Task-oriented Leadership Research Articles

Leadership that promotes successful implementation of community-based mental health interventions.

Community-based interventions (CBIs) have become an effective approach to promote mental well-being. To increase organizational capacity and effectively deliver CBIs, leadership is crucial. The current study aims to identify leadership qualities that are facilitators of CBI implementation. This paper presents evaluation findings from a national effort emphasizing CBIs for improving the mental well-being of men and boys in 16 local communities. The study utilized a mixed-method design, including both examining each grantee as a case study and conducting a cross-site evaluation. Findings revealed five leadership qualities that contributed to CBIs' success: personal vision, value-based leadership, relationship-oriented leadership, task-oriented leadership, and leadership development. The results outline strategies for strengthening organizational capacity through these leadership qualities. This study adds to the limited literature on leadership qualities that strengthen organizational capacity to successfully implement CBIs and can serve as a guide for funders, program planners, and evaluators.

Employee Inclusion During Change: The Stories of Middle Managers in Non-Profit Home Care Organizations

Although extensive studies have provided valuable information to establish a strong relationship between the success of change and variables like communication, employee commitment, and leadership, it is important to understand the experiences of workers during a change process. The research problem exists because there is a minimal exploration of the experiences of middle management in the process of corporate decision-making during organizational change adoption in the home care industry. The purpose of this study was to explore the experience of middle managers related to employee inclusion during an organizational restructuring in non-profit home care organizations. The researcher interviewed six middle managers from two non-profit home healthcare organizations in New York City using purposive sampling. The results reflected the experiences of middle managers in non-profit home care organizations and may be transferable to other organizations. The findings were categorized under the following themes: Stress and Fear, Task-Oriented Leadership Behavior, Employee Exclusion, and Job Dissatisfaction. Employers should recognize and engage middle managers in corporate decision-making that target middle managers. As change is inevitable, understanding the experience of middle managers is crucial for leaders in home care organizations undergoing organizational restructuring because of the top-down management structure in these organizations. The information may be relevant for leaders to incorporate attitudes and steps that promote a good relationship and engage middle managers in the processes of organizational change.

Followers\u2019 HEXACO personality traits and preference for charismatic, relationship-oriented, and task-oriented leadership

The aim of the current study was to examine the HEXACO personality traits in relation to followers’ preference for charismatic, relationship-oriented, and task-oriented leadership. Based on the similarity perspective, we expected followers high on Honesty-Humility, Extraversion, and Openness to Experience to prefer a charismatic leader, and those followers high on conscientiousness and low on Openness to Experience to prefer a task-oriented leader. In addition, from a need fulfillment perspective, we expected followers high on Emotionality to prefer a task- and a relationship-oriented leader. We examined these expectations using paper vignette methodology in a sample of 272 undergraduates. The results showed that most participants preferred a relationship-oriented leader over a charismatic or task-oriented leader. In addition, we found support for all our hypotheses, with the exception of the relations between Honesty-Humility and preference for charismatic leadership, and Conscientiousness and preference for task-oriented leadership. Our findings contribute to the nomological network of the role of follower characteristics in the leader-follower relationship. Implications and suggestions for research on charismatic leadership are provided.

The role of online leadership in open collaborative innovation

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the roles of online leadership in open collaborative innovation success by extending functional leadership theory in the context of open source projects. Design/methodology/approach This study uses negative binomial regression models to empirically test the proposed hypotheses with samples of blockchain open source projects on GitHub. Findings The results indicate that task-oriented leadership behaviors in forms of technical contributions have little influence on open collaborative innovation success; relation-oriented leadership behaviors embedded in internal social capital and external social capital contribute to open collaborative innovation success prominently. Furthermore, the joint effects of technical contributions, internal social capital and community commitment with openness orientation are positively significant on open collaborative innovation success, respectively. Practical implications For leaders and participants of open collaborative innovation projects, they should attach importance to both leadership behaviors and the joint effects with openness orientation so as to make informed decisions. Originality/value This study offers a new fine-grained framework of open collaborative innovation success by investigating specific dimensions of task-oriented and relation-orientated leadership behaviors, as well as their joint effects with openness orientation.

