Theoretical Leadership Model
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The theoretical model on the left portrays what we believe makes an effective leader. Colquitt, Lepine, and Wesson define leader effectiveness as, “…the degree to which the leader’s actions result in the achievement of the unit’s goals, the continued commitment of the unit’s employees and the development of mutual trust, respect, and obligation in leader-member dyads” (Colquitt, Lepine, Wesson 452). As you can see, the three components that comprise an effective leader, in our opinion, are as follows: emotional intelligence, integrative thinking, and authority. An effective leader will need to possess all three of these characteristics in order to do their job well and conquer all aspects of leader effectiveness, whether they are first starting in a management position or they are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence can be one of the key parts of whether a leader is successful or not. According to Daniel Goleman, in the article ‘What Makes a Leader,’ “…the most effective leaders are alike in one crucial way: They all have a high degree of what has come to be known as emotional intelligence” (Goleman 82). The broad idea of emotional intelligence is the ability to approach a situation with an open mind to all options, be confident in yourself, and to achieve success. A leader needs to be able to regulate their emotions so that they can manage a situation without letting their feelings get in the way. Emotional intelligence is comprised of many different factors; according to Colquitt, Lepine, and Wesson, these factors are as follows: self-awareness, other awareness, emotion regulation, and use of emotions. We are able to add to what factors make up emotional intelligence by including the article written by Daniel Goleman. Goleman includes motivation as a component of what drives emotional intelligence. We will combine these two theories in the more detailed section of emotional intelligence.
Integrative Thinking
The second aspect of our theoretical leadership model is the use of integrative thinking. This concept is defined by Roger Martin in the article ‘How Successful Leaders Think’ as the ability to take two opposing ideas and creatively combining them to create a new, superior idea. Conventional thinkers think about an idea piece by piece and step by step, whereas integrative thinkers see problems as a whole and how they all fit together. Conventional thinkers take one part of the problem and come up with a solution for that individual aspect before they move on to the next part, in opposition, integrative thinkers take all parts of the problem and put them together as one solution instead of multiple solutions. Integrative thinking is an important quality in a leader because it is an extremely efficient way of accomplishing tasks. Instead of taking on tasks one by one, an integrative thinker is able to take on multiple tasks and combine them. According to Roger Martin this type of thinking, “...isn't just an ability you're born with - it's something you can hone” (Martin 62).
Authority
Authority is the third component of our effective leadership model. We think this is an important aspect because many leaders mistake the extent of their authority when they first take on a management or any leadership position. The article entitled ‘Becoming the Boss’ written by Linda A. Hill, discusses her research after interviewing numerous new managers and describes how she commonly encountered many new managers believing that they had authority just by the nature of their job title; however, this is not the case. There are many components that a leader needs to work at in order to obtain justified authority. The Organizational Behavior textbook and Linda A. Hill agree that a major element of authority is trust from employees. Hill states that, “Managing interdependencies and exercising informal authority derived from personal credibility require new managers to build trust, influence, and mutual expectations with a wide array of people” (Hill 54). The two theories, both in the OB text book as well as discussed in the article ‘Becoming the Boss’, can be compared and contrasted, which we will do in the more detailed section of authority.
Emotional intelligence, integrative thinking, and authority all come together to form effective leadership. By browsing through our website, one will be able to gain insight and improve their performance as an effective leader. If you navigate the different pages of our site you will find a more detailed explanation of each component of the theoretical leadership model. We will compare theories of the authors from three different articles as well as the theories discussed in the Organizational Behavior textbook.