“Leadership Style refers to the more or less consistent patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that characterize the way in which the leader deal with people and situations in a leadership context. Leader ship style is one of the strongest tools the leaders have in their repertory as leader”.
Four of leadership styles will be focused on, managerial style, transformational style, transactional style and strategic style. An investigation will be driven through three organizations in Al Ain town to assess the leaders ship`s style that used by leaders.
This search opts to analyze the different leadership styles implemented in three chosen organizations ,In addition it will be emphasized on the result of this search ,what might we learn and the kind of characteristic that lead to the effective leadership.
Methods of data collection
Questionnaire is the method we used for collecting data “The use of questionnaire is usually the least costly method for collecting information. It is an effective way to collect a large amount of information in a short period of time. (Ivacevich 2010)
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Surveying Tool: Leadership Style Questionnaire (LSQ)
The tool used to survey the leadership style of Leader is the “Leadership Style Questionnaire” (LSQ) that is designed by Preiss (2009) as a self assessment tool to help individual understanding their leadership styles. The survey mainly assesses the individual tendency toward a transformational-transactional or strategic-managerial leader style. It is designed in a way that helps individuals who utilize it to develop an understanding of their leadership features; it also supports their understating of similarities and differences among leadership styles and types of leaders.
The LSQ consists of total of 20 pairs of statements that are divided into two categories: transformational vs transactional leadership style and strategic vs managerial leadership style. Each category consists of 10 pairs of statements( see Appendix 1). Individuals who complete the LSQ are requested to divide five points (in positive number, no zero) between the two statements of each pair according to their beliefs or perceptions of themselves and which statement better reflects their characteristics. The statement pairs could be linked to either of styles and only the final scores reflects the leadership style. The final scores are found by summing the points, in columns, assigned for each statement. The higher column total indicates if individual agree more or reflect more either a transformational or transactional or strategic or managerial leader (Preiss, 2009). Here is an example of the statements of category one:
1A. I have a primary mission of maintaining stability []
1B. I have a primary mission of change []
It is clear that statement 1A reflects the transactional style while 1B indicates the transformational style; and so one.
To collect information about the leadership style of Leader; the survey was distributed for Leader himself, his superintendent (HR Manger), five of his subordinates (followers) and two peers who are also in a leading positions in different department but with business relationship with Leader. The sample is selected conveniently according to the participants’ willing to be part of the survey which was distributed as a hard copy. The total number surveyed is 8 participants in additional to Leader. The survey was distributed in hard copy; however, participants who are in authority positions (HR manager and peers) were asked to fill two copies of the survey: one about their own leadership styles and the second is about how they perceive the Leader’ leadership style. This produced total of 12 survey results which will be analyzed to interpret the organizational leadership style.
Interview is another method we used to collected data, we interviewed the manger and some employees to see if the organization set strategic plan in order to enhance the leadership among the organization.
Leadership styles:
There are many ways to lead and every leader has his or her own style. Some of the more common styles include transactional. Transformational, strategic and managerial.
Transactional Leadership
Definition & Theories
The base of transactional leadership is positioned on the “transaction” concept: “it is an agreement between separate entities or objects, often involving the exchange of items of value”. Hence, the transactional leadership style is developed with the perception that the leader, who holds power, provides items of value for followers to do what he wants them to do; or the leaders holds back these items and/or punish the followers if they do not do what is desired. This leadership style was initially pointed up by Max Weber in 1947 and then by Bernard Bass in 1981 (Money-Zine, 2010).
Theories and assumptions behind leadership style and characteristics of transactional leaders will be discussed in the following sections in addition to the benefits and limitations attached to this style of leadership.
Transactional leadership relies on the Behaviorism Theory which believes that “all human behaviors are acquired as a result of conditioning and/or responding to stimuli”. This implies that behaviors/performance can be shaped and controlled by group of positive (rewards) and negative (punishment) reinforcements. Principles of operant conditioning, proposed by Skinner in 1975, states that rewarded behaviors are likely to be repeated/maintained while behaviors that bring undesired situation are most likely to be censored (Mergel, 1998).
These basics of behaviorism theory provide the assumptions for transactional leadership that people are mainly motivated by reward and punishment; and they best operate when they are clearly told what to do within a solid system of chain of command (Changingminds.org, 2010). Within organizations, when employees accept to do the job, then they agree that they concede the authority to the upper layers of management and to own the responsibilities of that job’ tasks. The management will encourage the performance by providing incentives for completed on time tasks; while the failure to complete the job’ tasks result on kind of punishment.
