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Leadership or Management Style?

7/15/2015

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Research on leadership dates back nearly a century. The first questions were: Are leaders born or made? Can we find the traits? We found a few traits that seem related: 
  • intelligence
  • a need to be dominant
  • self-confidence.  
In the late 1940s, 1950s, leadership research moved on to another question: If leaders are not born, how do we make them? Can we identify the behaviors? After a lot of research we ended up with two general styles of leaders: 
  • people-oriented
  • task-oriented
But what is the best style? Researchers discovered the most effective leader behavior depends on the situation.
  • Some argued know your style, then lead where your style fits the situations. 
  • Others argued know the situation, adjust your style to that situation. 
In my opinion most historical “leadership” researchers studied management style, not leadership per se. When we look at these “leadership” studies, who was studied? 
  • managers were compared with non-managers
  • effective managers were compared with ineffective managers
Most "leadership" research just assumed that managers were leaders. To study a concept, it should be operationally defined. In practical, measurable terms, what are you studying? Leadership studies need operational definitions that differentiate leaders from managers. 

In graduate school I brought to the attention of one of my professors that all the “leaders” in these “leadership” studies were managers. He replied there is no difference between management and leadership. Traditional “leadership” research and theory are often described in textbooks. But what is this research really? Mostly what we know about management style.

In 2001 Zaccaro and Klimoski concluded that trying to determine a best definition of leadership is “not a useful direction to take” (p. 5). 

In 2009 Hackman and Wageman summed it up: “There are no generally accepted definitions of what leadership is, no dominant paradigms for studying it, and little agreement about the best strategies for developing and exercising it” (p. 43).

You have known people you perceive as leaders. Some you have observed from a distance, such as sports stars, people in political offices. Others you have observed up close, such as a boss or a friend who leads informally. 

In my opinion you experience leadership in the workplace when in response to another person, you willingly go above and beyond the requirements of your job, taking your effort to another level, and doing so because you want to. 

The leader inspires you.  The best measure of whether someone is a leader is the follower’s response. 
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Edited from Decoding the Workplace: 50 Keys to Understanding People in Organizations, Praeger. 
© John Ballard, PhD,  2015. All rights reserved.
__________________________
Zaccaro, S. J.,  &Klimoski, R. J. (2001). The nature of organizational leadership: An introduction,” in The Nature of Organizational Leadership: Understanding the Performance Imperatives Confronting Today’s Leaders, ed. Stephen J. Zaccaro and Richard J. Klimoski. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Hackman, J. R. & Wageman, R. (2007). Asking the right questions about leadership: Discussion and conclusions. American Psychologist, 62(1), 43-47.
__________________________
Image, "Leader of the pack" by Sudosurootdev from 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leader123.jpg
Used with permission Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International
__________________________
Decoding the Workplace: 50 Keys to Understanding People in Organizations
Now available at leading on-line bookstores such as Amazon.com.
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On Twitter: @johnballardphd

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