Understanding Behaviors for Effective Leadership

Citation

Paul, J. (2003), "Understanding Behaviors for Effective Leadership", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 353-355. https://doi.org/10.1108/09534810310475569

Understanding Behaviors for Effective Leadership differentiates itself from the plethora of business books on the topic of leadership by presenting the results of empirical research in a manner that is imminently accessible to students of all types. Over ten years in development, this book, and its “leadership process model”, frames and represents author Jon Howell's current synthesis of the extant research on contingency approaches to leadership. The “leadership process model” facilitates the integration of prior research findings within a complex substitutes‐for‐leadership framework that is easily understandable to those unfamiliar with leadership theory and research. The model includes leader behaviors, situational factors that increase leader effectiveness, situational factors that replace the need for leadership, situational factors that decrease leader effectiveness, follower/group psychological reactions, and behavioral outcomes.

The strength of this textbook lies in its emphasis on leader behaviors, its clear presentation of complex interactions among situations and leader behaviors, and its basis in the results of rigorous empirical leadership research. Unsurprisingly, the positivist assumptions on which the theory and research are founded beget the primary critique of the text. As an integration of logical positivist empiricism, the text is implicitly founded in a realist ontology and epistemology. Research in this tradition attempts to discover a priori facts about leadership in a quest to discover the real nature of leadership. The text aggregates these discovered facts as a representation of accumulated scientific knowledge about leadership. From this philosophical perspective, the text effectively frames and communicates insights into the nature of leadership.

While the contribution of the text to our understanding of leadership is demonstrable, this progress is achieved at a price. The majority of the price paid is the omission of leadership research based in different philosophical assumptions (Burrell and Morgan, 1979). Interpretive, critical, and post‐modern approaches to leadership are not addressed in the text, effectively marginalizing these schools of thought, implicitly subordinating them to the dominant hegemony of functionalist leadership research.

A brief analysis of one of the implicit objectivist assumptions about leadership may provide a useful illustration. In the research that underpins the text, leadership and followership are viewed as discovered facts, as are measurable individual differences and relationships among these facts. These facts are assumed to exist, without regard to their specific sociocultural history. In contrast, a social constructionist perspective would view leadership as an aspect of social reality that has attained validity through objectivation, institutionalization, and legitimation (Berger and Luckmann, 1966). Since social facticities are created and modified by particular historical circumstances, social research is “essentially engaged in a systematic account of contemporary affairs” rather than the accumulation of knowledge (Gergen, 1973). The Howell and Costley text (Alvesson and Deetz, 1996) naturalizes the discovered social order, abstracting it from the dynamics of its historical social construction. Thus, the text presents an excellent snapshot of quantified leadership relationships in the contemporary USA, but frames the picture in a disciplinary manner that privileges functionalism and performativity (Lyotard, 1984).

The naturalization critique articulated above stimulated a lively and thoughtful student discussion when used during a classroom session. When paradigmatically framed, the text provided a logical focus for exploring assumptions of historicity in the social construction of leadership and a helpful empirical picture of some current socially legitimated “unwritten rules” of leadership. Once students entertained the idea that reality is constructed and that multiple realities are possible, they began to realize that leaders influence the creation of those realities. This book provides a useful roadmap to orient students to behaviors for effective leadership in organizations today.

In addition to its value in the classroom, this book may also be useful for leadership training in organizations. Unlike some of the popular leadership training programs being used in organizations, the leadership process model is based on a valid stream of leadership research. Since the model is easily learned and remembered, it can provide managers with an accessible and valid way to think through leadership situations. An initial three‐box model identifies the key leadership tasks as diagnosis, providing appropriate leader behaviors, and modifying the situation. In organizations, the routine use of this simple three‐box model could significantly improve organizational performance. The third key leadership task, modifying the situation, is an especially powerful aspect of leadership in organizations. Modifying management systems to enhance the effectiveness of a leader's behavior or to replace the need for a leader's attention to particular situations are underutilized strategies in organizations today.

In summary, Understanding Behaviors for Effective Leadership is an excellent synthesis of the extant research on contingency approaches to leadership. It is well accepted by students and is a useful index to the empirical leadership literature in the positivist tradition. This book is worthy of being in the library of those who study, teach, or research in the area of leadership.