LEADERSHIP

AND

PSYCHOLOGICAL

WELL-BEING

Abstract

This project focuses on two different types of leadership styles namely,Ethical and

Authentic leadership. The study primarily focuses on authentic and ethical leadership

styles and their relationship with the psychological well-being of leaders. The objective

of this project is to study and understand these two types of leadership styles and their

correlation with the psychological well-being of the leader,with the help of Leadership

And Well-Being Scale.

Leadership is a very important topic for research in today's work settings. It's very

important to study different types of leadership styles and to find out how and in what

ways each leadership style affects the psychological well-being of the leader. Authentic

and Ethical leadership-styles are also two very effective leadership styles and are being

studied very extensively by industrial and organizational psychologists. The main

objective of this study is to find the correlation between authentic/ethical leadership and

psychological well being of the leaders.

Being a successful leader is not an easy job and it requires a lot of knowledge and

expertise. From recruitment and training to decision making and problem solving ,a

leader has many responsibilities. The pressure of all these responsibilities may also

affect the personal life of the leader and may exert some effect on his physical as well as

psychological health. Each distinct type of leadership-style has some effect on the

leader. In this study,we try to find out if authentic/ethical leadership styles have some

effect on the leader's psychological well-being and if it's there,of what sort it is.

The main objective of this project is to understand and explain the relationship between

authentic/ethical leadership styles and the psychological well-being of the leader.

This project will help the managers and leaders understand the importance of

authentic/ethical leadership styles in different situations and also it will help them

understand the correlation between these leadership styles and their own psychological

well -being. This project will help the leaders select the appropriate leadership style in

order to improve their psychological well-being. This,in turn,will increase their efficacy

and performance as group leaders.

About the organization

National Thermal Power Corporation(NTPC) is India's largest power company. It was

set up in 1975 to accelerate power development in India. It is emerging as an ‘Integrated

Power Major’, with a significant presence in the entire value chain of power generation

business.

NTPC ranked 341st in the ‘2010, Forbes Global 2000’ ranking of the World’s biggest

companies.

Human resources at NTPC

People before PLF (Plant Load Factor) is the guiding philosophy behind the entire

gamut of HR policies at NTPC. The human resources department at NTPC is strongly

committed to the development and growth of all the employees as individuals and not

just as employees. It currently employs approximately 26,000 people at NTPC.

Competence building, Commitment building, Culture building and Systems building are

the four building blocks on which it's HR systems are based.

NTPC has a well established talent management system in place, to ensure that it

delivers on it's promise of meaningful growth and relevant challenges for it's employees.

The talent management system comprises PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT,

CAREER PATHS and LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT.

Introduction

The concept of leadership

Leadership can be defined as a process by which one individual influences others

toward the attainment of group or organizational goals. Three points about the definition

of leadership should be emphasized. First, leadership is a social influence process.

Leadership cannot exist without a leader and one or more followers. Second, leadership

elicits voluntary action on the part of followers. The voluntary nature of compliance

separates leadership from other types of influence based on formal authority. Finally,

leadership results in followers' behavior that is purposeful and goal-directed in some sort

of organized setting. Many, although not all, studies of leadership focus on the nature of

leadership in the workplace.

Leadership is probably the most frequently studied topic in the organizational sciences.

Thousands of leadership studies have been published and thousands of pages on

leadership have been written in academic books and journals, business-oriented

publications, and general-interest publications. Despite this, the precise nature of

leadership and its relationship to key criterion variables such as subordinate satisfaction,

commitment, and performance is still uncertain, to the point where Fred Luthans, in his

book Organizational Behavior (2005), said that "it [leadership] does remain pretty much

of a 'black box' or unexplainable concept."

Leadership should be distinguished from management. Management involves planning,

organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling, and a manager is someone who performs

these functions. A manager has formal authority by virtue of his or her position or office.

Leadership, by contrast, primarily deals with influence. A manager may or may not be

an effective leader. A leader's ability to influence others may be based on a variety of

factors other than his or her formal authority or position.

In the sections that follow, the development of leadership studies and theories over time

is briefly traced. Table 1 provides a summary of the major theoretical approaches.

Historical Leadership TheoriesLeadership

Theory

Time of

IntroductionMajor Tenets

Trait Theories 1930s Individual characteristics of leaders are different than

those of non leaders.Behavioral

Theories

1940s and

1950s

The behaviors of effective leaders are different than the

behaviors of ineffective leaders. Two major classes of

leader behavior are task-oriented behavior and

relationship-oriented behavior.Contingency

Theories

1960s and

1970s

Factors unique to each situation determine whether

specific leader characteristics and behaviors will be

effective.

Historical Leadership TheoriesLeadership

Theory

Time of

IntroductionMajor Tenets

Leader-Member

Exchange

1970s Leaders from high-quality relationships with some

subordinates but not others. The quality of leader-

subordinates relationship affects numerous workplace

outcomes.Charismatic

Leadership

1970s and

1980s

Effective leaders inspire subordinates to commit

themselves to goals by communicating a vision,

displaying charismatic behavior, and setting a powerful

personal example.Substitutes foe

Leadership

1970s Characteristics of the organization, task, and

subordinates may substitute for or negate the effects of

leadership behaviors.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

Three main theoretical frameworks have dominated leadership research at different

points in time. These included the trait approach (1930s and 1940s), the behavioral

approach (1940s and 1950s), and the contingency or situational approach (1960s and

1970s).

Leadership has been described as “a process of social influence in which one person can

enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task".

Leadership is a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective

and directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent. This

definition is similar to Northouse's (2007, p3) definition — Leadership is a process

whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal.

Leaders carry out this process by applying their leadership knowledge and skills. This is

called Process Leadership (Jago, 1982). However, we know that we have traits that can

influence our actions. This is called Trait Leadership (Jago, 1982), in that it was once

common to believe that leaders were born rather than made. These two leadership types

are shown in the chart below (Northouse, 2007, p5):

While leadership is learned, the skills and knowledge processed by the leader can be

influenced by his or hers attributes or traits, such as beliefs, values, ethics, and character.

Knowledge and skills contribute directly to the process of leadership, while the other

attributes give the leader certain characteristics that make him or her unique.

Skills, knowledge, and attributes make the Leader, which is one of the:

Four Factors of Leadership

Leader

You must have an honest understanding of who you are, what you know, and what you

can do. Also, note that it is the followers, not the leader or someone else who determines

if the leader is successful. If they do not trust or lack confidence in their leader, then they

will be uninspired. To be successful you have to convince your followers, not yourself or

your superiors, that you are worthy of being followed.

Followers

Different people require different styles of leadership. For example, a new hire requires

more supervision than an experienced employee. A person who lacks motivation

requires a different approach than one with a high degree of motivation. You must know

your people! The fundamental starting point is having a good understanding of human

nature, such as needs, emotions, and motivation. You must come to know your

employees' be, know, and do attributes.

Communication

You lead through two-way communication. Much of it is nonverbal. For instance, when

you “set the example,” that communicates to your people that you would not ask them to

perform anything that you would not be willing to do. What and how you communicate

either builds or harms the relationship between you and your employees.

Situation

All situations are different. What you do in one situation will not always work in

another. You must use your judgment to decide the best course of action and the

leadership style needed for each situation. For example, you may need to confront an

employee for inappropriate behavior, but if the confrontation is too late or too early, too

harsh or too weak, then the results may prove ineffective.

Also note that the situation normally has a greater effect on a leader's action than his or

her traits. This is because while traits may have an impressive stability over a period of

time, they have little consistency across situations (Mischel, 1968). This is why a

number of leadership scholars think the Process Theory of Leadership is a more accurate

than the Trait Theory of Leadership.

Various forces will affect these four factors. Examples of forces are your relationship

with your seniors, the skill of your followers, the informal leaders within your

organization, and how your organization is organized.

Bass' Theory of Leadership

Bass' theory of leadership states that there are three basic ways to explain how people

become leaders (Stogdill, 1989; Bass, 1990). The first two explain the leadership

development for a small number of people. These theories are:

• Some personality traits may lead people naturally into leadership roles. This is the

Trait Theory.

• A crisis or important event may cause a person to rise to the occasion, which

brings out extraordinary leadership qualities in an ordinary person. This is the

Great Events Theory.

• People can choose to become leaders. People can learn leadership skills. This is

the Transformational or Process Leadership Theory. It is the most widely accepted

theory today and the premise on which this guide is based.

Total Leadership

What makes a person want to follow a leader? People want to be guided by those they

respect and who have a clear sense of direction. To gain respect, they must be ethical. A

sense of direction is achieved by conveying a strong vision of the future.

When a person is deciding if she respects you as a leader, she does not think about your

attributes, rather, she observes what you do so that she can know who you really are. She

uses this observation to tell if you are an honorable and trusted leader or a self-serving

person who misuses authority to look good and get promoted. Self-serving leaders are

not as effective because their employees only obey them, not follow them. They succeed

in many areas because they present a good image to their seniors at the expense of their

workers.

Be           Know           Do

The basis of good leadership is honorable character and selfless service to your

organization. In your employees' eyes, your leadership is everything you do that effects

the organization's objectives and their well-being. Respected leaders concentrate on

(U.S. Army, 1983):

• what they are [be] (such as beliefs and character)

• what they know (such as job, tasks, and human nature)

• what they do (such as implementing, motivating, and providing direction).

What makes a person want to follow a leader? People want to be guided by those they

respect and who have a clear sense of direction. To gain respect, they must be ethical. A

sense of direction is achieved by conveying a strong vision of the future.

The Two Most Important Keys to Effective Leadership

According to a study by the Hay Group, a global management consultancy, there are 75

key components of employee satisfaction (Lamb, McKee, 2004). They found that:

• Trust and confidence in top leadership was the single most reliable predictor of

employee satisfaction in an organization.

• Effective communication by leadership in three critical areas was the key to

winning organizational trust and confidence:

1. Helping employees understand the company's overall business strategy.

2. Helping employees understand how they contribute to achieving key

business objectives.

3. Sharing information with employees on both how the company is doing and

how an employee's own division is doing — relative to strategic business

objectives.

Principles of Leadership

To help you be, know, and do, follow these eleven principles of leadership (U.S. Army,

1983). The later chapters in this Leadership guide expand on these principles and

provide tools for implementing them:

1. Know yourself and seek self-improvement - In order to know yourself, you

have to understand your be, know, and do, attributes. Seeking self-improvement

means continually strengthening your attributes. This can be accomplished

through self-study, formal classes, reflection, and interacting with others.

