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Organisational Behaviour: A case study of Coca-Cola Company

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Article Contents

Introduction, appendix 1: interview topic list.

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Leadership Behavior Repertoire: An Exploratory Study of the Concept and Its Potential for Understanding Leadership in Public Organizations

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Marieke van der Hoek, Sandra Groeneveld, Maarja Beerkens, Leadership Behavior Repertoire: An Exploratory Study of the Concept and Its Potential for Understanding Leadership in Public Organizations, Perspectives on Public Management and Governance , Volume 4, Issue 4, December 2021, Pages 363–378, https://doi.org/10.1093/ppmgov/gvab022

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Rapidly accumulating literature on public leadership tends to zoom in on specific aspects of leaders’ behavior. Such a fragmented approach may overlook the most challenging aspect of effective leadership: combining diverse behaviors in relation to various stakeholders to match contextual needs. This article therefore argues for a comprehensive approach that recognizes the behavioral complexity of most contemporary leaders, particularly in ambiguous contexts. The concept of leadership behavior repertoire facilitates this. The article conceptualizes the perspective of the leadership behavior repertoire and illustrates in which ways leaders combine behavioral options from their repertoire using data from in-depth interviews with public leaders. Based on our findings, we propose integration of this perspective into the field’s research agenda to make our understanding of leadership in public organizations more complete. Moreover, the repertoire perspective can challenge and advance theorizing of leadership in relation to its context and outcomes in a more comprehensive way.

Academic interest in leadership has been growing rapidly in the last few decades. Public management scholars, too, dedicate an increasing amount of attention to leadership in public organizations ( Vandenabeele, Andersen, and Leisink 2014 ; Van Wart 2013 ; Vogel and Masal 2015 ). Research focused on the individual level of analysis, studying leadership behavior of public managers at various organizational levels, has taken flight. Studying leadership at this individual level is valuable to grasp processes underlying policy making and implementation, taking shape in public organizations. A large share of research in this tradition focusses on “leadership in organizations” ( Dubin 1979 ; Hunt and Ropo 1995 ), referring to leadership as supervising individual employees. Rich literature on transformational and transactional leadership, for example, primarily examines the downward supervisory relationship of managers motivating employees ( Ospina 2017 ; Vandenabeele, Andersen, and Leisink 2014 ; Vogel and Masal 2015 ). “Leadership of organizations” ( Dubin 1979 ; Hunt and Ropo 1995 ), on the other hand, looks at a leadership role in handling issues at the level of the organization or unit in relation to internal and external stakeholders. Middle managers typically are expected to perform a variety of roles simultaneously, yet the literature in public management tends to ignore this variety and to compartmentalize leadership into isolated roles.

In this article, we argue that research on leadership behavior at the individual level in public organizations could be advanced by looking not only deeper into dyadic manager–employee leadership behavior, but also by adopting a broader conceptualization spanning a more varied range of behaviors and their interactions with each other. Leaders probably do not perceive the roles as clearly distinct and separable in their daily activities as researchers often present them. In other words, we should understand the broader “repertoire” of behaviors that leaders have at their disposal, not only single elements within the repertoire. The behaviors that are studied in isolation are important, but when we ignore other types of behavior that leaders are simultaneously engaged in, the danger is that we lose sight of the “big picture” of challenges that leaders face on a daily basis ( Head 2010 ).

We argue that combining various behaviors is the essence of leadership (see also Pedersen et al. 2019 ). The OECD (2001) indeed signaled that leaders need diverse competences to cope with complex challenges in the public sector, which recent country studies reiterated ( Gerson 2020 ). Leadership training programs in the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and Mexico prepare leaders for a range of behaviors: from networking and collaborating, directing and managing internal processes, envisioning and facilitating change, to inspiring and creating commitment among employees ( OECD 2001 ). The relational character of leadership is explicitly addressed due to increasingly collaborative set-ups for public value creation: leaders need to work with a range of internal and external stakeholders across boundaries of countries, sectors, organizations, and professions, as well as throughout the hierarchy, from employees to top management ( Gerson 2020 ; OECD 2001 ).

To extend our understanding of leadership and its relationship with organizational variables, we can benefit from examining repertoires of behaviors. A leadership behavior repertoire can be described as a set of behavioral options at a leader’s disposal to address a variety of issues in a suitable fashion ( Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn 1995 ). Yukl (2012) and recently Pedersen et al. (2019) and Kramer et al. (2019) also acknowledge that looking at single behavioral types provides only partial comprehension of leadership. Leaders often have to combine various types of action because they are faced with multiple tasks and objectives, and they need to balance competing demands on scarce resources ( Quinn 1984 ). Therefore, the effectiveness of leadership depends on the variety of leadership behaviors instead of a particular type ( Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn 1995 ; Havermans et al. 2015 ). Taking the perspective of leadership behavior repertoires can assist in understanding leadership in its complexity, complementing ongoing efforts in the field.

Looking at leadership behavior repertoires is particularly relevant in contexts that are characterized by ambiguity. Ambiguity creates a need for leadership ( Moore 1995 ), yet poses challenges for many public leaders in balancing multiple needs from their environment. This means that leaders are challenged to adopt behavioral strategies to match these contingencies. This is typical for public organizations: the different values, conflicting goals, and competing interests of a range of stakeholders at stake in public organizations confront leaders with simultaneous demands, which are often vague and/or potentially conflicting ( Davis and Stazyk 2015 ; Hood 1991 ; Moore 1995 ). Moreover, the saliency of issues changes. The variety of interpretations of what is to be done makes the leadership context ambiguous and puts leaders in a position of equivocal decision-making ( Christensen et al. 2018 ; Chun and Rainey 2005 ; Feldman 1989 ). In addition, leaders in public organizations operate in an environment with increasingly complex organizational structures and ambiguous authority relationships. Formal authority is often fragmented and distributed among several organizational members, which means that leaders are often not fully allowed to make decisions ( Getha-Taylor et al. 2011 ; Groeneveld and Van de Walle 2011 ; Gronn 2002 ; Shamir 1999 ). Consequently, this dispersion of power creates leadership interdependencies and requires that leaders involve various other stakeholders to accomplish their objectives ( Gronn 2002 ). It can therefore be expected that leaders within such contexts need to combine many different leadership behaviors from their repertoire and do so in various directions to stimulate collaboration: influencing and facilitating subordinates, peers, superiors, and external stakeholders—multiple at a time ( ‘t Hart 2014 ; Moore 1995 ; van den Bekerom, Torenvlied, and Akkerman 2016 ). This context of ambiguity induces leadership that is best approached through a repertoire perspective.

This study therefore presents the following question: How can leadership in an ambiguous context be conceptualized as a behavior repertoire? To allow a comprehensive understanding, leadership is defined as “the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives.” ( Yukl 2008 , 8). This definition is adopted, because framing leadership as a process highlights that leadership is a continuous effort that encompasses a wide range of activities. Indeed, from the organizational science and generic leadership literature we can conclude that leadership behavior is diverse, and leaders have to engage in a variety of behaviors to be effective ( Behrendt, Matz, and Göritz 2017 ; Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn 1995 ; Yukl 2012) . This comprises behaviors that are frequently distinguished as “leadership” and “management.” While those are often seen as distinct, both types are important and complement each other ( Bedeian and Hunt 2006 ), and following Yukl (2012) , it can be all seen as leadership behavior. Managers, as formal leaders, are often expected to perform both ( Head 2010 ). Furthermore, incorporating the relational character highlights that leadership takes shape in interaction with a variety of stakeholders. Besides the typical focus on subordinates in research on individual leaders’ behavior, the broader public management literature teaches that superiors, peers, or external actors are included in the process of leadership. This accommodates Moore’s (1995) perspective that public managers work in different directions—downwards, upwards, sidewards, and outwards ( van den Bekerom, Torenvlied, and Akkerman 2016 ).

