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PREFACE
As this ninth edition of Leadership: Theory and Practice goes to press, the number of confirmed deaths worldwide from the COVID19 pandemic is over 1 million. The horrific nature of this pandemic has challenged societies on a global scale and highlights for all of us the importance of understanding how leadership works and the value of leadership in times of crisis. To that end, this edition is written with the objective of bridging the gap between the often-simplistic popular approaches to leadership and the more abstract theoretical approaches. Like the previous editions, this edition reviews and analyzes a selected number of leadership theories, giving special attention to how each theoretical approach can be applied in realworld organizations. In essence, my purpose is to explore how leadership theory can inform and direct the way leadership is practiced.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peter G. Northouse
PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Communication in the School of Communication at Western Michigan University. Leadership: Theory and Practice is the best-selling academic textbook on leadership in the world and has been translated into 16 languages. In addition to authoring publications in professional journals, he is the author of Introduction to Leadership: Concepts and Practice (now in its fifth edition) and co-author of Leadership Case Studies in Education (now in its third edition) and Health Communication: Strategies for Health Professionals (now in its third edition). His scholarly and curricular interests include models of leadership, leadership assessment, ethical leadership, and leadership and group dynamics. For more than 30 years, he has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in leadership, interpersonal communication, and organizational communication on both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Currently, he is a consultant and lecturer on trends in leadership research, leadership development, and leadership education. He holds a doctorate in speech communication from the University of Denver, and master’s and bachelor’s degrees in communication education from Michigan State University
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
Donna Chrobot-Mason,
PhD, is an associate professor and director of the Center for Organizational Leadership at the University of Cincinnati (UC). She is director of UC Women Lead, a 10-month executive leadership program for high-potential women at UC. Her research and consulting work has spanned two decades and centers on leadership across differences and strategies for creating organizations that support diversity, equity, and inclusion and foster intergroup collaboration. She has published nearly 40 articles and scholarly works in journals such as the Journal of Management , The Leadership Quarterly , Journal of Organizational Behavior , and Group and Organization Management . She has served on the editorial review board for the Journal of Management , Personnel Psychology , and the Journal of Business and Psychology . Her book (co-authored with Chris Ernst), Boundary Spanning Leadership: Six Practices for Solving Problems, Driving Innovation, and Transforming Organizations , was published by McGraw-Hill Professional in 2010. Dr. Chrobot-Mason has been invited to address numerous audiences including the Brookings Institute, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Environmental Protection Agency, Internal Revenue Service, Catholic Health Partners, and the International Leadership Association. She has consulted with numerous organizations including Briggs and Stratton, Dayton Public Schools, BoehringerIngelheim, Emory University, Milacron, and Forest City Enterprises. She holds a PhD and master’s degree in applied psychology from the University of Georgia.
Crystal L. Hoyt
is a professor and associate dean for academic affairs, and holds the Thorsness Endowed Chair in Ethical Leadership at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. Her research explores the role of belief systems, such as mindsets, selfefficacy, stereotypes, and political ideologies, in a range of social issues including stigma and discrimination, ethical failures in leadership, leadership and educational achievement gaps, public health, and wealth inequality. Dr. Hoyt’s research appears in journals such as Psychological Science, Journal of Experimental and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Group Processes & Intergroup Relations , and The Leadership Quarterly . She has published over 70 journal articles and book chapters and has co-edited three books. Dr. Hoyt is an associate editor at the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General , is on the editorial boards at Leadership Quarterly and Sex Roles , and has served as a reviewer for over 45 journals.
Susan E. Kogler
Hill (PhD, University of Denver, 1974) is Professor Emeritus and former chair of the School of Communication at Cleveland State University. Her research and consulting have been in the areas of interpersonal and organizational communication. She specializes in group leadership, teamwork, empowerment, and mentoring. She is author of a text titled Improving Interpersonal Competence . In addition, she has written book chapters and published articles in many professional journals.
Quinetta Roberson,
PhD, is the John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor of Management and Psychology at Michigan State University. Prior to her current position, she was an Endowed Chair at Villanova University and a tenured professor at Cornell University. She has been a visiting scholar at universities on six continents and has more than 20 years of global experience in teaching courses, facilitating workshops, and advising organizations on diversity and inclusion, leadership, and talent management. Dr. Roberson has published over 40 scholarly journal articles and book chapters and edited a Handbook of Diversity in the Workplace (2013). Her research and consulting work focus on developing organizational capability and enhancing effectiveness through the strategic management of people, particularly diverse work teams, and is informed by her background in finance, having worked as a financial analyst and small business development consultant prior to obtaining her doctorate. She earned her PhD in organizational behavior from the University of Maryland and holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in finance.
