Transformational Leadership...

James McGregor Burns discovered transformational theory long ago, this theory, helped to define a very commonly used and effective style of leadership.  According to Burns, "leaders and followers help each other to advance to a higher level of morale and motivation”.  He stated that the differences in leadership lies in the behaviors and characteristics of different individuals.  Burns also claimed that transformational leadership, “redesigns perceptions and values, and changes expectations and aspirations of employees”.  This style of leadership is claimed to be based more off of the leader and not off of a “give and take” relationship that can be found in transactional leadership.   Transformational leaders are supposedly claimed to be the best style of leader simply because they are said to have the best interest of others in mind while they are leading the group towards a effective goal.

http://www.transformationalleadership.net/imarticle.php?articleid=210443

Presentation 1

Personal Refelection

In this post I will walk you through my leadership map starting with what I believe is the appropriate way to approach leading a group:


Step 1:

Situational (child)

This theory establishes respect if handled correctly based on the ability and willingness of the team or group being led.  The stages of this theory includes relationships such as telling, selling, participating and delegating.  Through this theory and approach I believe that fairness and equality are two values that re important because you need to to make the people who need to be handheld (participating) feel less than others.  I was able to relate this theory to the way I felt I was raised as  a child.  As a kid you are more used to a "telling" type of relationship, in this stage you are told what performance orientation works best for you.  My parents told me what to do a lot and her i am today, a leader :)


Step 2:

Transformational (teenager)

This theory is purely situational.  It states that a leader must bring out the best in their followers and inspire and motivate them as individuals.  Honest and Integrity are important because in challenging situations a defense mechanism may be to lie but honesty is the best policy and keeping your integrity is huge.  I believe this form of leadership is good in middle stage of growth or the teenage years because lots of influences come your way.  you've already established a leadership role in the first phase and now its handling situations and rolling with the punches.

*Here is were I am between (transformational) sticky situations and LMX which is figuring out relations with the people you are leading in your young professional life*

Step 3: 

LMX Theory (young professional)

As you move into more of the professional world it is important to decide what/how much info is okay to tell your followers for fear that you may lose your respect you built through the prior phases.  You may have pulled out people you can relate to and trust so you must choose whether you need be a stranger, acquaintance or partner with. Trust and truth are important because you need to know you can depend on and share with.  Relationships to environment is huge because it defines what type of bond to build.


Step 4:

Vroom and Yetton's Normative (professional)

This is the last phase of leadership because after you've established you leadership role then you are left with making high quality decisions and going with it.  A huge part of this is motivating and inspiring to enhance decision acceptance.  And a lot of this theory depends on a lot of responsibility in your own self to make the right decisions.  Another large part of this theory is how a leader takes info and decides what to do with it.  Reliability and commitment on others.  "knowledge and truth" are important because this stage you know (last stage) and must be an established individual which implies that you will tell the truth.




I'm noticing a trend here...I think that trust is a value I believe is important and might serve as a outline of what I think I might try to practice most as a leader...

Ryann's Theory Map!

Vroom and Yetton’s Normative Model

This theory says that, “decision acceptance increases the effectiveness of action” and “Participation increases decision acceptance”. When I first read this I completely agreed with it, which is why I chose to elaborate and research more on it. I think that once you make up your mind about committing to a decision or action, whether it is a leadership role or not the individual will most likely make the action effective.

Vroom and Yetton’s Normative Model involves decision quality and decision acceptance to make it work. Decision quality by definition is the, “selection of the best alternative, and is particularly important when there are many alternatives. It is also important when there are serious implications for selecting (or failing to select) the best alternative”. Basically this states that it is important to weigh out all options and it also implies how important it is to make the right decision during the crucial parts of different processes.

Decision acceptance is, “the degree to which a follower accepts a decision made by a leader. Leaders focus more on decision acceptance when decision quality is more important”. Without the backing of followers leaders have nothing so it is important that their followers will accept the decisions they make. This is hard for leaders to predict, however, because they can’t necessarily mind read how their followers will feel. But at least the followers will see that the effort is made and that is all that matters.

Vroom and Yetton defined five different decision procedures:

A1: Leader takes known information and then decides alone.

A2: Leader gets information from followers, and then decides alone.

C1: Leader shares problem with followers individually, listens to ideas and then decides alone.

C2: Leader shares problems with followers as a group, listens to ideas and then decides alone.