Diminishing Returns of Leadership Behaviors on Leadership Emergence

A large body of evidence has concluded that there are positive linear relationships between leadership behaviors and leadership emergence. Drawing on insights from the leadership and teams research, we hypothesized that above certain levels of task-oriented and relationship-oriented behaviors, such behaviors will have diminishing returns for leadership emergence. Hypotheses were tested using a sample of 105 leaderless teams within an assessment center setting. Our results indicate that team members’ behaviors have linear and non-linear relations with leadership emergence. We discovered that the association between relationship-oriented behaviors and leadership emergence in self-managed teams is curvilinear, whereas the association between task-oriented behaviors and leadership emergence is linear but not curvilinear. Overall, the relationships between member behaviors and leadership emergence are more complex than the independent, positive linear relationships observed throughout the literature.

Supervisory consequences of abusive supervision: An investigation of sense of power, managerial self-efficacy, and task-oriented leadership behavior

While a large number of studies have shown the detrimental effects of abusive supervision on subordinates’ work attitudes and outcomes, little is known about how abusive supervision impacts supervisors themselves. Drawing upon self-perception theory and power-dependence theory, we take a unique actor-focused approach to examine how and when engaging in abusive supervisory behavior may benefit actors (i.e., supervisors). Specifically, we propose that abusive supervisory behavior is positively related to supervisors’ state sense of power, which in turn positively relates to their managerial self-efficacy and task-oriented leadership behavior. Furthermore, the relationship between abusive supervisory behavior and state sense of power and the positive indirect effect of abusive supervisory behavior on managerial self-efficacy via state sense of power are stronger for supervisors with low, rather than high, levels of chronic sense of power. Our hypotheses are substantially supported by a multi-wave field diary study (Study 1) conducted across 10 consecutive workdays and three experiments (Studies 2a, 2b, and 3). Moreover, supplementary analyses showed that abusive supervisory behavior was positively related to sense of power and managerial self-efficacy only in the short term (i.e., these relationships turned negative after one week). Our findings contribute to the abusive supervision literature by delineating a nuanced view of the supervisory outcomes of abusive supervision.

Studying Effect of Communication Skills and Leadership Styles of Manager on Knowledge Management of Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, Iran

Knowledge management is one of the emerging variables in organizations which has a considerable effect on the progress of organizations. The present research studies effect of communication skills and leadership styles of managers on the establishment of knowledge management in Zahedan University of Medical Sciences in 2013. Methodology: The research population includes all managers of University of Medical Sciences in all levels and a statistical sample of this research includes 180 managers who have been selected with Convenience sampling. The instrument of this research includes knowledge management, communication skills and leadership styles questionnaires and their validities are 0.87, 0.78 and 0.86, respectively, which are confirmed by sociology and training sciences professors. For data analysis in this test, mean and standard deviation have been used in descriptive statistics and correlation test and Kruskal–Wallis test have been used in the inferential test. Results: Findings of this research showed that Relationship oriented leadership style is found in low ranking managers and task-oriented leadership style is manifested more in medium ranking managers. Communication skills in high ranking managers are higher than those in managers of other levels. Low-level managers play more roles in the establishment of knowledge management. One of the other findings of this research is a significant correlation between knowledge management and relationship-oriented leadership style and also communication skills. Conclusion: Therefore, communication skills and leadership styles play an effective role in knowledge management and its establishment considering the obtained results.

Exploring and Discussing the Link between Integrated Leadership in the Public Sector and Follower Happiness: the Case of South Korea

This study tests the applicability of concepts of integrated leadership-in-government and follower happiness in South Korea and then comes up with implication and limitations on the applicability based on the study of Mathias et al. (2018). The study adopts eight leaderships: accountability, rule-following, political loyalty, network governance, task-oriented, relations-oriented, change-oriented and diversity-oriented leadership that Mathias et al. (2018) employ from Fernandez et al. (2010) and Tummers and Knies (2016). We also select job satisfaction and self-perceived performance to measure follower happiness depending on Mathias et al. (2018). According to the analytical results, it shows that accountability leadership, network governance leadership, task-oriented leadership, relations-oriented leadership, and change-oriented leadership have positive influences on follower happiness measured. Based on the analytical results, this study suggests implication and limitation on the applicability of the link between integrated leadership and follower happiness in comparison to the results from Mathias et al. (2018).

