8.7. SUMMARY
For everyday decisions and actions, your personality is likely to determine how you act. To make sure that your actions will be effective, you may want to change your work environment so that it matches your personality (Fiedler et al., 1977).
If you are a high LPC (see Section 8.1), avoid environments that are too easy (you have much control) or too difficult (you have little control) for you as a leader. In other words, foster an environment in which you have moderate control and influence, which is common in R&D organizations. Then, your leadership style should be participative or relationship-oriented.
If you are a low LPC, your ideal, then, is to be liked, to have no conflict among your subordinates, to have a clear task, and to have a lot of power. If, on the other hand, you have no power and your subordinates hate you, and you do not know what they are supposed to be doing, do not panic. To get high performance, you will have to rely on task orientation and a directive form of leadership.
Since you are dealing with rather bright and autonomous people, task structure is going to be low; since you want to minimize stress, you want the group to like you; since your power and influence in an effective R&D organization are going to be moderate, you really need to work toward a relationship-oriented management style.
For important decisions, when you have a lot of time, ask the questions Vroom and Yetton have recommended, go through the decision tree they have developed, and use the leadership style that is recommended.
If other factors are critical, the above recommendations need to be taken with a grain of salt. You should emphasize participation if the following hold true:
You respect your subordinates' skills.
You know too little about their jobs.
You can live with uncertainty.
You feel it is very important that your subordinates like you and that they get along with each other and know much about the job.
The job is interesting and requires many solutions and high quality.
There is no crisis, the job does not involve conflicts of interest and permits interpersonal interactions, and you work in an environment where things are changing fast.
If these factors do not hold, you might shift toward more directive management styles.
When you have a new employee, you can get away with a style that involves telling people what to do; with a more mature subordinate, selling is better; with a still more mature subordinate, participation is highly desirable; and with a subordinate who knows a lot and has been around a long time, delegation may be ideal (Hersey, Blanchard, and Johnson 2007).
Look at your subordinates' job situation. What is missing from the ideal work environment? Suppose they do not know what they are to do; then tell them. Suppose they are bored; then entertain them. In other words, your job is to help them reach their goals, to supply the missing resources (path–goal theory).
There are other factors that moderate what was just said: You can be bossier if you have deadlines or limited resources, or if you are expected to be bossy (expectation can come from the culture, the organization, your supervisor, your subordinates, your peers), or if your followers are incompetent or inexperienced.
Finally, there are some unique situations related to R&D organizations. Thus, leadership concepts and styles need to be explored in the context of R&D organizations.