15

Leadership

Leadership is a lot like love. Everyone thinks it is special, but hardly anyone agrees on a definition. Warren Bennis (a student of the subject for six decades) put it this way: “It is almost a cliché of the leadership literature that a single definition of leadership is lacking” (2007, p. 2). In an earlier review (Bennis & Nanus, 1985, p. 4) he noted that

In addition to the confusion about the subject, experts decry a lack of leadership in civic and corporate life. The revered Harvard Business School expert John Kotter noted (1999):

Since leadership is of undisputed importance, and since high quality leadership is relatively rare, leader development is often the focus of executive coaching. Coaches are expected to know about these things and to provide needed help. Effective coaches must be intimately familiar with the leadership literature, leadership theory, and prominent models. This chapter is an overview and explanation of the most important theories of leadership and the research that supports them, both historical and modern. The term theories here refers to the formal structural models that exist to explain good or bad leadership, its characteristics, and its development. The leadership literature found in business texts and psychological research is complex. This chapter is an attempt to summarize and simplify complicated concepts for practical use by executive coaches. Clients and their organizations will raise the issue of leadership, but they are unlikely to possess a clear or coherent view. Coaches are advised to develop a set of solid concepts and frameworks for leader assessment and development, so that they can present them to clients and use these tools in practice. Coaches must be familiar with traditional models of leadership and be able to articulate important conceptual foundations.

Overview and Various Starting Points

Leadership has ancient roots, and its students have included Plato, Socrates, Confucius, and Shakespeare. Leadership is a topic of interest in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible and in the Koran as well. Vast amounts have been written about leadership both in academic and popular literature, and the literature is diverse enough to cause vertigo. One observer notes:

Academic texts tend to come from business schools and schools of education, as leadership has not been a topic of interest to academic psychology until fairly recently. Much of the formal literature is filled with esoteric diagrams full of circles and arrows that are only of interest to insiders, and they tend to produce headaches in practitioners. The pop literature, on the other hand, is enchanting and inspirational, but empty of intellectual substance and unlikely to be of much serious help to a professional coach. One leadership book refers to pop literature as the “Troubadour Tradition” and describes it as “score-settling reminiscences of countless former CEOs” (Dotlich & Cairo, 2003, p. xiii). Coaching clients have already skimmed the popular literature and need more substantial help. There are many varieties and models of leadership, and they differ significantly from one another. Some focus on action or behavior, some focus on the personal qualities of the leader, some focus on the situation at hand, some focus on the leader–context match. There is no single, overarching model of leadership that is universally embraced.

Leadership theory has suffered a similar fate to that of psychotherapy theory in that new theoretical frameworks tend to replace older ones rather than build on them. In other words, there is chaos out there and many difficult, unanswered questions.

First, is the ancient question of whether leaders are born or bred (Conger, 1992). If leadership is a quality that is born in some people, then resources should be spent on effective recruitment and selection rather than training. If leadership is a skill that can be learned, then training should be emphasized. (The smart money is always on the interaction between nature and nurture.)

There is the important question of whether anyone in an organization can be a leader. Does leadership imply a position, and does all viable leadership behavior have to come from those in formal leadership positions? If not, then who qualifies as a leader, and what behavior constitutes leadership under what circumstances? This is sometimes referred to as the leadership of versus leadership in question.

There is a question of enthusiasm in the leadership literature. Must followers gladly and voluntarily follow someone, or does leadership exist when people comply with rules or obey with reluctance? Are tyrants leaders? Is coercion a leadership skill?

The biographies of famous or prominent successful leaders (e.g., Lincoln, Churchill, or the latest prominent CEO) was pretty much the exclusive focus of early leadership studies (Bennis, 2007), but that approach has fallen out of favor in university circles. Instead, leadership is generally viewed as a “property of a social system” wherein leadership functions are shared by many in an organization (Yukl, 1994).

Does the leader’s intention or motivation matter? Is it still leadership if a person in the leadership role is predominantly interested in self-promotion and personal greed? Do we call it leadership if the person in charge builds an organization only for personal gain? Was it leadership if they subsequently walked away and left a mess? It seems that there are two central vectors of good or bad leadership. Leaders can be good or bad in the sense that they are competent and effective. They can also be good or bad in the quality of their intentions. So, a leader could be well intentioned but incompetent, and another leader could be highly competent but malevolent. How do we evaluate leadership in those situations?

Leadership literature in the United States shows a distinctly North American–European cultural bias, and it has a clear masculine tone. All descriptions of leadership contain biases, and American views tend to favor individualism and personal autonomy. Leaders are expected to be direct, clear, and assertive—even bold in communication. Confrontation is generally seen as positive, if done according to certain rules. Emotional openness and direct expression are common and accepted. Competition is valued and expected, and aggressive leaders are admired. Acquisition is a well-accepted goal. Western theories assume and value rationality. Business leaders in the United States are unlikely to reveal that intuition is favored over empiricism in decision making. Incentives and rewards tend to be provided for individual effort rather than for those of a group or team. Although family gets much lip service, few organizations actually behave in ways that honor familial obligations. Cultural variation in leadership is complex and important enough to merit its own chapter in any comprehensive book on leadership.

There is even a skeptic school of leadership that asserts that leadership really does not matter. People are thrust into leadership positions and events take their course. What the leader does or does not do makes little difference, and that person is thought to be a great leader when things work out well and a poor leader when they do not. Leadership is simply one of the ways that people explain why an organization did well or did poorly, especially when the true underlying reasons are too complex to know or understand. When organizations do well, followers and others give their leaders high marks; when organizations do poorly, the opposite is usually true. In this view, it is a chicken-or-an-egg problem, where causation is difficult to locate. In fact, in large organizations, there is such a distance between executives and those who produce products or services that it may be difficult to show any real connection between the two. This means that large organizations with good leaders might perform poorly (because line workers perform poorly or out of alignment with goals set by executives). The opposite might also be true. Poor leaders are sometimes credited with the success of their organization, especially when their leadership does not get in the way.

Measurement or assessment of leadership effectiveness is equally difficult (no surprise) given that there is no clear or accepted definition of the quality that is to be assessed. The most common measure of leader effectiveness is whether the organization achieved its goals and to what extent.

Finally, researchers and scholars report that progress is being made in these areas. Knowledge is being accumulated in the study of leaders and leadership. They are optimistic. But there is much to be learned.

Some Definitions of Leadership

As a reference point, here is a sampling of several commonly held views of what defines leadership:

The process of social influence in which one person is able to enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task (Chemers, 1997, p. 1).

… an ethical act of influencing others toward effecting positive change through the accomplishment of a common goal (University of the Pacific, 2009, p. 2).

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it (Dwight Eisenhower in Brown, Scott, & Lewis, 2004, p. 126).

… a process of motivating people to work together collaboratively to accomplish great things (Vroom & Jago, 2007, p. 18).

A process of giving purpose (meaningful direction) to collective effort, and causing willing effort to be expended to achieve purpose (Jacobs & Jaques, 1990, p. 281).

Influencing others by establishing a direction for collective effort and managing, shaping, and developing the collective activities in accordance with this direction (Zaccaro, 2007, p. 9).

Leadership is an influence relationship between leaders and followers who intend real changes that reflect their mutual purposes (Ciulla, 2004, p. 306).

Leadership concerns the capacity to build and maintain a high-performing team, and leadership should be evaluated in terms of the performance of the team (Hogan in Dotlich & Cairo, 2003, p. xiv).

Leadership over human beings is exercised when persons with certain motives and purposes mobilize, in competition or conflict with others, institutional, political, psychological, and other resources so as to arouse, engage, and satisfy the motives of followers (Burns, 1978, p. 18).

Influence processes affecting the interpretation of events for followers, the choice of objectives for the group or organization, the organization of work activities to accomplish the objectives, the motivation of followers to achieve the objectives, the maintenance of cooperative relationships and teamwork, and the enlistment of support and cooperation from people outside the group or organization (Yukl, 1994, p. 5).