2. Be technically proficient - As a leader, you must know your job and have a solid

familiarity with your employees' tasks.

3. Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions - Search for ways

to guide your organization to new heights. And when things go wrong, they

always do sooner or later — do not blame others. Analyze the situation, take

corrective action, and move on to the next challenge.

4. Make sound and timely decisions - Use good problem solving, decision making,

and planning tools.

5. Set the example - Be a good role model for your employees. They must not only

hear what they are expected to do, but also see. We must become the change we

want to see - Mahatma Gandhi

6. Know your people and look out for their well-being - Know human nature and

the importance of sincerely caring for your workers.

7. Keep your workers informed - Know how to communicate with not only them,

but also seniors and other key people.

8. Develop a sense of responsibility in your workers - Help to develop good

character traits that will help them carry out their professional responsibilities.

9. Ensure that tasks are understood, supervised, and accomplished -

Communication is the key to this responsibility.

10.Train as a team - Although many so called leaders call their organization,

department, section, etc. a team; they are not really teams...they are just a group of

people doing their jobs.

11.Use the full capabilities of your organization - By developing a team spirit, you

will be able to employ your organization, department, section, etc. to its fullest

capabilities.

Attributes of Leadership

If you are a leader who can be trusted, then those around you will grow to respect you.

To be such a leader, there is a Leadership Framework to guide you:

BE KNOW DO

BE a professional. Examples: Be loyal to the organization, perform selfless service, take

personal responsibility.

BE a professional who possess good character traits. Examples: Honesty, competence,

candor, commitment, integrity, courage, straightforwardness, imagination.

KNOW the four factors of leadership — follower, leader, communication, situation.

KNOW yourself. Examples: strengths and weakness of your character, knowledge, and

skills.

KNOW human nature. Examples: Human needs, emotions, and how people respond to

stress.

KNOW your job. Examples: be proficient and be able to train others in their tasks.

KNOW your organization. Examples: where to go for help, its climate and culture, who

the unofficial leaders are.

DO provide direction. Examples: goal setting, problem solving, decision making,

planning.

DO implement. Examples: communicating, coordinating, supervising, evaluating.

DO motivate. Examples: develop morale and esprit de corps in the organization, train,

coach, counsel.

Environment

Every organization has a particular work environment, which dictates to a considerable

degree how its leaders respond to problems and opportunities. This is brought about by

its heritage of past leaders and its present leaders.

Goals, Values, and Concepts

Leaders exert influence on the environment via three types of actions:

1. The goals and performance standards they establish.

2. The values they establish for the organization.

3. The business and people concepts they establish.

Successful organizations have leaders who set high standards and goals across the entire

spectrum, such as strategies, market leadership, plans, meetings and presentations,

productivity, quality, and reliability.

Values reflect the concern the organization has for its employees, customers, investors,

vendors, and surrounding community. These values define the manner in how business

will be conducted.

Concepts define what products or services the organization will offer and the methods

and processes for conducting business.

These goals, values, and concepts make up the organization's personality or how the

organization is observed by both outsiders and insiders. This personality defines the

roles, relationships, rewards, and rites that take place.

Roles and Relationships

Roles are the positions that are defined by a set of expectations about behavior of any

job incumbent. Each role has a set of tasks and responsibilities that may or may not be

spelled out. Roles have a powerful effect on behavior for several reasons, to include

money being paid for the performance of the role, there is prestige attached to a role, and

a sense of accomplishment or challenge.

Relationships are determined by a role's tasks. While some tasks are performed alone,

most are carried out in relationship with others. The tasks will determine who the role-

holder is required to interact with, how often, and towards what end. Also, normally the

greater the interaction, the greater the liking. This in turn leads to more frequent

interaction. In human behavior, its hard to like someone whom we have no contact with,

and we tend to seek out those we like. People tend to do what they are rewarded for, and

friendship is a powerful reward. Many tasks and behaviors that are associated with a role

are brought about by these relationships. That is, new task and behaviors are expected of

the present role-holder because a strong relationship was developed in the past, either by

that role-holder or a prior role-holder.

Culture and Climate

There are two distinct forces that dictate how to act within an organization: culture and

climate.

Each organization has its own distinctive culture. It is a combination of the founders,

past leadership, current leadership, crises, events, history, and size (Newstrom, Davis,

1993). This results in rites: the routines, rituals, and the “way we do things.” These rites

impact individual behavior on what it takes to be in good standing (the norm) and directs

the appropriate behavior for each circumstance.

The climate is the feel of the organization, the individual and shared perceptions and

attitudes of the organization's members (Ivancevich, Konopaske, Matteson, 2007). While

the culture is the deeply rooted nature of the organization that is a result of long-held

formal and informal systems, rules, traditions, and customs; climate is a short-term

phenomenon created by the current leadership. Climate represents the beliefs about the

“feel of the organization” by its members. This individual perception of the “feel of the

organization” comes from what the people believe about the activities that occur in the

organization. These activities influence both individual and team motivation and

satisfaction, such as:

• How well does the leader clarify the priorities and goals of the organization? What

is expected of us?

• What is the system of recognition, rewards, and punishments in the organization?

• How competent are the leaders?

• Are leaders free to make decisions?

• What will happen if I make a mistake?

Organizational climate is directly related to the leadership and management style of the

leader, based on the values, attributes, skills, and actions, as well as the priorities of the

leader. Compare this to “ethical climate” — the feel of the organization about the

activities that have ethical content or those aspects of the work environment that

constitute ethical behavior. The ethical climate is the feel about whether we do things

right; or the feel of whether we behave the way we ought to behave. The behavior

(character) of the leader is the most important factor that impacts the climate.

On the other hand, culture is a long-term, complex phenomenon. Culture represents the

shared expectations and self-image of the organization. The mature values that create

tradition or the “way we do things here.” Things are done differently in every

organization. The collective vision and common folklore that define the institution are a

reflection of culture. Individual leaders, cannot easily create or change culture because

culture is a part of the organization. Culture influences the characteristics of the climate

by its effect on the actions and thought processes of the leader. But, everything you do as

a leader will affect the climate of the organization.

For information on culture, see Long-Term Short-Term Orientation

The Process of Great Leadership

The road to great leadership (Kouzes & Posner, 1987) that is common to successful

leaders:

• Challenge the process - First, find a process that you believe needs to be

improved the most.

• Inspire a shared vision - Next, share your vision in words that can be understood

by your followers.

• Enable others to act - Give them the tools and methods to solve the problem.

• Model the way - When the process gets tough, get your hands dirty. A boss tells

others what to do, a leader shows that it can be done.

• Encourage the heart - Share the glory with your followers' hearts, while keeping

the pains within your own.

Theories of leadership

Leadership is "organizing a group of people to achieve a common goal". The leader may

or may not have any formal authority. Students of leadership have produced theories

involving traits,[2] situational interaction, function, behavior, power, vision and values,

[3] charisma, and intelligence, among others. Somebody whom people follow:

somebody who guides or directs others.

Early western history

The search for the characteristics or traits of leaders has been ongoing for centuries.

History's greatest philosophical writings from Plato's Republic to Plutarch's Lives have

explored the question "What qualities distinguish an individual as a leader?" Underlying

this search was the early recognition of the importance of leadership and the assumption

that leadership is rooted in the characteristics that certain individuals possess. This idea

that leadership is based on individual attributes is known as the "trait theory of

leadership".

The trait theory was explored at length in a number of works in the 19th century. Most

notable are the writings of Thomas Carlyle and Francis Galton, whose works have

prompted decades of research.[4] In Heroes and Hero Worship (1841), Carlyle identified

the talents, skills, and physical characteristics of men who rose to power. In Galton's

Hereditary Genius (1869), he examined leadership qualities in the families of powerful

men. After showing that the numbers of eminent relatives dropped off when moving

from first degree to second degree relatives, Galton concluded that leadership was

inherited. In other words, leaders were born, not developed. Both of these notable works

lent great initial support for the notion that leadership is rooted in characteristics of the

leader.

Rise of alternative theories

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, however, a series of qualitative reviews of these

studies (e.g., Bird, 1940;[5] Stogdill, 1948;[6] Mann, 1959[7]) prompted researchers to

take a drastically different view of the driving forces behind leadership. In reviewing the

extant literature, Stogdill and Mann found that while some traits were common across a

number of studies, the overall evidence suggested that persons who are leaders in one

situation may not necessarily be leaders in other situations. Subsequently, leadership was

no longer characterized as an enduring individual trait, as situational approaches (see

alternative leadership theories below) posited that individuals can be effective in certain

situations, but not others. This approach dominated much of the leadership theory and

research for the next few decades.

Reemergence of trait theory

TRAIT APPROACH

The scientific study of leadership began with a focus on the traits of effective leaders.

The basic premise behind trait theory was that effective leaders are born, not made, thus

the name sometimes applied to early versions of this idea, the "great man" theory. Many

leadership studies based on this theoretical framework were conducted in the 1930s,

1940s, and 1950s.

Leader trait research examined the physical, mental, and social characteristics of

individuals. In general, these studies simply looked for significant associations between

individual traits and measures of leadership effectiveness. Physical traits such as height,

mental traits such as intelligence, and social traits such as personality attributes were all

subjects of empirical research.

The initial conclusion from studies of leader traits was that there were no universal traits

that consistently separated effective leaders from other individuals. In an important

review of the leadership literature published in 1948, Ralph Stogdill concluded that the

existing research had not demonstrated the utility of the trait approach.

Several problems with early trait research might explain the perceived lack of significant

findings. First, measurement theory at the time was not highly sophisticated. Little was

known about the psychometric properties of the measures used to operationalize traits.

As a result, different studies were likely to use different measures to assess the same

construct, which made it very difficult to replicate findings. In addition, many of the trait

studies relied on samples of teenagers or lower-level managers.

Early trait research was largely non theoretical, offering no explanations for the

proposed relationship between individual characteristics and leadership.

Finally, early trait research did not consider the impact of situational variables that might

moderate the relationship between leader traits and measures of leader effectiveness. As

a result of the lack of consistent findings linking individual traits to leadership

effectiveness, empirical studies of leader traits were largely abandoned in the 1950s.

