Leadership, Motivation and Group Dynamics
Leadership theories
Trait theory lists qualities but cannot predict effectiveness. Behavioural theory asks what leaders do: Ohio State's initiating structure and consideration; Blake and Mouton's grid plotting concern for production against concern for people, with 9,9 team management as the ideal. Contingency theories make style conditional: Fiedler uses the least-preferred co-worker score against leader–member relations, task structure and position power; Hersey–Blanchard matches telling, selling, participating and delegating to follower readiness; Vroom–Yetton prescribes participation by problem attributes. Transformational leaders inspire through vision and individual consideration; transactional leaders rely on contingent reward and management by exception.
Power and motivation
French and Raven's bases: legitimate, reward, coercive, expert, referent. Content theories (Maslow, Herzberg, McClelland) ask what people need; process theories (Vroom, Adams, Locke, Skinner) ask how motivation forms. Herzberg: motivators (achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, advancement) create satisfaction, while hygiene factors (pay, supervision, policy, conditions) only prevent dissatisfaction.
Worked example
Two offers. Job A: valence of promotion 9, instrumentality 0.6, expectancy 0.7 → force = 9 × 0.6 × 0.7 = 3.78. Job B: valence 8, instrumentality 0.9, expectancy 0.4 → 8 × 0.9 × 0.4 = 2.88. Reasoning: A wins because all three links are reasonably strong; B offers a large reward, but effort rarely converts into performance, so motivation collapses at the expectancy link.
Group dynamics
Tuckman's stages: forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning. Cohesiveness raises conformity as well as effort. Janis's groupthink symptoms include illusion of invulnerability, self-censorship, pressure on dissenters and mindguards; counter with devil's advocacy and leader impartiality.
Traps
- Treating a pay rise as a motivator in Herzberg's terms.
- Assuming the highest-valence reward wins the expectancy calculation.
- Claiming Fiedler's LPC style is easily trained - he treats it as stable.
- Confusing storming with permanent dysfunction; it is a normal stage.