Thursday, March 10, 2011

Transformational Leadership

“Transformational leadership occurs when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality.”
                                                                                                                                              -
James MacGregor Burns

In the article, “The Themes and Theory of Leadership: James MacGregor Burns and the Philosophy of Leadership” by Matthew R. Fairhol it states that “A professor of management once told a friend, that if he comes upon an article on leadership and notices the bibliography does not include Leadership by James MacGregor Burns (1978), he dismisses it as unthoughtful and incomplete.”  James MacGregor Burns was born in 1918 and has since become a well known figure for those who study theories of management and transformational leadership.  He has won many awards for his innovation in leadership theory.  Burns theory shifts away from studying the traits of leaders to focus on the interaction of leaders.  His theory is based upon the interpersonal relationships that a leader must form with his/her followers in order to achieve a mutual benefit.  Burns’ theory of transformational leadership creates a clear distinction between the concepts and functions of leadership versus management.  Based on their values and morals a leader should be able to connect and engage their follower in order to achieve a higher sense of performance, fulfillment, and purpose for both parties.  His theory can be applied to virtually any institution whether it be a political, corporate, social, family, or volunteer group.

I chose the Karate Kid trailer to illustrate an example of transformational leadership. The two main characters in this film create a relationship in order to accomplish a common goal.  The leader in this example has a strong moral compass and stands strong in his values.  He is able to connect with the young follower in order to motivate him to become a much more confident and strong individual.




"Life Is Like A Cup Of Coffee"

I stumbled upon this video and thought it was only appropriate that I share it because the name of my blog is COFFEE con (with) Krystal Ann... Hope you enjoy!

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

YOU DID WHAT?! Situational Leadership Theory Match/ Mismatch

In the post right below this I discussed the Situational Leadership Theory developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard.  Based on this theory I will recount an instance from the follower perspective and indicate how the “matching” made the instance positive as well as how the “mismatch” made the instance negative.

I serve out at a pool during the summer.  The incident I am about to describe happened on a very hot (meaning BUSY) summer afternoon.  I was one of two opening servers on this particular day.  Around noon we had a call off meaning that we were now under staffed and still just as overwhelmingly busy.  At my work, missing meal breaks is taken very seriously.  However, when we are working out by the pool it can be difficult to take a break due to how we organize the sections and the rate at which our “tables” turnover. My sixth hour was approaching and I needed to take a break but I had 15+ checks open, nobody to cover my section (because ever server was just as busy) and I couldn’t reach a supervisor on their phone.  Our supervisor was nowhere to be found. The window of time that I needed to take my break passed. About an hour later my supervisor showed up as things were beginning to slow down and asked in front of a group of guests if I had taken my break.  I replied calmly “No, I was unable to because we were so busy out here.”  She literally yelled at me like her five year old child and reprimanded me in front of a co-worker and a group of guests.  This can be described as a “mismatch” in Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory.  She came into the situation with a much different view on what was happening and addressed it in a manner much different from what I was anticipating.  This “mismatch” in leadership styles created an array of negative emotions on both accounts.  I was so incredibly shocked that she had yelled at me about not taking a break in front of people.  At first I thought she must be joking but soon realized that she was not joking at all.  Being a subordinate I tried to stay calm and replied with, “We were extremely busy and there was nobody out here to coordinate sections or help out with breaks. I tried calling you multiple times but you were not answering your phone.”  I apologized for missing my break but I had way too many checks out to just walk away and go on break.  Things escalated very quickly and I asked if we could take the disagreement to her office to spare the rest of my associates the uncomfortable situation we were creating for everyone.  Due to the mismatch of leadership styles used in this situation I lost a lot of respect and trust for this particular supervisor. 

After we talked for about half an hour we came to understand each other’s views on this particular situation.  Things had calmed down and her style of leadership slowly began to change to match what I had initially anticipated.  We were able to communicate on a similar level and resolve the situation.  In order to effectively communicate we had to both compromise and adapt to one another.  T
he Situational Theory focuses on the leader transforming their leadership style to the situation and their followers.  However, the initial response and behavior to this situation would definitely be an example of a mismatch that created very negative responses.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Blog Comparison

FOUR
The number of hours I have spent in Starbucks reading everyone’s 
HTM491 Leadership Blogs.


ZERO
The number of blogs that I strongly disagree with.

After reading through the first five blogs, I became determined to continue and find a blog post that had an opinion that strongly differed from my own.  Four hours later, I realized that there wasn’t one that I could strongly debate.  All of the blogs posted for the HTM491 assignments share a fairly similar view on leadership qualities as well as the overall opinion of the trait theory.  I didn’t find one blog that stated a person could not BECOME a leader through environment, education, or life experiences.  There was a common consensus that an individual could be BORN with certain traits that gave them a leg up on the competition however, did not discredit the idea that ANYONE could become a leader through other means than birth. 