Transactional Leadership Traits
As introduced, the main relationship between transactional leader and followers is “I will give you this if you give me that” with power and control held by only the leader. Once agreement of exchange occurs, the transactional leadership style takes the “telling style” at which leaders allocate work to followers and “tell them” what exactly to do with less (if any at all) decision making opportunities. In organization that reflects this style, immediately after the contract negotiation and agreements about the employee hiring and what salary and benefits he/she will be given, the organization gets authority over the employee (Changingminds.org, 2010). This authority is demonstrated by the practice of the direct manager who becomes the transactional leader.
Transactional leaders, then, create a working framework at which objectives and tasks’ requirements are clear for employees. They promote reliable performance and enable employees to achieve agreed-upon objectives by providing directions, clarifications and resources as needed. They use rewards to encourage successful performance and punishment to limit failures (Barnett, 2003; Gellis, 2001; Jung & Avolio, 1999 as cited in Hay, 2007).
The main practice for transactional leaders, therefore, is to motivate their followers (employees) through setting clear goals and liking the rewards ((or punishment) to efforts, performance and productivity. They also use the “manage by exception” principle which refers simply to the idea of keeping things running the way it is except if there is a problem, mistake and/or poor performance that needs attention (Hay, 2007). Managing by exception characterizes the passive type of transactional leadership. The active type, from other hand, emphasizes rewarding the employees on achieving goals (Balgobind, 2002).
Transactional Leaders skills
Transactional leaders usually have the qualities of negotiation skills that enable them to reach agreements with people and to complete the transactions in the way to achieve the set goals. They view the leadership as from more managerial aspects and the relationships with people as “this for that”. There are main five different types of transactional leaders: opinion leaders with the ability to influence the public opinion; bureaucratic leader who hold powerful position over followers; party leaders who hold political titles, legislative leaders who hold powerful “behind the scene” political positions and executive leaders who hold presidency positions (Money-Zine, 2010). It is worth to highlight that most of these types “inherit” the leadership power from situations and/or positions; and in the most of the time, they proven to be effective in meeting new people, establishing transactional relationship and getting tasks completed.
Transformational Leadership
Definition
The term of transformational leadership has been depicted and discussed since 20th century. Many experts tried to define the transformational leadership such as James MacGregor Burns. Burns defines transformational leadership as (Such leadership occurs when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality.)
According to Burns transformational leadership affects deeply our life and our work environment where the leadership goes beyond the basic needs and redesigning old values and perceptions. Then, 1″Bernard M. Bass (1985), another researcher, developed the original ideas of Burns to become a theory. He suggested that the measurement of transformational leaders based on its influence on followers. And due to the qualities of transformational leader, as he claimed, followers show trust, loyalty and admiration.
Transformational leadership Theory
Transformational leadership is a process in which the leader engages others, builds trust and creates a connection that increases the motivation and morality in both the leader and the follower. A trans formational leader focuses on others and their needs in order to help them reach their potential. In many ways, transformational leadership is about a leader’s ability to create a vision related to a goal that has meaning for both the leader and follower.
Large dramatic changes have appeared and made huge changes in the organizations in UAE. The organizations have been facing strong competitions that require high level of innovation and creativity. Therefore, the role of leadership in organizations has become an integral part where having energetic, enthusiastic and passionate leadership is important. Here, the transformational leadership has gained its importance.
The Components of Transformational Leadership
Bass suggested also that there are four basic components of the transformational leadership. They are referred as the 4 I’s as the following:
Idealized influence: talking about this components leads to talk about charismatic leadership as a component of transformational leadership. It is about building a strong role, strong vision, trust and confidence where the followers then are highly willing and motivated not to imitate but also to emulate.
Inspirational motivation: It is about setting a challenging and high standards and encouraging followers to be parts of the whole organization.
Intellectual stimulation: Transformational leaders reinforce followers’ creativity and innovations helping them to see things in different ways and encouraging them to create new things without fear.
Individualized consideration: it is about offering guidance, advice and reinforcement for each follower and treats the followers individually according to their knowledge and talents helping them reach higher achievements.
Characteristics of Transformational Leadership
There are five primary characteristics that transformational leaders convert.
Creative
Transformational leaders are the arch-enemy of routine and the status quo. They seek out new ideas and ways of performing tasks. They belief that being satisfied with the past achievement is not the end ,but instead it is a small step for high and more achievements.
