14 Terms to Remember
Autocratic leadership: Leadership style involving decision-making without reference to follower input or preferences, with leaders maintaining high control.
Behavioral theories of leadership: Approaches that emerged when trait theories proved insufficient, focusing on leader behaviors to understand effectiveness.
Coach-style leadership: Leadership approach focusing on follower growth and development by encouraging individuals to leverage their strengths and talents.
Coercive power: Control over punishments or negative consequences that followers wish to avoid.
Consideration: Relationship-oriented behaviors that demonstrate concern and respect for followers, including participative decision-making and supportive interactions.
Contingency approaches to leadership: Theories recognizing that effectiveness depends on matches between leader characteristics, follower needs, and situational demands.
Democratic leadership: Leadership style encouraging decision-making from multiple perspectives and emphasizing participation throughout the organization.
Emotional intelligence: Critical factor in leadership effectiveness encompassing awareness and management of both personal emotions and others’ emotions.
Expert power: Power derived from special knowledge, skills, or expertise that others need or value.
Fiedler’s Contingency Theory: Leadership effectiveness results from interactions between leader orientation and situational favorability.
French and Raven’s power model: Identifies five distinct power sources that leaders can use to influence followers.
Great Man theories: Historical perspectives on leadership emphasizing exceptional individual characteristics as drivers of historical change.
Idealized influence: One of four components of transformational leadership involving serving as role models who maintain high ethical standards.
In-group members: Develop high-quality relationships characterized by trust, mutual respect, and expanded roles in LMX theory.
Individualized consideration: Component of transformational leadership representing attention to follower individual needs.
Initiating structure: Task-oriented behaviors including role definition, goal setting, planning, and performance monitoring.
Inspirational motivation: Component of transformational leadership encompassing creating compelling visions of the future.
Intellectual stimulation: Component of transformational leadership involving challenging assumptions and encouraging innovation.
Laissez-faire leadership: Leadership style distributing responsibilities broadly among group members, minimizing formal leader direction or control.
Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory: Focuses on individual relationships between leaders and specific followers rather than average leadership styles.
Leadership: A social process through which individuals intentionally exert influence over others to structure behaviors and relationships in pursuit of common goals.
Leadership prototypes: Mental models that individuals use to categorize and evaluate leader behavior, developed through experience and cultural influences.
Least Preferred Coworker (LPC) Scale: Fiedler’s measure of leader orientation based on how leaders describe their worst coworker using bipolar adjectives.
Legitimate power: Power stemming from organizational authority formally bestowed on leaders through position or role assignments.
Out-group members: Experience low-quality relationships limited to formal job descriptions and contractual exchanges in LMX theory.
Referent power: Power emerging from respect, admiration, and identification that followers feel toward leaders.
Reward power: Power involving control over positive outcomes that followers value, including compensation, recognition, and promotions.
Trait theories of leadership: Early approaches focused on identifying individual characteristics that distinguish effective leaders from others.
Transactional leadership: Leadership based on contingent exchanges where leaders monitor performance and provide rewards or punishments based on results.
Transformational leadership: Leadership involving inspiration of followers to commit to shared visions and values that transcend immediate self-interest.