The main difference I found between the blogs was how the information was relayed.  We have all been given the same prompts, yet all addressed the assignment with a different voice.  Some people used humor while others got very deep in their ideology and reasoning for their opinions and views.  I really enjoyed seeing all of the different templates and designs used on the different blogs. 


One blog that really caught my attention after reading through it was Erin Bartle’s Blog.  I felt as if I was reading through my own thoughts.  Erin mentioned her strong trait of compassion for people and her love for the movie “Freedom Writers.”  After reading her blog, it became apparent to me that we have a lot in common.  This movie is my absolute favorite movie and made me excited to continue reading her blog.  I was curious just how similar our views were.  

Erin stated, “Although there can be many traits associated with a good leader, the number one trait I admire is passion.  If you have the passion and have the drive to reach a particular goal I find it’s hard for someone to stop you.” I loved that she mentioned “passion” as an important trait. I am most inspired by people who are passionate.  I don’t care what you are passionate about, but if you have enough enthusiasm about something… I am going to want to join you. Passion is one of those traits that are contagious.  If you care strongly enough for something, it will radiate and make others want to be a part of it.  I believe passion is the strongest driving force in life.


Contingency Theory & Situational Theory:

Contingency Theory:
The Fiedler contingency model is a leadership theory developed by Fred Fiedler based on the study of leadership styles and behaviors rather than traits and personal characteristics of leaders.  His work suggests that “the leader’s effectiveness is based on ‘situational contingency’ which is a result of interaction of two factors: leadership style and situational favorableness.”

Fiedler created the Least preferred co-worker (LPC) scale, an instrument for measuring an individual’s leadership orientation.  The LPC scale asks a leader to recall their least preferred co-worker and score them “using a series of bipolar scales of 1 to 8, such as the following: Unfriendly v. Friendly, Hostile v. Supportive, Guarded v. Open.

“The responses to these scales (usually 18-25 in total) are summed and averaged: a high LPC score suggests that the leader has a human relations orientation, while a low LPC score indicates a task orientation.” Leaders who receive a higher LPC score are assumed to be relationship motivated and tend to describe their least preferred co-workers in a more favorable light.  Leaders who are task motivated have a strong approach when scoring their least preferred coworker and receive lower LPC scores.
The second factor in Fiedler’s theory is situational favorableness.  “According to Fiedler, there is no ideal leader. Both low-LPC (task-oriented) and high-LPC (relationship-oriented) leaders can be effective if their leadership orientation fits the situation. The contingency theory allows for predicting the characteristics of the appropriate situations for effectiveness.
Three situational components determine the favorableness of situational control:
-          Leader-Member Relations, referring to the degree of mutual trust, respect and confidence between the leader and the subordinates.
-          Task Structure, referring to the extent to which group tasks are clear and structured.
-          Leader Position Power, referring to the power inherent in the leader's position itself.

When there is a good leader-member relation, a highly structured task, and high leader position power, the situation is considered a "favorable situation." Fiedler found that low-LPC leaders are more effective in extremely favorable or unfavorable situations, whereas high-LPC leaders perform best in situations with intermediate favorability.”
There is no universal or “best” way to manage; nor is there a perfect leadership style.  This theory suggests that the success of a leader is dependent upon different situational variables, the qualities of the followers and that improving effectiveness requires changing the situation to fit the leader, known as "job engineering."

Situational Theory:
The Situational Leadership Theory, is a leadership theory developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard.  Much like the contingency theory, the foundation of the Situational Leadership Theory is there is no solitary "best" style of leadership. Managers must use different leadership styles depending on the situation. It also supports the idea that “effective leadership is task-relevant and that the most successful leaders are those that adapt their leadership style to the Maturity ("the capacity to set high but attainable goals, willingness and ability to take responsibility for the task, and relevant education and/or experience of an individual or a group for the task) of the individual or group they are attempting to lead/influence. That effective leadership varies, not only with the person or group that is being influenced, but it will also depend on the task, job or function that needs to be accomplished.”

The Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory rests on two fundamental concepts:
-          Leadership Style
-          The Individual or Group's Maturity Level
Their model allows you to analyze the situation using their levels of maturity, competency and commitment to decide on which Leadership Behavior/ Style would be most appropriate. Your leadership style will vary from one person to another depending on followers’ competencies and commitment in their task areas. 

