,4L

Research Note 86-38

N LEADERSHIP: WHERE AND WHAT IS LEADERSHIP EXCELLENCE?

4Siegfried Streufert

The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center

kThe Pennsylvania State University

Contracting Officer's Representative

George H. Lawrence

DTIO

ELECTE

Milton S. Katz, Director

2 U. S. Army

Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences

April 1986

Appr¢oved for pub~lic irllel; distribution unlimited.

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III. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

V Streufert, S. (1986). Leadership: ' Where and what is leadership excellence?

In S. Streufert (ed.), The Multidimensional executive. Scribner.

COR: G. Lawrence

19. KEY WORDS (Confllnu. on reoree side if eieceeiy mnd idoelliy by block munbe?)

-leadership excellence- leadership, style)

decision making, task demands,

organizations)

* communication

20- ANTrA^CT (C~wcis o rev,,eroo sbIf n-cssv, md ident.It by block nkn b..)

*Leadership represents the interpersonal component of managerial

activity. As such, it has to do with leading people, not directly concerned

with technical skills or even making excellent decisions. Included is a

discussion of addressing leadership at various levels of the organizational

hierarchy, how different tasks and different followers necessitate

different leadership styles, and how understanding others and communicating

with others represent an art of leadership that is aided by a

multidimensional inteZrative aypproach to tasks and followerg Vf

j Do I F 1473 EDITION Or I NOV GS IS OBSOLETE Ucagfe

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PREFACE

In 1985, we submitted an advance copy of the forthcoming

book "Complexity, Managers and Organizations" to ARI as a

contractor's report. The book considered complexity theory as

it applies to organizational settings, especially where decision making is of primary importance. The concept of leadership was only briefly mentioned. The present report will

complete the theoretical discussion by providing an initial

discussion of leadership as it is viewed by complexity theory.

This report and a subsequent report on our leadership

theory to be entitled "Leadership and Multidimensionality"

will be included as chapters in a forthcoming book with the

title "The Multidimensional Executive," (Scribner's, publication -

date late 1986). The chapters were not written for scientists.

Rather, they use language that will, we hope, communicate

to those who work as managers in military and private sector

organizations. In other words, the discussions in this and

the subsequent report on leadership theory will be less

detailed and will provide fewer references than a reader of

our previous report would have encountered. a...

Leadership, as considered here, represents the interpersonal

component of managerial activity. For those readers who wish

to include decision making and other executive tasks as part

of the leadership concept, only a reading of the original

report in combination with these reports will provide a complete

impression of our theoretical approac Eccesion For

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Leadership: Where and What is Leadership Excellence.

EXPLORING LEADERSHIP

"Leadership" is an important concept and an important word.

Everyone talks about leadership*. We are all certain that

leadership excellence is the salvation of our country, of our

economy, of our company. Some of us believe that leadership

excellence solves everything. We admire great leaders. We

castigate supposedly "inept" leaders when they fail to do what we

expect. Apparently, we believe that leaders must be superhuman.

In fact, we often expect miracles from them. Are such expectations reasonable? What, exactly, is leadership anyhow? Are our

demands reasonable?

Many popular writers and some behavioral and management

scientists have given the term "leadership" a rather broad

meaning. To them, leadership is just about anything the successful person thinks and does, especially if that individual is a

corporate executive, an entrepreneur or a politician. To these

wThe interested reader may wish to read part or all of the

following books: Bennis, K. and Nanus, B. (1985). Leaders:

The strategy for taking charge. New York: Harper & Row;

Blanchard, K.H. (1985). Leadership and the one minute manager.

New York: William Morrow; Bradford, D.L. (1984). Managing for

excellence. New York: Wiley; Fiedler, F. (1984). Improving

leadership effectiveness. New York: Wiley; Hunt, J.G. &

Blair, J.D. (Eds.) (1985). Leadershi on the future battle

field. Washington: Pergamon-Brassey-s; Levinson, H. &

Rosenthal, S. (1984). CEO: Corporate leadership in action. New

York: Basic Books.

S..
2

writers, leadership means organizing the organization. It means

instructing, guiding and motivating people and it means solving

their problems. It means being at the right place, making the

right decisions at the right time - and much more. But most of

all, it means doing everything well. Used that broadly, the term

"leadership" takes on a rather fuzzy meaning.

Is the pilot who pulls a crowded airplane out of a nosedive I

a leader? What about the football player who runs 80 and then 78

yards for two touch-downs during a single game? What about the

corporate executive who gets the other company to drop their

competitive product line? Is that leading? Maybe not.

But what about a President who is reelected by an overwhelming majority? What about the person who collects for the cancer

society and brings in three times as much as anyone has ever

collected in that neighborhood? What about the senior executive

who gets his managers to turn their divisions around toward

profitability while divisions managed by other executives

continue to go down the drain? There is a difference between my

first set of questions and my second set of questions. The

second set is more akin to excellence of leading. Leadership is

not everything. I would say that leadership has to do with

leading people. It has little, if anything, directly to do with

technical skills, for example, with managing finances. Leading

as I see it, means motivating, understanding, communicating,

encouraging, scolding but supporting people.

In some cases, and by some writers, the word leadership has

%- %
been used synonymously with "managing." Take the new book by

Peters and Austin*, for example. Those authors want to discard

the words "managing" and "management" because, they say, those

concepts imply "controlling, arranging, demeaning and reducing."

It seems, that they want to replace the word "managing" with the

word "leading." The latter, they say, implies "unleashing

energy, building, freeing and growing." Their conceptualization

is based on a statement of Warren Bennis who suggested that

"American organizations have been over-managed and underled."

Indeed, Peters' view of management is primarily concerned

with people. To the extent to which people are his primary

emphasis, or better his only emphasis, his use of the term

"leadership" is, in my view, justified. But "management" goes

beyond people. I am not sure that the distinction between

leading people and dealing with other functions of the organization is always understood by most readers - or, for that

matter, by most popular writers.

The popular all encompassing concept of leadership often is

not comfortable with the suggestion that leadership can be "bad"

as often (or more often) than it is "good." Hitler called

himself the "Fuehrer" which, literally translated, means nothing

else than "leader." He led Germany and the rest of Europe into

disaster. That, too, is leading. An executive or a team of

executives may lead a corporation into financial chaos and

*Peters, T. & Austin, N. (1985). A passon for excellence:

The leadership difference. New York: Random House, Inc.

V-

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4

bankruptcy. To the extent to which their actions were concerned

with the people of their organizations, they, indeed, were

leaders: bad leaders.

