McGraw-Hill OnlineMcGraw-Hill Higher EducationLearning Center
Student Center | Instructor Center | Information Center | Home
Glossary
Discussion Board
Additional Case Studies
Guide to Electronic Research
PowerWeb
Learning Objectives
Chapter Outline
Multiple Choice Quiz
True or False
Internet Exercises
Chapter Related Readings
Self Assessment Personality Pr
Video Discussion Questions
Feedback
Help Center


Organizational Behavior: Solutions for Management
Paul D. Sweeney, University of Central Florida
Dean B. McFarlin, University of Dayton
Leadership That Works

Chapter Objectives


1

Leadership is a set of interpersonal influence processes. These processes are aimed at motivating subordinates, creating a vision for the future, and developing strategies for achieving goals.

2

Effective leadership requires an accurate assessment of subordinates’ skills as well as situational factors (both internal and external to the company). Leaders need to match their behavior to both the context and the abilities of their subordinates. To do this, leaders need adaptability, flexibility, self-insight, and excellent perception skills.

3

Leader-member exchange theory offers useful advice for managing your boss. Much of that advice involves creating a comfortable working relationship with the leader.

4

Some leadership approaches are limited in that they focus only on a leader’s behavior or on a leader’s skills and traits. Nevertheless, descriptive research on leader behaviors, traits, and skills has been useful in terms of sketching out the types of activities and characteristics that are often–but not always–associated with leader success and failure.

5

Situation-centered leadership approaches try to match leader behavior with situational demands in order to increase effectiveness. Situational leadership, for example, suggests that the leader’s style should match subordinate’s level of maturity.

6

Path-goal theory, LPC contingency theory, and leader substitutes theory also look at subordinate issues, but treat the task environment in a more sophisticated fashion.

7

Charismatic and transformational leadership approaches focus on change. These approaches implicitly suggest that effective leadership requires an integration of leader-, follower-, and situation-centered perspectives. For instance, a crisis situation often makes subordinates more open to charismatic or transformational leaders.

8

While charismatic leaders can help create change, they may also have downside risks. When subordinates become overly dependent or the charismatic leader has narcissistic tendencies, the results can be disastrous.

9

Transformational leadership doesn’t necessarily require charisma. However, certain behaviors and steps are critical if the leader is to create and sustain change.




McGraw-Hill/Irwin




Copyright2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education
Any use is subject to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
McGraw-Hill Higher Education is one of the many fine businesses of The McGraw-Hill Companies.