CHAPTER 2

Classical Theories of Leadership

A GOOD MAGICIAN is a good theorist. Compare the elegant conjuring of David Copperfield to the fumblings of your neighbor's ten-year-old son showing you his newly learned tricks from his Great Zookini Junior Magic Kit. It is more than just technical proficiency and subtle handwork that propels you into the sorcerer's magical realm of transmuting doves and endless pitchers of milk. Rather, it is the magician's understanding and application of the basic principles of manipulating his audience that allow you to suspend your belief so that he then can levitate you right out of your seat.

Leadership, like magic, is based upon a similar understanding. Your comprehension of basic leadership theory is essential for your growth and potential as a leader. The trick, so to speak, is that your understanding of theory should be so deeply ingrained in your psyche that its application appears casual. A mark of great magicians is that their efforts appear to be effortless! If you see some cut-rate Houdini struggling to make the cards jump from his hands, then you refuse to admit him to that special place in your mind that allows you to suspend your belief. It is that suspension of belief that is the real trick of a great magician.

As with the Zookini Junior Magic Kit, this chapter will not make you a great leader. Yet, it is only through an understanding of these theories and their possible applications that true leadership can result. Leadership, like magic, is premised on some rather basic principles. Both the Great Blackstone and your neighbor's kid essentially employ the same bag of tricks. But the results can be markedly different. When Blackstone saws a woman in half, we rise to our feet in cheers. When your neighbor's kid attempts the same trick, we rise to our feet to dial 9-1-1.

For project managers, the need to understand these theories and their possible applications is vital. The problem, as in much of project management, is that you have only a limited amount of time to exert leadership. As a result, many managers are like your Uncle Ned at the all-you-can-eat salad bar at the Sizzler, loading your plate with a little bit of everything, without a true appreciation for any of it.

The focus of this book is on the transformational model of leadership. But other theories can obviously give us invaluable perspective. In order to help us understand these theories, we have divided them into four basic groups that focus on the leader aspects or the situational aspects of leadership. (A model to understand models—now we are cooking with gas!) We can look at leader aspects through either traits or behaviors. We can examine situations from the perspective of whether they are universal or contingent upon specific situations and personalities. Our goal is to create perspective, to give the reader a framework for understanding these theories within a larger context. It is important to remember that they are not necessarily competing theories. We can get maximum benefit from understanding how each approach complements the others. Together, they offer a powerful theoretical look at leadership—theoretical, yes, but also practical. After all, no competent magician ever sealed himself in a milk container about to be submerged in water until he had his theory down pat!

CONTINGENT LEADERSHIP THEORIES

The premise of contingency theories is that optimal leadership is achieved only by synthesizing the requirements of the situation with the leader: either by matching the leader to the situation, or by matching leader behavior to the situation. In either case, these theories offer the identification and assessment of situation factors, which are necessary toward explaining effective leadership. We will discuss contingent leader-behavior theories and a contingent leader-trait theory.

CONTINGENT BEHAVIOR THEORIES

The common premise of these theories is that leadership improves as the fit between leader behavior and the needs of the situation are optimized. These approaches assume that leader behavior can be adapted to the situation, and that, therefore, these theories have a strong potential for developing and improving leadership. Three of these theories are discussed—Situational Leadership, Path Goal Theory, and the Vroom-Jago Model—and the discussion is concluded with the Bonoma-Slevin-Pinto leadership model, which synthesizes and simplifies the contributions of these approaches to help the project manager choose a leadership style that fits the situation.

Situational Leadership®

In this theory, the two important dimensions of leader behavior are relationship behavior and task behavior. The important characteristic of the situation is follower (i.e., project team member) maturity:

• relationship behavior—leader actions that demonstrate a concern for people; facilitating participation in decision-making, coaching, sharing ideas, explaining decisions, and so on
• task behavior—leader actions that emphasize a concern for the task; clarifying procedures, duties, responsibilities, and so on
• follower maturity—the readiness of the follower is determined by assessing ability to perform the task and motivation to perform the task. The motivation of the follower is predominately associated with the general willingness to perform or confidence in the ability to perform.