Leadership Excellence

So, where and what is leadership excellence? Where and how

can we attain it? The next few pages will make it clear that

leadership is a far from simple phenomenon. Any definition of

leadership, at this point in the chapter, would be quite premature. Let us explore the meaning of leadership throughout this

chapter and I will provide a summary and something close to a

definition as this particular chapter ends. In the meantime,

however, it is important for us to become at least a bit more

familiar with the leadership concept and with its varied implications. Toward that end, I will discuss why leadership and

decision making are not, as some writers have suggested, the

same. I will consider whether leadership exists only at the top

of the organizational hierarchy or whether it can be found

anywhere. I will show how different tasks and different followers necessitate different leadership styles, styles that can be

achieved by flexible, adaptive people. Finally, I will consider

how understanding others and how communicating with others

represent an art of leadership that is aided by a multidimensional integrative approach to tasks and followers, an approach

which, for example, may be based on efforts such as empathy.

Exploring when and where leadership excellence can be found

is not enough. Many observers have done that to no avail. We

h
Kr, - o 

5

need to know how we can employ differentiative and/or integrative

styles to identify and improve leadership styles. We must

determine how we can interface the unique abilities and needs of

people with tasks and with the needs of the organization.

Leading and Decision Making

I want to emphasize once more that leadership and the

capacity to make excellent decisions are not at all the same

thing. Many times the two skills have been confused with each

other. We do it all the time in organizations. We find that

someone is doing a technical job well, and we promote that person

to the next higher level, a level where this person is now in

charge of his or her previous coworkers. That promotion,

however, was based on task skills, not on leadership ability.

If the new manager fails at the job, this is the place where it

will most likely happen.

We just naturally "assume" that a person who has demonstrated knowledge, experience or even creativity in technical

skills would have the ability the lead. The argument that people

tend to get promoted to their level of incompetence is well

known. That incompetence, however, is rarely technical in

nature: after all, many a newly promoted person has just

excelled at tasks he or she is now supervising. These tasks were

done well; otherwise, the promotion would not have come (unless,

of course, they wanted to kick the bastard upstairs - something

that certainly would have been a bad reason for promotion). The

failing of a new manager is often in the realm of leadership.
65

That failure may arise from an incapacity to lead, or even from

the new manager's belief that he or she must now act in a

different way, by being more controlling, more distant, less

people oriented.

In higher management settings, promotion to more advanced

executive positions is often based on a technical skill known as

"decision making" (or contributions to decision making by a

team). Of course, the capacity to make excellent decisions

and the capacity to lead may be found in the same person. When

they appear together, both capacities may derive from a differentiative and integrative style that I discussed earlier, a style

to which I will return later in this chapter. However, excellence of leadership or excellence of organizational decision

making may occur independently as well. There are excellent

leaders who are terrible decision makers. The charisma or

the demonic control which some political leaders have used to

coax their populations into national disasters demonstrate that

leadership excellence can be paired with decision making failure.

On the other side, there are those prophets who had all the

needed insights that would have been necessary to avoid threatening disasters, but no one would listen. People don't pay

attention to those who do not know how to communicate, to

persuade, to lead. Naturally, there are some rare people who

excel both as decision makers and as leaders. And, finally,

there are the very many who perform poorly in both categories.

In some cases, outstanding leaders need not be excellent
decision makers. Some people are primarily needed to provide

support, encouragement; i.e., they are needed to help others to

make their own decisions. Leaders who can do such a task must

have interpersonal skills, an understanding of the other person's

concerns and needs, and enough know-how about that other individual's job and environment. These leaders must be able to

generate trust. They should not get involved in decision making.

They should be excellent leaders, not decision makers.

In contrast, we mav consider the consultant who is brought

into the organization to aid corporate executives in technical

decisions. That individual provides information. Interaction

with people in the organization is likely at a minimum. Leadership, except for some communication skills, is not required.

Excellent technical and decision making skill may well be.

Both these examples of leadership skills without decision

making skills and vice versa do, however, reflect exceptions. We

want to employ people in our organization who have the ability to

do a wide range of things. Hopefully, they would be capable of

both, leadership excellence and decision making excellence.

Levels of Leadership

When we think of leaders, we tend to think of people who

occupy advanced executive, professional or political positions.

That view is another fallacy. Many of us tend to associate

everything of quality with advanced positions. However, leadership exists or should exist at just about all levels in the

organization. And, of course, it may differ in quality at all of
*.NS

these levels. If decision making quality or if leadership

quality is poor at the lowest levels in the organization, the

best leadership at higher levels may fail*.

Let us reconsider decision making for a moment. It has been v

argued that extensive planning activity and complex decision

making are things in which only senior executives engage. That

view is dead wrong. Equally wrong, I think, are views which

associate some kind of executive "quality " with the time length

over which people think or plan. We have considered that fallacy

before: we are limited by our central nervous system to seven

plus or minus two conceptualizations that we can handle at any

one time. At a lower managerial level, these seven "things"

must focus upon things that happen today or, at most, tomorrow.

Once we have been promoted to senior corporate vice president for

planning, we can take our seven plus or minus two concepts

decades into the future (probably so far that they will turn out

to be useless). Nonetheless, we are applying the same planning

and decision making style. We are limited by the same number of

steps at different points in our career. If we don't make it to

the top, our length of planning will never expand, even if we do

have the capacity for jobs at elevated levels. The quality of

*Unfortunately many organizations do not become aware of

their most valuable asset: people, no matter at which level they

may work, until the organization needs their leadership and

contributions in time of crisis (cf. Moss-Kanter, E., 1983, The

change masters. New York: Simon & Schuster). For that matter,

the word "asset" applied to people was "tabu" (cf. Odiorne,

G.S., 1984, Strategic management of human resources. San

Francisco: Jossey-Bass). Fortunately, today, we are beginning

to rethink that notion.

%'
9

our efforts, defined in terms of the number of things that we can

integrate, however, remains high, no matter what our job may be.

The same holds for leadership. The platoon leader in the

military or the foreman on the assembly line who manage specific

actions, who assign people to positions and jobs according to

task demands and the abilities of supervisees must, if they are

to be successful, have excellent leadership ability. That

ability deals with people at quite different levels than one

would expect from a four star General or from a CEO. However,

the how of the leadership process at both levels may be quite

similar. Both of them may be excellent leaders and both of them

may be poor at their respective jobs.

In other words, just about everyone in the organization is,

or at least can be, a leader. All of us deal with people. Some

of the people we should lead work inside our own organizations.

