CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

Early analysis of leadership from the 1900 to the 1950s, the classical management period differentiated between leader and follower characteristics. FW Taylor who is considered to be the founder of scientific management published his book “the Principles of Scientific Management” in 1911 which opened upon the horizons of modern management research and management. He explained that the best way to increase efficiency was to improve the techniques and methods used by workers. People were seen as instruments or machines to be the first attempt to shed light on the theory of politics and leadership.

After classical research in leadership which started during first half of 20th century, a new era of explorations started in the remaining second half. Most popular theories of leadership literature were presented in this second half which deserves to be reminded as ‘golden period’ or ‘modern period’ of leadership research.  During  this  period,  which  continues  up  till  today,  numerous  concepts  and theoretical  frameworks  of leadership  were presented.

Trait studies, behavioral studies, contingency studies came up during the ‘golden period’. Wart (2005) establishes that basic research at Ohio State University and University Michigan and other settings during 1950s started challenging some of the implicit leadership assumptions of the early management and trait theories.  During 1960s, the development of leadership theories was later known as transactional approach.

In  the  following sections,   discussion   will  be  made  on  well-known   theories  which  fall  under  the  category  of transactional approach. The discussion has been divided into behavioral and situational approaches.

Contingency theories were primarily championed by those who started thinking about leadership in relation with situation.  In empirical sense, contingency theories guided research into the kinds of persons and behaviors who are effective in different situations. Fred Fiedler was the first to introduce contingency in leadership in through his contingency model. Later, many others contributed to the field.

Discussions on situational aspect of leadership are omnipresent in the leadership discourse. For example, Vroom and Jago (2007), in their recent discourse about role of situation in leadership note that “viewing leadership in purely dispositional or purely situational terms is to miss a major portion of the phenomenon.

The task confronting contingency theorists is to understand the key behaviors and contextual variables involved in this process.” This shows that interest in the contingency or situational  approach  remains  alive,  although  modern  literature  has  embraced  a  broader  term  of “context” (Avolio, 2007). It is plausible to believe that contingency, situation, or context will always be a relevant consideration in any discussion, framework,  or theory  of leadership.  The following sections highlight some frameworks presented under the broader label of ‘contingency or situation approach’.

Another  popular  theory  in  leadership  research,  mostly  known  as  LMX  theory,  leader-member exchange  theory  was  first  presented  in  early  1970s  in  reaction  to  the  dominant  behavioral  and contingency  models  of leadership.  It was  originally  called  as Vertical  Dyad  Linkage  (VDL)  and suggested  that  leaders  adopt  different  leadership  styles  with  different  subordinates.  Leaders also develop   different   dyadic   exchange   relationships   with   different   specific   subordinates.

Such relationships can be the ones that treat the subordinate as in close relationship with the leader or the ones that treat the subordinate as more distant and secluded individual. The LMX theory focuses on the ongoing relationship that leaders and members of their group experience as they negotiate and exchange mutual perceptions, influence, types and amount of work, loyalty and prerequisites, and so forth (Van Wart, 2005).

An advanced version of LMX advocated the notion that good leaders create as many high-exchange relationships as possible. Good leaders need loyal, committed, hardworking, productive, flexible and competent subordinates to advance the group goals and achieve higher level of accomplishments and innovations.

‘The Multiple Linkage Model’ was presented by Yukl in 1981 and then further refined by him in 1989. It is also called an ‘ambitious integrative theory’ by Chemers (1997). The model includes four types of variables:  managerial behaviors, intervening variables, criterion variables, and situational variables.

The model suggests how different variables join together and affect each other to determine the organizational performance.  The emphasis in the multiple linkage models is on the intervening variables and the leader behaviors that affect them. The weakness of this model is that these linkages are not very comprehensive.  The strength of the model is that it considers the intervening process considerably as link between leader behaviors and group outcomes. This model successfully brings the leader, situation, process, and outcome together.

Fielder’s scientific curiosity was once again aroused when he came across some empirical findings that  agreed  with  neither  common  sense  nor  with  accepted  scientific  wisdom.  Therefore, as an extension of his contingency model, Fiedler presented the ‘Cognitive Resources Theory’ in 1986 and further refined in 1987 with his colleagues.

