate and enable others to achieve organizationally relevant
goals.
, These organizationally goals can be/are:
1. Productive output of a unit meets the standards of quantity, quality, and timeliness of its
clients.
2. High levels of social integration within a unit.
3. High levels of continuous learning and well-being of unit members.
4. Goals and means to achieve goals are ethical.
The trait approach:
A trait is a stable characteristic of a person → psychological (e.g., extraversion, intelligence) &
physical (e.g., gender, height)
- The trait approach suggests that leaders are born and there is little organizations can do to
develop effective leaders. Organizations should therefore select people with high cognitive
abilities and a leader personality profile into leadership positions.
- The trait approach explains which people are more likely to raise to leadership positions and
which people are the most effective leaders. However, it is unclear why this may be the case
(trait => behaviors, or trait => leader acceptance, or both??)
- The problem with the trait approach is that it doesn’t account for situational variables e.g.
what about cultural, organizational, and industrial context?
Intelligence and leadership:
There’s still no universally accepted definition of intelligence. An example of one of the definitions is:
“The ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from
experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought”.
- Intelligence seems important, but less so than commonly assumed (small to medium sized
relations to effectiveness).
- Apparent intelligence may be more important than actual intelligence.
Personality and leadership: The Big Five (OCEAN)
- Openness → People that score highly on openness are characterized by diverse interests.
- Conscientiousness → Conscientious people are aware of their responsibility for their job and
they work ambitiously to reach their goals.
- Extraversion → Extraverts are usually gentle, adventurous, talkative, and tend to socialize
effortlessly with others.
- Agreeableness → Agreeable persons are very trusting and avoid confrontation with others.
- Neuroticism → Highly neurotic people are anxious, nervous, worried and easily lose their
temper under pressure.
Personality seems more important for leadership than commonly assumed and more important than
intelligence. But what about emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence → The ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions to assist
thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge and to reflectively regulate emotions to
promote emotional and intellectual growth.
