Directive and participative leadership practices and effectiveness

¶ … leaderships and two different kinds of practices that leaders may practice with followers.

The three different kinds of leadership are the following:

Deliberative -- where the leader deliberately guides and leads his followers

Participative -- where leader and followers participate in making decisions

Charismatic -- where the leader wins his followers over by virtue of his personality and radical decision-making style

The two different kinds of behavior and attitude that the leader may actuate to followers and that are discussed in this essay are:

reward and punishment that result in desired behavior

Boundary setting -- where the leader imposes perimeters for followers in order to achieve certain results.

Using material appended from other settings the essay concludes by telling us how we may become more effective leaders.

Summary of key facts of the Chapters

Chapter Five

This chapter discusses directive leadership. In this paradigm, the leader is in a purely directive role where he tells the follower what to do. He believes that the follower needs guidance, that if left alone he is apt to falter, and that it is up to the leader to instruct and monitor him. Advantages of this approach can be follower satisfaction and role clarity in that the follower knows exactly what to do. On the other hand, the model can also cause job burnout and stress. Directive leadership works better on some than on others.

Study of outcomes of directive leadership is mixed. Some studies have found that these kinds of leaders receive higher ratings that others who are not directive. Again, it may be that some countries are more congruent to this type of leadership than others since Japan, for instance, seems to prefer this type of orientation. Again too, there are certain situations that more readily call for directive leadership than others such as when people work in a large group or in a highly structured environment. Finally, too, the leader's qualities determine the extent to which his followers are pleased by his directiveness. Proficiency, skill, empathy, expertise, and supportiveness on the leader's part are some of the qualities that make the directiveness come across better.

For those with whom directiveness does not work so well, creating small groups and recruiting followers who need less clarity can take the place of the need for directiveness.

Effective directive leadership improves followers' information, understanding, and ability to deal with work tasks. The two most important qualities of effective directive leaders seem to be Self-confidence and assertiveness and these are accompanied with good communication skills, competence, and experience all carried out in a timely competent manner.

Chapter Six

Chapter Six discusses participative leadership. Which consists of involving followers in the decisions that leaders would otherwise make alone. Sometimes, this also extends to delegating followers to make the decisions even without the presence of the leader.

Participative leadership has been especially popular in the United States and gives followers the feelings of a certain competence, self-control, independence, esteem, and personal growth. Female leaders tend to be participative and this quality is also used with highly competent followers.

The evidence seems to show that participative leadership increases motivation and follower loyalty, although participative leadership also has limitations that include the following: it takes time, removes followers from other tasks, requires training and other support, and may be resisted by some managers.

The qualities of Leader Participativeness are the following:

Drawing out and listening to followers

Holding meetings to share decision problems and gather input

Giving serious consideration to followers' input

Reaching consensus with followers and leaders as equals

Delegating decisions to capable followers

As with deliberate leadership, these qualities are enhanced in certain situations and attenuated in others.

The follower behavioral outcomes are the following:

Increased performance and productivity

High-quality decisions

Professional development of followers

Possible resistance by some followers

Decision requires extra time

Chapter Seven

This chapter talks about leaders rewarding and punishing followers and the effects of this expectation paradigm. Rewards are supposed to increase certain behavior and exist in the form of praise, raise in salary, promotion and so forth. Punishment aims to decrease, or expunge, certain behavior and exists in the form of demotion, firing, criticisms, cut in salary and so forth. This is a social exchange between leader and followers where followers provide the service and leader rewards / penalizes them.

To be most effective, rewards and punishment must be contingent on the performance and be administered in a reliable, just, and consistent manner. They must also be coherent and contingent, since no contingent consequence has little impact. Followers must know too why they are being punished or rewarded for ignorance of consequence can have the opposite impact.

As with leadership qualities, rewards and punishments have their effect contingent on context, environment, and follower and leader qualities.

The most effective qualities for consequences are the following:

Tangible rewards are distributed fairly, promptly, and contingently

Leader controls important rewards that are valued or expected by followers

Leader works at a high organizational level

Accurate measures of performance are used and clearly explained

Performance is determined by skill and effort

Leader is recognized as expert in followers' tasks

Cohesive work group with positive performance norm

Behavioral outcomes of consequences generally result in the following:

High performance and productivity

Compliance with leader requests

Group cohesiveness

Follower enthusiasm

Chapter Eight

This chapter discusses charismatic leadership. Charismatic leaders are found in all sorts of organizations, and they often propose radical and unusual solutions. Charismatic leaders too arouse unquestioning loyalty, esteem, and emotional attachment in their followers. The outcome too is a combination of leader and follower characteristics as well as situational qualities.

