In Ayn Rand’s (1957) novel Atlas Shrugged, E. Locke found the prescription for heroic business leaders like Jack, who formulated rule for business leaders: face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be (Tichy & Sherman, 1993). Although the many current business scandals would suggest otherwise, honesty and candor are needed to avoid self-deception and unethical behavior. Failing executives refuse to face reality. Characteristics of business heroes, according to Rand and Locke, are independence, self-confidence, an active mind, vision, and competence. They also need sufficient intelligence to understand their markets and causal connections of consequence and the ability to accurately generalize from what they have observed. They need to have passion in their work. As was already noted in Chapter 17 about autocratic leaders, these tough-minded, directive, task-oriented CEOs are best known for their success and effectiveness in turning around large, previously successful businesses that were encrusted with strong bureaucracies which failed to adapt to changes in their markets. Examples of business leaders illustrate that some whose style is directive and task-oriented may be successful and effective in reaching their goals and satisfying their constituencies. Other examples can be found of business leaders who were successful and effective by being more consultative, participative, and relations-oriented. Generally, they need to be both directive and participative as well as concerned about tasks and relationships.
The more directive leaders, such as Lou Gerstner at IBM and Jack Welch at General Electric, were likely to ask a lot of direct questions; they made some subordinates feel that a meeting was an inquisition rather than a consultation. They made shareholders happier but some employees unhappier. Lou Gerstner was described as tough, ferocious, and driven, yet respected by associates. At the same time, he contributed a great deal to philanthropies and worked hard to invigorate educational systems in many locations. He was a demanding boss, was highly disciplined, stayed focused, set very high standards, and could go beyond less important matters to get at key issues. He had earned a degree in engineering magna cum laude and had previously been a successful top executive at American Express and RJR Nabisco. He envisioned that giant IBM, as a smaller firm with fewer hierarchical levels, would be better able to adapt and compete in the world marketplace. He consolidated operations, closed plants, sold subsidiaries, and laid off many managers and a large number of employees. He wanted to take advantage of IBM’s potential to offer consulting and a full range of services to provide an integrated information system for its business customers. He brought in 60 new executives and took the firm from bleeding losses back to profitability again (Waga, 1997). His legacy continued after he retired: IBM continued to divest itself of much of its computer manufacturing business and reduced its barriers to integrating its efforts with non-IBM programs and products.
Jack Welch of General Electric projected himself in his 1997 annual letter in which he said that grade A leaders have
a vision and the ability to articulate that vision so vividly and powerfully to the team that it also becomes their vision. … [These leaders have] enormous personal energy … and the ability to energize others … [The leaders] have the … courage to make the tough calls. … [In engineering], they relish the rapid change in technology and continually re-educate themselves. In manufacturing, they consider inventory an embarrassment. … In sales … they emphasize the enormous customer value of the Six Sigma quality program that differentiates GE from the competition. In finance, “A” talents transcend traditional controllership. The bigger role is full-fledged participation in driving the business to win. (Henry, 1998, p. 7a)
Welch made sure his frank and honest opinions on management and operations were known and were a guide to GE’s future. Welch demonstrated his ability to change a large firm with strong historical institutions. He remained personally involved in everyday matters. He charted clear, specific directions for GE, emphasizing its core businesses and venturing into new businesses. He made GE fast and flexible. He invested heavily in R & D to ensure GE’s future, reduced its top-heavy hierarchy, and reduced the number of its employees. In his first three years in office, he reduced GE’s employees by 18%. Welch insisted on consolidating GE’s 150 businesses into 15 lines, and these lines reduced to three circles: services, industrial automation and high tech, and manufacturing. Executives were under orders to make every business they ran either first or second in market share. Businesses without the potential to grow were divested and plants closed. They were replaced with others judged as having more potential. Many of the acquisitions were made in Europe and Asia. Under Welch, decisions were made more rapidly. He made it possible in 20 years for GE to become one of the largest and most successful multinational conglomerates (Lueck, 1985; Wall Street Transcript, 1985; Forbes, 1985).
Other examples of directive leaders are Jeffrey Immelt and Michael Armstrong. Jeffrey Immelt was appointed CEO of Welch’s successfully restructured GE. Immelt took charge following the many financial scandals exposed among top corporate managers at WorldCom, Enron, Tyco, and elsewhere. With concern for ethical standards of top management, he reformed the board of directors by increasing the number of independent outsiders, strengthening its auditing committee, and removing directors with conflicts of interest. Directors were asked to visit two GE businesses each year, without HQ management, to have frank discussions with operating managers. Immelt emphasized consensual management and teamwork in his directiveness (Hymowitz, 2003). Michael Armstrong accepted the CEO position at Hughes Aircraft, informing the current top management team that he admired them but they should either accept his vision for restructuring Hughes or resign. Hughes then had a strong culture focused on product development. A need for restructuring had been recognized but not implemented. Armstrong successfully directed reorganization toward market needs and increased revenue growth (Cole, 1993).
Who decides? The leader? The led? Both? On what does the answer depend? What are the consequences? Should leaders give directions and tell followers how to do the work, or should they share with followers the need for solving problems or handling situations and involve them in working out what is to be done and how? Is there one best way? Eleanor Roosevelt (April 16, 1945) noted that international peace required both: “a leader may … point out the road to lasting peace, but … many peoples must do the building.” Numerous humanistic researchers and writers support the need for participative leadership—in which the leader and the led jointly make the decision. The conventional wisdom is that participative leadership is preferred to directive leadership, and that participative leadership is more satisfying and effective than directive leadership. A survey of 485 upperlevel managers from 59 industrial firms agreed, but did not install participative systems (Collins, Ross, & Ross, 1989). As Wagner (1994) noted, in 11 meta-analytic reviews of studies, participation does have positive effects on performance and satisfaction, but the average size of these effects is small enough to raise questions about their practical significance. In many contexts, leader direction may still be of consequence. Depending on circumstances, leader direction may be effective (Hogan, Curphy, & Hogan, 1994). Furthermore, the same leader who is participative at times may also be directive at other times, with equal effectiveness. Their frequency is positively correlated rather than independent of each other.
Most leaders, managers, and supervisors are both directive and participative, depending on the circumstances, but in different amounts. Tannenbaum and Schmidt (1958) suggested that direction and participation are two parts of a continuum, with many gradations possible in between. At one extreme of the continuum, directive leaders decide and announce the decision to their followers. They give directions and orders to followers without explaining why. These leaders expect unquestioning compliance; participation in the decision by followers is minimized. At the next gradation, leaders sell the decision. They accompany their orders with detailed explanations to persuade followers and manipulate or bargain with them. At the third gradation, (in between directive and participative leadership), leaders consult with followers before deciding what is to be done. They present ideas and problems and invite questions. At the fourth gradation, participation by both leaders and followers occurs. Leaders define limits and ask for a consensual decision. Followers join in deciding what is to be done. At the fifth gradation, leaders delegate to the followers what is to be done, and the leader’s participation is minimized. At this gradation, within the established limits and constraints, the followers decide what to do; the leaders need to review what was delegated. At this extreme of the continuum, some leaders may completely abdicate their responsibilities.1 Similar continua were advanced by many others (Hersey & Blanchard, 1969a, 1969b; Heller & Yukl, 1969: Sadler & Hofstede, 1972; Bass & Valenzi, 1974; Vroom & Yetton, 1974; Drenth & Koopman, 1984; and Scandura, Graen, & Novak, 1986). Scores could be generated to describe points on the continuum.
Directive leadership implies that leaders play the active role in problem solving and decision making, and expect followers to be guided by their decisions. There are two types of directive leadership. In one type, the leader makes the decisions for the followers often without an explanation and without consulting or informing them until he directs them to carry out his decisions. This type will be italicized (directive) when referred to. Other directive leaders play a more active role and try to persuade their followers to accept them. They gain acceptance of their proposals by using reason and logic (Berlew & Heller, 1983). They may assert an expectation or need and offer rewards, or they may coerce, threaten, and exert pressure to gain acceptance. They may generate charismatic identification to motivate and build commitment. They may try partial disengagement by backing away from time-consuming issues with a lower priority and by concentrating colleagues’ attention on more important issues. Unlike participative leaders, directive leaders do not ask their followers to get involved in making decisions. They direct followers’ activities and give permission to their followers to carry out duties as the leaders see fit to do (Muszyk & Reimann, 1987). If in a position of authority, the directive leader may make decisions for him-or herself and others. Directive leaders may be persuasive as they attempt to raise their followers’ efficacy beliefs. Such persuasion will depend on the leader’s rationale, the followers’ confidence in the leader, and the leader’s emotional, verbal and nonverbal expression (El Haddad, 2001). Directive leaders may decide, announce their decisions, and give orders without consulting followers and colleagues beforehand or after consulting with them.
Participation, when italicized (participation), refers only to sharing in the decision process. There are different types of participative leaders who may draw followers out, listen actively and carefully, and gain acceptance through engaging colleagues in the planning or decision-making process (Berlew & Heller, 1983). Participation may refer to a particular way of leader-subordinate decision making in which the leader equalizes power and shares the final decision making with the subordinates. Consensus is sought. Participative leadership aims to involve followers in decision processes—in generating alternatives, planning, and evaluation. Such involvement is expected to enhance satisfaction and performance (Stewart & Greger sen, 1997), but such expectations do not always materialize. Wilson-Evered, Hartel, & Neale (2001) found participative decision making highly correlated with supportive leadership of 277 Australian hospital employees for their ideas and objectives.
Roberts and Thorsheim (1987) note that participative leaders express their doubts, concerns, and uncertainties; verbalize their problem-solving processes; ask questions of followers and listen to the answers; reflect feelings; and paraphrase, summarize, acknowledge, and use followers’ ideas. Participative leaders use group processes to promote follower inclusion, ownership, involvement, consensus, mutual help, cooperative orientation, and free and informed choice. These leaders try to avoid unilateral control, hidden agendas, and inhibition of expression of feelings and relevant information. Additionally, according to West (1990), the leaders provide safety for followers by creating a nonthreatening environment in which the participants can be involved in decisions that affect them.
“Participative leadership” suggests that the leader makes group members feel free to participate actively in discussions, problem solving, and decision making. It implies increased autonomy for followers, power sharing, information sharing, and due process (Lawler, 1986). Participation implies that followers have a “voice” and influence in deliberations (Wright, Philo, & Pritchard, 2003). But freedom and safety to participate do not mean license. In participative decision making, the leader remains an active member among equals. The belief that it is safe to speak up depends not only on one’s immediate supervisor but also on senior leaders higher in the hierarchy (Detert, 2003). In Europe, employee participation is seen as depending on the acceptance of varying rules of industrial democracy developed for middle management (Jaeger & Pekruhl, 1998).
Specific differences can be seen in the way directive and participative leaders communicate with their subordinates (Sargent & Miller, 1971). For instance, different uses would be made of palliatives and sedatives. The brisk directive leader is likely to say, “I want you to …” The more sophisticated directive leader is likely to ask, “Would you be kind enough to … ?” The participative leader would ask, “Would it be a good idea if we … ?”
Example: An Effective Leader Who Was Directive and Participative. Horatio Nelson was both directive and participative. Clearly, Nelson made the decision how his fleet was to be positioned for the battle of the Nile, but prior to making the decision, he called all his captains aboard his flagship to obtain their opinions about the best way to station the ships of the line. He did not take a vote nor ask for consensus. The decision was his alone. Paramount was his vision of the overwhelming need to find and destroy the French fleet, even at the cost of many British lives, in order to cut off Napoléon and his troops, just landed in Egypt. As usual, Nelson’s disposition of his ships was innovative. His fleet had been brought to a high state of readiness by his attention to continuous training and his own practice (unusual for the era) of “walking the talk”—conversing one-on-one with officers, seamen, and marines, and cultivating his own image of courage and bravery. Part of Nelson’s orders delegated to each ship’s captain the responsibility for making decisions when his ship had to engage in a general melée (Walder, 1978).
When participation takes the form of delegation, it does not mean that the leader abdicates his or her responsibilities. The leader may follow up delegation by reclarifying what needs to be done, giving support and encouragement, and making periodic requests for progress reports, as well as by giving praise and rewards for subordinates’ successful efforts (Bass, 1985a). Delegation should not be confused with laissez-faire leadership. A leader who delegates still remains responsible for follow-up to see whether the delegation has been accepted and whether the requisite activities have been carried out.
Schriesheim and Neider (1988) distinguished among three types of delegation: advisory, informational, and extreme. In advisory delegation, subordinates share problems with their supervisor, asking their supervisor for his or her opinions regarding solutions; however, the subordinates make the final decisions by themselves. In informational delegation, the subordinates ask the supervisor for information, then make the decisions by themselves. Extreme delegation occurs when subordinates make decisions by themselves without any input from their supervisor. A factor analysis of a survey of 196 nurses and 281 executive MBA students disclosed the independence of these three kinds of delegation. That is, leaders who used one kind of delegation did not necessarily use the other kinds.
Delegation implies that a subordinate has been empowered by a superior to take responsibility for certain activities. The degree of delegation is associated with the trust the superior has for the subordinate. When a group is the repository of authority and power, it likewise may delegate responsibilities to individual members.
Delegation of decision making implies that the decision making is lowered to a hierarchical level closer to where the decision will be implemented. Such delegation is consistent with self-planning (see Chapter 12). Delegation is a simple way for a leader who is faced with a heavy workload to reduce time-consuming chores, and it provides subordinates with learning opportunities and multiplies the executive’s accomplishments (Anonymous, 1978). It also increases latitude and freedom for subordinates (Strasser, 1983). The act of delegation is often directive, but it can be based on a prior participative decision. Nevertheless, Leana (1984) called attention to a need to avoid confusing the “power relinquishment” of delegation with the power sharing of participation. In agreement with Strauss (1963), Heller (1976), and Locke and Schweiger (1979), Leana (1987) also noted that delegation, compared with participation, is more concerned about subordinates’ autonomy and individual development. According to 118 managers who were asked how to handle eight situations involving the assignment of a task to a subordinate engineer, some managers are willing to delegate regardless of the circumstances. But other managers are unwilling to delegate because of any one of three considerations: (1) Some do not delegate because they do not feel confident in the capabilities of their subordinates. (2) Some avoid delegating because they think the task is too important to be left to the subordinates. (3) Some are unwilling to delegate because of the technical difficulty of the task (Dewhirst, Metts, & Ladd, 1987).
When executives call meetings ostensibly to reach shared decisions but actually to announce their own decision to subordinates (Guetzkow, 1951), they are practicing token participation. They are also practicing this when they invite the wrong people to participate, knowing in advance that these people lack genuine interest or have conforming tendencies. Halpern and Osofsky (1990) criticize management by objectives (Drucker, 1954)—which purports to be participative—as unrealistic; they say that it fails to protect employees against managers’ manipulation, arbitrariness, and retaliation for speaking out about problems. Furthermore, employees may lack incentives and the necessary expertise to evaluate issues.
Holding frequent group meetings does not necessarily imply participative leadership. Guetzkow and Kriesberg (1950) found that leaders may use meetings to sell and gain acceptance of their own solutions, as well as to explain their own preferences. These executives see meetings as a way to transmit information and to make announcements, rather than as an opportunity to share information and opinions or to reach decisions. According to Rosenfeld and Smith (1967), subordinates recognize this phony participation and respond negatively to it.
If one can assume that followers in formal organizations appreciate autonomy, one should expect that leaders who say they delegate freely will be described as considerate. Employee satisfaction should also be highly related to delegation. But the effects obtained by Stogdill and Shartle (1955) were marginal. Subordinates often feel that their superiors do not really delegate to them the authority to accompany the responsibilities they are given. Subordinates feel that superiors delegate work they don’t want to do themselves. Superiors may believe they are delegating, but their subordinates may see this as abdication—a most unsatisfying state of affairs for subordinates.
