How Researchers Have Looked at Leadership
Kaiser and his colleagues further extended Lord's work on leadership into four different ways that researchers have looked at leaders. They have examined: (1) what causes leaders to stand out, (2) how the approval of leaders is determined, (3) what constitutes an effective leader, and (4) the performance/outcomes of teams.
The first, sometimes referred to as emergent leadership, has to do with standing out. The focus here has been on people who stand out in one way or another, that is, they are seen by others to be leader like. That can include everything from being tall, having a deep voice, being extraverted, having charisma, or any of a number of characteristics that “stand out.” If you ever worked on a team that was put together to work on a project without a designated leader, you have some understanding of this. Eventually, someone will be seen as the group leader, even if informally. Without a leader, any team will have a difficult time functioning.
If there is one place that “standing out” is seen as important, it has been in the corporate world. Unfortunately, selecting leaders who stand out may be a contributing factor to our problems in corporate leadership, as well as staff engagement, today. In an entertaining book Leonard Sayles,26 almost like a fly on the wall, has documented the steps one takes in climbing the corporate ladder in today's organizations. The sad truth is that it almost reads like the book used in the old Broadway show How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
Based on Sayles's observations in a number of organizations, starting from an entry position and getting promoted generally requires following a few rules. First, you want to avoid confrontation. People seen as argumentative or challenging the status quo are not seen as management material. Second, withholding suggestions for improvement in the organization will make you seem more agreeable. By favoring the status quo and resisting change, you are seen as supporting what management has put in place. Third, do not ask your boss to champion “unpopular” positions. Even if these positions could save the company thousands of dollars, you're better off keeping your head down. Fourth, and very importantly, always agree with your boss. If your boss sees you as disagreeable you are unlikely to get promoted. Fifth, spend your time on presentation skills and looking good. Dressing right, being well spoken, and wowing an audience – either in a boardroom or staff meeting – will get you noticed. And, of course, getting noticed as a smooth talker is what this type of leadership is about. Sixth, you have to be seen as having a strong desire to advance your career and look better than your peers. So it's important to drop hints to people with power that you could add a lot to the organization once you have the right position in the organization. Of course it helps to let them know how some of your coworkers may be slacking off, or just not up to snuff, in your humble opinion. And finally, always be working on your next advancement. Spend most of your time and energy, not on the tasks assigned to you per se, but on the activities and behaviors that are important to get that next promotion.
Unfortunately, as you can probably guess, being overly career focused does not lead to team or organizational success. One of the best examples of being overly focused on career has been documented by the former army officer and psychologist Norman Dixon.27 He researched the British military during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. What he found was astounding. Basically, the British officers' preoccupation with status and promotion caused the death of tens of thousands of soldiers and the loss of dozens of strategic positions. It was all about “looking good” instead of “doing good.” His observations from the military can easily be applied to many organizational settings even today.
The skills one uses in career success are usually unrelated to, and sometimes the opposite of, the skills a leader needs to achieve team success. For example, to manage your career you should focus on socializing or networking with others, politicking (paying attention to who is important and who isn't and how to get closer to those with power), and networking with outsiders. Basically, you should be building your reputation both inside and outside the organization so when it comes time for a promotion, or when someone you've networked with outside the organization hears of a new opportunity, you immediately come to mind as a likely candidate.
On the other hand, in order to be an effective team leader and get things done, a different set of skills come into play. These include communicating clearly and delivering the right messages to subordinates or team members. Getting things done means that everyone on your team needs to know exactly what is expected of them. You also need to know how to motivate others to work for a common cause. As a team leader you may have to know how to discipline team members who are performing poorly. As conflicts arise within the team you will have to know how to resolve these conflicts. Conflict resolution is a key component of leading an effective team.
In order for you to lead a team it's also important to know how to staff the team. When adding new members or replacing old ones you need to know what skills are required and how to select for them. Finally, as a team leader it's important to know the training needs of your subordinates. People tend to grow in their jobs and will need to pick up new information and skills to keep current.
The second way leaders have been measured in the research literature has been based on approval ratings. While standing out has been common in corporate environments, approval is likely most common in the political arena. We generally cast votes on politicians based on how we feel about them. While many people vote by political party, and some vote for policies, the deciding factor in most elections has likely more to do with how you feel about the candidate (either good or bad). Even when looking at research in the corporate environment, Kaiser's review reported that most studies focused on people's feelings about the leader, as opposed to the results or outcomes attributed to that leader. Sometimes we see this in 360 ratings that subordinates complete on their supervisors.
Next, there have been studies that have focused on leader effectiveness. When looking at the effectiveness of a leader, we can look at two different kinds of studies. The first group looks at the effectiveness of leaders in influencing team members, or the process of how the team functioned, for example, were they engaged? The second group of effectiveness studies focuses on the outcomes achieved by the team or organization.
In the first group of effectiveness studies, how the team plays is mainly about process and engagement. I sometimes compare this to the kind of outcome you look at with religious leaders. It's like measuring the effectiveness of a minister, priest, or rabbi by how many seats are filled in the pews each week, or how involved people are in the activities of the organization. The leader's effect on the team is the focus here. Are they present, are they engaged? I can almost hear them saying, “Amen.” When measuring this kind of influence that leaders have researchers would look at things like the group dynamics, climate, and culture as measurable factors.
One of the ways researchers have studied this type of leader effectiveness has been through what is called transformational/transactional leadership measures. Bass and Avolio28 developed the concept of transformational leadership to examine the ways in which leaders are influencing their teams