Others are on the outside: opponents, clients, customers. All

of us can influence these people. All of us can have an impact

on how they feel about our organization. We can, to a great

extent, determine how much people in our organization and people

on the outside will contribute to our goals. Certainly, we can

influence how motivated our own people will be toward realizing

the goals of our organization.

Views of Leadership

President Truman has been quoted saying that leadership is

the ability to get people to do things they don't want to do -

and like it. That, indeed, is a difficult thing to do. It is
10

~probably the ultimate of leadership. Maybe, we were more easily

persuaded in Truman's time. The war was on. A national effort

was needed. But, sometimes that kind of thing still happens

today: think of all the Democrats who voted for President

Reagan, even the second time .... To persuade someone to do

something that - on first thought - seems aversive, requires a

kind of charisma and power of persuasion that very few of us can

muster. John F. Kennedy had the same kind of influence on the

public, but in contrast to Reagan, could not "lead" Congress

toward support of his legislative programs.

We have been studying, analyzing and trying to discover the

secrets of leadership during Truman's time and ever since.

Indeed, we have learned a lot. Considering all the knowledge we

have gained, one might think that identifying what it takes to

be an "excellent" leader should be simple. After all, many great

leaders have existed and some still exist. When the Macedonian

King, Alexander, led his Greeks through unknown worlds all the

way to India, he must have used leadership technology that

assured loyalty from his troops. Napoleon enticed the French to

follow him twice. There are many other famous leaders throughout

history who, for better or worse, were equally effective. Some

of them were loved; others were feared. Yet others motivated

their followers with an idea, a religion, a promise of reward,

the satiation of needs. Different cultures have produced

different kinds of leaders, different kinds of followers,

different reasons why leaders were persuasive and successful.

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11

The styles of successful leaders were typically well matched to

the training, the beliefs and the needs of their followers.

There have been many successful leaders, but for any one who

attained success, there have been many others who have failed.

Required leadership qualities and follower orientations will

change with time as cultures change and as economic conditions

change. The leader of centuries past may have been charismatic,

but he (there were few obvious women leaders at the time) was

typically also authoritarian and controlling. Society and

culture demanded it. They were "great men" and they led us to

develop the "Great Man Theory." They were the ones who, supposedly, were born to be leaders. They had the insight, the creativity, the skill and the knowledge to do things right.

More recently, we have realized that great leaders aren't

always great. Sooner or later they make mistakes. They just

aren't as reliable as we had imagined. But, we want reliability.

We want "correct" solutions to problems. With that view, some of i

us have turned to computers. Computers do things the same way

all the time. They are not confounded by emotions. Computers

can make decisions or at least advise us on which decisions to

make. They can decide who should be hired and fired, who should

work harder. They can generate pages and pages of neat looking

charts and tables that contain incredible amounts of information.

They would not fire someone only because they like one person and

dislike someone else. However, computers do not "understand"

people. They cannot motivate. They cannot be adaptive. In

IF
12

fact, they don't lead. We need leaders who can deal with rapid

changes in our modern world. Today's leadership must continue

to come from people.

The American economy has changed. Once upon a time, we

couldn't produce enough, especially following the Second World

War. Now we find it difficult to give some of our products

away, especially on the world market. If we want to improve our

products to generate demand, if we want to persuade those out

there to buy them, then we need leaders who are - and remain -

people. We need leaders who encourage their followers to feel

and respond as a cooperative group, as a group with a purpose.

We need leaders who can get their followers to develop their full

potential and to express that potential through effort, through

creativity, through caring and through cooperation at the

work place. And we need leaders who can persuade the potential

customer to buy only one product line: ours.

MayDe, when we had a smokestack industry, sometime around

the turn of the century, it was more important to make sure that

the cogwheels of the machines did not get out of line with each

other. We had to assure that those wheels interfaced with the

rest of the machine, that the equipment would work optimally.

Our managers needed to have a mechanical slant that would make

sure that the industrial machine could function. We needed, or

thought we needed, managers that treated people and machines the

way mechanics generally would: in an impersonal and functional

way. These managers may not have been nice. Today we would not

.74
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13

like them. Certainly, their employees did not love them. But,

they were effective.

Today, American smokestack industry is mostly dying. Other

1%

countries now produce steel and basic machinery. Every month we

hear that so many blue collar workers lost their jobs and about

an equivalent number of service industry employees were hired.

Even in the surviving smokestack industry it is no longer as

important how many tons of low grade steel you can produce. With

increasing competition it is becoming more important whether you

can supply a specialty product. It is important how good and

fast your service is. It is important how effective your people

are.

The cogwheels of the service industries and the cogwheels of

high tech industries are people. Today, people have to interface

just as cogwheels in our heavy industrial machinery had to do

nearly a century ago. Only when people interface, when they work

their best, when they love their jobs and like their company,

when they become motivated and creative, will modern service and ".

technological companies work as well as the smokestack industries

once did. The people of high tech and service industries must be

persuasive and innovative. They must be able to sell their

products to a spoiled and often disinterested customer. They

must be motivated and they must be able to motivate. In fact,

, they must be excellent leaders.

There are excellent examples of this phenomenon. Donald C. IBurr, once head of Texas International Airlines started Peoples

%
14

Express Airlines in 1980 after the industry was deregulated in

1978*. That airline is an ideal example of what leadership of

people can do. It grew in a few years from zero to nearly a

billion dollar industry. The name of the airline reflects

their approach. They are not only focusing on profit; rather

they are focusing on people: their own employees and, in

second place, their customers. The employees are made stock

owners. The feeling is one of "we" of "ownership" rather than

competition between labor and management. People working for the

company do all sorts of jobs which, at other airlines would be

considered below their dignity. They do things for each other

because they actually do thing for themselves. They are the

company. They are welded together in a way that makes the

people cogwheels fit precisely into each other, smoothly,

without wear and tear. No wonder, that company is a resounding

success. It was people leadership that did the job.

Leadership and Situational Demands

So leadership has changed over time. But who is or who can

be a great leader? Can a leader be trained? Philip L. Smith,

President and CEO of General Foods thinks they can". Can

leaders be identified before they have to face the challenge (and

potential disaster) of leadership? Peter Dawkins, retired

General and Senior Executive Vice President at Shearson Lehman

*Burr, D.C. (1985). Leadership: The element making the

difference. Executive Report. Stamford, CT: MacLean Hunter

Media, 6.

* Smith, P.L. (1985). Leadership. Executive Report, 3, 23.

