A Review of Leader-Member Relationship ...

A Review of Leader-Member Relationship: Leadership Styles, Team Members’ Behavior, and Trust Tan Mei Yun Center for Southern New Hampshire University Programs HELP College of Art and Technology Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Email: [email protected] Rashad Yazdanifard Center for Southern New Hampshire University Programs HELP College of Art and Technology Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Email: [email protected]

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Abstract This paper does a review of literature on the following subjects: leader, leadership, the five common leadership styles, team member's behavior, as well as trust and communication in an organization. Firstly, the five common leadership styles as the following are chose to be expatiated: autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire, transactional, and transformational. Secondly, research has been done on how the above-mentioned different leadership styles affect team members‟ behavior and eventually the overall organizational performance. Lastly, the role of trust and communication in an organization is discussed in this paper as well. Keywords: leader-member, leadership styles, member behavior, trust 1.

Introduction

There are four team structure components that affect team performance, which is the leadership, composition (diversity of team members), problem solving and decision making, as well as conflict. In this globalized environment, organizations throughout the world entirely focus on developing such leadership which plays an important role and main key in building high performing teams by connecting all these components. According to Van Vugt, Hogan, and Kaiser (2008), leadership is both a resource for groups and an attribute of individuals, but it is believed that its primary significance concerns group performance. The leader is responsible for the outcomes of an organization; therefore he has to make maximum utilization of organizational resources for the accomplishment of the organizational goals. There are only leader and team members as people in an organization, in other words, the whole organizational operation relies on how leaders and members manage the relationship between them and therefore could cooperate to achieve goal together. When it comes to organizational management, it is not only leaders who putting effort and leading members, members should also coordinate with their leaders as much as possible. However, it is true that the leader plays a role as take the initiative to run the team, thus the leadership style could be said is important in forming a team and determining the type of members that stay in the team. To achieve the goal as a successful team, trust and communication act as the foundation of strong relationships between leaders and team members. Only when strong trust exists in a team, the team could maintain emotionally bonded and consistently productive, with least interpersonal conflicts and problems. 2.

Leader & Leadership

The leader plays a role to arouse effective performance from team members; this consists of leading and influencing people to develop shared values, vision, and expectation, eventually enhancing organizational effectiveness (Hernon & Rossiter, 2006). According to Tabassi and Abu Bakar (2010), the leader is known by his skill of dealing with his team members as well as his ability of training his juniors for future leadership. The term „leadership‟ has broad definitions from different theorists. Chemer (1997) described it as a process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task. While in the view of Hogan and Kaiser (2005), they defined leadership as “the ability to build and maintain a group that performs well relative to its competition”. Whatever the definition of leadership is, it is a fact that leadership is an essential element in stages of team building in organizations.

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Leadership styles

According to Hernon and Rossiter (2006), leadership is a multifaceted matter, one that involves mastery of a number of traits and an ability to apply different leadership styles. It is noted that leadership styles are very important determinants of the quality of interactions between leaders, and leadership styles can play a very advantageous role in expediting positive organizational relationships in team-building (Darling & Heller, 2012). There are many types of leadership styles, the following most common categories of leadership styles will be discussed in this section: autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire, transformational, and transactional. However, studies show that there is no one best leadership style that suits all situations; successful leaders are those who are able to adapt their leader behavior to meet the needs of their followers and particular situation (Hersey & Blanchard, 1976). a)

Autocratic leadership

Autocratic leadership style is also known as the directive or authoritarian style of leadership. It is a leadership style characterized by act in more self-centered ways (Van de Vliert, 2006), controlling, power-oriented, coercive, punitive, and close-minded (Bass, 2009). According to Van Vugt, Hart, Jepson, and De Cremer (2004), autocratic leaders are poor in retaining members and recruiting new members to replace them, thus the group led by such person may be very unstable. b)

Democratic leadership

As the opposite of autocratic style, the members of a democratic style group are conveyed by their leaders that their effort is appreciated, and that they are respected members of their group (Van Vugt et al., 2004). The leader will also involve group members in the decision-making process, either in participative or consultative way. In the book of Bass (2009), democratic leaders believe that workers are motivated to do well, and seek autonomy and opportunity to prove their value. c)

