Chapter 12



Chapter 12

Leadership: Basic Concepts and Theories

What the Chapter Covers

Because leaders can only lead where there are people who can become followers, this chapter and the one that follows flow naturally from the previous one, which covered groups. The matters covered by the chapter are:

• a definition and opening exploration of the nature of leadership

• a contrast between two approaches to the study of leadership, descriptive and functional

• the difference between leadership and management

• the significance of leadership to organisations

• the trait approach to leadership

• style theories of leadership and their derivatives

• a comparison of universal and contingency approaches to leadership

In addition to the five learning outcomes for the chapter set out at its start, this chapter and the one that follows have three connected themes:

1. there is a significant difference between simply being in charge (headship) and exercising leadership

2. most leadership theories have an inherent weakness; they deal only with situations in which the so-called leader also occupies a position of headship, and so in the final analysis, the person could fall back on the use of formal authority; because followers (or more accurately subordinates) are likely to be aware of this, we can never be sure of the extent to which they are willing followers, rather than simply compliant subordinates.

3. because the word leadership has an almost heroic ring, the whole topic is plagued by ‘social desirability effects’. Managers in particular seem to like to think of themselves as leaders and this could give rise to a duality in standards. Being ‘in control’ is also extremely high in the management value system, and so we can never be completely sure whether managers laud leadership because it is a non-coercive process, or whether they value it because it offers a more silent and subtle way of being in control.

New Concepts Introduced in Chapter

Autocratic Leaders: those who strongly control subordinates and make all major decisions

Democratic Leaders: those who involve followers in decisions

Descriptive Approach to Leadership: theories that describe leadership in terms of either what a person is, or his/her distinctive style of behaviour.

Functional Approach to Leadership: theories that explain leadership in terms of the functions performed by leader with respect to followers

Headship: the formal authority over subordinates granted as part of a manager's position

In-group Members (leadership): those whom a leader relies upon to go beyond the minimum level of performance required

Laissez-fair Leaders: those who abdicate from the leadership role

Managerial Grid: an application of style theories of leadership used for training and development purposes

Out-group Members: people who give only a basic level of performance

Reciprocal Causality (leadership): the idea that followers affect leader behaviour as well as the leader influencing followers

Trait Theory of Leadership: the assumption that certain people have inherent characteristics which enable them to be leaders

Two-factor Theory of Leadership: that there are two independent dimensions to leader behaviour, that is, initiating structure and consideration

Time Out Exercises: Hints for Completing

Subsequent exercises in this chapter roll-on from the first one. That is, the first exercise requires you to identify groups and leaders, and the others to explore different facets of leadership. For this reason you may find that your lecturer uses them as short hands-on interludes in formal teaching sessions. Whether they are used in this way, or whether you complete them alone, you will find successive exercises much easier if you have made clear notes when completing the first one.

Exercise on page 363: Headship and Leadership

You will probably experience little difficulty in identifying the two groups for comparison. In doing so however, it is better to identify the groups before thinking about how leaders were selected.

Questions 1 and 2

These go together and the second one provides a way of answering the first.

Question 3

You may find it difficult to answer this unless you have answered question 2 in thorough way. If necessary, re-focus on question 2 and try to explain why is it that one person’s instructions were be more readily followed than those of the other person. Usually this is because if we have willingly assented to someone controlling our actions, we tend to accept instructions from that person more readily, so long as the instructions are within the bounds of the authority we have granted. Thus leaders tend to be able to obtain effort that is given more willingly and are often successful in generating a great deal more effort than people who simply occupy headship roles.

Exercise on page 365: Personal Attributes of Leaders

Since this exercise flows from the previous one, the group and leader will already have been identified. The questions are very straightforward and are clearly connected with trait theory ideas. In this exercise, it is important that you distinguish between traits (question 1) and skills/abilities (question 2). Question 3 usually proves the most difficult to answer and here you should try to identify whether the person had a style of behaviour that particularly suited the group concerned and if so, what was this style of behaviour, and why did it suit the group?

Exercise on page 374: Style of Behaviour

Once again this exercise flows directly from the previous one. It gives a rudimentary way of addressing some of the matters that were touched on, but not explored through a clear theoretical framework in the previous exercise. As such, you should now find the exercise relatively straightforward, if you look carefully at your answer to question 3 in the previous exercise, you should now find that you are able to answer this in a more explicit way.

Supplementary Illustrative Materials

In addition to the OB in Action features in this chapter of the book, given below are two more that you might find useful. This is associated with the material on pages 365-368 of the chapter and shows that for all its shortcomings, trait theory is not completely dead.

OB in Action: Alive and Kicking – Trait Theory and the Female Stereotype

In spite of anti-discrimination laws and large organisations that almost universally have equal opportunities policies, women still find it hard to reach the top echelons of organisations. To some extent this is connected with stereotyped images of the leadership capabilities of women and is a reflection of the long-discredited idea that while lesser mortals are only fitted to be followers, certain people are endowed with inherent traits that permit them to emerge as leaders.

Recent research on views held about female managers reveals a number of firmly held stereotypes, for example that women:

• define success in softer, more personal terms than men, an outcome of which is that they have less competitive edge

• are less ruthless in their commitment to the success of the organisation than men

• can be strong in the ‘soft’ aspects of leadership or management, for example, communication, but are lower in the harder command-and-control aspects

• inspire less confidence in their subordinates than men

These stereotypes categorise women and men as having inherently different attributes, and like most stereotypes they are wildly inaccurate. The problem is that when combined with a second stereotype – that leadership or more accurately, management is something that requires exclusively male attributes - they become a powerful rationale for not appointing women to high positions. Nobody knows for certain where these ideas originated, but they provide an example of the resilience of the now defunct ‘trait’ theory of leadership.

SOURCES Vinnicombe, S and H Harris (2000) A gender hidden, People Management 6 January; 28-32

York, P (1999) The gender agenda, Management Today October; 56-63

Useful Sources of Additional Material

For those who enjoy exploring study materials on the internet, given below are a number of potentially useful websites that give further information on the topics and issues covered in the chapter.



An extremely useful and encyclopedic website maintained by Monash University, Australia for its Open Learning courses. It covers virtually every branch of psychology and organisation studies (including leadership) and has cross-links to many other websites, bibliographies and other sources of material.



A site that gives a general coverage of leadership, together with access to many articles dealing with different practical aspects of leadership and leading.



A brief, but very useful set of notes on Action Centred Leadership theory, which also explains the likely effects of neglecting any of the three leader tasks identified in Adair’s overlapping circles model.



A set of brief notes on different approaches to the study of leadership and in particular, leadership styles



A set of brief notes tracing different approaches to leadership theory in the historical order in which they developed.



Brief notes on a wide variety of leadership theories. Particularly useful for its identification of the weaknesses of trait theory.

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