Chapter 12 Leading to Victory

As Kent and Chelladurai note, “While leadership has been an immensely popular area of study in industrial and organizational psychology, research on the topic of sport management has been largely focused on coaches rather than administrators.” Leadership Research

Leadership Example: Paul Fenton Paul Fenton took the initiative to turn his experience as a professional hockey player into a 15-year career as an executive with the Nashville Predators. Since 2006 he has been the assistant general manager. He continues to travel around the globe looking for new players to sign for the Predators.

Managing Versus Leading Leaders influence people to work to achieve the organization’s objectives. Leading is one of the four management functions (along with planning, organizing, and controlling).

Majic Johnson, Leader in Business

Leadership Styles Leadership style is the combination of traits, skills, and behaviors managers use to interact with employees. In the 1930s, before behavior theory became popular, researchers at the University of Iowa studied leadership styles of managers and identified three basic styles.

Three Leadership Styles Autocratic. The manager makes the decisions, tells employees what to do, and closely supervises them—theory X behavior. Democratic. The manager encourages employee participation in decisions, works with them to determine what to do, and doesn’t supervise them closely—theory Y behavior. Laissez-faire. The manager lets employees go about their business without much input. Employees decide what to do and take action, and the manager doesn’t follow up.

Leadership Grid Styles (1,1) Impoverished leaders show low concern for production and people and do the minimum required to remain employed. (9,1) Authority-compliance leaders show high concern for production and low concern for people and focus on getting the job done by treating people like machines. (1,9) Country Club leaders show low concern for production and high concern for people and strive to maintain a friendly atmosphere without much regard for production. (5,5) Middle-of-the-road leaders balance concerns for production and people. They strive for performance and morale levels that are minimally satisfactory. (9,9) Team leaders show high concern for production and people. They strive for maximum performance and maximum employee satisfaction.

Tony Dungy, former coach of the Indianapolis Colts, has come close to creating an overall 9,9 situation. The players are happy to play for the Colts, and the team has been very productive on and off the field.

Figure 12.4

Current Leadership Research Current researchers focus on which behaviors make top-notch managers outstanding even though the managers’ individual leadership styles may vary dramatically. These researchers have identified: charismatic, transformational, transactional, and symbolic leaders.

Charismatic Leaders Charismatic leaders inspire loyalty, enthusiasm, and high levels of performance. Charismatic leaders have a vision and a strong personal commitment to their goals; they communicate their goals to others, display self-confidence, and are viewed as able to make the radical changes needed in order to reach the goals. (continued)

Charismatic Leaders In our media-driven age, charismatic fits many contemporary leaders, including Robert Griffin III (football), LeBron James (basketball), Derek Jeter (baseball), David Beckham (soccer). Researchers Kent and Chelladurai found that charismatic leaders have a strong influence on employees’ commitment to the organization.

Transformational Leaders Transformational leaders create significant changes as they foster relationships and commitment from their employees. Pat Gillick of the Seattle Mariners was a transformational leader. When he arrived in 1999, the Mariners had just lost their three best and most popular players. Gillick was brought in to inspire the team and lead it to winning. He succeeded by finding players who were positive role models and who worked well together. Gillick also brought an attitude that winning should be fun—as he says, “Be positive. Be upbeat. Be supportive.”

PAT GILLICK

Transactional and Symbolic Leaders Transactional leaders emphasize exchange. Exchange is about rewarding jobs well done. Symbolic leaders establish and maintain a strong organizational culture. An organization’s workforce learns the organization’s culture (shared values, beliefs, and assumptions of how workers should behave in the organization) through its leadership.

Coaching Styles The late Vince Lombardi, the legendary football coach, used AI-style leadership. Does the AI style work today? It depends other coaches prefer GII- style leadership.

Pat Summitt’s leadership style is quite similar to Lombardi’s Pat Summitt’s leadership style is quite similar to Lombardi’s. So is Bill Parcells’, who took the New York Giants to Super Bowl victories in 1986 and 1990.

Phil Jackson, coach of the NBA champions Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, uses Zen-like philosophy to motivate and train his players. He has been blessed with superstar players, but he has also used a group attitude to produce results.