Interactive
Transformational leaders are excellent communicators who can define ideas that escape others. They transfer their new ideas through images and metaphors and models to their followers with encouraging followers to be parts of the leadership.
Visionary
Transformational leaders communicate a desirable and attainable vision to their followers inspiring them to be more committed to their work.
Empowering
Transformational leaders are extraordinary in managing power. They know how, when and why to empower their followers and engaged them to effectively participate.
Passionate
Transformational leaders are strongly committed to their work and love being in and working with their followers making a positive environment and being a motivating example of their followers to do the best they can.
Strategic Leadership
Definition
Strategic Leadership is defined as measuring the vision and growth indication of the organization success and development. Many Skill and tool are necessary to carry out the strategy implementation.
It is also defined as “The ability to anticipate, envision, maintain flexibility, and empower others to create strategic change as necessary. Strategic leadership is based on long-term planning. It involves establishing and maintaining systems, allocating resources, and communicating vision. Principals need to maintain the focus clearly on the central vision for their school.”
Strategic Leadership: Traits and characteristic
Strategic leaders are known as mission focused. They are mostly concentrating all their efforts to achieve the mission of their organization. They try hardly to influence their employees to put in front of their eyes the work rather than their personal needs. Morality at work is vital for strategic leaders and they encourage their employees to not lose it.
They take care of details. Strategic leaders think that details are important more that the big things in any issue appear in the organization. They think that big things can take care of themselves.
Their thinking is complex and they look for non-obvious causes and solutions. Strategic leaders believe that there is no perfect solution for any problem which organization may face.
There is little or no certainty in how the world works. If there is, we haven’t figured out yet. Strategic leaders believe that Events and situations therefore have a range of probable causes, each of which may or may not be assigned definite probabilities.
They spend most of their time thinking about the future. Strategic leaders use the experience they went through to achieve the vision of the organization.
Strategic Leadership approach
To be a distinguished leader, leaders need to have enough recognition of incorporate features of both human and analytical dimensions which is driving the organization success. Moreover, they should be aware to what extent is the vision which they follow is significant, effective and different from one leader to another one. There are categories which considered as the approaches of the leaders and it will be discussed in the vision of the strategic leaders.
The categories are:
The primary role of chief strategist.
The leader’s functions and tasks during ongoing strategy making.
The kind of team should be created by continuous strategy
The timing of ending the strategy.
The primary role of chief strategist.
Now we can decide whether the chief strategist’s role is to design or mange a process to achieve the product.
Analytical : The strategist’s function is to be “architect to the perfect strategy product” this means that he has to be an expert in designing programmer that raise the quality of the performance – for example, mastering data, providing the fundamentals of future success.
Human: The chief strategist should absorb any development and more completely to give the outcome the cognitive background needed.
The leader’s functions and tasks during ongoing strategy making.
The main responsibilities of the leader are to be “Coach and guide enjoying personal abilities.
Analytical: Vision and intelligence are necessary capabilities for leader to achieve the organization’s objectives.
Human: As human being, leaders are supposed to play active role in teaching and practicing strategies to link the theory and application in one situation.
The kind of team should be created by continuous strategy.
In this case, does to the leader depend on his individual decision or adopts team work strategies to produce distinguished strategy.
Analytical: This approach creates an exclusive inner circle. Since working with groups is better and productive because groups enrich strategy with more ideas and problem solutions.
Human: Team working approach supports the communication and participations so that the leaders as well as the individual feel that they are a part of the continuous development process.
The timing of ending the strategy.
The leader usually has a concept of what is the proper time to finish the strategy or start a new one.
Analytical: The policy of “Check off” is known for leaders to finish the task. So, the leader should define time period and executed.
Human: Leaders usually sees strategies as ongoing steps to reach the successful out comes, so they adapt re-visit critical assumptions.
The managerial leadership style
Definition
“A managerial leader is a person who both can and wants to help his or her people to satisfy their needs. Leadership becomes a reality when subordinates know that their managers fill these needs this is to say, when they can trust that their managers know their work and are able to do it”.
Napoleon Bonaparte said: “Every soldier is entitled to a competent command”. A managerial paraphrase of this would be “every employee is entitled to have a competent manager”.
MANAGERIAL POLICY
“Managers are accountable for the results of their subordinates and for their behavior on the job.
Managers are accountable for the application of managerial leadership practices.
All employees are accountable for working at the top of their capabilities.
Managers are accountable for keeping a team of subordinates in which every person fills at least the minimum requirements of their roles.”
