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Faculty of Management
Field of study: Management
Maria Derendarz
320263
Bachelor Thesis
Leadership in Organizations
(Przywdztwo w Organizacjach)
Table of contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................. 2
1. Thoery of leadership ............................................................................................. 3
1.1. Definitions of leadership ....................................................................................... 3
1.2. Qualities and components of leadership ................................................................ 7
1.3. Difference between manager and a leader ........................................................... 12
Bibliography................................................................................................35
List of graphs ................................................................................................................... 37
List of tables .................................................................................................................... 37
Appendices
Introduction:
Goal of a thesis is to describe what leadership is and how leadership development might
have positive impact on organizational development. There are many scientific papers about
leadership itself and we have a lot of examples of leaders both in history and in business. In
my paper I wanted to show variety of approaches towards leadership, how leadership can be
assessed and examples of leadership development in organizations. I wanted to highlight
importance of leaders creation not only for the organizations, but also for the world itself.
First chapter describes how definition of leadership has been changing. I have described
different leadership theories and provided their evaluation. In the first chapter one can also
find information about characteristic of leaders and differences between manager and a leader.
Conclusion from the first chapter is that it is hard to decide whether we can call somebody a
leader or not. It is because every leader has unique characteristics and have different ways in
which he create his followers.
Second chapter is dedicated for evaluation of methods of leadership assessment. In this
chapter one can find ways in which specialist are examining leadership presence in people.
What is more, in this chapter one can find information about different styles of leadership and
their influence on organization. There is also instruction on how to deal with people, who has
certain leadership styles. One of the conclusion is that companies while developing or
choosing their leaders should first evaluate current state of company and then figure out what
kind of leadership is currently needed in organization.
Third chapter describes examples of how leadership can influence performance of
organizations and how leadership development might be conducted in a company. From this
chapter one can find out, that by developing leadership, not only working atmosphere can
highly improve but also business results might grow. This chapter provides example on which
companies might base their own leadership development programs.
1.Theory of leadership
1.1.Definitions of leadership
Leadership is accomplishing things that reach beyond solitary abilities by acting-and
getting others to act-with a maturity that surpasses limited self-interest.1-John Baker.
For the first time, definition of leadership was put in the Oxford English Dictonary in
19th century. The concept of leadership is rather new, but it is possible to observe few
developed theories. There have been written a lot of books about leadership, but unfortunetely
they often do not have a lot in common. In contradiction to management, leadership has still
vague definition. Looking through leadership literature one can come across many
contradictions. First leadership divagations emerged in Platos Republic, from which first
leadership theory has been developed. Traits theory states, that people are either born with
certain leadership abilities or not. It claims, that there is a set of skills that a leader must
posses to be called a leader. Some of the traits that leaders should possess are: extraversion,
openess, charisma, intelligence, creativity, need for power and decision making skills. This
theory denies the belief that leaders are born, and that leadership can be developed2. Next
theory- Behavioral/styles theory, arised from assumption that leadership is a behaviour. One
of the outputs of the theory is Managerial Grid (graph.1), which shows patterns of behaviour
which depends on whether a leader is more task or people oriented. This theory claims, that
there is one perfect leadership style and it is team style, that combines both people and goal
orientation. Main critics towards this theory is that it takes into account just two variables and
humans personalities are more complex. Situational and contingency theory assumes, that
leader should adapt to specific situations, so an ideal profil of a leader does not exist3. From
this theory three leaderships styles have arised (they will be discussed in more details in next
chapters): authoritarian, democratic and laissez-faire. Critics claim, that it is not possible for a
human, to change his behaviour when the situation needs it, because our basic behaviours are
rooted in our subconsciousness and we are not capable to control all of them4.
http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/3269-how-to-be-a-leader.html.October.2013.
Zaccaro, S. J. (2007). Trait-based perspectives of leadership. American Psychologist, 62(1),6-16.
3
Spencer, Herbert (1841). The Study of Sociology. New York: D. A. Appleton.