New methods and measurements were developed after these influential reviews that

would ultimately reestablish the trait theory as a viable approach to the study of

leadership. For example, improvements in researchers' use of the round robin research

design methodology allowed researchers to see that individuals can and do emerge as

leaders across a variety of situations and tasks. Additionally, during the 1980s statistical

advances allowed researchers to conduct meta-analyses, in which they could

quantitatively analyze and summarize the findings from a wide array of studies. This

advent allowed trait theorists to create a comprehensive picture of previous leadership

research rather than rely on the qualitative reviews of the past. Equipped with new

methods, leadership researchers revealed the following:

• Individuals can and do emerge as leaders across a variety of situations and tasks.

• Significant relationships exist between leadership and such individual traits as:

• intelligence

• adjustment

• extraversion

• conscientiousness

• openness to experience

• general self-efficacy

While the trait theory of leadership has certainly regained popularity, its reemergence

has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in sophisticated conceptual

frameworks.

Specifically, Zaccaro (2007) noted that trait theories still:

1. focus on a small set of individual attributes such as Big Five personality traits, to

the neglect of cognitive abilities, motives, values, social skills, expertise, and

problem-solving skills;

2. fail to consider patterns or integrations of multiple attributes;

3. do not distinguish between those leader attributes that are generally not malleable

over time and those that are shaped by, and bound to, situational influences;

4. do not consider how stable leader attributes account for the behavioral diversity

necessary for effective leadership.

Attribute pattern approach

Considering the criticisms of the trait theory outlined above, several researchers have

begun to adopt a different perspective of leader individual differences—the leader

attribute pattern approach. In contrast to the traditional approach, the leader attribute

pattern approach is based on theorists' arguments that the influence of individual

characteristics on outcomes is best understood by considering the person as an integrated

totality rather than a summation of individual variables.

In other words, the leader attribute pattern approach argues that integrated constellations

or combinations of individual differences may explain substantial variance in both

leader emergence and leader effectiveness beyond that explained by single attributes, or

by additive combinations of multiple attributes.

Behavioral and style theories

LEADER BEHAVIOR APPROACH

Partially as a result of the disenchantment with the trait approach to leadership that

occurred by the beginning of the 1950s, the focus of leadership research shifted away

from leader traits to leader behaviors. The premise of this stream of research was that the

behaviors exhibited by leaders are more important than their physical, mental, or

emotional traits. The two most famous behavioral leadership studies took place at Ohio

State University and the University of Michigan in the late 1940s and 1950s. These

studies sparked hundreds of other leadership studies and are still widely cited.

The Ohio State studies utilized the Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire (LBDQ),

administering it to samples of individuals in the military, manufacturing companies,

college administrators, and student leaders. Answers to the questionnaire were factor-

analyzed to determine if common leader behaviors emerged across samples. The

conclusion was that there were two distinct aspects of leadership that describe how

leaders carry out their role.

Two factors, termed consideration and initiating structure, consistently appeared.

Initiating structure, sometimes called task-oriented behavior, involves planning,

organizing, and coordinating the work of subordinates. Consideration involves showing

concern for subordinates, being supportive, recognizing subordinates' accomplishments,

and providing for subordinates' welfare.

The Michigan leadership studies took place at about the same time as those at Ohio

State. Under the general direction of Rensis Likert, the focus of the Michigan studies

was to determine the principles and methods of leadership that led to productivity and

job satisfaction. The studies resulted in two general leadership behaviors or orientations:

an employee orientation and a production orientation. Leaders with an employee

orientation showed genuine concern for interpersonal relations. Those with a production

orientation focused on the task or technical aspects of the job.

The conclusion of the Michigan studies was that an employee orientation and general

instead of close supervision yielded better results. Likert eventually developed four

"systems" of management based on these studies; he advocated System 4 (the

participative-group system, which was the most participatory set of leader behaviors) as

resulting in the most positive outcomes.

One concept based largely on the behavioral approach to leadership effectiveness was

the Managerial (or Leadership) Grid, developed by Robert Blake and Jane Mouton. The

grid combines "concern for production" with "concern for people" and presents five

alternative behavioral styles of leadership. An individual who emphasized neither

production was practicing "impoverished management" according to the grid. If a person

emphasized concern for people and placed little emphasis on production, he was terms a

"country-club" manager.

Conversely, a person who emphasized a concern for production but paid little attention

to the concerns of subordinates was a "task" manager. A person who tried to balance

concern for production and concern for people was termed a "middle-of-the-road"

manager.

Finally, an individual who was able to simultaneously exhibit a high concern for

production and a high concern for people was practicing "team management." According

to the prescriptions of the grid, team management was the best leadership approach. The

Managerial Grid became a major consulting tool and was the basis for a considerable

amount of leadership training in the corporate world.

The assumption of the leader behavior approach was that there were certain behaviors

that would be universally effective for leaders. Unfortunately, empirical research has not

demonstrated consistent relationships between task-oriented or person-oriented leader

behaviors and leader effectiveness. Like trait research, leader behavior research did not

consider situational influences that might moderate the relationship between leader

behaviors and leader effectiveness.

Managerial grid model

response to the early criticisms of the trait approach, theorists began to research

leadership as a set of behaviors, evaluating the behavior of successful leaders,

determining a behavior taxonomy, and identifying broad leadership styles. David

McClelland, for example, posited that leadership takes a strong personality with a well-

developed positive ego. To lead, self-confidence and high self-esteem are useful,

perhaps even essential.

Illustration 1: A graphical representation of the managerial grid model

A graphical representation of the managerial grid model

Kurt Lewin, Ronald Lipitt, and Ralph White developed in 1939 the seminal work on the

influence of leadership styles and performance. The researchers evaluated the

performance of groups of eleven-year-old boys under different types of work climate. In

each, the leader exercised his influence regarding the type of group decision making,

praise and criticism (feedback), and the management of the group tasks (project

management) according to three styles: authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire.

The managerial grid model is also based on a behavioral theory. The model was

developed by Robert Blake and Jane Mouton in 1964 and suggests five different

leadership styles, based on the leaders' concern for people and their concern for goal

achievement.

Positive reinforcement

B.F. Skinner is the father of behavior modification and developed the concept of positive

reinforcement. Positive reinforcement occurs when a positive stimulus is presented in

response to a behavior, increasing the likelihood of that behavior in the future.The

following is an example of how positive reinforcement can be used in a business setting.

Assume praise is a positive reinforcer for a particular employee. This employee does not

show up to work on time every day. The manager of this employee decides to praise the

employee for showing up on time every day the employee actually shows up to work on

time. As a result, the employee comes to work on time more often because the employee

likes to be praised. In this example, praise (the stimulus) is a positive reinforcer for this

employee because the employee arrives at work on time (the behavior) more frequently

after being praised for showing up to work on time.

The use of positive reinforcement is a successful and growing technique used by leaders

to motivate and attain desired behaviors from subordinates. Organizations such as Frito-

Lay, 3M, Goodrich, Michigan Bell, and Emery Air Freight have all used reinforcement

to increase productivity. Empirical research covering the last 20 years suggests that

reinforcement theory has a 17 percent increase in performance. Additionally, many

reinforcement techniques such as the use of praise are inexpensive, providing higher

performance for lower costs.

CONTINGENCY (SITUATIONAL) APPROACH

Contingency or situational theories of leadership propose that the organizational or work

group context affects the extent to which given leader traits and behaviors will be

effective. Contingency theories gained prominence in the late 1960s and 1970s. Four of

the more well-known contingency theories are Fiedler's contingency theory, path-goal

theory, the Vroom-Yetton-Jago decision-making model of leadership, and the situational

leadership theory. Each of these approaches to leadership is briefly described in the

paragraphs that follow.

Introduced in 1967, Fiedler's contingency theory was the first to specify how situational

factors interact with leader traits and behavior to influence leadership effectiveness. The

theory suggests that the "favorability" of the situation determines the effectiveness of

task- and person-oriented leader behavior.

Favorability is determined by (1) the respect and trust that followers have for the leader;

(2) the extent to which subordinates' responsibilities can be structured and performance

measured; and (3) the control the leader has over subordinates' rewards. The situation is

most favorable when followers respect and trust the leader, the task is highly structured,

and the leader has control over rewards and punishments.

Fiedler's research indicated that task-oriented leaders were more effective when the

situation was either highly favorable or highly unfavorable, but that person-oriented

leaders were more effective in the moderately favorable or unfavorable situations. The

theory did not necessarily propose that leaders could adapt their leadership styles to

different situations, but that leaders with different leadership styles would be more

effective when placed in situations that matched their preferred style.

Fiedler's contingency theory has been criticized on both conceptual and methodological

grounds. However, empirical research has supported many of the specific propositions

of the theory, and it remains an important contribution to the understanding of leadership

effectiveness.

Path-goal theory was first presented in a 1971Administrative Science Quarterly article

by Robert House. Path-goal theory proposes that subordinates' characteristics and

characteristics of the work environment determine which leader behaviors will be more

effective. Key characteristics of subordinates identified by the theory are locus of

control, work experience, ability, and the need for affiliation. Important environmental

characteristics named by the theory are the nature of the task, the formal authority

system, and the nature of the work group. The theory includes four different leader

behaviors, which include directive leadership, supportive leadership, participative

leadership, and achievement-oriented leadership.

According to the theory, leader behavior should reduce barriers to subordinates' goal

attainment, strengthen subordinates' expectancies that improved performance will lead

to valued rewards, and provide coaching to make the path to payoffs easier for

subordinates. Path-goal theory suggests that the leader behavior that will accomplish

these tasks depends upon the subordinate and environmental contingency factors.

Path-goal theory has been criticized because it does not consider interactions among the

contingency factors and also because of the complexity of its underlying theoretical

model, expectancy theory. Empirical research has provided some support for the theory's

propositions, primarily as they relate to directive and supportive leader behaviors.

The Vroom-Yetton-Jago decision-making model was introduced by Victor Vroom and

Phillip Yetton in 1973 and revised by Vroom and Jago in 1988. The theory focuses

primarily on the degree of subordinate participation that is appropriate in different

situations. Thus, it emphasizes the decision-making style of the leader.

There are five types of leader decision-making styles, which are labeled AI, AII, CI, CII,

and G. These styles range from strongly autocratic (AI), to strongly democratic (G).

According to the theory, the appropriate style is determined by answers to up to eight

diagnostic questions, which relate to such contingency factors as the importance of

decision quality, the structure of the problem, whether subordinates have enough

information to make a quality decision, and the importance of subordinate commitment

to the decision.

The Vroom-Yetton-Jago model has been criticized for its complexity, for its assumption

that the decision makers' goals are consistent with organizational goals, and for ignoring

the skills needed to arrive at group decisions to difficult problems. Empirical research

has supported some of the prescriptions of the theory.

