Leaders and Leadership

LEADER AND LEADERSHIP

LEADERSHIP DEFINITION

Leadership is a process of creating a vision for others and having the ability to translate that vision into reality and sustain it.

THE ATRIBUTION MODEL

When someone behaves in a certain way, why does he or she do so? The attribution model suggests that a leader's judgment about employees is influenced by the leader's interpretation of the causes of the employees' performance.' The leader's attributions, as much as the employees' behaviors, determine how the leader responds to their performance. A leader obtains information about employees and their behaviors through daily observations of their work. Based on this information, the leader interprets the reasons for the employees' behaviors and takes actions to deal with them when necessary. Orit Gadiesh's attributions about employees' behaviors included their desire to compete, have fun, and display their emotions at work.

LEADERS’ ATRIBUTIONS

Leaders must determine whether personal or situational factors cause behavior. A leader's attributions reflect an ability to process information about three dimensions of behavior: distinctiveness (Did the behavior occur during performance of this task only?), consensus (Is this level of performance usual for other employees?), and consistency (Is this level of performance usual for this employee?). The answers to these three questions identify for the leader either external (situational) or internal (per- sonal) causes for employee performance.

This distinction is crucial to good leader-employee relations.' An employee whose successes or failures are attributed to personal skills is likely to have different interpersonal relations with the leader than an employee whose successes or failures are attributed to factors over which the employee has little, if any, control. Leaders should attempt to change an employee's behavior only after attributing poor performance to an internal cause. For example, if Peggy Field, an assistant vice-president at Sprint, believes that a subordinate's poor performance is caused by the situation, she is more likely to provide additional resources, redesign the job, or otherwise change the situation in some way. But, if she believes that his poor performance is attributable to personal reasons, she will more likely try to motivate him to improve his behavior, offer him training to improve his skills, or reprimand him.

IMPLICATIONS FOR LEADERS

Leaders often tend to make internal attributions about poor employee performance, often leading to the punitive actions. Such actions usually are resented by employees who often do not feel responsible for the problem. Once the leader attributes performance problems to employees, the leader is less likely to give them support, coaching, and resources. Moreover, when employees make mistakes or have difficulty performing tasks, the leader is likely to blame them rather than recognizing situational causes or the leader's own contribution to the problem. Therefore leaders must learn to be careful, fair, and systematic about evaluating employee performance. They need to aware of the many options available for dealing with different causes of performance problems and the importance of selecting an appropriate one.