4
Hemphill, John K. (1949). Situational Factors in Leadership. Columbus: Ohio State University Bureau of
2
Educational Research
Source:http://choo.fis.utoronto.ca/FIS/Courses/lis1230/ManagerialGrid.html
One of the models that has been developed according to this theory was situational
leadership model (graph.2) that suggests four different leadership styles, which should be
chosen based on competences and commitment of employee. There is also Functional theory,
which is focused on leadership usage for organizational effectiveness. Functions of a leader
included in this theory are as follows: environmental monitoring, organizing subordinate
activities, teaching and coaching subordinates, motivating others, and reviewing groups
work.5. The last leadership theory that I would like to present is Three Levels of Leadership6
theory. I found this theory the most developed, as its conects previous theories and
supplements limitations that they have. In next chapter this theory will be explained in more
detailed way, as methodology of leadership development will be strongly based on it. Theory
consists of three levels of leadership, which are: Public Leadership, Private Leadership and
Personal Leadership. First two levels, are responsible for our outer leadership journey, the
5
6
Zaccaro, S. J., Rittman, A. L., & Marks, M. A. 2001. Team leadership. Leadership Quarterly, 12: 451-483
James Scouller. Three levels of leadership.Management Books 2000 Ltd (24 May 2011) p. 10-40
third one responds to the inner one. This theory mainly differs from previous theories by its
statement, that self-mastery is the key to developing leadership skills. It is the first theory that
claims that leadership presence can be developed, and it can be a substitute for strongly
hyped characteristic of a leader which is charisma.
Source: http://stirlingwalter.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/the-blanchard-model/
I have described most important theories of leadership, but I would like to come back, to
basic understanding of leadership. To do that, I found opinions of children from kindergarden
about how they understand leadership, and their answers were as follows7:
To me a leader means being responsible, trustworthy, respectful and who treats every
one fairly. I have shown leadership by treating every one fairly and with respect. This
definition is strongly connected with personal leadership, which is an ability to control ones
own life, knowing its direction and committing to accomplishing ones goals. Being a leader,
doesnt mean that one have to work with his own team. Leadership in not a position, it is a
certain attitude. And from this opinion, one can see, that being a leader means acting in
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honorable way, following his own values and showcasing integrity. Leaders are the people,
who should know what is acceptable for them, be able to say it at loud and what is the most
importat- do something about it. They should be the ones, who see and believe that things can
look differently and then act upon it.
Being a leader means to help without being asked. Volunteering for student supervisor,
recycling and other things. Also helping little kids when theyre hurt or theyre lost. Anyone
could be a leader as long as theyre willing to help. I have shown leadership by helping little
kids when they got hurt and volunteering for student supervisor! From this perspective on
leadership, important fact is being noticed. Leadership is about doing something for others,
contributting to something greater than ourselves. Leadership can be seen in small actions.
This helping little kid was so called lollipop moment8. This phrase became popular after
one of the speeches on TEDx conference, on which man called Drew Duddley shared a story,
about how his little action (in that case it was giving a lollipop), turned out to be a life
changing situation for another person. He wanted to make audience realize, that we can all be
leaders in everyday situations by showing simple acts of kindness. One might never know
how his small behaviours have inspired somebody to make big changes in his life. As in a
example of this kids understanding of leadership, it is sometimes just about giving helping
hand to somebody that is in need.
To be a leader is to set good examples for everyone. Anyone can be aleader by setting
good examples for others or helping people with out being asked. Ive shown leadership by
helping people with out being asked and setting good examples for others.I think anyone can
be a leader because all you have to do is guide younger or older people to the right path.9 In
this statement, we see relation to Peters Drucker definition of leadership, which is, that
leadership is not about doing things right, but about doing the right things10.
The leader is also a person, who is taking an action as a first one. As a name itself brings
association that leading equals being in the front, which equals being the first to take action
and being example for others. In one of the TEDx videos11, there was an example of a young
man, who started to dance on some youth gathering event. At the beginning, he was the only
one dancing, after first few followers joined him, it didnt take too long to see the huge crowd
dancing together. Even though the video was humoristic, it showed us another very important
quality of leadership, which is leading by example. As this man on the video, leader must be a
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person, who stand up for some cause as a first one. It also means, that a leader is a person at
which others can look at, and treat him as an example of how to do things.
12
Lord, R.G.,De Vader, C. L., & Alliger, G. M. (1986). "A meta-analysis of the relation between personality
traits and leader perceptions: An application of validity generalization procedures". Journal of Applied
Psychology, 71, 402410.
13
Horton, Thomas. New York: The CEO Paradox (1992)
14
http://sustainable-leaders.com/leaders-your-emotions-are-contagious-3/
are also ambitious and set high targets for theirselves. Leader is a person, who should always
be asking himself How can I add value. Leaders are hard workers with a grit not to give up.
2.Cognitive capacity. Skills like ability to work under stress and deadlines are the ones
that a good leader should posses. Also hard skills like analytical skills or problem- solving
abilites should be present in leaders characteristic. Another trait that is visible in leader is
ability to adapt to changing situation and effective usage of resources. It means, that it doesnt
matter whether the conditions for achieving goals are positive or not, a good leaders uses all
the resources in a smart way to achieve the goal, and not wait for the better conditions to
come.
