Understanding Behaviors for Effective Leadership (Alternative Etext Formats)

For junior/senior-level courses in Leadership that can be found in business, nursing, military science, criminal justice, education, government or agriculture curriculum.

Providing a comprehensive review of the major behavior patterns that effective leaders use to influence followers, this book keys in on what effective leaders really do and emphasizes how leaders can diagnose and modify situations and followers to make their leadership a more positive and productive endeavor.

Preface

The basic premise of this book is we know our leaders by what they do. Leaders demonstrate their competence by setting worthwhile and challenging goals with followers, by showing confidence in followers and supporting their efforts to perform well and to improve themselves, and by giving recognition to followers when they do a job well. We expect our leaders to perform these and other important leadership behaviors. We may also expect leaders to be intelligent, visionary, inspirational, ethical, fair, and self-confident but we only perceive these personal characteristics by observing and experiencing a leader's behavior. When leaders successfully carry out these behaviors and produce favorable results for their groups and organizations, we view these leaders as effective.

We have been teaching leadership in universities and colleges for over 20 years. We have used existing leadership textbooks as well as academic and popular articles that describe current theories and approaches about what it takes to be an effective leader. Our intent was to convey to our students the richness and breadth of knowledge about leadership that has accumulated during the twentieth century. We finally ' realized, however, that this approach left most students confused and frustrated. There were simply too many theories and approaches to leadership for most undergraduates (and many MBA students) to absorb and use. They often became lost in the mass of leadership theories and research presented in existing leadership textbooks. By the end of the course, they usually had no idea when or if a given theory was appropriate and often "latched on" to an overly simplistic and poorly supported model of leadership because it was simple enough for them to understand and remember.

We have not emphasized leadership theories in this book. Instead, we organized the book according to a simple common-sense structure that describes current knowledge on what effective leaders really do. Most of the leader behaviors described in the chapters that follow have been extensively researched as part of various theoretical models proposed by leadership scholars. In this book, we have presented what is known about each leader behavior without the baggage of many different theories. Although these leader behaviors may overlap to some degree, they are widely recognized and discussed by managers and leadership experts. This structure is designed to minimize confusion, to facilitate understanding, and to provide students with some psychological closure on each leader behavior.

AUDIENCE

This book is intended for use in any college course that focuses on effective leadership. Examples of these courses include Leadership and Motivation, Leadership in Society, Nursing Leadership, Not-for-Profit Leadership, Leadership in Law Enforcement, or Leadership in Education. The book is also appropriate for a first course in leadership training in business, public, educational, health care, or other organizations.

STRUCTURE AND FEATURES

Part I of the book includes three chapters that introduce the concept of leadership and the approach of the book, and describe and evaluate several currently popular theories of leadership. Part II is composed of ten central chapters that focus on five core leadership behavior patterns that have been studied extensively in different organizational contexts. Two chapters each are devoted to leaders' supportiveness, directiveness, participation, reward and punishment, and charismatic behaviors. These core chapters emphasize what effective leaders do by describing in detail each of the core leader behaviors. These chapters also emphasize how they do it by identifying leader traits, skills, and sources of power associated with each behavior as well as examples of effective and ineffective leaders carrying out the behaviors. The core chapters also describe when leaders use each behavior by identifying situational factors that tell effective leaders when a specific core behavior will be most effective. Part III presents three chapters addressing less-researched leader behavior patterns that will be increasingly important in the new millennium and a concluding chapter that describes popular leadership styles that are combinations of the specific leader behaviors described earlier.

This book also emphasizes the effects of the increasing number of jobs performed by highly educated and professionally oriented employees who use computer technology and/or teams to perform job activities. These individuals and teams are often able to assume more responsibility with less active direction and control by their formal leaders. These emerging workforce and job structure characteristics do not eliminate the need for leadership, but they help organizations economize by reducing the number of middle managers and allowing workers and work groups more freedom to manage their own daily activities.

Examples are provided in each chapter that highlight current and historical leaders who exhibit the leadership behaviors and styles discussed (see the Leadership in Action box on Pat Carrigan, page 4-4). Self-assessment exercises also help the reader understand and apply concepts described in the text (see example on Effective Listening page 4-8). Exercises and short cases are also included to allow students to further understand and apply chapter material (see examples on pages 11-31 entitled Choosing an Appropriate Leadership Style and page 11-37 entitled Move the Supervisors). Numerous illustrations and figures also summarize text material and provide advice on how to apply the material to real leadership situations (see examples on pages 13-26 and 13-27 for charismatic leadership).

INSTRUCTOR'S MATERIAL

• Instructor's Manual/Test Item File
  The Instructor's Manual features Learning Objectives, Lecture Outlines, Answers to Review and Case Questions, and Suggested Activities for each chapter in the text. Included with the Instructor's Manual is a Test Item File offering a variety of True/False, Multiple/Choice, and Essay questions that facilitate different classroom needs.
• PowerPoint Electronic Transparencies
  A comprehensive package of text outlines and figures corresponding to the text, the PowerPoint transparencies are designed to aid the educator and supplement in-class lectures.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

During the ten years it took to complete this book, numerous individuals provided valuable assistance by conducting library research, editing, and discussing with us many of the issues we wrote about. Jim Weber, Jennifer Villa, Jim Paul, Michael Clugston, and Lori Paris all provided capable and generous support to our efforts. The College of Business and New Mexico State University provided the library facilities and the environment that allowed us to persist on the project. Our long-time friend and colleague, Peter Dorfman, asked many thought-provoking questions about our project and participated with us on various research projects that produced findings reported in the book. Our families put up with our long hours of work over the years with words of encouragement and they never wavered in their confidence that we would complete the project. The many reviewers who read and commented on earlier versions of the manuscript provided the essential feedback we needed to keep the book relevant to students of leadership as well as true to the leadership literature.