This article conceptualizes a repertoire perspective on leadership behavior and illustrates its relevance with accounts of leadership behavior repertoire uses based on in-depth interviews with public leaders. Conceptualizing is an essential building block for theory development: developing concepts that are aligned with the empirical world facilitates realistic empirical research and elaboration of theories. We thereby aim to contribute to public management research on leadership by suggesting how integration of a repertoire perspective can advance the field’s current research agenda and our understanding of leadership in its complexity. A qualitative approach is adopted to integrate the situational context of leaders in our understanding of leadership. Accounting for context is relevant, because characteristics of the context in which leaders behave affect leadership (e.g., George, Van de Walle, and Hammerschmidt 2019 ; Nielsen and Cleal 2011 ; Porter and McLaughlin 2006 ; Schmidt and Groeneveld 2021 ; Stoker, Garretsen, and Soudis 2019 ). Building on contingency theory’s premise that “one size does not fit all,” studying leadership by the same person in different situations is particularly facilitated by adopting a repertoire perspective (cf. Pedersen et al. 2019 ). Elaborating empirically how leaders combine diverse options from their repertoire, varying between situations, highlights the complexity of leadership and the need for further research to adopt a conceptualization of leadership behavior as repertoire.

The article proceeds with a discussion of previous research on leadership in the public management literature to build the study’s conceptual framework. Next, the empirical setting and methodological choices will be elaborated. The subsequent section shows various uses of a leadership behavior repertoire highlighted by the ambiguous context. The article concludes with a discussion on the potential contribution of the repertoire perspective, emphasizing its theoretical and methodological implications. Building on current lines of research, we argue that the field’s research agenda would benefit from adopting a repertoire perspective, since this more comprehensive conceptualization can stimulate theoretical and empirical work connected to the bigger picture of leadership challenges. Thereby it can challenge and advance our understanding of leadership and its relationships with other organizational phenomena.

The Leadership Behavior Repertoire: A Conceptual Framework

In an ambiguous context, competing demands present a variety of challenges for leadership that require leaders to use different types of leadership behavior suitable for a variety of purposes. Recently, Pedersen et al. (2019) show that managers engage in a range of different behaviors. Their study provides support for studying leadership from a more holistic perspective that acknowledges the behavioral complexity of public managers. These authors also argue that a more complex conceptualization has been missing despite efforts to develop typologies of management and leadership. A similar effort by Kramer et al. (2019) , who focused on leadership in interorganizational collaboration, confirms this call for a more comprehensive perspective. Therefore, we conceptualize leadership as a leadership behavior repertoire. Building on the work of Quinn (1984) and Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn (1995) , a leadership behavior repertoire can be seen as a set of behavioral options that can be matched to the circumstances at hand. This concept embraces the idea that leadership is complex and is characterized by a diversity of behaviors used in combination.

Research on leadership in the public management literature contains a variety of elements relevant for a repertoire conceptualization of leadership, scattered in separate research traditions. These traditions define and conceptualize leadership distinctively. Two distinctions underlie this separation. A first distinction concerns the operationalization of leadership: the literature shows variety in focusing either on styles, behaviors, or relations. These operationalizations are not mutually exclusive, yet prior research tends to maintain a more narrow focus. A second distinction concerns the level of abstraction and aggregation. One part of relevant literature discusses empirical constructs focused on individuals, while another share involves a broader governance mode concept, centered on networks. We discuss three prominent lines of public management research that contribute valuable elements of leadership behavior repertoires and point out their positions on the two distinctions discussed.

Firstly, research on leadership of individual leaders in (public) organizations tends to concentrate on leadership styles, in particular transactional, transformational, and charismatic leadership ( Lord et al. 2017 ; Ospina 2017 ; van Knippenberg and Sitkin 2013; , Vogel and Masal 2015 ; Yukl 2012 ). These studies focus on the downward dyadic relationship between manager and employee, in which leaders motivate employees to perform well (e.g., Jensen et al. 2019 ; Vermeeren, Kuipers, and Steijn 2014 ). This tradition has an empirical individual-centered approach. Its measurement involves motivating behaviors, but the main focus is put on leaders’ style of conduct instead of the actions themselves. Examining styles tells us something about how leaders implement their actions without taking the range of behaviors into account. Although the Full-Range Leadership Theory and the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (e.g., Antonakis, Avolio, and Sivasubramaniam 2003 ) form an attempt at a more-encompassing approach of leadership styles, it is still limited to the supervisor–employee relationship.

Secondly, internal and external management ( O’Toole and Meier 1999 ; Pedersen et al. 2019 ) and managerial networking ( Torenvlied et al. 2013 ; van den Bekerom, Torenvlied, and Akkerman 2016 ) is relevant here, although these studies speak in terms of management rather than leadership. This research tradition highlights that leadership encompasses multiple relationships with a range of stakeholders, inside and outside the organization. Again, this tradition has an individual, empirical focus. Whereas measurement of internal management includes specification of concrete behaviors, measurement of external management and networking often only involves the frequency of interactions with various stakeholders in different directions. This measurement then lacks specification of types of leadership behaviors used within such stakeholder relationships.

Finally, collaborative governance research involves collective or distributed leadership. This tradition has a strong focus on collaboration and relationships with a wide range of actors, reflecting that managing networked structures instead of single organizations takes center stage ( Bryson, Crosby, and Stone 2015 ; Crosby, ‘t Hart, and Torfing 2017 ). In contrast to the other two lines of enquiry, this type of research is concerned with collective leadership as a governance concept: leadership is treated as the product of the dynamics of many individuals’ actions and does not concern leadership behavior of individual leaders (e.g., Ospina 2017 ). In a recent study, Cristofoli, Trivellato, and Verzillo (2019) combine the individual and network focus, by investigating managers’ network behaviors to assess network effectiveness. While this and similar studies add on to the external management and networking literature (and are equally not speaking of leadership), leadership largely remains a governance concept in this tradition.

The public management leadership literature is thus empirically rich yet fragmented across various traditions, and not aligned (see also Ospina 2017 ). Research in the tradition that shares our focus on the individual level of leaders’ behavior generally operationalizes leadership rather narrowly focused on motivating behaviors in the downwards, dyadic relationship between manager and employees. While this research could benefit from the variety of insights from other traditions, they are rarely integrated. As a result of the fragmentation and disconnection, a comprehensive view that shows how leaders use the diversity of behaviors and combine various behaviors remains absent. Yet, effective leadership comes about when leaders employ the variety of their leadership behavior repertoire ( Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn 1995 ; Havermans et al. 2015 ; Hooijberg 1996 ). Approaching leadership with a repertoire perspective can overcome this.

The leadership behavior repertoire is a collection of behavioral options available to a leader to pick and choose from to find a way to act suitable in light of the circumstances. The repertoire embodies the variety of roles (Dension, Hooijberg, and Quinn 1995) leaders fulfill that can be enacted by a range of behaviors in relation to a range of actors in different directions. The behavioral options then comprise combinations of behaviors differing in orientation (task, relations, change, external environment; Yukl 2012 ) and directions of action (upwards and downwards in the hierarchy to superiors and subordinates, sidewards to those in comparable positions, and outwards to external stakeholders ( Moore 1995 ; van den Bekerom, Torenvlied, and Akkerman 2016 )). Leaders have leeway to make various combinations: combinations can be more extensive or more simple, and there is no fixed combination between behavior types and relations in which they are used. The repertoire signifies that leaders have options to adapt to changing situations.

In sum, a repertoire conceptualization sees leadership behavior comprehensively in terms of behaviors and relationships and captures interactions between various behavioral options. Leadership repertoires are not just a sum of its separate elements. The need for an integrated view of leadership behavior through a repertoire perspective will be illustrated below and discussed in the research agenda.

Research Setting

To illustrate how leaders use the leadership behavior repertoire, an empirical setting characterized by contextual ambiguity provides a highlighting opportunity. When ambiguity in the context of leaders is omnipresent, leaders are likely forced to employ and combine diverse behaviors, because no clear guidance (clear priorities between interests, regulations, formal authority) is available to them to accomplish goals directly. While such ambiguity can be found throughout the public sector, it is particularly pronounced within universities. Therefore, universities were selected as a typical case ( Gerring 2006 ), in line with the tradition in organizational studies ( Askling and Stensaker 2002 ; Cohen and March 1974 ; March and Olsen 1979 ). Contextual ambiguity is particularly pronounced within universities, for two reasons.

Firstly, ambiguity is an ever-present phenomenon at universities, since universities work on multiple goals at the same time, involving research, education, and outreach tasks. Thereby they have to deal with a range of stakeholders with different interests, such as employees from multiple faculties and departments, students, and external stakeholders such as ministries or partner organizations ( Bryman and Lilley 2009 ; Enders 2012 ; Rainey and Jung 2015 ). March and Olsen (1979) , in their highly cited study on ambiguity and choice in organizations, illustrate their argument by the empirical study of universities based on the observation that educational institutions are prone to ambiguity: “goals that are unclear, technologies that are imperfectly understood, histories that are difficult to interpret, and participants who wander in and out” (8). This forms a point where ambiguity for leaders can emerge, since this creates room for various interpretations of priorities and desirable courses of action. It is then likely to generate variety in leadership behavior—both in terms of what is done and the complexity of this behavior.