LEADERSHIP STYLES FOR AN OPTIMAL FIT

The optimal leadership style is argued to be driven by both the characteristics of the job and psychological readiness, or maturity, of the individual (see Figure 3). Action by the leader with respect to task behavior is argued to vary according to the level of follower maturity with respect to the job: when a team member lacks experience (maturity is low), leader involvement is necessary, and task-oriented behavior should be a priority. As the follower gains experience and confidence with respect to the task, the need for intervention by the leader falls to the point when, ultimately, the follower is acting autonomously. Correspondingly, leader relationship-oriented behavior is argued to vary according to the level of the follower's confidence and ability (psychological maturity). High levels of relationship-oriented behavior by the project leader are appropriate only for medium levels of team member psychological maturity.

Categorized as leadership styles, the four general levels of maturity and their corresponding leader behaviors are described as telling, selling, participating, and delegating.

• Telling—Team members, who lack required abilities and confidence or motivation to perform, require intervention by the project leader. The team member requires clear instruction as to how to effectively perform but is considered unlikely to accept coaching. Thus, the optimal project leadership style involves only high levels of task-oriented behavior.
• Selling—Team members, who lack required abilities, yet are motivated to perform, require instruction as to how to effectively perform and will likely accept coaching. Thus, the optimal leadership style includes high levels of task- and relationship-oriented behavior.
• Participating—Team members with strong ability, who lack the motivation to perform, do not require instruction on the task but require intervention by the project leader to increase their confidence or willingness to perform. Thus, the optimal leadership style includes high levels of relationship-oriented behavior only.
• Delegating—Team members with strong ability and strong motivation to perform do not require extensive intervention by the leader. The team member may find such intervention an insult, as it implies that she is not capable or motivated when, in fact, she is. Thus, the optimal project leadership style is to avoid interfering with the team member by delegating the task.

The major contribution of this approach is in identifying an important situation variable, follower maturity, and presenting an argument as to why an imbalance in leader behavior in favor of either concern for the task or concern for people is functional. Note that this is in general modifies the leadership grid argument for an unbalanced emphasis approach.

Path-Goal Theory

The premise is that leadership is the ability to clarify the follower's path to his goal. The premise is based on the expectancy theory of work motivation, which holds that motivation of an individual team member is determined by his assessment of three things: 1) the likelihood that he can successfully complete the given task; 2) the likelihood that successful completion of the task will be rewarded; and 3) the meaningfulness of the reward to the team member. Thus, when the individual perceives that the task can be completed and will be rewarded, and the reward is meaningful, the individual will be motivated to perform. Consequently, the leader can play an important role in facilitating the team's attainment of organization goals by:

• taking actions to increase the team members’ perceptions that they can complete their tasks
• ensuring that team members are consistently rewarded
• modifying the type of rewards to fit the needs of the individual members.

Based on this argument, four generic styles of leadership are identified to be appropriate to most situations: directive, supportive, participative, and achievement oriented.

Directive. This comprises leader actions that emphasize clarifying the means of task accomplishment: structuring activities, coordinating, planning, organizing, controlling, and so on. This is an autocratic leader approach, which is most appropriate when the team members lack experience. The idea is to build the team members’ confidence that their efforts will result in successful completion of the task. Clearly, for project managers, this approach can only work when project leaders possess sufficient technical expertise so that they can involve themselves in the day-to-day development activities of the project. When the project leader is a generalist, or unfamiliar with the specific technical aspects of the development process, directive leadership is inappropriate.

Supportive. In this style, leader actions are predominantly concerned with maximizing the welfare of the team members. This style is most appropriate when the task is stressful, boring, tedious, and generally dissatisfying, or when team members have a high fear of failure. The purpose is to modify the task structure and the type of rewards to best meet the individual needs of the team members. This requires actions that open communication to gain an awareness and understanding of the team members’ values.

Participative. This style involves leader actions that provide team members with the opportunity to contribute to the decision-making process. This democratic leadership style is most appropriate when tasks are nonroutine, the team members have a high level of technical knowledge, and the team members are well motivated. The idea is to increase the team members’ commitment and expectations that their efforts will lead to successful task accomplishment through participation in decisions on task structure and goals.

