Leadership in Organizational Settings Case Study Discussion

Leadership in Organizational Settings Case Study Discussion

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Leadership in Organizational Settings Case Study Discussion

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Chapter Twelve Leadership in Organizational Settings

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Part Three Team Processes

AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP

What are the most important lessons about being a leader? For Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, the answer is that successful leaders are authentic. “I appreciate people who are authentic,” says Huang. “They are just who they are. They don’t dress like a CEO because they think that’s what CEOs dress like. They don’t talk like CEOs because that’s the way they think CEOs talk”22

Authentic leadership refers to how well leaders are aware of, feel comfortable with, and act consistently with their self-concept.23 In other words, authenticity is knowing yourself and being yourself (Exhibit 12.3). Leaders learn more about their personality, values, thoughts, and habits by reflecting on various situations and personal experiences. They also improve this self-awareness by receiving feedback from trusted people inside and outside the organization. Both self-reflection and receptivity to feedback require high levels of emotional intelligence.

As people learn more about themselves, they gain a greater understanding of their inner purpose, which generates a long-term passion for achieving something worthwhile for the organization or society. Some leadership experts suggest that this inner purpose emerges from a life story, typically a critical event or experience earlier in life that provides guidance for their later career and energy.

Authentic leadership is more than self-awareness; it also involves behaving in ways that are consistent with that self-concept rather than pretending to be someone else. To be themselves, great leaders regulate their decisions

TNT employs more than 150,000 people worldwide, yet the international express and mail delivery services company remains “humanized” through “honesty, authentic leadership, and truly connecting with staff.” Herna Verhagen, global leader of human resources at the Netherlands-based firm, explains that authenticity is intrinsic in effective leaders. “You cannot make someone be authentic,” suggests Verhagen. “What you can do as a company is emphasize that authentic leadership is key and explain what it entails.” Furthermore, Verhagen believes that authentic leadership requires a “secure base,” which includes taking pride in your company, team, boss, and yourself.24

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Debating Point

SHOULD LEADERS REALLY BE AUTHENTIC ALL OF THE TIME?

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According to popular business books and several scholarly articles, authentic leadership is one of the core attributes of effective leaders. Authentic leaders know themselves and act in accordance with that self-concept. They live their personal values and find a leadership style that best matches their personality. Furthermore, authentic leaders have a sense of purpose, often developed through a crisis or similar “crucible” event in their lives.

It makes sense that leaders should be authentic. After all, as singer Lisa Minnelli has often said: “I would rather be a first-rate version of myself than a second-rate version of anybody else.”25 In other words, leaders are better at acting out their natural beliefs and tendencies than by acting like someone else. Furthermore, authenticity results in consistency, which is a foundation of trust. So, by being authentic, leaders are more likely to be trusted by followers.26

But should leaders always be themselves and act consistently with their beliefs and personality? Not necessarily, according to a few experts. The concept of authentic leadership seems to be at odds with well-established research that people are evaluated as more effective leaders when they have a high rather than low self-monitoring personality.27

High “self-monitors” quickly understand their social environment and easily adapt their behavior to that environment. In other words, high self-monitors change their behavior to suit what others expect from them. In contrast, low self-monitors behave consistently with their personality and self-concept. They do not change their beliefs, style, or behaviors across social contexts. On the contrary, they feel much more content with high congruence between who they are and what they do, even when their natural style does not fit the situation.