3.Self-confidence. It involves skills like self awereness, openess for feedback, realistic self
asessment and assertiveness. A leader that posess self-confidence is emotionally stable and is
not afraid of failures, as he understands that they are inevitable part of a journey towards
success.
4.Integrity. This quality helps leader build trust in a team. It consists of being honest and fair,
acting upon ones values. Leaders who posess these qualities are the ones who are consistent
and loyal. Thy also have very high work ethics and respect values of their employees.
5.Sociability. Leaders who have sociable skills are considered as friendly and emphatic. They
are tactful and have good presentation skills. They also have high emotional intelligence
capabilities. They are good in establishing and sustaining long term relationships.
In one of the Harvard Business Review articles15, we can read a clear statement, that the
most important characteristic of a leader is Emotional Intelligence. Daniel Goleman has
described Emotional Intelligence as an ability to monitor ones own and others people
emotions, to descriminate them and label them properly.
In the Golemans research of the senior managers, it turned out, that managers that are
considered as stars vary from other managers by having emotional intelligence. Of course,
cababilities like analytical reasoning or technical skills are very needed in a senior
management positions, but those are the ones, that are not causing outstanding performance of
managers.
First component of Emotional Intelligence is self-awareness (Table 1) and it is explained
by the ability to understand ones own emotions, strenghts, weaknesses and drives. It also
means, that person is capable of understanding how others can influence his own feelings.
Self-awareness also means understanding and following persons own values and goals. It
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means being able to assess himself realistically. People with high self-awareness, are not only
not afraid to receive feedback, but they also crave it. They are also self-confident, which
makes them look more competent. Next Emotional Intelligence component is self-regulation,
which means that a person
Table 1
is capable to resist his own desires and not act while being influenced by strong emotions. It
means, that when his team is underperforming, he do not go and give them a threatening
speech, it means that he is going to sit down with them and try to find out reasons for nonperformance. This skill, helps leaders to adapt to changes, because when the change in
organization is happening, they do not panic, instead they are able to jugde the situation and
establish a suitable action plan. They also enhance integrity, which means, that they follow
their own values. If they claim that they are honest, than even though the chance to earn extra
money (not legally) would occur, they wouldnt use it. Next component is motivation, which
means that this kind of leaders are strongly driven for goal achievement. They also keep
passion in themselves through the journey, they crave challenges, love to learn and constantly
strive for excellence. Because of that, these kind of leaders are always going the extra mile
and they like to keep a score- they need to track progress. They are the ones, who stay
optimistic and full of hope, when others feel like giving up. They also showcase a great
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commitment to the organizational vision and goals. Another trait of a leader with Emotional
Intelligence is empathy. It means that a leaders possessing empathy, considers employees
feelings at every step of the way. He is always trying to see good in people and if somebody
doesnt behave the way he would want, he tries to understand him. These leaders can be could
coaches and mentors, because they are capable of going inside peoples heads and giving
effective feedback- the one that is not going to hurt anyones feelings. The last Emotional
Intelligence componenet is Social Skills, which is the ability to manage relationships with
others. Social skills is so called friendliness with a purpose and purpose is mainly building a
good relationship. People with developed social skills are capable of finding common ground
for conversation with people from different backgrounds. They are also great persuasers,
thanks to their charisma and capability to make others like and trust them. Social skills are
considered as a key leadership capability in organizations, because of the nowadays value of
networking. It is also considered that important, because communications seems to be a great
challange in global companies in which people often do not have so many possibilites to have
face-to-face contact. This is why the ability to listen and understand is of a great value.
Goleman describes the fact, that emotional intelligence can be learned through specific
actions, which I will explain in the next chapter.
The last set of skills, that I consider very important for a leader, can be sumarrized by a
theory of servant leadership (Graph.3). And this servitude is for me the thing that is the most
important and the most difficult to develop in leaders. In companies we have people with
management skills, but if we ask those people, do they consider themselves as servants, we
would hear opinions like why should I be a servant, the world of business is brutal, you need
to be tough, not to let others take advantage of you. It is hard for people to think about
leadership as an act of serving, being for others, and commiting themselves for the positive
change in the world. If a person is acquiring leadership skills to gain power or material goods,
we can not call him a true leader. True leaders want to serve for wellness of others. On the
graph.3, we can see different dimensions of servant leadership. The first one is displaying
authencity. In modern society, we have specialist working on personal branding of CEOs of
organizations. This is why, it is sometimes hard to tell, whether somebody is a leader or he
has good press releases. We can learn, that often what we see is just the perception of
leadership, not the real qualities of leadership. This is why authencity is so important. We can
develop our skills, but we still need to be true to our values through the whole process.