Laissez-Faire leadership

Laissez-Faire is also known as delegative leadership. A laissez-faire style leader gives group members the freedom to decide what to do, without control over them (Van Vugt et al., 2004). According to Chaudhry and Husnain (2012), it is found that several authors define laissez-faire leadership style as “abdicates responsibilities and avoids making decisions”. A laissez-faire leader only provides information, and is only to do so when directly asked (Levine, 2000). Marrier Tomey (as cited in Giltinane, 2013) stated that leaders with this leadership style are likely to be inefficient and unproductive. d)

Transactional leadership

In transactional leadership style, it is characterized by offering rewards for better compliance in return (Sims, Faraj, & Yun, 2009; ) and punishing for not getting commitment (Chaudhry & Husnain, 2012). Burns (1978) explained that transactional leadership occurs when “one person takes the initiative in making contact with others for the purpose of an exchange of valued things.” While the description of Waldman, Ramirez, House, and Puranam (2001), a transactional leader is “one who operates within the existing system or culture (as opposed to trying to change them) by: (a) attempting to satisfy the current needs of followers by focusing on exchanges and contingent reward behavior, and (b) paying close attention to deviations, mistakes, or irregularities, and taking action to make corrections.” According to Bucic, Robinson, and Ramburuth (2010), transactional behaviors should be applied when the 3

organization is stable and the learning purposes aim to refine and restore balance. e)

Transformational leadership

Transformational leadership has been said that characterized by show charismatic behavior, evoke inspirational motivation, provide intellectual stimulation, and treat followers with individualized consideration (Bass, 1985, 1999; Dvir, Eden, Avolio, & Shamir, 2002). According to Burns (1978), transformational leadership occurs when “one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality.” Transformational leaders intend to develop an individual‟s full potential by enhancing their abilities and skills, and improving self-esteem when leading them (Giltinane, 2013). This type of leadership is suitable to apply when the organization faces a dynamic, evolving situation and organization learning is required to be adaptive and progressive (Bucic, Robinson, & Ramburuth, 2010). 4.

Team members’ behavior

According to Tulgan (as cited in Yu & Miller, 2005), it is known that with different leadership styles, members with different work characteristics will be more effective and productive. In other words, leadership styles are significantly correlated with members‟ attitude and behavior. A.

Members with autocratic leader

Van Vugt et al. (2004) found that, compared to other style leaders, group members were more likely to exit their group if they were supervised by an autocratic style leader, because they are unhappy about the amount of control they could carry out in the decision-making process. However, according to Fiedler (as cited in Kahai, Sosik, & Avolio, 1997), when it comes to solving structured problems, group members seem to prefer to lead by a directive leader because this kind of leader helps them to focus on a limited range of interpretations that can be applied on the problems. Furthermore, Giltinane (2013) stated that group members will rely heavily on their autocratic leader and may fail to perform well when the leader is absent. In autocratic groups, higher level of hostility, discontent, and submissiveness were shown by group members (Levine, 2000). B.

Members with democratic leader

In democratic led groups, group members show more friendliness, spontaneity, and cohesiveness (Levine, 2000). Compared to autocratic leadership style, group member satisfaction was found to be higher under democratic leaders. (Stogdill, as cited in Levine, 2000). DUTA (2011) concluded that democratic style works better in a team as the essence of this style of leadership is the involvement of team members in the decision making process, not only depend on the leader‟s opinion. C.

Members with laissez-faire leader

A leader of laissez-faire style gives freedom of decision control to members, let them decide what to do, however, they are also responsible for their decision. Stogdill (as cited in Levine, 2000) stated that groups that lead by a laissez-faire leader causes members to be less efficient and less satisfy. It is probably because laissez-faire usually indicates the absence of leadership (Barbuto, 2005), thus lead to a dilemma where members have to perform without a leader‟s guide, eventually causes low productivity.

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Members with transactional leader

It is said by Boerner, Eisenbeiss, and Griesser (2007) that if a member put more effort than is required or achieving a higher quality than is required, a transactional leader will not appreciate it, since the relationship between leader and members is based on the basis of "exchange reward for effort". As a result, members only committing to as much as will be rewarded, in other words, they have not fully unleash their potential and put in their entire effort into production, thus the productivity is lower when compared to transformational group. E.

Members with transformational leader

According to Mester, Visser, Roodt, & Kellerman (2003), several studies shows that when transformational leadership compared to other leadership styles, it results in higher levels of satisfaction, commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, cohesion, motivation, performance, satisfaction with the leader and leader effectiveness. It is said that members are successfully developed to higher levels of potential under supervision of transformational leader (Boerner et al., 2007). This could maximize the effort of members that exert into production and has a higher rate to reach accomplishment of the group. 5.