The definition of leadership depends upon the theory chosen and its focus. The differences between theories are significant. For example, a trait-focused leadership theory is most interested in characteristics (intelligence, personality, values, and habits) of the person who is leading. Situational theories focus on the qualities of the context and its challenges. Contingency theories focus on the interaction (fit and match) between characteristics of the leader and the situation. Behavioral theories attend to the actions of leaders. Most of the currently accepted definitions of leadership, independent of theoretical basis, involve influence and change.

Classic Historical Leadership Studies

There are three well-known lines of research that all coaches should know about, even though they are not much in use these days. Most business students have read them, and they have had a powerful influence on the theories that followed. They are leadership style, Theory X–Y, and the managerial grid.

Leadership Style

Early research efforts in psychology focused on the style of the leader. Kurt Lewin and two colleagues (Lewin, Lippitt, & White, 1939) published one of the earliest empirical efforts in the formal study of leadership at the beginning of World War II. The world was reeling from the powerful influence of three especially toxic leaders—Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin—and social psychologists were curious about how such strange tyrants could prevail. Lewin conducted a study of young boys by providing three kinds of leaders and videotaping subsequent behavior. An authoritarian-autocratic leader gave clear and explicit orders and the boys had no input to the goals or methods to be used. There was a clear hierarchy and formal distinction between leader and follower. A democratic leader sought input from followers about goals and how to proceed, then guided followers without providing much external structure. Followers had a say in decision making. A laissez-faire leader offered little clear guidance, took a hands-off approach, and left decision making completely in the hands of the boys. Extensive reviews of the tapes led the researchers to conclude that each of the three leadership styles produced a different quality of follower response and output. The researchers made the following observations:

Autocratic Leader Style—Productivity in this group tended to be higher, but less creative in quality. Followers often devolved into two types; an aggressive type and an apathetic type. The boys tended to work hard while the autocratic leader was present, but goofed off and worked less when the leader was not physically present. An autocratic leadership style may be preferable when quick, decisive action is required but less preferable when creative or sustained efforts are desired.

Democratic Leader Style—Followers in this group tended to be more self-motivated, and they continued to work on task when the leader was not physically present. This group was less productive, but the quality of work was higher and more creative. Morale was higher and members were more congenial toward one another.

Laissez-Faire Leader Style—This was the least productive group of the three. The boys were unable to work independently, tended not to cooperate, and their work efforts tended to be disorganized.

There is also evidence that people prefer democratic or participative leadership during times of low stress, but favor a more autocratic style during crises (Dixon, 1992). Events surrounding and immediately following the attacks of September 11 seem to support such an assertion.

Although style has been an important topic of interest to writers and researchers over the past 50 years, it is not synonymous with leadership. It is a way to lead or a quality of the ways that leaders behave. Kotter (1999, p. 2) asserts that

Theory X and Theory Y

In 1960, Douglas McGregor proposed a format for categorizing two basic types of human motivation and effective leadership responses. In the Theory X view, people are inherently lazy, they possess a natural dislike for work, and will avoid it whenever possible. People do not tend to be motivated to achieve without external pressures, as they strive essentially toward security. They avoid responsibility and work solely for the money. Therefore, it is management’s job to find ways to motivate and control them. In Theory X, these ways include authoritarian coercion, punishment, and tight control. Leaders might use threats or ultimatums, and they are not inclined to seek input from workers. They do not trust workers. When something goes wrong, leaders blame followers rather than the system or business conditions.

Theory Y differs, as it views humans much more positively. In this view, people are not lazy. They appreciate work, perhaps as much as they enjoy play, and there is not so much of a fine distinction between the two activities. People tend naturally to seek and accept responsibility and enjoy accomplishment. Theory Y management is collaborative and participatory, and it believes in the untapped potential of the worker. It tends to reward rather than punish, and to empower and enable followers. McGregor’s ideas derived, in part, from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, where Theory X people were striving to meet basic, lower level survival needs (money, food, safety, housing), and Theory Y workers felt secure in those basic needs and were reaching up Maslow’s hierarchy toward a sense of achievement, self-respect, and respect from others. Organizations in this model were evaluated based upon how closely their practices fit into Theory X or Y.

In 1981 William Ouchi proposed a Theory Z, which came to be known as the Japanese management style at that time. Ouchi and Japanese leaders had been exposed to W. Edwards Deming’s ideas and his powerful “14 Points” (Deming, 1986). Ouchi recommended leadership that encouraged and rewarded long-term worker loyalty. This was done by shared responsibility, collective decision making, and respect for the total person and their family.

The Managerial Grid

In about 1964, Robert Blake and Jane Mouton formulated a grid that described five categories of leadership style based on relative concern for production versus people. Their grid was a response to McGregor’s work and an attempt to synthesize Theory X and Theory Y behavior. The grid requires that leaders ask themselves the question: How much do I value the needs of my people, their concerns, their ideas, their interests, and their development? On the other hand, how much am I concerned about specific, concrete objectives, productivity, efficiency, and task accomplishment? The dichotomy is famously referred to as task orientation versus people orientation. Leaders can plot their orientation on a grid that Blake and Mouton developed. It is reproduced in Figure 15.1. The five resulting styles are:

Figure 15.1 The Blake–Mouton grid.

1. Country Club Style (high people, low production orientation)—This style assumes that if people are happy, work goals will be met, and the organization will succeed. Success is likely to depend upon the kind and quality of followers. Some workers respond very well to this kind of culture under certain circumstances, others take advantage of it.
2. Team Style (high people, high production orientation)—This is an optimal style, likely to produce great outcomes and happy organizations. It is, however, rare to find an organization that can operate this way over extended periods. Nonetheless, this situation is highly desirable in Blake and Mouton’s view.
3. Produce or Perish Style (low people, high production orientation)—This is the Theory X culture, where the bottom line is all that matters. Nobody is very happy in this scenario, and people take a hard-nosed view of business: Get it done or go away.
4. Impoverished Style (low people, low production orientation)—This is the worst-case scenario, where people are miserable and little is accomplished.
5. Middle-of-the-Road Style (moderate people, moderate production orientation)—The literature tends to view this position as “weak,” a compromise seen as the best that one can do without pushing things or alienating people. Still, such a culture is probably better than the worst ones in the grid.

Modern Leadership Theories

The remainder of this chapter will explain in the simplest terms several of the most important and widely studied current leadership models.

Charisma and Trait Theory

Much leader research has historically focused on leader attributes and behavior, or what is sometimes called great man theory. This focus seems to have intellectual roots in the work of Thomas Carlyle (2007), the Scottish philosopher who described six categories of leaders in 1840 and wrote: “For, as I take it, Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here.”

The big idea in this view is that successful leaders possess exceptional qualities that influence others and result in great organizational success. Much popular leadership literature still seems to have hero worship as its focus, and the biographies of charismatic historical leaders such as Gandhi, King, Lincoln, Churchill, and Mandela are well worth reading. On the other hand, the books of many celebrity CEOs and sports coaches are brimming with illogical, self-serving pap, and your client has probably read some of it. That said, there is still much to be learned by studying the behavior of the leaders of successful organizations or cultures.

In addition to biographies, there is a large body of ongoing and important empirical research in the area of leader traits and behaviors. The trend is to carefully search for universal qualities or behaviors associated with leader success so that these traits can be shared, taught, and learned.

Charismatic views in the research literature have come and gone and come again. In the 1970s and 1980s there was a resurgence of charismatic interest in the form of something called transformational leadership. The transformational figure is one who, through personal leadership, is able to cause major change in an organization or even a country or culture. The notion that a powerful leader can transform an organization is the basis for outlandish, gaudy executive pay where a leader is paid 250 times that of the average worker. Famous college football and basketball coaches are paid millions of dollars a year—often more than the president of the university—to try to work their transformative magic (they rarely deliver). In fact, the football coach at the U.S. Military Academy almost certainly made more money than the President of the United States in 2007, although his salary was kept secret according to the Army’s freedom of information officer (Upton, 2007). That coach was later fired after two unsuccessful seasons (Associated Press, 2008).

