7. Leadership

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  • Leadership
    • Leadership may be considered as a behavioural process which directs a groups actions towards set goals
    • The qualities of a leader:
      • Highly developed perceptual and decision making skills
      • Vision
      • Ambition
      • Motivation
      • Charisma
      • Experience
      • Understanding of the needs of others
      • Empathy with team members
      • Good communication skills
    • Characteristics of leaders
      • Autocratic leader
        • Tend to make all the decisions by themselves
        • Motivated to complete the task as quick and effectively as possible
        • Authoritarian
        • Does not take into account opinions of the rest of the group
        • Does not delegate responsibility
        • Focuses on group performance and achieving goals
        • Most effective with large groups, when there is a time-limit or in a dangerous situation
      • Democratic leder
        • Shares the decision with the group
        • Ready to delegate responsibility
        • Believes in consultation
        • Interested in building meaningful interpersonal relationships with members of the group
        • Develops union and common prupose
        • Effective in co-active games where time-constraints are not as important and personal support may be required
      • Laissez-fair leadership style
        • Stands back and allows the group to make its own independent decisions
        • Will result in the loss of group direction if the leader is inadequate
        • LEWIN: being subjected to this style, group members were inclined to be aggressive and give up more easily
      • The characteristics adopted by a leader depend upon the 'favourableness' of the situation
        • In a highly favourable situation
          • Leaders position is strong, task is simple with clear structure, warm group and leader relations
        • In a highly unfavourable situation
          • Leaders position is weak, task is complex with vague structure, hostile group and leader relations
        • Autocratic leaders are more effective in both the most favourable and most unfavourable situations
        • Democratic leaders are most effective in moderately favourable situation
    • Leaders may be emergent or prescribed. Emergent leader come out from within the group and is readily accepted by the group. A prescribed leader is pre-chosen from outside the group before the task begins
    • Leadership theories
      • Trait approach
        • Leaders are born with the capacity to take charge
        • Leadership traits are stable and leaders are therefore able to take control in any situation
        • EVAL: this is not a very good predictor of behaviour. It is unlikely that specific dominant traits alone can facilitate successful leaership
        • 'The great man theory of leadership' suggests that  the necessary qualities of a leader are inherited by sons and not daughters. This is not a popular theory
      • Social learning theory
        • Learning comes about through contact with the environment and significant others
        • All behaviour is learned
        • The process of observing and copying is called vicarious reinforcement
        • The skills of a leader can be acquired through vicarious reinforcement
        • EVAL: does not take into account trait theory. It is unlikely that learning can facilitate leadership alone
      • Interactionist theory
        • Leadership skills emerge because of a combination of traits and learning
        • A situation may trigger the traits that are of importance to a leader
        • GILL
          • This theory gives a more realistic explanation of behaviour
      • The multi-dimensional model of leadership
        • CHALLADURAI
        • Identifies 3 antecedents that interact to produce effective leadership
          • 1. Situational characteristics (environmental conditions): type of activity, size of team ,time constraints, strength of oppostion
          • 2. Leader characteristics: skill and experience, personality of leader
          • 3. Group member characteristics: age, gender, motivation, competence, experience
        • The effectiveness of leadership can be judged on the degree of success accomplished and the extent to which the groups members are satisfied
        • Chelladurai also recognises 3 leader behaviour
          • Required behaviour: what iought to be done by the leader which may be dictated by a play strategy
          • Preferred behaviour: what the group want the leader to do
          • Actual behaviour: what the leader chooses to do based on the situation and the preferred and required behaviour
        • In order for the leader to achieve success, all 3 aspects of leader behaviour need to agree (congruent)
        • The degree of congruence determines one of 3 outcomes:
          • When full congruence of all leadership behaviour is congruent, it is predicted that group performance will be effective and satisfaction of group members will be high
          • When partial incongruence exists between leadership behaviour, it is predicted that the group will perform effectively but satisfaction will be low
          • When full incongruence exists, it is predicted that the group performance will be ineffective and satisfaction will too be low
        • Chelladurai proposed 5 categories of leadership
          • Training and instruction behaviour: instruction is given on tactics and techniques
          • Democratic behaviour: includes group in decision-making
          • Autocratic behaviour: leader makes decision alone
          • Social support behaviour: warm relations with members
          • Rewarding behaviour: reinforces value of cohesion with positive feedback for good performance
        • The satisfaction of young people was promoted by leaders and coaches who demonstrated reward, personal development and training and instruction behaviour

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