IMPACT OF GLOBAL LEADERSHIP BEHAVIORS ON PERFORMANCE OF MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES

Purpose of Study: The aim of this study is to influence the global leadership behaviors on performance in multinational companies. The leadership of multinational companies has become a prominent issue in the 21st century. Organizational performance depends on the leadership style and behavior of the organization. It is also viewed as the survival and profitability of an organization in which its measurement is primary both in manufacturing and services. On the other hand, transactional leadership focuses mainly on goal attainment and transactional leaders are focused on task completion and have fewer emphasis on the emotions and challenges of subordinates or employees.
 Methodology: The data for this study were obtained from existing literatures on the impact of global leadership behaviors on the performance of multinational companies. The methodology heavily relied on existing previous literatures on the subject being dealt with.
 Results: Transactional leadership was explicated as the style of leadership that focuses on meeting specific goals or performance criteria and the development of followers and their needs. Relations-oriented leaders are different from task-oriented leaders. On this side of the spectrum, relations-oriented leaders tend to focus more on developing a close relationship with their employees.
 Implications: Transactional leadership style lacks supervision and influence on subordinates from leaders, as they indulge themselves from any situation that threatens or confronts them; therefore, the responsibilities are shifted on the employees.

One Best Way? Leader Behavior and Different Aspects of Team Performance

Abstract. In two experiments, we tested differential effects of transformational, empowering, and task-oriented leader behavior on various aspects of team performance (quantity, quality, independence, subjective group performance) using three different tasks. In Experiment 1, 60 three-person teams completed a rank-order task and in Experiment 2, 54 three-person teams completed a construction and an information-search task. In both experiments, a videotaped team leader displayed transformational, empowering, or task-oriented leadership. Results suggested that leadership effectiveness may be a function of group outcome. Only for the tasks of Experiment 2 did transformational leadership result in superior outcomes, specifically regarding productivity and originality. Empowering leadership, in turn, yielded superior outcomes in terms of leader-independent thinking, while task-oriented leadership resulted in the highest subjective group performance ratings – except for the ranking task in which satisfaction ratings were highest for transformational leadership. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

The Relationship between School Principals’ Leadership Behaviours and Teachers’ Job Satisfaction: A Systematic Review

This systematic review aims to investigate the relationship between school principals’ leadership behaviours and teachers’ job satisfaction. With this purpose, studies that focused on this relationship in the literature were examined. Twenty-seven studies found in different databases (i.e. ERIC, WOS, SCOPUS and ULAKBİM) were included in the analysis. These studies mostly focused on the relationships between school principals’ transformational and interaction leadership behaviours and teachers’ job satisfaction. Additionally, job satisfaction was also studied in relation to servant leadership, ethical leadership, distributive leadership, individual- and task-oriented leadership and school leadership behaviours. Based on the findings of the studies examined, school principals’ transformation leadership behaviours were found to have stronger relationships with teachers’ job satisfaction compared to interactional leadership behaviours and were an important predictor of job satisfaction. Negative relationships were revealed between laissez-faire leadership and job satisfaction. On the other hand, school principals’ servant leadership and ethical leadership behaviours were found to be important variables in ensuring job satisfaction. Lastly, school principals’ administrative behaviours that encourage participation and are flexible, sharing leadership at school, and exhibiting individual-oriented and supportive leadership behaviours were revealed to enhance teachers’ job satisfaction.

The Path Is the Goal: How Transformational Leaders Enhance Followers' Job Attitudes and Proactive Behavior.

While leading through goals is usually associated with a task-oriented leadership style, the present work links goal setting to transformational leadership. An online survey with two time points was conducted with employees to investigate the influence of transformational leadership on followers’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and proactive behavior via goal attributes. Findings indicate that transformational leaders influence the extent to which followers evaluate organizational goals as important and perceive them as attainable. Multiple mediation analysis revealed that these goal attributes transmit the effect of transformational leadership on followers’ job attitudes and proactive behavior. However, goal importance and goal attainability seem to be of differential importance for the different outcomes.

