Friday, February 22, 2013

A511.6.4.RB_OYEYEMIOLUSANYA

Reflect on what you have read and viewed and what it means when we say that leaders must create a “cause” or "meaning." Relate this to the theory of leading change. Use examples and apply the work of others where necessary.

"Finding meaning" is probably a misnomer, however. Meaning is not a dropped coin we pick up by chance. It is more like fine pottery we craft. People have to create the meaning of their work and their lives, and that process requires skills and practice, not just luck. It is important for leaders to understand what makes an employee experience meaningful and what role they can play in this process. Even in unfavorable circumstances, people can experience an activity as meaningful when it resonates with chosen values, connects them with people they like, raises their sense of competence, or gives them an "ah-ha" moment of insight. From what we know about how the human brain works, the ability to create meaning is also enhanced by challenge(solving a problem that is not hard or too easy), emotional safety (fostered by friendship, fairness, and self-esteem), autonomy (Structure but not micromanagement), and, perhaps most importantly, learning from experienced meaning — makers. 
Dave and Wendy, (June 2, 2010),also added,seven drivers of meaning that leaders can leverage are identify as follows: 
1. Help employee identify and creatively use the strengths, traits, and values (like integrity—, leadership, love of learning, kindness, etc.) with which they most identify. Leader can help people improve their mental models about the way things work in organizations and the reasons for success or failure. For collective learning to be successful, team members must be able to develop a shared mental that is accurate and use it to interpret performance feedback. By helping people to understand complex systems, a leader can increase their ability to learn and solve problems. In this way, the leader also helps people  understand that they are not powerless and can collectively influence events in the organization Yukl, (2013, P.110).

2. Match the purpose (insight, achievement, connection, or empowerment) that motivate employees to the jobs they do. One way for leader to facilitate innovation is to recruit people who have the skill and enthusiasm to develop new ideas, and then empower them to pursue these ideas by providing necessary time and Yukl, (2013, P.109).

3. Foster friendships and key relationship-building skills-like making and receiving bids and apologizing effectively — to create high-performance, high-relating teams. Leaders find the common thread that weaves together the fabric of human needs into a colorful tapestry. They seek out the brewing consensus among those they would lead. In order to do this, they develop a deep understanding of the collective yearnings. They listen carefully for quiet whisperings in dark corners. They attend to the subtle cues. They sniff the air to get the scent. They watch the faces. They get a sense of what people want, what they value, what they dream about Kouzes and Posner (1987, P115).

4. Promote positive work environments through attention to characteristics like humility, selflessness, order, and openness. Active resistance indicates the presence of strong values, and emotions that could serve as a source of commitment if opponents are converted to supporters. It is essential to discuss a proposed change with the people who will be affected to learn about their concerns and their ideas about the best course of action Yukl, (2013, P.92). 

5. Help people identify and work at the types of challenges that line up with their personal experience of engagement or flow. One way to built follower optimism about vision is to link it to their ability to collectively solve problems and overcome difficult obstacles. If people have been successful in past efforts to accomplish difficult objectives, the leader can use these success to build confidence in their ability to do it again Yukl, (2013, P.105).

6. Build in time for both individual and corporate-level self-reflection to help people discover lesson from setbacks and develop the resilience to get in front of the pace of challenge. Leader can help people improve their one form of collective learning is to analyze feedback about prior performance. How such feedback is interpreted depends on what assumptions are made about the  causal relationships among variables and how much time is necessary for decisions and actions to have visible effects  Yukl, (2013, P.110).

7. Encaurage civility and delight from little things that personalize and civilize the world of work(e.g. time to chat, friendly competitions, pictures,and humor). Top management should provide encouragement, support and necessary resources to facilitate change, but should not try to dictate the details of how to do it Yukl, (2013, P.94). 

Conclusively, to paraphrase Nietche, "He who has a why to work can bear what almost any how". To get the most from their employees, leaders should do all they can to make this "why" clear. When it is necessary to make major changes in an organization, a vision of what the changes will do to achieve shared objectives and values is very helpful in gaining commitment for the change Yukl, (2013, P.96).

