TOP TEN IDEAS IN CHAPTER 7,
Leading for Performance
(p. 230)


The summary of each chapter is presented as a list of 10 ideas, with the main concepts highlighted in each point. This is the summary for chapter 7, which covers leadership.
  1. The difference between management and leadership is that management focuses more on mechanical organizational skills, while leadership focuses more on skills that bring out the best in people.

  2. The systems view provides a context for leading because it helps supervisors appreciate the interdependency of their success with that of the people they lead.

  3. Leaders are effective to the degree that they can influence others to achieve goals. Remember: People in authority will always have influence. It's the way they influence people that's important. Being a boss and issuing orders will mostly influence people to do mediocre work. Being a leader and collaborating help supervisors to influence employees to do their best work.

  4. A leadership attitude is one that is based on the systems view. It helps to remind a leader to avoid blaming others and looking for ways to help people work together. The leader attitude is based on the knowledge that for any one to succeed, everyone has to succeed.

  5. Five types of power for influencing the behavior of employees derive from different bases. These five types are reward power, coercive power, legitimate power, expert power, and referent power. The two most effective types of power for leaders are expert and referent—they have to be earned through performance.

  6. The trait approach to leadership suggests that some people are better leaders because of inborn personality traits, such as drive, honesty, intelligence, enthusiasm, and humility. These traits usually result in behaviors that positively influence others.

  7. Behavioral approaches for understanding effective leadership focus on what leaders do rather than any particular personality traits. Those approaches usually separate leadership behavior into concern for people and concern for performance. The best leaders always have a high concern for both.

  8. The amount of time an effective leader spends focusing on relationships with people and focusing on tasks may vary with the situation. That point is at the heart of Fiedler's contingency approach to leadership, which suggests tjat different behaviors are appropriate in different situations.

  9. Situational leadership theory suggests that the amount of time an effective leader spends on tasks versus relationships also must take into account the readiness of followers. Low readiness followers require more direction on task. High readiness followers can operate in a self-directed fashion. Moderate-readiness followers require some balance between task and relationship behaviors.

  10. Transformational leaders are effective at getting people to identify their personal vision with that of the leader and organization and to contribute as a highly motivated team member to achieve that vision.



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