Additionally, the complexity of universities’ organizational structures enhances the need to combine a range of leadership behaviors and work in multiple directions. Universities operate a system of shared governance, which means that the decision-making authority of leaders in universities is often limited and shared between different formal positions while professionals enjoy much autonomy ( Bolden, Petrov, and Gosling 2009 ; Pearce, Wassenaar, and Wood 2018 ; Seeber et al. 2015 ). This adds structural complexity, which may affect what leaders can do in terms of leadership behavior. As a result, it is expected there is a marked need to use a variety of leadership behaviors from their repertoire.

Data Collection

Data have been collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews with leaders. Interviews provide rich data that can show how leaders combine various roles and behaviors in different circumstances. The interviews focused on what leaders do in ambiguous situations, with topics covering how leaders perceive their leadership roles, what tensions they experience, and how they fill in their role and address such challenges (see topic list in Appendix   1 ). Since the perception of the environment and one’s role within it can be highly important for one’s behavior ( James and Jones 1974 ; Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 2005 ), eliciting these perceptions while allowing participants to elaborate freely is valuable. Interviews lasted between 50 and 90 minutes and were recorded and transcribed verbatim for analysis.

The focus is on leaders in positions of formal authority, which means people who have a managerial position. Although leadership behavior is not necessarily limited to be performed by only those in formal leadership positions, we focus on leaders as those people within organizations with such positions, because these people have extensive leadership tasks incorporated in their position—enacting leadership is expected of them. Formal leaders in universities in middle management positions are increasingly tasked with responsibilities related to strategy, accountability, and innovation as a result of shifted modes of governance. These tasks create expectations and requirements for such position holders to show leadership behavior ( Beerkens and van der Hoek 2021 /forthcoming; Pearce, Wassenaar, and Wood 2018 ). It should be noted, however, that this does not have to exclude forms of shared or distributed leadership. Such forms of leadership are present in this study, since it also includes leaders “leading leaders” and leaders with tasks delegated within a board who do not necessarily have the accompanying formal authority ( Gronn 2002 ; ‘t Hart 2014 ; Ospina 2017 ). Participants have positions as (vice) deans; directors; faculty, department, and institute board members; and chairs or coordinators of research groups and teaching programs. All participants are active academics who fulfill a managerial position for a specific term, not professional administrators.

Data collection took place from December 2017 through February 2018 at three comprehensive, research-intensive universities in the Netherlands. Within each university, participants were recruited from the faculties hosting social sciences and natural sciences. Potential participants were identified through university websites and indexed according to faculty, organizational unit, type of position, and gender. Since this study has an exploratory character, participants were invited to create a sample including a balanced variation on these characteristics and thereby variation in types of experiences. Therefore, an equal number of men and women in similar types of positions in both social and natural sciences were invited. Since the number of women in formal leadership positions in the natural sciences was comparatively small, oversampling them was required. If a participant agreed to participate, no direct colleagues from the same department or board were selected. Invitations and one reminder email were sent by email, generating an invitation acceptance of 19 out of 37. Those who declined the invitation did so with the argument of lack of time. We have no indication of bias in who accepted the invitation, as an equal number of men and women declined to participate or did not respond to the invitation. Table 1 provides an overview of participants sorted by discipline, gender, and the level of their leadership position within the university.

Interview Participants per Discipline, Gender, and Level of Leadership Position Within University ( n = 19)

Data were analyzed using the method of Thematic Analysis, based on Boyatzis’ (1998) approach. A hybrid approach was used to accommodate both inductively elaborating the variety of leadership behaviors and using sensitizing concepts of roles in the leadership behavior repertoire ( Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn 1995 ) and of direction of leadership behavior ( Moore 1995 ; van den Bekerom, Torenvlied, and Akkerman 2016 ).

Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn (1995) distinguish a comprehensive set of leadership roles and accompanying behaviors: innovator, broker, producer, director, coordinator, monitor, facilitator, and mentor (see table 2 for brief descriptions per role). Whereas some roles involve more task-oriented behaviors, other roles concern externally oriented networking or relations-oriented coaching behaviors ( Yukl 2012 ). Since it is flexible in accommodating various directions in which the leadership behaviors are exercised, a connection to Moore’s (1995) and van den Bekerom, Torenvlied, and Akkerman (2016) distinction between leading upwards, downwards, outwards, and sidewards can be made. Therefore, this typology captures the various takes on leadership present in the public management literature and fits a repertoire perspective on leadership at the level of behavior in an encompassing way.

Leadership Roles (Derived from Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn 1995 ) and Behaviors (Derived from Interviews)

Starting with open coding, an inventory of leadership behaviors was established by extracting key themes close to the wording used by participants. Co-occurring behaviors were grouped into categories of similar actions. This resulted in 13 categories of leadership behaviors. Axial coding linked these categories to the leadership roles as described by Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn (1995) . The behavior categories then give more detailed substance to the role categories, and role categories can be seen as clusters of behaviors with a similar purpose. Five behavior categories seemed to fit several leadership role categories, which were then split up into more specific categories matching the description of the role categories. During the axial coding, there appeared no substantive distinction between behavior types matching the coordinator and producer roles, which were therefore merged. This resulted in a total of seven leadership roles encompassing 18 types of leadership behaviors. This coding scheme is presented in table 2 .

The coded data have been examined using coding stripes and matrix queries to seek patterns of co-occurrence of leadership behaviors and directions in which the behaviors were exercised. The units of analysis in this process were the situations discussed by the participants, in which they experienced ambiguity and were showing leadership behavior. All analyses of the coded transcripts are performed in NVivo. This pattern-seeking has led to a categorization of leadership behavior repertoire uses that varied in their complexity, as the next section will discuss.

Leadership Behavior Repertoire Uses: Empirical Illustrations

Based on the interview data, different uses of the leadership behavior repertoire were uncovered, which are illustrated below. To illicit these accounts, participants were asked to tell about situations in which they were confronted with multiple simultaneous demands that produced tension and how they acted then. In response, participants described a rich variety of leadership behaviors, showing a repertoire consisting of a range of behavioral options. Throughout the interviews, participants reported on combining several behaviors to address issues they are facing. Thereby they often need to balance several objectives, create synergies, or work in parallel on multiple issues. Participants described different types of behavior repertoire uses, that vary in terms of the number of behaviors used and the number of directions in which they operate. The variety of leadership behavior repertoire uses can be categorized in four quadrants, which is displayed in table 3 . Important to emphasize is that leadership behavior repertoire uses concern behavior modalities, approaches in dealing with leadership situations, rather than traits or characteristics of people. Leaders use those behavior modalities differently between situations.

Variation of Leadership Behavior Repertoire Uses

The discussion below builds up in terms of leadership complexity (see also table 3 ): first simpler uses of the repertoire are discussed, followed by uses that involve more different types of behavior and more different directions.

Simple Leadership Behavior Repertoire Uses: Few Behaviors, Few Directions

Leaders do not always use a substantial part of their leadership behavior repertoire. Only a few types of behavior directed to a single type of actor can form a leader’s response to occurring needs. Leaders discussed situations in which they dealt with a single type of actor such as their employees or were engaged in issues that involved a single task. Such examples match with how public leadership behavior is often studied, in research with the common focus on the supervisor–employee dyadic relationship. Instances of this kind can be found concerning motivating and coaching employees or managing conflict between employees. Though these examples as shown below can be classified as simple repertoire uses, it should be noted that more often than not more than one type of behavior was used. This illustrates that delineating leadership behavior in a more limited conceptualization may be too simple and may not be congruent with leaders’ practice.

For example, a participant described how he had facilitated reintegration of employees who suffered from burn-out (interview 13). He describes using behaviors of the mentor and monitor roles in downward direction: signaling and discussing burn-out of an employee to acknowledge the existence of a problem, giving the employee autonomy to come up with his/her own plan to improve the situation, discussing the plan and directing towards solutions or assistance if necessary, and monitoring and discussing progress. Another example originates with an educational director. In a mentor role, she keeps an eye to the human behind the employee, facilitating him or her to make choices about the number of hours s/he wants to work when family situations change, but at the same time ensuring that all courses can be taught and sufficient staff capacity remains, using behaviors fitting a coordinator role (interview 14). These examples show that leaders keep the interests of employees in mind while simultaneously also considering the implications for an institute and continuity of teaching programs. Yet despite concurring demands on the leader, a relatively simple repertoire use is shown.