Achievement Oriented. This type of leadership comprises leader actions that focus on challenging the team: setting high standards, delegating responsibility for the work, and so on. This style is most appropriate when the task is unstructured, and the competence of the team members is high. The idea is to increase the meaningfulness of the team members’ accomplishments by emphasizing the intrinsic rewards of success in a challenging environment. Many examples exist of project development in high-tech organizations in which team members are motivated by the technical challenges rather than by external directives. Wise project managers in these environments routinely rely on achievement-oriented actions to encourage their team members to meet these challenges with as little interference from the project manager as possible.

Vroom-Jago Model

The premise of this leadership model is that project leaders can improve team performance through increased goal acceptance, commitment, and task motivation when followers participate in the decision process. In other words, the greater the team members’ participation in goal development, the greater their buy-in to the development process. The problem of how much involvement and under what circumstances participation should occur is the focus of the model. The solution to determining optimal participation is achieved by first delineating the leader's alternative methods for structuring the follower's participation in the decision. Second, the important situation variables are defined, and third, a decision tree is provided that shows the leader how to select among the alternative decision-participation methods based on the leader's assessment of each of the situational variables.

The types of decision methods in Figure 4 reflect not only a range of participation by the subordinates but also a range of time necessary for the decision methods. We assume that the levels of participation determine the amount of time required for making the decision; higher participation requires more time. Thus, decisions that are constrained by time should be more autocratic. Alternatively, it is assumed that participation in the decision-making process is an important element in the development of the subordinate, as well as in creating a basis for building trust, commitment, and so on. Thus, decision-making should be more participative or democratic when the decision is not time critical. The incorporation of these situational attributes is the primary improvements of the Vroom-Jago decision model over the original Vroom-Yetton model.

The major limitation of the Vroom-Jago model is the difficulty for the novice in using the model pragmatically. This model is the most complex of the classical theories presented, and this can make it impractical for general use unless the leader devotes the serious study time necessary to internalize the rules in a way that allows the leader to assess the situation and structure optimal participation quickly from memory.

Choosing Your Leadership Style

Given that we, the project managers, are willing and able to consciously choose a leadership style to fit the situation, we would benefit from a model that simplifies the manner in which we assess the situations we find ourselves in. The model presented in Figure 5 illustrates two dimensions of project management situations found to be critical in choosing our leadership style: information input, and decision authority.

• Information input: When we are making a decision, large amounts of information from the team may be required in order to make a properly informed choice. When this situation arises, we seek high levels of input from the team, and we can follow one of two leadership styles: consensus, where we allow the team to make the decision; or consultative autocrat, where we absorb the input but make the ultimate decision ourselves. Conversely, there are decisions that require little, if any, input from the team to make a properly informed choice. In this situation, we can choose from two alternative leadership styles: autocrat, where we make the decision alone; or shareholder, where we allow the team to make the decision. In each of these situations, the proper level of decision authority is the critical means of deciding which leadership style is best.

• Decision authority: The authority to make a decision can be retained by the project manager or delegated to the team. That is, every decision made by the project manager implicitly carries with it the need to choose a level of decision authority. Project managers who choose to retain complete authority to make the decision maximize speed and control but deny team members the opportunity to develop their decision-making skills and to influence the project. Project managers who delegate complete decision authority improve motivation of the team by allowing them to contribute, but this tends to lower the project manager's coordination and control of the project.

The tradeoffs associated with allowing different levels of information input and decision authority create an opportunity for the project leader to choose a leadership style that fits the situation. Thus, it is important that we assess ourselves: Do you tend to maintain one style regardless of the situation? Are you willing to delegate decision authority? Do you always delegate decision authority? Do you allow the team to provide input to project decisions? To the extent that we are inflexible on these two important issues, we are missing opportunities to improve our project leadership. The goal, then, is to be proactively flexible in our approach to decision-making and learn to consciously choose our leadership style.

CONTINGENT TRAIT APPROACH TO LEADERSHIP

Least Preferred Coworker Theory

The power of contingency theory is that the effectiveness of a leader is determined by the fit between a leader's personal style and the potential for control in the work situation. By identifying the important personality and situational variables, the organization can maximize effective leadership by matching the leader to the situation. Accordingly, the dominant personality characteristic is argued to be the leader's coworker preferences.