6 b
15

Brothers consider it possible by picking out those who display

high levels of achievement early in their careers*. If there

are so many failures in leadership situations compared to so few

successes, are only a few of us capable of attaining leadership

excellence?

As I already suggested, the latter question was first

answered with the "Great Man" theory. It was thought by some

that there must be a leadership "trait" that a few people

possess while others don't. But, if that were true, then great

leaders should always be great. However, for many of them their

time and effectiveness is limited. Napoleon lost at Waterloo.

Che Guevarra was a successful leader of the Cuban revolution

which brought Castro, not Che Guevarra into power. Dwight

Eisenhower has often been credited for finally finishing off the

Second World War (even though it has been suggested that the

stage was already set), yet as President, he was more known for

his golf scores than for legislative or executive innovation.

The ability to lead with excellence and with success, then,

is likely restricted. A leader may have his or her time and

place. With this knowledge, leadership theorists began to

develop contingency theories. These theories, may, for example,

suggest that one kind of leader would do best in one situation IA.

and another kind of leader may be needed as soon as that situation begins to change drastically. There is probably much truth

% Dawkins, P.M. (1985). Teaching leadership. Executive

Report, 3, 7-8.

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16

in that view. Let us consider an extreme example: If the

factory is burning down and panic must be avoided, you don't

want a democratic leadership style. You don't want to vote on

who leaves through the main exit and who escapes via the

emergency exit. You want someone who is trained, who can tell

people what to do and who can make sure that they do it. In

contrast, democratic styles of interaction are clearly preferable

when enough time is available, when everyone may have something

to contribute - even if the final decision were not made by a

vote of all who have participated.

Sir Huw Weldon, Chairman, Court of Governors of the London

School of Ecor'mics in his "Observations on Leadership" refers

to such statesmen as Lincoln, Churchill and Eisenhower, all of

whom, at a time of crisis, stated policy quite simply and

precisely. This policy was stated without evident integrations,

without consideration of the thoughts and feelings of people.

For example, Churchill called for "victory whatever the price,

victory whatever the cost." Crisis calls for leaders who can

motivate in forceful and simple fashion. It was under those

conditions that Lincoln, Eisenhower and Churchill earned the

right to be called statesmen. One might wonder whether all of

them would be viewed as favorably, had they led their countries

only in times of peace and tranquility.

There is, in other words, little question that different

*Weldon, H. (1985). Observations as leadership. Executive.

Report, 3, 9-10.
situations, diverse task demands and different times require

different kinds of leadership. Some people make good leaders in

one situation, others in another. But, how many diverse situations are there? If there are too many, if every extreme

situation would require a different kind of leadership style or

worse, some peculiar combination of leadership styles, then any

contingency theory of leadership would fail because of the

innumerable contingencies that would have to be considered. With

many contingencies, successful leadership would be more of an

accident than some identifiable style or a capacity. Fortunately, we have learned enough about leadership to believe that

things are not that extreme. There are some common factors.

Even if there is no "great person" who is the excellent leader at %%

all times and in all situations, we might be able to recognize

what kind of person we might want across a genre of situations

and for some tasks with common characteristics.

Peters and Austin (pp 259-296) provide us with the fascinating tale of Sam Neaman who came to McCrory's chain of stores

and motivated the personnel of one store (Indianapolis) to go

out and explore their competition. He asked them to redo their

own store to be better than the competition (at little or no

cost). The employees loved it, did it, and turned the store

around from a looser to a winner. Neaman could have used the

changed Indiana store as a model for other McCrory stores. He

did, in a way. However, his model did not focus on what the

renewed Indianapolis store looked like. Rather, the model was

6q
18

how to motivate people. An excellent leader sets overall goals, IJ

motivates people to achieve those goals, but lets the followers

do the job of implementing and often discovering roads toward the

goals. Neaman followed the same strategy in Flushing, New York.

He motivated the local employees to do it themselves. In their

own way. A different kind of store emerged, this one matched to

the kind of people who live in Flushing. It turned out to be

beautiful - and it became the chain's best store in New York.

The leadership requirements in both cases were similar. The

specific goal was the establishment of profitable businesses.

The outcome was overtly different, but produced the same results.

Sam Neaman probably understood that a good leader need only

provide the framework and the goal, not the individual game plan

on how to achieve the goal. Specific decisions can be made by

followers, allowing them to obtain "ownership" of their efforts

and of their successes. Neaman's style allowed profitable

differences to emerge. But his leadership style worked similarly

in different situations. Let us take a closer look at leadership

styles, what they are and how they work - beginning, again, with

a little historv.

Leadership Styles

It has long been known that people differ in their styles

of leading others. Research, originating at Ohio State University, first distinguished between up to five task oriented styles

-0 ..... ]

"' '' " " . .' .'" ."" " " " '" S....................... "' '" " "' .' ..... ":-" ",(""."A'" ........ , ' E ' ' ".,
19

and up to five people oriented stvles*. Part of that work was

based on efforts of Fleishman who distinguishes between leaders

* who are primarily occupied with structuring the tasks of their ".4.

followers versus those who emphasize interpersonal consideration". Those differences reflect at least rudiments of styles,

* of a general orientation toward leadership behavior. Yet, those

* descriptions are not enough. They still fail to explain why some

persons are able to select the appropriate leadership style at F

the appropriate time and place and why others use the same style

all the time (whether or not it is appropriate) or fail to

understand which style is presently appropriate.

Actually, we are in a dilemma. There are so many explanations of quality leadership, so many ways of describing leadership excellence. Unfortunately, the various explanations don't

*seem to agree. For example, Peters and Austin list multiple

attributes which, they say, make a good leader. Yet, some of

their critics suggest that these attributes may apply in many

situations - but are completely out of place in others. I am

sure that Peters and Austin are often right. As one executive

said to Tom Peters: his views are a "flash of the obvious", vet

an obvious that very few have appreciated and practiced. Peters'

recommendations are probably appropriate, some of the time, or

*An extensive discussion of early leadership views can be

found in the Handbook of Leadership, edited by Ralph M. Stogdill,

Free Press, 1974.

iFleishman, E.A. (1953). Leadership climate, human

relations and supervisory behavior. Journal of Applied Psychol6_. , 2020-222.
20 2

maybe even most of the time. But, if we woulo follow them

religiously when and where they are inappropriate, we would be in

considerable trouble. How can we come to understand how the

diverse multiple predictors of leadership excellence fit

together? How can we understand when and where they are useful -K

and when and where they are not? How do we determine which

leadership style is appropriate - or which leader is appropriate

todav? How can we integrate the multiple demands and requirements of leadership?

