Leadership Behaviors
Introduction
Leadership behavior has a great influence on how an organization performs. For instance, the culture of a leader, leadership style and the interaction between leader and subordinates are related and greatly impact on an organization. This is shown by analysis of the studies carried out on these three aspects. The culture, style of leadership and leader-subordinate interaction can be used to examine the behavior of a leader. This shows that these three aspects influence how a leader behaves and consequently have an impact on the general operation and performance of an organization.
Studies
Leadership behavior entails different aspects. For instance, it includes the styles of leadership as well as the way in which leaders interact with the other employees in the organization. One of the leadership styles is the culturally-linked styles of leadership. Jogulu carried out an analysis of these. The purpose of this article was to determine if the styles of leadership in organizations were influenced by culture. Thus, it examined how contexts of different regions shaped the people’s understanding about leadership. Through this, one could get the perception of leadership in various cultures. In every organization, there is cultural diversity. Therefore, the article relates culture and leadership and thus creating a general understanding that diversity in the place of work is important. Since the world today is seen as a global village, Jogulu wanted to show this and thus prove that organizations can operate in different areas. Since we live in a world of diversity, we can not ignore the fact that there exists a relationship between culture and styles of leadership. Through analysis, Jogulu found out that in different cultural groups, there existed significant differences in the styles of leadership. This then proved the fact that in diverse situations, culture and leadership interact and this happens in different ways just the same way the cultures are different.
The style of leadership is influenced by the behavior of the leader. How a leader leads the people in their organization is greatly determined by their behaviors. It is through these behaviors that a leader decides on the leadership style to adopt. These can be values that are inborn or acquired through education, observation of other leaders as well as experience in leadership which helps the leader to know how to deal with the other employees. However, different leadership contexts may require different styles of leadership. Therefore, as a leader, one should be flexible to ensure that they can lead well in different contexts. Thus comes the need to examine different behaviors of a leader and how they influence their styles of leadership.
One of the ways to examine this is by examining the combinative aspects of the style of leadership and the leadership behavior interactions. This tests a different interaction perspective on the basis of the combination of different behaviors by leaders. These are socio-emotional and task-oriented leadership. The article examines whether socio-emotional and task-oriented leadership effect followers. Examination was based on these two behaviors since in today’s leadership in organizations, behaviors can be categorized as socio-emotional or task-oriented behaviors. According to Casimir, this is an area that had been forgotten. Therefore, to measure this effect, two methods were used. These are single item measure and descriptive index. These methods measured how the employee was satisfied with the leader. In addition, the leadership behaviors of the leader were also measured and this was done by the single item measure only. It was found out that the level to which employees were satisfied with the combination of the leadership styles increases the effects of these leadership styles on employee satisfaction.
The behavior and style of leadership determine the quality of leadership that a leader offers. As a leader, one should interact with their subordinates. It is through interaction that the leader gets to know how to deal with different people since different people execute different patterns of behavior. When a leader freely interacts with their subordinates, they will also have a feeling of belonging in the organization and thus will also strive to work more and have a good relationship with the leader. The quality of the interaction that exists between a leader and their subordinates determine the effectiveness of the leader. Through this interaction, there will be improved performance and thus the organization will grow in terms of its productivity. With such knowledge, it is thus necessary to carry out the examination of leader interactions with their subordinates.
This can be done by examining the empathy of the leader, ethical leadership and behaviors that are relations-oriented as leader-member exchange quality antecedents. According to the leader-member exchange theory, with time, there develops an exchange relationship between the leader and their subordinates. The leader-member exchange relationship can be explained by the role theory and social exchange theory. These two theories explain the relationship that gradually develops through the interaction of a leader and their subordinates. However, leaders interact differently with different subordinates. Leader-member exchange relationship can either be high quality or low quality. These qualities have great implications on the effectiveness of the leader. A leader can be said to be more effective if there can exist high quality exchange relationships between them and most of the subordinates. This shows that there is great commitment to the organization, low employee turnover, better performance in jobs as well as high satisfaction among the subordinates. The purpose of this analysis was to determine how relations oriented behavior, ethical values and empathy of the leader associated with leader-member exchange quality. In this analysis, Mahsud found out that the oriented behavior of the leader interceded the relationship that existed between empathy of the leader and leader-member exchange quality. It also partially interceded ethical values of a leader and the leader-member exchange quality.
Synthesis of the studies
The research shows that the leader’s culture, the style of leadership as well as the interaction between leader and subordinates are all related. There exists a similarity in the way the analyses were carried out to reach at the conclusions. All researches included the collection of data by use of questionnaires. Questionnaires are an effective method of data collection because the researcher gets first hand information from the intended respondents. The three researches used statistical analysis of data. For example, in examining the culturally linked leadership styles, the researcher used the t-tests and analysis of variance in comparing the means of different groups of management. Since the use of questionnaires gives first hand information, this then shows that there are minimal chances of making errors. Furthermore, during the interpretation of questionnaires, the researcher accounts for possible errors. Therefore, we can conclude that the data obtained was valid.
From the articles, the conclusions that the researchers have made are based on the data obtained. For instance, the examination of how culture was linked to leadership was carried out among managers in Malaysia. Thus, the results and analysis obtained were strongly used to make the conclusions. These studies present numerous strengths. For instance, the researchers made use of questionnaires and this showed that they got the relevant information. In addition, statistical methods of analysis are known to present a high degree of accuracy. This is because the researcher is able to calculate errors and thus they remain with information that can be said to possess a high degree of efficiency. The conclusions have been made on the basis of the data obtained and just as would be expected of a quality research, the researchers gave recommendations for further research. The weakness of the research is that it was carried out on specified areas and assumptions made that this was a representative of all other areas. From the research, we can positively identify that styles of leadership, culture and interactions have influences on the performance of an organization. However, one can not tell the extend to which these three factors influence organizational performance.
Conclusion
The research shows that there exists a relationship between the culture of the leader, the style of leadership and the interaction between leader and subordinates. These three impact on the way the organization performs. For future research I can recommend that data be obtained from various sources so as to ensure a better comparison.
Future research questions: to what extend do leadership styles linked to culture associate to effective leadership?
How does the examination of leader-member exchange quality take care of respondent biasness?
How does culture affect the behavior of the leader by examining the satisfaction of the subordinates?
References
Casimir, J. (2010). Combinative aspects of leadership style and the interaction between leadership behaviors. Retrieved from: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1881486&show=html. Accessed February 10, 2011.
Jogulu, U.D. (2010). Culturally-linked leadership styles. Retrieved from: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1891498. Accessed February 10, 2011.
Mahsud, R. (2009). Leader empathy, ethical leadership, and relations-oriented behaviors as antecedents of leader-member exchange quality. Retrieved from: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1876698. Accessed February 10, 2011.
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