Leaders create real long term followers, by building trust. Leader that is capable of showing
his own emotions is the one that people will trust, because he has more humaneness. This
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theory is contradictory with the rule of gaining power, which says, that it is better to show
anger than sadness or weakness16. But a servant leader goal, isnt to build power, it is to build
environment in which people feel safe enough to open up and commit for the cause. Next part
of leadership servant model is to provide leadership. In this context it means to provide tools,
guidance and clear vision. It is to be there, just in case followers will need their leader just to
give them feedback or provide with mentoring. Sharing leadership concentrates mostly on
empowering your followers. One of the greatest gift, that a leader can give to their team mates
is trust. Trust means giving the freedom to make decisions and avoiding tracking every action.
If a leader establishes good relations and atmosphere in a team, then his followers will come
to him and share what they have done and a leader will not need to check how is the progress
going. Of course sharing leadership doesnt mean giving it all away. Dependending on
experience of team mates, leader should at the very beginning of a team establishment,
communicate with an honesty what does he appreciate and what he doesnt. At the beginning
he should provide more directions and support as well as feedback. Next dimension is to
value people. It means, that a leader is a person who sees potential in every character, and
believes in their good will. Leader is a person who is the last to lose hope in any of the team
members and does everything to help him, when he is losing his grip. Leader should be also a
person that appreciate every effort, but dont wait for applaus for himself. Another value od
servant leader is to develop others. Role of a leader is to activate leadership in their followers,
because leaders should create more leaders, not more followers. He should concentrate his
efforts into getting to know strenghts and weaknesses of team memebers and then teach them
how to both capitalize on strengths and eliminate weaknesses. And the last part of servant
leadership is building community. Servant leader is able to do this by first of all establishing
vision that all of the team members wants to follow, create a culture in a team, in which all of
the team members care about each other and are having open communication. One of the
most important part of building community is building uniquness and coherency of it. This is
why leader should highlight common characteristics of members of the community, create
traditions and celebrations, and of course facilitate bond creation within it. I believe that this
quotation is a great sum up of what being a servant leader is:
The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say Thank you.
In between, the leader is servant17- Max DePree
16
17
11
Graph.3
Source:http://www.annettapowellonline.com/servant-leadership
18
19
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Leadership has been used as a synonym of the word management, altough the clear
destinction should be made. Burn stated, that management is mostly based on transactional
leadership, which is characterized by emphasis on procedures, contingent reward and
management by exception. Transformational leadership is closer to the definition of
leadership itself and it is characterized by charisma, ability of building perosnal relationships,
courage and creativity20. Another very famous quatation about the difference between
manager and a leader is Management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right
things21. Again in this statement, we can observe, that a manager is a person who has
proffesional skills and instruct others on how to do the task, but a leader is a person, who is
capable of seeing big picture, setting a clear direction and chosing priorities.
What does it mean to be a manager22:
Directing the work, rather not performing it,
Being responsible for hiring, firing, training and disciplining employees,
Being a connector between employees and upper management,
Planning, tracking, monitoring,
What does it mean to be a leader:
Building relations based on open communication and trust,
Challenging status quo,
Projectig enthusiasm through the journey of goals achievemnt,
Creating vision,
Openly welcoming change
What about a person like Steve Jobs. Would we consider him a leader? He was
charismatic, he had a clear vision for his own company, he was courages, capable of adapting
to changing environment and he was able to create willingness for others to follow him. His
vision was to create computers, that people will love to use, and usage of them will be simple.
From this statement, we might think that he was a person, who was willing to create things for
the better living of future generations. These are the characteristics that were mentioned in the
previous subsection as characteristics of a good leader. On the other hand, when we look at
the way he was managing his partners and employees, we do not see concern for others.
Everyone who wasnt willing to follow his rules, was encouraged to leave the company.
Analyzing his biography we might have an impression, that he was a narcistic visioner, who
20
Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper and Row Publishers Inc.
Peter drucker. The Leader of the Future - The Drucker Foundation. Jossey-Bass Publishers.1996.
22
McGraw Hill. Briefcase series.What Is a Leader.
21
13
didnt have much of a emotional intelligence23, which is considered the most important
quality of a leader. Are we able to put him, and a person like Mother Tersa as the same
examples of leaders? The answer is- it depends. The thing that connects all of the worlds
famous leaders, was the strong vision to challange status quo and to make a difference, and
the fact, that people where willing to follow them. The thing that strongly differs them is the
fact, that people wanted to follow them for different reasons and they, as leaders, used
different means to create followers. In relation to the section about characteristic of a leader,
we might observe, that Steve Jobs was a person who had more of the cognitive capacities,
when Mother Teresa had very well developed social skills. This is when we realize, that there
are different kinds of leadership styles and this concept will be described in next chapter.
