Leader-Member Exchange Theory and Questionnaire

Subject: Leadership Styles
Pages: 5
Words: 1307
Reading time:
5 min
Study level: PhD

Introduction

First of all, it is necessary to emphasize, that one of the distinguishing aspects amid Management and Leadership is the capability or even inevitability to motivate. A Leader, one who can inspire fervor and course to a person or group of individuals, will be applying psychology to impact that group either deliberately or unintentionally.

Those who are regarded to be “Genetic Leaders” and sufficiently motivate individuals without really realizing the strategies or tactics used are judged, charismatic Leaders. The mindful Leader on the other hand uses a variety of emotional tactics that impact the “replies” of a group to the surroundings they exist in.

In various “directive” arranging psychology studies such as ordinance contacts and hypotheses like the undulate result, leadership is an outline of consciousness and domination of the answers and impacts of a group on the personality as well as the personality on the grouping.

A Leader’s victorious function of instruction managerial psychology by adjusting precise management performances towards the grouping will acquiesce a managerial background that is in core “enthused”.

Leadership is a feature an individual may possess. One can classify the implementation of leadership as either real or possible:

  • Real – providing control or direction, like a tutor being an organizer to a student.
  • Possible – the capability or aptitude to guide, as in the notion “born to lead”.

Leadership can have a proper feature (as in most governmental or commercial leadership) or an unceremonious one (as in most friendships). Regarding “leadership” (the theoretical term) rather than of “leading” (the exploit) generally entails that the persons doing the leading have some “leadership abilities” or proficiencies.

Leader-member exchange theory

Describing this theory, it is necessary to mention that Leadership is one of the principal spheres of research, in managerial behavior. Organizers often expand relations with every participant of the group that they guide, and Leader-Member Exchange Theory defines how those relations with different participants can enhance in single ways.

The leader-member exchange theory of leadership concentrates on the two-way relations between head and employee. Also known as LMX, or Vertical Dyad Linkage Theory, the leader-member swap concentrates on rising managerial achievement by making constructive relationships among the head and employees.

Particularly, leaders regularly have exceptional relations with an internal round of helpers and consultants, who frequently get elevated stages of accountability and admission to reserves. This is frequently named the “in-group,” and their location can come with a value. These workers work harder, are more dedicated to task objects, and divide more directorial responsibilities. They are also anticipated to be completely entrusted and trustworthy to their manager. Equally, employees in the “out-group” are offered low stages of option or power and put restraints on the manager.

These relations occur very quickly after an individual unites a squad and pursues the following three phases:

  1. Role-accepting: The participant links the team and the leader estimates his or her skills and aptitudes. Grounded on this, the manager may propose changes to reveal competencies.
  2. Role-performing: In the second stage, the head and participant take part in shapeless and familiar cooperation whereby responsibility is made for the component and the undeclared guarantee of assistance and power in return for allegiance and faithfulness occurs. Trust-making is very significant in this phase, and any sense of betrayal, especially by the leader, can result in the member being demoted to the out-group. This negotiation includes relationship factors as well as pure work-related ones, and a member who is similar to the leader in various ways is more likely to succeed. This perhaps explains why mixed gender relations frequently are less winning than same-gender ones. A similar result also uses cultural and racial dissimilarities.
  3. Reutilization: In this stage, a model of continuing societal swap among the leader and the participants of the group befalls created. Being a winning or in-group participant usually involves being related in lots of ways to the head. The elements work hard at creating and maintaining confidence and admiration. The participants are often concerned, tolerant, logical, responsive, and are good at viewing the point of view of other people, particularly their manager. Violence, cynicism, and a self-focused view are features regarded in the out-group.

The feature of the LMX relations differs. It is better when the confront of the job is tremendously high or enormously low. The dimension of the group, economic resource accessibility, and the general workload are also significant. The theory can also work upwards as well. The head can gain authority by being a participant of his or her manager’s internal round, which the leader can then divide with group members.

On the one hand, the theory of leader-member exchange offers a clear appreciation of the relations according to the model leader-subordinate and provides a clear explanation of possible consequences and prerequisites of such relations.

On the other hand, the great demerit of this theory is that it places leader and manager in the same frames, without taking into account, that leader may be either formal or informal. And also the main restriction of leader-member exchange investigation is that it is not predominantly cooperative in recitation the precise manager performances that support high eminence relations. At best it only entails generalities about the necessity for the head to show faith, admiration, honesty, independence, and carefulness.

Questionnaire

(A) Always

(F) Frequently

(O) Occasionally

(S) Seldom

(N) Never

  1. (__) I inspire my team to contribute when it comes decision-making phase and I try to employ their suggestions and proposals.
  2. (__) Nothing is more significant than achieving an aim or assignment.
  3. (__) I intimately supervise the program to guarantee a task or development will be finished in time.
  4. (__) I admire the coaching staff on new assignments and processes.
  5. (__) The more demanding an assignment is, the more I admire it.
  6. (__) I inspire my employees to be original about their job.
  7. (__) When facing a compound assignment through to conclusion, I guarantee that every element is taken into account.
  8. (__) I find it simple to carry out some complex assignments at the same time.
  9. (__) I admire reading articles, books, and journals about coaching, guidance, and psychology; and then applying the gained knowledge into practice.
  10. (__) When correcting mistakes, I am not anxious about endangering relations.
  11. (__) I handle my time very effectively.
  12. (__) I admire explaining the complexities and features of an intricate task or venture to my workers.
  13. (__) Flouting large plans into small convenient assignments is second nature to me.
  14. (__) Nothing is more significant than creating a great team.
  15. (__) I adore analyzing difficulties.
  16. (__) I honor other people’s boundaries.
  17. (__) Recommending my workers to improve their performance or performance is second nature to me.
  18. (__) I adore reading articles, books, and journals about my job; and then applying the new procedures I have studied.

Conclusion

The offered questionnaire is claimed to define whether an individual possesses the necessary features of a leader. Some questions may seem not to relate the necessary features, but charisma is not the only one: a leader must be intelligent, have a wide outlook, sympathetic person who is able to combine feelings and sympathy with the obligation. The leader should also possess some features of a coach. This means not only inspire the subordinate team but also help them to find the reasons for failure or success. Help them in defining tasks for particular assignments themselves. Surely, the test for coaching would look different, but the offered questionnaire provides all the necessary questions to define just whether the coaching skills are enough for the leader. And in conclusion, some key principles of leadership should be formulated:

  1. Changes are essential. In order to keep the team inspired, a leader needs to assign different tasks, otherwise, the job would simply become routine
  2. Inspiration is essential not only to accomplish usual tasks, but also for additional, but not less essential assignments.

References

Messick, D. M. & Kramer, R. M. (Eds.). (2005). The Psychology of Leadership: New Perspectives and Research. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Soder, R., & Goodlad, J. I. (2001). The Language of Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.