Some leaders risk participative decision making (consultation, participation, or delegation) only when a high-quality solution is not needed. Other leaders push for participation regardless of the need for it and despite the extra time it takes (Wright, 1984–1985). Participation has become an ethical imperative for some of its advocates, but Locke, Schweiger, and Latham (1986) argued that it should be seen as a managerial procedure which is appropriate in only some situations, because its effects—although possibly satisfying to followers—may fail to contribute to productivity. In some circumstances, directive leadership may result in both higher productivity and greater satisfaction. Participation is usually thought to enhance subordinates’ compliance with decisions to change (Carson, 1985; Kanter, 1983); however, direction may be better for envisioning what needs to be changed. Some studies have reported that neither directive nor participative leadership made much difference in outcomes. McCurdy and Eber (1953) observed that groups in which free communication and decision making were practiced did not perform more effectively than groups in which the leader made all the decisions. Similarly, neither Spector and Suttell (1956) nor Tomekovic (1962) found differences in productivity between participative and nonparticipative groups.
In a study of 20 small shoe-manufacturing firms, Willits (1967) found that neither the degree of delegation by the president nor the extent of participation by executives in decision making was related to measures of the companies’ success. Heyns (1948) and W. M. Fox (1957) also found no differences of consequence.
Lawler (1986) argued that participation is a way for U.S. business to offset foreign competition and to deal with increasingly specialized work and the higher labor costs associated with some of it. But clearer goals and directions could also help. The pressure for more participation in the workplace and involvement in decisions about work has been fostered in the United States by workers’ greater expectations for upward mobility and their desire for more interesting work, but Lawler (1985) pointed out that education has not equipped many to participate effectively at work. Participative management requires an appropriate organizational design, as well as a design that is relevant to the employees’ backgrounds, motivation, and abilities. Employees with more education are more concerned about participating in decisions that affect their work (Wright & Hamilton, 1979). In the shift of the management of libraries from direction to participation, Sager (1982) noted that the roles of management and staff at all levels needed to be shifted, along with essential changes in regulations and policies.
Tannenbaum and Schmidt (1958) thought that participation and direction were based on how much authority the superior used, relative to how much freedom the subordinates were permitted. Bass (1960) noted that participative leadership required leaders with power who were willing to share it. With their power, such leaders set the boundaries within which the subordinates’ participation or consultation was welcomed. In contrast, with the powerless leader, as in the leaderless group, a struggle for status occurred among group members.
Graves (1983) noted that two of the three categories of concepts used by students to cluster 23 supervisory behaviors indicated their implicit theories of leadership. They dealt first with task direction (“Sets goals for employee performance”) and second with participation (“Asks employees for opinions and suggestions”). The third category of concepts dealt with reward (“Praises those who perform well”). Although conceptually independent, the dimensions of task direction and participation correlated .53 for the students’ implicit theories of leadership.
Similarly, Bass, Valenzi, Farrow, and Solomon (1975) found that according to subordinates’ descriptions of their superiors, direction and persuasive negotiation were positively correlated. Even more highly intercorrelated were democratic consultation, participation, and delegation. However, 46 judges, using response-allocation procedures, could readily and reliably discriminate among the specific behaviors involved in (1) direction and (2) negotiation, as well as among the behaviors involved in (3) consultation, (4) participation, and (5) delegation. The five styles were found to be conceptually independent, although they were correlated empirically. For instance, the judges clearly saw consultation as a different pattern of behavior from, say, delegation; nevertheless, the same managers who were most likely to consult were also more likely to delegate, according to their subordinates’ descriptions (Bass, Valenzi, Farrow, & Solomon, 1975). Similar results were reported by Filella (1971) for 77 Spanish managers, as well as in Saville and Holds-worth’s OPQ manual (Anonymous, 1985) for 527 British professionals and managers.
Nevertheless, three styles—consultation, participation, and delegation—are distinct and may, to some degree, have different antecedents and consequences. Factorial independence of each of the styles would make research with them easier; however, maintaining conceptually distinct but correlated styles remains viable and useful. (In the same way, analyses of body height and body weight continue to be separated, although height and weight are also empirically correlated. In general, tall people are heavier than short people, but it remains useful to talk about how people differ in height and how they differ in weight, as well as how they differ in stature or body mass, the combination of height and weight.)
With growing use of teamwork and empowerment of team members has come leadership behavior by the formal head of the team and shared leadership by team members. The team leaders do considerably more than members to empower the members and are more directive than the members themselves. Leaders and members appear otherwise to display similar participation in aversive, transactional, and transformational leadership behavior (Pearce & Sims, 2002).
Additional evidence that the same managers empirically exhibit many of the conceptually different styles of decision making is obtained from examining the intercorrelations in style found in survey studies. Consultation, participation, and delegation are highly intercorrelated. That is, consultative managers also tend to be highly participative and delegative. The intercorrelations were above .60 for a sample of 343 to 396 respondents who described their organizational superiors. Even the extent to which managers are directive tends to correlate positively with the extent to which they are manipulative or negotiative, .25; consultative, .31; participative, .28; and delegative, .13. Consultation, the most popular style observed among 142 assistant school superintendents in Missouri, correlated highly with participation (.64) and delegation (.47). Actually, all five styles have active leadership in common, and all are the opposite of inactivity and laissez-faire leadership.
Despite these intercorrelations, Wilcox (1982), using the Bass-Valenzi Management Styles Survey, reported systematic differences for the independent contributions of direction, consultation, and delegation to satisfaction with and the effectiveness of leadership, even after the effects of many other organizational and personal variables of the leader and the led were removed. Chitayat and Venezia (1984) conducted a smallest-space analysis for 224 Israeli managers and executives from business and nonbusiness organizations and attained patterns for the Bass-Valenzi survey measures showing that direction and negotiation (persuasion and manipulation) were closer together but distant from delegation, participation, and consultation—which, in turn, were closer to each other in usage by the respondents. Consistent with the reports of Bass, Valenzi, Farrow, and Solomon (1975) and Wilcox (1982) about subordinates’ descriptions of their superiors’ styles, intercorrelations of .41, .33, and .51 were found among delegation, participation, and consultation, and .23 was found between direction and negotiation for the Israeli managers. The correlations between decision styles within the two clusters were close to zero.
Some leaders and managers may lean toward inactivity. Whereas any of the preceding styles require activity, laissez-faire leadership—or abdication of responsibility and avoidance of leadership—does not. Laissez-faire leadership calls for doing little or nothing with subordinates, remaining passive, or withdrawing, as was discussed in Chapter 6. Such passivity correlates with passive managing by exception, in which the leader waits for problems to arise before taking any corrective action. This is in contrast to active managing by exception, in which the leader monitors follower performance and makes corrections as needed (Bass & Avolio, 1991).
Negotiative Leadership. The leader bargains with the follower who has a different interest or point of view. Differences are settled with persuasive arguments and agreements.
Manipulative Leadership. The leaders act shrewdly or deviously to enhance their own advantage and gain, and to exploit the followers. Manipulation can shade into falsification (see Chapter 7).
Close Supervision. Directive leadership is more likely to be exhibited by the same leaders who are also close supervisors, who do a lot of structuring, and who are manipulative and persuasive. This persuasive, manipulative emphasis has been seen in political tactics: withholding information, bluffing, making alliances, publicly supporting but privately opposing particular views, compromising, and using delaying and diversionary tactics.2 Participation is likely to be seen with general, rather than close, supervision; with the equalization of power; and with nondirective leadership.
Considerate Leadership. Participative decision-making leadership includes many elements. One of these, consideration, calls on the leader to ask subordinates for their suggestions before going ahead, get the approval of subordinates on important matters, treat subordinates as equals, make subordinates feel at ease when talking with them, put subordinates’ suggestions into operation, and remain easily approachable. Graves (undated) found that implicit task direction correlated .61 with the factor of initiating structure, and implicit participation correlated .81 with consideration, one of the two important dimensions of the Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire (LBDQ). Many elements of direction are to be found on the LBDQ scale of the initiation of structure, such as making attitudes clear, assigning subordinates to particular tasks, and deciding in detail what shall be done and how.3
Social Factors. Bass (1968c) contrasted MBA students’ and managers’ beliefs about how to succeed in business. Two social factors emerged: sharing decision making and emphasizing candor, openness, and trust. The factors involved making open and complete commitments, establishing mutual goals, and organizing group discussions. The factors coincided with ideal participative decision making as proposed by Argyris (1962) and Bennis (1964).
Transformational and Transactional Leadership. As noted in Chapter 22, contrary to many misconceptions about transformational and transactional leadership, such leadership can be directive and participative. The intellectually stimulating leader can issue instructions and participatively arouse curiosity. The inspiring directive leader can state that conditions are improving greatly. The inspiring participative leader can ask for all to merge their aspirations and work together for the good of the group (Bass, 1998).
Warrior Leadership. Related to directive leadership, the warrior style—as already discussed in Chapter 17—is most likely to emerge when conflict and opposition are present, the world is seen as dangerous and hostile, people cannot be trusted, and direction is needed. Flows of information are controlled. Results are more important than the methods used to achieve them. There is an emphasis on knowing the people that the leader is seeking to defeat or lead. Battles are selected carefully, and unnecessary fighting is avoided. There is planning and preparation for future militant contingencies (Nice, undated).
Persuasive Rhetoric. Directive leadership through persuasive rhetoric was a theme of Aristotle and much of classical instruction in general. Orators from Martin Luther to Martin Luther King Jr. have followed Aristotle’s prescription for persuasion: identify the discontent among audiences, name the enemy, and provide the needed response. Give the restless a voice, a motive, and legitimacy (Monty, 2004).
Forcing, Coercing, and Controlling. These forms of directive influence involve pressure or persuasion by a leader to induce follower compliance and avoid undesired outcomes. Ordinarily, continued use of force by a leader is likely to generate ill feelings and resistance. However, Emans, Munduate, Klaver, et al. (2003) showed that 145 police officers complied effectively with supervisory orders if forcing influence was interspersed over time with non-forcing influence. Hard tactics of persuasive direction are employed, such as giving orders without explanation, threatening unsatisfactory performance evaluations, and getting the backup of higher authority, when the persuader has the power to do so, when resistance is expected, or when the subordinate is violating norms. Soft tactics of persuasion are employed, such as acknowledgment of the subordinate’s goodwill and ability, when the influencer is at a disadvantage. Rational tactics of persuasion are employed if power is balanced, if no resistance is anticipated, and benefits for compliance will be mutual (Kipnis & Schmidt, 1985). Tight or loose controls are likely to coincide with the leadership styles of direction and participation. As Avolio (1999) noted, leaders will maintain tight controls if they don’t trust their subordinates. There are reciprocal effects. When employees are allowed to participate more fully in decisions, they are likely to feel that they are more trusted by their leaders. They may confirm this by showing better organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Van Yperen, van den Berg, and Willering (1999) demonstrated in a study of employees from 10 departments in a Dutch company that employee participation in decision making fostered better employee OCB.
A popular stereotype of the ideal leader is the decisive, directive, heroic order giver. The prototypical supervisor in the workplace of MBA students with full-time jobs had these directive transformational characteristics (Bass & Avolio, 1989). Yet in the behavioral science literature, participative decision making is most commonly advocated. And managers themselves are most likely to favor a consultative style. Actually, Heller and Yukl (1969) and Bass and Valenzi (1974) have shown that neither extreme direction nor extreme participation is reported most frequently by subordinates in describing their superior. Rather, subordinates most often see their superior as consulting with them. Thus on a scale of frequency ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always), according to over 400 subordinates from a variety of organizations, the average frequency with which superiors were observed to exhibit each of the styles on many items of supervisory decision-making behavior was as follows: consultation, 3.10; participation, 2.65; delegation, 2.46; direction with reasons, 1.97; direction without reasons, 1.90; and manipulation, 1.88 (Bass & Valenzi, 1974). In agreement, H. R. Gillespie (1980) concluded, from self-reports of 48 manufacturing executives, that participation, particularly consultation, was more frequent, especially among executives at the top level. Kraitem (1981) likewise found that consultative leadership was favored in the self-reports of top executives in financial institutions and that there had been a shift away from more directive approaches.
Manipulation and negotiation were reported to occur least frequently, perhaps because of the greater subtlety of manipulative behavior, which is more difficult to discern when it happens. The most artful manipulative behavior is that which is misperceived as participative. There is less reliability in judgment about manipulation than in judgment about other decision-making styles. Subordinates feel they are being manipulated when they think managers know in advance what they will decide and what they want the subordinates to do. These managers strike bargains and play favorites. Such manipulative behavior tends to be exhibited by directive managers but not by managers who generally tend to be participative (Bass, Valenzi, Farrow, & Solomon, 1975).
For followers, a leader who is a consistently autocratic or consistently laissez-faire leader in all situations is likely to be least satisfactory and least effective. Generally, followers will favor participative leadership over directive leadership. Nonetheless, subordinates may agree with their superior that supervisory direction is called for in a crisis and that consultation is indicated when subordinates are knowledgeable, experienced, and expert. Followers are likely to applaud their superior’s flexibility in being directive in the first situation and consultative in the second. In fact, few leaders use only a single style; most use a variety of styles, ranging from extreme direction to extreme participation. Among 124 middle-and first-level supervisors, W. A. Hill (1973) found that only 14% of the supervisors were seen as likely to use the same one of four styles in four different hypothetical situations.
Bass and Valenzi (1974) obtained sharper results with 124 subordinates who described how frequently their superiors actually used six styles, ranging from deciding without explanation to delegating decisions to subordinates. A manager was classified as exhibiting a single style if the subordinate indicated that only one of these styles was displayed by the manager “very often” or “always,” and the remaining styles “never” or “seldom.” Managers were classified as exhibiting a dual approach if they were described by their subordinates as displaying two styles “very often” or “always,” and the other styles “never” or “seldom.” Managers were classified as exhibiting a multi-style approach if they were described as displaying three or more of the six styles “sometimes,” “fairly often,” “very often,” or “always.” Of 124 subordinates, less than 4% indicated that their superior exhibited a single style or a dual approach; 117, or almost 95%, indicated that their boss exhibited a multistyle approach.4 Consistent with Bass and Valenzi’s findings, Hollander (1978) noted that although political leaders, in particular, often try to project a consistent image to a wide audience, based on a particular style that is uniform across situations, most change their style after they are elected; they also change their style from one constituency to another.5 History is replete with examples illustrating that the most powerful dictators may also be strong advocates of consultation.
Lenin, according to his biographers, frequently consulted his immediate subordinates (Bass & Farrow, 1977a). Mao Zedong urged party leaders to be consultative and instructed them carefully on how to carry out a doctrine stressing consultation: “We should never pretend to know what we don’t know, we should not feel ashamed to ask and learn from people below, and we should listen carefully to the views of the cadres at the lower levels. Be a pupil before you become a teacher; learn from the cadres at the lower levels before you issue orders” (Burns, 1978, p. 238). But in his later years, Mao could also be ruthless as a leader, unleashing his Cultural Revolution on the Chinese population.
Differences in Problems. The overwhelming tendency for managers to use multiple decision-making styles is seen most clearly in studies of how the same managers use different styles depending on the nature of the problem. Thus McDonnell (1974) found that when 226 respondents were asked whether they would be autocratic, consultative, participative, or laissez-faire, each chose a different style depending on which of 12 problem situations was presented for consideration. Heller and Yukl (1969) and Heller (1972a) demonstrated that a senior manager varies his or her style according to the nature of the required decisions. For example, prior consultation was the modal style for decisions that were critical to individual staff members but not to the organization. Participation in all three forms was most frequent for decisions of importance to subordinates and least frequent for decisions of importance to the company. Supervisory delegation and supervisory decision making without explanation were most frequent for decisions that were unimportant to both the leader and the subordinates. Using a different method (to be detailed later in this chapter), Vroom and Yetton (1973) came up with similar results. Several thousand managers indicated the decision-making style they would employ if confronted with different kinds of cases requiring or not requiring high-quality solutions and subordinates’ acceptance. Only about 10% of the variance in response could be attributed to the personal tendencies of the managers to be more directive or more participative; 30% of their responses depended on whether high-quality solutions and subordinate acceptance were required. Hill and Schmitt (1977) tested a shortened version of Vroom and Yetton’s method and found that 37% of the variance in the leaders’ decision-making style was due to ease-requirement effects and only 8% was due to the effects of the respondents’ individual dispositional differences. These results tended to be relatively insensitive to the hierarchical levels dealt with in the cases presented to the managers (Jago, 1978a). This was so despite the fact that, as was noted in Chapter 14, both the authority to be directive and the authority to be delegative increase as one rises in the organizational hierarchy (Stogdill & Shartle, 1955). Such increased authority makes it possible for superiors to delegate more responsibilities to subordinates. But it also allows the superiors to be more participative.