I believe that the complexity approach again will not fail 3.

us. Leadership styles should match situational demands. They

can be adapted to those demands. They can be adapted to the

people who are the followers. To be an adaptive leader, we need,

first of all, to understand what others are about. Secondly, we

need to communicate effectively. Integrative multidimensionality can be a great aid in achieving these goals. Before we get

deeply involved in the impact of multidimensionality upon

leadership, let us first explore "understanding" and "communicating" as part of the art of leadership excellence. They are

the first step in an application of multidimensionalitv.

THE ART OF LEADERSHIP

Perceiving and Understanding Others

I have already suggested that executives don't just sit

there and make decisions. Decisions tend to grow out of extended

consideration of facts, assumptions, information, ideas and

concepts. The information, the facts, the assumptions often

". *, ". ". • ,' % " % ", ", % ° ....................................................................... . . . -°- . ° -. ° . * ° . .. . -* .° ." .
21

derive from what other people say. And, decisions in executive

environments are rarely the product of a single person. They

are either made by groups or are, at least, one person's distillation of all those things that others have contributed. And,

many of those contributions can be classified as information.

The opportunity to obtain useful information - whether it

concerns innovation, responses to a competitor or whatever,

depends on leadership quality. It depends to a great extent on

the degree to which channels of communication are adequate and

open. It depends upon the willingness of the executive to

listen, even to ideas that are not so great. One might say, it

depends on executives' respect and appreciation for the people of

their organization.

Decisions are, in part, the outcomes of perceptions. We

have already seen that how an executive perceives the organizational world is key to many of his or her actions. It is also

the key to the executive's leadership style. If our executive

views all tasks as relatively similar in their requirements, then

both the resulting decision making style and the resulting

leadership style will likely be invariant. As people change

people or as situations change, such an invariant style will turn

out to be maladaptive. It may be perfectly matched to the task

in one setting, but it will probably be mismatched to the task in

one setting, but it will probably be mismatched in the next and

different task. If tasks are perceived as potentially different,

if people are recognized and appreciated for their unique
.

differences and unique abilities, then the executive may be able

to adapt his or here leadership style to current needs. Where

these adaptations are appropriate, we have found a leader with a

more general tendency toward leadership excellence.

Let us now look at those people who are followers. They

would likely have at least some things in common. I will

consider only one of these potential common characteristics which

has major potential consequences. Americans have generally grown

up in a competitive environment which values achieving more

than the person next door. That competitive spirit, as I have

already discussed, pervades our organizational word. Many

senior executives strive to be the next CEO. Unions fight the

management. The management tries to circumvent government

regulations. Everyone competes with everyone else for the next

promotion. One might even say that many employees of the

organization have been trained to be a little paranoid, i.e.,

distrustful, about the actions and policies of their company,

about those people who are in control, and even about the

motives of many who are working at the same level. The result

can be an unproductive or even a counterproductive hostility.

That kind of semi-paranoia motivates what some writers view

as "healthy competition," but it also motivates actions that are

designed to "get back at" anything or anyone seen as hostile,

antagonistic, or possibly harmful. The result, especially among

those managers who view themselves as "on the way up", may be

increased efforts to achieve prominence and success, but it also

",-.,--
23

may be lowered interest, lack of motivation, diminished productivitv and, certainlv, little interest in contributing to

innovation. Even where the outcome is increased effort, it may

be misdirected against fellow executives rather than toward a

cooperative mode that would aid the organization. Where distrust

is rampant, managers fight for themselves, not for their company.

Understanding the underlying basis of that kind of paranoia which I

is so common in some companies can be very helpful to the senior

executive who wants to turn a failing organization around.

The distrust that I have called "semi-paranoid" is only one

of several rather common characteristics of followers, at least

in some organizations. However, beyond some generally similar

characteristics of many employees, there are those character- "2

istics that make each of them unique individuals: for example

'

their interests, their specific needs, their unique abilities,

their personality characteristics and much more. Some of%

us want to be respected, or - at least - appreciated. Some of

us want power. Some of use want to be congratulated on our

achievements. Some of us need to be pushed or, as Andrew Grove

suggests, "nudged" to move forward. Others may want to have

their jobs and work environments precisely structured by their

supervisors. Some simply want to know or believe that they are

understood. A willingness to listen to the concerns, gripes or,

on the other hand, suggestions made by one individual can make an

*Grove, A.S. (1983). High output management. New York:

Random House.

- - .
24

executive leader suddenly appear human to those he or she is

leading. Often that is time, even if that executive cannot or

would not make a decision that might satisfy an employees'

concerns. On the other hand, listening to the concerns of an

employee can and sometimes should lead to some minor adjustment

that may cost the company little or nothing at all. However, it

may buy that employee's devotion and loyalty for years to come.

It is so easy - and so typical - for individuals to effectively disappear among the masses of people that work for any

large organization. To be recognized for one's own self, for

one's own needs, concerns and, of course, one's contributions

can have a major impact on an employee's view of the organization. In addition, the satisfaction of having been recognized,

having been understood is something people tend to enthusiastically talk about. That kind of talk, particularly in an F.I

organization where employees previously felt that they were not a

meaningful part of the company, can turn around what may have

been a vicious circle of falling employee morale.

Of course, both task demands and leadership styles must be

matched with -he salient characteristics of people that are to

be led. At a macro level, Japanese employees don't work for the

same incentives, with the same motivations and with the same

view of their organizations as Americans do. At a micro level,

Mr. Jones may have a quite different approach to the job than

Mr. Cohen. Bot.h may be excellent employees. In some cases,

both may be willing to do the job, as instructed, just because

I.

4..

• . ,.

'4° ''W / ' . - --."' '-.-. . ''. . "". ' l. / ." ". - ' ".,. ' "v ,v . .
25

they were asked to do it. In other cases they may have to be

persuaded to the job in some specific fashion or even to do the

job at all. Their individuality may necessitate that the

different style of persuasion by the leader.

The excellent leader would not only adapt his or her

leadership style to task demands but, where possible, to the

specific people who are supervised. The leader must be able to

differentiate the demands and characteristics of each task that

must be completed. In addition, the leader must be able to

empathize with those employees who are assigned to do the task,

i.e., the executive leader must be able to understand what

people think about task situations, and most of all, why they

think the way they do. Often, that can be accomplished simply

by attentive listening; but it must be empathic listening,

trying to see things from the employee's point of view. It must

be a kind of listening that, from the outset, assumes that the

employee's views are, in their own way, reasonable and likely

valid. Finally, the excellent leader should be able to integrate

people characteristics and job demands to create a team that will

employ an optimal approach to any task at hand. In other words,

the excellent executive must use an integrative leadership style

that optimally fits both tasks and the persons who are to do the

task.