Another type of example that appeared several times concerns the broker role in upward direction. For instance, a head of the department discussed that part of his job is to shield off his staff from new rules and administrative burden as much as possible. In the case of new digital systems being introduced by the university, he raised his voice and objections repeatedly towards the faculty and higher levels within the university. As part of this, he also participated in a review committee, gathering experiences and problems with these systems from all parts of the university, to advise the university board to change the systems and reduce the burden on employees (interview 2).

Moderately Complex Leadership Behavior Repertoire Uses: Few Behaviors, Various Directions

Other times, participants described situations featuring more comprehensive uses of the leadership behavior repertoire. Leaders focus on a few behaviors fitting one role, but thereby engage a range of actors in various directions. This type of instance shows similarities with the network perspective from the literature. Examples regularly feature behaviors of a communicating and connecting kind but can take on more task-oriented behaviors in more complex contexts.

A vice-dean talked about a process to create a shared story about the newly developed strategy. The leadership behaviors mainly fall within the facilitator role, but were directed downwards, outwards, and partially also upwards. In this case, earlier efforts to engage various parts of the organization in the development of the new strategy had not been accomplished that the outcome resonated broadly and generated excitement for the future envisioned together for the strategy. She therefore organized different types of meetings with staff as well as students to discuss the important values and how the new faculty strategy would contribute to advancing these values. Seeking input, bringing perspectives together, and giving the various stakeholders a voice in creating a story brought about that a lively discussion and a sense of community around this story emerged as a basis for acting upon the strategy sustainably (interview 3).

Other illustrations of this quadrant feature participants who are active in collaborations across organizational boundaries - both internal boundaries within the university and outward boundaries. An example comes from a research group leader who also acts as chair of a university-wide multidisciplinary network. In her work for this network, she talks about using leadership behaviors fitting the broker role in upward, sideward, and downward directions. As chair of this network, this participant works on setting up collaborative teaching modules as well as integrating the network’s focal theme within existing programs at all faculties. This means that she is engaged a lot in talking to deans, department and education directors, and peers throughout the university to explain the relevance of incorporating the theme within university teaching, asking them to participate and allocate resources within their programs to develop such education, and coordinating between participating programs and teachers on the work floor. Bargaining is part of this process, as well as establishing commitment from the university board to leverage it in those negotiations. Keeping in touch and following up with all stakeholders in the various directions, representing interests, cooperating, and spotting opportunities all fit this broker role, but takes different shapes dependent on which type of actors in which direction she engages with (interview 16).

Moderately Complex Leadership Behavior Repertoire Uses: Various Behaviors, Few Directions

A similar yet different version of the more comprehensive repertoire use is found when leaders combine a variety of behaviors of multiple roles, but only use them in one direction. Such behavior repertoire uses share with much of the literature that leadership is exercised in relation to a single type of stakeholder. It differs, however, by involving a combination of diverse behaviors, that emphasizes that leaders draw on multiple roles in these relationships.

An illustration is given by a head of department, whose department went through turbulent times and faced declining revenues and austerity measures from the faculty. She described her leadership in keeping the department afloat in terms of various behaviors matching the director, facilitator, and broker roles directed downwards at the staff working in the department. Initially, she had to get the change process in motion, which meant that she stressed the urgency of the problem and the need to take action for survival. Moreover, she stepped in to mediate and resolve conflict to get resistant staff members on board. This required organizing numerous meetings, having conversations with people separately, explaining the situation, and convincing the staff to make changes to the program. Besides giving input, she sought perspectives and ideas of the staff to solve the problems, giving them the opportunity to reshape the program along their expertise and thereby also create ownership of the community. Still, as head of the department, she made the conditions clear in order to reach the goal of solving the financial problems. Throughout the process, she worked on building social cohesion, trust, and a sense of collective ownership of the department, not only through participatory decision-making but also by organizing social activities and creating physical signs of community (a picture wall, for instance) (interview 19).

A further example of this type of repertoire use is provided by an educational director, who discusses how he works on getting the teaching program staffed and ensures educational quality. To plan all courses and allocate staff, he uses a model that specifies how many hours are available to fulfill tasks. In this way, he provides transparency to his colleagues. When a teacher complains about their tasks and the time available, and that it would not be fair, he can use the model to show what needs to be done in a year and how all colleagues contribute to that. Besides his coordinator and monitor role behaviors, he also draws on mentor role behaviors, to make sure that supporting arrangements are in place for new teachers, for instance, training and assistance, and asking what tasks people would like to do and how he can help them. Building shared ownership by involving staff in discussions and asking them for plans to improve educational quality characterize his facilitator role (interview 7).

Complex Leadership Behavior Repertoire Uses: Various Behaviors, Various Directions

Lastly, complex combinations of leadership behavior repertoire options are commonly used. Leaders made use of multiple behaviors and engaged with actors in various directions. Cases that involve strategy and organizational change are commonly at the heart of such examples. All participants shared the conviction and experience that strategies, plans for change, and important decisions should not be made by a leader alone, but instead should be developed together with their staff. This is important within the complex ambiguous contexts of many public organizations, because leaders lead professionals who have strong intrinsic motivation and a high level of expertise, while at the same time, many leaders still participate—like their staff—in the primary process like a “primus inter pares.”

Exemplary for a complex leadership behavior repertoire use is a head of department who elaborated on a process of formulating a new strategy for his department. He combined the innovator, broker, facilitator, and director roles and thereby worked downwards and upwards. Taking initiative, seeking and giving input, setting boundary conditions, delegating tasks and giving autonomy to his staff within these limits, overseeing but not directing the process, creating engagement, representing interests to the faculty board and financial department, and setting direction by making the final decisions based on input from the bottom-up process were combined in this process. New plans were being developed, while at the same time he started preparing for implementation. This example also illustrates the relational character of leadership spanning multiple organizational levels and working with actors in multiple directions. The participant facilitated employees within his institute to create bottom-up plans and influenced them by providing boundary conditions, while at the same time, influencing stakeholders higher up in the organization to be able to implement the new plans without delay or difficulties (interview 18).

Another illustrative case is provided by an educational director, who initiated, developed, and realized a new international Bachelor program. She combined innovator, facilitator, monitor, and director role behaviors in various directions: downwards, sidewards, and outwards. Based on her analysis of developments in the educational environment, staff composition, and potential for future thriving, this educational director took the initiative to start talking about creating a new program. Together with coordinating and policy staff, she made sure the financial conditions would allow this initiative and she started seeking input from teaching staff in various rounds and through diverse channels. The process was intentionally participatory and efforts were made to ensure transparent communication with staff members. In this way, shared ownership and support for the program were created to make it a success. Additionally, in the logistical developments, she has sought help and cooperation with colleagues of other disciplines within the university, to learn from each other and unite their interests (interview 10).

Towards a Research Agenda

The illustrated uses of the leadership behavior repertoire give rise to questions how this perspective can contribute to ongoing theorizing and research. This section outlines research directions that seem particularly fruitful to continue when conceptualizing leadership behavior as a repertoire. Moreover, several methodological suggestions to make progress along those substantive lines are discussed.

Leadership Behavior Repertoire Uses in Relation to Context

In line with most leadership research, we have found between-person variation: between participants, the emphasis on certain types of behavior differs. Whereas some participants seem to put their role as director more central, others more often act as facilitators or brokers. Nevertheless, all participants take on multiple roles and work in various directions, which makes clear that characterizing a leader by their most prominent style is too simplistic. Possibly of more theoretical importance then is the within-person variation. The same participant can show different uses of the repertoire in varying situations. Several interviewees explicitly state that using the same “recipe” in all situations is not helpful, that instead, it is necessary to have sensitivity to contextual variation and use various approaches adapted to the situation. Such within-person variation of leadership behavior implies that an adaptation process is ongoing and underlines the importance of looking at leadership integrally and contextually.

