Reference no: EM133243588

Are great leaders born or made?

Different types of leadership should be explained e.g. authoritarian, consultative, democratic and laissez-faire. Theories should include: Tannenbaum and Schmidt, Slake and Mouton's grid, McGregor's X and Y theories. Your answer should also consider whether the trait theory of leadership is valid.

Question 1.

Leadership is a social process, whereby an individual influences the behaviour of others without the use of threat or violence. Management, on the other hand, involves the exercise of formal authority over the work of other people.

Evaluate the importance of both of these approaches to managing people in organisations.

dler's model identifies three important contextual circumstances that influence the appropriateness of a leader's style. These are:

a. follower maturity, task structure, leader position power.

b. leader-member relations, task structure, leader position power.

c. leader-member relations, follower maturity, high pay.

d. group composition, follower maturity, task structure.

Question 2

Where a leader's style does not fit the surrounding circumstances, Fiedler suggests that the best solution is for:

a. the leader to change his/her personality.

b. the leader to change his/her style of behaviour.

c. the circumstances to change to match the leader's style.

d. none of the above.

Question 3

There are situations when leadership is not important because leadership ________ stands in the way of the leader influencing the outcomes of subordinate behaviour.

a. substitutes

b. style

c. neutralisers

d. willingness

Question 4

Leaders who are effective in achieving goals in 'steady-state' conditions, by clarifying role and task requirements for subordinates, are ________ leaders.

a. transformational

b. charismatic

c. action-centred

d. transactional

Question 5

Managers who are able to articulate a vision for subordinates and energise them to change their current way of operating are classified as:

a. prophets.

b. visionaries.

c. transformational leaders.

d. charismatic leaders.

Question 6

Which one of the following is true of the attributional approach to leadership?

a. Leadership ability is just an attribution that people make about an individual.

b. People make attributions about the leadership ability of another person to explain past success or failure.

c. Leadership may be nothing more than an illusion or a matter of impression management.

d. All of the above are true.

Question 7

Because national cultures affect the acceptability of certain leadership styles, participative leadership would be more acceptable in countries where:

a. Power-distance and uncertainty avoidance are low, but individuality and masculinity are high.

b. Medium power-distance and individualism, low uncertainty avoidance and masculinity.

c. High power-distance and uncertainty avoidance and medium individualism and masculinity.

d. Medium power-distance and individualism, but high uncertainty avoidance and masculinity.

Question 8

More autocratic styles of leadership are likely to be acceptable in cultures where:

a. power distance and uncertainty avoidance are low, but individualism and masculinity are high.

b. masculinity is medium, but power distance, uncertainty avoidance and individualism are all high.

c. low power distance and uncertainty avoidance, but high individualism and masculinity.

d. none of the above.