The three most charismatic leaders in this century inflicted more suffering on the
human race than almost any trio in history: Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. What matters is not the
leader's charisma. What matters is the leader's mission24.
23
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2. Methodology in leadership
Graph.4
Source: http://8dimensionsofleadership.com/the-assessment/
I would consider this test suitable, if not for a fact, that it doesnt show on which
characteristics of ours we should work on. After I took the test I got a result, which was
Resolute leader. In practice it means, that I am a leader that wants to get efficent results,
ensure high quality outcomes and more than anything want to challange himself and others to
do their best. The only critic for this type of leadership, was that this type of leaders might not
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15
focus enough on emotional aspects of leadership. Accuracy of this assesment is high, due to
the fact that in the test itself, the same questions were being asked from different angles. Also
questions were very specific, and easy to answer.
The other four leadership test are based on the Three Levels of Leadership Model. The
model itself connects the facts, that people not only need to focus on external skills, but as
leaders they also must develop themselves internally. The first test is about Public Leadership
Behaviours assessment (Appendix.1). The goal of this test is to assess development of 34
public leadership behaviors, which are:
Briefing-explaining strategies and goals given from higher levels of
organization,
Challenging- questioning status quo, demanding high quality, encouraging a
shared desire for change
Navigating- agreeing on a clear, common, motivating purpose of vision with
supporting goals,
Prioritising- focusing on priorities,
Assigning creating tasks and giving them to group members,
Organising planning, finding and granting resources
Coordinating suggesting how to coordinate ideas
Deciding listening, agreeing, concluding
Elaborating & clarifying listening to others ideas, analysing outcomes,
removing or resolving confusion
Evaluating examinating ideas, choices and proposals
Information giving- supplying data, refraining experiences,
Information seeking- questioning accuracy of beliefs, making the group mindful
of data needs, pursuing facts,
Initiating offering solutions, ideas, goals and a vision,
Opinion giving passing beliefs, views and feelings
Opinion seeking- identifying others opinions and feelings,
Summarizing- summing up issues and views,
Educating building capabilities across the board
Energising motivating others to decisions and action
Doing-carrying out decisions and plans,
Measuring watching and evaluating performance
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and Group Building and Maintance. After summing up scores, person should choose one
behaviour in every group to work on as a priority. Next test is Private Leadership Assesment
(Appendix 2), which goal is to asses how well person is performing following fourteen private
leadership behaviours:
Appraising- giving and receiving honest, effective feedback about the need for
behavioral change,
Choosing- choosing individuals, giving new or alternative roles, promoting
talented people,
Disciplining- confronting, reprimanding or removing people who under-perform
or under-collaborate,
Goal setting- with the individual, for individual performance and career growth,
Reviewing- receiving task progress updates, proposals, ideas or solutions and
following up individually,
Assessing & matching aassessing persons competence and commitment then
choosing a suitable approach,
Attracting- brining new talented individuals into the group or wider organization,
Consulting- coaching privetaly on sensitive isses that you can not adress in a
public forum,
Developing- settling personal growth priorities and actions, helping directly
through coaching or mentoring,
Discovering- learning what motivates each individual, their inner challenges,
unspoken thoughts and feelings,
Encouraging- praising, building confidence and showing you have noticed
individual contribution,
Interviewing- noticing and talking with those who find their role frustrating or
are demotivating colleagues,
Recognizing- spotting rising talent,
Understanding- watching and learning your impact on individuals (how they
perceive and how they respond to you)
Many of the behaviours are repeated from the previous test, but with a difference, that
they concern individual one-to-one approach. So why is it separated? Because many people
do not have problem with performing behaviours like praising or educating towards two or
more people. One-to-one contact is more intimidating, and people are often less capable of
18
acting with confidence and cenrtainty, when they are in chamber circumstances. Leader must
be capable of showcasing those behaviours in front of the whole group, but also be capable to
create bonds with each individual seperatly. Assesment is being done as in previous example.
The last test is about Technical Knowledge and Skills assessment(Appendix 3). Goal of this
test is to help a person decide on his technical konwledge and skillls learning priorities. This
test is divided into three parts: Technical Knowledge, Public Leadership Skills and Private
Leaderships Skills, which werent discussed before. When it comes to Technical Knowledge,
author testifies knowledge like individual psychology and motivation, group psychology and
time management. Questions are action-oriented, so if a person doesnt have satisfing
knowledge from specific area, he is being asked about steps he is going to undertake to level
up in this topic. Public Leadership part is concentrated on problem solving and planning
skills, decision making skills, interpersonal skills and group process skills. After assessing
persons level of skills, if he assessed himself below the avarage, he is being asked what he is
going to do about it. The last part, which is Personal Leadership focuses on assertiveness and
goal setting skills. After the third part of test, one have a space, to sum it all up and choose
priorities on which he wants to work on and create an action plan. After going through many
leadership assessment tests, I am sure that the one that is based on three levels of leadership,
help people assess all of the leadership skills that are needed. It is also action- oriented, so it
makes people reflect on decisions that they made through the test and it makes them plan
action steps to develop skills, that will help them become better leaders.