Cleansing my abuse: A reparative response model of perpetrating abusive supervisor behavior.

Research on abusive supervision has predominantly focused on the consequences for victims while overlooking how leaders respond to their own abusive behavior. Drawing from the literature on moral cleansing, we posit that supervisors who engage in abusive behavior may paradoxically engage in more constructive leadership behaviors subsequently as a result of feeling guilty and perceiving loss of moral credits. Results from two experience sampling studies show that, within leaders on a daily basis, perpetrating abusive supervisor behavior led to an increase in experienced guilt and perceived loss of moral credits, which in turn motivated leaders to engage in more constructive person-oriented (consideration) and task-oriented (initiating structure) leadership behaviors. In addition, leader moral attentiveness and moral courage strengthen these indirect effects by amplifying leaders' awareness of their immoral behavior and their willingness and determination to make reparations for such behavior. Our research contributes to the theoretical understanding of leaders' responses toward their own abusive supervisor behavior and provides insights into how and when destructive leadership behaviors may, paradoxically, trigger more constructive behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record

Administrators-Faculty Compatibility in Decision Making

The study generally aimed to investigate the extent of compatibility in decision making between the school administrators and their faculty in public and private tertiary schools in Region XII. The descriptive method of research was employed in this study. Specifically, this may be classified as descriptive-comparative whereby at least two groups are compared on criterion data. The respondents of this study included 302 faculty members and 96 administrators in 12 selected tertiary institutions in Region XII. These school are composed of six public schools and six private schools. A purposive sampling was employed in this study. The main sources of the data for this study were the respondents’ scores in the areas related to leadership styles and interpersonal relationships. The leadership style may either be person-oriented or task-oriented on three (3) areas, namely: (1) personnel administration, (2) academic administration, and (3) business administration. Interpersonal relationship may either be wholesome or unwholesome relationship on seven (7) areas, namely: (1) communication process and pattern, (2) use of motivation, (3) interaction-influence process, (4) decision making process, (5) goal setting in organization, (6) control process, and (7) performance. Two sets of questionnaires were used in gathering data for this research. One was for the administrators and the other one for the faculty members. The questionnaires are similar in content. Both questionnaires consist of three parts: (a) personal data, (b) leadership styles, and (c) interpersonal relationships. The mean was the principal statistical measure used in the analysis done for research questions 1 and 2. For research questions 3 and 4, the t-test was employed to test difference between means with the level of significance of 0.05. In the areas of academic and business administration, the administrator and the faculty respondents generally exhibited person-oriented leadership style. In personnel administration area, the faculty respondents exhibited task-oriented leadership style while the administrators exhibited person-oriented leadership style. The administrators and the faculty members on both public and private tertiary schools generally exhibited wholesome interpersonal relationships. In public tertiary schools, the leadership styles exhibited by the administrators and those of their faculty subordinates were generally not compatible. On the other hand, in private tertiary schools, leadership styles of administrators and their faculty subordinates were compatible in all three areas of decision making. In public tertiary schools, the decision making exhibited by administrators and their faculty subordinates in the areas of interpersonal relationships are generally not compatible. In private tertiary schools, the administrators and those of their faculty subordinates are generally compatible in their decision making in the areas of interpersonal relationship.

Leading project teams: The relative importance of temporal leadership and initiating structure

We assess the relative importance of two approaches to leader behavior in predicting project team performance. We compare an extended two- facet model of temporal leadership (temporal planning at project initiation and temporal reminders during project execution) to classic task-oriented leadership in the form of initiating structure delivered at the same two points in time. Results from 62 application development project teams surveyed across the life of a project showed that the two facets of temporal leadership together accounted for 88% of the predictable variance in final project performance, with temporal planning being the more important facet. Initiating structure accounted for small and non- significant amounts of the predictable variance. We conclude that temporal leadership is distinct from initiating structure, and is a more useful approach to leader behavior in the case of teams working on time-limited projects. We suggest implications for theory and for leadership training.