Leader Style. Least preferred coworker (LPC) measures the leader's hierarchy of needs; high LPC indicates that the leader's satisfaction is driven primarily by positive, successful interpersonal relationships; task achievement is the dominant motivation indicated by a low LPC score.

Situation Control. The important leadership situation characteristic is the extent to which the leader can control and coordinate the work. Three dimensions of control are measured.

• Position power—measures the magnitude of the leader's authority: hiring, firing, promotion, demotion, and so on. Greater position power is argued to indicate greater control over the tasks.
• Task structure—measures the extent to which the means of accomplishing tasks are known and well defined. Highly structured tasks are argued to facilitate high levels of control.
• Leader-member relations—measures the extent to which interpersonal relationships are positive and functional. Strong relations are argued to indicate trust, commitment, and respect between the leader and the subordinates. This facilitates higher levels of control in that subordinates will react more positively and quickly to direction from a trusted leader.

UNIVERSAL LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOR

Universal leadership behavior theories argue that certain behaviors enhance leadership in all situations. This approach to leadership is helpful in developing project leaders because it assumes that individuals can modify their behavior to become better leaders. The model provides a generic leadership-behavior baseline, or standard, against which the individual can compare her own behaviors. This comparison enables the individual to detect personal discrepancies from optimal behavior, allowing adjustment of subsequent behavior to improve leadership effectiveness. Thus, the focus of this section is to gain an awareness of universal behaviors that have been found to be important for leaders.

The Leadership Grid

The premise of the leadership grid is that effective leader behavior falls into two generic categories: concern for people, and concern for production. Only by actively demonstrating a concern for both can the leader maximize team performance.

• Concern for people—involves leader-initiated actions that enhance the trust and respect between the leader and the subordinate. Generally, this involves actions that help the subordinates meet their personal goals. Such actions concern the social and growth needs of the subordinate but also include actions to maximize the quality of work-life: issues such as ensuring that their compensation is fair, their job is secure, their work environment is safe and comfortable, and so on.
• Concern for production—involves leader-initiated behaviors that increase the output of the team. Generally, this involves actions that meet the performance goals of the firm: increasing efficiency, volume, quality, and so on.

Leaders often fail to emphasize both because personality traits or personal skills and abilities make leaders more adept at one category of leader behavior than the other, and they are therefore reluctant to initiate behaviors in which they lack confidence and efficiency. Some project managers are good at team development but are afraid to crack the whip when necessary. Others may be highly task oriented but suffer from an inability to understand or foster much personal concern for the welfare of their teams. Through self-assessment exercises, the leadership grid offers a means of identifying and correcting neglected behaviors.

The dominant limitation of this approach is the general vagueness of the recommended behaviors. This is, however, a necessary tradeoff given the intent of the theory: to provide guidelines that are appropriate to a wide assortment of situational demands. Accordingly, however, a limitation of any universal approach is that the degree of fit to a particular situation will not be as high as a theory that is contingent upon the situation. This limitation has prompted the development of contingency theories, which were discussed above.

UNIVERSAL TRAIT LEADERSHIP THEORIES

This approach to leadership argues that individuals with certain traits are more likely to adopt behaviors that are associated with strong leadership, more likely to be perceived as credible, and are accepted by followers. Trait theories help us to understand and distinguish between strong and weak leadership based on the personal traits of the individual leaders. Thus, the focus of this section is to gain an awareness of personal characteristics, which have been found to be important for effective leaders, and this improves our ability to select individuals.

Charismatic Leadership Theory

The charismatic theory argues that there exist universal, personal traits that induce a profound and extraordinary effect on followers. The predominant traits associated with strong charismatic leaders are as follows.

• Strong need for power—Leaders have high self-confidence and a willingness to accept the burdens of responsibility; they also actively build a following by engaging in impression management.
• High need for influence—Leaders derive personal satisfaction from motivating others; they are adept at gaining follower commitment by communicating a positive vision, which defines tasks in terms of ideological goals, holds high expectations of subordinates, and shows confidence in their abilities.
• Job involvement—People with leadership capabilities hold a positive view of the organization, derive personal satisfaction from the job itself, and are active in and committed to the organization.
• Moral righteousness—Leaders demonstrate strong convictions and set the example for subordinates to follow.