In Wilcox’s (1982) dissertation, agreement was quite close between the school superintendent’s self-descriptions of their directiveness, participation, and delegation and the descriptions provided by their subordinates. But the superintendents believed they were more consultative and less negotiative than their subordinates thought they were. Generally, when managers’ self-rated styles are contrasted with descriptions provided by their subordinates, one is likely to find many more managers who see themselves as favoring their subordinates’ participation than subordinates who see such participation occurring. Also, many authoritarian leaders would be surprised to learn that their subordinates say they are far more directive than they believe themselves to be. Harrison (1985) studied 30 supervisors and their 234 college-educated subordinates in a large social service organization. There was little correspondence between the subordinates’ feelings of participation in decision making and the supervisors’ tendency to see themselves as participative. For the superiors, participation meant interacting with subordinates; but for the subordinates, it also meant that the subordinates could both send and receive information related to their own desires. Moreover, the subordinates’ judgments of the extent to which their superior was participative correlated .61 with the interpersonal support they received from the superior, .59 with the team-building activities led by the superior, and .30 with the accuracy of the information they felt they received from the superior. The superior generally failed to recognize that any of these actions was connected to being participative.
A Harris (1987) poll revealed still another aspect of the discrepancy between managers and white-collar workers. Although 77% of the workers considered it very important to be allowed to participate in decisions that controlled their working conditions, only 41% of their superiors agreed with them. Some samples of leaders subscribed to direction rather than participation. None of 450 interviewed Australian managers rated their executive superiors as collaborative in organizational development. They regarded the high and medium performers as more tough and directive in style when it came to making organizational changes. The lower performers were viewed as careful, timid fine-tuners (Heller, 1994).
As was already noted, different studies using a variety of methods showed that leaders in organized settings said they preferred to be consultative and were most often seen by their subordinates as consultative. Such consultation involved their subordinates to some extent in the decision process, but the supervisors reserved the final decision for themselves. At the same time, a given leader was seen to use the whole range, from direction to delegation, in varying amounts. However, different patterns of usage were revealed—some leaders were more directive on the whole, whereas others were more participative. Both deductive and inductive research point to a variety of factors that predispose leaders to pursue one style rather than another. These antecedent conditions include the attributes of the leader and of the subordinates; their preferences, goals, tasks, and assignments; and the organizational and external environment.
Some argue that direction or participation will depend on the nature of the situation; others state that it depends on the leader’s judgment of the situation (Hersey & Blanchard, 1977; Vroom & Yetton, 1973). Still others find that the predispositions of the leader are most significant (Fiedler, 1967a).
Situations have an obvious impact. On the one hand, crisis conditions may make any leader directive. On the other hand, a leader of a project team that is composed of experts from different fields will most likely benefit the project by being participative. Nevertheless, it may be that personality has more of an effect on a leader’s being directive, but the situation has more of an effect on the leader’s being participative (Farrow & Bass, 1977). Both the contingency and the noncontingency theorists may be right. Frequency of directiveness may be mainly a matter of personality; frequency of participation may hinge mainly on contingent factors. Farrow and Bass (1977) found, for 77 managers who were described by their 407 subordinates, that situational factors, as seen by the managers or by the subordinates, were irrelevant in determining whether a manager would be directive. Path analyses indicated that managers who were most frequently directive, according to their subordinates, were highly assertive and regarded people as fundamentally unfair. Such managers were highly satisfied with their own jobs. If the managers had short-term rather than long-term objectives, their subordinates saw them to be manipulative and negotiative. These results went beyond various organizational, intrapersonal, and personal attributes of the subordinates. However, the amount of participation seen by subordinates depended on the extent to which the manager perceived that the subordinates had discretionary opportunities and highly interdependent tasks.
Self-confidence and a personal sense of security were likely to have a strong effect on a leader’s tendencies to be directive or participative (Bass & Barrett, 1981). Vroom (1960a) found that managers with authoritarian personalities, as measured by the F Scale of Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford (1950), were more directive. The lower the managers’ need for independence and the higher their degree of authoritarianism, the higher was their directiveness. Belief in the legitimacy of the manager’s prerogative to plan, direct, and control had similar effects. Managers who characterized themselves on personality inventories as unwilling to believe that people are fair-minded were more likely to be directive, according to their subordinates. This finding was consistent with the proposition that managers will be directive because they believe in Theory X: that employees cannot be trusted (McGregor, 1960). Conversely, those who felt people were fair-minded tended to be participative (Farrow & Bass, 1977). Among 122 undergraduates, dominance correlated with effectiveness as directive leaders. Dominance and supportiveness correlated with effectiveness as participative leaders (Sorenson & Savage, 1989).
Educational background also made a difference. Bass, Valenzi, and Farrow (1977) found a correlation of .37 between the educational level of 76 managers and their tendency to be participative. If leaders were women, more participative leadership was expected of them (Pelletier, 1999).
Myers-Briggs Types. There is a consistent linkage between one’s thought processes and the tendency to be directive or participative. For example, according to a study of 55 managers and executives by O’Roark (1986), who correlated scores on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator with the Bass-Valenzi preferred management styles, thinking types were most directive and feeling types were least directive; sensing types were least negotiating and intuitive types were more consulting. Schweiger and Jago (1982) reported that among 62 graduate business students, Myers-Briggs intuitive types tended to choose fewer participative solutions to the problem set of Vroom and Yetton (1974), whereas sensing types tended to choose more such participative solutions. Overall, personality seemed less important than situational determinants in the choices that were made.
Risk Preferences and Propensities. Whether managers delegate certain duties to subordinates may depend on whether the managers enjoy doing the tasks themselves, as well as on their willingness to take risks and wait for others to succeed (Matthews, 1980). Managers also need to feel secure and confident in themselves and in their subordinates (Hollingsworth & Al-Jafary, 1983). The riskiness of a decision to a supervisor is decreased if it is to be implemented on a trial basis. In a simulation with 143 bank employees under such conditions, Rosen and Jerdee (1978) found the leaders to be more willing to engage in participation when decisions were to be implemented on a trial basis than when decisions implied permanent solutions. The risk of decisions is increased for top managers who face intense competition from the marketplace. In such situations, the top manager tends to be more directive and highly controlling in some decisions—say, about production, purchasing, and cost control—and more participative in others, such as those dealing with raising capital, research and development, policy changes, and marketing strategies (Khandwalla, 1973).
Power. Leaders with power can be more directive. Leaders who are esteemed and valued by subordinates, who are acknowledged as experts, and who are seen by subordinates to control rewards (that the leaders can allocate among the subordinates) have the power to be directive (Mulder, 1971; Raven, 1965b). In addition to the effects of expert, reward, and referent power on being directive, there are also effects of coercive and legitimate power. If the power of leaders is suddenly increased in an experiment, the amount the leaders can be directive is also increased, and in fact the leaders do tend to increase their directiveness (Shiflett, 1973). But, paradoxically, leadership power is required to create participative circumstances. Whether power results in direction or participation depends on other factors. The results are decidedly mixed. Chitayat and Venezia (1984) noted that in Israeli business organizations, leaders’ self-reported power contributed to their being directive, but the reverse occurred in the Israeli armed forces and governmental agencies. In such bureaucratic organizations, powerful leaders were more participative because the rules and procedures required directiveness, and only executives with more power could be participative if they chose to be. However, Hord, Hall, and Stiegelbauer (1984) found that more powerful school principals were more directive than were their less powerful assistant principals, teachers, or curriculum coordinators.
Experience. Heller and Yukl (1969) reported, in a study of 203 British managers at all hierarchical levels in 16 organizations, that despite their greater power and status, senior managers, particularly those who had been in their positions for a considerable time, were more likely than junior managers to share in decision making with their subordinates. Seversky (1982) found that more delegation was practiced by school superintendents who had more experience in their jobs. Likewise, Pinder, Pinto, and En gland (1973) found that older managers tended to be more participative, whereas younger managers tended to be more directive. Age, however, was unrelated to participativeness in a study of 48 manufacturing executives (H.R. Gillespie, 1980).
Ideological Beliefs. Locke and Schweiger (1979) provided academic and management advocacy for the moral reasons for participative leadership. The humanist movement argued that participative leadership was right and good. Directive leadership was questionable (Maslow, 1965). Likewise, participative leadership was regarded by some leaders as morally correct in a democratic society. Some extremists, such as Rost (1993), suggested that engaging followers (relabeled “collaborators”) as participants in decisions is always the right thing to do. For Rost, the old paradigm to be discarded was doing what the leader wishes. The new paradigm to replace it was doing what both the leader and the collaborators wished to do. Nonetheless, Sagie (1997) pointed out that although a directive, tell-and-sell strategy of assigning goals could be as productive in performance and the quality of decision making (Sagie, 1994), and that assigning goals could be as effective as participation in goal setting (Locke & Latham, 1990), the continuing arguments for participation were based on ideological reasons (Dickson, 1982) rather than empirical evidence.
As was noted in Chapter 14, there is a clear linkage between what a U.S. Navy executive officer of a ship can and does do and the responsibility, authority, and delegation of his immediate superior—the commanding officer. Stogdill and Scott (1957) correlated the responsibility (R), authority (A), and delegation (D) scores (RAD scores; see Chapter 14) of commanding officers and executive officers with the average RAD scores of their junior officers on submarines and landing ships. The executive officers tended to delegate more freely to their subordinates on both types of ships when their commanding officers exercised wider scopes of responsibility and authority and delegated more freely. Commanding officers could increase or decrease their executive officers’ workload and freedom of action. Subordinates tended to tighten their controls as superiors increased their own responsibility and freedom of action. However, responsibility and authority did not flow without interruption down the chain of command. The responsibility, authority, and delegation of subordinates were more highly influenced by the subordinates’ immediate supervisors than by the subordinates’ higher-level officers.
Some degree of agreement between the leader and the led about procedures, interests, and norms is necessary before effective participation can take place (Heller, 1969). In addition, they must concur that participation is relevant. Yukl and Yu (1999) reported that participative leadership with subordinates—like consultation and delegation—depended on the competence of the follower, task objectives shared with the leader, status of the follower as a supervisor, and favorable relations between the leader and the follower.
Relevance of Participation. Subordinates or followers vary in how much they would like to participate in decisions. As was noted earlier, Heller (1972a, 1976) found, in a number of samples in several countries, that managers used participation more frequently when decisions were more important to their subordinates than to the firm. In an overall review of the literature, Hespe and Wall (1976) demonstrated that although workers wanted to participate more than they actually were given the opportunity to do, they expressed the greatest interest in participating in decisions that were related directly to the performance of their jobs, followed by matters concerning their immediate work units. They expressed little interest in participating in general policy decisions. This finding was corroborated by Long (1979), who asked workers in a Canadian trucking company that had become wholly owned by its employees about their participation in company affairs after the employee takeover. According to Maier (1965), subordinates will prefer participation rather than direction if they are seeking personal growth, if they are striving to be more creative, and if they are highly interested in the objectives of the task. On the other hand, they may prefer a great deal of direction, guidance, and attention from their supervisor until they have mastered the job, particularly if the job does not involve much creativity but requires only attention to routine details that must be learned (Bennis, 1966c).
Followers’ Personality. Abdel-Halim (1983a), Abdel-Halim and Rowland (1976), and Vroom (1960a), among others, found that the personality traits of subordinates are of consequence to the participatory process. Just as authoritarian leaders wanted to be directive with their subordinates, so their authoritarian subordinates wanted to be directed by authoritarian leaders. Followers with authoritarian attitudes were likely to reject participative leadership. Highly authoritarian personalities wanted powerful, prestigious leaders who would strongly direct them.6
Followers’ Competence. Raudsepp (1981) suggested that managers need a comprehensive inventory of subordinates’ capabilities before deciding what duties they can delegate to subordinates and in which areas subordinates need further experience. Managers will consider participative approaches too risky when they have reservations about the competence and commitment of their lower-level employees (Rosen & Jerdee, 1977). Lowin (1968) showed that subordinates who perceived that they were not competent in the tasks to be completed were more appreciative of directive supervision than were those who thought of themselves as competent. Similarly, Heller (1969a) found that whenever managers reported a big difference in skills between themselves and their subordinates, they were more likely to use direction. The differentials in skills that were of particular importance were technical ability, decisiveness, and intelligence. Managers were more likely to engage in participation when they esteemed the subordinates for their expertise and personal qualities. Heller (1976) also found that participative leadership was favored at senior organizational levels when the competence of subordinates was high. Similarly, on the basis of a study of members of 144 work groups in 13 local health agencies, Mohr (1977) concluded that supervisors favored participation when their subordinates had more training and were at higher technical and professional levels. Sinha and Chowdhry (1981) found, in a survey of 135 Indian executives, that the executives tended to be participative if they believed their subordinates were better prepared but were more directive with subordinates who they felt were less well prepared. Locke and Schweiger (1979) also concluded that leaders are more likely to be participative when they believe their subordinates have the necessary information to contribute to the quality of decisions. In a mass role-playing experiment, Maier and Hoffman (1965) observed experimentally that the “foreman” who regarded his “subordinates” as men with ideas was more likely to lead his crew toward an integrated solution to their problem on the basis of their participation in making the decision. However, if the “foreman” thought he was dealing with difficult employees, he was more likely to direct them toward a solution he favored than to involve them extensively in the decision-making process.
In their prescriptive model, Vroom and Yetton (1973) deduced that leaders need to consider being more participative if they think they lack information that their subordinates are likely to have. The Hersey and Blanchard (1977) model assumed that the subordinates’ competence is the most important determinant of whether and when a manager should be directive or participative (see Chapter 19). Leana (1987) reported a correlation of .42 between the willingness of insurance supervisors to delegate responsibilities to their 122 subordinate claims adjusters and their judgment of the capabilities of these subordinates. Tendencies to delegate correlated .27 with the subordinates’ appraised trustworthiness. As was mentioned before, Dewhirst, Metts, and Ladd (1987–1988) found strong indications that managers were less willing to delegate if the subordinates were incompetent or the tasks were difficult and highly technical.
The interplay of the superior and the subordinate contributes to the superior’s tendency to be directive or participative. Thus in an Israeli study, Somech and Drach-Zahavy (2003) reported that demographic similarity in age, tenure, education, and sex and the quality of the leader-member exchange (LMX; Chapter 16) were conducive to participative leadership.
Differences in Power and Information. Bass and Valenzi (1974) proposed that the frequency with which a particular leadership style is used could be accounted for by the differences in power between the manager and the subordinates and by the differences in their competence or the information available to them. Shapira (1976) confirmed, through smallest-space analysis, the validity of Bass and Valenzi’s deductions. Given the managers’ power (Pm), the subordinates’ power (Ps), the managers’ information (Im), and the subordinate’s information (Is), then direction is more likely if Pm > Ps and Im > Is. Manipulation or negotiation is more likely if Pm < Ps and Im > Is. Consultation is more likely if Pm > Ps and Im < Is. Delegation is more likely if Pm < Ps and Im < Is.