Stefanie Simon
is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Siena College. She earned her PhD in social psychology from Tulane University and was the Robert A. Oden Jr. Postdoctoral Fellow for Innovation in the Liberal Arts at Carleton College before joining the faculty at Siena. Her research centers on the psychology of diversity, with a focus on prejudice, discrimination, and leadership. In her work, she focuses on the perspective of the target of prejudice and discrimination, as well as the perspective of the perpetrator of prejudice and discrimination. She is particularly interested in how leaders of diverse groups can promote positive intergroup relations and reduce inequality in society. She has published articles in various psychology and leadership journals including The Leadership Quarterly , Group Processes & Intergroup Relations , Social Psychological and Personality Science , and Sex Roles.
Introduction
Leadership is a highly sought-after and highly valued commodity. In the 25 years since the first edition of this book was published, the public has become increasingly captivated by the idea of leadership. People continue to ask themselves and others what makes good leaders. As individuals, they seek more information on how to become effective leaders. As a result, bookstore shelves are filled with popular books about leaders and how to be a leader. Many people believe that leadership is a way to improve their personal, social, and professional lives. Corporations seek those with leadership ability because they believe these individuals bring special assets to their organizations and, ultimately, improve the bottom line. Academic institutions throughout the country have responded by offering programs in leadership studies, including at the master’s and doctoral levels.
In addition, leadership has gained the attention of researchers worldwide. Leadership research is increasing dramatically, and findings underscore that there is a wide variety of different theoretical approaches to explain the complexities of the leadership process (e.g., Bass, 2008; Bryman, 1992; Bryman, Collinson, Grint, Jackson, & Uhl-Bien, 2011; Day & Antonakis, 2012; Dinh et al., 2014; J. Gardner, 1990; W. Gardner et al., 2020; Hickman, 2016; Mumford, 2006; Rost, 1991). Some researchers conceptualize leadership as a trait or as a behavior, whereas others view leadership from an information-processing perspective or relational standpoint.
Leadership has been studied using both qualitative and quantitative methods in many contexts, including small groups, therapeutic groups, and large organizations. In recent years, this research has included experiments designed to explain how leadership influences follower attitudes and performance (Podsakoff & Podsakoff, 2019) in hopes of increasing the practical usefulness of leadership research.
Collectively, the research findings on leadership provide a picture of a process that is far more sophisticated and complex than the often-simplistic view presented in some of the popular books on leadership.
This book treats leadership as a complex process having multiple dimensions. Based on the research literature, this text provides an in-depth description and application of many different approaches to leadership. Our emphasis is on how theory can inform the practice of leadership. In this book, we describe each theory and then explain how the theory can be used in real situations.
Case Study
Case 1.1 is provided to illustrate different dimensions of leadership as well as allow you to examine your own perspective on what defines a leader and leadership. At the end of the case, you will find questions that will help in analyzing the case.
Open Mouth
When asked by a sports editor for the Lanthorn , Grand Valley State University’s student publication, what three historical figures he would most like to have dinner with, Morris Berger, the newly announced offensive coordinator for the GVSU Lakers football team, responded Adolf Hitler, John F. Kennedy, and Christopher Columbus.
“This is probably not going to get a good review,” he said, “but I’m going to say Adolf Hitler. It was obviously very sad and he had bad motives, but the way he was able to lead was second-to-none. How he rallied a group and a following, I want to know how he did that. Bad intentions of course, but you can’t deny he wasn’t a great leader” (Voss, 2020). When the article ran, it caused a stir. Shortly after, the writer, Kellen Voss, was asked by someone in the university’s athletics department to alter the online story to remove those comments.
The Lanthorn initially complied, but then changed course and added the full interview back in. Once the Lanthorn republished the quote, the story went viral. It was covered in the Washington Post , on ESPN, and in Sports Illustrated and even ended up in the monologue of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (Boatner, 2020). In addition to public dismay, GVSU’s Hillel chapter, a Jewish campus organization, spoke out strongly against Coach Berger after his comments were made public.
“It is unfortunate to see a member of our Grand Valley community glorify the Holocaust, a period that brought such destruction and travesty to the world,” the group posted to its Facebook page. “We appreciate the university’s swift response and we will continue to partner with them to educate our campus community and provide a safe and inclusive environment for all students” (Colf, 2020). Seven days after the article appeared, GVSU announced that Coach Berger, who had been suspended by the university, had resigned. Matt Mitchell, the team’s head coach, gave a statement: “Nothing in our background and reference checks revealed anything that would have suggested the unfortunate controversy that has unfolded,” Coach Mitchell said. “This has been a difficult time for everyone.