The work of sociologist Max Weber (1947) established a framework for study based on the observation that charismatic leaders emerge during periods of social crisis, when potential followers feel threatened by forces they cannot control. Weber thought that heroic leaders were born with extraordinary gifts and solved a crisis with a radical idea. Charismatic leaders offer solutions through a bold vision founded on the needs and values of followers. Follower needs are often communicated through expression of values that are transcendent or beyond self-interest (Jacobsen & House, 1999). Much current thinking on this subject is reflected in Robert House’s 1976 theory of charismatic leadership (1977; House & Shamir, 1993), which has subsequently been subjected to an impressive amount of empirical research. In this view “charismatic leaders engage follower self-concepts and cause followers to link valued aspects of their self-concepts to their involvement in the leader’s vision and mission” (House & Shamir, 1993, p. 82). This idea is reflected in Martin Luther King’s 1961 observation that

There is even research indicating that charismatic leaders tend to relieve followers’ subjective feelings of stress and alienation, transform their organization, and motivate followers to transcend their own self-interest to better their organization. To do these things, charismatic leaders must have the following characteristics:

• A strong need for power and social influence.
• A bold vision that differs from the status quo.
• Relentless optimism, energy, and determination.
• High self-confidence and general sense of self-worth.
• A strong conviction in their own beliefs and ideals.
• An ability to articulate their vision in a compelling way.

Charismatic leaders typically:

• Communicate a bold vision, couched in positive moral values, but challenging current convention.
• Convince others that the vision is realistic and attainable.
• Communicate high performance expectations and arouse motivation.
• Build and maintain a positive personal image consistent with the vision.
• Set an example as a role model for change and for high values.
• Create empowering opportunities for others (to connect their destiny to the vision) and express confidence in followers.
• Take risks and make personal sacrifices for the mission.

The Negative Sides of Charisma

Charismatic leadership is not for everyone, nor is it always optimal for an organization. It is also clear that, from a moral standpoint, some charismatic leaders are better than others. There can be no denying that Adolf Hitler met all the criteria for charismatic leadership. He just had a monstrous vision and took the world in a disastrous direction. Charismatic leaders are not always the most stable characters, either. The person who communicates a bold new vision is not always the kind of person best suited to shepherd an organization over the long haul. A central problem with charismatic leadership is that organizational benefits depend upon a single person. When that person departs, it is usually difficult, if not impossible, to control or maintain the positive impact of an inspiring leader.

Trait Theory

Charisma aside, there is a set of theories and a body of research that focus on the general qualities associated with leadership, including personal, interpersonal, and even intrapersonal (within the person) qualities. Among these are intellect, personality, skills, knowledge, temperament, values, and motivation. A trait, in this view, is any personal quality or characteristic that accompanies the leader wherever he or she may go. It is observable across a variety of work situations or settings, and independent of any organizational culture or job description. Traits are uniform across situations.

The earliest modern trait research focused on intelligence. Although a certain level of intellect is required for leadership, cognitive ability itself does not predict leader success. In fact, evidence indicates that too much traditional IQ may actually work against a leader, as people tend to favor those with an intelligence that seems about the same as their own (Turner, 2007). Sometimes people resent those with obvious intellectual genius, and occasionally those who are extremely “smart” have trouble understanding, relating, and identifying with the rest of us. Other kinds of intelligence, such as emotional or social intelligence, are increasingly thought to be important and are discussed in Chapter 11. Sternberg (2007) points out that successful intelligence includes academic and practical components, but that wisdom is much more important.

The best known leadership trait researcher of the 20th century was Ralph Stogdill, a professor at Ohio State University. He conducted two major reviews of trait studies (1948, 1974) and came to two kinds of conclusions. First, he identified a rather long list of traits and skills that characterized successful leaders. They included qualities such as: a strong desire to influence others, ambitious and achievement-oriented, persuasive; energetic, self-confident, decisive, diplomatic, assertive, adaptable, dependable, and creative (Stogdill, 1974). It is difficult to imagine that such a vague, all-encompassing list of obviously positive qualities could be of much real value to a coach or aspiring leader. His second conclusion was that “the relative importance of each trait depends on the situation” (Yukl, 1994, p. 255) and that characteristics of effective leaders are related to the characteristics and goals of followers (Stogdill, 1948, p. 64). Eventually, Stogdill came to the conclusion that the search for a discrete set of universal, individual leadership traits was fruitless.

Recent interest on personality traits has focused on the “Big Five” personality factors (Turner, 2007). The Big Five are the result of extensive factor analysis where many personality descriptors are statistically grouped and reduced into the five most distinct ones. A 2002 meta-analysis of 73 studies (Judge, Bono, Ilies, & Gerhardt, 2002) revealed the ways that these five factors influenced leadership effectiveness. They are listed in the traditional OCEAN order.

Openness to experience (curious, interested in a variety of things)—This quality was highly correlated to leadership effectiveness.

Conscientiousness (self-disciplined, well-regulated, reliable)—Also highly correlated to good leadership.

Extraversion (outgoingness, enthusiasm with others)—This was the personality quality most consistently associated with good leadership, and it was especially correlated with leader emergence (who becomes a leader and who does not).

Agreeableness (cooperative, willing to compromise, optimistic about others)—For reasons difficult to understand, this quality was not highly correlated to good leadership in the studies reviewed.

Neuroticism (emotional instability and self-defeating intrapersonal processes)—Effective leaders were low in this area and had fewer neurotic or unstable personality characteristics.

Yukl (1994) and others have surveyed the research on leader traits and concluded that there are a relatively small number of widely supported characteristics:

High Energy—Successful leaders typically have a lot of physical and mental energy and stamina.

Good Stress Tolerance—They can handle relentless pressure, hectic pace, and unending demands without panicking, withdrawing, or blaming others.

Self-Confidence—This includes self-esteem (having an accurately high opinion of one’s self) and self-efficacy (believing that you can successfully accomplish difficult tasks that you may not have done before). These qualities allow a person to take risks and to convince others that his or her vision is worth pursuing. In successful leaders, this self-confidence is not excessive or unjustified.

Internal Locus of Control—They believe that what happens is a result of their own efforts, not fate or chance or others. They know that if something is going to happen, they need to take action to make it happen. They are also able to accurately take credit or blame and do not blame outside forces or conditions.

Emotional Maturity—They are well adjusted, emotionally stable with self-control, care about others and capable of empathy, open and not defensive, and manage anger and use it productively. Many of these qualities are associated with emotional intelligence.

Integrity—They walk their talk. Their actual behavior (public and private) is aligned with their espoused values. They are not especially deceptive or secretive, and as a result, are perceived to be trustworthy. They keep their promises and commitments. They are discrete and can keep information confidential. They take responsibility for their decisions and the related outcomes.

Power Motivation—They seek power and positions of authority and seek to influence others. They appreciate organizational politics and are not intimidated or turned off by them. Research indicates that they have a socialized power orientation rather than a personalized orientation. This means that they are interested in power because it can accomplish positive goals for others. Those with a personalized power orientation seek to dominate others for reasons related to their own ego satisfaction. Their behavior resembles that of the bully or the boss with a huge ego. They are selfish and do not share power.

Achievement Orientation—They have a strong drive to excel and to accomplish real goals. The research in this area is complicated, and Yukl reports that a moderate level of achievement orientation may be optimal, because a super-high achiever can create organizational problems, especially when ego drives achievement needs. Fast-rising, high-achieving stars can fall when others perceive that success is driven by narcissism rather than a shared interest in the larger goals of the organization and its people. In any case, everyone agrees that low achievement orientation is not associated with successful leadership.

Need for Affiliation—This is another complicated area, where a moderate level of need for affiliation is probably best. Those with a high need to be liked and accepted by others are not likely to be able to make unpopular decisions. Those with a high need for affiliation tend to avoid conflict and strive to keep relationships smooth. At the other end of the spectrum, good leaders are rarely loners. Good leaders work well with others, but are able to put the mission first.

Technical Skills—The importance of specific, technical skills is variable. Leaders need some familiarity with the body of content knowledge required to accomplish an organization’s goals. They must know the vocabulary of the field and have some notion of the embedded challenges and the tacit difficulties faced by followers. Extensive industry-specific skills are desirable except when a leader tends toward micromanagement. There is also a set of leadership-specific skills that are crucial, such as the ability to skillfully delegate, to lead meetings, to formulate strategy, to understand a complex budget, and to understand environmental and market forces. These skills are likely to be in development throughout one’s career.