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quickly or people with whom a leader is working are not trustworthy. Example of this kind of
situations might be a war, when a general need to make a quick decision and command it to
warriors. Democratic leadership style is characterized by a leader, who is sharing decision
making rights with his followers27. It means, that he values their opinion and take it as as
valuable as his own. He is also practicing fair responsibility division and building equal
commitment in each of team members. He is building relations based on trust, by not
controlling his team members. This kind of leaders are described by traits such as honesty,
friendliness and being open-minded. This type of leadership is effective in situations, where a
team has a creative work to do, its members have simillar or suplemental competencies. It is
important to highlight, that even though a leader is involving his followers into decision
making process, he is still the one who has a final note in the discussion. A leader with this
leadership style needs to have a good self-esteem, so he wont feel afraid that sharing his
power and authority will destroy his image in the eyes of team members. Laissez-faire style is
when all the rights and power to make decisions are fully given to team members28. In this
style, leader is fully delegating task and giving freedom in decision making process. Thanks
to that, followers have high level of autonomy, at the same time being given an opportunity to
use leaders knowledge and guidance. This leadership style is effective, when followers are
experienced and have very high competences. Even though a leader in this style have hands
off approach, he should still be delivering constant feedback and be available for the
followers. From those definitions of leadership style, we might see that a style of a leader
should also change through the life-cycle of a team. At the beginning when team is being
established, people have low competences and they feel insecure, so they prefer to be
managed carefully. Then, after getting some experience and also getting to know each other in
a team, they want to feel involved into the project they are working on, so a leader should
give more decision making possibilities for them. When a team is already performing well, it
is a time for a leader to give power to his followers and let them decide on what they want to
do and how they want to do it.
Besides those basic leadership styles, there are some more specific, that involves
description of traits of a leader and his strenghts and weaknesses. One of the test that help
leaders to assess more precisely their leadership style is a Strategic Leadership Styles
27
Foster, D.E. (2002).A Method of Comparing Follower Satisfaction with the Authoritarian, Democratic,
and Laissez-faire Styles of Leadership. Communication Teacher 16 (2): 46.
28
Johnson,C.E.; Hackman,M.Z. (2003). Leadership, a communication perspective (4 ed.). Waveland Press.
p. 38.
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people. They like written reports, performance analytics, which may result in
overorganization and lack of trust in professional relationships.
Aristocrats- they prefer to use highly autocratic style and surrend themselves
with symbols of power. It is a kind of leadership style that destroys an
organization and should be laid from job, before they will make organization go
bankrupt.
Each of this styles(besides Aristocrats) might be good for specific situations in which
organization operates (look Appendix 5). Results of test are giving the guidance on how to
deal with people with those leadership styles.
Another division of leadership styles (Table 2) was made by David Goleman and it is
based on his theory about emotional intelligence being the most important skill of a leader. He
distinguished six different leadership styles in which each style showcase some of the
emotional intelligence competences.
Table 2
Source:http://www.comindwork.com/weekly/2013-08-12/productivity/the-six-leadership-styles-goleman
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From the information in a table above, we can not only see the characteristic of each
style, but also see, where this kind of leadership style is needed and works best, and how does
it influence working environment. As we can see the most positive impact have leaders with
visionary style of leadership. This strongly connects to the statements in previous chapter, that
a good leader is a person who has a stron vision and is capable of making people enthusiastic
about it. He is also a person with and empathy so people who started to follow him at the
beginning, dont loose their willingness to follow their leader, because he is treating them
with compassion.
The most important lesson coming from leadership styles is that a leader should be able
to adapt his own behaviour and style to the needs of situation. Of course, leader should also
be authentic and not try to fake some of the characteristics, but in times of crises he might
become a little bit more commanding and in times of organizational growth he might be more
visionary to make others embrace innovative changes. So the first step that upper
management should do when developing leadership in their managers, would be to assess
current state of company, see what kind of culture is needed currently in organization and
then create a profile with characteristics and style of leadership that would be sutiable for the
organization. The next step would be to assess how well developed are the leadership traits in
a management of the company and then establish an action plan of traits development that
will focus on the characteristics that are currently the most needed.