The biggest problem with these trait theories has been in determining whether individuals have these characteristics because they are leaders, or whether people developing into leaders acquire these traits. In other words, we are faced with the classic chicken and egg question in trait theory: What leads to what? Because these attributes have been drawn from the study of an array of exceptional leaders of the past, these attributes may represent the outcome of a lifetime of effective leadership-building efforts on behalf of the leaders and their organizations rather than representing the cause of effective leadership. Thus, if we do not feel that these leadership attributes currently apply to ourselves, we should not be discouraged from pursuing our own leadership development.

Transformational Leadership Theory

A subset of charismatic leaders, transformational leaders are individuals who cause positive, substantial changes in organizations. That is, this type of leader creates a nonroutine transformation of the organization by inspiring the team to achieve organization goals that are not overtly in their own self-interest. For example, we most often think of Lee Iacocca as a transformational leader, based on his dramatic success in turning around Chrysler Corporation. The predominant traits associated with the strong transformational leader are as follows.

• Vision—the ability to clearly conceive the future desired state of the project, team, or organization. Chapters 3 and 4 will explain project vision in detail.
• Communication—the ability to effectively convey ideas and plans, typically through a superior command of language skills, including the use of analogy and metaphor.
• Trust—the ability to consistently demonstrate strong moral character and integrity.
• Action—the ability to readily make decisions and accept responsibility, thereby gaining and maintaining forward momentum.

In contrast, as we noted in Chapter 1, transactional leadership is a generally weaker form involving routine, dispassionate interactions with team members, enforcing rules, rewards, sanctions, and so forth. Transactional leaders deal with subordinates based on discrete transactions: a subordinate has a question to which the leader responds, a subordinate needs disciplining, and so on. The key to transactional leadership lies often in an emphasis on activities over long-term relationships. It is argued that managers demonstrating transactional leadership are acceptable for maintaining status quo but, lacking the traits of the transformational leader, cannot lead a major transformation of the organization.

CONCLUSION

After reviewing these different approaches to the problem of project leadership, two themes emerge as fundamental and critical: 1) The effective leader takes an active concern for the welfare of the team members, and 2) acts to ensure that the goals of the project are achieved as efficiently as possible. All of the approaches discussed above incorporate these themes, but they approach these issues from very different perspectives. The universal trait approach identifies personal characteristics that followers attribute to leaders, which can accomplish both themes simultaneously. The contingent trait approach provides a means of matching the leader to the situation in order to achieve both themes simultaneously. The universal behavior approach makes the most explicit argument that the pursuit of both themes is appropriate in all situations, and the contingent behavior approach identifies important situation characteristics and leader discretionary actions, which allow the leader to maximize the simultaneous achievement of both themes. The importance of these two themes leads to the next fundamental issue: balance. How does the leader achieve balance in pursuing these two themes?

Balancing Concern for the Task and for the Project Member: Pareto Optimality

Maximum leader effectiveness occurs when both themes are achieved simultaneously. On this issue, again, each approach makes a different argument for the means of achieving both themes simultaneously, but the common underlying philosophy is captured in the principal of Pareto Optimality. In 1897, Vilfredo Pareto made the argument that the welfare of participants of an economic system is greatest when all of the participants are made as well off as possible, up to the point where no member can be made better off without making another member worse off. The implication is that, when tradeoffs exist, none of the individual participants’ welfare is optimized because to do so would require another individual to be worse off. Thus, the optimal balance represents a compromise between the needs of the team and the needs of the task. Leadership, then, is proactively seeking to simultaneously maximize the welfare of all of the stakeholders.

For example, allowing one team member to leave work early is unfair to the other team members who must work longer to make up for the absence. Such a decision would cause resentment, reduce trust, and lower commitment. Alternatively, allowing all of the team members to leave work early places the project behind schedule, hurting the project and the organization. This would cause organizational representatives to feel resentment, lack of trust, and lower commitment to the project team. The Pareto optimal solution is for the leader to learn the time-schedule requirements of the team members and the organization so that the members can complete their work during times that best fit the needs of the individual, the project, and the organization.

We are now in a position to argue that any individual can begin to improve her leadership by taking the following actions, which are necessary to determine a Pareto optimal balance between the needs of the team and the needs of the project.