The situational leadership theory was initially introduced in 1969 and revised in 1977 by

Hersey and Blanchard. The theory suggests that the key contingency factor affecting

leaders' choice of leadership style is the task-related maturity of the subordinates.

Subordinate maturity is defined in terms of the ability of subordinates to accept

responsibility for their own task-related behavior. The theory classifies leader behaviors

into the two broad classes of task-oriented and relationship-oriented behaviors. The

major proposition of situational leadership theory is that the effectiveness of task and

relationship-oriented leadership depends upon the maturity of a leader's subordinates.

Situational leadership theory has been criticized on both theoretical and methodological

grounds. However, it remains one of the better-known contingency theories of

leadership and offers important insights into the interaction between subordinate ability

and leadership style.

Situational theory also appeared as a reaction to the trait theory of leadership. Social

scientists argued that history was more than the result of intervention of great men as

Carlyle suggested. Herbert Spencer (1884) (and Karl Marx) said that the times produce

the person and not the other way around. This theory assumes that different situations

call for different characteristics; according to this group of theories, no single optimal

psychographic profile of a leader exists. According to the theory, "what an individual

actually does when acting as a leader is in large part dependent upon characteristics of

the situation in which he functions."

Some theorists started to synthesize the trait and situational approaches. Building upon

the research of Lewin et al., academics began to normalize the descriptive models of

leadership climates, defining three leadership styles and identifying which situations

each style works better in.

The authoritarian leadership style, for example, is approved in periods of crisis but fails

to win the "hearts and minds" of followers in day-to-day management; the democratic

leadership style is more adequate in situations that require consensus building; finally,

the laissez-faire leadership style is appreciated for the degree of freedom it provides, but

as the leaders do not "take charge", they can be perceived as a failure in protracted or

thorny organizational problems.

Thus, theorists defined the style of leadership as contingent to the situation, which is

sometimes classified as contingency theory. Four contingency leadership theories appear

more prominently in recent years: Fiedler contingency model, Vroom-Yetton decision

model, the path-goal theory, and the Hersey-Blanchard situational theory.

The Fiedler contingency model bases the leader's effectiveness on what Fred Fiedler

called situational contingency. This results from the interaction of leadership style and

situational favorability (later called situational control). The theory defined two types of

leader: those who tend to accomplish the task by developing good relationships with the

group (relationship-oriented), and those who have as their prime concern carrying out

the task itself (task-oriented).[31] According to Fiedler, there is no ideal leader.

Both task-oriented and relationship-oriented leaders can be effective if their leadership

orientation fits the situation. When there is a good leader-member relation, a highly

structured task, and high leader position power, the situation is considered a "favorable

situation". Fiedler found that task-oriented leaders are more effective in extremely

favorable or unfavorable situations, whereas relationship-oriented leaders perform best

in situations with intermediate favorability.

Victor Vroom, in collaboration with Phillip Yetton (1973)and later with Arthur Jago

(1988), developed a taxonomy for describing leadership situations, which was used in a

normative decision model where leadership styles were connected to situational

variables, defining which approach was more suitable to which situation. This approach

was novel because it supported the idea that the same manager could rely on different

group decision making approaches depending on the attributes of each situation. This

model was later referred to as situational contingency theory.

The path-goal theory of leadership was developed by Robert House (1971) and was

based on the expectancy theory of Victor Vroom. According to House, the essence of the

theory is "the meta proposition that leaders, to be effective, engage in behaviors that

complement subordinates' environments and abilities in a manner that compensates for

deficiencies and is instrumental to subordinate satisfaction and individual and work unit

performance".

The theory identifies four leader behaviors, achievement-oriented, directive,

participative, and supportive, that are contingent to the environment factors and follower

characteristics. In contrast to the Fiedler contingency model, the path-goal model states

that the four leadership behaviors are fluid, and that leaders can adopt any of the four

depending on what the situation demands.

The path-goal model can be classified both as a contingency theory, as it depends on the

circumstances, and as a transactional leadership theory, as the theory emphasizes the

reciprocity behavior between the leader and the followers.

The situational leadership model proposed by Hersey and Blanchard suggests four

leadership-styles and four levels of follower-development. For effectiveness, the model

posits that the leadership-style must match the appropriate level of follower-

development. In this model, leadership behavior becomes a function not only of the

characteristics of the leader, but of the characteristics of followers as well.

Functional theory

Functional leadership theory (Hackman & Walton, 1986; McGrath, 1962) is a

particularly useful theory for addressing specific leader behaviors expected to contribute

to organizational or unit effectiveness. This theory argues that the leader's main job is to

see that whatever is necessary to group needs is taken care of; thus, a leader can be said

to have done their job well when they have contributed to group effectiveness and

cohesion (Fleishman et al., 1991; Hackman & Wageman, 2005; Hackman & Walton,

1986).

While functional leadership theory has most often been applied to team leadership

(Zaccaro, Rittman, & Marks, 2001), it has also been effectively applied to broader

organizational leadership as well (Zaccaro, 2001). In summarizing literature on

functional leadership (see Kozlowski et al. (1996), Zaccaro et al. (2001), Hackman and

Walton (1986), Hackman & Wageman (2005), Morgeson (2005)), Klein, Zeigert,

Knight, and Xiao (2006) observed five broad functions a leader performs when

promoting organization's effectiveness. These functions include environmental

monitoring, organizing subordinate activities, teaching and coaching subordinates,

motivating others, and intervening actively in the group's work.

A variety of leadership behaviors are expected to facilitate these functions. In initial

work identifying leader behavior, Fleishman (1953) observed that subordinates

perceived their supervisors' behavior in terms of two broad categories referred to as

consideration and initiating structure. Consideration includes behavior involved in

fostering effective relationships. Examples of such behavior would include showing

concern for a subordinate or acting in a supportive manner towards others. Initiating

structure involves the actions of the leader focused specifically on task accomplishment.

This could include role clarification, setting performance standards, and holding

subordinates accountable to those standards.

Transactional and transformational theories

Eric Berne first analyzed the relations between a group and its leadership in terms of

transactional analysis.

The transactional leader (Burns, 1978) is given power to perform certain tasks and

reward or punish for the team's performance. It gives the opportunity to the manager to

lead the group and the group agrees to follow his lead to accomplish a predetermined

goal in exchange for something else. Power is given to the leader to evaluate, correct,

and train subordinates when productivity is not up to the desired level, and reward

effectiveness when expected outcome is reached. Idiosyncrasy Credits, first posited by

Edward Hollander (1971) is one example of a concept closely related to transactional

leadership.

Emotions and leadership

Leadership can be perceived as a particularly emotion-laden process, with emotions

entwined with the social influence process. In an organization, the leader's mood has

some effects on his/her group. These effects can be described in three levels:

1. The mood of individual group members. Group members with leaders in a

positive mood experience more positive mood than do group members with

leaders in a negative mood. The leaders transmit their moods to other group

members through the mechanism of emotional contagion. Mood contagion may be

one of the psychological mechanisms by which charismatic leaders influence

followers.

2. The affective tone of the group. Group affective tone represents the consistent or

homogeneous affective reactions within a group. Group affective tone is an

aggregate of the moods of the individual members of the group and refers to mood

at the group level of analysis. Groups with leaders in a positive mood have a more

positive affective tone than do groups with leaders in a negative mood.

3. Group processes like coordination, effort expenditure, and task strategy. Public

expressions of mood impact how group members think and act. When people

experience and express mood, they send signals to others. Leaders signal their

goals, intentions, and attitudes through their expressions of moods. For example,

expressions of positive moods by leaders signal that leaders deem progress toward

goals to be good. The group members respond to those signals cognitively and

behaviorally in ways that are reflected in the group processes.

In research about client service, it was found that expressions of positive mood by the

leader improve the performance of the group, although in other sectors there were other

findings.

Beyond the leader's mood, her/his behavior is a source for employee positive and

negative emotions at work. The leader creates situations and events that lead to

emotional response. Certain leader behaviors displayed during interactions with their

employees are the sources of these affective events. Leaders shape workplace affective

events. Examples – feedback giving, allocating tasks, resource distribution. Since

employee behavior and productivity are directly affected by their emotional states, it is

imperative to consider employee emotional responses to organizational leaders.

Emotional intelligence, the ability to understand and manage moods and emotions in the

self and others, contributes to effective leadership within organizations.

Neo-emergent theory

The Neo-emergent leadership theory (from the Oxford school of leadership) espouses

that leadership is created through the emergence of information by the leader or other

stakeholders, not through the true actions of the leader himself. In other words, the

reproduction of information or stories form the basis of the perception of leadership by

the majority. It is well known that the great naval hero Lord Nelson often wrote his own

versions of battles he was involved in, so that when he arrived home in England he

would receive a true hero's welcome.

In modern society, the press, blogs and other sources report their own views of a leader,

which may be based on reality, but may also be based on a political command, a

payment, or an inherent interest of the author, media, or leader. Therefore, it can be

contended that the perception of all leaders is created and in fact does not reflect their

true leadership qualities at all.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

Although trait, behavioral, and contingency approaches have each contributed to the

understanding of leadership, none of the approaches have provided a completely

satisfactory explanation of leadership and leadership effectiveness. Since the 1970s,

several alternative theoretical frameworks for the study of leadership have been

advanced. Among the more important of these are leader-member exchange theory,

transformational leadership theory, the substitutes for leadership approach, and the

philosophy of servant leadership.

LEADER-MEMBER EXCHANGE THEORY

Leader-member exchange (LMX) theory was initially called the vertical dyad linkage

theory. The theory was introduced by George Graen and various colleagues in the 1970s

and has been revised and refined in the years since. LMX theory emphasizes the dyadic

(i.e., one-on-one) relationships between leaders and individual subordinates, instead of

the traits or behaviors of leaders or situational characteristics.

The theory's focus is determining the type of leader-subordinate relationships that

promote effective outcomes and the factors that determine whether leaders and

subordinates will be able to develop high-quality relationships.

According to LMX theory, leaders do not treat all subordinates in the same manner, but

establish close relationships with some (the in-group) while remaining aloof from others

(the out-group). Those in the in-group enjoy relationships with the leader that is marked

by trust and mutual respect. They tend to be involved in important activities and

decisions. Conversely, those in the out-group are excluded from important activities and

decisions.

LMX theory suggests that high-quality relationships between a leader-subordinate dyad

will lead to positive outcomes such as better performance, lower turnover, job

satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Empirical research supports many of the

proposed relationships.

TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP THEORIES

Beginning in the 1970s, a number of leadership theories emerged that focused on the

importance of a leader's charisma to leadership effectiveness. Included within this class

of theories are House's theory of charismatic leadership, Bass's transformational

leadership theory, and Conger and Kanungo's charismatic leadership theory.

These theories have much in common. They all focus on attempting to explain how

leaders can accomplish extraordinary things against the odds, such as turning around a

failing company, founding a successful company, or achieving great military success

against incredible odds. The theories also emphasize the importance of leaders' inspiring

subordinates' admiration, dedication, and unquestioned loyalty through articulating a

clear and compelling vision.

Tranformational leadership theory differentiates between the transactional and the

transformational leader. Transactional leadership focuses on role and task requirements

and utilizes rewards contingent on performance. By contrast, transformational leadership

focuses on developing mutual trust, fostering the leadership abilities of others, and

setting goals that go beyond the short-term needs of the work group.

Bass's transformational leadership theory identifies four aspects of effective leadership,

which include charisma, inspiration, intellectual stimulation, and consideration. A leader

who exhibits these qualities will inspire subordinates to be high achievers and put the

long-term interest of the organization ahead of their own short-term interest, according

to the theory. Empirical research has supported many of the theory's propositions.

SUBSTITUTES FOR LEADERSHIP THEORY

Kerr and Jermier introduced the substitutes for leadership theory in 1978. The theory's

focus is concerned with providing an explanation for the lack of stronger empirical

support for a relationship between leader traits or leader behaviors and subordinates'

satisfaction and performance. The substitutes for leadership theory suggests that

characteristics of the organization, the task, and subordinates may substitute for or

negate the effects of leadership, thus weakening observed relationships between leader

behaviors and important organizational outcomes.

Substitutes for leadership make leader behaviors such as task-oriented or relationship-

oriented unnecessary. Characteristics of the organization that may substitute for

leadership include formalization, group cohesiveness, inflexible rules, and

organizational rewards not under the control of the leader. Characteristics of the task that

may substitute for leadership include routine and repetitive tasks or tasks that are

satisfying. Characteristics of subordinates that may substitute for leadership include

ability, experience, training, and job-related knowledge.

The substitutes for leadership theory has generated a considerable amount of interest

because it offers an intuitively appealing explanation for why leader behavior impacts

subordinates in some situations but not in others. However, some of its theoretical

propositions have not been adequately tested. The theory continues to generate empirical

research.

SERVANT LEADERSHIP

This approach to leadership reflects a philosophy that leaders should be servants first. It

suggests that leaders must place the needs of subordinates, customers, and the

community ahead of their own interests in order to be effective. Characteristics of

servant leaders include empathy, stewardship, and commitment to the personal,

professional, and spiritual growth of their subordinates. Servant leadership has not been

subjected to extensive empirical testing but has generated considerable interest among

both leadership scholars and practitioners.

Leadership continues to be one of the most written about topics in the social sciences.

Although much has been learned about leadership since the 1930s, many avenues of

research still remain to be explored as we enter the twenty-first century.

Leadership Styles

Leadership style refers to a leader's behavior. It is the result of the philosophy,

personality, and experience of the leader. Rhetoric specialists have also developed

models for understanding leadership (Robert Hariman, Political Style,Philippe-Joseph

Salazar, L'Hyperpolitique. Technologies politiques De La Domination).

Different situations call for different leadership styles. In an emergency when there is

little time to converge on an agreement and where a designated authority has

significantly more experience or expertise than the rest of the team, an autocratic

leadership style may be most effective; however, in a highly motivated and aligned team

with a homogeneous level of expertise, a more democratic or laissez-faire style may be

more effective.

The style adopted should be the one that most effectively achieves the objectives of the

group while balancing the interests of its individual members.

Autocratic or authoritarian style

Under the autocratic leadership style, all decision-making powers are centralized in the

leader, as with dictators.

Leaders do not entertain any suggestions or initiatives from subordinates. The autocratic

management has been successful as it provides strong motivation to the manager. It

permits quick decision-making, as only one person decides for the whole group and

keeps each decision to him/herself until he/she feels it needs to be shared with the rest of

the group.

In an autocratic leadership style, the person in charge has total authority and control over

decision making. By virtue of their position and job responsibilities, they not only

control the efforts of the team, but monitor them for completion –often under close

scrutiny

This style is reminiscent of the earliest tribes and empires. Obviously, our historical

movement toward democracy brings a negative connotation to autocracy, but in some

situations, it is the most appropriate type of leadership. That, of course, doesn’t mean a

blank check to ignore the wellbeing of his subordinate.

When is it used?

The autocratic leadership style is best used in situations where control is necessary, often

where there is little margin for error. When conditions are dangerous, rigid rules can

keep people out of harm’s way. Many times, the subordinate staff is inexperienced or

unfamiliar with the type of work and heavy oversight is necessary.

Rigid organizations often use this style. It has been known to be very paternalistic, and

in highly-professional, independent minded teams, it can lead to resentment and strained

morale.

Good fits for Autocratic Leadership:

• Military

• Manufacturing

• Construction

How to be effective with this position

It’s easy to see the immediate goal of this type of leadership: use your expertise to get

the job done. Make sure that everyone is exactly where they need to be and doing their

job, while the important tasks are handled quickly and correctly.

In many ways this is the oldest leadership style, dating back to the early empires. It’s

very intuitive to tell people what needs to be done by when.

It is difficult balancing the use of authority with the morale of the team. Too much direct

scrutiny will make your subordinates miserable, and being too heavy handed will

squelch all group input. Being an effective autocratic leader means being very

intentional about when and how demands are made of the team.

Here are some things to keep in mind to be an effective when acting as an autocratic

leader:

• Respect your Subordinates: It’s easy to end up as rigid as the rules you are

trying to enforce. It’s important that you stay fair and acknowledge that everyone

brings something to the table, even if they don’t call the shots. Making

subordinates realize they are respected keeps moral up and resentment low; every

functional team is built on a foundation of mutual respect.

• Explain the rules: Your people know they have to follow procedure, but it helps

them do a better job if they know why.

• Be consistent: If your role in the team is to enforce the company line, you have to

make sure you do so consistently and fairly. It’s easy to respect someone

objective, but hard to trust someone who applies policy differently in similar

circumstances.

• Educate before you enforce: Having everyone understand your expectations up

front will mean less surprises down the road. Being above board from the outset

prevents a lot of miscommunications and misunderstandings.

• Listen, even if you don’t change: We all want to feel like our opinions are

appreciated, even if they aren’t going to lead to immediate change and being a

leader means that your team will want to bring their opinions to you. It’s

important to be clear that they are heard, no matter the outcome.

Participative or democratic style

The democratic leadership style consists of the leader sharing the decision-making

abilities with group members by promoting the interests of the group members and by

practicing social equality.

A Participative Leader, rather than taking autocratic decisions, seeks to involve other

people in the process, possibly including subordinates, peers, superiors and other

stakeholders. Often, however, as it is within the managers' whim to give or deny control

to his or her subordinates, most participative activity is within the immediate team.

The question of how much influence others are given thus may vary on the manager's

preferences and beliefs, and a whole spectrum of participation is possible, as in the table

below.

< Not participative Highly participative >

Autocratic

decision by

leader

Leader

proposes

decision,

listens to

feedback,

then decides

Team

proposes

decision,

leader has

final decision

Joint

decision with

team as

equals

Full

delegation of

decision to

team

 

There are many varieties on this spectrum, including stages where the leader sells the

idea to the team. Another variant is for the leader to describe the 'what' of objectives or

goals and let the team or individuals decide the 'how' of the process by which the 'how'

will be achieved (this is often called 'Management by Objectives').

The level of participation may also depend on the type of decision being made.

Decisions on how to implement goals may be highly participative, whilst decisions

during subordinate performance evaluations are more likely to be taken by the manager.

There are many potential benefits of participative leadership, as indicated in the

assumptions, above.

This approach is also known as consultation, empowerment, joint decision-making,

democratic leadership, Management By Objective (MBO) and power-sharing.

Participative Leadership can be a sham when managers ask for opinions and then ignore

them. This is likely to lead to cynicism and feelings of betrayal.

Laissez-faire or free rein style

A person may be in a leadership position without providing leadership, leaving the group

to fend for itself. Subordinates are given a free hand in deciding their own policies and

methods.

The Laissez Faire Leadership Style was first described by Lewin, Lippitt, and White in

1938, along with the autocratic leadership and the democratic leadership styles.  The

laissez faire style is sometimes described as a "hands off" leadership style because the

leader provides little or no direction to the followers.

The characteristics of the laissez faire style include:

• Allows followers to have complete freedom to make decisions concerning the

completion of their work or ask questions of the leader

• The leader provides the followers with the materials they need to accomplish their

goals and answers the follower's questions

In this type of leadership style,the leader totally trusts their employees/team to perform

the job themselves. He just concentrates on the intellectual/rational aspect of his work

and does not focus on the management aspect of his work.

The team/employees are welcomed to share their views and provide suggestions which

are best for organizational interests. This leadership style works only when the

employees are skilled, loyal, experienced and intellectual.

Narcissistic leadership

Various academics such as Kets de Vries, Maccoby, and Thomas have identified

narcissistic leadership as an important and common leadership style.

Narcissistic leadership is a common form of leadership. The narcissism may be healthy

or destructive although there is a continuum between the two. To critics, "narcissistic

leadership (preferably destructive) is driven by unyielding arrogance, self-absorption,

and a personal egotistic need for power and admiration."

here are four basic types of leader with narcissists most commonly in type 3 although

they may be in type 1:

1. authoritarian with task orientated decision making

2. democratic with task orientated decision making

3. authoritarian with emotional decision making

4. democratic with emotional decision making

Toxic leadership

A toxic leader is someone who has responsibility over a group of people or an

organization, and who abuses the leader-follower relationship by leaving the group or

organization in a worse-off condition than when he/she first found them.

The phrase was coined by Marcia Whicker in 1996 and is linked with a number of

dysfunctional leadership styles.Other names include the little Hitler, manager from hell

and boss from hell.

Basic traits of toxic leadership

The basic traits of a toxic leader are generally considered to be either/or

insular,intemperate, glib, operationally rigid, callous, inept, discriminatory, corrupt or

aggressive by scholars such as Barbara Kellerman.

These may occur as either:

• Oppositional behaviour.