Communicating with Others

The best understanding of task demands and the best insight

into the needs and desire of individuals is of little help to an

I..
26

executive who does not have the facility to communicate effec- K

tively. Appropriate communication skills are among the most

vital ingredients of executive behaviors if companies are to be

successful. Executives must be able to communicate the goals of

the company, their organization's policies and purpose and,

hopefully, the entire content and feeling of the organization's

culture. They should be able to communicate in a tone that is

concise but caring, without hostility, without sarcasm, even

without ironv. Most of all, executives should apply these

communication skills directly to needs and problems, to the

wishes and dreams of the people that make up the employees, the

suppliers, and the customers of their company.

Tom Peters* and his associates have dwelled extensively on

the requirements and techniques of dealing with people. I would

suggest to the reader to obtain a set of cassette tapes which

Peters has recorded. Listening, for example in your car on the

way to work, is an easy task. Those tapes bring home the point

in a very persuasive fashion: According to Peters, leadership

excellence primarily means a focus on people; it means active

two-way communication. The many examples which Peters presents

need not be repeated here: his recordings and his books speak

for themselves. I would recommend that the reader listen

carefully to those views and suggestions and that the reader

might apply them where they are appropriate (which, in my view,

*Peters, T. (1984). The excellence challenge. Waltham,

MA: Excel/Media.

ob

o"N 4 A'A
• %-

27

4' would be most - but not all - of the time and in most - but not

all - situations). If the reader takes an integrative view,

based on reading all of this book, it will become quite obvious '

where and when Peters' views do and don't apply. I don't want

to belabor Tom Peters' points. They speak for themselves.

But I would like to select one of his points and one new

example for emphasis in this chapter. First of all, people are

important to the organization. Most of all, each individual is

important: it may well be that one individual who will make the

difference - you never know in advance. Innovative thoughts, new

ideas, social and organizational change originate somewhere.

Most of the time they do not originate where one would expect.

Frequently, they do not come from individuals whom we might

view as the most likely innovators. Letting individuals be

important, communicating that importance, makes all the -

difference between employee loyalty and alienation. The alienated individual will contribute only what he or she has to - and

may end up being destructive to boot. Loyalty, on the other

hand, will let an individual identify and potentially contribute

more to the organization than one would expect.

I have some disappointing news. We are not creatures who ..-

love each other out of the goodness of our moral hearts. We are

not the selfless group oriented persons who only wish to contribute to society (as communist ideologies often argue we

% should). Rather, as individuals, we attempt to survive, to

enhance and to actualize ourselves. To ourselves, we are

4'T 4'o*o-|

- . . . . . .,... ** .. .. *
28

naturally most important. As a matter of fact (and as many

communist and socialist regimes have found out) we don't function

well if we are not given the opportunity to strive toward our

own betterment. Somehow, we can't be trained to live our lives

just for the community. But, our ancestry, across thousands of

years, has led us to develop in a Airection that permits us to

display both hostile competition and cooperation, loyalty and

love. If something threatens us, we will compete, we will learn

to hate and we will fight. Unfortunately, we may become distrustful or, as I have suggested, semi-paranoid. We may perceive

a threat that does not even exist, especially if our orientation

and belief system is primarily competition oriented.

In contrast, if we learn to identify with something outside

of ourselves - be that a person who satisfies our needs or some

organization to which we can truly belong, we will likely go

..

overboard to reward that person and that organization with our

affections. We will consider that person's or that organizations

successes and failures to be our own; we will acquire "ownership"

rights. We will compete and fight against any outsiders that

threaten that person or that organization. We will fight with

all the strength we have. It is that spirit in our employees

that we want to harness for rather than against our company.

If we want to gain loyalty or even love from our employees, Ifthen we must channel their emotions and their affections. And,

loyalty is just about always a two-way street. If we do want

loyalty from our workers, then we must communicate to them that
29

they are assured of loyalty by their company. If we want them

to be motivated to work hard because they love their jobs, then

they must know that they, in turn, are appreciated as individuals

who make important contributions to their organization. Channeling the affections of employees toward the company also means

re-channeling their hostility toward something that exists

outside of the company, for example, toward the competitor.

Communications as Influence

'I. People want to be respected and understood. They want to

know that the leader understands where they are coming from.

However, the information which the executive leader is communicating to employees need not, necessarily, relay the level of

understanding which that executive has attained. Certainly the

leader, here the executive, need not become the follower's

psychiatrist. But there should be one commonality between

psychiatrist and executive leader. Psychiatrists retrain their

patients to think differently about their world. They exert

considerable influence. The same must be true for the executive

who is a true leader. Remember the Truman quote. The content of

the executive leader's communication should be appropriate to

influence the other person. Indeed, that influence requires the

transmission of information, of respect for the other person's

integrity and intelligence and, again, it requires, where

possible, taking the relevant needs of the other person into

account. 4.

. am not suggesting that the leader should gain a complete

"J,

%.
30

understanding of all of the needs and thought processes of all

followers. As I said, the executive can hardly be a psychiatrist

to the staff. As a matter of fact, that level of understanding

would probably be as detrimental as the flawed managerial

technique that has become known as "micro-managing." Fortunately, for those leaders who can perceptually integrate, under- %

standing how their followers think is not difficult to achieve

and provides the needed base for adaptation of any current

leadership approach with changes in situations and people.

The problems generated when a leader fails to adapt to

changes in situations which, in turn, produce changes in the

needs and thoughts of followers have been clearly demonstrated eel

by Suedfeld*, who has done some fascinating research on the

success of revolutionaries with their public. He compared those

revolutionary leaders who managed to stay in power after the

revolution with those who did not. His examples ranged from

George Washington to Che Guevarra. To make these comparisons,

Suedfeld and his team analyzed the communications written by

these leaders both during and after the revolution's successful

conclusion. The results are fascinating. Successfully revolutionary leaders communicated a single purposefulness to their

followers. I would say, they were quite unidimensional in their

approach. This kind of unidimensionality emerged clearly in the

complexity scores which Suedfeld and associates obtained from "0

*Suedfeld, P. & Rank, A.D. (1976). Revolutionary leaders:

Long-term success as a function of changes in conceptual complexity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 169-178.