I accepted Coach Berger’s resignation in an effort for him to move on and for us to focus on the team and our 2020 season” (Wallner, 2020). In another statement, Coach Berger said he was disappointed to leave, but added, “I do not want to be a distraction to these kids, this great university, or Coach Mitchell as they begin preparations for the upcoming season” (Wallner, 2020).
A few weeks later, GVSU announced that it would increase its curriculum around the Holocaust and Native American history. “We will use this moment to work diligently toward institutional systemic change that creates a healthier campus climate for all,” the university’s president, Philomena Mantella, said (Colf, 2020).
Questions
1. Who are the leaders in this situation? How would you describe their actions as leaders based on the definition of leadership in this chapter?
2. Do you think it was wrong for Coach Berger to cite Hitler as a “great leader”?
3. What is your reaction to Coach Berger resigning one week after signing a contract to coach at GVSU?
4. Based on our discussion of morality and leadership in this chapter, would you say Coach Berger’s comments are based on leadership as a neutral process or on leadership as a process that has a moral dimension? Why?
5. What does the university’s response suggest regarding how the university views leadership?
6. If you were the president of the university and you were asked to define leadership, how would you define it?
7. Bobby Knight was a coach who was known to use questionable leadership tactics. Do you think Coach Berger would have been safe to ask Coach Knight to dinner? Why?
CASE STUDIES AND SELF-ASSESSMENT
In this section, three case studies (Cases 2.1 , 2.2 , and 2.3 ) are provided to illustrate the trait approach and to help you understand how the trait approach can be used in making decisions in organizational settings. The settings of the cases are diverse—directing research and development at a large snack food company, being head of recruitment for a large bank, and a profile of entrepreneur Elon Musk—but all of the cases deal with trait leadership. At the end of each case, you will find questions that will help in analyzing the cases.
Choosing a New Director of Research
Sandra Coke is vice president for research and development at Great Lakes Foods (GLF), a large snack food company that has approximately 1,000 employees. As a result of a recent reorganization, Sandra must choose the new director of research. The director will report directly to Sandra and will be responsible for developing and testing new products. The research division of GLF employs about 200 people. The choice of directors is important because Sandra is receiving pressure from the president and board of GLF to improve the company’s overall growth and productivity.
Sandra has identified three candidates for the position. Each candidate is at the same managerial level. She is having difficulty choosing one of them because each has very strong credentials. Alexa Smith is a longtime employee of GLF who started part-time in the mailroom while in high school. After finishing school, Alexa worked in as many as 10 different positions throughout the company to become manager of new product marketing. Performance reviews of Alexa’s work have repeatedly described her as being very creative and insightful. In her tenure at GLF, Alexa has developed and brought to market four new product lines. Alexa is also known throughout GLF as being very persistent about her work: When she starts a project, she stays with it until it is finished. It is probably this quality that accounts for the success of each of the four new products with which she has been involved.
A second candidate for the new position is Kelsey Metts, who has been with GLF for five years and is manager of quality control for established products. Kelsey has a reputation for being very bright. Before joining GLF, she received her MBA at Harvard, graduating at the top of her class. People talk about Kelsey as the kind of person who will be president of her own company someday. Kelsey is also very personable. On all her performance reviews, she received extra-high scores on sociability and human relations. There isn’t a supervisor in the company who doesn’t have positive things to say about how comfortable it is to work with Kelsey. Since joining GLF, Kelsey has been instrumental in bringing two new product lines to market.
Thomas Santiago, the third candidate, has been with GLF for 10 years and is often consulted by upper management regarding strategic planning and corporate direction setting. Thomas has been very involved in establishing the vision for GLF and is a company person all the way. He believes in the values of GLF, and actively promotes its mission. The two qualities that stand out above the rest in Thomas’s performance reviews are his honesty and integrity. Employees who have worked under his supervision consistently report that they feel they can trust Thomas to be fair and consistent. Thomas is highly respected at GLF. In his tenure at the company, Thomas has been involved in some capacity with the development of three new product lines.
The challenge confronting Sandra is to choose the best person for the newly established director’s position. Because of the pressure she feels from upper management, Sandra knows she must select the best leader for the new position.
Questions
1. Based on the information provided about the trait approach in Tables 2.1 and 2.2 , if you were Sandra, whom would you select?