Reference:

Dave and Wendy Ulrich (June 2, 2010)
Getting Beyond Engagement to Creating Meaning at Work

Gary Yukl (2013)
Leadership Organization

Kouzes, J. M., and Posner, B.Z. (1987).
Credibility: How leaders gain and lose it, why people demand it. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 

Saturday, February 16, 2013


Traits and Skills of Leadership

The early trait studies attempted to identify physical characteristics, personality traits, and abilities of people who were believed to be “natural leaders.” Hundreds of trait studies were conducted, but individual traits failed to correlate in a strong and consistent manner with leadership effectiveness.  More progress was made after researchers included additional traits and skills and used better measures of traits and outcomes.  Nevertheless, much of the trait research continues to have weaknesses such as lack of adequate attention to situational variables, mediating processes, curvilinear relationships, and trait interactions. As in the case of leadership behaviour, some scholars have emphasized broadly defined categories of traits and skills that can make it more difficult to identify and understand important relationships.
Some personality trait found to be relevant for leadership advancement or effectiveness include energy level and stress tolerance, self-confidence, internal control orientation, emotional stability, extroversion, conscientiousness, and integrity.  The motive pattern characteristic of many effective managers includes a socialized power orientation and a moderately strong need for achievement with an emphasis on collective performance rather than individual performance.
To be successful, a leader also needs interpersonal, cognitive, and technical skills.  The relative priority of the three types of skill and the optimal mix of specific skills probably depends on the type of organization, the level of management, and the nature of the challenges confronting a leader.  Some skills such as persuasiveness, analytical ability, speaking ability, and memory for details will help a leader be successful in any situation, whereas some other skills are not easily transferred to a different type of position.  Competencies involve a combination of traits and some competencies examined in recent leadership research emotional intelligence, social intelligence, and the ability to learn and adapt to change.  The uniqueness and relevance of these competencies continues to be a controversial subject in the leadership literature.
The trait approach has important implications for improving managerial effectiveness. Information about traits and skills relevant for different types of managerial positions is useful for people who are planning a managerial career. The information is also useful for selecting people to fill managerial positions, for identifying training needs in the current job, and for planning management development activities to prepare the person for promotion to higher-level jobs.

Contingency Theories of Effective Leadership
The managerial job is too complex and unpredictable to rely on the same set of standardized responses for all situations. Effective leaders are continuously reading the situation determining how to adapt their behaviour to it. They seek to understand the task requirements, situational constraints, and interpersonal processes that determine which course of action is most likely to be successful. This chapter examined several contingency theories that prescribe different pattern of leader behaviour (or trait) for different situations.
The path-goal theory of leadership examines how aspects of the situation determine the optimal level of each type of leadership behaviour for improving subordinate satisfaction and effort. In the situational leadership theory, the appropriate mix of task and relations behaviour for the leader depends on the confidence and skill of a subordinate in relation to the task. Leadership substitutes theory identifies aspects of the situation that make leadership behavior redundant or irrelevant. The LPC Contingency theory described how situational favorability moderates the relationship between a leader trait (LPC) and group performance. Cognitive resources theory examines the conditions under which cognitive resources such as intelligence and experience are related to group performance. The multiple-linkage model describes how leader behaviour and aspects of the situation jointly influence individual or group performance. A leader can improve group performance by taking direct action to correct any deficiencies in the mediating variables, and over time the leader can improve group performance by taking action to make the situation more favorable.
The early contingency theories reviewed in this chapter are complex and difficult to test. Most of the theories have conceptual weaknesses such as over-emphasis on broadly-defined behaviors, exclusion of relevant situational variables, and unclear explanation of casual relationships and mediating processes.  Most studies conducted to test the contingency theories used weak research methods, and the results are difficult to interpret. None of the theories has been adequately tested, but the research provides support for some propositions in some of the theories. Additional knowledge about situational variables has been gained in research on more recent theories of effective leadership, and the findings are described in other chapters of the book.
The lack of strong, consistent results in research on contingency theories does not justify the conclusion that situation variables are irrelevant for understanding effective leadership. In an increasingly turbulent and uncertain world, flexible adaptive leadership seems even more relevant today than it was decades ago when the contingency theories were first proposed. Better contingency theories are needed to help managers understand and overcome the challenges confronting them. In future theories it is desirable to include both universal element (e.g., general principles) and situational elements (e.g., guidelines to help identify desirable behaviours for a particular type of situation).