Effects of the Quality of the Exchange Relationship. An analysis of 58 superior-subordinate paired questionnaires by Scandura, Graen, and Novak (1986) revealed that the quality of LMX further complicates matters. Regardless of their competence, as rated by their superiors, subordinates who perceive they are in a more satisfying exchange relationship with their superiors also believe that their superiors allow them to participate much more in decision making. But subordinates who think they are in a dissatisfying relationship will perceive such participation only if their performance has been rated highly by their superiors. If the relationship with superiors is poor and the subordinates’ performance has been rated low, the superiors will be seen as much more directive. Superiors agree with this description of the exchange relationship and its effects.
Policies, goals, task requirements, and functions constrain how directive or participative a leader can be. They also furnish objectives that the leader will see as being met more satisfactorily by either direction or participation. Both the leader and the subordinates may be constrained by rules, regulations, and schedules, demands on their time, and fixed requirements for methods and solutions over which they have no control. The requirements of a decision may be highly programmed. Greater acceptance and change by the group may be desired or required. The manager may consider the objectives to be long-range rather than a quick payoff—that is, the development of subordinates or the creation of a capable and effective operation for the long run may be more important than immediate profitability. According to Vroom (1976a), it “seems unlikely” that the same leadership style would be appropriate when the objective was to save time than when the objective was the long-term development of subordinates. If the cost of the time required of subordinates is more expensive than the value of the outcomes of their participation, directive approaches are more likely (Tannenbaum & Massarik, 1950).
Muscyk and Steele (1998) reviewed the characteristics of “turnaround” executives. When organizations are faced with crises, such executives are brought in to prevent the organization from failing. Directive leadership is required. Unpopular decisions have to be made. Subordinate autonomy and participation may have to be reined in.
Organizational Function. Chitayat and Venezia (1984) found, in their previously cited investigation of 224 Israeli executives, that differences in the frequency of use of leadership styles were associated with differences in organizational norms, climate, and structure.
Since marketing is usually under shorter time constraints than research, a directive style may be appropriate more often in work units in marketing than in research (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967a, 1967b). Heller and Yukl (1969) found that production and finance managers tended to use directive decision making, whereas general and personnel managers were more participative.
In a study of 155 managers of police (Kuykendall and Unsinger, 1982), the managers stated that they would avoid delegating, regardless of the problem faced. Like managers in accounting, finance, and production, managers of police supervise more standardized, programmed types of jobs that permit less freedom, less flexibility, and less meaningful participation by subordinates. Nevertheless, when faced with unprogrammed personnel decisions, they could be more participative. Similar findings appeared for accountants. A study of 212 chief accountants (McKenna, undated) found that although they were generally more likely to be directive than participative, they were more likely to use consultation and participation than direction or delegation when they had to make unprogrammed rather than programmed decisions. This was also true when they had to make decisions dealing with personnel rather than with tasks. Similarly, as noted above, the police managers were more likely to be participative than directive when faced with such decisions. Service managers thought that they generally faced more unprogrammed decisions. Child and Ellis (1973) found, in a study of 787 managers in service organizations, that these managers saw their roles as less formal, less well defined, and less routine than did managers in manufacturing organizations, Miner (1973) concluded that participative management was most likely to be found in organizations of professionals. Miller (1986) advocated participativeness with R & D professionals whose work was less programmed.
Woodward (1965) studied the impact of technology on decision-making processes in 100 British firms. She concluded that in companies involved in mass or batch production, decision making was more likely to be directive but usually did not set precedents. However, in continuous-processing industries such as petroleum refining, decisions were more likely to be made by committees with considerable participation by subordinates, and these decisions had long-term implications.
Organizational Level. Stogdill and Shartle (1955) reported correlations between the tendency to delegate and the self-rated authority and responsibility of managers on the RAD scales in 10 organizations (Stogdill & Shartle, 1948). On the average, delegation correlated .17 with responsibility and .23 with authority. Since greater authority and responsibility naturally went with higher-level positions, it was not surprising to find that delegation was also higher among managers in those positions. Moreover, delegation must be practiced at higher levels because organizations cannot afford to pay high-level executives to spend their time carrying out activities that could be performed by the lower-paid staff (Major, 1984). Using the RAD scales (Chapter 14) to study large governmental organizations, Kenan (1948) also found, as expected, that executives in higher-level positions described themselves as having a greater tendency to delegate than those in lower-level positions. Browne (1949) noted that executives’ salaries related positively to their estimates of how much they delegated. D. T. Campbell (1956) reported that delegation was positively and significantly related to one’s level in various types of organizations, as well as to one’s military rank, time in one’s position, and regard for being in a position of leadership.
Blankenship and Miles (1968) observed that the level of one’s position was more important than the span of control or size of the organization in determining delegation by managers. Compared with managers at lower levels, upper-level managers not only reported greater freedom from their superiors with regard to decisions but tended to involve their subordinates more in decisions. H. R. Gillespie (1980) agreed, finding that among 48 manufacturing executives, those at the top level were more participative than were those at the next two levels below them.
A higher organizational level brings with it many of the conditions that promote greater participation, and lower organizational levels do the reverse. Senior executives are concerned with longer-range problems and policies, norms, and values. They are dealing directly with more creative, more educated, higher-status subordinates, who expect more opportunities to participate and have a greater interest in long-term commitments and in their own development. Directive practices are more prevalent at lower levels, since managers are dealing with more routine types of work, more clearly defined objectives, and less well-educated subordinates of lower status who have fewer expectations about participating in the decision-making process (Selznick, 1957). Thus in their intensive study of workers on the assembly line, Walker and Guest (1952) emphasized that supervision was likely to be more directive, particularly if the tasks were routine.
Tasks. The nature of the work may determine whether the leader will need to be more directive or participative. If the tasks are simple, direction may be more acceptable than when tasks are complex. Although Ford (1983) argued that there must be some way to measure the outcomes of tasks if tasks are to be delegated, Mohr (1971) found that the degree of “task manageability” did not increase a manager’s participatory style, but the task interdependence of the manager’s subordinates did. Understandably, Leana (1986) reported that supervisors with heavier workloads were more likely than supervisors with lighter loads to delegate work to their insurance claims adjusters.
Phase. The phase in the work or decision process will affect whether leadership should be directive or participative. Wilson-Evered, Dall, and Neale (2001) noted that direction from the top may facilitate the initiation of innovative tasks; participation may generate more support for new ideas, their diffusion, and their implementation. Heifitz (1994) used the example of the physician-patient relationship in the diagnostic-treatment process to illustrate when direction or participation should dominate. In the first phase of diagnosis and treatment, the work is technical and the physician is primarily responsible for the work. When the patient is under stress, the flow of diagnostic and prognostic information to him or her may need to be paced and sequenced. The second phase, implementation, is technical but also requires the patient to learn and adapt. Here responsibility needs to be shared between physician and patient. In the third phase, as the relationship continues, the patient needs to learn to take on more responsibility than the physician. Heller, Drenth, Koopman, et al. (1988) studied the phases in 56 decisions in three Dutch organizations. Management dominated the first (start-up) phase and the third (finalization) stage. Professional staffs and middle management were most influential in the second (developmental) phase. Participation by lower organizational levels was limited to the fourth (implementation) phase. Richard Nixon saw participation as limited to the first phase of decision making and direction as mandatory in its finalization. “I would not think of making a decision by going around the table. Of course, I like to hear everyone, but then I go off alone and then decide. The decisions that are important must be made alone” (Schecter, 1982, pp. 18, 19).
Perceived Importance of Outside Environmental Influences. Managers differ in what aspects of the outside environment they regard as most important to their work, and as a consequence they behave differently inside the organization. Bass, Valenzi, and Farrow (1977) asked 76 managers to describe the importance of economic, political, social, and legal influences on the work of their 277 immediate subordinates. These subordinates, in turn, described the frequency with which their own manager displayed direction, negotiation, consultation, participation, and delegation. Managers who tended to see economic events, such as inflation and taxes, as having strong effects on their work situation were more likely to be directive or negotiative. Managers who tended to see political, social, or legal issues as more important were more likely to be consultative or participative.
Higher Authority. If rules and regulations that are set by a higher authority or the central administration restrict subordinates’ decisions, then supervisors dominate the group and make the decisions (Hemphill, Seigel, & Westie, 1951). A higher authority can indirectly prevent subordinates’ participation in decisions by demanding immediate answers from supervisors and allowing the supervisors no time or opportunity to consult their subordinates. In addition, whether supervisors can be participative with their subordinates depends on the extent to which the higher authority requires the employees to be secretive about products, techniques, and business strategies. If people in the organization are supposed to know only “what they need to know,” employees cannot be consulted about some decisions because much of the information required to discuss and consider such decisions cannot be revealed to them (Tannenbaum & Massarik, 1950).
The number of hierarchical levels at which participation is encouraged by policy will increase the tendency of supervisors to be participative throughout the system. The acceptance and promotion of the participative ideology by the sponsors of the organization and its top management are particularly important (Marrow, Bowers, & Seashore, 1968).7 The efforts of chief executive officers (CEOs) at General Motors, National Intergroup, and W. L. Gore & Associates demonstrated that participative leadership could be increased throughout their systems through the transformational leadership of their CEOs. The CEOs articulated a corporate mission and philosophy to encourage participation. They worked to gain acceptance of the approach by other key top executives, then the acceptance of those at lower levels. Participation at all levels was encouraged by changing the corporate culture, developing trust at all levels, and building the necessary skills for effective participation. These actions of top management resulted in increased employee commitment, job satisfaction, and role clarity (Niehoff, Enz, & Grover, 1989). If top management is transformational, there will be more support for participation at lower levels, according to the survey of 485 upper-level managers by Collins and Ross (1989). Board and top management pressure to promote from within may also increase the need for and importance of delegation at all levels in the organization to develop personnel for higher-level positions. The effectiveness of such delegation depends on setting early expectations about the results that are desired.
L. B. Ward’s (1965) large-scale survey of top management in the United States suggested strongly that (at the time) the religious affiliation of the top managers in a firm affected the firm’s personnel policies. Leadership at lower levels was more likely to be participative when the top management was not restricted to members of one religious group. When the top management was restricted to one religion, participation was most likely in all-Jewish-led firms and least likely in all-Catholic-led firms. These findings need replication in the early twenty-first century.
Organizational Size. Blankenship and Miles (1968), McKenna (undated), and Wofford (1971) reported systematic trends between the size of the organization and the leadership style observed in it. On the whole, managers in larger firms exhibited more participation and less directiveness. However, a third variable may have been responsible, such as more education among managers of larger firms, differences in policies, and so forth.
The results for small naval vessels differed markedly from those obtained for larger ships (Stogdill & Scott, 1957), particularly for delegation. The effects of delegation continued unbroken down the chain of command in the large organizations of the bigger vessels. On the small ships, the delegation process was broken or reversed in the third echelon down from the top. Characterized by a high rate of face-to-face interaction, the personnel of the small ships were subject to greater interpersonal stresses and strains than were crews of the large ships. The formalized interactions in highly stratified larger organizations appeared to reduce some of the tension found in the smaller organizations, where personal interaction is conducted less formally. A formalized interaction structure had the effect of enlarging members’ area of freedom of action, whereas the context inherent in face-to-face interaction tended to restrict freedom of action for some group members.8
So far, this chapter has identified the attributes of the leader and the led, as well as the constraints and objectives of the task and surrounding conditions, that influence whether a leader will be directive or participative. This section examines the effects of direction or participation on follower acceptance of leadership, their satisfaction and morale, their involvement and commitment, the quality of decisions reached, and innovation and productivity.
The evidence does not automatically favor one leadership style over the other. Even the leadership that emerges in self-managed work groups, according to observations and group interviews by Manz and Sims (1984), needs to balance a hands-off with a directive style if it is to be effective. When asked about what managers do to appear fair, group members saw both direction with explanations and participative decision making as important. A survey of 815 managers by Greenberg (1988) found that to be seen as fair, 81% of the managers thought they needed to announce all pay raises and promotions; 76% thought they should explain how raises are determined; 43% thought they should explain why work assignments are made; and 55% said that subordinates should be allowed to participate in decisions. Yukl (1998, p. 126)) concluded from 40 years of research evidence that “participative leadership sometimes results in higher satisfaction, effort, and performance, and at other times it does not.”
A meta-analysis by Spector (1986) found the following average correlations of employee outcomes with amount of participative leadership: involvement, .65; job satisfaction, .44; motivation, –.43; commitment, –.43; intention to quit, –.20; role ambiguity, –.54. Average correlations of the amount of participativeness with employee performance was .23; with turnover, –.38; and with role conflict, –.42. Despite this evidence, a variety of contingencies must be taken into consideration with regard to the benefits and costs of participation. Early on, Miner (1973, p. 348) suggested that the costs of participation may outweigh the benefits in many circumstances:
The change in value[s] … required to implement participation on a large scale can be costly. … Many managers must be retrained to the participative leadership style; many others will find change difficult and end by seeking other employment. Among these latter may be individuals with considerable talent in aspects of the management process … such as planning, coordinating, and controlling. … Individuals whose opinions are rejected … can become alienated. … [P]articipation may yield a sense of closeness and belonging … that is mobilized behind objectives not in the best interest of the organization. … [P]articipative decision making is a slow process which may not be adequately responsive to rapid changes in an organization’s environment.
Lawler (1986) strongly advocated participation as a means of decreasing workers’ resistance to changes in procedures and increasing the flexibility of assignments. Nonetheless, he expected that salary and training costs would increase, as would resistance by some staff personnel and line managers to participative decision making. A sampling of evidence on the general effects of directive and participative leadership follows. Then evidence about contingencies that moderate the effects will be presented.
In general, the available evidence supports the contention that participative leadership promotes the acceptance of decisions and agreement to a greater extent than does directive leadership. When participative leadership is practiced in a group, R. Likert (1961a, 1961b) found that each member has the opportunity to gain recognition and a sense of self-worth. This type of leadership also creates conditions that allow each subordinate to observe how everyone else in the group feels about a matter under consideration. Such conditions reduce the individual’s resistance to suggestions and changes of opinion. Thus Bennett (1955) obtained results indicating that students were much more likely to volunteer as experimental subjects if they perceived that almost all other members of their class had volunteered. Observing near-consensus and the opportunity to make public decisions increased volunteering more than did the opportunity for discussion. In a more tightly controlled experiment, Penning-ton, Haravey, and Bass (1958) showed that the followers’ acceptance and change were greatest when both discussion and group decision were permitted; less when only group discussion or announcements of group opinion were allowed; and least when only secret balloting was used.
In a seminal experiment, “participatory leaders” were instructed primarily to inhibit hasty decisions and domination of the group by any one member. They were contrasted by Preston and Heintz (1949) with “supervisory leaders,” who were instructed to keep the group on the task. With more shared participation under participatory leaders, members as a whole showed more agreement with each other than did members without the opportunity to interact as much. The latter were more likely to be coerced, in that they showed less acceptance of decisions privately than publicly. Pennington, Haravey, and Bass (1958) found that experimental groups under participative leadership achieved greater coalescence and changes in opinion than did groups who were denied the opportunity to discuss and decide. Bovard (1951a, 1951b) observed that group-centered teams shifted their perceptions toward a common group norm more readily than did leader-centered teams. Hare (1953) found that although both participative and supervisory (directive) styles of leadership produced significant changes in the amount of agreement among group members, participative leaders were more in agreement with the group’s rankings than were directive leaders. Likewise, Levine and Butler (1952) found participative leadership and group decisions to be more successful in producing behavioral change than did a lecture or control condition.
T. P. Wilson (1968) reported that prisoners make a better cooperative adaptation to prison life under participative rather than under bureaucratic management. Similarly, French, Kay, and Meyer (1966) observed that lower-level managers’ participation in an appraisal system facilitated their acceptance of the goal, the group’s co-hesiveness, and favorable attitudes toward the appraisal procedures. Jacobson, Charters, and Lieberman (1951) showed that workers who were involved in decision making by their foremen but not by their shop stewards tended to share the values and goals of management, whereas workers who were involved in decisions by their stewards but not by their foremen tended to share the goals and standards of the union.
