Harvard psychology of leadership 1508 06 context

Psychology 1508:
The Context

“I think the ideal leader for the 21st century will be one who
creates an environment that encourages everyone in the
organization to stretch their capabilities and achieve a
shared vision, who gives people the confidence to run farther
and faster than they ever have before, and who establishes
the conditions for people to be more productive, more
innovative, more creative and feel more in charge of their
own lives than they ever dreamed possible.”
Robert Crandall (Chairman, American Airlines)



Theory X
Management Assumptions
Most people HATE work
● Most people want to AVOID responsibility
● Most people have little AMBITION for themselves
● Most people prefer to be LED
● Most people have little ability to SOLVE PROBLEMS
● Most people require close control to prevent mistakes and
prohibit loafing
● TWO groups of people
●


Theory Y
Management Assumptions
Work can be ENJOYABLE as play

● Most people want to accept reasonable levels of
RESPONSIBILITY
● Most people have strong GOALS for themselves, and seek
organizations that will help to fulfill those goals
● Most people like to LEAD occasionally
● Most people are good PROBLEM SOLVERS
● Most people require NO policing or close control by the
organization
● Most people CAN be autonomous and independent
●


Theory X
Management Assumptions
Most people HATE work
● Most people want to AVOID responsibility
● Most people have little AMBITION for themselves
● Most people prefer to be LED
● Most people have little ability to SOLVE PROBLEMS
● Most people require close control to prevent mistakes and
prohibit loafing
● TWO groups of people
●


Leaders Create Their
Environment
Leader’s
Assumptions/
expectations

Leader’s
Behavior

Employees’
Behavior
Organizational
Environment


Research Findings
Hawthorne Effect (Mayo, 1932)
● Equity theory (Adams, 1965)
● The professor as leader (Frank, Gilovich, & Regan 1993)
● Psychological safety (Edmondson, 1999)
●

“Today the laurel will go to the leader who encourages
healthy dissent and values those followers brave
enough to say no. The successful leader will have not
the loudest voice, but the readiest ear. His or her real
genius may well lie not in personal achievements, but in


The Pygmalion Effect (Rosenthal, 1967)
“What managers expect of subordinates and the
way they treat them largely determine their
performance and career progress.”
Sterling Livingston
“When the faith is present in the leader, it
communicates itself to followers with powerful

effect. In the conventional mode people want to
know whether the followers believe in the leader;
a more searching question is whether the leader
believes in the followers.”


100 Years of Leadership Development
A Meta Analysis (Avolio & Luthans, 2006)
“The largest developmental impact was raising
the positive beliefs of followers, instilling in them
the conviction that they were better at a
performance task than they thought.”


“Bad Leadership”
“He was bright, and he didn’t tolerate fools. And they
weren’t fools, they were trying to get to understand
what he was saying.”
● “He didn’t trust others’ capabilities as he did his own.”
● “I wasn’t given any guidance. He wasn’t leading me or
teaching me… I never got any feedback on ideas.”
● “He wasn’t direct and honest enough to give the bad
side, he was always selling the dream.”
● “He was above us all… flying with the eagles above
while dealing with the turkeys below.”
●


“Bad Employees”
●

●
●
●

●

“I was cautious a lot of the time, and I was frustrated. I didn’t
really throw myself into the job”
“I had no motivation. I didn’t do anything that was particularly
productive. I did what I was told.”
“There was much turf fighting, in-fighting… It made for a lot of
disputes.”
“I was choosing the path of least resistance. I was doing the
minimal work. I didn’t excel… I didn’t go beyond what the job
required.”
“After a while, you become cynical about both the person and job.
You really do the bare minimum.”


“Good Leadership”
“He made us feel like there were no boundaries to what we could
be doing.”
● “He was very honest in his feedback with people… I always
knew how I was doing.”
● “He took the initiative to build morale in the office. He was
sensitive, and after we had worked long hours he made sure we
had a great dinner.”
● “He was always willing to take a chance, and trust people, give
them responsibility and push them.”
● “Whenever we brought something up, he had the openness to

listen to other people and make the changes. The idea that he
actually listened to you made a difference.”
●


“Good Employees”
●
●
●
●
●
●
●

“I was a different personality for both leaders… I was more relaxed
and enjoyed working with him.”
“I brought in my personal interests, my humor…”
“He’s a guy I thought a lot of and I wanted him to think a lot of me, so
I worked the hardest…”
“I was much happier, more productive.”
“You move away from selfishness, and toward more group oriented
ways of thinking.”
“I was calmer and more confident.”
“It’s like marriage, where you marry someone and this person brings
out all the good things in you.”


Treat a man as he is and he will
remain as he is. Treat a man as he
can and should be and he shall

become as he can and should be.
Johan Wolfgang von Goethe


“Good Followership”
Leader’s
Assumptions/
Expectations
Leader’s
Behavior

Employees’
Behavior
Organizational
Environment

“The follower who is willing to speak out shows precisely
the kind of initiative that leadership is made of.”




Ask not what your followers can do
for you; ask what you can do for
your followers.


Embodying Leadership
Encounter groups (Lieberman, Yalom, & Miles, 1973)
● “Modeling the way” (McNeese-Smith, 1995)

● Emotional contagion (Barsade, 2002)
●

“The leader’s mood and behaviors drive the moods and
behaviors of everyone else. A cranky and ruthless boss
creates a toxic organization filled with negative
underachievers who ignore opportunities; an
inspirational, inclusive leader spawns acolytes for whom
any challenge is surmountable.”
Daniel Goleman


“Our analysis suggests that, overall, the climate
—how people feel about working at a company—
can account for 20-30 percent of business
performance. Getting the best out of people
pays off in hard results. If climate drives
business results, what drives climate? Roughly
50 to 70 percent of how employees perceive their
organization’s climate can be traced to the
actions of one person: the leader. More than
anyone else, the boss creates the conditions that


The great leader…
… creates an environment that
facilitates growth.


Success Induced

Blindness

Environment

Safe
Guards
Unconscious
Incompetent (UI)

Unconscious
Competent (UC)

Conscious
Incompetent (CI)

Conscious
Competent (CC)


“They lead because they want to create an
environment in which people are free to think,
innovate, and unite into teams and groups, in
order to solve problems that are too big for any
one person to solve alone.”
Roger Smith
Chairman, GM Corporations