G2: Leader shares problems with followers as a group and then seeks and accepts consensus agreement.

Different situations seem to affect each of these different interactions between the leader and followers. A1 and A2 are much more autocratic so when decision acceptance is important and followers are unlikely to accept an autocratic decision then these methods are more often used. C1 and C2 are more consultive so when decision acceptance is important but followers are likely to disagree with one another this is not appropriate because they do not give opportunity for differences to be resolved. In the case of G2 this is used when decision quality is not important but decision acceptance is critical this is the best method to use. Also with G2, when decision quality is important, all agree with this, and the decision is not likely to result from an autocratic decision this method is best.

It is recommended to use this model when, “there is a clear and accessible opinion about the decision quality importance and decision acceptance factors” in a situation. It is stated that this model is defined more by rational logic than by long observation, I think this is why this theory is so clear and easy to point out.

http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/theories/vroom_yetton.htm

Midterm 3/22/2011

Midterm Temp Ate

Contingency vs. Situational

Contingency: 

Is basically a theory that states that leaders must adapt to certain situations considering the circumstances.  With most stressful circumstances a task based leader is more appropriate because they are more apt to not worry about peoples' feelings and they tend to focus more on getting things done so they are more appropriately directive.   

Fiedler states that, "stress is a key determinant of leader effectiveness".  Which means that under pressure leaders perform better, which further proves why task based leaders will pull through more effectively.  Fiedler also says that, "intelligence is more effective and used more often in stress-free situations. Fiedler has found that experience impairs performance in low-stress conditions but contributes to performance under high-stress conditions".  Overall the theory sums up that as a leader you can change a situation but you can't change the person.  

An example of a real life experience that backs up this theory is when a deadline is pressing and other employees have not necessarily pulled their weight on a  project then it comes down to the supervisor/manager to complete the project.  They must rearrange the situation and lead well under pressure in a task based way so that they are not angered or unproductive because of their relationships with the employees who slacked off on their project.

 

Situational:

The situational theory states that, "situational leadership proponents emphasize that to be a successful leader, the manager should not only use the management style that comes naturally but also use the styles that fit the situation at the moment.  This style decision is based on the needs and maturity levels of the employees".  This basically means that a leader must be perceptive of what their team can handle so that they can lead in a way that is not too overwhelming or makes sense under the current circumstances. 

The situational leadership also includes four basic leadership behavior styles:

(1) high task-low relationship (telling); 

(2) high task-high relationship (sell

ing);

(3) low task-high relationship (participating); and

(4) low task-low relationship (delegating).

The theory states that, "The most effective leadership style depends on the readiness level of group members". Readiness, as defined in the article includes two components; ability and willingness.

An example of this would be coaching a basketball team.  If the team cares more about being a team and about bonding than you would want to be more in a participating mind set as the coach more so than the delegating, selling or telling mind set, you would need to help and be super involved.

The Office...

So we've all seen the office, which is one of the funniest shows on earth in my opinion.  It is also one of the best examples of horrible leadership as well! However, there are some pretty apparent leaders that come through because they have to compensate for Michael (the boss's) lack of leadership quality.  In this episode the major issue is dealing with office PDA, we will see double standards come out and direct and indirect ways of people dealing with it.

http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/video/pda/1290033/


Pam: Task/Relationship. She is relationship based, she just want's to make sure everything is okay.  In the beginning of the show she decides to give Darryl, a fellow employee, a sympathy card because his grandmother died.  She has seniority and a voice in the office so by doing this she is opening up lines of communication and establishing an open door for him to come talk to her if he needs someone to talk to which therefore strengthens their bond. 


Michael: He is basically the boss.  He is mostly path/goal driven.  He is an interesting character because he acts like he knows everyone and knows what's going on but he doesn't.  He has been assigned the leadership role somehow yet he really only looks out for himself so he will do anything it takes to accomplish his goals.  In this episode he disagrees with the "no PDA" guideline and he is upset that this is not what he wants but his overly obvious PDA with his girlfriend bothers everyone.  So he tries to accomplish his goal in this episode by making his unhappiness extremely obvious in order to accomplish his goal to bring PDA back to the office.


Darryl: is in the LMX acquaintance stage of leadership.  He is trying to be nice and maintain the peace within the office but he is also concentrated on getting his work done.  He has moderate relationships with everyone else but it isn't anything to close because he is concentrated more on getting his work done so he can go home because he seems irritated with everyone in the office all of the time.