The Nature and Importance of Leadership

Chapter 1- The Nature and Importance of Leadership

There are many different definitions of leadership, and DuBrin (2016) outlines several definitions. However, most definitions have the common theme that leadership is about influencing people to achieve goals that are accepted by the group members or followers. Notice that this theme doesn't limit leadership to formal leadership positions, nor does it say that there can only be one leader at a time or that leadership only flows from the "top-down." The other common theme in many definitions is that leadership is a process, not a role. Thus, many people can be leaders at the same time because all are involved in the leadership process. One person may be more effective than the other people, but all of the people could be acting as "leaders" in the process sense of leadership.

In this light, leadership is a broad construct that encompasses many different types of influence from many different types of people in many different types of contexts. While this is a broad definition, maybe more of a description, some people question whether there is any great value in trying to more narrowly define leadership. The study of what determines the effectiveness of different influence techniques in organizations doesn't necessarily require agreement on the definition of the overarching construct, or what is called leadership. On the other hand, the argument can be made that a better definition of leadership helps ensure that everyone is discussing the same concept. There is no clear answer to this debate, but for the purposes of this course, leadership refers to the processes that people use to influence other people to achieve accepted goals. The leader is simply the person or persons who are making that influence effort.

Another critical point of the chapter is that leadership outcomes result from the reciprocal interactions of the "leader," followers (or "group members"), and the situation. Although we often think of leadership as a one-way influence, the leadership process necessarily includes the context in which the influence attempt occurs (i.e., the situation) and the object of the influence attempt (i.e., the followers). Thus, followers shape the leader's behaviors and attitudes just like leaders shape the followers' attitudes and behaviors. In the extreme case of "servant leadership" and "stewardship" models of leadership, the general thrust is that effective leaders focus on aiding or facilitating the followers. This in turn helps the leader accomplish organizational goals. This general framework shapes the organization of the DuBrin book (see Figure 1-2).

The distinction between "leaders" and "manager" is discussed in this chapter. The table below depicts characteristics of a leader and a manager.

The distinction is largely unproductive because the extent to which a person performs managerial versus leadership roles is largely a question of degree, as DuBrin discusses. Managers' jobs are difficult enough without considering them to be second-class citizens incapable of leadership. In fact, effective leaders need to be good managers, and vice versa. This is highlighted in DuBrin's discussion of leadership roles because many of them could also be characterized as "managerial" roles. Moreover, according to a common framework proposed by Henry Mintzberg, leadership is only one of many managerial roles. (See Mintzberg, H. (1980). The Nature of Managerial Work. Prentice Hall.)

A major concern relating to the first chapter is the issue of whether leadership makes a difference in reality. While this question could have been put off until the end of the course, it is useful to at least think about it now. You can then see if your opinions change during the course. Moreover, before devoting time to studying leadership, one should know whether the time will be well-spent. The general conclusion is that leadership makes a difference in many cases, but not in all situations. When there are factors that substitute for leadership (or even neutralize leadership attempts), leaders may not be able to make much difference. DuBrin (2016) outlines a number of factors that substitute for leadership, but there are many more factors that have been researched with mixed results.

In reality, there is no evidence that leadership substitutes always exist, or that they necessarily undercut attempts at leadership. Therefore, people should be careful about attributing success or failures solely to leadership. Leaders can only do so much given the constraints they face. The existence of constraints is the basis for Pfeffer's "leader irrelevance" theory. Similarly, "complexity" theory holds that leaders have little influence in complex organizational systems.

For example, look at coaches and managers in professional sports. Often they are fired after poor seasons, yet no new manager or coach can succeed either because their players simply aren't as good as the other players and teams in the league. Usually they have little control over which players are hired, which makes it even more irrational to attribute the success or failure of the coach to his or her leadership ability. Another common example is organizational success in good economic times and organizational downturns in poor economic times. Obviously, the economy is out of any individual's control, so good times and bad times cannot be attributed to the leader.