Motivating Others & Leadership
© 2010
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Fred Fiedler (1981) examined a variety of leaders and claimed that leadership variation can be conceptualized using two dimensions. The first dimension is known as task leadership. A leader who is strong in task leadership focuses on the efficiency of the group's task. These types of leaders tend to have a directive leadership style (i.e., directly tell group members exactly what to do, how to do it, & when to do it). If the leader is very intelligent and organized, this type of leadership can be very effective. Since this form of leadership is highly goal-oriented, it is most effective when there is a high demand for productivity. It often allows work to be completed very efficiently in a short amount of time. One of the drawbacks of this type of leadership is that there is often a high level of pressure for group members to constantly be highly productive. This sometimes results in high levels of stress for the group members.
The second dimension of leadership is known as social leadership. A leader who is strong in this type of leadership focuses on the relationships among the members in the group they are leading. These leaders assume that if people feel accepted and respected by the people around them, they will be motivated to do well. Therefore, their focus is to make people feel accepted and respected. In order to do this, they actively seek their input, and develop a strategy for the task together with the group. This helps everyone in the group feel personally invested in the task, which naturally motivates each member to do well. These leaders use a democratic style of leadership, respecting and caring for the needs and desires for each member in the group. The leader strong in social leadership is very process-oriented and tries to make the task personally meaningful for everyone in the group. They are more concerned with how the job is done rather than how much is done. This type of leadership is very effective when the task is complex and requires high levels of creativity. If the task is simple, repetitive, and requires minimal creativity, leaders usually resort to higher levels of task leadership and lower levels of social leadership. One of the limitations of social leadership is that it only works well with small groups. Because leaders can only pay attention to the needs and desires of a limited number of people at a time, this type of leadership works best with groups of a maximum of fifteen to twenty individuals.
As we can imagine from our own personal experiences, all leaders have a combination of both characteristics. However, there are individual differences in how much of each type of leadership is emphasized. Some leaders may be relatively strong task leaders but relatively poor social leaders. Others may be relatively strong social leaders and relatively poor task leaders. Other leaders may be relatively strong in both and may be adept at adjusting his or her level of social and task leadership depending on particular tasks and situations they face.
These two styles of leadership relate to some earlier research on leaders by Douglas McGregor (1960). McGregor examined various leaders in the world and found that their leadership style depended largely on their general beliefs about human behavior. He claims that there are people who believe in Theory X and people who believe in Theory Y. People who believe in Theory X think that people are generally lazy and need extrinsic motivation to work (click here for a description of extrinsic motivation). When these people become leaders, they like to take control and actively try to make people productive by providing controlling rewards (i.e., external incentives such as money) and exposing them to the threat of punishment. These types of leaders tend to focus on the end goal of completing the task, a central characteristic of leaders with high levels of task leadership.
In contrast, people who believe in Theory Y think that people naturally want to be productive. They believe that if we provide people with the right circumstances, people are intrinsically motivated (click here for a description of intrinsic motivation) to work and be constructive. When these people become leaders, they focus on creating the right kind of environment. They try to create a caring environment where people feel respected and accepted and naturally want to help each other. They tend to accept more input from their group members regarding how the work is done. This helps everyone feel like the work they do is personally meaningful because they are involved in the decisions about how things should be done. Instead of providing controlling rewards, these leaders are more likely to provide informative rewards. Informative rewards are caring feedback messages to make a person feel better about him or herself. Sometimes it may be a smile or a simple nod of acknowledgement. In other cases, they may be compliments or a statement of recognition. They also may be comments to help the workers become more aware of the progress they have made. In most cases, they show that the workers' contributions are valued and appreciated in a genuine way. These leaders feel that as long as they create this positive and supportive environment, everything else (such as productivity, finances, etc.) will take care of itself. As you can see from this description, these types of leaders tend to focus on the process of the task, a central characteristic of leaders with high levels of social leadership (Fiedler, 1981).
References
Fiedler, F. E. (1981). Leadership effectiveness. American Behavioral Scientist, 24, 619-632.
McGregor, D. (1960). The human side of enterprise. New York: McGraw-Hill.