Lecture Leadership: Enhancing the lessons of experience (4/e) – Chapter 4

Chapter 4 - Assessing leadership and measuring its effects. Although this chapter focused on leadership research, there are several reasons it is relevant for leadership practitioners even though they are unlikely to actually conduct leadership research themselves. First, organizations can and do use a number of techniques to assess the values, personality, intelligence, and behaviors for any applicant pool.

4­1 McGraw­Hill/Irwin © 2002 The McGraw­Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved C   HAPTER F OUR Assessing Leadership and  Measuring Its Effects Conventional Wisdom About  Leadership • People who are tall and athletic make  better leaders • Smarter people make better leaders • Leaders who are stable and predictable  are more effective McGrawưHill/Irwin â2002TheMcGrawưHillCompanies,Inc.,AllRightsReserved 4ư3 ResearchFindingsAboutLeadership Peoplewhoaretallandathleticdonot necessarilymakebetterleaders. Insomesituations,smarterleaders consistentlyperformedlesswellthanthose whowerelesssmart(Fiedleretal.) Themosteffectiveleadersusedifferent basesofpowertomeetsituational demands McGrawưHill/Irwin â2002TheMcGrawưHillCompanies,Inc.,AllRightsReserved 4ư4 Competency Model The set of skills, knowledge, abilities, or  other attributes that are relevant to  successful performance in a particular job.  Multiple Hurdles Approach Paper­and­pencil  measures Interviews Assessment centers McGraw­Hill/Irwin © 2002 The McGraw­Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved 4­6 The Relevance and Legality Of  Unstructured Interview Questions  If you were any part of a car, what part  would you be and why? If you could go out to dinner with  anyone, who would it be and why? Do you plan on having any more  children? How do you feel about women in  leadership positions?  McGraw­Hill/Irwin © 2002 The McGraw­Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved 4­7 Measures Of Successful and  Unsuccessful Leadership • Superiors’ effectiveness and  performance ratings • Subordinates’ ratings of satisfaction,  organizational climate, morale,  motivation, and leadership  effectiveness • Unit performance indices McGrawưHill/Irwin â2002TheMcGrawưHillCompanies,Inc.,AllRightsReserved 4ư8 DrawbacksOfUsingSuperiors Ratings 4ư9 Ratingsmaynotbeanaccuratereflection ofperformancebecausesupervisors: May not take the time – May be unaware or unfamiliar with a leader’s  performance – May have difficulty dealing with conflict • Ratings can also be biased by friendships,  perceptual sets, and attribution errors.  McGraw­Hill/Irwin © 2002 The McGraw­Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved Drawbacks Of Using Subordinate  Ratings • Subordinates may be relatively  unmotivated toward work no matter what  the leader does • Motivation and cohesiveness does not  guarantee effective performance • Subordinates may rate the leader as  effective because he or she does not make  them work very hard and vise­versa.  McGraw­Hill/Irwin © 2002 The McGraw­Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved 4­10 Variations of Leadership studies Feature                     Common                   Uncommon Research method Surveys Experiments Time frame Static Longitudinal Research objective Replication Explore new issues Locus of  leadership Causality Heroic individual Shared/distributed Unidirectional Reciprocal Data sources Single Multiple Level of leader Supervisor Executive McGraw­Hill/Irwin Source: G. Yukl, Reflections and Directions in Leadership Research © 2002 The McGraw­Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved 4­11 Critical Thinking Questions  Practitioners Should Ask Who is the sample? What is the situation? What leadership qualities, characteristics,  or behaviors are being assessed? How is leadership success being  determined? How do the writers link leadership  assessment to success?  McGraw­Hill/Irwin © 2002 The McGraw­Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved 4­12 ... • The most effective leaders use different  bases of power to meet situational  demands McGraw­Hill/Irwin © 2002 The McGraw­Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved 4 4 Competency  Model  The set of skills, knowledge, abilities, or ... © 2002 The McGraw­Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved 4 8 Drawbacks Of Using Superiors’  Ratings 4 9 • Ratings may not be an accurate reflection  of performance because supervisors:  – May not take the time... McGraw­Hill/Irwin © 2002 The McGraw­Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved 4 6 The Relevance and Legality Of Unstructured Interview Questions  If you were any part of a car, what part  would you be and why?