Remote Transformational Leadership

Remote Transformational Leadership

Several studies have demonstrated the relationship union stewards' transformation in local union activities (e.g. Fullagar et al., 1992; Kelloway and Barling, 1993).1. The dynamic of transformational leadership involve followers having a strong personal identification with the leader, a shared vision for the future, and working collectively for the benefit of the group. Yammarino and Dubinsky (1994) describe transformational leaders as heightening awareness and interests in groups, increasing employee confidence, and gradually moving the followers' interests from the existence by illustrating four main characteristics:
A. idenlized influence;
B. inspirational motivation;
C. individual consideration; and
D. intellectual stimulation.
2. Charisma, a process where leaders arouse followers by being visionary, motivational and powerful, confident and captivating their followers (Bass, 1985), is the sum of inspirational motivation and idealized influence.
3. Leaders who display charismatic leadership are able to use expressive language that is emotionally appealing and communicate a clear vision that is related to the need and values of the followers(Yukl and Van Fleet, 1992).
4. Leaders display intellectual stimulation when they help their followers develop new ideas, motivating them to take alternative routes to problem solving and take a closer look at all possible solutions.
5. Individualized consideration occurs when leaders pay individual attention to their followers, providing  support and acting as coach.

Leadership interactions that are characterized by electronically-madiated communication between geographically and physically isolated leaders and followers term "remote" leadership and constitutes the focus for the current research. It was pointed out that, effect of leadership on performance was negatively affected by the leader and the follower (Howell and Hall-Merenda, 1999; Podsakoff et al., 1984).

Fosterand Coovert (2002) found that there were communication problems among team members using computer-mediad communications, and that there were higher recorded inaccuracies in the computer-mediated teams than in teams that met face-to-face.

The first research methods to proof this points wrong was Vignette approach. Vignette methodology assess whether recipients could identify leadership messages when presented in e-mails. The result of this study show that individuals can indeed differentiate between different leadership styles within e-mails. Second, consistent with expectations, e-mails containing transformational leadership messages associated with greater interpersonal justice and satisfaction compared to messages based on the management-by-exception or laissez-faire styles. Vignette studies reflect a minimal intervention, reducing the extent to which lesson can be generaralize. The purpose of the second study was to expand on and constructively replace initial findings.

The second research based on laboratory investigation, individual exposed to e-mail messages containing a charismatic or intellectually stimulating message would express higher levels of task motivation and demonstrate higher level of performance on laboratory task than individuals who received e-mail instructions that did not contain these aspects of transformational leadership. Main effects for both intellectual stimulation and charisma but no additive effect between the two dimensions of transformational leadership.

Method
Data were collected from 105 undergraduate psychology students at a canadian university. The task required participants to read a short scenario describing a survival situation in which they have become stranded on a mountain with limited supplies during a winter storm. The task is to rank order a list of supplies in term of importance for survival(1-most important, 12 - least important).
Each participant was giving a copy of e-mail containing either a charismatic, intellectually stimulating, neutral (neither charismatic nor stimulating), or transformational (both charismatic and stimulating) message.
Participant were assigned randomly to groups according to which message they had received. Groups had approximately 25 minute to complete the task collectively. Groups ranged between three and six members with an average of four members per group.
Individual were asked to complete a brief post-task questionire. As manipulation checks,

Results

Manipulation checks, participants who receive an e-mail in which the leader expressed intellectual stimulation rated that leader as being more intellectually stimulating than when the leader did not express intellectual stimulation. Participant who receive an e-mail in which the leader charisma rated that leader as being more charismatic than when the leaders did not express charisma. There was no effect of the charisma manipulation on the measure of intellectual stimulation.
Motivation and performance, motivation was higher when participants reads an intellectually stimulating e-mail than when they did not. Similarly, individual performance was better when the e-mail was from an intellectually stimulating leader than when it was not. An e-mail from a charismatic leader had no significant effect on motivation but was associated with better individual performance.
Group performance was greater when the groups had an intellectually stimulating e-mail than when they did not. Similarly, group performance was better when the groups had read an e-mail from a charismatic leader than when they did not.

With all these findings, it is obvious the same effects may well be obtained when the leader-follower communication is electronically mediated rather than transmitted directly.
In summary, the present findings suggest that remote transformational leadership can still have the same positive effects on performance and attitudes that occurs within face-to-face interaction. Moreover, findings suggest that electronically mediated communication channels may be used to convey the same leadership "message" as in face-to-face interaction, which questions the suggestion that leader-follower distance has a negative effect on performance and followers' perceptions of their leader. While these findings await replication in field settings, they suggest considerable promise for the effectiveness of remote transformational leadership.


