Leadership Schools

Develop the basis leadership models, and then discuss in more detail when studying the leader, the followers, and the situation. This is an overview of the evolution and development of leadership theories, principles and models that help us understand leadership better and how better to develop future leaders.

Hand out leadership schools.

Leadership Schools

School Timeframe Primary Themes

Historical Schools

Shaman 60,000-10,000BCE “He who knows”

Kings, Emperors 10,000BCe-1800CE Devine, Absolute Power

Plato 300BCE Philosopher Kings

Aristotle 300BCE The Virtuous Man

Machiavelli 1513 The Effectual Truth

Management Schools

F.W. Taylor 1911 Scientific Management

H. Fayol 1920s Managerial Functions

P.F. Drucker 1950s Management

Leadership Schools

Traits 1900 – Leader Characteristics

Great Man

Behavior 1940-1970s Leader Behaviors

Contingency 1930s- Tasks, Followers, Situation

Great Bang

Fiedler

House

Marx

Substitutes for Leadership

Charismatic 1960s Devine Gift

Transformational 1960s- Transcend Self Interest

Relational 1960s Leader-Follower Relations

Servant 1980s Meet Followers’ Needs

Strategic 1970s Strategic Decision Making

Authentic 2000 Truthful

Global 2000 Global Mindset

Biological 2000 Genetics, Neuroscience

I. Historical Schools

A. Shamans used their limited knowledge of science and the weather to rule people through “magic.”

Persian kings, Egyptian Pharaohs, Chinese Emperors were trained to be leaders – benevolent dictators.

Had bad emperor problem – live with it or kill him, but he is devine!

B. Plato – Philosopher Kings – bread, educated, trained to be leaders. Limiting the abuse of power by leaders has always been a major issue with leadership, and still is.

Plato tried by limiting consumption. Can’t keep you from getting wealth, but keep you from spending it so why bother.

C. Aristotle – the virtuous man – character, ethical, and the golden Mean to determine what is ethical – rash – brave – coward. Even trust must be balanced – trust but verify. Naïve – trust – cynical.

D. Machiavelli – The Prince, teleological, ends justify means, appear good but prepared to be evil when necessary. Lie, cheat, break word to achieve ends – free Italian state.

This was realistic – how leaders really were. Not how their PR directors portrayed them as descendants from the Gods like today.

II. Management Schools

No difference between management and leadership. Focus is on management.

Begins with Industrial Revolution, and development of large, complex business organizations in 19th C.

A. F.W. Taylor – (1911)

Scientific management – more engineering than management. People as machines.

Focused on optimizing worker productivity via tight controls. Design work effort to optimize output. The optimal size shovel. Similar to time and motion studies. Taylor is the father of Project Management.

B. Henri Fayol – 1916 seminal book. Six basic roles managers need to perform;

Forecasting

Organizing

Planning

Communicating,

Coordinating

Controlling

Go over Fayol notes. Managers role included: planning. Noted the importance of technical skills decline as you move up the leadership ladder.

C. P.F. Drucker – 20thC American management guru.

Many other management models; no difference between management and leadership. Leadership is one of the responsibilities of management. Leadership is not the focus of what leaders do.

III. Leadership Schools

A. Traits

Studied the characteristics of great leaders around the 1900s.

1. Great Man

Great Man – observed great leaders’ traits and compared with non-leaders. No theory of how they got these traits – born with them – or how their traits affected leadership.

Carlyle –

The history of the world is but the biographies of great men.

Ask: Are leaders born or made? Of course they are born, not hatched from eggs.

To some extent they are born; or at least certain characteristics and capabilities that produce good leadership are born and inherited:

IQ – inherited (if you are dumb, blame your parents). IQ does not improve much and it is important to leadership. However, other aspects of intelligence are also important, such as EQ, PQ, CQ, and SQ, and they can definitely be improved.

Being confident and a good speaker may be partly inherited.

Physical appearance and having a strong voice – born for the most part but you can improve and apply to extreme makeover.

Being tall (leader always sits higher than the rest) and stately, are definite leadership advantages.

George Washington was tall, but Napoleon was short (never got off his horse).

Many behaviors and traits are inherited or learned very early in life and are hard to change.

Many values and beliefs and cultural biases are formed very early in life from family, school, church and from early experiences and are hard to change.

While it certainly helps to be born with good mental and physical characteristics, your natural leadership ability can be improved significantly through study and practice.

But, it is like riding a bike – can’t just read about it – have to jump on and start peddling.

Actions you can take to become a better leader;

Seek leadership opportunities at work, school, social activities, and at home.

Seek feedback on your leadership style and effectiveness.

Take training courses offered at work

Learn something that will make you a better leader from each experience – good or bad.

Record and reflect on your experiences – AOR. Use your personal leadership development plan.

Take an active role in our team exercises. Use them to improve your skills.

Originally little more than hero worship.

2. Modern trait theories

A trait is a “distinguishing quality or characteristic.” some say a “genetically determined characteristic.” Traits are manifested in your personality.

Focus is again on the leader’s traits, personality characteristics – assertive, persistent, confident, agreeable, etc.

The goals are to identify the traits of leaders, make a list of these traits to see if people have these traits so they can identify future leaders.

Traits

Physical Personality Social

energy aggressive sensitive

weight friendly caring

height optimistic empathetic

appearance risk-taking extrovert

Problems with trait models

Correlations are weak (not stat. significant). Traits not correlated with effective leadership.

Could not identify any universal traits that characterized good leadership. Some great leaders have a trait and some do not. All great leaders are not empathetic for example.

However, two of the most important traits identified are:

Trustworthy – trust is the lubrication that makes it possible for organizations to work. Trust requires being predictable, reliable, and accountable.

We trust people who are predictable, whose positions are known, who can be relied upon to do what they say, and who are accountable – take responsibility for what they do.

Leaders are also persistent – failure is just another learning experience. Never failed is a liar or he never tried, says Abe Lincoln.