In a demonstration of how to change housewives’ meat-buying behavior (from steaks and chops to kidneys and liver) during World War II, Lewin (1947b) pointed the way toward the use of participative leadership to overcome resistance to change. Coch and French (1948) illustrated how a combination of participation in goal setting and the redesign of jobs resulted in increased productivity of three groups of garment workers with no such change obtained for a control group. Participation remains a key tool for those who cope with resistance to change (Lawler, 1986).
In an experiment with 47 executives, Bass (1967a) reported that the simulated advisory staff of a department head shifted and coalesced more if the department head announced his opinion, particularly if he did so at the beginning of the problem-solving meeting. Anderson and Balzer (1988) showed for 19 teams in a university residence hall who were dealing with various problems, that if the leaders immediately stated their opinions instead of withholding them until later in the discussion, fewer alternatives were proposed. Presumably, this was indicative of greater acceptance of the leader’s point of view. However, T. A. Hill (1973) found that in student groups, consensus was more likely to be achieved when the leader was least opinionated. More will be said about the effects of directiveness on acceptance in the discussion of how contingencies modify the effects of participation and direction.
Participation in all its forms has generally been found to increase subordinate satisfaction. However, evidence has been gathered that direction and persuasion can also be satisfying to followers, although to a lesser extent. And examples can be cited for situations in which participation fails to be satisfying to subordinates.
Preston and Heintz’s (1949) previously mentioned study revealed the greater satisfaction of subordinates under participatory than under supervisory (directive) leaders. Similarly, Bass, Burger, et al. (1979) found that for an international sample of 1,641 managers who were engaged as subordinates in a training simulation, 51.7% preferred working again with a participative rather than with either of two kinds of directive supervisors (the choice by chance was 33.3%). Zimet and Fine (1955) contrasted the results of lectures given to 15 chief school administrators with those of group-centered participative discussions. Although the administrators were initially more defensive in the discussions, subsequent sessions reduced their hostility and yielded increased warm, friendly behavior and more favorable attitudes toward themselves and others outside the meeting. Likewise, Ziller (1954) found that aircrews were more satisfied with decisions concerning simulated problems if they discussed the problem and their participative leader stated his opinion after the discussion. They were less satisfied when the decision was made authoritatively by a more directive leader. According to Aspegren (1963), participatory leadership produced higher levels of satisfaction and task motivation among group members than either directive or laissez-faire leadership. Storey’s (1954) study of groups with participative leaders and groups with directive leaders found that members of participative groups were better satisfied with the group procedures, the decisions reached, and intermember acceptance, although no significant differences were found in satisfaction with the leadership.
Effects of the Opportunity to Participate. A. S. Tannenbaum (1963) reported greater satisfaction among 200 clerks as a consequence of their increased opportunity to participate. Morse, Reimer, and Tannenbaum (1951) noted increased satisfaction with a new organizational arrangement that promoted more self-determination and group decision making by lowering by one echelon the authority to make and execute various decisions. What the supervisor had previously decided was now delegated to subordinates. Mann and Baumgartel (1952) found that employees who felt free to discuss job-related and personal problems with their supervisors were better satisfied with the company, exhibited less absenteeism, and enjoyed membership in more cohesive work groups. Baumgartel (1956, 1957) obtained results showing that scientists in research laboratories exhibited higher degrees of task motivation and job satisfaction under participatory than under directive supervisors. In a large metropolitan social service agency, Harrison (1985) found correlations of .42 and .47, respectively, between the extent to which the 30 superiors used participative decision making and the 233 subordinates’ desire to continue interacting with their leaders. Likewise, Mann, Indik, and Vroom (1963) reported that workers’ satisfaction was highly related to their participation in decision making; their satisfaction and task motivation were especially low under directive supervision. Absences of white-collar workers were related to how free they said they felt to discuss their job with their supervisor. Of the employees who were absent four or more times during a six-month period, only 29% said they felt very free to talk with their boss; 57% to 69% of those who were absent less often said they felt very free to hold such discussions (R. Likert, 1961a).
In a Dutch study, Drenth and Koopman (1984) obtained correlations for 175 municipal transport employees, 154 railway employees, and 153 steelworkers of .44, .57, and .35, respectively, between the employees’ participation in decision processes and the employees’ satisfaction with the processes. Early participation in the decision process was particularly important to satisfaction. In Australia, Wilson-Evered, Dall, and Neale (2001), found that for 277 employees, participative leadership correlated with their morale and their support for team objectives. Weschler, Kahane, and Tannenbaum (1952) found that a research group led by a directive leader was less satisfied with its job. Alutto and Belasco (1972) reported that dissatisfaction and job tension were associated with “decision making deprivation.”
Effects of Directive Leadership on Satisfaction. Direction may also be satisfying. Farrow, Valenzi, and Bass’s (1980) analyses of approximately 1,400 subordinates’ descriptions of their 350 managers in the Bass-Valenzi Management Styles Survey found that the managers’ direction was positively correlated with satisfaction (.17 and .18). For the same sample, consultation correlated .34 with the subordinates’ satisfaction with their jobs and .53 with the subordinates’ satisfaction with their supervisors. The managers’ participation, as seen by the subordinates, correlated .25 with their job satisfaction and .41 with their satisfaction with the leader. Comparable correlations of delegation with satisfaction were .32 and .46. Only negotiation or manipulation was negatively related to job satisfaction (2.16) and satisfaction with the leader (2.16). Using the same Bass-Valenzi instrument with 147 assistant school superintendents’ descriptions of their superintendents, Wilcox (1982) obtained similar results. The rated superintendents’ frequency of direction by the assistants correlated .50 with their satisfaction with the superintendents’ leadership, although only .25 with their job satisfaction. The superintendents’ frequency of participation, according to their assistant superintendents, correlated .37 with the assistants’ job satisfaction and .41 with their satisfaction with the superintendents’ leadership. In both Farrow, Bass, and Valenzi’s study and Wilcox’s study, consultation (in which the leader seeks advice from subordinates but makes the final decision) and delegation (in which the decision is left to the subordinates) were seen as more satisfying leadership styles than was participation (in which the decision is shared between the leader and the subordinates). Thus Wilcox obtained a correlation of .58 between consultation and satisfaction with the superintendents’ leadership and .43 between delegation and such satisfaction. Participation and satisfaction correlated somewhat lower. A similar pattern of correlations with the same instrument translated into Turkish was obtained by Ergun and Onaran (1981) for 107 subordinates’ descriptions of their supervisors in the Turkish Electrical Authority.
Berkowitz (1953b) observed decision-making groups in business and governmental organizations and found that group cohesiveness and the members’ satisfaction decreased with participative leadership and increased with directive leadership. Although one would expect to find that leaders who say they delegate a great deal generate greater satisfaction among their subordinates, often the subordinates fail to appreciate the delegation (Stog-dill & Shartle, 1948). The subordinates may not appreciate it because they believe they lack the authority to go along with the responsibilities that have been delegated to them. Also, superiors may believe they are delegating, but their subordinates may see the same behavior as dumping undesirable assignments on them. Or, they may think the delegation is marred by overly close monitoring; the resources necessary to carry out the delegated task may not be provided; or the leader’s instructions may be ambiguous. Conditions that contribute to the failure of participation to be satisfying to subordinates can be a consequence of contingencies such as whether the participation is for the short or long term. For instance, Cotton, Vollrath, Froggatt, et al. (1988) showed that short-term participation failed to contribute to either employee satisfaction or productivity. Participation required more time to be effective.
Compared with a nondirective leader, a directive leader is more satisfying. Page and McGinnies (1959) showed a motion picture to groups of subjects who discussed the film under two styles of leadership—directive and nondirective. The directive leader was rated by the members as significantly more interesting, satisfying, purposeful, frank, industrious, and persuasive than the non-directive leader. Levy (1954a, 1954b) also found that the satisfaction of members was higher under directive than under nondirective leadership.
According to D. Katz (1951), workers tend to enter groups or withdraw psychologically from groups as a function of their ability to make decisions in those groups. Many commentators (see, for example, Tichy & Devanna, 1986) have noted that the participation of employees is critical for the reorganization of a firm or agency and its successful implementation.
Kahn and Tannenbaum (1957) and Tannenbaum and Smith (1964) surveyed organized workers and members of women’s clubs. The members’ participation was facilitated by leaders who encouraged consultation and participation in activities. The members’ loyalty to the organization was also strengthened by participation in activities. Likewise, in a study of technicians and laboratory testers at the Tennessee Valley Authority, Patchen (1970) found that participative management led to increased individual integration into the organization. Individuals became more involved in the work project when they were engaged in participative decision making. Siegel and Ruh (1973) reported similar results in a study of manufacturing employees; participative leadership was positively related to the employees’ involvement in their jobs.
The opportunity to participate can be a mixed blessing. According to a nationwide survey by Gurin, Veroff, and Feld (1960), participation in the decision-making process increases both one’s involvement in one’s job and one’s frustration with it. A. S. Tannenbaum (1963) studied 200 clerks who were given greater responsibility to make decisions. Despite their general increase in satisfaction, the clerks felt less sense of accomplishment at the end of the workday and were less satisfied with their present level in the organization. In acquiring an increased feeling of responsibility for the work, the clerks developed standards of achievement that were harder to satisfy.
Locke (1968) began a long line of investigation by questioning whether the mere directive assignment of hard goals to people was sufficient to generate heightened commitment and productivity; the people did not have to participate in the decision to set the hard goals. Considerable experimental support was obtained in U.S. studies (Latham & Baldes, 1975). Likewise, feedback appeared more important than participation in a study of the safety practices of 150 U.S. workers by Fellner and Sulzer-Azaroff (1985). But in Israel, Erez and Arad (1986) noted that involvement and commitment were required for the heightened productivity to occur, and such involvement and commitment could be obtained only if the experimental subjects participated in setting the goals. These differences between the United States and Israel appear to have been resolved (Locke, Latham, & Erez, 1987) when it was discovered that participation was unnecessary in the United States for the required commitment to be achieved, because the commitment seemed to have been gained by the friendly, supportive behavior of the experimenter in assigning the goals. In Israel, the experimenter who assigned the goals was curt and abrupt. Here, only with participation in goal setting, was it possible to obtain the expected commitment and subsequent heightened performance. Thus relations-oriented leadership, a subject of Chapter 19, may substitute (as in the U.S. experiments) for actual participation in gaining the commitment of subordinates.
Generally, both participation and direction can affect subordinates’ task performance and task outcomes. For example, Nutt (1986) examined 84 cases from service organizations, such as hospitals, governmental agencies, charities, and professional societies, in which managers had sponsored efforts to implement planned changes. In 16 cases, the directive managers first acquired the necessary authority and then demonstrated or justified the changes with appropriate information; their implementation efforts were successful in 100% of these 16 cases. In another 14 cases, the participative managers first stipulated the needs, opportunities, and objectives and then set up task forces to develop recommendations; overall success occurred in 84% of these 14 cases. In 35 cases, managers used persuasion to sell the planned changes after the changes had been formulated by the staff or consultants; here the success rate was 73%. In the remaining 19 cases, implementation was by management edict and least success was found. Here, the sponsor of the change used positional and personal power to issue directives ordering the changes; this approach achieved a success rate of 71%.
Bass (2000) suggested that directive supervision was more effective when supervising novices working on routine tasks, especially if the supervisor was experienced, knowledgeable, and esteemed. According to Portin and Shen (1998, p. 96), “the school principal remains the singular individual at the nexus of leadership in the school … [with] a mandatory responsibility [to deal with] the increasing complexity of schools and school administration.” Smither (1991) argued that, to be effective, managers may need to be authoritarian and directive. Tetrick (1989) provided supportive evidence with data from 422 naval personnel and their immediate supervisors. Informative and controlling supervisors enhanced their subordinates’ role clarity, motivation, and felt influence. P. J. Burke (1966a, 1966b), as well as Katzell, Miller, Rotter, et al. (1970), found that directive leadership could enhance group cohesiveness. Thiagarajan and Deep (1970) studied groups in which supervisors played three roles: directive, persuasive, and participative. The directive leader was more influential on coalescing agreement of follower and leader than the persuasive leader, and the persuasive leader was more influential than the participative one. Several meta-analytic reviews found that directive leadership could be as effective as participative leadership in increasing worker productivity (e.g., Sagie, 1994). Sagie (1997) offered three explanations:
1. As Muczyk and Reimann (1987–1989) suggested, participation is called for in making an effective decision; direction is concerned with executing the decision effectively once it has been made.
2. Since the superior is more knowledgeable about strategic issues, and the subordinates are more knowledgeable about tactical operations, direction should be used for strategic decisions and participation for tactical decisions.
3. For effectiveness, a coupling is needed between participatory goal setting and directive leadership that sets the framework for action, structures the interaction, and urges subordinates to contribute.
Sagie (1996) demonstrated that the third explanation was most accurate for 183 experimental team members required to solve problems in the least amount of time.
Experiments generally show that group decisions are superior to decisions reached by the average member of a group, although it is also true that the group decision may not be as good as that of the best member of the group. But how often is the supervisor the best? If it could be guaranteed that the supervisor was always the best, then the quality of the decision might be better when decisions were made by the supervisor alone (Bass, 1960).
When 66 U.S. Air Force officers wrote decisions before a discussion and then met as an ad hoc staff to write the decisions, the decisions written by the staff were superior to the average quality of the decisions written by individuals without a discussion. But the quality was the same after the discussion, whether the decision was written by the staff or by the commander who had listened to the staff’s discussion. Group discussions contributed to better decision making whether the final decision was written by the group or by the person leading the group (Lorge, Fox, Davitz, & Brenner, 1958). Many others have also studied the improved quality of decisions made by discussion groups.9
The quality of the decision was higher under participation than under a directive style of leadership that discouraged discussion. Lanzetta and Roby (1960) found that both time and error scores were better under participative than under directive leadership.
Leana (1983) engaged 208 undergraduate students in a role-play of a business problem. In the four-person groups, if the “vice president of operations” (the formal leader of the group) was participative rather than directive, the group generated and discussed significantly more alternative solutions. Directive leaders tended to produce premature closure of the search for solutions, which presumably reduced the quality of the final decision. These effects were independent of the groups’ cohesiveness. Watson and Michaelsen (1984) demonstrated that participative leadership in a role-playing setting with 35 four-person student groups generated more effective problem solving than did directive leadership.
However, numerous other studies can be cited in support of directive leadership. Katzell, Miller, Rotter, and Venet (1970) studied small problem-solving groups. More directiveness by leaders was positively associated with the groups’ greater effectiveness. Kidd and Christy (1961) found that avoidance of errors was greatest under directive leadership. Schumer (1962) obtained evidence indicating that both the quality and quantity of results were enhanced by a directive form of leadership. Torrance (1952) contrasted five types of critiques following 16 minutes of problem-solving activity by air crews in survival school to see which resulted in the greatest improvement in the ability to solve subsequent problems. The largest gains were made when an expert directed the critique; the next largest gains with guided discussion (participative leadership); and the least gain with free discussion (laissez-faire leadership) in which no control was exerted.
Schlesinger, Jackson, and Butman (1960) found that committees are more effective in solving problems under directive than under nondirective leadership. Stagner (1969), who studied a large sample of corporation executives by questionnaire, observed that corporate profits were associated with more formality, more centralization of decision making, and less personalized management.
If one searches for universal answers about the immediate effects of participation and direction on productivity, almost every possible alternative emerges. From a review of the results of laboratory, correlational, and univariate field studies of the effects of leadership style on productivity, Locke and Schweiger (1979) concluded that they could find no overall trend favoring participative or directive leadership. As for field studies with multiple antecedent conditions and outcomes, they thought that other factors, such as training and reward systems, often could account for effects on productivity that were attributed to participation. Likewise, Erez and Arad (1986) demonstrated that appropriate information and involvement in goal setting were needed for a participative group discussion to generate higher-quality performance. Nonetheless, Miller and Monge’s (1986) meta-analysis confirmed the significance of participative leadership to productivity. In a seminal experiment (detailed in Chapter 12), Coch and French (1948) demonstrated that the participation of pajama-manufacturing workers in decision making generated higher productivity and a lower turnover of personnel than did nonparticipation by a control group. A subsequent replication yielded comparable results (Marrow, Bowers, & Seashore, 1968). With groups of employees of a large supplier of aerospace electronics, Hinrichs (1978) obtained production increases of 20% to 30% and reductions in errors of 30% to 50% in 27 of 40 employee groups who were encouraged to participate over a four-year period.