Increasing our understanding of how leadership itself takes shape is all the more important, because characteristics of the context in which leaders operate present challenges—not the least in public organizations. Leaders need to balance multiple needs from their environment while being constrained by the complex hierarchical structures that divide formal authority between leaders in different positions ( Getha-Taylor et al. 2011 ; Groeneveld and Van de Walle 2011 ). Simultaneously, leadership is of growing importance in the pursuit of organizational goals ( Shamir 1999 ). So far, however, this question is largely overlooked ( Porter and McLaughlin 2006 ; cf. Schmidt and Groeneveld 2021 ; cf. Stoker, Garretsen, and Soudis 2019 ). Though it is debated to what extent the public sector is special, it is widely acknowledged that various aspects of publicness and the political context impact on organizational structures and processes amongst which leadership takes shape ( ‘t Hart 2014 ; Pollitt 2013 ). Adopting a repertoire conceptualization of leadership behavior and continuing within-person focused research can further stimulate systematic investigation of the impact of context factors on leadership.

Moving the focus from leadership of persons to leadership in situations helps disentangling leadership’s complexity while integrating context in our understanding of leadership. Thereby we build on and set a step beyond recent work of Pedersen et al. (2019) and Kramer et al. (2019) . Leaders could be thought of as being sensitive to contextual variations between situations and consequently, that such context sensitivity translates into context-sensitive behavior: when a leader perceives the situation to be different, the behavior deemed appropriate would co-vary. 1 A repertoire conceptualization can help to make this visible. It can then be argued that such context sensitivity is connected to a behavioral response based on contextual adaptation ( Hooijberg 1996 ; Van der Hoek, Beerkens, and Groeneveld 2021 ). It is worthwhile to investigate the relationship between contextual needs and a leader’s individual skills, capacity, and preferences and what that means for how the repertoire is used. Follow-up studies should conceptualize and operationalize context variables specifically to avoid vague and irrelevant explanations and make situational variation meaningful.

Leadership Repertoire Uses in Relation to Outcomes

Another step can be made by investigating how leadership behavior seen from this repertoire perspective relates to other organizational phenomena. In the existing literature, many studies show the effects of isolated parts of leadership on performance and employee attitudes (see Vogel and Masal 2015 ). From a repertoire perspective, leaders can substitute and compensate their behaviors, and they prioritize their roles and behaviors differently (possibly) depending on the context. As Van der Hoek, Beerkens, and Groeneveld (2021) show, for example, leaders are likely to consolidate their behaviors when ambiguity increases. We have observed various shapes that the repertoire can take, but it would be worthwhile to investigate, too, whether those shapes have different impacts on outcome variables and under which conditions those relationships exist.

It has been found that leaders can use various approaches to be effective ( Pedersen et al. 2019 ) and leadership is most effective when leaders draw on the variety of options of the repertoire ( Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn 1995 ; Havermans et al. 2015 ; Hooijberg 1996 ). Using the repertoire’s full range of options makes that leaders can match the diversity of issues they are addressing with suitable action, as the opportunities to create a fit between demands and response increase. Also in research on ambidexterity of leaders, it was found that effectiveness to fulfill various requirements was enhanced when leaders draw on a range of different behaviors ( Mom, Fourné, and Jansen 2015 ). Moreover, as Smith’s (2014) study shows, the pattern of behavior and decisions over a longer stretch of time may have more important consequences for organizational outcomes than single actions and decisions. A repertoire conceptualization of leadership facilitates that combinations of behavior with their combined impact are highlighted and can be evaluated.

Operationalization of the Leadership Behavior Repertoire

Our analysis has focused on the variety within leadership behavior repertoire uses. Nevertheless, variety is only one perspective on this complexity. Not only which behaviors are used and in which directions, but a temporal lens to study repertoires can also add supplementary insights. Firstly, timing of the use of the repertoire’s elements can vary. Leaders can undertake various actions in parallel, while at other times the different actions are more sequential. Moreover, the moment when leaders decide to start, stop or change their approach can differ. Also delaying or waiting involve this temporal factor. Our interview participants gave examples that indicate variation in timing. Another way in which we can learn more about the leadership behavior repertoire is by considering the duration and intensity of behaviors. Whereas leaders may spend only a single instance of short time on some activities, others may require full attention for either a longer or shorter time, or may be always ongoing in a monitoring fashion.

Several authors have called for attention for temporal factors such as timing, pace, rhythm, cycles, ordering, and trends in the study of organizational behavior (e.g., Ancona et al. 2001 ; Castillo and Trinh 2018 ; Johns 2006 ) and public management ( Oberfield 2014a ; O’Toole and Meier 1999 ; Pollitt 2008 ), though still very few empirical studies in public management have explicitly addressed this issue (e.g., Oberfield 2014a , 2014b ). By taking up a repertoire perspective to conceptualize leadership, more nuanced differences connected to subtle time variables could be illuminated.

Internal Dynamics of the Leadership Behavior Repertoire

Besides further developing the operationalization of the leadership behavior repertoire, the internal dynamics of the repertoire can be unpacked. Not only the elements of the repertoire themselves and how we look at them, but also how they are combined and balanced can be disentangled for deeper insights. Understanding why leaders use their repertoire as they do, how they combine and balance the various elements, and why so, helps to untangle the intricacies of the complexity of the leadership behavior repertoire. As referred to before, the internal dynamics may cause differential effects than when a single type of leadership is examined.

One relevant aspect concerns the extent to which leaders are on the one hand intentional, strategic, and proactive in choosing their leadership behavior, or reactive and habitual on the other hand ( Boyne and Walker 2004 ; Crant 2000 ; Miles and Snow 1978 ). Based on some indications in our data, variation exists in this respect. Sometimes leaders take a proactive approach and choose behaviors strategically to advance their goals. Building on findings by Havermans et al. (2015) , intentional switching and combining of various leadership behaviors can be expected. Other times, leadership behavior becomes a matter of reactively responding to what is thrown at a leader and defaulting to preferred styles.

Explanatory factors at the level of the leader may be relevant to consider. One way to understand such differences concerning the combinations leaders make, relates to the breadth of repertoire options available to them. In case leaders are aware of a large number of behavioral strategies they could adopt and have the skills to use them, this may lead to more varied repertoire uses and more variation between situations. On the other hand, having knowledge and skills of only a few behavioral options, leaders may be more inclined to use the same and a limited repertoire. How this relates to length of tenure in a position or experience in leadership roles more generally could be examined. A second explanation could be found in how leaders perceive their room for maneuver. Feeling in control or in the position to frame issues may help to make such conscious strategic combinations. Feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of demands or in a position of putting out fires, however, may put leaders under pressure to forgo proactive strategic behavior.

Methodological Recommendations

To pursue these substantive avenues for continued study, a number of methodological suggestions can be made that seem particularly suitable when using a repertoire conceptualization of leadership behavior.

Experimental methods are strongly encouraged and increasingly used in the field (e.g., Blom-Hansen, Morton, and Serritzlew 2015 ; Jacobsen and Andersen 2015 ). Experimental designs can be used to assess the extent to which leaders adapt their leadership behavior to context. The controlled design can systematically build on insights from rich literature about the public sector context as well as from research in the contingency tradition. By manipulating contextual variation in experimental tasks or vignettes ( Atzmüller and Steiner 2010 ; Barter and Renold 1999 ; Belle and Cantarelli 2018 ; Podsakoff and Podsakoff 2019 ), the specific effect of context on leadership behavior can be tested. A repertoire conceptualization may then reveal differentiation in how context factors influence leadership behavior. Since experimental conditions can be designed by the researcher, numerous potentially relevant contextual dimensions discussed in public management research can be investigated on their effects on leadership behavior repertoire uses. If participants are confronted with multiple manipulations each, within-person variation and adaptation can be examined ( Van der Hoek, Beerkens, and Groeneveld 2021 ).

Another strategy to study leadership repertoires is using event sampling methods ( Bolger, Davis, and Raffaeli 2003 ; Kelemen, Matthews, and Breevaart 2020 ; Ohly et al. 2010 ). These methods are based on within-person variation over time, whereby study participants can be asked to report their leadership behavior at various points in time or after specified events occur. In addition, they can be asked to provide information about the context and situation in which this leadership behavior was used as well as about results. Both quantitative multilevel designs and qualitative diary studies could each contribute new insights: hypothesized patterns can be assessed or perceptions of and considerations in various situations can be disentangled. Therefore, event sampling methods can be used to test whether leaders adapt their leadership behavior to changing situations. Secondly, this method offers opportunities to learn more about timing of changes in the repertoire use and reasons for doing so.

