Leaders can get followers to take action

¶ … Leaders Can Get Followers to Trust Them

This work will analyze and explore the statement, "There are many ways in which leaders can get followers to trust them," within the context of transactional and transitional leadership in organisations. Trust is an absolutely essential aspect of leadership, leaders must trust those they work with and followers must trust leaders.

Leaders need to be trusted by their followers because trust is the mortar that binds the follower to the leader (Nanus, 1989). Trust in the leader correlates positively with various outcomes such as organizational citizenship behaviors, performance, and satisfaction (e.g. Jung and Avolio, 2000; Pillai et al., 1999). It is suggested that trust is a vital antecedent of satisfaction with the leader because both stem from affective states (e.g. admiration of the leader) and cognitive states (e.g. The leader is held in high esteem because of capabilities or attributes) rather than from observed behaviors of the leader (Conger et al., 2000). (Bartram & Casimir 2006, p. 5)

Having first defined the basis and importance of trust, the work will define and discuss transactional leadership. It will then move on to define and discuss transformational leadership. Following these discussions the work will address a series of concepts within the context of transactional vs. transitional leadership organisations including; organizational culture, empowerment, job design, leaders' emotional intelligence, the concepts of affective and cognitive trust all while making recommendations. The work will conclude with a brief overview of concepts and discuss the implications and limitations of recommendations made throughout the work.

Transactional Leadership

Transactional leadership is to a large degree based on the concept of social/organisational interactions as economic transactions, i.e. social equity theory in the social sciences. In a situation where transactional leadership is stressed each individual must see the work they do as indicative of reward/sanction ideologies and seek to gain further reward by doing a better job, either as a manager/leader or a worker. Task completion is the goal and the individual is either rewarded or sanctioned using traditional organisational means. (Casimir et al. 2006)

Developing trust in this sort of leadership style can be difficult as factors such as incorrect or distorted ideologies of equity often arise, where individuals believe that their work is worth more than they are being rewarded for, changes in productivity and expectations frequently occur and might not coincide with increases in rewards. Individuals might also engender ideas of envy as they believe others are being rewarded at a higher degree than themselves or not being sanctioned at the same level. The individual leader might also have a difficult time engendering trust as those below him or her, not fully aware of his task responsibilities may feel as if he or she is being unduly rewarded for his leadership role, as most organisations have a significant scale variation in payment for leaders vs. task completers. (Casimir et al. 2006) Most importantly transactional leadership, with regard to trust does not foster the development of out of role task development. Individuals are much more likely to trust that the system will reward them only for the transactions they complete within their job role, and will not seek to innovate and build greater role development scenarios. (Boerner, Eisenbeiss & Griesser 2007)

Despite these potential pitfalls the ideology of the transactional leadership style is relatively simple and therefore relatively easy to apply. It is a simple quid pro quo, where rewards match productivity and sanctions are applied when exceptions to productivity occur. In this scenario individuals will seek and possibly achieve a sense of equity and to develop trust in leadership this equity must come in the form of leadership meeting stated promises. If this state of equity, where promises by the leader are kept and equity is achieved the individual task producer will feel trust for the leader and possibly produce at a greater degree and develop the system the way it is intended, as a productive growth oriented organisation. (Casimir et al. 2006)

Transformational Leadership

Transformational leadership style conversely, is certainly less simple to define but according to Casimir, Waldman, Bartram & Yang in their review of the concept it; "…has been defined in terms of articulating a vision that is shared by followers, strong respect and admiration for the leader, showing determination when accomplishing goals, intellectually stimulating followers, and showing individuals consideration toward followers." (2006 p. 71) According to this same group of experts the style has been shown to be more reflective of follower satisfaction, effectiveness and trust. (Casimir et al. 2006)