This theory examines the conditions under which cognitive resources such as intelligence and experience are related to job performance.  This theory argues  that  group  performance  is determined  by a complex  interaction  among  two  leader’s  traits (intelligence and experience), one type of leadership behavior (directive leadership), and two aspects of leadership situation (interpersonal  stress and the nature of the group’s task).

Briefly, Fiedler and Garcia presented a causal chain in which a leader’s cognitive resources have a profound impact on group performance when the leader actively directs follower activity. This impact is positive for intelligence under low stress conditions and experience under high stress conditions.

One  of  the  most  influential  leadership  developments  of  the  leadership  research  is  the  concept presented by James MacGregor Burns, first ever presented in 1978 under the title of ‘transformational leadership’.

Writing from the political science tradition, Burns discusses various types of leadership, especially contrasting transactional leadership, which largely appeals to self-interested motivations of followers,  with  transformational  leadership,  which  attempts  to  raise  followers’  consciousness  to reform  and improve  the institutions  (Van  Wart,  2005).   Burns (1978) makes a central distinction between what he calls “transactional” and “transforming” leadership.

Transactional leadership takes place when “one person takes the initiative in making contact with others for the purpose of an exchange of valued things.” This type of leadership is best described as the politics   of exchange,   in which,   for example, a public   official   bargains   jobs for votes. Transformational leadership, in contrast, has a moral dimension. It may be said to occur when “one or more persons engage with each other in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality.”

Burns defines transformational leadership as a dynamic, two-way relationship between leaders and followers. Leaders must connect with the needs and wants of the followers and establish motivation to accomplish collective goals that satisfy the needs of both the leader and the followers.  Mutual need and empathy are key characteristics of transformational leadership.  He also believes that every person is engaged in the leadership process in one way or another at different times and in different situations (Burns, 1978).

In 2003, James MacGregor Burns published a follow up book, ‘Transforming Leadership’,  to explore and expand  his theory  nearly  thirty years later after his infamous  book  ‘Leadership’  in 1978.  He believes that all leaders have a social responsibility to empower people to pursue their own happiness by affecting social change.

He states, “leaders working as partners with the dispossessed people of the world to secure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – happiness empowered with transforming purpose  – could  become  the greatest  act of united  leadership  the world  has ever  known”  (Burns,2003). Burns views that a transformational leader not only speaks to immediate  wants but elevates people by vesting in them a sense of possibility, a belief that change can be made and that they can make them.

Motivation, according to Burns, is what powers leadership.  Creativity is another key element of transformational leadership.  Transforming leaders have the ability to see possibility and innovation and to share that vision with others. He believes that leaders seize opportunities, overcome obstacles and change how the rest of the world acts, thinks and lives. In some cases, Burns believes that crisis can often be a source of creativity. He cites examples of skillful leaders including military commanders, presidents and Chief Executive Officers who have applied creativity in times of crisis to affect great change.

Burns (1978) believed that leaders were either transactional or transformational.    However, seven years later Bernard Bass (1985) proposed that both types of leadership are necessary and that transformational leadership actually enhances transactional behaviors. Bass conceives the leadership as   a   single   continuum.    It   progresses   from   non-leadership    to   transactional    leadership    to transformational leadership.  Non-leadership  provides  haphazard  outcomes;  transactional  leadership gives  improves  and  better  results  which  are  mostly  conventional;  but  transformational  leadership provides the best outcomes.

Bass (1985) is of the view that transformational leadership is a widespread phenomenon across levels of management, types of organizations,  and around the globe. He characterizes  the transformational leaders as having four significant  attributes:  charisma or idealized influence – they have conviction and values and they emphasize the importance of purpose, commitment,  and ethical components of decisions; inspirational motivation – they articulate an appalling vision of future, challenge followers with high standards, talk optimistically with enthusiasm, and provide encouragement and meaning for what needs to be done; intellectual stimulation – they push followers to consider new points of view, to question old assumptions, and to articulate their own views; and individualized consideration – they take into account the needs, capacities,  aspirations of each individual  follower in the effort to treat followers  equitably.

