Authoritarian Leadership

by | Oct 17, 2012 | Research

Yesterday’s post looked at some of the implications of Kurt Lewin’s psychological research. Another study he did in 1939 set out to identify different styles of leadership. To look at different styles he studied a group of schoolchildren. The kids were broken up into three groups, each with a different type of leader, one being authoritarian, another democratic, and the last, delegative. To conduct the research, he assigned each of the groups an arts and crafts project and he observed the results.

The first group operated at the hands of an authoritative leader, one who provided clear expectations of who, what, where, when, why, and how a task needed to be performed. This type of leader typically dictates policies and procedures as well as goals. Acting often as a micromanager, this type of boss directs and controls all activities without meaningful participation by other members of the team.

Lewin’s research found that decision making was much less creative under authoritarian leadership.

This isn’t all bad. If you look back at Lewin’s earlier work that postulated that behaviour was a function of the person in the environment. There are a few environments where this type of leadership is sorely needed. Where there is little time for decision making, as in a crisis situation, an authoritarian leader will thrive. If as well, there is an inexperienced team, this type of leadership is a requisite function for success.

But in the long run, in a stable and experienced environment, an authoritarian leader will fail to deliver upon the potential of the organization.

 

Kurt Lewin on Behaviour

by | Oct 16, 2012 | Leaders, Research

Kurt Lewin, who died in 1947, was one of the pioneers of social, organizational and applied psychology. He was one of the first people to study group dynamics and organizational development. What is most interesting about his work is his study of leadership. If you’ve ever worked for a mercurial leader, one whose mood you couldn’t predict, then Kurt’s work goes a long way to explain that person’s behaviour.

According to Lewin, behaviour is a function of the person in their environment. What this means to say is that if you take one person in one environment it is likely that he or she will behave differently in a different environment. This has a few implications at work:

  • A boss you like at one workplace isn’t necessarily going to be the same boss at the next workplace and that following him or her to a new workplace might be an error.
  • If also means that a person who is successful in one environment isn’t necessarily going to be successful in another.
  • In addition, if an environment changes, you may have to look for a different leader, one who can function more effectively in the new environment.

If you’re finding that your behaviour at work is changing (for the worse) then you may be better off finding a new environment that fits your behaviour style better. Ask yourself; In which environments are you successful and in which ones do you fail? Don’t just search for the right job, search as well for the right environment.

 

 

Focus on Strengths

by | Oct 4, 2012 | Literature Review

While Sam Walton was a great believer in identifying weaknesses, he didn’t focus on them. Yesterday’s blog was not meant to advocate a focus on weaknesses, just to say that ignoring them is not productive. In fact, what you want to focus on are strengths.

The book, Strengths Finder by Tom Rath lays out the findings from some great research done by the Gallup organization on employee engagement.

Make today a Strengths day. Go out and compliment a few people today.

 

Sam Walton – SWOT

by | Oct 3, 2012 | Leaders

Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart was a great believer in looking at strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, SWOT, on a regular basis. So much so that he made it part of their regular Saturday management meetings. In Sam’s own words:

“That Saturday morning meeting is very much about business. Its purpose is to let everyone know what the rest of the company is up to. If we can, we find heroes among our associates and bring them to Bentonville, where we praise them in front of the whole meeting.(Strengths)

“But I don’t like to go to the meeting and hear about just the good things that are happenning. I like to hear what our weaknesses are, where we aren’t doing as well as we should and why. I like to see a problem come up and then hear suggestions as to how it can be corrected. If we decide we’re doing something wrong, and the solution is obvious, we can order changes right then and carry them out over the weekend, while most everybody else in the retail business is off.

“The Saturday morning meeting is where we discuss and debate much of our philosophy and our management strategy (Threats): it is the focal point of all of our communication efforts. It’s where we share ideas (Opportunities) we’ve picked up from various places.”

 

Richard Branson – Big Picture Thinker

by | Sep 27, 2012 | Leaders

Sir Richard Branson

Thinking Strategically (yesterday’s blog), in more prosaic terms is about seeing the big picture. What’s your big picture? For Richard Branson, it was customer service. He built the Virgin Group, a collection of seemingly unrelated businesses by targeting businesses where things were not being run well by other people.

From his first entrepreneurial venture at the age of 16 to his current big picture idea of Virgin Galactic, Branson has seen niches where others have chosen not to go or as in the case of Virgin Airways, where he was frustrated by current service levels. He founded Virgin Records because no one would produce and release  Mike Oldfield’s hypnotic Tubular Bells. He founded Virgin Atlantic because American Airlines canceled a flight to the Virgin Islands.

“There is no point in going into a business unless you can make a radical difference in other people’s lives,” Branson says. “To me, it’s like painting a picture: You have to get all the colors right and all the little nuances right to create the perfect picture, or the perfect company. I know that there’s need for Virgin to come in and attack a marketplace, because I know that I’m frustrated by having to experience bad service in that particular marketplace.” (www.entrepreneur.com)

So frustration leads to big picture leads to another company. If you look at all of his business startups, he was attacking markets where he saw some combination of substandard quality mixed with high cost or slow service. For Branson, the big picture is all about changing the current paradigm of Quality, Cost, and Speed.