As trust is the emphasis of this work transformational leadership will be the leadership style that will be emphasized with regard to the recommendations of the work. Additionally, as the work goes forward one will find that transformational leadership style is far more flexible, allowing for the development of open systems, positive organisational environment, empowerment, empathy, all of which engender greater levels of trust in leadership. The very term transformational indicates that the style follows that the organisation and therefore the people within it are organic and therefore mutable and in need of appropriate guidance to increase innovation, productivity and trust is a tool that can be used by leaders to develop such. Transformational leadership style, converse to transactional leadership style may foster a sense of the need and ability to innovate, as if the individuals in the team believe that their feelings, actions and skills matter they are more likely to not only have ideas about improvements and innovations but bring them to the table when the ideas occur. (Boerner, Eisenbeiss & Griesser 2007)

Organisational Culture of Trust

An organisational culture which is open is said to be more productive as individuals in it feel as if they are aware of the inner workings of the team, including the leader as a member and they feel as if they can voice concerns and offer innovation, whenever the need arises. In general older models such as transactional leadership have a tendency to deliver a hierarchical model, which is inherently a closed system with overt overhead power determining most decisions behind closed doors, while transformational models are more likely to produce an organization that is open and therefore transparent. "Today's managers find it necessary to move beyond typical command and control behaviors to relationships based on behaviors that influence people and develop trust in leadership Trust exists when managers select and apply particular tactics (such as those discussed), which then improve collaboration and the work flow process." (Douglas & Zivnuska 2008)

The potential limits and concerns regarding an open systems model of leadership, often found in transformational leadership would be that when closed door decisions must be made, and occasionally they must, employees may feel cheated and left out, possibly damaging trust. Congruency between goals/values, vision, encouragement and empowerment create, according to many innovative and productive members of a team. Organisations of trust are often exemplary organisations with success in many areas including but not limited to the bottom line. When Organisations of trust develop fully, they are frequently the best at what they do, be it manufacturing or consulting, they excel in their fields of work.

Empowerment

Those organisations who are the most successful, on nearly every level acknowledge that in a competitive environment where concrete forms of reward, such a pay raises cannot be offered to employees at all times other things must be tried to coerce individuals into appropriate motivated action. Therefore they address non-monetary rewards based on concepts of behaviorism that predict that employees with investment in the process of production have a greater sense of motivation and therefore elicit better behaviors. Empowerment processes can include issues that are direct, such as collective votes on pay raises, improvement in working conditions and/or processes or how an individual can seek to appropriately achieve a promotion, but they can also address secondary reward or sanction issues. In general the more empowerment in perceived the greater the motivation to behave positively in the workforce. It must also be said that empowerment often includes receiving regular and meaningful feedback on performance, by both supervisors and coworkers and goals set by the group are more likely to be achievable than those set by management, that may not have direct knowledge of the individual's skills, or weaknesses. (Choi 2006)

Employee decisions making is an essential aspect of empowerment as to elicit trust the leader must follow through with the decisions that individuals collectively or individually make. When a team strategy is used in a flat organizational model, or one where there is a sense of equalized power the individual and group of employees believe that they have some sense of decision making ability. To ensure that this sense of decision making ability is both believed and reenacted decisions must actually come to pass. The decisions must then be displayed in such a way that employees or task completers can see the decision they helped make in action. (Pigg 2004) It is important to note that these decisions are not always based on positive outcomes as truly transparent organisations with real open structure will allow teams to discuss, and make decisions regarding sacrifices that may need to be made to ensure continued growth, i.e. job cuts, alternative pay leveling, increased productivity without increased reward.

Leadership Job Design

Leaders who are most effective at transformational leadership clearly elicit trust but they must then use all the skills they have developed to further the ideas into practice. One of the ways in which they can do this is by using the emotive and practical information they have as members of a team and as trusted and understanding employers to build job tasks that are appropriate and responsive to individual skill, ability and desires. This may mean allowing an individual to stretch and improve his or her skill level by allowing them to do a task that they previously registered a desire to learn or it may mean not giving someone more tasks when they have registered the complaint that they are feeling overworked. (Barker & Camarata 1998) Any decision must be openly seen to demonstrate that the leader has recognized and is applying the communications he or she has had with individuals on a trust-based level to job tasking. Job tasking in a trusting leadership relationship could be as simple as allowing those who will do the job significant input, i.e. ensuring empowerment, in the development of the job and then detailing that information in a de facto as well as de jure manner.