Finally, ethnographic methods such as shadowing and participant observation are suitable to study subtle differences in meaning-giving and leadership behavior repertoire use ( Alvesson 1996 ; Geertz 1973 ; Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 2005 ). Observing leaders in various types of situations and asking questions related to those observations can give better insights in leaders’ interpretations of the context and their considerations when responding to a situation. In this way, the interaction between situational context and personal preferences and skills related to their repertoire can be studied. The balancing of different behavioral strategies by leaders can then be illuminated. This could add to develop the operationalization of the leadership repertoire as well as the understanding of its internal dynamics. Moreover, such methods are particularly useful to connect leaders’ own intentions of their leadership behavior to the perceptions of those around them to whom this behavior is directed. Since self-other disagreement is common in the study of leadership behavior ( Vogel and Kroll 2019 ), combining self-reported accounts with accounts of others can stimulate the repertoire’s validity if confirmed.

We see more of leadership when we look at the leadership behavior repertoire used in situations. Coaching, motivating, planning, solving problems should not be seen as stand-alone behaviors of a leader; instead, such actions are taken at the backdrop of and are impacted by the overall task of leading an organization, which involves many more leadership behaviors. This regularly evokes a more complex leadership repertoire use. Furthermore, the structures that divide authority of leaders and thereby make them interdependent, bring along that leadership behavior does not only comprise supervising employees or leading downwards, but that 360-degree action is frequently required. The relational character of leadership is omnipresent in such complex environments. Leaders have to work in different directions and need to switch their strategies and combine various types of leadership behavior to be able to influence and facilitate.

There are always trade-offs when defining a good concept, parsimony and depth being one of them in this case, and the utility for theory is the most important criterion when choosing the best concept ( Gerring 1999 ). In-depth studies on specific leadership elements have provided valuable evidence on the nature of certain behaviors, and their effects on various organizational outcomes. As a limitation, they ignore a symbiotic relationship between different behaviors. While more comprehensive, the repertoire approach has its own challenges, though. Due to its comprehensiveness, delineation of the concept as well as its operationalization and use in empirical studies is more complex.

The fragmentation of research in different, largely non-communicating parts of the literature may be developing a blind spot for the study of leadership behavior of individuals in public organizations: though it may describe the real world well in relatively simple situations, it prevents studying leadership behavior in a manner that covers the comprehensiveness of leadership in more complex situations common in public organizations. This study provides support for the importance of an integral approach that examines the combination of various leadership behaviors at the individual level in public management, because the ambiguous context of many public leaders forces them to draw on a broad repertoire of behaviors. Learning how leaders vary, combine, and balance their behavioral strategies is then essential, as it can provide further insights into obstacles and openings of effective leadership. The identified directions could be a guide for future research in this endeavor.

The premise of context sensitivity underlies research on contingency theory (e.g., Aldrich 1979 ; Donaldson 2001 ; Fiedler 1967 ; Lawrence and Lorsch 1967 ; Perrow 1970 ) and situational leadership (e.g., Graef 1997 ; Thompson and Vecchio 2009 ; Yukl 2008 ), though such studies generally focus on organizational structure or effectiveness as dependent on leadership or organizations’ external environment. Situational leadership theory ( Graef 1997 ; Thompson and Vecchio 2009 ; Yukl 2008 ) sees leadership itself as dependent on context, but specifically focuses on employees’ task maturity rather than a broader view of organizational context factors and narrows leadership to motivating subordinates.

- Can you tell me what it means to be [director/dean/board member/project leader] within this [department/institute/faculty] (tasks/running issues and projects)?

Leadership role: How do you see your role as […]?

- What do you find hard about your role as […]? Can you tell about this in relation to a particular issue or event in which this featured. What did make that difficult?

- Do you experience dilemmas in your role as […]? Have you experienced moments where different things were hard to reconcile? Where did that tension come from?

- Do you experience dilemmas between your roles as […] and […]?

- You have different tasks and roles. How do you combine those (simultaneously)?

Ambiguity needs: Which needs/expectations do you encounter in your role as […]?

- Where do those needs originate from? Can you tell about this in relation to a particular issue or event in which this featured.

- What did you do then in that situation?

- Do you always do this in the same way, or is it dependent on the situation?

- What made you choose this approach?

Do you face:

Goals that allow room for multiple interpretations?

Working on both innovation/change as optimization/stability?

Complexity and dynamism in the environment of your [department/institute/faculty/group]?

- Do you experience tension here? Example? Where did that tension stem from?

- How did you deal with it?

As a last question for this interview: Could we go through your last week, see how the things you talked about show in how you spend your time?

- What do you mean by […]?

- Can you give an example of that (of last week/month)?

- What did you do then?

- Can you tell more specifically which actions you undertook to do that?

- Can you take me along in the process of […], how that went, what you were thinking?

- What did you find difficult about that?

- How did you do that?

- Can you elaborate?

- Have you missed a topic/did we not discuss something that you would like to bring to my attention?

- Did you participate in leadership training?

Aldrich , H. E . 1979 . Organizations and environments . Upper Saddle River, NJ : Prentice Hall .

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Table of Contents

The foundation of any successful organization is its leadership. It involves inspiring and motivating people to accomplish shared objectives rather than merely making choices or issuing commands. Successful leadership influences organizational behavior, impacting a company’s culture and success. This article examines leadership and organisational behaviour and highlights its critical role in cultivating a constructive and efficient work atmosphere.

Understanding Organizational Behaviour

The concept of organizational behaviour describes the actions of individuals and groups inside a company. It covers their general behavior, attitudes, and interactions. A company’s structure, culture, and leadership all impact its behavior. How leaders set the tone for behavior impacts every level of the organization, shaping how staff members behave and relate to one another.

The Impact of Leadership on Organizational Culture

Employees’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are shaped by the common values, beliefs, and practices that make up their organizational culture. This culture is created and sustained in large part by leaders. Here are a few ways that organizational culture is impacted by leadership:

• Vision and Mission : The organization’s leaders establish its vision and mission, which also serve as its compass. A distinct vision unites workers’ efforts with the company’s objectives and helps them understand why they are doing what they are doing.
• Values and Ethics : Leaders set the organization’s fundamental principles and ethical standards. Leaders who exhibit honesty, integrity, and respect set an example that staff members must follow.
• Communication : Open communication is fostered by influential leaders. They welcome criticism, pay attention to issues, and ensure that information is shared efficiently throughout the company.

Leadership and Employee Motivation

Leaders significantly influence employee motivation. Motivated employees are more engaged, productive, and dedicated to their jobs. Here are a few strategies for inspiring team members and leaders:

• Recognition and Rewards: Recognizing staff members’ efforts and accomplishments raises their spirits and motivates them to work harder.
• Empowerment: Granting employees freedom and confidence to make decisions can increase their sense of ownership and accountability.
• Career Development: Employee sense of ownership and accountability can be increased by granting them freedom and confidence to make decisions.

Leadership is essential when it comes to influencing corporate behavior. Successful leaders impact an organization’s culture, motivation, and overall success. Leaders may foster a productive and happy work environment by being aware of the various leadership philosophies and their effects. Making a significant difference at work starts with you, as a leader or aspirant, realizing the significance of leadership in organizational behavior.

1. What is the role of a leader in Organisational Behaviour?

One of the most crucial facets of organizational behavior is leadership. It is the process of persuading people to pursue a shared aim or purpose. A strong leader can inspire and motivate people to collaborate and accomplish great things.

2. What are the 7 roles of a leader in an organization?

As part of their responsibilities, leaders create a plan, bring people together, inspire and motivate others, develop individuals, encourage creativity, and establish connections.

3. What is the impact of transformational leadership on an employee motivation?

Transformative leadership encourages and challenges staff members to perform above and beyond expectations, dramatically increasing employee motivation. By emphasizing individual growth and praising staff members’ accomplishments, these leaders encourage a feeling of dedication and purpose. This strategy produces a motivated and passionate workforce committed to reaching individual and company objectives.

4. Why is communication important in leadership?

Communication is essential for leaders to maintain clarity, openness, and trust inside the business. Influential leaders who communicate openly with their team members about goals, expectations, and feedback promote a sense of inclusion and alignment of the team’s efforts. In addition to resolving disputes and swiftly addressing issues, effective communication keeps the workplace peaceful and productive.