R. Likert (1977b), aiming toward long-range effects, involved various business and industrial groups in management by group objectives (MBGO), which generates the participative sharing of data and the setting of a group’s goals. A 27% increase in profits over the previous year was reported from a retail sales division. Such participation by teams of foremen resulted in a rise in productivity of 15% and a decrease in scrap of 7% to 14% in an auto assembly plant. In an early study reported by the Survey Research Center (1948), work groups were more productive among those first-level supervisors in an insurance company who encouraged their workers to participate in decisions. Indik, Georgopoulos, and Seashore (1961) showed that among 975 deliverymen at 27 parcel delivery stations, the ease and freedom they felt in communicating with their superiors at a station correlated between .39 and .48 with the average deliveries the men completed daily in relation to the standard time allotted for completion.
R. J. Solomon (1976) demonstrated the greater effectiveness of participative library directors. The immediate subordinates of these directors evaluated the effectiveness of the services supplied by other departments. For instance, personnel in the acquisition departments evaluated the effectiveness of the circulation departments. Directors who were consultative and participative were the most conducive to high ratings of effective departments under them, and directors who were manipulative were the least conducive. Similarly, Reeder (1981) employed path analysis to show that participative leadership by supervisors of U.S. Army clerks and programmers was more causally related to the subordinates’ productivity than to the supervisors’ knowledge of their subordinates’ work. Programs of management by objectives (MBO) imply participative setting of goals. Gains in productivity occurred in 68 of 70 studies, but the average gain was 56% when top management was committed to the program and only 6% when it was not committed, according to a meta-analysis by Rodgers and Hunter (1991).
In still other studies, participation and direction were seen to have similar effects on task performance. According to Weschler, Kahane, and Tannenbaum (1952), a research group with a directive leader perceived itself to be less productive than one with a participative leader. However, the leaders’ boss thought the group led by the directive leader was more productive. Lange and Jacobs (1960) and Lange, Campbell, Katter, and Shanley (1958) found that directive patterns of leadership and encouraging participation were positively and significantly related to the performance ratings of groups. Similarly, Farrow, Valenzi, and Bass (1980) found that effectiveness correlated positively with the amount of direction (.23) by about 250 managers, as seen by 1,400 subordinates. Effectiveness also correlated positively with various participatory approaches: consultation (.23), participation (.23), and delegation (.22). Only negotiation or manipulation by managers was negatively related to effectiveness (–.25).
Hall and Donnell (1979) calculated the rate at which managers had been promoted by comparing their organizational level with their age. Over 2,000 subordinates indicated the extent to which the 731 managers allowed and encouraged them to participate in making and influencing work-related decisions. Although slowly and moderately advancing managers were seen to permit or encourage very little participation, faster-advancing managers did a lot of it. But Farrow, Valenzi, and Bass (1981) determined, for more than 1,200 managers and their subordinates, that the managers whose salaries were higher than would have been predicted from their function, their organization, their sex, and their seniority were seen by their subordinates to be persuasive, manipulative, and negotiative. Such managers were downgraded in effectiveness by their subordinates but evidently were pleasing to their bosses, who awarded them higher-than-expected salaries. Managers who were favored by their subordinates for their frequent consultation, participation, delegation, and direction were not similarly awarded salaries above the norms.
Support for participative leadership can be built into cognitive, affective, and contingent models (Miller & Menge, 1986). Cognitive models propose that participation contributes to subordinates’ satisfaction and productivity because it improves the interchange of important information in the organization. For example, Anthony (1978) argued that workers have more knowledge than do their managers and that their participation increases the information needed for high-quality decision making. Furthermore, as Melcher (1976) noted, people will work better under the requirements for implementing decisions if they have participated in the decision-making process. In a study of 12 high-technology R & D projects, McDonough and Kinnunen (1984) found that in the more successful projects, there was more discussion among the different levels of management about the projects’ goals and more constant distribution of information about progress.
The satisfaction of employees is a side effect of such participation (Ritchie & Miles, 1970). Since the distribution of information is the crucial aspect of participation, Miller and Monge (1986) deduced that stronger effects should occur with the participation of employees in decisions about the design of a job than in companywide policy decisions. Satisfaction should occur only after the feedback of information about the consequences of participation. Participation should not necessarily pay off in greater satisfaction merely for working in a participative climate or for a participative leader. It should pay off only when the exchange of knowledge is relevant to the decisions.
The affective model, strongly endorsed by the human relations school of thought (see, for example, Maslow, 1965; McGregor, 1960), posits that participation generates the satisfaction of higher-order needs in subordinates, which, in turn, increase the subordinates’ motivation, satisfaction, and quality and quantity of performance.
The third or contingency model stresses the importance of the perception of participation. Another contingency is the felt opportunity to participate. Still another contingency is the number of issues involved. From all 41 weighted and adjusted estimates of the relation between the amount of participative leadership and the satisfaction of subordinates, Miller and Monge (1986) obtained a mean correlation of .34 in their meta-analysis. The results were similar for students and organizational respondents. The correlation rose to .48 when the respondents perceived themselves to be participating on a multiplicity of issues (see, for example, Obradovic, 1970). It dropped to .21 if only a single specific issue was involved (see, for instance, Alutto & Acito, 1974). The correlation was only .16 between actual participation and satisfaction. What makes participative leadership satisfying for subordinates is not so much their actual participation in the decision-making process as their feeling that they genuinely have the opportunity to participate if they want to contribute to making a decision. Only about 50% of the American electorate actually votes in presidential elections; the rest are satisfied to remain on the sidelines. Yet if they were denied the ballot, strong protests, cries of dictatorship, and a great increase in dissatisfaction with the system would ensue.
From 25 studies, the Miller-Monge meta-analysis yielded a mean of .15 between participative leadership and the productivity of subordinates. The mean rose to .27 for field studies (in contrast to laboratory settings). As was reported earlier, in the laboratory studies in which participants were subject to participative or directive leadership, the mean correlation was –.33 (productivity was higher with direction). When a friendly supervisor subjected the participants to arbitrarily assigned goals or to participation in setting the goals, the mean correlation with productivity was –.01. It made no difference in these temporary conditions with a friendly experimenter whether arbitrary direction or participation was used.
Miller and Monge did not find a change in these mean results for managers compared to lower-level employees, or in different kinds of organizations; nor could they test the effects of personality. They concluded that with reference to such contingencies, they had found more support for the affective model than for the cognitive or contingent models. They reasoned in favor of the affective model because (1) they had found stronger effects between participation and satisfaction than between participation and productivity and (2) they had found stronger effects of a participative climate on the satisfaction of subordinates who were involved in multiple issues rather than in a single issue.
With reference to another contingency, they obtained mean correlations of –.33 versus .27 between participation and productivity in the laboratory versus the field studies. They inferred that directive leadership contributed to productivity in the laboratory because laboratory tasks tend to be simpler and to have clear objectives and outcomes. They thought that participation yielded more productivity in the field because tasks in the real-life work setting are likely to be more complex and to have unclear objectives and outcomes.
Wagner and Gooding (1987) uncovered another contingency. If single-source bias is present, in that the same respondent provides the data on participation and outcomes, mean correlations range from .34 to .42. But if one source provides the measure of participation and another source provides the data on outcomes, the range of correlations lowers to between .09 and .21. Overall, the impact of participation per se on performance and satisfaction is evident.
Additional support for the contingent model stems from the fact that, as was noted earlier, a majority of managers actually are directive or participative, depending on the nature of the decision to be made. With this fact in mind, Hambleton and Gumpert (1982) found that for 65 managers, their 189 subordinates, and their 56 supervisors, the adaptable, flexible manager who made a greater use of the variety of styles appropriate to different situations, according to the Hersey-Blanchard model (1977),10 emerged with significant and practical gains in the subordinates’ performance.
Integration of Models. Lawler (1986) integrated the models, suggesting that the effective participative process requires a multiplicative combination of the adequate flow of information, the requisite knowledge by employees of what needs to be done, shared power to decide, and satisfactory rewards for implementation. If any one of these elements is missing, the process will fail.
R. Likert (1977a) argued that if long-term measures of effectiveness are the criteria of consequence, then a democratic approach, including shared participative decision making, is universally more effective as long as the leader is task oriented. There are few contingencies for Likert. Blake and Mouton (1964) presented similar arguments for an integrated task-and relations-oriented approach. On the other hand, Bass and Barrett (1981) noted in reviewing the literature that participative leadership is contraindicated in situations with short-term perspectives when interaction is restricted by the task, when the higher authority disapproves, when maximum output is demanded, when subordinates do not expect to participate, when leaders are unready for participation, and when emergencies occur. Many comparable theories have been advanced on the basis of the postulate that effective leaders use participation or directive leadership styles to fit the situation. (See, for example, Austin’s [1981] style-flex model.) And countless commentaries and the inspirational management literature of the 1980s repeated the virtues of the life-cycle theory (Hersey & Blanchard, 1969a) that the key situational factor for leaders to consider is the maturity of their subordinates (Carbone, 1981).
The evidence so far is that although the meta-analytic effects are not as large as some commentators expect, generally participative leadership enhances performance, the quality of decisions, and satisfaction, but in the short run, at least, it may be less conducive to productivity than is directive leadership. Various contingencies have already been mentioned, which must be taken into account to predict and understand more fully the impact of direction and participation. What follows further elaborates on the effects of contingencies such as the differences between leaders and their followers and the constraints under which they must operate.
Three bases for understanding exist. First, one can draw empirical inferences from surveys in which correlations have been run between the style of the leader and outcomes under different contingencies. Second, one can draw further inferences from experiments in which each leadership style has been introduced under each contingency. Third, beginning with several acceptable assumptions that are consistent with what was said earlier about the impact of participation on outcomes, it becomes possible to prescribe which style of leadership is likely to be more effective. Empirical data supporting or refuting the propositions derived from the models can also be presented.
Ability and Motivation. Whether direction or participation is more effective as a leadership style has been found in a number of investigations to depend on the competence, motivation, and personality of the leaders and their subordinates. Probably the single most emphasized modifier in determining whether participative or directive leadership will be more effective is the competence of the subordinate relative to the leader, and the information each possesses (Hersey & Blanchard, 1977). Mulder (1971) and Miner (1973) pointed out that it may be counterproductive for leaders to be participative in style if they are much more expert than their subordinates on the matters to be decided. What is important to whether direction or participation will work better is how much training and information the leader and the subordinate have (Filley, House, & Kerr, 1979; Locke & Schweiger, 1979).
Blades and Fiedler (1976) and Fiedler and Garcia (1987) demonstrated that whether directive leaders are more effective depends on the leaders’ task ability and their subordinates’ support and motivation. The followers’ performance is better if the leaders are expert and intelligent and the followers are supportive and motivated. If the followers are more intelligent and motivated, then nondirective leadership is more effective. Thus Bons and Fiedler (1976) found that among 138 U.S. Army squad leaders, the leaders’ intelligence correlated .44 with their squads’ performance of tasks. Yet the correlation fell to .04 when the squad leaders failed to be directive. Similar results were obtained by Fiedler, O’Brien, and Ilgen (1969) in a study of 41 small public health teams in Honduras. When the leaders’ direction was high, their intelligence correlated .48 with community developments. When the leaders’ direction was low, the correlation fell to –.20. More intelligent, informed, technically competent leaders—both when contrasted with the competence of their followers and when contrasted with less competent leaders—are more effective if they are directive rather than nondirective and if their subordinates are already highly motivated and supportive of their efforts (Fiedler, 1982; Murphy, Blyth, & Fiedler, 1992).
Latham and Baldes (1975) provided the strongest evidence to support the contention that both the ability and motivation of the leader, combined with the ability and motivation of the subordinates, determine what style of leadership will prove more effective. Latham and Baldes studied 49 groups of U.S. Army enlisted cooks. The cooks operated mess halls, each of which was led by a mess steward who was either directive or nondirective, according to behavioral descriptions of the steward by the group on such items as, “The mess steward decides what shall be done and how it shall be done.” The tendency of the steward to enforce standards was measured by such items as, “The mess steward maintains definite standards of performance.” Motivation was measured by responses to such questions as, “How hard do you work and do as good a job as possible?” The ability of the stewards and cooks was obtained from a 50-item test. Measures of the quality of mess hall services were obtained from weekly inspections made by food service officers. Nondirective participative leadership worked better when the cooks were higher in both ability and motivation. However, directive leadership resulted in a much more effective food service when the stewards were higher in ability and the cooks were highly motivated. Such directive leadership resulted in lower inspection ratings if the steward was lower in ability and the cooks were lower in motivation. Enforcement of standards by the steward generated the best food inspection ratings when the cooks were either high in both ability and motivation or low in both ability and motivation. Particularly deleterious was the enforcement of standards when the cooks were high in ability but low in motivation.
The steward’s tested intelligence contributed to the effectiveness of the mess halls, but only when the steward was directive and the cooks were highly motivated. Furthermore, with highly motivated cooks, nondirective leadership resulted in a correlation of .56 between the cooks’ level of ability as cooks and the effectiveness of operations. But here, directive leadership generated an opposite correlation of –.48 between the cooks’ ability and effectiveness. With nondirective leadership, if the cooks’ motivation was low, the cooks’ ability correlated –.45 with the effectiveness of the mess halls; with directive leadership, the correlation was –.20. Parallel results were obtained when the tested intelligence of the cooks was used as an indicator of their ability.
Blyth (1987) randomly assigned leaders to four conditions: the leaders were either trained or untrained in the use of survival gear and were instructed to be either directive or participative with their groups. Only the directive leaders who had been trained to use the survival gear had groups that performed well; participative leaders with the training performed no better than did those without training. When Blyth trained the group members but not the leaders to use the gear and then instructed the leaders to be directive or participative, the groups with participative leaders performed better than those with directive leaders.
Communication network experiments reported in Chapter 29 demonstrated that if leaders are at the center of a network, they are likely to be most informed, since they are in two-way contact with all the people at the periphery. Their network will be more effective if they are directive. On the other hand, if the leaders occupy peripheral positions, their network will be most effective if they are more participative (Shaw, 1954a).
Bass and Ryterband (1979) reported a study in which 18 wives of managers were asked to meet individually with a male manager (not their own spouse) to reach decisions about either company affairs or household affairs. The managers were instructed to be either directive or participative as the leaders in a counterbalanced design. The women felt responsibility for the household discussion regardless of the leader’s style, but felt responsibility for the discussion about the company only with the participative leader—not with the directive leader. The wives reported considerable hostility toward the directive leader in the discussions of household affairs, and such meetings were the least satisfying experience for them. In contrast, the wives did not react negatively when leaders directed the decision-making process if the problem concerned company issues.
Mitchell, Smyser, and Weed (1975) showed that for workers, locus of control determined whether a directive or participative supervisor was more satisfactory as a leader. For workers with an external locus of control, satisfaction with work was higher with directive supervisors and lower with participative supervisors. Conversely, for those with an internal locus, satisfaction was higher with participative leaders and lower with directive leaders.
In Vroom’s (1959) study of 108 supervisors in a retail parcel-delivery service, productivity was found to correlate with felt influence on decisions among egalitarians much more than among authoritarians. Satisfaction on the job was increased by participation, but only for subordinates with egalitarian attitudes. A. S. Tannenbaum (1958) noted that followers who were predisposed to participation tended to be satisfied under conditions of increased involvement. Those who were predisposed to dependence, however, reacted adversely to increased participation. Runyon (1973) and Mitchell, Smyser, and Weed (1975) found that, as might be expected, internally controlled subordinates were more satisfied with participative supervisor, but externally controlled subordinates were more satisfied with directive supervisors.