Interpersonal Skills—If influence is an essential component of our definition of leadership, then the need for social skills is a given. Some of these skills seem to be born in a person as part of temperament. Others can be learned and cultivated. These qualities include listening skills, interaction skills across cultures, the ability to work a room with a glass in one’s hand, the ability to manage different kinds of personalities and difficult people in a hierarchy (including board members and key customers), the ability to deliver difficult or negative messages, and the ability to mentor others and develop them. It is a wise leader who understands his or her strengths and weaknesses and works continuously on interpersonal skill development. These skills are not to be taken for granted, even as one rises in power and prestige.

Conceptual and Tacit Skills—There is a need for high levels of complex mental skills such as the ability to reason, to problem solve, to use logic, to make sense out of ambiguity and confusion, the ability to prioritize competing goals, and to adjust to changing times. There are also tacit skills that one develops along the way that are essential but nearly impossible to identify and measure.

In a formal study of successful managing directors, Cox and Cooper (1988) endorsed most of the traits listed by Yukl and added a few more. Their subjects demonstrated determination (many had been forced into early independence in life), learned from adversity, had a well-integrated value system based upon integrity, and had a well-organized life where work took precedence over home life. Difficult early life experiences are also associated with development of authentic leadership style (George, Gergen, & Sims, 2007).

With all that said, it is clear that a trait-only view of leadership is inadequate. In spite of the intuitive importance of leader traits, the popular appeal of a charismatic view, and the historic and current focus on character in the popular business press, actual research reveals a more complicated picture. George, Sims, McLean, and Mayer (2007, p. 130) conducted in-depth interviews with 125 established leaders in their work on authentic leadership and wrote:

Yukl (1994, p. 256) noted: “The premise that some leader traits are absolutely necessary for effective leadership has not been substantiated in several decades of trait research.”

And finally:

Situational Leadership

Researchers frustrated with the inadequacy of trait theories and trait heritage turned their attention to contextual factors that influenced leadership. These factors included the nature of the organizational task, the characteristics of followers, the organizational culture and norms, the formal level or position of the leader in the organization, the size of the organization and number of subordinates, the independence of the leader, the stability of the organization (or whether it is in crisis), and the developmental stage of the company (is it a start-up or well established).

As mentioned in Chapter 9 on social psychology, the power of the situation is often underestimated. Situations exert a powerful influence on how we all behave, and leaders are no exception to this rule. Situational leadership reminds us that without followers there is no leader. This approach views leadership as a process rather than a property of a person (Vroom & Jago, 2007), and asserts that trait and charisma theories have been largely discredited by research. The situational view sees leader behavior as a function of the situation. Vroom and Jago (2007) point out that leaders have less real power in most organizations than commonly thought, that complicated and comprehensive hiring practices tend to screen out any leader truly different from the norm (so that there is little difference between leaders), and that any remaining differences will be washed out by the power of situational demands. Pure-situation theory notes that organizational success is dictated by factors generally not under leader control. They also point out that contextual forces also shape leader behavior and that outcomes are first and foremost a function of context rather than leader behavior.

The term situational leadership is also the name of a proprietary model developed by Paul Hersey and popular management guru Kenneth Blanchard in the 1960s (Hersey, Blanchard, & Johnson, 2008). It advocated the matching of leadership behavior (supporting, coaching, delegating, or directing) with the developmental level of followers based on worker level of competence and commitment. Task-oriented leaders are better when followers are less mature, less able, or less willing to do the job required. Although Hersey and Blanchard’s approach is called situational leadership, it is probably better characterized as one of the contingency theories described later in this chapter.

Transactional and Exchange Theories

A series of complex models attempt to explain leadership from the viewpoint of the transactions that take place between leaders and followers. They extend the focus from leader → follower to the interaction between the two. Their conceptual basis is in human motivation toward self-interest. Humans tend to maximize personal gain and minimize loss or cost. Life consists of transactions with other humans, each attempting to make his or her own best deal. Leader–follower interactions are seen as a subset of this type of exchange, and the quality of the exchanges or transactions determine the effectiveness of leadership. When both parties—leaders and followers—perceive that the exchanges are beneficial or valuable (based on their perception of cost–benefit ratios), then transactions will continue and both parties will feel good. When the opposite is true, or when one party feels that the exchange is unjust, the system falls apart. Leadership depends upon the perception by followers that transactions are just and worth making. Good leadership is built on high levels of mutual respect and trust, shared interest in the outcomes, reasoned appeals and arguments, clear rules and interactions, and a perception that transactions are entered into freely (Chemers, 1997).

Contingency Models

When the inadequacies of trait models became clear and the importance of the situation acknowledged, theories that match leaders with followers or circumstances began to emerge. Fred Fiedler’s research (1967) on task-oriented versus relationship-oriented leaders broke ground in the 1960s. In earlier work he had shown that some psychotherapists rated their least favorite patients lower than other psychotherapists rated theirs, and that the ones who rated patients lower were less effective therapists, as they were thought to be more distant from patients. His leadership research began by looking for traits of leaders based upon their task or relationship motivation. He developed an instrument called the least preferred coworker (LPC) scale and used it to segregate leaders into two groups. Leaders were asked to rate their least favorite coworker. Those who rated coworkers lower were called low LPC leaders. Those who rated their least favorite coworker higher were called high LPC leaders, and it was thought that they tended to be more relationship oriented. Fielder hypothesized that since business leaders are rewarded primarily for results (as athletic coaches are rewarded for winning), those who were task oriented would be better leaders. Earlier research had implied that more distant leaders were more effective. Fiedler’s first results with steel workers and B-29 bombers seemed to support his hypothesis that favored low LPC leaders (those who were more task oriented and distant), but as soon as he published his findings, other studies began to contradict his research. Reports from farm collectives, lab groups working on complex ambiguous or creative tasks, and groups working under great stress seemed to perform better with high LPC leaders (Chemers, 1997, p. 29). Most important was the variability between reports from differing kinds of work settings and situations. As an example, he noted that task-oriented leaders were better in crises or dangerous situations (like war), but that such leadership fell flat under other circumstances. Fiedler concluded that his original formulation was too simplistic and that there was a missing moderator. He reported that the relationship between leader traits and group performance was contingent upon some other factor or factors. Hence the name contingency theory.

Fiedler eventually formulated a contingency model that included three categories of situational favorability. Since leadership involves influence, the quality of the social aspects of the situation was considered key. He proposed three situational aspects and rated them good–poor and weak–strong. The components were:

1. Leader–Member Relations—This was a measure of the quality of interpersonal interactions and feelings between leaders and others. If rapport is good, it is easier for a leader to influence followers.
2. Position Power—How much authority did the leader have by virtue of his or her formal position in the organization? How much capacity does the leader have to reward and punish followers?
3. Task Structure—How clear are the job, the task, and the goals? When those things are clearer, with more structure, it is easier to exercise effective leadership.

Successful leadership, in this model, derives from the interaction of leadership style (a trait) and situational favorability. Fiedler’s work was influential and controversial. Many found fault in his views, but as a result, leadership research had finally differentiated itself from trait theories.

This led to sustained interest in the concept of “fit.” The basic idea is that there is no “one best way” to lead organizations. Instead, it is best to match organizations with optimal leadership, optimal followers, optimal structure, and optimal goals and methods, given the circumstances involved. Circumstances might include the business environment, the nature of competitors, available resources, and the history of the organization to date. An organization and its leadership might work very well in one situation and poorly in a different one. The most obvious evidence for the wisdom of this point of view again comes from the world of sports. Famous coaches often move from one optimal situation (where they were fabulously successful) to a new situation where they flop. This is a common and expensive scenario. The same thing no doubt happens in the corporate world where flops are a bit less public and somewhat less obvious to outsiders.

Path–Goal Theory

Fiedler’s model only goes so far, as it does not get around to explaining how leaders should behave. How does a good leader interact with followers and motivate them? What are the specific tasks involved? What is expected of followers?

