Page 107 - leadership-experience-2008

CikguOnline
CikguOnline
88 PART 2: RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES ON LEADERSHIP

IN THE LEAD Lawrence H. Summers, Harvard University
Leading a major university has many challenges, and one of the biggest is choosing
the right approach with deans, faculty members, and other professionals who are
highly educated, independent, and often perform their jobs as much for the intrinsic
satisfaction of the work as for the pay and other extrinsic benefi ts.
As president of Harvard University, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence
Summers tried to use a heavy, primarily task-oriented style of leadership, which

led to serious conflicts with some faculty members and eventual demands for his
ouster. The assertive top-down style rankled followers who have been accustomed
to thinking of themselves not as employees but as partners in an academic enter-
prise. Faculty members at Harvard, as at many universities, have long been used
to decentralized, democratic decision making, such as having a say in matters such
as department mergers or new programs of study. Summers made many decisions
on his own that followers thought should be put to a faculty vote and then used a
directive style to get things done.
Although students in general supported Summers, the conflicts and a vote of

no-confidence from some faculty convinced Summers to resign with many of his

goals and plans for the university unrealized. There are a variety of reasons for Sum-
mers’ troubles and eventual departure, but his heavy-handed task-oriented approach
32
likely played a role.
Action Memo
Lawrence Summers infuriated some Harvard faculty members
by failing to appreciate the substitutes for leadership concept. In
As a leader, you can use a people-oriented
this situation, professionalism, education, and intrinsic satisfaction
style when tasks are highly structured and
make both task- and people-oriented leadership behavior less impor-
followers are bound by formal rules and
tant. Summers likely would have been more successful using a light-
procedures. You can adopt a task-oriented
handed, primarily people-oriented style.
style if group cohesiveness and followers’
Recent studies have examined how substitutes (the situation) can
intrinsic job satisfaction meet their social
and emotional needs.
be designed to have more impact than leader behaviors on outcomes
such as subordinate satisfaction. The impetus behind this research is the
33
idea that substitutes for leadership can be designed into organizations in
ways to complement existing leadership, act in the absence of leadership,
and otherwise provide more comprehensive leadership alternatives. For example,
Paul Reeves, a foreman at Harmon Auto Parts, shared half-days with his
subordinates during which they helped him perform his leader tasks.
Action Memo
After Reeves’ promotion to middle management, his group no lon-
ger required a foreman. Followers were trained to act on their own. 34
As a leader, you can provide minimal
Thus, a situation in which follower ability and training were highly
task direction and personal support to
developed created a substitute for leadership.
highly-trained employees; followers’
The ability to utilize substitutes to fill leadership “gaps” is often

professionalism and intrinsic satisfaction
advantageous to organizations. Indeed, the fundamental assumption
substitute for both task- and people-
oriented leadership.
of substitutes-for-leadership researchers is that effective leadership
is the ability to recognize and provide the support and direction not
already provided by task, group, and organization.
Summary and Interpretation
The most important point in this chapter is that situational variables affect lead-
ership outcomes. The contingency approaches were developed to systematically
address the relationship between a leader and the organization. The contingency