As you learned during the first few weeks of the course, there have been a multitude of approaches proposed to study leadership, each one focused on a different rationale for what makes leaders effective (i.e., their traits, their behaviors, their relationships with subordinates, their ability to handle different situations, their authenticity, their focus on service to followers). Regardless of theory, one fundamental component of organizational leadership is that leaders are expected to influence others (e.g., subordinates, peers, higher-level leaders) to achieve goals in line with their objectives.
Notably, a leader’s ability to influence others will be based in part on the type of social power they have and choose to use (Jex & Britt, 2014). Leaders obtain and wield power over subordinates in many different ways. The most popular model of power was proposed by French and Raven (1959) and describes six bases of power including coercive power (i.e., the power to punish), reward power (i.e., the power to reward), legitimate power (i.e., the power of position), expert power (i.e., the power of having expertise others do not have), referent power (i.e., the power of popularity), and informational power (i.e., the power of knowledge-information).
Organizational leaders are not spontaneously endowed with unlimited power; in fact, many draw from multiple sources of power which they’ve cultivated over time and with a great deal of effort. The question remains whether you can consider all power and all types of influences to be morally neutral. Power and the capacity to influence others often has a negative connotation; however, it’s not the power, but what individuals choose to do with it that may produce negative outcomes or a harmful aspect of leadership. In recent years, a great deal of research has been focused on unethical aspects of leadership, also known as destructive or toxic leadership.
Specifically, Einarsen, Aasland, and Skogstad (2007) describe destructive leaders as those who repeatedly violate organizational interests by undermining the effectiveness or well-being of their followers. Einarsen et al. (2007) noted that there are several types of destructive leaders, including tyrannical leaders (i.e., achieves organizational goals by bullying subordinates), derailed leaders (i.e., abusive leaders that also engage in anti-organizational behaviors like theft), and supportive-disloyal leaders (i.e., shows consideration to subordinates but undermines organizational goals).
In addition, research shows that negative personality traits are related to the negative side of leadership. For instance, leaders that exhibit narcissistic, argumentative, or mischievous personalities are less likely to be considered transformational leaders (Khoo & Burch, 2008). Also, individuals who tend to be disagreeable at work are also more likely to be self-centered, confrontational, and antisocial personalities and yet have a higher probability of becoming supervisors. However, more recent studies suggest destructive leaders are also enabled by susceptible followers and conducive environments – in particular, a horrible boss may be horrible due to a poor fit within the organizational environment, not simply due to a lack of adequate traits (Camps, Stouten, & Euwema, 2016).
Be sure to review this week’s resources carefully. You are expected to apply the information from these resources when you prepare your assignments.
References
Camps, J., Stouten, J., & Euwema, M. (2016). The relation between supervisors’ big five personality traits and employees’ experiences of abusive supervision. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 112-118.
Einarsen, S., Aasland, M. S., & Skogstad, A. (2007). Destructive leadership behaviour: A definition and conceptual model. The Leadership Quarterly, 18(3), 207-216.
French, J., & Raven, B. H. (1959). The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.) Studies in social power (pp. 150-167). Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research.
Jex, S. M., & Britt, T. W. (2008). Organizational psychology: A scientist-practitioner approach (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Khoo, H. S., & Burch, G. S. J. (2008). The ‘dark side’ of leadership personality and transformational leadership: An exploratory study. Personality and Individual Differences, 44(1), 86-97.
1. Legitimate power stems from the power of having expertise others do not have. (False)
2. Leaders with argumentative personalities are less likely to be considered transformational leaders. (True)
3. Derailed leaders are a type of destructive leader that shows consideration to subordinates but undermines organizational goals. (False)
4. Referent power stems from a leader’s popularity amongst their subordinates. (True)
5. Destructive leaders are enabled by susceptible followers and conducive environments. (True)
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