Passive followers favored a more directive leader in Page and McGinnies’s (1959) comparison of discussion groups led by directive and participative leaders. Likewise, in simulations (Bass, Burger, et al., 1979), apathetic subordinates were found to be relatively more comfortable with directive supervisors.
Saville (1984) proposed that supervisors who favored some form of direction or participation could be matched with subordinates who complemented them to maximize supervisor-subordinate compatibility and to minimize the development of serious problems between them. Receptive, dependent subordinates should be matched with directive supervisors; more reciprocating types of subordinates complement negotiative supervisors; more innovative, critical subordinates should be assigned to consultative supervisors; more affiliative, democratic subordinates should be matched with participative supervisors; and more self-reliant subordinates will fit best with delegative supervisors.
Bass, Valenzi, and Farrow (1977) found that for 244 managers and their 992 subordinates, judged effectiveness by both managers and subordinates correlated positively with delegative supervision (as seen by the subordinates) if the managers tended to regard the world as fair minded and if the subordinates were introspective but not assertive. The same was true for the effectiveness of participative leadership. In addition, it helped if the manager had an assertive personality. Consultation was more effective with introspective, unassertive subordinates and assertive managers. Manipulation and negotiation were more effective with introspective managers and subordinates. The personalities of the managers or the subordinates were of no consequence to the effectiveness of direction. In a consumer finance firm, Tosi (1970) failed to find that the subordinates’ personalities made any difference.
Commitment by top business management played a crucial role in the effectiveness of participative leadership at hierarchical levels below them (Rodgers & Hunter, 1991). Renn (1998) showed that while task performance was not directly enhanced by the participation of 200 employees in a goal-setting program, it was enhanced by goal acceptance, which was a direct consequence of participation. In a related experiment, Li and Butler (2004) found that persuasive rationales for goals were particularly important to effective outcomes and sense of procedural justice when goals were assigned rather than set by means of participation. In a military setting (Virginia Military Institute), Atwater, Lau, Bass, et al. (1994) found that subordinates’ effectiveness rankings of their cadet leaders correlated .33 with the frequency of direction of the leaders and .19 with the frequency of their persuasion but only .09 with their frequency of participation and .12 with frequency of consultation. Colquist, Noe, and Janz (1998) surveyed 230 employees from 27 work teams in information systems departments of Fortune 500 firms in six industries. When the employees strongly identified as team members, felt interdependent, were satisfied with their jobs, and were in small teams, there was less need for participative leadership to generate cooperation among them. There was more need for participative leadership when the reverse conditions prevailed. Bass, Valenzi, and Farrow (1977) developed discriminant functions for 244 managers and 992 subordinates in work groups who were above and below the median in effectiveness who had responded to a questionnaire about the system of inputs, relations, and outputs under which they perceived themselves to operate. They found that the effectiveness of operations was higher if harmony and trust were higher. A greater amount of harmony made consultative leadership even more conducive to effective operations, and a greater amount of trust in the organization contributed more to the impact on effectiveness of the leader’s participation.
Power. Kipnis (1958) studied groups of children under different conditions of leadership, reward, and threat. Both reward and threat produced more public compliance than did the control condition. Participative leadership induced more children to change their beliefs when leadership was associated with the power to reward. When the children were threatened with punishment for noncompliance, significantly fewer of them changed their beliefs under participative leadership than under lecture conditions. The participative leader was better liked than the lecturer if he did not threaten. Similarly, Patchen (1962) found that directive supervision resulted in a group’s high output only if the group was also cohesive and directed by a supervisor who was seen to be a rewarding figure.
Ergun and Onaran (1981) found that Turkish supervisors who were more active in either direction or participation were judged more effective when both the managers and the subordinates lacked power. Activity appeared to be a substitute for power.
Pelz (1951) observed that participative leadership by Detroit Edison managers generated satisfaction among employees only when the managers had influence “up-stairs.” But House, Filley, and Gujarati (1971) failed to replicate this finding for R & D managers in another firm.
Falling Dominoes Effects. The effectiveness of participatory leadership at lower levels in an organization will depend on the practice of such leadership at higher levels, as well as in adjacent departments. Otherwise, conflict emerges (Lowin, 1968). Such conflict may be avoided if R. Likert’s (1967) organization of overlapping groups is used. Here, every manager is a linchpin that connects the participatory group of the manager and his or her subordinates with the participatory group of the manager’s boss, the manager’s peers, and the manager.
Constraints and Goals. Hemphill (1949b) found that directive behavior by leaders is most readily accepted in groups with a closely restricted membership, a stratified status structure, and members who are dependent on the group. But Murnighan and Leung (1976) obtained results indicating that participation helped performance only when subordinates thought the task was important. According to Ergun and Onaran (1981), the effectiveness of the unit, organization, and supervisor increased, particularly if the leader used direction when constraints were low, goals were clear, and the interdependence of tasks was high. Participation correlated more highly with effectiveness for interdependent work teams that had clear objectives and considerable discretionary opportunities.
Task Requirements. Shaw and Blum (1966) found that directive leadership was more effective in structured task situations, whereas nondirective leadership was more effective in less structured conditions. Roby, Nicol, and Farrell (1963) obtained indications that problems requiring a reaction to environmental changes were more quickly solved under participative conditions, but that problems necessitating coordinated action were solved more efficiently under directive leadership.
The leadership decision-making style in an organization is influenced by whether the organization must deal with a stable or turbulent market. Firms that operate in turbulent markets are more effective if they encourage participation and decision making at the lowest possible levels (Emery & Trist, 1965). Burns and Stalker (1961) contrasted the relatively stable environment of a rayon mill with the more unstable conditions faced by firms in the electronics industry. For the mill, in its stable environment, a “mechanistic” system with directive supervision was most effective. In the electronics industry, with its rapidly changing environment, a more participative, “organic” system seemed most effective.
Similar conclusions were reached by Lawrence and Lorsch (1967a, 1967b). For a container firm with a stable environment, effective decision-making processes within the firm were likely to be directive; in a plastics firm facing a more turbulent environment, effective decision-making processes were more likely to be participative. Nonetheless, Wagner and Gooding’s (1987) meta-analysis of 118 correlational analyses on the extent to which the interdependence and complexity of tasks and performance standards moderate the effects of participation on employees’ performance, motivation, satisfaction with decisions, and acceptance of decisions revealed few differences in the effects of participation on outcomes if the task was complex rather than simple, if the task involved independence or interdependence, and if performance standards were present or absent.
Objectives. Korten (1968) observed that if the final product of a task was practical, more directive supervision was in order; but if the outcome was theoretical, participation was more useful. However, participative leadership needs to have a focus if it is to affect productivity. Lawrence and Smith (1955) studied checkers and mail openers over a five-week period. Groups of each type of employee held participative discussions either about their work or to set the group’s goals. Only the goal-setting groups showed increased productivity, although both types of meetings were equally satisfying to the participants.
The increased productivity of the goal-setting groups was probably connected to the importance attached to the meeting in which the participative leadership occurred. Thus Cosier and Aplin (1980) concluded, from an experiment with 84 undergraduate business students, that having the freedom to choose objectives about a task of prediction was important to them, but having the freedom to schedule the procedure to be used was not. Delegation to them of the choice of objectives yielded a much better performance than assignment of the objectives, but delegation or assignment of the schedule to be followed made no difference to them. Similarly, Drenth and Koopman (1984) reported that among 56 Dutch employees, satisfaction with decisions was enhanced most by opportunities to participate for those employees who were unclear about their goals. For these same employees, however, satisfaction with the outcomes and implementation of the decisions correlated between .26 and .40 if the decisions were about tactical matters of consequence to them. But the parallel correlations ranged from –.11 to .13 if the decisions were about organizational strategies that the employees did not think were of direct consequence to them. This finding lent confidence to arguments by Bass and Shackleton (1979) that participative management should be restricted to decisions that are of direct concern to employees. Consultation with production employees about financial and marketing decisions may make little sense, in contrast to consultations about overtime policies.
When leaders overstep their authority by forcing an arbitrary decision on their groups, the expected resistance and hostility may fail to materialize if the leaders’ behavior actually facilitates the achievement of the groups’ goals. Whether leaders reach their objectives depends on whether the style of leadership they choose meets the needs of their subordinates to attain their goals and whether it clarifies for the subordinates the paths to achieve the goals (House & Mitchell, 1974). Participation may meet subordinates’ needs but may fail to clarify goals without some direction from the leaders.
Time Perspective. If the supervisors’ time perspective is short—that is, if they have some immediate objectives to attain—they are likely to find it most effective to be directive. Alternatively, if an important objective is the long-term efficiency of their groups, participation is more likely to pay off (Hahn & Trittipoe, 1961).
The passage of time itself may make a difference in the efficacy of early participation. Ivancevich (1976) demonstrated that over time, the positive effects of involvement in goal setting may dissipate. Employees may become immersed in the job itself and forget their earlier involvement in decisions. It is possible that some individuals in a group may be satisfied with a participative leader and some with a directive leader, although the group as a whole may be more satisfied with participation. Yammarino and Naughton (1992) conducted a Within-and-Between Groups Analysis (WABA) of the responses of 70 officers in a law enforcement agency about the outcomes of their participation in decisions. Included were the director and his lieutenants as well as investigators, patrol officers, and dispatchers. Both the groups and the individuals who reported high levels of participative decision making were those who felt that they had respect and status and were satisfied with their work. But commitment was not affected.
Although research on virtual team leadership is in its infancy, direction or participation may be favored for the same contingent reasons as with face-to-face leadership. For example, directive decisions will be more effective when the leader is expert and the followers are novices. Participation will result in more effective outcomes when the followers are sources of information, knowledge, and experience.
Followers may get bored, weary, and frustrated with continuing participation. The amount of participation by subordinates seems to reach an optimum. If actual participation is greater than expected, R. Likert (1959) noted that dissatisfaction will result. Ivancevich (1979) found that there could be too much as well as too little participation. Performance suffered when participation was above or below optimum. However, e-leadership may benefit from participative leadership. Yukl (1998) pointed out that quantitative studies in which measures of leadership and effective performance were obtained from the same source tended to favor participative leadership as more effective. Evidence is much more modest when different sources are used about the leaders and about their effects. Case studies of participation also tend to be favorable, but plenty of successful, tough, directive leaders who are effective are cited in the popular press.
Among the prescriptive models that indicate when leaders should be directive and when they should be participative, two have been particularly popular—that by Hersey and Blanchard (1977) and that by Vroom and Yetton (1974). Each model details the situations in which practicing managers should be directive and those in which they should be participative to maximize satisfaction and effectiveness. The former model is derived from empirical studies, the latter from more rigorous deduction. The former is supported mainly by observation and commentaries of users and is seen as fuzzy in its prescription and application; the latter is supported (and sometimes refuted) by controlled empirical surveys and experiments. Nevertheless, early on, the Vroom-Yetton model was criticized for its lack of parsimony and its inapplicability to management (Filley, House, & Kerr, 1976). Yet unlike the Hersey-Blanchard model, the Vroom-Yetton model was more intellectually rigorous and lent itself more readily to empirical testing of its validity, although, as shall be seen, it is not without serious flaws. The Vroom-Yetton model is examined in detail here; the Hersey-Blanchard model is discussed extensively in Chapter 19.
The leadership decision style that is most conducive to effectiveness in the Vroom-Yetton model depends on the demand characteristics of the situation. Particularly important is whether the leader is aiming for a high-quality decision or for the subordinates’ acceptance of the decision. Efforts have been made to show an adequate correspondence between deductions derived from the model and what can be induced empirically from managers’ preferred and actual styles in dealing with problems containing various combinations of the demand characteristics.
The Direction-Participation Continuum. Vroom and Yetton (1973, p. 13) laid out the direction-participation continuum as follows:
AI: You solve problem or make decision yourself using information available to you.
AII: You obtain necessary information from subordinates, then decide on the solution to the problem yourself. Subordinates are not asked to generate or evaluate alternative solutions.
CI: You share the problem with relevant subordinates individually, getting their ideas and suggestions. Then you make the decision, which may or may not reflect your subordinates’ influence.
CII: You share the problem with your subordinates as a group, collectively obtaining their ideas and suggestions. Then you make the decision, which may or may not reflect your subordinates’ influence.
GI: You share the problem with relevant subordinates individually. Together you generate and evaluate alternatives and attempt to reach a solution. You do not try to influence the subordinate to adopt “your” solution and you are willing to implement any solution reached.
GII: You share the problem with your subordinates as a group. Together you generate and evaluate alternatives and attempt to reach a solution. You do not try to influence the group to adopt “your” solution, and you are willing to accept and implement any solution which has the support of the entire group.
Thus CI and CII are consultative leadership either with each subordinate alone or all together. Similarly, GI and GII are participative either with each subordinate alone or all together. Subsequently, Vroom and Jago (1974, p. 745) added another choice:
DI: You delegate the problem to one of your subordinates, providing him with any relevant information that you possess, but giving him responsibility for solving the problem by himself. Any solution which the person reaches will receive your support.
The choice of AI is directive. AII is also directive and CI and CII are consultative. GI and GII are participative and DI is delegative.
The Situational Demands. The situational-demand characteristics and the requirements of the problem for the leader depend on whether the answers to the following seven questions are “yes” or “no”:
A. Is there a quality requirement such that one solution is better than another?
B. Does the leader have sufficient information to make a high-quality decision?
C. Is the problem structured?
D. Is the subordinates’ acceptance of the decision critical to effective implementation?
E. If the leader were to make the decision by himself or herself, is it reasonably certain that the decision would be accepted by the subordinates?
F. Do subordinates share the organizational goals to be obtained in solving this problem?
G. Is conflict among subordinates likely in preferred solutions?
The Feasible Sets. Seven rules are imposed to limit various styles of leadership to those feasible sets that can be deduced to protect the quality of the solution and acceptance of the decision: (1) AI is eliminated as a possible choice for the leader when the quality of the solution is important and the leader lacks information; (2) CII is eliminated from the feasible set of leadership styles if quality is important and subordinates do not share organizational goals; (3) AI, AII, and CI are eliminated when quality is important, the leader lacks information, and the problem is unstructured; (4) AI and AII are eliminated from the feasible set if the subordinates’ acceptance of the solution is critical; (5) AI, AII, and CI are eliminated (a group approach is necessary to resolve conflicts) if the subordinates’ acceptance is critical and subordinates are likely to disagree about the solution; (6) AI, AII, CI, and CII are eliminated if acceptance but not quality is critical; and (7) AI, AII, CI, and CII are eliminated if acceptance is critical and subordinates share the organization’s goals. Shared participation, GII, is deduced to be the only suitable leadership style.
Figure 18.1 shows the decision tree that must be followed, given the situational characteristics and the rules for eliminating choices of leadership styles. For example, in this flowchart, if the leader’s answer to question A is that the problem does not require a high-quality decision, the leader’s next decision is about whether the subordinates’ acceptance is important (question D). If a directive decision is seen to be unacceptable (question E), the appropriate style for the leader to choose is GII, participation of the leader and all subordinates together in making the decision.
Figure 18.1 Decision Process Flowchart (Feasible Set)
SOURCE: Vroom (1976, Winter), “Can leaders learn to lead?” New York: AMACOM, American Management Association.
An initial roster of managers were asked to describe, in writing, a recent problem that they had to solve in carrying out their leadership role. The managers then specified the style (AI, AII, CI, CII, or GII) that came closest to the one they had actually used in dealing with that problem. They described the problem in terms of its quality and its situational-demand characteristics. The diagnosis of the situation determined what styles the leaders used. There was considerable correspondence between what the managers said they had done and what was prescribed by the decision tree (Vroom, 1976) based on Vroom and Yetton’s (1973) model.