Managerial leadership traits
The relationship of traits to managerial success has been investigated in many ways regarding to Yukl (2010) there are some specific traits related to leadership:
Energy level and stress tolerance: the high energy will help the manger to cope with certain issues like pace, long hours of work also to understand the job demand.
Self-confidence: this trait relating to the manager self esteem without strong self- confidence, a leader is less likely to make influence attempts.
Locus of control orientation: person with this trait believes that they can influence their own destiny; they take more responsibilities for their own actions.
The strong need for power: It is involving the use of power and influence, Managers must exercise power to influence subordinates, peers and superiors
Personal integrity: this refers to the manager behavior which consistent with honesty, values and ethical.
Achievement orientation: It is include a set of attitude and values. Managers with a strong a achievement orientation are likely to have a strong concern for task objectives,
The need for affiliation: People with a strong need for affiliation receive great satisfaction from being and accepted by others, there are a negative correlation between need for affiliation and managerial effectiveness.
Managerial leadership skills
There are three major skills that related to the managerial leadership regarding to Yukl (2010)
Technical skills: which include knowledge about methods, processes and equipment for conducting the specialized activities of the manager`s organization unit. Managers who supervise the work of others need extensive knowledge of the techniques used by the subordinates to perform the work.
Conceptual skills: which involve good judgment, intuition creativity and the ability to find meaning. A manager with high cognitive complexity is able to develop a better mental model of the organization to help understand the most critical factors and the relationship among them.
Interpersonal skills or social skills: include knowledge about human behavior and ability to understand the feelings, attitudes and motives of others. Strong interpersonal skills help a manager listen in an attentive and non judgment way to somebody with a personal problem.
Survey Site, Sampling and Method
The site at which survey is conducted is the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU). UAEU is a federal institution established in 1976 as the first university in the UAE with to offer free education, transportation, and accommodation for undergraduate students. UAEU locates in Al Ain city and contains ten colleges that offer 64 different undergraduate academic programs and 14 main graduate programs including the PhD program cross all colleges. In 2008-2009 academic years, there were 11,752 registered at the university in undergraduate program and 477 students in graduate programs while number of graduated students at the same academic year reached 966 students from undergraduate programs and 82 students from graduate programs (Bowen, 2009). UAEU performs with 818 academic and 1,987 non-academic personnel and within organizational chart as illustrated in Chart 1 (UAE University, 2010).
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Findings
The LSQ results for Leader indicate that Leader is more transformational leader than transactional and managerial leader with total average scores of 25 points for transformational style and 26.9 points for strategic style in compare to 24.8 points for transactional styles and 23 points for managerial style; this average value includes the scores Leader assigned for himself. However, Leader perceives himself as a transformational and strategic leader as in the survey he completed by his own, he scored 30 points for transformational style and 38.5 points for strategic style in compare to 20 and 11.5 points respectively which leads to high deviation that affects the final average results. Hence, when these Leader’ self-assessment scores are not counted; the total average value indicates that Leader is seen as transactional but strategic leader rather than transformational and managerial (24.5 vs 25.4 and 25.4 vs 24.4). Average scores are illustrated in Chart 2.
CHART2 : AVG scores for Leader’ leadership styles according to the total survey participants
So, self-assessment scores of being strategic leader were supported by the average scores from employees who have relationships with Leader. Leader’ followers perceive him as a transactional and strategic leader (average of 24.6 vs 25.2; 25.3 vs 24.5) and so do his peers (22 vs 28 and 27.3 vs 22.8). What is interesting is that Leader’ manager is the only one who perceives Leader as transformational and managerial leader at the same time ( 29 vs 21 and 22.5 vs 27.5). Followers, from their side, perceive Leader in different ways; while three out of five agreed that he is transactional and strategic, one follower indicated that he is transformational and managerial and other one indicated that Leader has equal transformational and transactional features. Followers’ scores are illustrated in Chart 3 .
CHART3: Followers LSQ scores
Having a deeper look into the survey points, it is noticed that 50% of participants indicated that Leader has a primary mission of change (40% of his followers) while both of his peers pointed that he has primary mission of maintaining stability. However, also 50% referred to his a realistic leader who prefers to think short range (80% of his follower) and 75% of total participants think that Leader believes that a significant part of his leadership is that of facilitator. 50% of participants indicated that Leader believes leadership should be inspirational, however, half participants also perceive tat what power he has to influence others comes primarily from his status and positions (60% of his followers). Leader and Leader’ manager, though, believe that Leader’ power to influence others comes primarily from his ability to get people to identify with his and their ideas. Leader indicated that he is more concerned his followers are rewarded for equitably of their work than about what they want in life; 40% of his followers supported that while 60% think he is concerned equally about both.