Path–goal theory attempts to fill that gap by describing and testing possible contingent leader actions. The theory is based on the premise that leadership is most effective when it helps followers understand how to maximize personal benefit and satisfaction through their work. It is founded on expectancy theory, which asserts that workers use a rational decision process to decide how much effort to put forth on a moment-to-moment basis. Maximum effort occurs when workers perceive that “a valued outcome can be attained only by making a serious effort and they believe that such an effort will succeed” (Yukl, 1994, p. 286). In this view, the leader’s primary task is to effectively influence workers’ perceptions of expectancies.

Path–goal theory began by studying the effect of two types of leadership: directive and supportive (House, 1971). Directive leaders are task oriented, and they provide structure and manipulate clear formal incentives, including rewards. They clarify the task, and provide schedules and specific goals. Supportive leaders (often called consideration leadership) help people feel at ease, provide encouragement and psychosocial support, reduce boredom and anxiety, and try to enhance worker self-esteem. Researchers later added two other leadership types, participative and achievement oriented. The task of the leader is to apply the most appropriate and effective leadership by matching it to the nature of followers and work tasks. They found that when a task is stressful, dangerous, tedious, unfulfilling, or boring, supportive leadership tends to increase worker effort and satisfaction by diminishing negative psychological factors such as anxiety, boredom, and frustration. Encouragement in these conditions helps enhance worker perception that efforts are likely to lead to success. When a task is intrinsically interesting or enjoyable to workers, supportive leadership has little or no positive effect. On the other hand, when tasks are ambiguous or complex and workers are inexperienced or not highly capable, directive leadership is more likely to enhance worker productivity and satisfaction. When workers are confused about their work they are unlikely to expect success, and directive leadership can help by providing clarity. This clarity then leads to higher worker expectations of success, which then leads to enhanced work efforts and greater satisfaction. On the other hand, when the task is well structured and workers are competent, directive leadership does not help. In fact, such leadership might annoy workers and have a negative impact on work output and worker satisfaction. Although path–goal theory has its detractors, there is substantial empirical support for its core ideas and the model provides a solid theoretical basis for the notion that leader–situation–follower match (or fit) is worthy of serious attention. There are many questions left to be answered, especially regarding the role of follower characteristics.

Substitutes for Leadership

A subsequent line of research in this area focuses on the missing elements in the worker’s job environment. In the substitutes for leadership approach, leaders must evaluate the work situation and discover what is missing or needed by followers (Kerr & Jermier, 1978; Podsakoff, Niehoff, MacKenzie, & Williams, 1993). It is the leader’s job to then supply what is missing or lacking (for example, structure when the task is unclear or praise for competent workers who do not need direction). Kerr and Jermier (1978) developed a taxonomy of 14 situational contingencies divided into three classes: characteristics of subordinates, the nature of subordinate tasks, and characteristics of the organization (Ayman, 2004). The larger point of all this is that leader behavior does not have a consistent, universal effect on organizational outcomes. It is the interaction between leader characteristics/behavior, characteristics of followers, and the situation or environmental context that determines outcomes. No universal leadership style or approach is best for all situations.

Normative Decision Theory

Vroom and colleagues (Vroom & Jago, 1988; Vroom & Yetton, 1973) researched executive decision making and learned that leadership decisions depend on an interaction with the context or situation. They studied conditions and contingencies of leader decision making and proposed a set of normative (prescriptive) principles to guide effective leader decision making based on the premise that “one of a leader’s important prerogatives is controlling the process by which decisions are made” (Chemers, 1997, p. 49). They began by identifying five categories of decision making based upon whether the leader was autocratic, consultative, or democratic, and they evaluated processes based upon whether they (1) produced a good decision; (2) improved worker involvement; (3) reduced time; or (4) developed subordinates. Situational parameters included factors such as: whether subordinates had adequate information to effectively influence the process; whether followers were likely to support the decision and commit to execution; and the degree of conflict among workers regarding the decision. They found that leader style (autocratic, consultative, or democratic) should vary according to which of the four aforementioned concerns was most important. For example, if time is of the essence, a consultative or democratic process is ruled out. If worker buy-in is essential, a democratic process is recommended. Decision method is matched to the situational needs and demands.

Vroom and Jago (1988) and Vroom and Yetton (1973) describe five categories of leader decision style, including:

1. Autocratic I—The leader makes the decision alone using information at hand.
2. Autocratic II—The leader solicits information from subordinates and then makes the decision.
3. Consultative I—The leader shares information with each key subordinate separately, seeks information and advice, and makes the decision. No group meeting is involved.
4. Consultative II—The leader shares information and seeks advice from key subordinates in a group setting, then makes the decision alone.
5. Group II—The leader discusses the problem with followers in a group setting and invites them to share equally in the decision making. The group makes the final decision.

Chemers (1997, p. 50) reduced the Vroom team’s extensive findings to six decision-making principles for leaders (paraphrased here):

1. Check to make sure that you have enough high-quality information. If not, get it from somewhere.
2. Make sure that the situation is structured clearly enough and that you understand it. If not, get clarification.
3. If you need buy-in and commitment from followers, use a more participatory process. Match participation with follower characteristics.
4. If followers are not committed to the goals involved in the decision, they cannot be allowed to make the decision, even though their input should be sought and considered.
5. If followers are in conflict about the matter, they must be allowed to air opinions together before a decision is made.
6. Followers must be represented, and their input sought and heard, before decisions are made that will impact them.

Normative decision theory is another example of a contingency theory of leadership in that it advocates a match between decision-making method (an important leadership behavior) and contingencies of followers and the situation.

Authentic Leadership

There is renewed interest in leadership theory that focuses on authenticity. This may be the result of a perception that numerous high-profile corporate executives and political figures have lacked integrity recently, causing many others to pay a heavy price for their greed and mendacity.

Authenticity’s origin as a topic of interest dates back to the humanism movement in psychology, the “third force.” This school, led by Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Fritz Perls, and Rollo May, emphasized self-actualization, positive growth, individual autonomy, and authenticity. People were encouraged to live from within rather than in response to external forces. Judith Blanton (2009, p. 8), in describing a model she helped develop at RHR International, distinguishes “internal authenticity” from “external authenticity” and asserts that internal consistency was of special importance to emerging female leaders. Authenticity is often defined as a condition where internal values and external behavior are aligned.

Harvard professor William George has written several books (2003, 2007) on the subject and essentially made authentic leadership into something of a brand. In his view, authentic leadership involves alignment of leader behavior with an internal compass as well as with high-quality ethical principles. George’s research included a series of 125 interviews with successful leaders who are perceived to be authentic. Many seem to have benefitted from an evolution out of early trauma. “Crucible” experiences such as poverty, death of a parent or loved one, job loss, or a series of personal failures were important developmental forces. The process of surviving and resolving early life difficulties is thought to be essential to authentic leader development. George and his researchers (2007) conclude that leadership derives from a person’s life story, and that leaders must “work hard at understanding and developing themselves” (p. 130). The role of a good executive coach seems clear in this context. George’s work is interesting because it contains so many references to simple human qualities such as kindness, empathy, caring about others, and behaviors that create positive feelings. George’s interviewees were extremely hard workers, but his observations invariably emphasize soft skills and common sense.

Goffee and Jones (2005) offer several practical bits of advice for leaders who want to be perceived as authentic, focusing on the paradox of trying to become something that is usually defined as being who you naturally are. In the Goffee and Jones view, authenticity only matters in a business sense when others perceive you to be authentic. There are things you have to do to be viewed as authentic. First, you must make sure that your words match your deeds, that you “walk the talk.” This is a pretty good definition of integrity. Goffee and Jones observed that integrity and authenticity are easier to achieve when organizational goals are aligned with a leader’s own personal values. Second, you must find common ground with followers so that they can relate to you on a personal basis. This requires an interest in others as well as an appropriate amount of self-disclosure. Too much disclosure is seen as narcissistic, whereas too little is associated with detachment, distance, or disinterest. Leaders must develop what Goffee and Jones call discernment skills, the ability to figure out what qualities followers desire in their leader. Authentic leaders demonstrate pride in their roots, but again, in just the right amount. Too much pride is boorish. Leaders must also decide how much to conform to organizational norms and how much to lead or change them. Too much or too little conformity are both deadly, but all leaders must conform to gain acceptance at first. Goffee and Jones conclude that a reputation of authenticity must be “painstakingly earned” and “carefully managed.” They point out that the recent American president perceived to be the most authentic was, in fact, a professional actor prior to entering politics.