• Plays corporate power politics.

• An overcompetitive attitude to other

employees.

• Perfectionistic attitudes.

• Abuse of the disciplinary system

(such as to remove a workplace rival).

• A condescending/glib attitude.

• Poor self-control and or restraint.

• Physical and/or psychological

bullying.

• Procedural inflexibility.

• Discriminatory attitudes (sexism,

etc.).

• Causes workplace division instead of

harmony.

• Use "divide and rule" tactics on their

employees.

AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP

Authenticity is a great word with great meanings. An authentic person is someone who

is true to himself or herself, someone who is honest and open, and someone who

believes in his or her abilities. As such an authentic person does not hide anything from

others and lives with integrity.

Authentic leadership is about guiding others with sincerity. It is about setting directions

with integrity. It is about taking the lead while being open to others. It is about standing

up for others with sincerity and taking full responsibility by being true to the self and

others.

Before the year 2000, leadership was not a popular word in the management world let

alone authentic leadership. It was all about management and how to manage and control

people. It was thought that leaders were born and not made. Leadership was limited to

political leaders who would take risks and fight for their people. It was not practiced by

executives in companies.

With the beginning of the 21st century, however, books on leadership started to show up

more and more. Management books, on the other hand, started to decline. It was thought

that management was no longer enough. Leaders needed to be developed. Companies

gradually believed that without leadership they could not thrive in their business.

Recently, authentic leadership is being preached. For leaders to be successful in leading

people and companies, they need to be vulnerable, honest, and trustworthy. They should

not try to imitate others. They need to be themselves and stick to their core values at all

times. That is the key to real success.

In his book, the True North, Bill George says, “the authentic leader brings people

together around a shared purpose and empowers them to step up and lead authentically

in order to create value for all stakeholders”. This is indeed a great definition of

authentic leadership.

Authentic leadership is about being true to the self, acting with passion and integrity,

having respect and love for others, and not following the crowd but inspiring the crowd

to move toward achieving a great vision with hope and faith.

According to Bob Terry “Authenticity is knowing, and acting on, what is true and real

inside yourself, your team and your organization AND knowing and acting on what is

true and real in the world. It is not enough to walk one’s talk if one is headed off, or

leading one’s organization, community or nation,of a cliff.”

Terry believes that the central organizing principle of leadership is authenticity. And he

shows how authenticity and action joined together form a sure foundation for effective

leadership.

Authenticity is the "State of being committed to the truth." 

"An authentic leader  is a person who chooses to live a life of integrity. They are not only

honest in relationship with others but most importantly they are honest and true

to  themselves. Does this mean they don't make mistakes? Of course they do..we are all

human! And yet they have the courage to take responsibility for their ways, learn and

grow. Why? because they care!...They care about you, they care about me and they care

about our world. " (Kim Elkovich MD A Higher Self.

The benefits of Authentic Leadership include:

• An individual continually grows and learns how to  creatively adjust to the

conditions that are facing them.

• Decision making involves "and" instead of "or".

• People become more honest with themselves and those they are in contact

developing higher levels of trust.

• An individual connects with and aligns decisions to their personal conscience.

This means higher levels of ethics and personal integrity.

• Leaders appreciate and utilize ‘difference versus sameness’. This fosters

innovation and an ability to resolve conflict.

• New ways of thinking develop. This provides an opportunity to view the world

differently and solve issues of great complexity . 

A Higher Self guides and mentors leaders to:

• Assist them to identify certain practices and ways of thinking, feeling and

behaving that are no longer benefiting them.

• Support leaders to take risks and make the changes necessary in order to grow

themselves and their relationship with the world.

Overtime, this change process develops within the leader a capacity (confidence,

resourcefulness) and inner resilience that allows them to face future challenges

without mentoring. They become self sufficient. Not only is this cost effective but

most importantly liberating! 

Following is some theoretical and philosophical insight into Authenticity:

 The profession of psychology and those spiritual have been exploring, theorising and

researching authenticity for decades. The central premise is that human beings are born

into the world as unique. Their uniqueness can be scientifically attributed to the random

aggregation of DNA code derived from both parents, or from a spiritual perspective (eg

a unique spirit enters the world in human form to fulfill a life purpose; contributing

to their spiritual growth).

Regardless of the point of view, the truth is that in order to survive in the world a child is

reliant on others. Children learn  through sensing and experience about attachment

further what to do in order to have their needs met. By interacting with and mirroring

their parents (or primary caregiver), extended family, school, community and society

they learn how to think, feel, act and form relationships with others. They develop

values and beliefs that support them in their immediate world. They learn Unfortunately,

this conditioning takes them away from who they really are - the authentic self.

 

Adding to the basic premise of psychological /spiritual existence and personal growth, is

that adult life circumstances can challenge who we are and the way we live.

Individuals can discover that the way they were taught to exist in the world is in fact

creating problems for them. Their learnt behaviour, thinking, values and beliefs are not

sufficient enough to solve the problem, or no longer serve them (relationship problems,

feeling stressed are common signs). This creates tension with individuals often feeling

frustrated or stuck. This tension builds until the person is required to question

themselves and their predicament. They begin to think of new possibilities and

eventually, if able to take a leap of faith, choose to do something different and/or change

themselves.

This process of change provides the opportunity for continued growth with many

possibilities. However when this process is not embraced we see personal turmoil,

relationship breakdowns, workplace bullying, poor decision making and sometimes

mental illness in the form of panic attacks, anxiety and depression. 

Self-awareness and personal choice being the keys that allow an individual to shed

layers of conditioning that no longer benefit them. This in effect brings a person closer

to who they really are. They become more authentic. A number of psychological

modalities refer to this as the Onion Skin Model, ie peeling the onion. Some researches

refer to this process as the evolution of human consciousness.

Finally, we are not designed to run faster and faster behaving the same old way and

making the same old mistakes, until we collapse. Instead we are designed to evolve. 

ETHICAL LEADERSHIP

Researchers in the field of applied psychology define ethical leadership

as the demonstration of appropriate conduct through personal actions and

relationships and the promotion of such conduct to subordinates through

two-way communication, reinforcement, and decision making. This definition highlights

three key components of ethical leadership. A discussion of each follows.

First, leaders become credible and authentic as ethical role models by engaging in

ongoing behaviors that subordinates deem unselfish and ethically appropriate. These

behaviors include being honest, showing consideration for others, and treating people

fairly and with respect. As noted by M.E. Brown and colleagues, ethical leadership

entails engaging in transparent, fair, and caring actions.1 By so doing, leaders become an

example of how to behave and a model for others to identify with and imitate. This is an

ongoing process; subordinates are continuously evaluating their leaders, so a leader who

is ethical at one point in time and not at another sends mixed messages that damage his

authenticity.

Second, ethical leadership entails directing attention to ethical issues and standards.

Ethical leadership requires emphasizing the importance and significance of ethics.

Communicating about ethics on a consistent basis is a key component to ethical

leadership; leaders who behave ethically but never talk to their subordinate about ethics

will fall short in ethical leadership.

Third, ethical leadership entails creating ethical command climates that set the

conditions for positive outcomes and ethically appropriate behavior and provide

negative outcomes for inappropriate behaviour.

Ethical leadership is a two-way process. Ethical leaders must direct attention to ethical

issues, enforce ethical standards, and allow subordinates to bring up ethical issues with

them. Rewards and punishments should take place in an environment of open two-way

communication. Subordinates must inform their leaders about ethical issues they may

face (that the leader is unaware of), and ethical leaders must clearly inform followers of

ethical standards.

The 4-V Model of Ethical Leadership

The 4-V Model of Ethical Leadership is a framework that aligns the internal (beliefs and

values) with the external (behaviors and actions) for the purpose of advancing the

common good. The model was created by Center founder Dr. Bill Grace based on his

formal leadership research and personal passions around faith and ethics.

At the Center for Ethical Leadership we have found that people who want to become

leaders who make a difference need to embrace an inner journey of integrity and make

an outer commitment to the common good. Our leadership development approach

begins with this inner journey. Individuals discover and claim their core values, develop

a vision for how the world could be different, find their personal voice for expressing

their vision.

They then move to an outer commitment of living and behaving in ways that serve the

community and advance the common good. They ask, “leadership for what purpose?”

The ultimate purpose of leadership is to shape a future that is visionary, inclusive, and

enables all members of society to fulfill their needs, dreams and potentials.

• Values. Ethical leadership begins with an understanding of and commitment to

our individual core values. By first discovering the values at the core of our

identities, we begin the process of integrating our unique values with our choice-

making on all levels of our personal and civic lives.

• Vision. Vision is the ability to frame our actions – particularly in service to others

– within a real picture of what ought to be.

• Voice. Claiming our voice is the process of articulating our vision to others in an

authentic and convincing way that animates and motivates them to action.

• Virtue. Understanding that we become what we practice, we foster virtue by

practicing virtuous behavior – striving to do what is right and good. In this way,

we develop the character of virtue. In particular, virtue stands for the common

good. Ethical leaders ask, “How are my values, vision and voice in keeping with

the common good?”

Dr. Grace identified three additional elements that are key to the development of ethical

leadership-

• Service.  Service connects Vision to Values, indicating that when our values are

tested and tried through service to others, the latent vision within them is often

revealed.

• Polis.  “Polis” is the Greek word for city, and the root of the English word,

“politics.”  As we learn to give voice to our vision in the context of a public act,

we are engaged in the art of politics.

• Renewal.  As Voice returns to Values, the territory of our work changes to

renewal.  As we express our voice in multiple ways, we need to break from the

action on a regular basis to consider if our actions are congruent with our values

and vision.

Ethical leadership is knowing your core values and having the courage to live them

in all parts of your life in service of the common good.

The following are reflections questions on your personal journey toward ethical

leadership:

• Will you be the same person at work? At home? In the community?

• Will you have the courage to live out your values when there is pressure to

compromise or rationalize?

• How do your values contribute to the common good?

 

PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL BEING

the state of psychological well-being consists of six dimensions of wellness1:

• Positive Relations with Others

• Self-Acceptance

• Autonomy

• Environmental Mastery

• Personal Growth

• Purpose in Life

Positive Relations with Others is quality relationships with friends, lovers, and other

people in your life. Self-Acceptance is the positive evaluation of yourself and your past

life. Autonomy is self-determination and control. Environmental Mastery is effectively

managing your life and the surrounding world. Personal Growth is the sense that you’re

growing and developing as a person. Finally, Purpose in Life is the belief that your life

has purpose and meaning.