Employees prefer an adaptive (i.e., high self-monitoring) leader because they have preconceived prototypes of how leaders should act.28 (We discuss this theory—called implicit leadership— later in this chapter.) Authentic leaders are more likely to violate those prototypical expectations and, consequently, be viewed as less leader-like. The message from this is that leadership is a role requiring its incumbents to perform that role rather than to “act naturally” to some degree. Ironically, while applauding the virtues of authentic leadership, leadership guru Warren Bennis acknowledged that “leadership is a performance art.” His point was that leaders are best when they act naturally in that role, but the reality of any performance is that people can never be fully themselves.29

Furthermore, while being yourself is authentic, it may convey the image of being inflexible and insensitive.30 This problem was apparent to a management professor and consultant when recently working with a client. The executive’s staff followed a work process that was comfortable to the executive but not many of her employees. When asked to consider adopting a process that was easier for her staff, the executive replied: “Look. This is just how I work.” The executive was authentic, but the inflexibility undermined employee performance and morale.31

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authentic leadership

The view that effective leaders need to be aware of, feel comfortable with, and act consistentiy with their values, personality, and self-concept.

and behavior in several ways. First, they develop their own style and, where appropriate, place themselves into positions where that style is most effective. Although effective leaders adapt their behavior to the situation to some extent, they invariably understand and rely on decision methods and interpersonal styles that feel most comfortable to them.

Second, effective leaders continually think about and consistently apply their stable hierarchy of personal values to those decisions and behaviors. Leaders face many pressures and temptations, such as achieving short-term stock price targets at the cost of long-term profitability. Experts note that authentic leaders demonstrate self-discipline by remaining anchored to their values. Third, leaders maintain consistency around their self-concept by having a strong, positive core self-evaluation. They have high self-esteem and self-efficacy, as well as an internal locus of control (Chapter 2).

COMPETENCY PERSPECTIVE LIMITATIONS AND PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

Although the competency perspective is gaining popularity (again), it has a few limitations.32 First, it assumes that all effective leaders have the same personal characteristics that are equally important in all situations. This is probably a false assumption; leadership is far too complex to have a universal list of traits that apply to every condition. Some

with counterproductive norms, whereas leaders who prefer a supportive style should be sent to departments in which employees face work pressures and other stressors.

LEADERSHIP SUBSTITUTES

So far, we have looked at theories that recommend using different leadership styles in various situations. But one theory, called leadership substitutes, identifies conditions that either limit the leader’s ability to influence subordinates or make a particular leadership style unnecessary. Prior literature identifies several conditions that possibly substitute for task-oriented or people-oriented leadership. Task-oriented leadership might be less important when performance-based reward systems keep employees directed toward organizational goals. Similarly, increasing employee skill and experience might reduce the need for task-oriented leadership. This proposition is consistent with path-goal leadership theory, which states that directive leadership is unnecessary—and may be detrimental—when employees are skilled or experienced.59

Some research suggests that effective leaders help team members learn to lead themselves through leadership substitutes; in other words, coworkers substitute for leadership in high-involvement team structures.60 Coworkers instruct new employees, thereby providing directive leadership. They also provide social support, which reduces stress among fellow employees. Teams with norms that support organizational goals may substitute for achievement-oriented leadership, because employees encourage (or pressure) coworkers to stretch their performance levels.61 Self-leadership—the process of influencing oneself to establish the self-direction and self-motivation needed to perform a task (see Chapter 6)—might be a substitute for task-oriented and achievement-oriented leadership.62

The leadership substitutes model has intuitive appeal, but the evidence so far is mixed. Some studies show that a few substitutes do replace the need for task- or people-oriented leadership, but others do not. The difficulties of statistically testing for leadership substitutes may account for some problems, but a few writers contend that the limited support is evidence that leadership plays a critical role regardless of the situation.63 At this point, we can conclude that leadership substitutes might reduce the need for leaders, but they do not completely replace leaders in these situations.

Transformational Perspective of Leadership

Transformational leadership is by far the most popular perspective of leadership today. Unlike the contingency and behavioral perspectives, which examine how leaders improve employee performance and well-being, the transformational leadership perspective views effective leaders as agents of change in the work unit or organization. They create, communicate, and model a shared vision for the team or organization, and they inspire followers to strive to achieve that vision.64

Leadership in Organizational Settings Case Study Discussion

Leadership in Organizational Settings Case Study Discussion

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