Formal leadership and informal leader emergence: A social learning perspective

This research examines the indirect relationship between formal supervisors’ task-oriented leadership behavior and individual team members’ informal leader emergence, through members’ task-oriented...

An Application of Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension among Female Educational Leaders

With the exponential advancement of technology, global sharing, industrialization and economic development, national and global cultures are becoming more collective. More importantly, this fundamental paradigm shift is affecting national and global educational leadership cultures. Therefore, the power/distance index (PDI); individualism versus collectivism (IDV); uncertainty avoidance index (UAI); masculinity/femininity (MAS); and long-term orientation versus short-term orientation (LTO); are of interest when considering national and global cultures. These cultural dimensions can be exemplified in the responses of eight female educational leaders: three Canadians and one from Jamaica and Trinidad; two Grenadians and one Lebanese. This qualitative methodology in the form of a phenomenological study found that all respondents displayed varying degrees of each aspect of Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions which can be charted along a continuum from high to low index factors. Each dimension is linked to different leadership styles. PDI is linked to servant leadership, IDV is linked to shared/participatory leadership, UAI is linked to transformational leadership and emergent leadership, and MAS is linked to people versus task-oriented leadership. In each case, the slight variances in responses reflect the microcosm of the macrocosm where each country’s particular culture is mirrored. Recommendations are made for a more androgynous leadership style as well as more androgynous socialization processes if national and global educational leadership cultures are to become less gendered and more instrumental and functional based on the demands of the particular environment. It is expected that a focus could be placed on transcultural rather than intercultural studies in leadership and education.

MULTIPLE-ORIENTED LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOR AND SCHOOL PERFORMANCE: A MULTIPLE-CASE STUDY

Constant efforts have been made to improve the quality and performance of schools in Pakistan. Research has shown that leadership is a driving force in bringing about revolutionary changes in schools. This qualitative multiple-case study explores the task-oriented, relationoriented, and change-oriented leadership behaviors in selected highperforming schools in Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews from a total of 12 participants selected via purposive sampling. The participants included principals, assistant principals, and teachers from two high-performing schools. Data were analyzed using the grounded theory approach involving open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. The findings showed that leaders in selected high-performing schools exhibited adaptive leadership behaviors. The effective and continuous monitoring, proper planning, assigning and clarifying tasks, and efficiently distributing budgets were some of the task-oriented leadership behaviors in selected high-performing schools. The relation-oriented leadership behaviors were determined to be shared decision-making, establishing a friendly and trusting relationship, being open and honest, and recognizing contributions. Being active and ambitious, having strong vision, and commitment to change were the change-oriented leadership behaviors shared across selected schools. The findings of this study can be of use to the Ministry of Education Pakistan and the Education Department of the Government of Balochistan.

Collaborative Crisis Management and Leadership in the Public Sector

ABSTRACTThe goal of this article is to discover how leadership competencies affect the perceived effectiveness of crisis management. The study, based on a self-reported survey of executive public leaders in Turkey, found that the core leadership competencies have a positive relationship with the effectiveness of crisis management. Among task–oriented, people–oriented, and organization-oriented categories of leadership behaviors, task-oriented leadership behaviors were found with the highest level of impact on the effectiveness of crisis management. The study demonstrated the importance of the core leadership competencies in the effectiveness of crisis leadership. The hypothesis testing with the covariance structure model supported the positive impact of the core leadership competencies on the effectiveness of crisis management. This study contributes to the literature on leadership during crisis situations, and also provides proposals for public managers and practitioners to increase their effectiveness in leading their organizations during crises.

Leading Schools in Challenging Circumstances: Strategies for Success by Philip Smith and Les Bell. London: Bloomsbury, 2014. 171 pp. $42.95. ISBN 978-1-4411-8405-4.

<i>Leading Schools in Challenging Circumstances: Strategies for Success</i> by Philip Smith and Les Bell. London: Bloomsbury, 2014. 171 pp. $42.95. ISBN 978-1-4411-8405-4.