The term psychosocial reflects the dynamic relationship between psychological and

social processes. Psychological processes are internal; they include thoughts, feelings,

emotions, understanding and perception. Social processes are external; they are

comprised of social networks, community, family and environment. It is important to

remember that what happens in one of these areas will affect aspects of the others. How

we are feeling internally affects how we relate to the environment around us. Similarly,

our traditions, customs, and community affect how we feel. The material, biological and

psychosocial aspects of well-being are integrally related, and it is not helpful to try to

separate them in programme development.

 

Well-being depends on many factors. The overlapping circles suggest that individual and

collective well-being depends on what happens in a variety of areas, that meeting at least

some minimal level of need in each of these areas is necessary, and that these areas are

to some extent interrelated. Since well-being is affected by many factors, so all sectors

of humanitarian response should include key psychosocial actions. The aim of all

humanitarian response work, from a psychosocial perspective, is to provide an

environment that will enable people and communities to heal after a traumatic event.

This can only be done successfully by addressing all areas of well-being. A conducive

healing environment can only be built if the psychosocial perspective is integrated into

all phases of humanitarian response, so that humanitarian workers from different sectors

(such as water engineers) are aware of how they, too, contribute to an affected person’s

well-being. Psychosocial programmes should thus target a range of sectors and not view

psychosocial services in isolation.

While many humanitarian interventions do not have an explicit goal of promoting

psychosocial well-being, they should all make a conscious effort to do no harm, and this

should include avoiding psychosocial harm. 

Psychosocial harm:

Psychosocial harm can occur in many forms, including:

• damage to the self-sufficiency of a community;

• loss of self-esteem amongst the community members;

• loss of dignity amongst community members;

• a loss of cohesion amongst members of a community;

• creation of an atmosphere of mistrust, stigma or conflict in a community;

• displacement of members of a community.

Given that there are many aspects to well-being, if a person has a serious need or

deficiency in any category it will affect their overall well-being. Emergencies can

potentially affect any aspect of well-being. Humanitarian workers should, therefore,

consider all areas of people’s well-being when planning their responses, so they can

provide an environment that is conducive to healing. When a population is treated as if it

is entirely dependent on external aid, over time its members may actually become

dependent on that aid. Family roles and relationships are undermined and community

relationships are distorted. Self-respect, self-esteem and self-reliance are damaged or

destroyed, which affects individual and community well-being.  Well-being is comprised

of elements from the different domains shown above. Few people ever achieve a

complete sense of well-being – perfection is unattainable, and rarely are all of our needs

are met. It is human nature to want more or to push oneself further in some way. 

Examples

As a result of an emergency a family is lacking in food and shelter (material

domain). This means they are likely to be distressed (emotional domain) and search for a

secure and safe place to stay for the night as well as trying to get food. The children may

not be able to go to school because without food in their stomachs they can’t concentrate

(cognitive domain), and the family may be separated from their community when they

go in search of food and shelter (socio-cultural domain). Prolonged exposure to the

elements – because of the lack of shelter – and increasing periods without access to food

will lead to malnutrition (biological domain).

 

The method by which food aid is distributed in the camp will affect a person’s overall

well-being. Providing food aid alleviates the impact of hunger (the material

domain). However, inappropriate provision of food aid (amount and type of food) can

cause additional distress for a person (emotional domain) by offending their personal

dignity and culture (socio-cultural domain).

 

Safety,

participation and development -  three contextual issues that must be addressed in

promoting the well-being of a population affected by an emergency:

 

Safety relates to physical security and fear of harm (the need for protection).

 

Participation implies agency.  It is the degree to which members of an affected

population play an active role in securing and maintaining their own safety, well-being

and development.  Emphasis should be placed on working with the members of an

affected population and building their capacities to meet their own needs, instead of

providing a one-way flow of assistance, or imposing assistance from outside the affected

community.

 

Development refers to processes at both the individual and community levels.  On the

community level, development refers to sustained socio-economic development.  For

individuals, development means that the seven elements of well-being change over time:

they are not static.

  

Self-acceptance – A major source of well-being and living a happy life is self-

acceptance, or the attitude we hold about ourselves. This relates to feeling satisfied with

who you are, making peace with the past, and contentment with your current situation.

Acceptance is about coming to terms with what we can’t change or control.

Self-growth – Growing as a person and expanding your knowledge is a never ending

process. We can grow as people every day if we’re willing to be open to new

experiences and seek out our potential. Self-growth is about taking a curious and

interested view of life and seeking out opportunities to expand as a person.

Purpose and meaning – There is a real sense of aliveness when we have direction and

something to strive for. Purpose and meaning can come from using your natural

strengths and talents, developing intimate relationships, and growing

spiritually. Consider if your goals and intentions offer a sense of something greater than

yourself.

Autonomy – Do you remember the first time you felt independent and free? Maybe it

was your first time driving, going to college, or having a family of your own.  It feels

great to know we’re able take care of life and have some control of our destiny.

Autonomy is the sense that we are a distinct, unique person with our own identity,

values, and purpose, and a sense that we can think and act for ourselves.

Connectedness – There is nothing more important than having caring, trusting, and

loving relationships in life. My heart really does go out to anyone who doesn’t have

close friends or family. Unless you’re a hermit, you need to feel connected, accepted,

and have the opportunity to love and progress with the aid and support of others.

Mastery – We need to have mastery over our environment and learn how to adapt and

modify our circumstances to have healthy development. This comes from having

the skills and competence necessary to progress and achieve what we need, as well as

having the confidence and belief in our abilities. Mastery provides a sense of pride and

success, and is a catalyst for further motivation.

“Well-being is when we are at a place in life where everything has come together and

we’re proud and comfortable with what has, is, and will take place. Understanding and

incorporating the above ideas can bring greater wisdom, self-awareness, and

psychological well-being.”

REVIEW OF LITERATURE:

In a study, called “Work,Psychological well-being And Performance” by K.Daniels and

C. Harris of Sheffield University Management School,Sheffield ,U.K. ,strong link

between psychological well-being and performance was found.

In two longitudinal studies of public sector workers, findings indicated that state affect

does not have an influence on performance, but more enduring aspects of

well-being do. The first study reported was a four stage study over 3.5 years (« = 81). A

general index of psychological well-being, assessed at the beginning of the study and

one year into the study, had significant correlations with two supervisory ratings of

performance assessed two, three and three and a half years into the study (rvalues 0.33-

0.48 for 11 out of 12 correlations, one correlation approached significance, r = 0.25,

P<0.06). These associations remained significant when earlier measures of well-being

were used to predict subsequent performance, after controlling for initial performance.

These findings were replicated in a two- stage study conducted over 1 year (n = 78). All

four correlations were significant that assessed the relation- ship between well-being and

supervisory ratings of performance, where measures were either concurrent or well-

being was correlated with subsequent performance (r values 0.25-0.46). Further, after

controlling for initial levels of performance, well-being averaged over both assessments

w as significantly related to final ratings of performance.

Many reviews have concluded that there is no close link between job satisfaction and

work performance.23"25 For instance, Iaffalando and Muchinsky's25 meta-analy-

sis revealed a small average correlation of 0.17 (although others have reported that this

relationship is stronger for managerial and professional employees, r=0.31). 26

More recently, studies have examined affective components of well-being. In a cross-

sectional study of nurses,17 supervisor or co-worker ratings on all seven aspects of

performance studied were significantly associated with nurses' reports of depression

(rvalues —0.10 to —0.40, w=171). These effects remained significant after controlling

for a variety of other variables, including frequency and intensity of stressful events,

subjective stress, anxiety and hostility. A more recent cross-sectional study of nurses

used structural equation modelling to examine the relationships between supervisor

ratings of four indices of performance, anxiety and emotional exhaustion (n = 220).27

Of the eight well- being-performance relationships tested, the only significant

relationship was between emotional exhaustion and irritability with colleagues - itself a

questionable measure of performance.

There have been several longitudinal studies of well-being and work performance. In a

small-sample long- itudinal study (n = 33),28 a composite self-report index of well-

being was significantly associated with supervisory ratings of three indices of

performance, taken 1 year after the assessment of well-being (rvalues 0.38-0.47). Well-

being, measured 2 years prior to performance assessment, was not associated

significantly with performance, although this is most probably due to low statistical

power associated with small sample size. In a similar study (n = 62), 29 there were

significant correlations between three out of four performance indices and well-being

assessed 1 year and 2 years previously (r values 0.35-0.37 1 year previously, and 0.38-

0.52 2

years previously). Whilst the correlations in both studies are much

stronger than many reported previously in this review, the study did not control for

measures of performance taken at the same time or before the assessment of well-

being. Therefore, the observed correlations may be due to initial performance causing

both well-being and subsequent performance.

Rationale/objectives of study

The rationale of this study is to-

1.Understand the importance of Authentic/Ethical leadership-styles.

2.Explain the concept of Psychological Well-being.

4.Understand the relationship between Authentic/Ethical leadership styles and

Psychological Well-being.

Hypothesis:

There exists a correlation between Authentic/Ethical Leadership styles and the

Psychological Well-Being of the leader.

Methodology

Sample

This study was conducted on people working on managerial posts at NTPC limited. A

simple random sample of 15 people was taken. The sample size was kept small due to

the problem of lack of accessibility to leaders. The data was collected through a self

rater questionnaire. The leaders were requested to fill a questionnaire consisting of items

related with authentic and ethical leadership styles and psychological well being. There

were total 44 items in the questionnaire.

This study was made irrespective of gender. Participants were asked to fill a

questionnaire which contained items measuring authentic/ethical leadership styles and

the psychological well-being of the leaders.

For measuring leadership styles, “Authentic Leadership Questionnaire For Researchers”

was used and for the purpose of measuring psychological well-being, “The Ryff Scales

of Psychological Well-Being” was applied.

About the questionnaires

Authentic Leadership Questionnaire For Researchers :

This questionnaire was developed by Bruce J. Avolio, William L. Gardner & Fred O.

Walumbwa.

The Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (ALQ) is a theory-driven leadership survey

instrument designed to measure the components that have been conceptualized as

comprising authentic leadership. The four scales comprising the ALQ address the

following questions:

• Self Awareness: To what degree is the leader aware of his or her strengths,

limitations, how others see him or her and how the leader impacts others?

• Transparency: To what degree does the leader reinforce a level of openness with

others that provides them with an opportunity to be forthcoming with their ideas,

challenges and opinions?