References:

E. Kevin Kelloway
Department of Management, Saint Mary's University, Halifx, Nova Scotia, Canada
Julian Barling
School of Business, Queen' University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Elizabeth Kelley
Department of Management, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Julie Comtois
school of Business, Queen's University, Hingston, Ontario, Canada
Bernadette Gatien
Department of Psycology, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Fullagar,C., McCoy, D. and Shull, C.(1992),
"The socialization of union loyalty", Journal of Organization Behavior, Vol. 13, pp. 13-26.
Kelloway, E.K.and Barling, J.(1993),
 "Members'partcipation in local union activities: measurement, prediction, and replication",Journal of Applied psychology, vol. 78, pp. 2622-79.
Yammarino. F.J. and Dubinsky, Dubinsky, A.J. (1994),
"Transformational Leadership theory: using levels of analysis to determine boundary conditions", Personnel Psychology, Vol. 47, pp. 787-811.
Bass, B.M. (1985),
Leadership and performance Beyond Expectations, Basic Books, New York, NY.
Yukl, G. and Van Fleet,D.(1992), "Theory and research on leadership in organizations", in Dunnette, M.D. and Hough, L.H.(Eds), Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, pp. 147-99, Consulting Psychologists press, Palo Alto, CA.
Howell and Hall-Merenda, 1999; Podsakoff et al., 1984
Fosterand Coovert (2002) 

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Reflect on the week’s readings and content. In your own words, summarize key points related to managerial motivation, traits, and effectiveness. 

Managerial motivation is the ability of a leader to influence subordinate with his/her managerial skill. Motivation is a complex phenomenon. Several theories attempt to explain how motivation works. In management circles, probably the most popular explanations of motivation are based on the needs of the individual.A strong need for power is relevant to managerial role requirements involving the use of power and influence. Leader should be able to exercise power to influence subordinates, peers, and superiors. A motivated leader exercise power for the benefit others need, not for his own selfish interest, they do not intimidate subordinate, nor feel too big of the post they're occupying. They have vision to better the organization,less material possession,ready to take advice from subordinate and colleagues in the same profession. A number of factors can motivate a person to reach a goal, including: A challenge, money, praise, satisfaction,freedom, fear, family, insecurity, Competition,fulfillment,integrity, honor, reputation, responsibility,prestige,needs, and love. Any of these motivators can prompt an employee to action. A motivational leader uses participative , coaching style of managerial behavior and less of autocratic(who commands and expects compliance, who is dogmatic and positive, and leads by the ability to withhold or give rewards and punishment). Giving suggestion and allow other members of the group to contribute instead of imposing orders. This make subordinates have the sense of belonging, co-operate and participate more.
Managerial traits, the emphasis of early researchers in detecting a good leader was on the traits of loyalty, bravery, trustworthiness and compassion. They said that a person having these trait will be good and successful leader. However, further studies presented leadership personal traits referred to as "Big Five" to include: Surgency-extroversion(outgoing), energy/activity level need for power(assertive);Conscientiousness-dependability personal integrity need for achievement;Agreeableness-cheerful and optimistic nurturance (sympathetic, helpful), need for affiliation;Adjustment-emotional stability,self-esteem,self-control;Intelligence-curious and inquisitive,open minded learning oriented.
An effective leader should be able to leverage motivational skills and big five personal trait. Leader should be able to adjust their focus to challenges, contingent thinking, flexibility and diatomic capability to be effective leader.

Then assess your own leadership skills, traits, and competencies. Where are you strong? How can you leverage those strengths to improve your value to organizations like your employer? How might contingency theory and situational variables assist in that process? 
Assessing my leadership skills, traits, and competencies with my understanding of Yukl text will be an affirmative of specific traits related to leadership effectiveness. These can be define in all capacities that I have served in the past to present.High energy level and stress tolerance help me cope with the hectic pace, long hours, and unrelenting demands of most managerial job. I work late to get things done, most especially when there are limited information sources. I see myself as being emotionally mature,self-awareness of strengths and weakness, and oriented self-improvement instead of denying weaknesses and fantasizing success. I used to be intimidated with a new challenge but through persistent, I gain more confidence and become master.
In all the places I have served, my story has always be" the best actor leave the stage while the ovation is loudest" Both my boss and subordinate will not want me to leave, even my peer.  I value my integrity,which  make me design the way people perceive me which is of great honor in religious setting.Taking responsibility for my actions even when I make mistakes.Integrity is an important aspect of ethical, authentic, and spiritual leadership Yukl (2013, p.150). 
I used to expect more in my achievement orientation now, little did I know that I am inline, with what Yukl point out on page 152 that,"managers with a moderately high amount of achievement motivation are more effective than managers with low achievement, or managers with very high achievement motivation.
Interpersonal skill, has enhance my effectiveness of relationship-oriented behavior. Specific types of interpersonal skills such as empathy, social insight, charm, tact and diplomacy, persuasiveness, and oral communication. Ability to use cues from others to understand behavior how it affect other people. This skill is sometimes called "self-monitoring," and it helps people adjust their behavior to fit the requirements of the situation (snyder, 1974; Zaccaro, Foli, & Kenny, 1991). I think there is need to work on professional social network which is my area of weakness, to widen my sources of information in time of challenges. Contingency theory and situational variables will help if flexible.





