Early followership research suggests that individual follower characteristics can lead to different types of relationships with a leader depending on the leadership style. It also suggests that not all leadership styles work well with all follower types.

Interaction Between Leadership Style and Follower Type

Followership research emphasizes that people differ as individuals, so there probably is no single best leadership-follower dynamic. Examples of follower differences include how people respond to criticism and whether they prefer more or less structure.

Characteristics of Followers

A manager successfully led a team of new trainees by providing constant, direct instructions and closely monitoring their work. When promoted to lead a team of senior, experienced specialists, the manager continued to use the exact same hands-on, directive approach. After several months, the new team's morale and productivity have significantly decreased. Which statement provides the best evaluation of this situation from a followership perspective?

Followership is an emerging area of research in psychology that focuses on leadership and the relationship with leaders from the follower's perspective. It suggests that the leader-follower relationship should be examined in both directions, rather than focusing only on leadership, to better understand the relationship's dynamics. Because people differ as individuals, there probably is no single best leadership-follower dynamic.

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Leadership is an important part of management. Leadership styles are a major topic in industrial-organizational research, and researchers have proposed many theories of leadership. Bass popularized and developed the concepts of transactional and transformational leadership styles.

Leadership Styles

Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020, April 22). Psychology (2nd ed.). OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction

OpenStax Psychology (2nd ed.) Textbook

Followership in Leadership Style

An influential early study by Kurt Lewin, Lippitt, and White used children as subjects to investigate the effects of different leadership styles. The research focused on how leadership impacted aggression, group dynamics, and satisfaction, providing key insights for both social and organizational psychology.

Lewin's Leadership Study with Children

Bernard M. Bass was an influential researcher who, in 1985, popularized and elaborated on the concepts of transactional and transformational leadership, establishing them as major styles within leadership theory.

Bernard M. Bass

Transactional leadership focuses on supervision and organizational goals. It uses rewards and punishments as transactions to achieve those goals. Transactional leaders maintain the status quo.

Transactional Leadership

Transformational leadership contrasts with transactional leadership. People with transformational leadership possess four attributes to varying degrees: charisma as highly liked role models, inspiration through optimism about goal attainment, intellectual stimulation through encouragement of critical thinking and problem solving, and consideration.

Transformational Leadership

Research cited by Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, and van Engen indicates that transformational leadership approaches are more effective than transactional approaches. Individual leaders typically exhibit elements of both transformational and transactional leadership approaches.

Comparative Effectiveness of Leadership Styles

Meta-analytic research has found slight but significant gender differences in leadership styles. Eagly & Johnson (1990) found that women tend to practice an interpersonal style focused on employee morale and welfare, while men tend to practice a task-oriented style focused on accomplishing tasks; these differences were less pronounced in organizational studies of actual leaders. Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, & van Engen (2003) found that women tended to exhibit characteristics of transformational leaders, while men were more likely to be transactional leaders. The differences are not absolute; for example, women were found to use reward-for-performance methods more often than men, which is a component of transactional leadership. Overall, the observed differences were relatively small.

Gender Differences in Leadership Styles

Analyze the manager's approach described in the scenario. Identify the primary leadership style being demonstrated and provide at least two specific examples from the text to support your conclusion.

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