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Article contents

Organizational behavior.

• Neal M. Ashkanasy Neal M. Ashkanasy University of Queensland
•  and  Alana D. Dorris Alana D. Dorris University of Queensland
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.23
• Published online: 29 March 2017

Organizational behavior (OB) is a discipline that includes principles from psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Its focus is on understanding how people behave in organizational work environments. Broadly speaking, OB covers three main levels of analysis: micro (individuals), meso (groups), and macro (the organization). Topics at the micro level include managing the diverse workforce; effects of individual differences in attitudes; job satisfaction and engagement, including their implications for performance and management; personality, including the effects of different cultures; perception and its effects on decision-making; employee values; emotions, including emotional intelligence, emotional labor, and the effects of positive and negative affect on decision-making and creativity (including common biases and errors in decision-making); and motivation, including the effects of rewards and goal-setting and implications for management. Topics at the meso level of analysis include group decision-making; managing work teams for optimum performance (including maximizing team performance and communication); managing team conflict (including the effects of task and relationship conflict on team effectiveness); team climate and group emotional tone; power, organizational politics, and ethical decision-making; and leadership, including leadership development and leadership effectiveness. At the organizational level, topics include organizational design and its effect on organizational performance; affective events theory and the physical environment; organizational culture and climate; and organizational change.

• organizational psychology
• organizational sociology
• organizational anthropology

Introduction

Organizational behavior (OB) is the study of how people behave in organizational work environments. More specifically, Robbins, Judge, Millett, and Boyle ( 2014 , p. 8) describe it as “[a] field of study that investigates the impact that individual groups and structure have on behavior within organizations, for the purposes of applying such knowledge towards improving an organization’s effectiveness.” The OB field looks at the specific context of the work environment in terms of human attitudes, cognition, and behavior, and it embodies contributions from psychology, social psychology, sociology, and anthropology. The field is also rapidly evolving because of the demands of today’s fast-paced world, where technology has given rise to work-from-home employees, globalization, and an ageing workforce. Thus, while managers and OB researchers seek to help employees find a work-life balance, improve ethical behavior (Ardichivili, Mitchell, & Jondle, 2009 ), customer service, and people skills (see, e.g., Brady & Cronin, 2001 ), they must simultaneously deal with issues such as workforce diversity, work-life balance, and cultural differences.

The most widely accepted model of OB consists of three interrelated levels: (1) micro (the individual level), (2) meso (the group level), and (3) macro (the organizational level). The behavioral sciences that make up the OB field contribute an element to each of these levels. In particular, OB deals with the interactions that take place among the three levels and, in turn, addresses how to improve performance of the organization as a whole.

In order to study OB and apply it to the workplace, it is first necessary to understand its end goal. In particular, if the goal is organizational effectiveness, then these questions arise: What can be done to make an organization more effective? And what determines organizational effectiveness? To answer these questions, dependent variables that include attitudes and behaviors such as productivity, job satisfaction, job performance, turnover intentions, withdrawal, motivation, and workplace deviance are introduced. Moreover, each level—micro, meso, and macro—has implications for guiding managers in their efforts to create a healthier work climate to enable increased organizational performance that includes higher sales, profits, and return on investment (ROE).

The Micro (Individual) Level of Analysis

The micro or individual level of analysis has its roots in social and organizational psychology. In this article, six central topics are identified and discussed: (1) diversity; (2) attitudes and job satisfaction; (3) personality and values; (4) emotions and moods; (5) perception and individual decision-making; and (6) motivation.

An obvious but oft-forgotten element at the individual level of OB is the diverse workforce. It is easy to recognize how different each employee is in terms of personal characteristics like age, skin color, nationality, ethnicity, and gender. Other, less biological characteristics include tenure, religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity. In the Australian context, while the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act of 1992 helped to increase participation of people with disabilities working in organizations, discrimination and exclusion still continue to inhibit equality (Feather & Boeckmann, 2007 ). In Western societies like Australia and the United States, however, antidiscrimination legislation is now addressing issues associated with an ageing workforce.

In terms of gender, there continues to be significant discrimination against female employees. Males have traditionally had much higher participation in the workforce, with only a significant increase in the female workforce beginning in the mid-1980s. Additionally, according to Ostroff and Atwater’s ( 2003 ) study of engineering managers, female managers earn a significantly lower salary than their male counterparts, especially when they are supervising mostly other females.

Job Satisfaction and Job Engagement

Job satisfaction is an attitudinal variable that comes about when an employee evaluates all the components of her or his job, which include affective, cognitive, and behavioral aspects (Weiss, 2002 ). Increased job satisfaction is associated with increased job performance, organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs), and reduced turnover intentions (Wilkin, 2012 ). Moreover, traditional workers nowadays are frequently replaced by contingent workers in order to reduce costs and work in a nonsystematic manner. According to Wilkin’s ( 2012 ) findings, however, contingent workers as a group are less satisfied with their jobs than permanent employees are.

Job engagement concerns the degree of involvement that an employee experiences on the job (Kahn, 1990 ). It describes the degree to which an employee identifies with their job and considers their performance in that job important; it also determines that employee’s level of participation within their workplace. Britt, Dickinson, Greene-Shortridge, and McKibbin ( 2007 ) describe the two extremes of job satisfaction and employee engagement: a feeling of responsibility and commitment to superior job performance versus a feeling of disengagement leading to the employee wanting to withdraw or disconnect from work. The first scenario is also related to organizational commitment, the level of identification an employee has with an organization and its goals. Employees with high organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and employee engagement tend to perceive that their organization values their contribution and contributes to their wellbeing.

Personality represents a person’s enduring traits. The key here is the concept of enduring . The most widely adopted model of personality is the so-called Big Five (Costa & McCrae, 1992 ): extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness. Employees high in conscientiousness tend to have higher levels of job knowledge, probably because they invest more into learning about their role. Those higher in emotional stability tend to have higher levels of job satisfaction and lower levels of stress, most likely because of their positive and opportunistic outlooks. Agreeableness, similarly, is associated with being better liked and may lead to higher employee performance and decreased levels of deviant behavior.

Although the personality traits in the Big Five have been shown to relate to organizational behavior, organizational performance, career success (Judge, Higgins, Thoresen, & Barrick, 2006 ), and other personality traits are also relevant to the field. Examples include positive self-evaluation, self-monitoring (the degree to which an individual is aware of comparisons with others), Machiavellianism (the degree to which a person is practical, maintains emotional distance, and believes the end will justify the means), narcissism (having a grandiose sense of self-importance and entitlement), risk-taking, proactive personality, and type A personality. In particular, those who like themselves and are grounded in their belief that they are capable human beings are more likely to perform better because they have fewer self-doubts that may impede goal achievements. Individuals high in Machiavellianism may need a certain environment in order to succeed, such as a job that requires negotiation skills and offers significant rewards, although their inclination to engage in political behavior can sometimes limit their potential. Employees who are high on narcissism may wreak organizational havoc by manipulating subordinates and harming the overall business because of their over-inflated perceptions of self. Higher levels of self-monitoring often lead to better performance but they may cause lower commitment to the organization. Risk-taking can be positive or negative; it may be great for someone who thrives on rapid decision-making, but it may prove stressful for someone who likes to weigh pros and cons carefully before making decisions. Type A individuals may achieve high performance but may risk doing so in a way that causes stress and conflict. Proactive personality, on the other hand, is usually associated with positive organizational performance.

Employee Values

Personal value systems are behind each employee’s attitudes and personality. Each employee enters an organization with an already established set of beliefs about what should be and what should not be. Today, researchers realize that personality and values are linked to organizations and organizational behavior. Years ago, only personality’s relation to organizations was of concern, but now managers are more interested in an employee’s flexibility to adapt to organizational change and to remain high in organizational commitment. Holland’s ( 1973 ) theory of personality-job fit describes six personality types (realistic, investigative, social, conventional, enterprising, and artistic) and theorizes that job satisfaction and turnover are determined by how well a person matches her or his personality to a job. In addition to person-job (P-J) fit, researchers have also argued for person-organization (P-O) fit, whereby employees desire to be a part of and are selected by an organization that matches their values. The Big Five would suggest, for example, that extraverted employees would desire to be in team environments; agreeable people would align well with supportive organizational cultures rather than more aggressive ones; and people high on openness would fit better in organizations that emphasize creativity and innovation (Anderson, Spataro, & Flynn, 2008 ).