23
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showed that including self-reflections process after learning by doing exercises highly
enhances process of learning31. It improves problem solving capabilities when a participant
not only do, but also think about what he has been doing. Those implications helps a person
turn from learning hard to learning smart. The whole Leadership Development Program is
based on a framework, which consist of 8 skills (Appendix 6): scanning, focusing,
aligning/mobilizing, inspiring, planning, organizing, implementing, monitoring and
evaluating. When taking a closer look at each of these skills, one might recognize that they
are coherent with leadership behaviours described in Three Levels of Leadership Model. The
change that should be achieved due to implementation of the model should concern change in
work atmosphere or in management systems and processes and in the long term in service
delivery quality. The research shows that change made by leadership development might
occur on two levels: the behavioral changes in participating teams and the results that those
teams produce that contribute to organization goals. LDP is focused on teams and based on a
belief that leadership can be learned. Logic of the whole process is as follows32:
Team chooses the challange they want to tacle,
Team measures the baseline in relation to challenge,
Team settle a measurable result,
Team identifies main obstacles and their possible root causes that must be
adressed to overcome it,
Team selects most important actions that should be adressed,
Team defines indicators to measure results.
Whole program was based on face-to-face interactions, where participants attend a
series of workshops and were asked to complete assignments as a follow up. In between of
trainings, team members organized workshops on which they dicussed what they have learned
and how they can implement this knowledge. They also reviewed they progress when it
comes to action plan that they have established. They also received online coaching, which
provided them with regular feedback. To assess leadership development, program involved
self-assesment tool for teams to monitor their behaviour(Appendix.7). Coming back to the
intermadiate outcomes like work atmosphere, this indicator also had been measured(Appendix
7), because as researches show, teams with positive, supporting and collaborative atmosphere
31
25
usually perform better and achieve their desired results33. Work group climate is also
evaluated by questionnaire measuring the perception of team members (Appendix 7) and it is
based on work from George Latwin and Robert Stinger, who develped first questionnaires to
measure the climate in corporate environment34. This evaluation is meant to be taken before
and after implementation of program to be able to measure the result of the program. Its goal
is also to engage team members into discussion about their team working climate. To measure
improvement in management system, MOST(The management and Organizational Assesment
Tool) is being used (Appendix 8). This tool helps to assess current status of 19 essential
components of management and provide a guideline for needed improvements. After nine
months program significant improvements in organizational performance has been observed
(Table 3)
Table 3
Source: Management Science for Health.2008.Leadership can be learned, but how is it measured
26
create. Its uniqueness is created by the fact that is is focused not on individual, but on whole
teams, which might also influence positively on activating leadership in all of the team
members. It is also sufficent because of the fact, that a lot of self reflection and feedback is
involved, which is priority to the learning cycle.
Graph.5
AIESEC believes that by delivering experiences that leads through inner and outer
journey, is able to create entreprenourial and courages leaders. As we can see, this model
connects to the model of Three Levels of Leadership by introducing terminology like inner
and outer journey. In next section I will explain, how AIESEC as an organization is delivering
27
each step of this model to develop leadership and what can be improved (based on my
previous resarch) to make every part of this journey more sufficent.
Outer journey:
1. Individual responsibility and goals. Each member joining our organization is
allocated to project and is given specific job description. Every project has its own
goals to accomplish and those goals are divided between team members. The person
who is responsible for project goals division is a team leader. Before being allocated
to the specific projects, participants are being interviewed to then get to know what
are their strenghts and skills and to get to know what they want to work on. After
that they are allocated to the projects which suits them best. Things to improve: At
the beginning there should be a specific evaulation form distibuted to participants, so
they can measure their level of skills before and after their experience(Appendix
2,3,4). What is more, there should be specific KPIs showed them, based on which
they work and level of fulfilling responsibilities will be asessed. Thanks to that,
people would know what is expected from them, and could see evidence of their
personal progress and fields on which they might still improve.
2. Challenging role and environment. For many participant taking part in one of our
project is the first occasion in which they are given real responsibilities, goals to
achieve and team to cooperate with. Due to the fact that we are all students, we can
not provide proffesional induction for the members or give them specific
instructions on how to do things. We are all learning by doing and from ours, or
ours team members mistakes. Also the pace of changes is very high, as usually
teams have just one month of project preparation and then five months to deliver the
project. We are also non-for-profit organization, so our budgets are really tight. In
the middle of project it might turn out that the funds that we were supposed to have
for promotion are being cut down by half. This teaches us to adopt to changes and be
solution-oriented. Thigs to improve: I believe that this kind of environment helps
young people to become entreprenurial and solution oriented, so I wouldnt change
anything in this part.