Among  all  transformational   leadership  theories,  Bass’s  is  the  most  highly researched  and  has  a  good  deal  of  positive  support.  His approach is more appealing as well as relatively elegant, considering the large number of styles that it incorporates. Nevertheless, fuzziness and overlap of the transformational concepts are problematic. To measure transformational leadership, Bass and Avolio’s (1995) multifactor leadership questionnaire (MLQ) became the most popular tool for leadership assessment.

Presented by Tichy and Devanna (1986), and refined later (Devanna and Tichy, 1990), this point of  view  about  transformational   leadership  asserts  that  transformational  leadership  is  about  change, innovation and entrepreneurship.  Proponents of this view advocate that managers can be found more commonly  but  transformational  leaders  are  rare  and  they  engage  in  a  process  which  includes  a sequence of phases: recognizing the need for change, creating a new vision, and then institutionalizing the change.

Leaders that are transformational type leaders are individuals who create new approaches and imagine new areas to explore; they relate to people in more intuitive and empathetic ways, seek risk where opportunities and rewards are high, and project ideas into images to excite people. They must bring a change in organizations in three stages.

First is the recognizing the need for revitalization followed by second stage where leader should create a new vision.  In the third and final stage, institutionalizing the change is imperative as new vision is understood and accepted, new structures, mechanisms, and incentives must be in place. The levels of leader effectiveness in behaviors leading to transformational change are the intervening variables; the moderating variables are the ‘triggers for change’. Like most other transformational leadership styles, they seem less interested in specifying a particular leadership style. Rather they are more interested in articulating the general ser of behaviors that has universal utility.

Kouzes and Posner (1987, 1988) adopted an interesting approach to formulate their ideas about transformational leadership. They asked the leaders “what leads to excellent leadership based on their personal experiences?” They collected responses from over thousand leaders using a critical incident methodology and focusing on ‘personal best’ experiences of respondents.

They found five major practices of transformational leaders. They found that transformational leaders: challenge the process, inspire a shared vision, enable others to act, modeling the way, and encourage the heart. Kouzes and Posner also developed the instrument known as ‘leadership practices inventory’ (LPI) to measure the practices of transformational leaders.

Despite the recognition that the transformational leadership theories have gained, there have been criticisms as well.  Yukl (1999) presents a strong case in this regard and makes several points to illustrate conceptual weaknesses in transformational and transactional leadership. He believes that the underlying influence processes for transformational and transactional leadership are still unclear. He further  argues  that each  transformational  behavior  includes  diverse  components,  which  makes  the definition  more ambiguors.

The partially  overlapping  content  and the high inter-correlation  found among  the transformational  behaviors  raise  doubts  about  their construct  validity.  Moreover, some important transformational behaviors (such as inspiring, developing and empowering) are missing in the Bass (1996) version of the theory and in the MLQ, which was designed to test the theory (Bass and Avolio, 1990).

The transformational leadership also fails to identify any situation where it can prove to be detrimental.  Extending his critique on transactional leadership, Yukl (1999) argues that transactional leadership includes a diverse collection of (mostly ineffective) leader behaviors that lack any clear common denominator.

1.2 Problem statement

Leadership is one of the most difficult aspects of management. The pressing issue in this research is to find out the impact of leadership on team performance in CDC. This is because finding has revealed people feel different about team performance as they do not really take it as a very important aspect.

There is a need to know the relevance of leadership on team performance without which team work cannot move smoothly. This is thus, implies that it is through team leadership that team members in CDC can perform well.

Team performance cannot be high without leadership. Despite the significance of leadership in team work, it is absolute true to say that without leadership team performance can still be at it boom and it is preferable not to have a team leader than to have bad team leader; hence there it will not be profitable to have a leader that will not have any impact on team performance.

1.3 Objective of the study

The main objective of this study is to examine the impact of leadership on team performance in C.D.C.

Specific objectives

1. To analyze the effect of leadership on team performance in C.D.C
2. To examine which leadership styles that can boost up team performance in C.D.C.
3. To assess how, leadership can increase team performance in C.D.C
4. To investigate if leadership can motivate team workers in C.D.C.

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