Personal Drive and Successful Leadership

Research at the Hay Group by Spreier, Fontaine, and Malloy (2006) indicates that high achievement drive is not always a good thing in a leader. They studied a large number of managers and leaders at IBM and identified six primary leadership styles (p. 80):

1. Directive—A command and control style that sometimes employs coercion. It can be effective during crises and when dealing with poor performers. It tends to stifle creativity and initiative, but is favored by high achievers when stressed.
2. Visionary—Workers are challenged by larger organizational goals and directions, which tends to energize them.
3. Affiliative—A style that focuses on relationships and on employee needs and emotions. Seldom effective alone, it must be combined with one or more of the other styles. It is useful when followers are stressed or in crisis.
4. Participative—Collaborative and democratic. This style engages others in decision making to build trust and consensus. Requires high-functioning employees.
5. Pacesetting—Leadership by example and personal heroics. Leaders insist that their high standards be met, even when they have to do the work themselves. This style is favored by high achievers and can demoralize others.
6. Coaching—Emphasizes mentoring and development of the long-term careers of followers. Powerful and underused.

Spreier et al. reported that the best leaders were competent at all six of the styles, using each as appropriate to the situation. They found that most people have a default leadership style that they favor or employ under stress. A high-achievement motivation and pacesetting style were associated with managers who created the least preferred work climates.

Developmental Action Logic

Rooke and Torbert (2005) used a sentence completion survey called the Leadership Development Profile to assess the “internal action logic” of leaders when their power or safety was perceived to be challenged. Internal action logic refers to the ways that leaders interpret their surroundings and react under perceived negative stress. They created a hierarchy of “ways of leading” and concluded that a leader can evolve deliberately if he or she is willing to carefully assess their own style and work hard to grow. The stages are:

1. Opportunist (5% of leaders in study)—These are leaders who believe that “might makes right.” They are manipulative, deceptive, and self-oriented. They may have a short-term advantage in sales opportunities and emergencies—until people figure them out.
2. Diplomat (12%)—This person avoids conflict and tries extra hard to fit in and please others. Rarely rocks the boat and serves the important function of keeping people together. Great in a support role. Strategy works well in more junior positions, but not so well at higher levels when this leader avoids or ignores conflict.
3. Expert (38%)—These leaders are high on content knowledge and they use data to drive decision making. They do not value emotional intelligence and tend to be poor at collaboration. They make excellent individual contributions.
4. Achiever (30%)—Tends to understand how to create collaborations that achieve strategic goals. This leader does a good job of juggling relationships and action. Tends to make a good manager.
5. Individualist (10%)—Highly productive but tends to be a wild card or loose cannon, causing larger organizational problems resulting from creative and innovative solutions on individual projects. Effective in venture and consulting roles.
6. Strategist (4%)—Excellent vision and takes a strategic point of view. Understands the big picture and figures out how to change things. Transformational leader.
7. Alchemist (1%)—Able to integrate big ideas and motivate others to engage in transformation. Rare and extremely valuable. Excellent at many levels at the same time. Nelson Mandela is presented as an example.

Rooke and Torbert (2005) report that their research led them to believe that leaders can actively and deliberately evolve from one stage to the next if they receive enough accurate feedback in a planned and structured effort. This research implies that executive coaches could make a significant difference when armed with this model.

Developmental Stages of Leaders

Bennis (2004b) offers a developmental map of leadership patterned after Shakespeare’s seven ages of man described in his play As You Like It. There are expected issues and crises to be resolved in each stage:

1. The Infant Executive—The key to success at this early stage is to recruit able mentors. It can be lonely in this first leadership position, and young leaders should not go it alone. Coaches are essential here.
2. The Schoolboy, with shining face—It is still essential to learn from others at this stage, especially those who report to you. Leaders must learn which follower assessments are accurate and worth attending to and which should be ignored. Getting accurate feedback and input from your surroundings is the key.
3. The Lover, with a woeful ballad—This stage involves the task of learning how to navigate waters that are more negative, that of dealing with former peers who now report to you and with employees who must be eliminated from the organization. One must learn to execute these unpleasant duties with skill and humanity.
4. The Bearded Soldier—Leaders must now learn to understand the impact they have on followers, as relationships tend to become less open and authentic. They cannot become too comfortable because they are being observed at all times, and the things they say and do have a big impact on those around them. They must also watch out for professional jealousies, their own and that of others.
5. The General, full of wise saws—The leader at this stage is cautioned to listen and pay attention to the context. Once a person reaches this stage they have a demonstrated and successful track record, and the temptation is to think that they know too much. Success here requires wisdom in discerning how to navigate the existing culture.
6. The Statesman, with spectacles on nose—A leader’s power may begin to wane at this stage and Bennis observes that wonderful opportunities may arise where this leader can inject a lifetime of experience into helping others with difficult leadership challenges. Leaders at this stage have leverage because they are financially and psychologically secure.
7. The Sage, second childishness—Leaders at this stage can derive great benefit from mentoring others if willing. The benefits of mentoring go both ways, and older leaders are able to stay plugged in and relevant by connecting with younger leaders who need them.

Good and Bad Leadership

The point of all this is to try to figure out what constitutes good leadership and how to identify, promote, and develop it. Although the questions seem relatively simple, answers are certainly not.

Toxic Leadership

One way to identify characteristics of good leadership is to first describe important qualities of bad leaders, use a process of elimination, and evaluate what is left. There exists a significant body of literature that describes the various ways that leaders crash and burn.

From a trait perspective of leadership, there are personality types and behavioral styles that will doom any person in a leadership position. Most people have been exposed to these problematic kinds of leaders. It is a good idea to avoid becoming one, to avoid hiring one, and to avoid working for one when possible.

The first, and most prominent, is the narcissistic leader, made famous in the literature by Maccoby in an essay in the Harvard Business Review in 2000. Narcissism as a personality disorder is described in detail in Chapter 14 (“Psychopathology and Counseling”). People with full-blown personality disorders are unlikely to make it to significant leadership positions, although this certainly happens from time to time. But narcissism in small to moderate amounts is commonly found in those with enough self-confidence to assume command of significant leadership positions. The line between great self-confidence and grandiosity is a fine line indeed, and it can be challenging to distinguish the difference.

Babiak and Hare write in the preface of their book Snakes in Suits (2006, p. xiv) that

They go on to describe the abusive behaviors, manipulation, sense of entitlement, charm, and lack of personal insight that characterize the psychopath. They speculate that narcissists are not uncommon in leadership positions for several reasons. First, the negative qualities—for short periods—can seem attractive and tend to mirror a simplistic, stereotyped view of the charismatic leader. Second, recent business trends tend to favor a fast-moving, aggressive, highly optimistic, expansive, change-oriented style of leadership, and psychopaths can seem attractive in that context, at least at first. Maccoby noted:

Problems Associated with Charisma

Charisma can be a double-edged sword with clear advantages and a few not-so-clear drawbacks. The first such drawback has to do with what Yukl (1994) calls the routinization of charisma. Charisma is necessarily associated with one single person, and when that leader moves on or dies, it is extremely difficult to sustain the atmosphere and advantages associated with that person. There is no telling what then happens in the absence of excellent succession planning, and charismatic leaders are not generally known for succession planning. As Yukl notes, “a smooth transition rarely occurs” (p. 332). That said, even a discussion of succession can be difficult with a charismatic leader, especially if an organization’s current success is tied directly to the image and identity of that leader.

A second challenge has to do with the extent to which charismatic leaders focus their followers’ energy on the organization’s goals and needs (positive charismatics) and how much they focus follower energy on themselves (negative charismatics). Those who personalize their power tend to have an overall negative impact on the organization, whereas leaders who socialize their power on behalf of organizational goals are more likely to have a positive impact over time.