References: Francis olowe(2005), Alexandra P. Young-Adams (2011), Gary Yukl (2013).

Saturday, February 2, 2013

A511.3.4.RB_OLUSANYAO

Demonstrate your knowledge of the theory of power and influence, reflect on the power that you personally bring to your work place. 

  • What are the sources and nature of the power? 
  • How is it used or not used?
  • How is that power related to your ability to lead or follow? 
Yukil point out that,to be effective as a leader it is necessary to influence people to carry out request, support proposals, and implement decisions. Influence is a tool that spread like laughter when you look at someone laughing directly in the eye, there is 99% tendency that you will put on a smiling face, so it work for a sad face. Influence in one direction tends to enhance influence in other direction. In large organizations, the effectiveness of managers depends on influence over superiors and peers as well as influence over subordinates.

Power on the other hand is used to describe the total capacity of an individual leader to influence the behavior of designated target person at a given time. Leader's influence can be over a single person or over multiple target person. As a middle manager, when you invent a new idea that influence your subordinate to be committed and more productive, the output will attract your superior to build more trust in your capacity. Indirectly, you have influence your superior and He(supervisor) will make reference to you before your peers to emulate your ideas and so, you influence your peers as well.  

To reflect on the power that I personally bring to my work place.
Everyday, I challenge myself of solving a technical problem base on my area specialization. Most especially, a problem where many have struggle upon but still have no solution. I task myself extra research to resolve it. My referent power shows the desire of others even beyond my devision to please me in any request I placed before them, always willing to render personal assist.

Many time, when my superior advises my peer of their attitude to their duties usually make reference to me. Some of my peers and superior that were employed ahead of me are now taking some challenges and making them more productive than ever. Even in other division, they make reference to my zealousness that spread my name across the command, to the extent that I won an award in my first development that I was not even aware that exist. Though I am an enlisted, but my reference power has shown my superior my ability to lead, now they assign some leadership responsibility to me and have confidence in me, which has being proofing productive so far.

My experiences of high quality LMX situation within my workplace.
Due to my previous explanation of my Zealousness at work, I enjoy higher quality leader-member exchange when my peers enjoy lower quality leader-member exchange. When I make suggestions, it is honor even within my limited time of service. At times, I advise my boss on a better way to supervise effectively and it has been working for us. I also advise my boss to reduce the way he praises me before my peer so that, the differential treatment will not be obvious and leads to dysfunctional consequences. Some of my peers have started grumbling of differential treatment.

This support the idea that high quality leader-member exchange is characterized by mutual trust, liking, respect and reciprocal influence between the leader and team members (Liden and Maslyn, 1998). Subordinates who enjoy high quality leader-member exchange with their leader enjoy more freedom in performing their work, are usually given better job assignments and more support, have more opportunities to work with the leader and more experience more trust in the relationship (Ashkanasy and O'connor, 1997; Bruk-lee and spector,2006). 

I 'll like to submit in support of Rozhan Othman's view that; leader-member exchange is an important element in developing effective work relationships in work teams ( Green et al, 2006 ). The single reason why the situation has not turn to dysfunctional leader-member exchange in our team is that people involve sees the exchange as reasonably fair. When I won award, my peer came to me and said, "O! Boy , you really deserve it." That shows they can answer why high quality LMX exist and lower quality also exist. Scandura (1999) points out that the differentiated treatment of team members into in-group and out-group can be accepted by team members if leaders are seen to behave in a just manner, which is the case in my division.

References;

Gary Yukl 2013.