2. In what ways is the trait approach helpful in this type of selection?
3. In what ways are the weaknesses of the trait approach highlighted in this case?
Recruiting for the Bank
Pat is the assistant director of human resources in charge of recruitment for Central Bank, a large, full-service banking institution. One of Pat’s major responsibilities each spring is to visit as many college campuses as he can to interview graduating seniors for credit analyst positions in the commercial lending area at Central Bank. Although the number varies, he usually ends up hiring about 20 new people, most of whom come from the same schools, year after year.
Pat has been doing recruitment for the bank for more than 10 years, and he enjoys it very much. However, for the upcoming spring he is feeling increased pressure from management to be particularly discriminating about whom he recommends hiring. Management is concerned about the retention rate at the bank because in recent years as many as 25% of the new hires have left. Departures after the first year have meant lost training dollars and strain on the staff who remain. Although management understands that some new hires always leave, the executives are not comfortable with the present rate, and they have begun to question the recruitment and hiring procedures.
The bank wants to hire people who can be groomed for higher-level leadership positions. Although certain competencies are required of entry-level credit analysts, the bank is equally interested in skills that will allow individuals to advance to upper management positions as their careers progress.
In the recruitment process, Pat always looks for several characteristics. First, applicants need to have strong interpersonal skills, they need to be confident, and they need to show poise and initiative. Next, because banking involves fiduciary responsibilities, applicants need to have proper ethics, including a strong sense of the importance of confidentiality. In addition, to do the work in the bank, they need to have strong analytical and technical skills, and experience in working with computers. Last, applicants need to exhibit a good work ethic, and they need to show commitment and a willingness to do their job even in difficult circumstances.
Pat is fairly certain that he has been selecting the right people to be leaders at Central Bank, yet upper management is telling him to reassess his hiring criteria. Although he feels that he has been doing the right thing, he is starting to question himself and his recruitment practices.
Questions
1. Based on ideas described in the trait approach, do you think Pat is looking for the right characteristics in the people he hires?
2. Could it be that the retention problem raised by upper management is unrelated to Pat’s recruitment criteria?
3. If you were Pat, would you change your approach to recruiting?
Elon Musk
When he was 12, Elon Musk created and sold his first product. That video game, Blastar , was the start of Musk’s meteoric entrepreneurial career, which has seen him take on everything from electric cars to space travel to alternative energy.
Musk grew up in South Africa, the son of an engineer and a Canadian model. In grade school Musk was introverted and often bullied, but at 15 he learned how to defend himself with karate and wrestling. He moved to Canada at 17 to attend university and three years later left Canada to attend the University of Pennsylvania where he earned degrees in economics and physics. In 1995, only two days into a PhD program in energy physics at Stanford, Musk dropped out to launch his first company, Zip2, with his brother Kimbal. An online city guide, Zip2 provided content for websites of both the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune . Four years later, Compaq Computer Corporation bought Zip2 for $307 million.
The Musk brothers then founded X.com, an online financial services/payments company, which became PayPal. Three years later, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion.
Now a billionaire, Musk started Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, in 2002 with the intention of building reusable spacecraft for commercial space travel. A year after launching SpaceX, Musk became the cofounder, CEO, and product architect at Tesla Motors, dedicated to producing affordable, mass-market electric cars as well as battery products and solar roofs. He also launched several other side projects, including establishment of The Boring Company devoted to boring and building underground tunnels to reduce street traffic, becoming cochair of the nonprofit research organization OpenAI with the mission of advancing digital intelligence to benefit humanity, and development of the Hyperloop to create a more expedient form of transportation between cities.
But unlike his earlier ventures, both SpaceX and Tesla had considerable challenges. In 2008, Musk was nearly out of money after SpaceX’s Falcon 1 rocket, of which he was the chief designer, suffered three failed launches before it finally had a successful one. Meanwhile, Tesla was hitting speed bump after speed bump in the development of its vehicles, hemorrhaging money, and losing investor confidence as well as orders from customers who were unhappy with the long wait time to get their vehicles.
Musk faced these challenges the way he did as a bullied school kid: head on. “Leaders are . . . expected to work harder than those who report to them and always make sure that their needs are taken care of before yours, thus leading by example,” he said (Jackson, 2017).
At SpaceX, Musk continued to innovate, and the company accomplished a stunning number of achievements including successfully having rockets land safely back on earth after launches, transporting supplies to the International Space Station, and developing a rocket that could carry heavier payloads. By 2019, SpaceX had 6,000-plus contracts, worth $12 billion, with NASA and other commercial satellite companies. The company, which says its ultimate mission is to foster interplanetary life, is planning a cargo mission to Mars in 2022 (Space Exploration Technologies Corp., 2020).