1. Learn about the team members (concern for people).
   • Assess their abilities.
   • Assess their need for guidance.
   • Help team members develop their skills.
   • Understand their personal requirements and goals.
2. Learn about the project (concern for the task).
   • Assess the skills and abilities required.
   • Assess the resources required.
   • Structure flexibility into the project plan to accommodate unknowns.
   • Assess the resources available from the organization.
   • Assess how the project meets the goals of the organization.
3. Act for the simultaneous welfare of the individuals and the project—Pareto Optimality (be fair, consistent, equitable). This is the most difficult aspect of leadership, and it cannot be achieved without numbers 1 and 2.
   • Develop goals for the project, which meet both the goals of the organization and the goals of the team members.
   • Match the team members’ skills to the needs of the project.
   • Match the resources to the needs of the team.
   • Match the rewards to the needs of the individuals.

A final point concerns the issue of coordination and control. While the issue of control was emphasized explicitly in only the contingent-trait approach, it is fundamental to effective completion of any project, and, as the leader is responsible for completion, it is critical that our discussion include recommendations as to how coordination and control can be achieved and improved. Control of any task requires four things: 1) a goal, 2) a measure, 3) a comparison of 1 and 2, and 4) a means of effecting change in the system.

Goal. The leader must identify a desired state of the project. The desired state has many labels: goal, objective, standard, and so on.

Measure. The leader must measure the actual state of the project. The assessment of the project's actual state may be objective or subjective, as long as the measure is valid.

Comparison. The leader must be able to compare the actual state of the project with the desired state. The result of this comparison process is knowledge of the direction of progress toward the desired state.

Effect Change. The leader must be able to cause a change in the direction and/or magnitude of effort on the project.

Integrating Leader Concern for People and the Task with Coordination and Control

We can now make recommendations for improving coordination and control to maximize performance of the team and completion of the project. To improve control the leader can perform the following.

• Clearly articulate the goal: When goals are clear and specific, it is easier to compare the actual performance to desired performance to determine progress. This maximizes potential coordination and control. By articulating how the goal meets the needs of the project, as well as the needs of the team, commitment and trust are enhanced.
• Use valid measurements: When measures of actual performance are valid, all members have greater trust, commitment, and confidence in the feedback provided from the subsequent comparison to the desired performance. Performance is maximized when the leader selects measures that are acceptable from the perspective of both the project and the team members.
• Adjust comparison frequency: The leader's control increases as the frequency of the comparison process increases. That is, the greater the frequency of the feedback process, the greater the number of opportunities to take corrective action. However, each comparison process requires new measurement and subsequent action, which is costly in time and resources. Thus, the comparison frequency should be adjusted by the leader to be as low as possible, but still ensure progress toward the goal.
• Effect change: Reacting to the feedback, the leader's ability to effect a change in how the project is completed is determined largely by the classical leadership theories that we discussed above. That is, the leader's influence is a function of changing the direction of effort, concern for the task, and increasing motivation—concern for the people.

Any project manager's ability to lead effectively is augmented by his understanding of alternative approaches to leadership. Put another way, it is the rare project leader who successfully operates using one innate leadership style under all circumstances and with all subordinates. Practical realities and a wealth of supporting research demonstrate the opposite effect; strong leaders understand that their own flexibility and willingness to alter their leadership styles to fit the situation and the subordinate are necessary precursors to effective team performance.

This chapter has developed some of the more important leadership models for project managers. As we noted at the beginning of the chapter, theory does not have to be a dirty word devoid of any practical implications or managerial usefulness. In fact, an understanding of fundamental leadership theory will make it much easier for novice project managers to learn to recognize their own preferred approaches, analyze situations for appropriate responses, and adjust their styles accordingly.

The key, as we have discussed, is flexibility. Flexibility implies a willingness of project leaders to avoid locking themselves into one set leadership style either out of prejudice, laziness, or ignorance. The more we know about leadership behavior, the more we are able to take these alternative styles and add them to our repertoire. Our goal (and the reader's goal, as well) is to develop leadership potential to its maximum. The more we know of alternative leadership approaches, the better prepared we are to do just that.