Trust and Communication

Trust, is undeniably an essential building block in developing human relations with customers, suppliers, coworkers, and management, whether in business or life (Cornell, 2007). However, it is a fact that developing trust and cooperation in teams are often difficult. As mentioned in Oertig and Buergi (2006), the challenges of managing a team include managing virtual aspects of communication and developing trust. Turaga (2013) stated that an effective leader should be able to adapt to different communication styles of team members and encourage them to work together, to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency and retain the fundamental bond created in the team. In the same work, Turaga also mentioned that in performing stage of team development, leaders should always stay aware of the situation and keeps the communication flow alive, hence keeping the alive in the team. Robert Shaw (1997) describes 3 key elements in his book to build trust: (1) Achieving results –leadership needs to fulfill their commitments, (2) Integrity, - consistent honesty in actions, and (3) Demonstrating concern – expressing care and concern for each individual, group, and team. 6.

Discussion

This literature review has studied about the properties of five major leadership styles as well as how each of them affects team member‟s behavior: the autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire, transactional, and transformational leadership styles. Although there are many types of leadership styles, they could all be districted based on two variables which is task-oriented (or refer to low-consideration/job-centered/concern for production/directive behavior) and relationship-oriented (or high-consideration/employee-centered/concern for people/supportive behavior). In this study, the above-mentioned leadership styles could be easily categorized into two major types: democratic and transformational leadership are on the relationship-oriented side, while autocratic and transactions are on the task-oriented side; laissez-faire leadership style which has low concern for both people and production is considered to be excluded from categorizing as it is lack of leadership. Through this study, it is noted that leadership styles that based on relationship-oriented such as democratic and transformational styles are more likely to be successful than the others. According to Malik et al. (2012), participative (democratic) and transformational leadership are the most ideal approaches of leadership in building a team and get desired production. In his own 5

book, Bass (1985) demonstrated that transformational leadership is the most successful form of leadership in academic settings. However, it does not mean that task-oriented leadership styles are needless, autocratic and transactional leadership styles are still needed in particular situations. As Haakonsson, Burton, Obel, and Lauridsen (2008) mentioned in their article, a leader will need to adapt the leadership style to best support the different types of climate, including some situations that need leader to be task-oriented. Research about the topic of trust and communication has also been done in this paper, which could be concluded that they are also part of the main key in successful team building in organizations. Trust act as foundation of relationships, a team is considered failed if there are not enough strong bond in relationships between leader and members. 7.

Conclusion

A leader and his/her leadership styles do affect the members‟ behavior and eventually the organization‟s overall performance. Therefore, different types of leadership styles should be applied based on appropriate situation, and that requires the ability of leader to adapt their behavior according to different situation in order to meet the needs. At the same time, trust is also an essential component that plays a role as foundation of relationships, which is especially important when it comes to team work. It takes two hands to clap; a successful organization needs not only one-sided effort from leader, it is members‟ responsibility as well to coordinate with their leader in order to achieve goals by teamwork while there are so many uncontrollable variables from external environment, such as competition; therefore it is shown that the cooperation between leaders and members are indispensable for an organization. Reference 1. Barbuto, J. E. (2005). Motivation and transactional, charismatic, and transformational leadership: A test of antecedents. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 11(4), 26-40. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.snhu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/203138752?accountid=3783 2. Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. New York: Free Press. 3. Bass, B. M. (1999). Two decades of research and development in transformational leadership. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 8(1), 9-32. Retrieved from http://www.techtied.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/bass_transforrmational_leadership.pdf 4. Bass, B. M., & Bass, R. (2009). The Bass handbook of leadership: Theory, research, and managerial applications. New York: Simon & Schuster. 5. Boerner, S., Eisenbeiss, S. A., & Griesser, D. (2007). Follower behavior and organizational performance: The impact of transformational leaders. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 13(3), 15-26. Retrieved from http://www.uk.sagepub.com/chaston/Chaston%20Web%20readings%20chapters%201-12/Chapter%207%20 -%2025%20Boerner%20et%20al.pdf 6. Bucic, T., Robinson, L., & Ramburuth, P. (2010). Effects of leadership style on team learning. Journal of Workplace learning, 22(4), 228-248. doi: 10.1108/13665621011040680 6

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