Emotional Intelligence

Butler (1991) emphasizes that the development of trust between leaders and employees is an integral part of success but most importantly this phenomena is most often achieved when there is a close respect relationship between the leader and others, and when the leader is perceived to engender understanding and empathy for the individual. Empathy is the characteristic that most often associates the effective leader with the less effective leader, as he or she is said to elicit a high level of emotional intelligence. "Charismatic leaders' empathic behavior stimulates followers' need for affiliation in several ways…it is generally known that an individual will have trust in others, to the extent that the others display strong concern for his/her interests" (Choi 2006) Emotional intelligence and the ability to either express true empathy or some perceived ideal of empathy is an essential element to gaining leadership effectiveness in any organisation.

Empathetic relationship building in the organisation between the leader and followers is marked by the individual leader knowing, remembering and reacting to issues that the individual is dealing with either in the job or outside of it. Emotions have a very big impact on how and why individuals make decisions. In a climate where individuals feel secure and are fundamentally satisfied with the climate and culture of their workplace they are much more likely to make decisions that are reflective of the goals and mission of the organisation, especially when they have the buy in of trust for the leader.

Affective and Cognitive Trust

Affective trust is the kind of trust that is associated with emotion, i.e. personal connectivity or communications between different members of the team. When these communications build upon transformational leadership skills and styles they are often based on trust and can build such trust and further it.

An affective response base of trust is consistent with the notion of conditional trust in which "sufficient positive affect and a relative lack of negative affect" (Jones and George, 1998: 536) act to reinforce the attitudes that lead to conditional trust. This base of trust is also conceptually similar to what Rousseau and her colleagues (1998) termed relational trust. Indeed, they acknowledged that because relational trust has a large emotional component, scholars often refer to this form of trust as affective trust. An element of affective response is also present in Barney and Hansen's (1994) typology of trust. The affective states experienced in dealing with a partner would certainly influence perceptions about the trustworthiness of that partner. Positive affect would serve to bolster perceptions that another partner possessed the type of character that would prevent opportunistic behavior (strong-form trust). Negative affect, on the other hand, would likely cause partners to insist on contractual safeguards (semi-strong form trust). (Morrow, Hansen, and Pearson 2004)

Affective trust is therefore the trust one has for the individuals in his or her life they feel connected with. We assume as individuals that people with a personal and emotive attachment to us a certain level of understanding of us would not do certain things to undermine us and would do other things to support or further us. When an leader exhibits the skills needed to establish affective trust certain other aspects of personal concern regarding fear and distrust will all but disappear. The limitation or recommendation of this then must be to make sure that such affective trust is not breached in some way by making decisions and leveling them that are contrary to affective trust, such as anything that can be seen as untrustworthy, i.e. disclosure of personal information, job tasking that is contrary to needs and desires and is not well explained or promoting one individual over another if there is a clear sense that the first individual is more deserving of the promotion. Affective trust can be a trap for those who are fundamentally challenged by empathy and tend not to be mindful of others needs and wants.

Cognitive trust on the other hand is based on a historical level of good decision making by leaders. We as individuals like our leaders' reputation to be a good one and the way in which one can ensure this is by making sure that most if not all of his or her decisions are perceived to be well made and if they are unclear fully explained to those involved. To ensure a sense of cognitive trust the sense of trust must be leveled from the top down with clear delegation of good decision making at every level with those closer to the bottom demonstrating through good decision making that they have good decision making skill therefore ensuring that those above them look as if they have chosen subordinate leaders wisely. (McAllister 1995) For a better understanding of how cognitive trust is measured see McAllister's five point cognitive trust measurement in appendix 1.