• Ethical/Moral: To what degree does the leader set a high standard for moral and

ethical conduct?

• Balanced Processing: To what degree does the leader solicit sufficient opinions

and viewpoints prior to making important decisions?

Sample Copy Of Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (For Researchers)

Leadership and Well-being scaleInstructions: The following items refer to your leadership style as you perceive it. Please judge how frequently each statement fits your leadership style.

I :

Not at all Once in awhile

Some times

Fairly often

Frequently, if not always

1. Say exactly what I mean.

2. Admit mistakes when they are made.

3. Encourage everyone to speak their mind.

4. Tell the hard truth.

5. Display emotions exactly in line with feelings.

6. Demonstrate beliefs that are consistent with actions.

7. Make decisions based on my core

values.

8. Ask others to take positions that support their core values.

9. Make difficult decisions based on high standards of ethical conduct.

10 Solicit views that challenge my deeply held positions.

11 Analyze relevant data before coming to a decision.

12 Listen carefully to different points of view before coming to conclusions.

13 Seek feedback to improve interactions with others.

14 Accurately describe how others view my capabilities.

15 Know when it is time to reevaluate my position on important issues.

16 Show that I understand hoe specific actions impact others.

Strongly disagree

Disagree

neutral Agree Strongly agree

1 I conduct my personal life in an ethical manner.

2 I define success not just by results but also the way they are obtained.

3 I listen what employees have to say.

4 I discipline employees who violate ethical standards.

5 I make fair and balanced decisions.

6 I can be trusted.

7 I discuss business ethics or values with employees.

8 I set an example of how to do things

the right way in terms of ethics.

9 I have the best interests of employees in mind.

10 When making decisions,I ask what is the right thing to do.

The Ryff Scales of Psychological Well-Being:

This scale was developed by Tricia A. Seifert, of University of Iowa in 2005.

Well-being is a dynamic concept that includes subjective, social, and psychological

dimensions as well as health-related behaviors. The Ryff Scales of Psychological Well-

Being is a theoretically grounded instrument that specifically focuses on measuring

multiple facets of psychological well-being. These facets include the following:

• self-acceptance

• the establishment of quality ties to other

• a sense of autonomy in thought and action

• the ability to manage complex environments to suit personal needs and values

• the pursuit of meaningful goals and a sense of purpose in life

• continued growth and development as a person 

This straightforward inventory is easy to access and administer.

The Ryff inventory consists of either 84 questions (long form) or 54 questions (medium

form). There is also a short form, but it is statistically unreliable and therefore should not

be used for assessment. Both the long and medium forms consist of a series of

statements reflecting the six areas of psychological well-being: autonomy,

environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others, purpose in life,

and self-acceptance. Respondents rate statements on a scale of 1 to 6, with 1 indicating

strong disagreement and 6 indicating strong agreement.

The following are example statements from each of the areas of well-being measured by

the Ryff inventory:

• Autonomy I have confidence in my opinions, even if they are contrary to the

general consensus.

• Environmental Mastery In general, I feel I am in charge of the situation in which I

live.

• Personal Growth I think it is important to have new experiences that challenge

how you think about yourself and the world.

• Positive Relations with Others People would describe me as a giving person,

willing to share my time with others.

• Purpose in Life Some people wander aimlessly through life, but I am not one of

them.

• Self-Acceptance I like most aspects of my personality.

Responses are totaled for each of the six categories (about half of the responses are

reverse scored, which is indicated on the master copy of the test). For each category, a

high score indicates that the respondent has a mastery of that area in his or her life.

Conversely, a low score shows that the respondent struggles to feel comfortable with

that particular concept.

Table 1

Definitions of Theory-Guided Dimensions of Well-Beingª

Self-acceptance

High scorer:  Possesses a positive attitude toward the self; acknowledges and

accepts multiple aspects of self, including good and bad qualities; feels positive

about past life.

Low scorer:    Feels dissatisfied with self; is disappointed with what has occurred

with past life; is troubled about certain personal qualities; wishes to be different

than what he or she is.

Positive relations with others

High scorer:  Has warm, satisfying, trusting relationships with others; is concerned

about the welfare of others; capable of strong empathy, affection, and intimacy;

understands give and take of human relationships.

Low scorer:    Has few close, trusting relationships with others; finds it difficult to

be warm, open, and concerned about others; is isolated and frustrated in

interpersonal relationships; not willing to make compromises to sustain important

ties with others.

Autonomy

High scorer:  Is self-determining and independent; able to resist social pressures to

think and act in certain ways; regulates behavior from within; evaluates self by

personal standards.

Low scorer:    Is concerned about the expectations and evaluations of others; relies

on judgments of others to make important decisions; conforms to social pressures

to think and act in certain ways.

Environmental mastery

High scorer:  Has a sense of mastery and competence in managing the

environment; controls complex array of external activities; makes effective use of

surrounding opportunities; able to choose or create contexts suitable to personal

needs and values.

Low scorer:    Has difficulty managing everyday affairs; feels unable to change or

improve surrounding context; is unaware of surrounding opportunities; lacks sense

of control over external world.

Purpose in life

High scorer:  Has goals in life and a sense of directedness; feels there is meaning

to present and past life; holds beliefs that give life purpose; has aims and objectives

for living.

Low scorer:    Lacks a sense of meaning in life; has few goals or aims, lacks sense

of direction; does not see purpose of past life; has no outlook or beliefs that give

life meaning.

Personal growth

High scorer:  Has a feeling of continued development; sees self as growing and

expanding; is open to new experiences; has sense of realizing his or her potential;

sees improvement in self and behavior over time; is changing in ways that reflect

more self-knowledge and effectiveness.

Low scorer:    Has a sense of personal stagnation; lacks sense of improvement or

expansion over time; feels bored and uninterested with life; feels unable to develop

new attitudes or behaviors.

ª This table was taken from Ryff and Keyes (1995, p.1072)

Table 2

Psychometric Properties of the Ryff Scales of Psychological Well-Being

Scales:

 

Internal

consistency of

20-item parent

scale

 Test-retest

reliability of

20-item parent

scale 

14-item scale

correlation with

20-item parent

scale

 Internal

consistency of

20-item parent

scale 

  Internal

consistency of

3-item scale

  Self-

acceptance.93 .85 .99 .91 .52

  Positive

Relations with

others

.91 .83 .98 .88 .56

  Autonomy .86 .88 .97 .83 .37

 

Environmental

Mastery

.90 .81 .98 .86 .49

  Purpose in .90 .82 .98 .88 .33

Life

  Personal

Growth.87 .81 .97 .85 .40

 

Sample Copy Of Ryff Scales of Psychological Well-Being:

INSTRUCTIONS: The following statements focus on measuring multiple facets of

psychological well-being,such as self-acceptance,sense of autonomy in thoughts and

actions and growth and development etc. Read each statement carefully and judge to

what extent each statement describes your personality,as you perceive it.

Strongly disagree

Moderately disagree

Slightlydisagree

Slightlyagree

Moderatelyagree

Stronglyagree

1 I tend to be influenced by people with strong opinions.

2 In general I feel that I am in charge of the situation in which I live.

3 I think it is important to have new experiences that challenge how you think about yourself and thew world.

4 Maintaining close relationships has been difficult and frustrating for me.

5 I live life one day at a time and don't really think about the future.

6 When I look at the story of my life,I am pleased with how things have turned out.

7 I have confidence in my opinions,even if they are contrary to the general consensus.

8 The demands of every day life often get me down.

9 For me,life has been a continuous process of learning,changing and growth.

10 People describe me as a giving person,willing to share my time with others.

11 Some people wander aimlessly through life,but I am not one of them.

12 I judge myself by what I consider important,not by what others consider important.

13 I am quiet good at managing many responsibilities of my daily life.

14 I haven't experienced many warm and trusting relationships with others.

15 I sometimes feel as if I've done all there is to do in life.

16 I like most aspect of my personality.

17 In many ways,I feel disappointed about my achievements in life .

18 I gave up trying to make a big improvement or change in my life a long time ago.

Statistical Analysis

After the data was collected,it's statistical analysis was done. The items were scored as

per the scoring key. The scores on authentic and ethical leadership were added and their

average was computed. Then the average score on psychological well being scale was

calculated. After computing the average scores,the product moment correlation (r) was

computed.

The following table indicates the average scores on authentic and ethical leadership and

psychological well-being:

Average score on authentic and ethical

leadership

Average score on psychological well-

being

104.8 85.06

The correlation between the two variables namely,authentic and ethical leadership and

psychological well-being was found to be 0.305 which indicates a weak correlation

between the two variables.

Value of rStrength of

relationship

-1.0 to –0.5 or 1.0 to

0.5Strong

-0.5 to –0.3 or 0.3 to

0.5Moderate

-0.3 to –0.1 or 0.1 to

0.3Weak

–0.1 to 0.1 None or very weak

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

After data analysis, the correlation ,between authentic/ethical leadership styles and

psychological well-being,was computed. Pearson product moment correlation (r) was

calculated.

The correlation between the two variables was found to be 0.305 which,according to the

correlation scale,indicates a weak but positive correlation.

Thus it can be concluded that authentic and ethical leadership styles and psychological

well-being of the leader are correlated but the correlation between these two variables is

very weak and thus these two leadership styles do not exert any significant effect on the

psychological well-being of the leaders.

CONCLUSION

Thus the result of the study indicates that there is a positive but weak correlation

between the said variables. That means we can safely conclude that psychological well-

being of a leader is not independent of the effect of authentic and ethical leadership

style. However this effect is not very significant.

CONSTRANTS AND LIMITATIONS

The project was limited in several ways. First, the project used a convenience sample of

15 people. Thus the generalizability of the result is limited. With a small sample

size, caution must be applied, as the findings might not be transferable to the larger

population.

The generalizability is also limited because of the fact that all participants were

voluntary ;therefore their responses do not represent the perspectives of non

respondents.

There are many other variables which can influence the psychological well-being of the

leaders but these variables have not been included in this study. This study focuses only

on the relationship between authentic/ethical leadership styles and psychological well-

being of leaders.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE WORK

It should be noted that leadership is only one of many factors that influence the

psychological well-being of leaders. More research work can be carried out in future to

examine the effect of other variables on the psychological well-being of leaders.

In addition to it,psychological well-being is a very broad phenomenon which can be

studied outside the work settings too. This study focuses only on the psychological well-

being of leaders within the workplace. In future more researches can be carried out to

study this phenomenon in different settings such as family,peer group etc.

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