“Hersey and Blanchard characterized leadership style in terms of the amount of Task Behavior and Relationship Behavior that the leader provides to their followers. They categorized all leadership styles into four behavior types, which they named S1 to S4:
S1: Telling - is characterized by one-way communication in which the leader defines the roles of the individual or group and provides the what, how, why, when, and where to do the task
S2: Selling - while the leader is still providing the direction, he or she is now using two-way communication and providing the socio-emotional support that will allow the individual or group being influenced to buy into the process.
S3: Participating - this is now shared decision making about aspects of how the task is accomplished and the leader is providing less task behaviors while maintaining high relationship behavior.
S4: Delegating - the leader is still involved in decisions; however, the process and responsibility has been passed to the individual or group. The leader stays involved to monitor progress.
Of these, no one style is considered optimal for all leaders to use all the time. Effective leaders need to be flexible, and must adapt themselves according to the situation.

Maturity Levels
The right leadership style will depend on the person or group being led - the follower. The Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory identified four levels of Maturity M1 through M4:
M1 - They generally lack the specific skills required for the job in hand and are unable and unwilling to do or to take responsibility for this job or task.
M2 - They are still unable to take on responsibility for the task being done; however, they are willing to work at the task.
M3 - They are experienced and able to do the task but lack the confidence to take on responsibility.
M4 - They are experienced at the task, and comfortable with their own ability to do it well. They are able and willing to not only do the task, but to take responsibility for the task.
Maturity Levels are also task specific. A person might be generally skilled, confident and motivated in their job, but would still have a Maturity level M2 when asked to perform a task requiring skills they don't possess.”
This model has four development levels of the follower.  This information should be used in order to establish the most appropriate leadership style that should be used.
D4: High competence and high commitment- experienced at the job, and comfortable with their own ability to do it well. May even me more skilled than the leader.
D3: High competence and low/variable commitment- experienced and capable, but may lack the confidence to do it alone, or the motivation to complete the job quickly and efficiently.
D2: Low competence and high commitment- may have some relevant skills, but won’t be able to do the job without help.  The task or the situation may be new to them.
D1: Low competence and low commitment- Generally lacking the specific skills required for the job in hand, but has the confidence and/ or motivation to tackle it.

Both Fiedler’s Contingency Theory and Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory suggest that there is not one universal style of leadership that works in every case.  A leader’s behaviors should match the situation at hand.  The Contingency Theory focuses more on the leaders personality and how they respond in certain situations.  Whereas the Situational Theory focuses on the leader transforming their leadership style to the situation and their followers.

"According to Fiedler, a task-orientated style of leadership is more effective than a considerate (relationship-orientated) style under extreme situations, that is, when the situations, is either very favorable (certain) or very unfavorable (uncertain)" (Gannon 361). Task-orientated leadership would be advisable in natural disaster, like a flood or fire. In an uncertain situation the leader-member relations are usually poor, the task is unstructured, and the position power is weak. The one who emerges as a leader to direct the group's activity usually does not know any of his or her subordinates personally. The task-orientated leader who gets things accomplished proves to be the most successful. If the leader is considerate (relationship-orientated), he or she may waste so much time in the disaster, which may lead things to get out of control and lives might get lost.

A personal example of a task-oriented leader would be dealing with a group of individuals for a group project.  During my IDS class we were assigned a group for our semester project.  I didn’t know any of my group members prior to this project.  Without knowing each other’s strengths, weaknesses, skills or personality, we were asked to assign a group leader.  There was one guy in our group who I found to be completely arrogant and insisted that he should be our group leader and be in charge of delegating tasks rather than doing research or preparing a section of the project.  We agreed to let him be the leader due to his persistence and undying self-confidence.  It wasn’t until a few weeks had passed that I realized we hadn’t met as a group to discuss the different parts of our project.  We didn’t have a timeline and not all of the sections had been assigned to group members yet.  The amount of work that had to go into this project was outrageous and I was beginning to think we wouldn’t have enough time to finish it.  With my GPA on the line and a group who was becoming increasingly discouraged with the project, I stepped in.  I am usually a very relationship oriented leader but when this situation occurred, I was forced to check my emotions at the door and not worry about hurting feelings. I assigned the “group leader” a section of the project, sent out an email with all the assignments listed and due dates for each section.  I asked for schedules and set up meeting dates and booked a room in the library for each week leading up to our project due date.  I much prefer to be the one who connects with my group members but in this instance a task-oriented leader was what our group needed.

An example of the situational theory would be a captain of a dance team.  There is always going to be diversity in teams.  It is important to evaluate the maturity and competency of each member and analyze how to address the team as a whole as well as how to address each individual on the team.  I would not expect a first year member to know everything that a 4 year member would know.  In order to be a successful leader you must know who you are leading and understand the different levels of competency, commitment and maturity.