Leader stated that he spends considerable energy in managing separated but related goals and less time in arousing hopes, expectations and aspirations among his leaders; Leader’ manager highly supported this point ( 4 vs 1 out of 5) and so do his peers. However, 80% of his followers think the opposite and that he spends more energy in arousing aspiration among his leaders. 80% also of his followers also believe that he enjoys stimulating them to want to do more, not only rewarding them for a job well done. Chart 4, 5 and 6 illustrate the total scores for Leader’ tendency toward transactional- transformational leadership characteristics; these scores reflects participants’ perception of Leader.
CHART4: Vision and Change Mission Tendency
CHART5: Facilitators and Goals’ Managing Tendency
CHART6: Inspiration and Influence Power Sources
Discussion
Leader’ followers indicated his leadership style to be transactional and strategic which was supported by his peers’ feedback but not his direct manager perception who indicates Leader style to be transformational and managerial. Leader, the peers and also the top manager all perceive themselves as transformational and strategic leaders rather than transactional and managerial. If this indicates anything then it indicates the organization tendency to foster the transformational and strategic leadership styles among their managers and leaders who are not necessary practicing them. As noticed, Leader’ direct manager perceive himself and his member staff (Leader) as transformational leaders since being transformational leader applies the ability to develop others to become leaders from same style; however, the followers don’t experience this style from their leader which could be an evident that maybe the top manager and Leader know about the leadership concepts but they don’t practice them well or don’t have the ability to influence others. Especially when look into the Leader’ self scores that are significantly different than how his followers (and peers) perceive his leadership style.
Leader is seen more as realistic and practical leader who spends more energy managing the goals and facilitating the events rather than coaching, motivating others to innovate and go beyond the setting goals. I believe this can be directly linked to the organizational culture; in public organization, it is a general tendency to celebrate practicality and appreciate managers who get tasks/goals accomplished as set, especially when it is none-profit organization like the case in UAEU. However, to respond to dynamic changes in markets and privatization in most of public services sector, it becomes very important for leaders in organizations to be able to sense the local and global trends’ changes and respond to these changes with more innovative initiatives that ensure the competition edge for the organizations through attracting not only the customers but also the most talented employees in the field; it is quite known that employees “quit managers, not organizations”. Furthermore, the leader’ ability to establish a “vision” of where h/she want (along with team) to be in the long term will “inspire” others to look to the future and to head into the same direction the leader is taking which definitely aligned to the organizational vision and strategic goals.
The leader should also have (or develop) good communication skills. Two -ways communication will enable the leader to understand his followers’ needs, to sense their concerns and what they want from life and to observe their skills and capacities; this allows him to assign each members of team the right tasks to do and also help him using the appropriate methods to motivate each one of the team members.
Most importantly, effective communication ensures that messages and role-responsibilities assignments are received and are understood all the way down through the team structure; according to Forster (2009) “a significant component of effective leadership is communication and many transformational leaders often have exceptional communication skills. They are adept at telling staff who they are, where are they going and why they are going there.”
One more point need to be taken into consideration is the power of inspiration and motivation. Leader needs to be able to motivate his followers, each according to his own personal motivation forces that differ cross individuals and range from higher emotional forces into more materialistic. Leader should know that motivating people starts with learning how to influence their behavior to increase their loyalty, dedications and desires to accomplish both personal and organizational objectives; as leadership is seen as “the ability to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organization”.
Strategic leadership, on the other hand, seems to be a feature of the organizational culture due to its strong presence in the scores against weak indication of managerial style. This also supports that the organization is on the right track to move away from transactional into transformational leadership style. It is important to pay attention to other factors that may affect the result of this survey. Example if these factors could be the competition among employees and against Leader that may leads them to give him unfair points and/or the small number of participants.
Al Ain hospital has been one of the most vivid local organizations. It contributes considerably providing a wide range of medical services. It’s search for success and leadership makes it more interesting in take advantage of new opportunities. It’s agreement with the most popular medical faculty (Hopkins) was one of the most challenging stage it went through. It is like a treasure taking this great hospital to be a part of the report.
The questionnaire was distributed in one of the most important departments (Training Department). 360 degree feedback was used and a varied range of employees with different categories, positions and genders were involved with the aim of discovering the most popular leadership style used in the hospital. the head of the training department was selected to be our target and also the questionnaire cover other three leaders and shade the light on their leaders
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