The problems disclosed by these managers were used to prepare 30 to 54 standardized cases that were then given to several thousand managers to diagnose in terms of the seven questions and to decide which style they would use. Most of the differences in the styles used depended on case differences rather than individual differences among the managers. Vroom and Yetton (1973) concluded that, on the average, managers said they would (or did) use exactly the same decision style as the decision-tree model in about 40% of the situations. In two-thirds of the situations, the managers’ behavior was consistent with the feasible set of styles proposed in the model. In other words, in only about one-third of the situations did their behavior violate at least one of the seven rules underlying the model.
Nevertheless, Vroom and Yetton also noted that the model called for more variance in style than the average manager recalled or proposed. Thus if managers used the model as the basis for choosing their leadership styles, all would become both more directive and more participative. They would use direction more frequently in situations in which their subordinates were unaffected by the decision. They would use participative approaches more frequently when their subordinates’ cooperation and support were critical or their subordinates’ information and expertise were required.
Table 18.1 Mean Freqency of the Choice Process for Dealing with Group and Individual Problems (N = 98)
SOURCE: Vroom and Jago (1978).
Individual versus Group Problems. The frequency of the choice of process reflects strongly whether the problem concerned the group or its individual members. Table 18.1 shows how 98 managers, military officers, and heads of research departments dealt differently with individual and group problems they faced. With group problems, managers more frequently chose CII and GII; with individual problems, they more frequently chose AI, CI, GI, and DI (Vroom & Jago, 1974). Consistent with the survey research summarized earlier in the chapter (Bass & Valenzi, 1974), the consulting styles CI and CII were the most popular solutions to the various problems presented. But a clear need was evident to distinguish between consulting with one’s group or with individual members, depending on whether the problems concerned the group as a whole or particular members.
Vroom (1998) reported that over a 25-year period, there has been a rising choice among managers for the participative processes.
Evidence to support or refute the validity of the model has been gathered in the field from numerous studies based on self-reports11 and in the laboratory by Field (1982).
In Vroom and Jago’s (1978) study of 96 managers from a variety of organizations who were unaware of the decision-tree model, the managers described 181 situations and their leadership behavior in these situations. The model was then used to predict the ratings of the technical quality, the subordinates’ acceptance, and the overall effectiveness of the final leadership styles chosen by the managers. The managers noted the extent to which their chosen leadership style in the situation they described had resulted in a high-quality solution and the subordinates’ acceptance. The logical Vroom-Yetton (1973) model and decision tree (Vroom, 1976) came up with prescribed leadership styles that matched what the managers reported they actually did in 117 (65%) of the 181 situations. Among these 117 situations, 80 (68%) were judged to be effective in the situation and 37 (32%) were judged to be ineffective. In 64 instances, the chosen leadership style was outside Vroom and Yetton’s feasible sets for the situation described. In those cases, only 14 (22%) were seen by the managers to be effective leadership behavior and 50 (78%) were seen as ineffective. The more often Vroom and Yetton’s seven rules were violated, the solution was regarded as less effective, particularly when the subordinates’ acceptance was involved.
Pate and Heiman (1981) reported the results of a survey of 530 mostly female supervisors, middle managers, and top administrators from seven hospitals. Three specially developed problem cases that were generated by the nurses and personnel directors were likely to call for autocratic (A), consultative (C), and delegative styles (D). When the respondents employed the Vroom-Yetton model and decision tree, 71% of their choices were within the model and 29% were outside it. These results were close to those of Vroom and Jago (1978) and Vroom and Yetton (1973).
A field validation was provided by Paul and Ebadi (1989) based on a survey of the job satisfaction and performance of 216 sales employees in a service organization. The leaders who used decision-making styles that agreed with the Vroom-Yetton model had more productive subordinates, and these subordinates were more satisfied with their coworkers.
Experimental Support. Field (1979) thought there was a need to examine the validity of the Vroom-Yetton model in circumstances that did not depend on the self-reports of managers. He conducted an experimental test in which 276 business students in four-person groups solved five decision-making problems. However, the students also were instructed to use different decision processes of the model for each problem. This forced more solutions that diverged from the Vroom-Yetton feasible set. Field found that decisions fitting with the Vroom-Yetton feasible set were significantly more effective than decisions outside the feasible set. Of the 105 decisions in which the leader’s behavior agreed with the feasible set, 51 (49%) were effective, whereas only 31 of 87 decisions (36%) outside the feasible set were effective. One of three quality rules and three of four acceptance rules had effects as predicted. Pace, Hartley, and Davenport (1992) validated the standardized cases in the Vroom-Jago (1988) scenarios in three laboratory studies. Both leaders and subordinates were aware of the need for situation-specific behaviors. Subordinate evaluations of leader effectiveness were most favorable when leaders made correct use of participative methods.
Scaling of Participation. According to Vroom and Yetton’s (1973) model, the leadership decision styles could be judgmentally scaled according to the greater opportunities for subordinates to participate and to influence outcomes. The scale that emerged was roughly as follows: AI = 0; AII = 1; CI = 5; CII = 8; GII = 10. Jago (1978a) scored the amount of participativeness by leaders from 0 to 10 in choices of leaders’ responses to 72 problems. He found that, as expected, subjects who used a variant of the model displayed less participativeness (4.1) when the leader in a stated problem had all the information required to make a high-quality decision than when he did not (5.9). More participativeness occurred (7.6) when the subordinates’ acceptance was required and was not likely to result from an autocratic decision. Less participativeness occurred if such acceptance was likely to result from an autocratic decision (5.0) or when such acceptance was irrelevant (3.3). Also, more participativeness occurred when subordinates expected to share organizational goals (5.8) than when such goal congruence was not expected (4.9).
Caveat. Mixed support for the model came from Clement (1983), who found that only the sixth rule—the subordinates’ acceptance is more critical than the quality of the decision—contributed significantly to the model’s validity. Clement also found that the seventh rule—subordinates share organizational goals—undermined the validity of the model in matching its prescribed leadership behavior with responses chosen by financial executives and managers of nonprofit organizations.
Although Field acknowledged the possibility that subordinates may accept autocratic leadership in dealing with some of the Vroom-Yetton problems, experimental evidence gathered by Heilman, Cage, Hornstein, and Herschlag (1984) suggested that this may not occur. The latter researchers conducted two experiments in which a leader’s reported actions were either correct or incorrect according to the Vroom-Yetton model. Nevertheless, no matter what the circumstances, subjects who took the subordinate’s point of view favored a participative solution even when the model prescribed an autocratic one. This finding is consistent with Sinha and Chowdhry’s (1981) study, which found that although the Vroom-Yetton and Hersey-Blanchard models prescribe that leaders be more directive with less well-prepared subordinates, such autocratic leadership was detrimental to the group’s efficiency and the subordinates’ satisfaction.
Model of Randomness. Pate and Heiman (1981, pp. 8–9) suggested that the level of matching of the model prescriptives with outcomes could have been due to random responding. They advised that
By selecting a style at random it is possible to trace the style backwards through the model and compute the probability that a style will be “within” the model … When this is done, the following probabilities result: .563 (A1 & A2), .680 (C1), .813 (C2), .750 (D), and .711 (any style). Thus, if a group of people chose any style and answered the decision rule questions blindfolded, 71.1% of their responses would be “within the model.”
Wedley and Field (1982) examined the feasible-set choices of 102 undergraduates and 51 managers. However, the different branching that occurred to reach the various options was by no means random. In fact, the students and managers tended to prefer, to a high degree, the same particular branching of the decision tree leading to GII (participation with all subordinates together). This was only one branching among the 23 they could have followed.
Constructive Controversy. Tjosvold, Wedley, and Field (1986) proposed that a single concept, constructive controversy, could account for the greater effectiveness of the decision making. Constructive controversy encompasses cooperation (“We seek a solution that is good and acceptable to all”), controversy (“Persons express their own views fully”), confirmation (“Persons feel understood and accepted by each other”), collaboration (“We all influence each other”), and differentiation (“All ideas are expressed before we began to evaluate them”). The investigators completed a study of 58 managers who retrospectively examined two previous problems. One decision was decidedly successful; the other was a failure. The managers applied the Vroom-Yetton model and described, on a 15-item questionnaire, how much constructive controversy had occurred in dealing with each of the two problems. Constructive-controversy scores accounted for 45% of the tendency to achieve a successful rather than a failing decision. Only 5% was attributable to the Vroom-Yetton model.
Model B. The original model, referred to here as Model A, is “time-driven” (Vroom, 1998). It is predicated on the short-term objective of minimizing the time of the leader and the subordinates. A somewhat different model, Model B, is required if long-term objectives for the subordinates’ development are involved. Vroom (1998) now refers to the model as “development-driven.” A sample situation in which Model A or B is used is illustrated below with a problem case (paraphrased).
You manage a region for an international consulting firm with a staff of six consultants. One of them is the subject of complaints from several clients that the consultant is not doing an effective job, although the clients are not explicit about what is wrong. For his first four or five years, the consultant’s performance was superb. Now he has a “chip on his shoulder” and has lost identification with the firm and its objectives. You need to deal with the problem quickly to retain the client who most recently complained. What should you do?
The decision tree analysis is as follows:
A. (Quality?) = Yes
B. (Leader’s information?) = No
C. (Structured?) = No
D. (Acceptance?) = Yes
E. (Prior Probability of Acceptance?) = No
F. (Goal Congruence?) = No
Given the fact that the problem is about an individual, not the group, the synthesized model A and model B solutions are these.
Feasible Set |
CI, GI |
Model A Behavior |
CI (Individual Consultation) |
Model B Behavior |
GI (Individual Consultation) |
Maier’s and Field’s Models. Field (1979) suggested returning to an earlier, simpler fourfold model, developed by Maier (1970b) on the basis of earlier creativity and problem-solving experiments.12 According to the model, a Type I problem has a quality requirement, acceptance is likely to be obtained easily, and the decision should be made by the leader. Type II problems do not have a quality requirement, but acceptance is critical; therefore, these problems should be resolved by group decision. Type III problems do not have quality or acceptance requirements and should be decided by tossing a coin; participative approaches with this type of problem generate unnecessary conflicts. Type IV problems require both quality and acceptance and are solved by using persuasion or, better yet, by group discussion. Field also noted that in Figure 18.1, the decision CII is in the feasible set for 19 of the 23 situations included in the four types of problems. But in the four situations in which CII is not in the feasible set, GII is in the feasible set. A more parsimonious rule that Field (p. 256) proposed to protect the quality of the decision and the acceptance of subordinates is this: “If acceptance of the decision by subordinates is critical to effective implementation and it is not reasonably certain that subordinates would accept an autocratic decision, but they share organizational goals (or decision quality is not important), use GII; otherwise, use CII.” This simple model uses only four situation-demand characteristics instead of seven, and only two leadership styles, CII or GII, instead of the five in the Vroom-Yetton model. Also, this simple model offers a balance between the short-term time-efficient Model A and the long-term group-development model B. Field concluded that what needs to be prescribed is either consultation with the group of subordinates or shared participatory leadership with the group, unless it is certain that a directive decision would be acceptable to subordinates.
Jago and Vroom (1980) ran a comparative test of the Vroom-Yetton prescriptions with those of Field (1979) as well as those of Maier (1970b). For each prescription, the actual reported behavior of 96 managers dealing with 181 cases was collected. Sixty-five percent conformed to the Vroom-Yetton model, 79% conformed to Maier’s prescriptions, but only 33% conformed to Field’s. Of the 117 decisions that conformed to the Vroom-Yetton model, 80% fit Maier’s model and 50% fit Field’s. Furthermore, the Vroom-Yetton model provided more predictive power of effectiveness, quality, and acceptance of the decision by subordinates beyond what Maier’s and Field’s prescriptions did. Jago and Vroom (p. 354) concluded that although Field’s
formulation guarantees conformity to the Vroom-Yetton prescriptions, yet his rules presumably are easier to learn and apply because they involve fewer situational variables and fewer normative contingencies. However, the apparent attractiveness may be misleading. The behavior of untrained managers violates Field’s prescriptions substantially more often than such behavior violates the prescriptions of either Maier’s model or the Vroom/Yetton model. Because its highly participative prescriptions represent a large departure from the decision-making style of most managers, implementing Field’s model would require some rather dramatic behavioral changes that may meet with some resistance. Although its prescriptions are indeed easy to learn, Field’s model may be quite difficult for some managers to internalize and practice. On the other hand, the Vroom/Yetton model may be more difficult to learn initially but more easily internalized and implemented.
Another issue that has been looked at extensively is how much the Vroom-Yetton situational requirements determine which choices of leadership style will be made and how much individual differences arise. For instance, will authoritarians be autocratic in choosing a response to any Vroom-Yetton problem, regardless of the prescriptive rules and the nature of the problem? Vroom and Yetton (1973), Hill and Schmitt (1977), and Clement (1983) all demonstrated that situational main effects accounted for almost half the variance in choices, whereas individual differences were likely to account for less than 15% of the results. In dealing with problems about groups, 35% of the decisions were determined by the situation and 12% were due to individual differences in the preferences of the managers. In dealing with problems about individuals, 44% were due to situational elements and 9% to consistent individual differences among the managers (Vroom & Jago, 1974). Vroom and Yetton thought that these results suggested the need to talk more about autocratic and participative situations, rather than autocratic and participative persons. However, Jago (1978b) concluded, from an analysis of differences among managers in the rules they used, that there was a need to focus on autocratic versus participative decision-making rules. Furthermore, Jago’s results indicated that the decision maker cannot be fully represented as a linear processor who handles the rules in a simple additive fashion. Rather, the decision maker’s choices interact, to some degree, so that a more complex configuration may provide a better portrait.
Vroom-Jago Model. Vroom (1984) summed up some of the strengths and weaknesses of the model’s fit with actualities. Generally, the model was supported by consistencies between decision-making styles and superiors’ and subordinates’ perceptions of decision-making requirements based on characteristics of the decision process. Nevertheless, he pointed to several deficiencies for practical application, owing to the simplicity in defining the variables that influence the decision-making process. Along with developing a differentiation for the group and individual problems faced by a manager (Vroom & Jago, 1974) and to take account of the failure of the original model to consider the importance of subordinates’ knowledge, external influences outside the immediate work group, and the matter of time constraints, Vroom and Jago (1984) added the following questions to a determination of the feasible sets.
H. Do subordinates have sufficient information to make a high-quality decision?
I. Does a severe time constraint limit your ability to involve subordinates?
J. Are the costs involved in bringing together geographically dispersed subordinates prohibitive?
According to a simulational analysis by Vroom and Jago (1984), the subordinates’ knowledge, lack of time constraints, or lack of geographic dispersion greatly increased the expanded model’s prescription for participative rather than directive leadership.
Vroom and Jago (1988) created a new model with considerably greater validity than the original Vroom-Yetton model by adding a number of objectives, such as cost reduction, that could be sought by the leader. Further, five-point ratings were substituted for the yes/no responses. Multiple regression replaced deductions of the feasible sets. Effectiveness and commitment were introduced as alternative outcomes that might be sought by the leader. Also, they created conditions to encourage reflection on past decisions.
Decisions are made by the superior, the subordinate, or both. Conceptual distinctions can be clearly maintained between direction, negotiation, participation, and delegation. But empirically, most leaders exhibit all these modes with different patterns of frequency. Many antecedent conditions add to the variance found in these patterns. Participative leadership works best when the subordinates’ acceptance, satisfaction, and commitment are important and when subordinates have the required information. But directive leadership can also be effective, especially when structure is needed, when the leader (but not the followers) has the necessary information, and when the quality of the decision is more important than the commitment of the followers. Leaders will increase their delegative tendencies if they have confidence in their subordinates’ competence. Empirical and rational models are available for specifying the conditions under which either more direction or more participation is appropriate. Direction may often work as well as or better than participation in short-term laboratory studies, but greater payoff from participative leadership appears in the field for longer-term relations and outcomes, although the effects are small when subjected to meta-analyses. Whether the leader, the led, or both will decide is affected by the importance of the relations among them and by what needs to be done, as will be seen next.