Leadership is the process by which a person exerts influence over other people and inspires, motivates, and directs their activities to help achieve group or organizational goals. There are five sources of power that enable managers to be effective leaders: legitimate, referent, reward, coercive, and expert. Legitimate power is the authority a manager has by virtue of her or her position in an organization’s hierarchy. Referent power is a function of the personal characteristics of a leader. Reward power is the ability of a manager to give or withhold tangible and intangible rewards. Coercive power is the ability of a manager to punish others. Expert power is based on the special knowledge, skills, and expertise that a leader possesses (Jones, 2002).
1. What is leadership? What sources of power enable managers to be effective leaders?
There are several traits of an individual that show the highest relationship with strong leadership. These traits include intelligence, knowledge and expertise, dominance, self-confidence, high energy, tolerance from stress, integrity and honesty, and maturity (Jones, 2002).2. What traits of an individual show the highest relationship with strong leadership? Describe the trait and behavior models of leadership, including their drawbacks.
The contingency models of leadership take into account the situation or context within which leadership occurs. The Fiedler’s Contingency Model describes two leader styles, relationship-oriented, and the kinds of situations in which each kind of leader will be most effective. Whether a relationship-oriented or task-oriented leader is effective is contingent on a situation. The path-goal theory describes how effective leaders motivate their followers. The behaviors that managers should engage to be effective leaders are contingent on the nature of the subordinates and the work they do. The leader substitutes model describes when leadership is unnecessary. Whether leadership is necessary for subordinates to perform highly is contingent on characteristics of the subordinates and the situation (Jones, 2002).
3. How do Contingency Models of Leadership enhance our understanding of effective leadership? Briefly describe the focus and contingencies of the three contingency models discussed in the chapter.
Transformational leadership is the leadership that makes subordinates aware of the importance of their jobs and performance to the organization and aware of their own needs for personal growth and that motivates subordinates to work for the good of the organization. Managers make subordinates aware of how important their jobs are for the organization and how necessary it is for them to perform those jobs as best they can so the organization can attain its goods, make their subordinates aware of the subordinates’ own needs for personal growth, development, and accomplishment, and motivate their subordinates to work for the good of the organization as a whole, not just their own personal gain or benefit. When the managers transform their subordinates in these ways, the subordinates trust the managers, are highly motivated, and help the organization to achieve its goals. Transactional leadership is leadership that motivates subordinates by rewarding them for high performance and reprimanding them for low performance (Jones, 2002).4. Define transformational leadership. How do managers put transformational leadership into practice? How do subordinates respond to the behaviors of managers who practice transformational leadership? How is transformational leadership different from transactional leadership?
There are four different ways that groups and teams can contribute to the effectiveness of the organization. These ways include enhancing the performance, increasing the responsiveness to customers, increasing the motivation, and increasing the satisfaction(Jones, 2002).5. How do groups and teams contribute to organizational effectiveness?
There are three elements of group dynamics that can influence functioning and the effectiveness of groups and teams. These elements are group size and roles, group leadership, and group development over time. Group size and roles can influence how the group will perform. Most of the time, a smaller group that has 2 to 9 members will interact better. Therefore, the smaller group will tend to be more motivated. The larger groups have access to more resources and the work of each team member will be divided. The roles of the group will be the tasks that each member of the group will be expected to do within the group. Each task will be based on a particular area that the person has the most experience in. Once a group has the ability to achieve all of their goals, they will be in the stage of development. There are five main stages of group development: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Forming is when the group members will get to know each other more and are able to reach the common goals. Storming is when the members of the group will disagree on the direction and leadership of the group. Norming is when the group has close ties with each other. Performing is the stage of development when the group really begins to do all of the real work of the group. Adjourning is only going to be used for the task forces that are temporary the members of the group (Jones, 2002).6. How does each of the following elements of group dynamics influence the functioning and effectiveness of groups and teams?1. Group size and roles2. Group leadership3. Group development over time
Group members conform to norms for three reasons. The first reason is they want to obtain rewards and avoid punishments. The second reason is they want to imitate group members who they like and admire. The third reason is they have internalized the norm and believe it is the right and proper way to behave. When group cohesiveness is high, then the individuals strongly value their group membership, find the group appealing, and have strong desires to remain a part of the group (Jones, 2002).7. What is the role of conformity, deviance, and cohesiveness in effective groups and teams?
Social loafing is the tendency of individuals to put forth less effort when they work in groups than when they work alone. There are three ways that managers can reduce social loafing and motivate the group members to work toward organizational goals. The first way is to make individual contributions to a group identifiable. The second way is to emphasize the valuable contributions of individual members. The third way is to keep group size at an appropriate level (Jones, 2002).8. Define social loafing. How can managers reduce social loafing and motivate group members to work toward organizational goals?
References:
Jones, Gareth R. (2002). Contemporary Management. McGraw-Hill: Columbus, OH.