The key charismatic qualities include the following:

describing a mission or vision of the future that appeals to followers' moral values and growth needs, making inspirational speeches, using impression management to enhance their image in followers' eyes, role modeling behaviors for followers that reflect high expectations and confidence in followers, demonstrating creative risky behavior for the sake of the mission, and using frame alignment to help followers develop shared perspectives of events and environmental factors that help guide follower behavior (236)

The effect has its influence precisely due to the fact that followers identify with the leader's vision, beliefs, values and goal. Motivation is high, burnout and turnover is low, volunteerism is high too, and (depending on situation and follower), some, followers may surrenders their possessions, lives, energies, labor, and all for the charismatic leader. For followers, however, who do not cohere with the charismatic leader's goals, opposition is strong.

Charismatic leaders usually, although not always, also use situational contexts to solidify and reinforce their impression.

The situational factors that increase a charismatic leader's effectiveness are the following:

Crisis or extreme uncertainty

Follower distress, anxiety, isolation, helplessness, low self-esteem

Organizational history of charisma

Creative or inherently satisfying work task

High leader rank, status, or expertise

Educated and professional followers

Formal plans, goals, and procedures that support leader's mission

New entrepreneurial organization

Chapter Nine

Boundary spanning consists of drawing boundaries demarcating rules and task of employees from outside influences or separating them into separate sectors within the organizing itself. Boundary spanning seems to be particularly needed when appears to be particularly needed when a team or organization faces a rapidly changing, complex, resource-poor, or threatening environment, or when the environment presents unique opportunities for the organization to exploit.

Within the team or organization, boundary spanning is needed and used when conflict exists between teams or team members, or the leader's unit and other units are highly specialized, interdependent, or use complex technology requiring extensive coordination and cooperation. Boundary spanning is also used when employees are given a certain degree of independence from employer. Leaders who are good communicators, assertive, knowledgeable, and experienced in organizational operations, and have many connections outside their group or department may be particularly good in boundary spanning.

In order to most effectively achieve boundary spanning, negotiation and team leadership skills are important.

The leader demonstrates boundary spanning by:

Manipulating and protecting group boundaries to resist jolts from the environment

• Negotiating with outsiders to obtain resources and develop agreements that help the group

• Managing interactions among followers to resolve conflicts and overcome difficulties

• Obtaining, filtering, storing, and disseminating valuable information for the group's benefit

Conclusion and how this material will help YOU LEAD

There are three kinds of leadership, deliberative, participatory, and charismatic. I may be unable to assume the last, but I can try to assume one of the first two. Marion's example teaches me that a hybrid of each may be the best. Howell and Costley (2008)'s book also showed me that the leader can influence his followers by actions that include clear, effective, consistent and contingent setting of consequences (reward and punishment) as well as boundary setting sot that followers are enabled to "know their place."

The material enables me to be a better leader since it shows me that there is no one way of leadership and that much too depends on a combination of follower and context qualities too. Different followers need different leadership qualities and different situations call for different characteristics too. Failure on my part, too, can be excused since it may be a result of follower or situational aspects that cohered ill with certain leadership qualities and needed others qualities instead.

In short, it seems to me that an effective leader needs to carefully gauge the needs of followers and match his attitude and behavior to context and environment. A mixture of all leadership styles works best, but each style should consider follower and context and, using Marion as an equitable model, the leader should respect the follower's m much as he does himself. It is with this approach that he is likely best able to lead.

Sources

Bartunek JM. 1993. The multiple cognitions and conflicts associated with second order organizational change. In Social Psychology in Organizations: Advances in Theory and Research, ed. JK Murnighan, pp. 322. 49. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall

Macy BA, Izumi H. 1993. Organizational change, design, and work innovation: a meta-analysis of 131 North American field studies.1961.1991. Res. Organ. Change Dev. 7:235.313

Crawford, Amy. "The Swamp Fox." Smithsonian.com. (http://www. smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/biography/fox.html)

Howell JP & Costley DL (2008) UNDERSTANDING BEHAVIORS FOR EFFECTIVE

LEADERSHIP Prentice Hall.