Dimensions of Leadership
Dimensions of Leadership
Mann’s three skills
Floyd Mann views leadership as comprising of a trilogy of skills expected of managers and supervisors. These skills are the technical skills, human relations skills and administrative skills. Technical skills involve the ability of mangers to use techniques, equipments, methodologies and knowledge for them accomplishes a given task. Skills on human relations involve the ability and judgment of a leader to work through and with people based on their knowledge on the principles that make up human behavior, human motivation, and interpersonal relations. Administrative skills involve the ability to act and understand the comprehensive objectives of the organization and not just on the need and goals of a given group of people in the organization. In order to work towards these goals, it is essential for the mangers and leaders to plan, assign, and organize work to people with the right qualifications.
The leader will go ahead to coordinate, follow up, and inspect their work. The Dimensions of leadership involve different theories that suggest an aggregate of different behaviors that can be classified into different ways. The Ohio State Leadership Studies present a list of four orthogonal aspects of dimensions that the present leadership behavior. These are consideration, initiating structure, production emphasis, and sensitivity. From these four factors, one can relate them to Mann’s three skills. For instance, sensitivity and consideration fall into the Human relation skill in Mann’s three main skills. The production and initialing aspects of behavior fall under Mann’s administrative skill.
Another cluster that defines the behavior of a leader is presented by the University of Michigan Survey Research Center. In the aim to deal with the problem of supervisor and leadership style, the Michigan university survey developed two main clusters which are those that positively correlate and those that correlate with effectiveness. The program came up with two key concepts; production orientation and employee orientation. The concept of employee orientation is based on human relation skill, and this can be seen in Mann Three Skills. Production orientation is based on the technical and production aspect of a job. This concept is also seen in Mann’s administrative and technical skills.
Zander and Caerwright in their study develop a set of group functions that describe leadership behavior. These are; the goal achievement function that involve being an initiator, planner, attention to goal, and evaluator of the work done. This function relates to Mann’s administrative skills. The second function suggested by the researchers is the group maintenance function. This is behavior on interpersonal relation seen in Mann’s interpersonal skills. In summary, Mann’s three skills comprehensively put together the three main skills described by various theories on the actual character that truly define the behavior of a leader. The dimension’s factors presented by University of Michigan Survey Research Center, Zander and Caerwright, and the Ohio State Leadership Studies are all found in Mann’s Three Skills.
“Structure” and the turnover of personnel
The various dimensions that define the basic behaviors of leaders and managers have aspects that are held in common. The studies present four main attributes that form the basic structure of leadership. These aspects include; facilitation of interaction, support, goal emphasis and work facilitation. These combinations of factors that form the structure of leadership have a direct relationship with employee turnover. Employees need support in all aspects they do from their managers and supervisors. Without the right support, employees will feel that they are of no importance or worth to the organization, and this will make them quit. Facilitating interaction is another aspect that a leader should do in order to retain employees.
Through interaction with employees, the leader will establish satisfying and close relationship. Thus, making employees is committed, and feel are valuable part of the organization. By setting goals, employees will be aware of the roles to play in order to realize the targeted goals. Goal setting motivates and stimulates employees into achieving their individual and group goals and in excelling in their performance. Lastly, the aspect of work facilitation provides employees with a manner to carry out their tasks. It also means empowering with knowledge and skills, and the needed tools and materials to do their work.
“Self-sacrifice” and “leadership effectiveness
Self-sacrifice is the willingness of a person to suffer loss so as to maintain ones values and beliefs. In leadership, the concept of self sacrifice shows that the leader is willing to take the risk and suffer personal cost so as to serve the mission and goals of the organization or a group of people. Self –sacrifice of a leader shows favorable perceptions of leadership, such as, charisma. Self-sacrifice has been proposed as an aspect within the leadership effectiveness criteria just like pro social behavior and organizational citizenship attribute. Psychological explanations to explain the fact that self sacrificing leaders are effective is based on the belief that the leader is ready to motivate other people. This is not to focus on their personal interests, but to examine the welfare of the collective whole. This makes the followers of such leaders to develop a sense of identity to the goals, mission, and the organization as a whole.
LMX relationship
Leader –member exchange (LMX) is a theory that examines the dyadic process that expectations and roles are developed by a leader from his subordinate. The subordinate relation differs. Some might be of high –exchange relationship while others will be of low exchange subordinate. The high exchange subordinate is mainly characterized by high respect, liking and trust level and a mutual exchange is expected. The subordinate will influence the behavior of the leaders in high exchange relationship because the leaders are aware of the needs of subordinate. Therefore, the leaders will work towards providing the expected outcomes through larger rewards, additional responsibilities and fascinating task. In turn, the subordinates become loyal to their leader and are committed to their work. In a low-quality exchange relationship, the subordinate performs their jobs as formerly expected of them. The leader does not give them extra benefits. The subordinates do not have a say, but follower orders and are not involved in decision making. They easily lose interest with their work. The LMX theory impacts on leaders behavior based on how they will delegate responsibilities, recognition of the subordinates contributions and achievement, consulting with the subordinates, and provision of training and coaching to subordinate. The leader’s behavior can be desirable based on the low or high exchange relationship that they form with their employees.
Leadership perception processes
Leader’s perception forms a central part in the way they make decisions. Individual culture or cultural dimensions can impact on an individual wellbeing, perceptions, and behaviors. The leader’s cultural dimensions impact on their attitudes and behaviors. This will determine the framework that they will use in order to reach decisions. Power Distance and collectivism- individualism are variables that impact on the internal work practices and culture of an organization. This will in turn impact on management practices of the organization, such as a reward system, performance management, and design. Uncertainty avoidance is a fundamental aspect for assuring the members of an organization that the things to do will be done best, and power distances is also relevant for it determines the right channel for decision making in accordance to the hierarchical relation that is accepted by all or based on paternalism. Fatalism is based on the belief that outcomes of a person’s outcome or groups cannot be controlled. It is a cultural dimension that affects an organization.
Reference
Henry A (2006) leadership development and change management. A survey of conceptual and empirical leadership literature, P 218-231.
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