8. Sitzung -Leadership PDF

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Prof. Rolf Van Dick...

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Social Psychology

Eighth Session

06.12.2017

Leadership and Decision Making Leadership  

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Leader: person who has most impact on group behavior and beliefs; they may be appointed, elected, or emerge over time Personality traits  Great person theory: perspective on leadership that attributes effective leadership to innate or acquired individual characteristics – strong interpersonal skills, high motivation, confident, optimistic Behavior  Leaders must perform 2 types of tasks – task leadership and social leadership  Effective task leader is efficient, directive, and knowledgeable  Effective social leader is friendly, agreeable, concerned w/i feelings and socially oriented  Sometimes a group will have a different leader for each task; sometimes same person will serve both roles Situational perspectives  Best explained as an interaction of leadership style (task-oriented vs. relationshiporiented) and task demands; depending on nature of the task, one leadership style is more effective than the other Fiedler’s Contingency Model of Leadership Effectiveness: suggests that task-oriented leaders are most effective in high-control and low-control situations, while emotionfocused leaders are more effective in moderate-control situations -Fiedler’s eight-category situational control scale as function of leadermember relations, task structure and position power -LPC (least preferred coworker) scale: Fiedler’s scale for measuring leadership style in terms of favorability of attitude towards one’s least-preferred coworker

Social Psychology

Eighth Session

06.12.2017

-Predicted and obtained

correlations b/t LPC scores and group performance as a function of situational ctrl -situational control: Fiedler’s classification of task characteristics in terms of how much ctrl effective task performance requires Fiedler (1965) 

Study by Lewin, Lippitt, and White (1939): studied effects of different styles of leadership in after-school clubs for young boys  Autocratic leaders: organized club’s activities, gave orders, were aloof and focused exclusively on task at hand; took no input from group members, emphasized his authority, and assigned group projects arbitrarily  Democratic leaders: called for suggestions, discussed plans and behaved like ordinary club members; discussed proposed activities w/i group members before assigning them and allowed children to make own decisions, encouragement of development of egalitarian atmosphere  Laissez-faire leaders: left group to its own devices w/o much supervision and generally intervened minimally  Results:  clear differences in both group satisfaction and performance across children who had experienced 3 leadership styles

Social Psychology    

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Eighth Session

06.12.2017

groups w/i autocratic leader spent as much time working on their projects as did democratic groups but laissez-faire groups spent less time when leader left room, work in autocratic group dropped off, it stayed same in democratic groups, increased in laissez-faire groups democratic leaders able to produce type of acceptance of rules and norms, whereas authoritarian leaders produced only compliance children who worked under autocratic leaders showed more reliance on leader, complained more and made more demands for attention

As a group process  Affected by leader-member relations and extent to which members and leader identify strongly w/i group and are prototypical of group or not Transactional leadership: approach that focuses on transaction of resources b/t leader and followers;  Leaders work w/i subordinates to help them understand what’s required of them to get job done  Idiosyncrasy credit: Hollander’s transactional theory that followers reward leaders for achieving group goals by allowing them to be relatively idiosyncratic  Leader-member exchange (LMX) theory: effective leadership rests on ability of leader to develop good-quality personalized exchange relationships w/i individual members  Vertical dyad linkage (VDL) model: early form of LMX theory, sharp distinction drawn b/t dyadic leader-member relations in which member is treated effectively as ingroup or as outgroup Transformational leadership: focuses on way that leaders transform group goals and actions – mainly through charisma; 3 key components  charismatic leaders who have a vision of where group is going and attempt to stimulate and inspire their workers to move beyond their present status and to create a new and better future

Social Psychology    

Eighth Session

06.12.2017

individualized consideration – attention to followers’ needs, abilities and aspirations, to help raise aspirations, improve abilities and satisfy needs intellectual stimulation – challenging followers’ basic thinking, assumptions and practices to help them develop newer and better mindsets and practices charismatic/inspiring leadership – provides energy, reasoning and sense of urgency that transforms followers Laissez-faire leaders: leaders who use style based on disinterest in followers

Group decision making    

Group members tend to discuss shared rather than unshared info Groups may also use meetings to confirm rather than challenge their initial beliefs While groups have potential to make better decisions than individuals, they don’t always do so Brainstorming  People believe that group brainstorming enhances individual creativity Percentage of ideas assigned to self and to others in nominal and real brainstorming groups

Stroebe, Diehl & Abakoumkin (1992) 

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Group memory  established groups that have transactive memory structure are often more effective than individuals at remembering info Group think  highly cohesive groups w/i directive leaders are prone to groupthink – poor decision-making based on overzealous desire to reach consensus  process of faulty decision making that can occur in groups  occurs when group has strong leader and is under stress

Social Psychology 

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Eighth Session

06.12.2017

group members become more concerned w/i group acceptance than correctness (e.g. members censor themselves, don’t do a full info search, and evaluate info in a biased way) Overcoming groupthink: - Leader remains impartial and encourages expression of dissent - Use separate subcommittees to discuss same issue separately - Appoint “devil’s advocates” - Consult outside experts

Sample MC Questions 1) The model that explains leadership in terms of unique properties, or personality characteristics is known as the: A) personality approach to leadership B) person/leader match theory C) the unique person model D) great person theory 2) According Lippitt and White (1943), which of the following is NOT a leadership style?

Social Psychology A) Success-oriented

Eighth Session B) Autocratic

C) Laissez-faire

06.12.2017 D) Democratic

3) The LPC scale is used as a measure of leadership style: A) in democratic countries

B) in sports groups

C) in factory settings

D) as part of contingency theory...