3. Interaction with pultiple stakeholders. In our project we cooperate with students,
schools, NGOs companies and universities. We learn what customer relation
management is and how much it influences future of sales. We learn how to keep the
record of all our relations with stakeholders and how to capitilize on them in the
long run. We are learning how difficult might be decision making process, when
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Inner Journey:
1. Set personal goals. Every member when starting his AIESEC experience is
being questioned about expectations and goals for self development. He is also
being interviewed to get created special career path for himself- plan of future
positions to be taken in AIESEC. After having this career plan, member is
being asked to create a development plan including ways of how he is going to
work on skills that are needed for specific posittions and opportunities that he
is going to use to get to this positions. This teaches our members long- term
thinking and perseverance to accomplish personal goals. Things to improve:
Unfortunetally, even though the good plans are being made, we dont have
people who are responsible for tracking this plan, giving feedback and at the
end facilitating reflection process. Having people responsible for members
development in entities would enable improving the process and fulfilling the
gaps in it.
2. Reflect on your experience. This point strongly connects to the previous ones
and unfortunetally is the least developed in AIESEC. As I mentioned before,
self reflection influences positevely our leraning process and problem solving
capabilities. We do not have any specific process for self-reflection. If a leader
has a will and idea for it, he is facilitating self reflection process with his team.
Things to improve: AIESEC could easily use the evaluation processes that
were mentioned in previous subsection in Leadership Development Program.
When I was a leader of my team, I asked each of my team member to take 30
seconds after their every meeting/ experience to reflect on what they did great,
what could they improve and what they have learned. Before our weekly
meeting I asked them to prepare weekly report of what they have scribbled
down. On the meetings we discussed their observation and established action
plan for their development for next week, based on their observation. I
repeated the process every month, but including more specific evaluation
questions. I believe that this process could be implemented in all of the teams
in AIESEC.
3. Understand your personal values. This part of inner journey is strongly
intangible. We do not have any specific process for getting to know your own
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31
32
Executive Summary:
Leadership has become a popular topic since the need for innovation in organizations is
growing. Even though the theories of leadership have been changing throughout the decades,
there is already enough knowledge and information to create effective leadership development
programs, which goals are to boost organizational growth. In this thesis there is a description
of psychological extraction of leadership because of the fact the leadership is mostly ability to
work efficently with other people. Even though there has been theories that we need to be
born with leadership presence and characteristics like charisma, in my paper, one can find
opposite statements. Charisma can be exchanged with authencity and social skills. What is the
most important is leaders mission- leader is a servant, who is not willing to gain followers
just to fulfill his own ego needs. Leader is a person, who wants to contribute to something
greater and is commited for his vision, which usually comes from challenging status quo.
Leader is also a person who has strong integrity, so he knows his own values and lives by
them.
While reading my paper, one can find out ways of leadership assesment and leadership
development, which has been already examined in organizations. Third chapter might be used
as a pattern for organizations to create their own leadership development programs. And last
but not least, one can learn what is a difference between a manager and a leader and realize
what kind of positive organizational influence (like improvement of working climate or
higher realization of strategic goals), might have putting more preasure on developing not
only management but also leadership skills in managers and teams. Appendices contain
specific tools that might be implemented in companies, while creating strategies of leadership
development
33
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Netography:
1. http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/3269-how-to-be-a-leader.html.October.2012.
2. http://georgecouros.ca/blog/archives/810
3. http://www.ted.com/talks/drew_dudley_everyday_leadership. September 2010
4. http://georgecouros.ca/blog/archives/810. June 2010
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ&hd=1. February 2010
6. http://sustainable-leaders.com/leaders-your-emotions-are-contagious-3/
7. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/leadership
8. http://management.about.com/od/policiesandprocedures/g/manager1.htm
9. http://www.centerforworklife.com/the-leadership-qualities-of-steve-jobs/
10. http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2011/08/27/steve-jobs-broke-every-leadershiprule-dont-try-that-yourself/
11. http://8dimensionsofleadership.com/the-assessment/
12. http://www.valuescentre.com/
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List of graphics:
Graph 1. Managerial Grid ................................................................................................. 4
Graph 2. Situational Leadership Model ............................................................................ 5
Graph 3. Servant Leadership Model ............................................................................... 12
Graph 4. Eight Dimensions of Leadership ...................................................................... 15
Graph 5. Inner and Outer Journey (AIESEC) ................................................................. 27
List of tables:
Table 1. Components of Emotional Intelligence .............................................................. 9
Table 2. The Six Leadership Styles (Goleman) ............................................................. 22
Table 3. Measuring leadership ....................................................................................... 26
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