Transformational and Charismatic Leadership

Chapter 8 begins with a quote reading "Leaders have a significant role in creating the state of mind that is the society. They serve as symbols of the moral unity of the society. They can express the values that hold the society together. Most important, they can conceive and articulate goals that lift people out of their pretty preoccupations, carry them above the conflicts that tear a society apart, and unite them in the pursuit of objectives worthy of their best efforts" (J.W. Gardner). The authors explain that this quote is how people view the importance of leadership.The chapter focuses on how Transformational and Charismatic leadership are two main types of leadership that make up the field of leadership, without them it would be hard to understand how a leader influences their followers.

Transformational leaders focus more on the morals of their followers.  Leaders connect with their followers by trying to get them to see their own sense of identity. Transformational leaders feel inspired by their followers. They allow the followers to fully understand their strengths and weaknesses  in order to improve their performance and in turn that of the groups.

A charismatic leader is one who takes risk by setting high goals. They use communication techniques and image-building strategies to seem powerful and confident. Charismatic leaders are looking out for their followers by making it easier to understand by using positive, negative, and nonverbal strategies. A charismatic leader knows how to use their voice and body gestures to become good storytellers. Have you been in a situation where you or someone within your group showed characteristics of a Charismatic leader? Do you believe that someone who shows Charismatic leadership characteristics more powerful than others within the group?
 
 Do you think in the future, as the times change these two types of leadership will change? Do you think both styles of leadership are moral?

Ch. 7 - Contingencies, context, situation, and leadership

This chapter looked at contingencies, contexts and situations - which all mean generally the same thing, with certain, somewhat overlapping distinctions.  These three terms can range from gender and culture, to organizational climate and group composition.  The authors and the researchers all seem to take different views of what each term means exactly and address them in different ways.  For example, one theorist defined context as an external component surrounding a phenomenon, however, others argued that gender, which is internal, can function as a context or as a contingency, as well, in influencing leadership.  If you had to define each of these terms - contingency, context, and situation - differently, how would you differentiate them? What is inherently similar about them?

The chapter also address two different categories of how leadership can be assessed or defined.  The first is the relationship between leader traits and the situations and outcome; the second is leadership behaviors, the situation, and the outcomes.  The authors made it a point to emphasize that leader traits are directly related to personality, where behaviors function more indirectly.  On one hand, I find it a little strange that they would make such a distinction between traits and behavior because it would seem that as functions of personality (although to varying degrees) they would go hand in hand.  Later on, however, they did make distinctions between ideal and typical behaviors and perceptions, as well as what the situation dictates.  What do you think about this distinction?  Are traits and behaviors two related to be separated, or is the situation powerful enough to modify leader behavior, despite inherent traits?

One point in the chapter that I liked was the concept of in-match and out-of-match leaders.  Though this concept was in the section about leader traits, I think it pertains to leader traits, situation, AND behaviors.  In addition to that, the idea of interaction and perception on the leader and subordinate ends are important in this match.  This got me wondering whether the subordinates should change for the leader, the leader should change for the subordinates, or there should be compromise.  What is your opinion?  Before answering that, however, think about the points that the author makes about the different criteria of goal-achieving.  Is quality more important than relationships in the group, and what are the resources available?  Given that, is there a universal answer to my question?

This chapter was very complex, and went through a lot of theories and conceptual frameworks.  While there were methodological flaws in some, and lack of evidence in others, each still had components that I'm sure we've all seen as tried and true.   Some of them were prescriptive as opposed to descriptive, in order to guide behavior rather than just explain it.  Is one better than the other?  What are some key components of the models we've been exposed to that you feel are most important in terms of constructing frameworks for the topic(s) discussed in this chapter?