There are several other potentially negative consequences of charismatic leadership. Frequently, charismatic leaders are weak administrators who loathe detail. Sometimes their organization suffers from their excessive or unwarranted self-confidence. The same boldness that got them into power and motivated the organization can result in poorly conceived or poorly researched decisions. Sometimes bright and driven subordinates get tired of the attention given to charismatic leaders and they either leave or undermine the boss. Occasionally, charismatic leaders lack long-term, high-quality interpersonal skills and, over time, others figure this out and become disenchanted. Occasionally charisma works in one market context but does not translate to other organizations or new strategic directions, resulting in a poor leader–situation fit.

Whicker (1996) explores toxic leadership in more detail and describes three categories of leadership: trustworthy, transitional, and toxic. Trustworthy leaders are a positive force for the organization and society. They possess many positive qualities including integrity and the ability to cultivate others. Transitional leaders suffer from egotistical self-absorption and they tend to keep their organization in a holding pattern. Their flaws are not immediately obvious to followers. This category includes absentee leaders, busybodies, and controllers. Toxic leaders are downright malevolent and Whicker describes three types: the enforcer, the street fighter, and the bully. Her descriptions of the impact of negative leadership on organizations and her conclusions are not encouraging.

Derailment

Leadership researchers have shown considerable interest in promising or successful leaders who suddenly fail or prematurely plateau. There is evidence that this happens with surprising frequency, and derailment rates between 30% to 50% can be found in the literature (Lombardo & Eichinger, 1989, p. 4).

In their book Why CEOs Fail, Dotlich and Cairo (2003) describe 11 behavior patterns or “derailers” associated with the downfall of previously successful leaders. They are: arrogance, melodrama, volatility, excessive caution, habitual distrust, aloofness, mischievousness, eccentricity, passive resistance, perfectionism, and eagerness to please. Coaches would do well to keep an eye out for these behavior patterns when working with clients interested in leadership.

The Center for Creative Leadership (Leslie & Van Velsor, 1996) conducted several large-scale evaluations of leaders who had fallen by the corporate wayside, using interviews and a group dynamics questionnaire in the United States and in six European countries. They compared results with previous derailment studies and identified four consistent or enduring derailment themes:

1. Problems with interpersonal relationships.
2. Failure to meet business objectives.
3. Inability to build and lead a team.
4. Inability to adapt during a transition.

The two enduring themes—poor working relationships and inability to develop or adapt (including inflexibility)—were mentioned by more than 50% of the participants. Other frequently cited qualities included authoritarianism and excessive ambition, insensitivity, aloofness, lack of follow-through, and inability to do strategic planning.

On the positive side, the Center for Creative Leadership (Leslie & Van Velsor, 1996) identified eight success themes that seem to have endured across time and culture. They are:

1. Ambitiousness (appropriate amount)
2. Establish strong relationships
3. Consistent high performance
4. Team-building skills
5. Intelligence
6. Willingness to take appropriate risks
7. Adaptability
8. Being a problem solver

The Center for Creative Leadership concluded that, again, leader “fit” is crucially important, in this case a fit with “evolving demand”:

Finally, on the negative side, Goldsmith and Reiter (2007) present a list of 20 habits that hold people back in leadership positions in their book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. Their premise is that some qualities are extremely useful at one point in a career but become liabilities later. Their list includes:

• Winning too much (competing compulsively)
• Adding too much value (always adding your “two cents”)
• Passing judgment (rating others and imposing your own standards)
• Making destructive comments (witty, cutting, sarcastic remarks)
• Negativity, starting with “no” or “but” or “however”
• Telling the world how smart you are
• Speaking when angry (emotional volatility)
• Withholding information (to try to gain an advantage)
• Failure to give credit, recognition, and gratitude
• Claiming undeserved credit
• Making excuses
• Clinging to the past
• Playing favorites
• Refusing to express regret
• Not listening
• Punishing the messenger
• Passing the buck
• Excessive “need to be me” (exalting faults as if they were virtues)

Goldsmith and Reiter offer prescriptive advice about how to fix those faults in their book.

Summary

Leadership and leader development is an important topic with a rich and complex literature that derives from two sources: popular business books and empirical (data-based) research. There is no single, adequate, or universally accepted definition of the concept itself. This makes leadership hard to research and difficult to teach or evaluate in any logical way. Often, leaders who are extremely successful in one context or organization are mediocre or fail in others. In any case, there is a small number of rather clear trends that can be wrung out of the leadership literature, both popular and academic. They are:

1. There are no universal traits that will ensure good leadership across the spectrum of organizational contexts. That said, there are two lists of traits that are attractive and worth mention. The first is a relatively short list, including those qualities that seem to rise to the top of most of the research on leader traits. These seem to be the most important personal qualities of anyone hoping to lead successfully. Since most definitions of leadership involve the intentional movement of groups of people effectively to accomplish new goals, the nature of leadership necessarily involves social influence.

   •  An ability to establish strong collaborative relationships

   •  Integrity and the ability to create a climate of trust

   •  High practical intelligence (more is better, to a point)

   •  Strong motivation to lead other people

   •  Self-confidence and a sense of independence

   •  Capacity for vision

   •  Ability to articulate a vision and influence others

   •  Adaptive flexibility

   •  Extraversion and outgoingness

   •  High energy, capacity to work a lot

   •  Emotional maturity, emotional intelligence (ability to notice and manage emotions and reactions)

   There are numerous other qualities that have been the focus of research attention including stress tolerance, optimism, listening skills, resilience, empowerment and respect for others, strategic thinking, and skills in various aspects of leadership such as the ability to negotiate, to delegate, to run effective meetings, and to work cocktail parties. It is important to be able to take effective risk and to take responsibility for the outcomes of decisions made. Good leaders are not control freaks and they do not snap at other people or intentionally intimidate them. Coaches can use this list and other lists in the literature as a tool to evaluate clients, give constructive feedback, and craft a short- and long-term plan for leadership development.

2. Leader–situation “fit” is key. Since there is no universal set of leader qualities that will be optimal in all settings, one must carefully assess the leadership demands of the specific organizational context and match them. This probably means that all organizations or positions are not suitable for all leaders. Organizations and leaders must take care to make winning matches. Coaches can potentially help organizations with leader selection. The popular literature is filled with tales of woe, situations where an organization hired a charismatic leader with a disastrous outcome, the result of a poor fit. Organizations should be extremely careful in hiring a previously successful executive from a business sector or organizational context different from their own.
3. Not everyone is well-suited for leadership. There are a few core characteristics required of leaders, and everyone does not possess them. There is a certain kind of motivation to lead other people that is relatively rare but essential. Not everyone is all that interested in being in front, providing the vision, the energy, and taking the risks involved in good leadership. Few have the required energy. Many people do not wish to have others depend upon them relentlessly, and few are eager to work most or all of the time. Not everyone enjoys the task of spending hours at social events with a work agenda in mind. Followers do not always communicate authentically with leaders, and they are careful with what they say. Not everyone wishes to put himself or herself in the position where it is difficult to get the “unvarnished” truth from people on a regular basis.

   Steven Sample’s observation from The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership (2002, p. 190) is instructive here: “Many people want to be leader, but few want to do leader; if you’re not in the latter group you should stay away from the leader business altogether.”

   Although leaders are highly valued, as they should be, organizations should also value those who choose not to lead in a formal or informal way. Good leaders require good followers, and plenty of them.

   Bennis (2007) recently summarized his decades of interest in leadership by proposing six essential competencies. They are written in the form of universal leader tasks:

   a.  Create a sense of mission.

   b.  Motivate others to join you.

   c.  Create an adaptive social architecture.

   d.  Generate trust and optimism.

   e.  Develop other leaders.

   f.  Get results.

   The list is a challenging one, indeed.

   Finally, as Bennis points out, the question of leadership—who leads whom in what direction and in what ways—is crucial (2004a, p. 331): “It is important to remember that the quality of our lives is dependent on the quality of our leadership. Only when we understand leaders will we be able to control them.”

References

Associated Press. (2008). Army coach Stan Brock fired. Washington Post. Retrieved December 21, 2008, from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/12/AR2008121201414.xhtml?tid=informbox.