Many credit SpaceX’s success to the unified culture at the company created by its fairly flat organizational structure and the fact that, despite its growth, the company still maintains a start-up mentality and feel.
It’s an incredible place to work,” said one engineer. “There’s a great sense of connectedness between everyone. Everyone’s got the same goal in mind. Everyone’s working super hard to deliver a product successfully. It’s amazing when it all culminates in launch” (Mind & Machine , 2017).
Dolly Singh, the former head of human resources at SpaceX, said, “The thing that makes Elon Elon is his ability to make people believe in his vision” (Snow, 2015). Jim Cantrell, SpaceX’s first engineer, added, “He is the smartest guy I’ve ever met, period. I know that sounds overblown. But I’ve met plenty of smart people, and I don’t say that lightly. He’s absolutely, frickin’ amazing. I don’t even think he sleeps” (Feloni, 2014).
But to turn Tesla around, Musk had to roll up his shirtsleeves. The company, which was four years behind on the production of its Model 3, was under severe public scrutiny from investors and industry analysts. After missing one deadline after another, Musk restructured the organization in April 2018 and took over as the head of engineering to personally oversee efforts in that division. In a 2018 Twitter post, Musk said that to meet production goals, it was time to “divide & conquer, so I’m back to sleeping at factory.” By the end of June 2018, Tesla had met its goal of producing 5,000 Model 3 cars per week, while churning out another 2,000 Model S sedans and Model X SUVs (Sage & Rodriguez, 2018).
Musk has been described as an unconventional leader, even by Silicon Valley standards. He is a prolific tweeter in which he comments on everything from building cyborg dragons, to jokes about bankruptcy, to mixing Ambien with red wine (Davies, 2018). He has graced magazine covers and goes on talk shows and appeared on animated television shows The Simpsons and South Park . His peculiar sense of humor was on dramatic display when he launched his own red Tesla Roadster sports car into space atop the first SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. At the same time, some of his behavioral quirks have also become liabilities.
In a public earnings call with investors and financial analysts, Musk attacked two analysts for asking what he called “bonehead” and “dry” questions that he refused to answer, resulting in Tesla’s stock value plunging 10% (Davies, 2018). When his efforts to assist in the rescue of 12 young soccer players and their coach from a flooded cave in Thailand were criticized as selfaggrandizing rather than serious, Musk responded with a tweet calling one of the divers involved in the rescue “pedo guy,” insinuating he was a child molester (Levin, 2018).
In August 2018, Musk wrote on Twitter that he was considering taking Tesla private and that he had the necessary funding “secured” to do so. As a result, Tesla’s stock price immediately shot up, gaining the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which investigated and ultimately fined Musk $20 million. Less than two weeks after that episode, Musk gave an emotional interview with the New York Times , in which he alternately laughed and cried in a display that left many questioning his mental state and sent Tesla investors into sell mode with their stock (Crum, 2018). Not long after that interview, Musk changed his mind and said Tesla would remain a public company. He followed that decision with an appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcasduring which he smoked what was said to be a marijuana-laced cigarette (Davies, 2018).
“The reason Elon seems to attract drama is that he is so transparent, so open, in a way that can come back to bite him,” his brother and Tesla board member Kimbal Musk told the New York Times . “He doesn’t know how to do it differently. It’s just who he is” (Gelles, 2018).
After all of the drama in 2018, there were many concerns about where Tesla would go in 2019. The answer? Tesla ended 2019 on a high note, with a record stock price topping out at more than $400 per share.
“It’s been quite the turnaround for Musk since his ‘funding secured’ tweet debacle of last year,” one analyst noted. “Tesla’s stock has been one of the top performers of the second-half of the year and Musk is proof that you can take on the SEC, smoke weed on podcasts, call people pedo guy and still run a $70 billion company” (Crum, 2018).
Questions
1. How does Musk exhibit each of the major leadership traits (Table 2.2 )? Which of these traits do you believe he is the strongest in? Is there one where he is weak?
2. Describe how Musk has exhibited each of the Big Five personality factors. Which of these factors do you think has the most correlation with Musk’s success as a leader?
3. Shankman and Allen (2015) suggest that an emotionally intelligent leader is conscious of context, self, and others. How would you characterize Musk’s emotional intelligence using these three facets?
4. If you were asked to design a leadership training program based on the trait approach, how could you incorporate the story of Elon Musk and his leadership? Around which of his traits would you structure your training? Are some of his leadership traits more teachable than others? Discuss.
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