,."
their writings or speeches. 31

Now comes the interesting point. If these leaders continued

to argue unidimensionally after the revolution had been successful, they were soon thrown out of power. Where, however, their

later communications took on a multidimensional flavor, they

typically maintained control of their movements and their

countries. Clearly, those leaders who were able to adjust the

dimensionality of their communications to changed situational

demands, who were able to approach their public differently once

the population was no longer fearful, stressed or whatever, could

maintain themselves in the affection of their people. We might

say that their dimensional style was contingent. Those who did

not understand the need to adapt the dimensionality of their

communications and probably the dimensionality of their actions

were destined to fail. They lost their popular support and their

positions. .

Some may argue that leaders should not have to adapt to

situations. Instead, the leader should work to change any

particular situation to fit his or her preferred leadership

style. I would say that such an approach is possible, but not

likely. Most of the time it simpiv does not work. First of all,

leaders who are generally unidimensional in their style of

thinking would not likely consider such an option, no matter how

intelligent they might be. Secondly, many situations are simply

not adaptable. War is war, revolution is revolution and serious v

stress is serious stress. You can't change them or their impact i

%n

i.a_
ind JRI p r- L -- -7w 6-1 U W 1. 1 V Iv U-L.w,.- V,. U Vu V -. V1n ~~ I~ I V1, A F .- W1I v A tFr7 n%%I. 

32

unless you stop the war, the revolution and the stress. That,

however, is not always possible.

Suedfeld's research suggests that a leader's approach

during times of crisis and serious stress should be straight

forward, fixed in single purposefulness, i.e., unidimensional.

In contrast, in the absence of crisis, a leader should function

in more multidimensional fashion. Does that mean that a leader,

when faced with less of an emergency, should communicate with

subordinates in a highly multidimensional fashion? I would say

not. For that matter, most of the post-revolutionary successful

communications which Suedfeld and associates scored were not

even integrative: they mostly reflected only differentiation.

Differentiated communications to people make sense in many cases.

People typically understand that alternatives exist. They may

not like the fact that there is more than one way to look at

issues, but most of them do (grudgingly) accept that there are

options.

Interestingly enough, attitude researchers and advertising

agencies have used the existence of alternate views to advantage

in a procedure called "inoculation." Inoculation represents an

attempt to familiarize people with diverse point of view and to

provide defenes against some of these views, e.g., the

"supposed" advantages of a competitor's product. Inoculation

provides potential customers with effective advance counter-arguments on dimension(s) on which a competitor's propaganda

onslaught is expected. For example, let us consider a company

I °
33

that sells an over the counter drug. Information about a new

competitor's coming ad campaign has been received. According to

that information it is likely that the competitor corporation

will emphasize that their brand "dissolves four times as fast in

a person's stomach." The indirect implication that the competitor's drug would work four times as fast might impress

consumers. How can one avoid such an impression? The consumer

might be "inoculated" against the competitor's argument. A

counter ad campaign, initiated just a little earlier than the

competitor's ads, could emphasize that both products dissolve in

stomach fluids in less than a second. That would make the time

differential appear irrelevant. On the other hand, our drug

company might want to add that their own product is twice as

strong than the new competitor's. That, while also somewhat

irrelevant (one could take two of the competitor's pills), might

suggest greater effectiveness to the consumer. In other words,

many consumers would be prevented from switching to the new

competitor. Without the "inoculation," the argument about the

rapidity with which the competitor's medication dissolves may

have attracted many of these consumers to the competitor's brand.

Inoculation often works quite well: its use can be very

effective if we want to maintain the allegiance of people to some

specific product idea or ideology, or for that matter, if we want

to maintain the allegiance of employees to a corporate culture or

purpose. The existence and communication of differentiated

concepts is nearly inevitable if inoculation is to be success-

/

-.. ,-,*,... . •. Y > S >~;~: . . -
~34

fully used.

Effective communication requires the application of differentiation and integration to empathize with an employee. But,

it requires more. The executive leader must select communication

styles to match the capacity of the follower. One might say

that the leader should send messages on a wavelength that the

follower is able to receive. In other words, the leader must

select an appropriate degree of differentiated (and sometimes

integrated) information to successfully persuade and motivate.

What degree of differentiation or integration may be used would,

of course, depend in part upon the task and in another part upon

the characteristics of followers. In other words, while our

executive leader should be able to apply differentiation and

integration at all needed levels to develop empathy leadership

strategy and a leadership approach, he or she may need to adapt

the actual communication of differentiated and/or integrated

thoughts to the level of understanding and the needs of follower

employees. People are only captured and persuaded at their own

level of dimensionalit,. They will likely perceive a leader's

communication at other levels as either "faulty" or as confusing".

But, communication is not just important with employees.

'I am talking about adapting the dimensionality of communications from leader to follower. The content of communications,

however, must remain invariant. Followers talk to each other:

if content were varied they would soon become suspicious.

Effects would clearly be counterproductive because the leader's

Credibility would be lost. Similarly, the overall goals communicated to followers should remain consistent.

U.m
35 *1

It is equally important with customers, suppliers, and others

who are important to the successful functioning of the organization. For example, Customer loyalty is just as important as

employee loyalty. Let me tell you about a personal experience

which indicates how effective communication with customers can

be. As I am sitting and typing this chapter, I am drinking my

first Classic Coca Cola. But let me start the story that leads

to my first can of old-new Coke with an event that happened some -

time ago. Several months earlier, I ordered four IBM AT's and

periphery to run research and training simulations. They were to

arrive early last winter, but they did not. IBM discovered that

their hard disk drives were faulty and discontinued delivery of

the AT svstems. After they corrected the problem and started

shipping again, I finally got my equipment: about half a year

too late. That had a number of unfortunate consequences for our

research and training program and none of us were very happy with

IBM.

In any case, the IBM representative who sold the AT systems

has come by repeatedly after the delivery of the units to make

use that evervthing was now going well. A couple of minor

problems were corrected very quickly. In the process of his

visits, we had a number of short and casual talks. One of them

happened to be about Coca Cola. Coke had just introduced their

new and supposedly better taste which everyone in our team

disliked. I told the IBM representative one day that "if I

wanted to drink Pepsi that had been standing open for two days I

,o . '.- .. .-' .-.' , '.4 ' .. '" ." . ., - - .• . . . . . , .. - ." -. - , .'- .- -. .- . -. . -.-. ''%
36

would have bought Pepsi instead of Coke years ago. I didn't need

for Coke to taste like that. Anyway, I said, I wouldn't buy an

more Coke. Period. I just didn't like it. I don't remember

whether the IBM representative intentionally elicited this

information from me or whether the flow of our discussion was

just an accident.