Ayman, R. (2004). Situational and contingency approaches to leadership. In J. Antonakis, A. T.Cianciolo , & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), The nature of leadership (pp. 148–170). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Babiak, P., & Hare, R. (2006). Snakes in suits: When psychopaths go to work. New York: HarperCollins.

Bennis, W. (2004a). The crucibles of authentic leadership. In J. J.Antonakis, A. T.Cianciolo, & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), The nature of leadership (pp. 331–342). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Bennis, W. (2004b). The seven ages of the leader. Harvard Business Review, 82(1), 46–53.

Bennis, W. (2007). The challenges of leadership in the modern world. American Psychologist, 62(1), 2–5.

Bennis, W., & Nanus, B. (1985). Leaders: The strategies for taking charge. New York: Harper.

Blake, R. R., & Mouton, J. S. (1964). The managerial grid. Houston, TX: Gulf.

Blanton, J. S. (2009, January/February). Women and authentic leadership. The California Psychologist, 6–10.

Brown, D. J., Scott, K. A., & Lewis, H. (2004). Information processing and leadership. In J. Antonakis, A. T. Ciancolo, & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), The nature of leadership (pp. 125–147). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. NY: Harper & Row.

Carlyle, T. (2007). On heroes, hero-worship and the heroic in history. Teddington, UK: Echo Library.

Chemers, M. M. (1997). An integrative theory of leadership. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Ciulla, J. B. (2004). Ethics and leadership effectiveness. In J. Antonakis, A. T. Cianciolo, & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), The nature of leadership (pp. 302–327). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Conger, J. A. (1992). Leaders: Born or bred? In M. Syrett & C. Hogg (Eds.), Frontiers of leadership (pp. 361–369). UK: Blackwell.

Cox, C. J., & Cooper, C. L. (1988). High flyers: An anatomy of managerial success. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Deming, W. E. (1986). Out of the crisis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Dixon, N. F. (1992). Leaders of men. In M. Syrett & C. Hogg (Eds.), Frontiers of leadership (pp. 51–58). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Dotlich, D. L., & Cairo, P. C. (2003). Why CEOs fail. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Fiedler, F. E. (1967). A theory of leadership effectiveness. New York: McGraw-Hill.

George, W. (2003). Authentic leadership: Rediscovering the secrets to creating lasting value. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

George, W., Gergen, D., & Sims, P. (2007). True north: Discover your authentic leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

George, W., Sims, P., McLean, A. N., & Mayer, D. (2007) Discovering your authentic leadership. Harvard Business Review, 85(2), 129–138.

Goffee, R., & Jones, G. (2005). Managing authenticity: The paradox of great leadership. Harvard Business Review, 83(12), 87–94.

Goldsmith, M., & Reiter, M. (2007). What got you here won’t get you there. New York: Hyperion.

Hersey, P., Blanchard, K., & Johnson, D. (2008). Management of organizational behavior: Leading human resources (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

House, R. J. (1971). A path-goal theory of leadership. Administrative Science Quarterly, 16, 321–338.

House, R. J. (1977). A 1976 theory of charismatic leadership. In J. G. Hunt & L. L. Larson (Eds.), Leadership: The cutting edge (pp. 189–207). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.

House, R. J., & Shamir, B. (1993). Toward the integration of transformational, charismatic, and visionary theories. In M. M. Chemers & R. Ayman (Eds.), Leadership theory and research (pp. 81–107). New York: Academic Press.

Jacobs, T. O., & Jaques, E. (1990). Military executive leadership. In K. E. Clark & M. B. Clark (Eds.), Measures of leadership (pp. 281–295). West Orange, NJ: Leadership Library of America.

Jacobsen, C., & House, R. (1999). The rise and decline of charismatic leadership. Retrieved January 25, 2009, from the Wharton Center for Leadership and Change Management Web site: http://leadership.wharton.upenn.edu/l_change/publications/house.shtml.

Judge, T. A., Bono, J. E., Ilies, R., & Gerhardt, M. W. (2002). Personality and leadership: A qualitative and quantitative review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(4), 765–780.

Kerr, S., & Jermier, J. M. (1978). Substitutes for leadership: Their meaning and measurement. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 22, 275–403.

Kotter, J. (1999). John P. Kotter on what leaders really do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Review Book.

Kroek, K. G., Lowe, K. B., & Brown, K. W. (2004). The assessment of leadership. In J. Antonakis, A.T. Cianciolo, & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), The nature of leadership (pp. 71–98). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Leslie, J. B., & Van Velsor, E. (1996). A look at derailment today: North America and Europe (Stock no. 169). Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership.

Lewin, K., Lippitt, R., & White, R. K. (1939). Patterns of aggressive behavior in experimentally created social climates. Journal of Social Psychology, 10, 271–301.

Lombardo, M. M., & Eichinger, R. W. (1989). Preventing derailment: What to do before it’s too late (Stock no. 138). Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership.

Maccoby, M. (2000, January–February). Narcissistic leaders. The incredible pros, the inevitable cons. Harvard Business Review, 69–77.

McGregor, D. (1960) The human side of enterprise. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Ouchi, W. G. (1981). Theory Z: How American business can meet the Japanese challenge. New York: Addison-Wesley.

Phillips, D. T. (1998). Martin Luther King, Jr. on leadership. New York: Warner Books.

Podsakoff, P. M., Niehoff, B. P., MacKenzie, S. B., & Williams, M. L. (1993). Do substitutes for leadership really substitute for leadership? An empirical examination of Kerr and Jermier’s situational leadership model. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 54, 1–44.

Rooke, D., & Torbert, W. R. (2005, April). Transformations of leadership. Harvard Business Review, 83(4), 67–76.

Sample, S. (2002). The contrarian’s guide to leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Spreier, S. W., Fontaine, M. H., & Malloy, R. L. (2006, June). Leadership run amok: The destructive potential of overachievers. Harvard Business Review, 71–82.

Sternberg, R. J. (2007). A systems model of leadership. American Psychologist, 62(1), 34–42.

Stogdill, R. M. (1948). Personal factors associated with leadership: A survey of the literature. Journal of Psychology, 25, 35–71.

Stogdill, R. M. (1974). Handbook of leadership: A survey of the literature. New York: Free Press.

Syrett, M., & Hogg, C. (Eds.). (1992). Frontiers of leadership. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Turner, R. A. (2007, September/October). Leadership success: Does personality matter? The California Psychologist, 10–14.

University of the Pacific. (2009, March 3). Leadership development at the Pacific. Retrieved June 13, 2009, from: http://web.pacific.edu/Documents/provost/acrobat/Leadership%20definition%20final%203%203%2009%20_2_.pdf.

Upton, J. (2007). West Point keeps coach’s pay secret. USA Today. Retrieved December 21, 2008, from: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2007-12-05-army-pay_N.htm.

Vroom, V. H., & Jago, A. G. (1988). The new leadership: Managing participation in organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Vroom, V. H., & Jago, A. G. (2007). The role of situation in leadership. American Psychologist, 62(1), 17–24.

Vroom, V. H., & Yetton, P. W. (1973). Leadership and decision-making. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Weber, M. (1947). The theory of social and economic organization (A. M. Henderson & T. Parsons (Trans. & Eds.). New York: Free Press.(Originally work published in 1924)

Whicker, M. L. (1996). Toxic leaders: When organizations go bad. Westport, CT: Quorum Books.

Yukl, G. (1994). Leadership in organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Zaccaro, S. J. (2007). Trait-based perspectives of leadership. American Psychologist, 62(1), 6–16.

Recommended Readings

Antonakis, J., Cianciolo, A. T., & Sternberg, R. J. (2004). The nature of leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Bjerke, B. (1999). Business leadership and culture. Northampton, MA: Edward Elger.

Fuqua, D. R., & Newman, J. L. (2004). Moving beyond the great leader model. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 56(3), 146–153.

Harvard Business Review on leadership. (1998). Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Inside the mind of the leader [Special issue]. (2004, January). Harvard Business Review, 82(1).

McCauley, C., Moxley, R. S., & Van Velsor, E. (Eds.). (1998). The Center for Creative Leadership handbook of leadership development. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Winum, P. C. (2003). Developing leadership: What is distinctive about what psychologists can offer? Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 55(1), 41–46.