I have referred to decision making at Coca Cola elsewhere in this book. Surprised by the consumer reaction to their

change of the original formula, Coca Cola decided to reintroduce

the old Coke as Classic Coca Cola. I was impatiently waiting for

the new-old classic formula to appear on store shelves. I

couldn't find it in Washington (where I spend a good amount of

time) or in Harrisburg, PA. Then, suddenly, this morning, there

was a six-pack of classic Coke appeared in my office refrigerator. I asked my secretary where it came from. It was a present ."

from our IBM representative, "to make amends" for the delay in '

the receipt of our AT systems. Now, I know that this kind of

action on his part is "good business." A six-pack of coke does 6: %

=" not cost anything in comparison to four AT systems. I also

realize that there probably was a purpose behind the unexpected

present. But, nonetheless, I loved it. Tom Peters is right:

IBM cares about the customer. And, their caring has, once again,

*bought my loyalty despite their earlier flop-up.

What the IBM representative did was quite simple. He

managed to empathize with a customer. And he was able to use

the empathy, the understanding of the needs and concerns of a

~d~.Qr.* .. **v N .%' N . ...... > .. :. >: .;9:.. > .? 4.§....l%
37

customer to make that customer just a little happier. There is II

no question, empathic action can do the trick. Can we view his

actions as a form of leadership? I think we can. He used his

interpersonal influence to achieve a goal that is of importance

to his company: future customer loyalty.

Before I go on, a couple of warnings. First of all, I have

talked as though differentiative and integrative multidimensionality are the sine qua non of leadership. In some rare situations it may not make any difference whether there is any

leadership at all. In others, it may make little difference

who the leader is and what kind of leadership style he or she is

using. The results are going to be similar anyhow. And, there

certainly are situations where differentiation and integration

are not needed. Fiedler* would probably say that experience is

much more important whenever stress is severe. I might even add

that an authoritarian leader, under stress conditions, can

sometimes be more useful. The burning factory example I presented earlier is a case in point. Even some more complex situations

that lack in stress might be handled adequately by a leader who

cannot differentiate or integrate, but only if that leader's

style of perceiving and communicating happens to be appropriate

to the task at hand and to the people involved. However, that

leader may cease to be effective as tasks or as follower needs

and characteristics change.

F.o

and military experience on leadership performance. Paper

presented at the ARI Conference, Georgetown University. -...
38

Summary: Where and What is Leadership Excellence?

Before providing a more precise statement of what leadership

is, let me summarize some of the things I have said about 9.,,

leadership and about leadership excellence. First of all,

whether excellent or poor, leadership involves an attempt to

influence one or more other people. The leader has a goal in

mind which may be precisely specified or might be relatively

vague. To lead, a leader must focus on both the task and the

people who are to do the task. To be a leader, one need not be

at lofty levels in the organization: leadership demands may

differ at the assembly line and in the executive suite; nonetheless, leadership is needed in both locations. And, of course, V.

leadership may be excellent or poor, or anything in between no -.

matter what its level.

Leadership excellence is not a trait that some people have

and some people don't. Even the best leaders can fail from time

to time. However, the best leaders are aware that changes in

situations, in tasks and in personnel may require adaptive

changes in their leadership style. The best leaders adapt the

dimensionality of their leadership style to current demands. In

situations that are stressful, where crisis exist and immediate

action is required, an excellent leader would provide clear

definitions of goals and would provide means to obtain these

goals. The leader would be guided by experience and might demand

a considerable level of precise cooperation, if not obedience.

In contrast, where enough time is available, where tasks are
39

complex, where innovation and creativity are useful, the leader

would leave the followers with more control of the situation.

For example, the leader might be involved in:

(1) Listening with respect and appreciation to the unique

thoughts and feelings of others, especially where

these thoughts and feelings are relevant to the task

at hand. I

(2) Motivating, understanding, encouraging and scolding,

yet supporting followers.

(3) Permitting the full development of followers toward

potentials which aid organizational goals.

(4) Perceiving and understanding the why and how of

follower's thought processes, i.e., the assumptions

and the dimensionality on which they base their

concepts and behavior.

*(5) Using this dimensional understanding to communicate

and to guide followers toward actions that are valuable

to the organization.

To obtain these ends, the leader must engage in communicative teristics: and managerial functions that include the following charac-

..

t~~~~ e sti

(1) Understanding of followers at whatever their dimension- I

al level might be and restricting communications to

them to their respective dimensionality.

(2) Communicating the goals, policies and the culture of

the organization at the dimensional level of the

.

% 

,

'. - . .. . . . - . - . . - ' ' . '-77
40

followers.

(3) Leaving the content of communications invariant

across individuals despite the effort of matching

dimensionality of the communications to the dimensionality of the recipient. A variable content would lead

to confusion and distrust once people talk to others.

(4) Employing adaptive, i.e., empathic, communication

skills not only with employees but also with customers,

clients, suppliers and any others that may have an

impact on the success of the organization.

(5) Providing frameworks for goals - whether short or

long-range - but not specific decisions of how to .i

.,

reach these goals (unless stress, etc., levels are

high).

(6) Allowing employees to make decisions and plans,

i.e., "Letting them do it" so they get the feelings of

ownership" and avoid feelings of exploitation or

distrust.

(7) Maintaining the focus upon goal orientation or refocusing specific goal orientations as people and situations

change.

(8) Allowing loyalty and ownership to develop to refocus

distrust and hostility toward sources outside of

the organization (e.g., toward competitors) and to

permit cooperation and goal orientation within the

organization.

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41

(9) Encouraging innovation by permitting employees enough

freedom to explore options. Eliminating of punishments

4 I

for having the "wrong idea."

(10) Adapting information flow to generate optimal informa-I

tion processing by followers toward the organizational

goals.

(11) Applying interpersonal leadership as required, but

stepping back when employees do well on their own.

These leadership characteristics are, without question, r..

generated or aided by a leader's own differentiative and integrative multidimensionality. The next chapter will consider that

impact of multidimensionality in detail. Let us, however, end

this chapter with a definition. Leadership excellence is

generated by the application of a multidimensional leadership

style which involves interpersonal perception, communication and

the successful use of influence toward short and long-term

goals; it is a style which integrates people and task characteristics toward optimal performance in varied settings and across

varied task demands.

6

U.;

.... . . . ,' .