Individual Differences, Affect, and Emotion

Personality predisposes people to have certain moods (feelings that tend to be less intense but longer lasting than emotions) and emotions (intense feelings directed at someone or something). In particular, personalities with extraversion and emotional stability partially determine an individual predisposition to experience emotion more or less intensely.

Affect is also related as describing the positive and negative feelings that people experience (Ashkanasy, 2003 ). Moreover, emotions, mood, and affect interrelate; a bad mood, for instance, can lead individuals to experience a negative emotion. Emotions are action-oriented while moods tend to be more cognitive. This is because emotions are caused by a specific event that might only last a few seconds, while moods are general and can last for hours or even days. One of the sources of emotions is personality. Dispositional or trait affects correlate, on the one hand, with personality and are what make an individual more likely to respond to a situation in a predictable way (Watson & Tellegen, 1985 ). Moreover, like personality, affective traits have proven to be stable over time and across settings (Diener, Larsen, Levine, & Emmons, 1985 ; Watson, 1988 ; Watson & Tellegen, 1985 ; Watson & Walker, 1996 ). State affect, on the other hand, is similar to mood and represents how an individual feels in the moment.

The Role of Affect in Organizational Behavior

For many years, affect and emotions were ignored in the field of OB despite being fundamental factors underlying employee behavior (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1995 ). OB researchers traditionally focused on solely decreasing the effects of strong negative emotions that were seen to impede individual, group, and organizational level productivity. More recent theories of OB focus, however, on affect, which is seen to have positive, as well as negative, effects on behavior, described by Barsade, Brief, and Spataro ( 2003 , p. 3) as the “affective revolution.” In particular, scholars now understand that emotions can be measured objectively and be observed through nonverbal displays such as facial expression and gestures, verbal displays, fMRI, and hormone levels (Ashkanasy, 2003 ; Rashotte, 2002 ).

Fritz, Sonnentag, Spector, and McInroe ( 2010 ) focus on the importance of stress recovery in affective experiences. In fact, an individual employee’s affective state is critical to OB, and today more attention is being focused on discrete affective states. Emotions like fear and sadness may be related to counterproductive work behaviors (Judge et al., 2006 ). Stress recovery is another factor that is essential for more positive moods leading to positive organizational outcomes. In a study, Fritz et al. ( 2010 ) looked at levels of psychological detachment of employees on weekends away from the workplace and how it was associated with higher wellbeing and affect.

Emotional Intelligence and Emotional Labor

Ashkanasy and Daus ( 2002 ) suggest that emotional intelligence is distinct but positively related to other types of intelligence like IQ. It is defined by Mayer and Salovey ( 1997 ) as the ability to perceive, assimilate, understand, and manage emotion in the self and others. As such, it is an individual difference and develops over a lifetime, but it can be improved with training. Boyatzis and McKee ( 2005 ) describe emotional intelligence further as a form of adaptive resilience, insofar as employees high in emotional intelligence tend to engage in positive coping mechanisms and take a generally positive outlook toward challenging work situations.

Emotional labor occurs when an employee expresses her or his emotions in a way that is consistent with an organization’s display rules, and usually means that the employee engages in either surface or deep acting (Hochschild, 1983 ). This is because the emotions an employee is expressing as part of their role at work may be different from the emotions they are actually feeling (Ozcelik, 2013 ). Emotional labor has implications for an employee’s mental and physical health and wellbeing. Moreover, because of the discrepancy between felt emotions (how an employee actually feels) and displayed emotions or surface acting (what the organization requires the employee to emotionally display), surface acting has been linked to negative organizational outcomes such as heightened emotional exhaustion and reduced commitment (Erickson & Wharton, 1997 ; Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002 ; Grandey, 2003 ; Groth, Hennig-Thurau, & Walsh, 2009 ).

Affect and Organizational Decision-Making

Ashkanasy and Ashton-James ( 2008 ) make the case that the moods and emotions managers experience in response to positive or negative workplace situations affect outcomes and behavior not only at the individual level, but also in terms of strategic decision-making processes at the organizational level. These authors focus on affective events theory (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996 ), which holds that organizational events trigger affective responses in organizational members, which in turn affect organizational attitudes, cognition, and behavior.

Perceptions and Behavior

Like personality, emotions, moods, and attitudes, perceptions also influence employees’ behaviors in the workplace. Perception is the way in which people organize and interpret sensory cues in order to give meaning to their surroundings. It can be influenced by time, work setting, social setting, other contextual factors such as time of day, time of year, temperature, a target’s clothing or appearance, as well as personal trait dispositions, attitudes, and value systems. In fact, a person’s behavior is based on her or his perception of reality—not necessarily the same as actual reality. Perception greatly influences individual decision-making because individuals base their behaviors on their perceptions of reality. In this regard, attribution theory (Martinko, 1995 ) outlines how individuals judge others and is our attempt to conclude whether a person’s behavior is internally or externally caused.

Decision-Making and the Role of Perception

Decision-making occurs as a reaction to a problem when the individual perceives there to be discrepancy between the current state of affairs and the state s/he desires. As such, decisions are the choices individuals make from a set of alternative courses of action. Each individual interprets information in her or his own way and decides which information is relevant to weigh pros and cons of each decision and its alternatives to come to her or his perception of the best outcome. In other words, each of our unique perceptual processes influences the final outcome (Janis & Mann, 1977 ).

Common Biases in Decision-Making

Although there is no perfect model for approaching decision-making, there are nonetheless many biases that individuals can make themselves aware of in order to maximize their outcomes. First, overconfidence bias is an inclination to overestimate the correctness of a decision. Those most likely to commit this error tend to be people with weak intellectual and interpersonal abilities. Anchoring bias occurs when individuals focus on the first information they receive, failing to adjust for information received subsequently. Marketers tend to use anchors in order to make impressions on clients quickly and project their brand names. Confirmation bias occurs when individuals only use facts that support their decisions while discounting all contrary views. Lastly, availability bias occurs when individuals base their judgments on information readily available. For example, a manager might rate an employee on a performance appraisal based on behavior in the past few days, rather than the past six months or year.

Errors in Decision-Making

Other errors in decision-making include hindsight bias and escalation of commitment . Hindsight bias is a tendency to believe, incorrectly, after an outcome of an event has already happened, that the decision-maker would have accurately predicted that same outcome. Furthermore, this bias, despite its prevalence, is especially insidious because it inhibits the ability to learn from the past and take responsibility for mistakes. Escalation of commitment is an inclination to continue with a chosen course of action instead of listening to negative feedback regarding that choice. When individuals feel responsible for their actions and those consequences, they escalate commitment probably because they have invested so much into making that particular decision. One solution to escalating commitment is to seek a source of clear, less distorted feedback (Staw, 1981 ).

The last but certainly not least important individual level topic is motivation. Like each of the topics discussed so far, a worker’s motivation is also influenced by individual differences and situational context. Motivation can be defined as the processes that explain a person’s intensity, direction, and persistence toward reaching a goal. Work motivation has often been viewed as the set of energetic forces that determine the form, direction, intensity, and duration of behavior (Latham & Pinder, 2005 ). Motivation can be further described as the persistence toward a goal. In fact many non-academics would probably describe it as the extent to which a person wants and tries to do well at a particular task (Mitchell, 1982 ).

Early theories of motivation began with Maslow’s ( 1943 ) hierarchy of needs theory, which holds that each person has five needs in hierarchical order: physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization. These constitute the “lower-order” needs, while social and esteem needs are “higher-order” needs. Self-esteem for instance underlies motivation from the time of childhood. Another early theory is McGregor’s ( 1960 ) X-Y theory of motivation: Theory X is the concept whereby individuals must be pushed to work; and theory Y is positive, embodying the assumption that employees naturally like work and responsibility and can exercise self-direction.

Herzberg subsequently proposed the “two-factor theory” that attitude toward work can determine whether an employee succeeds or fails. Herzberg ( 1966 ) relates intrinsic factors, like advancement in a job, recognition, praise, and responsibility to increased job satisfaction, while extrinsic factors like the organizational climate, relationship with supervisor, and salary relate to job dissatisfaction. In other words, the hygiene factors are associated with the work context while the motivators are associated with the intrinsic factors associated with job motivation.

Contemporary Theories of Motivation

Although traditional theories of motivation still appear in OB textbooks, there is unfortunately little empirical data to support their validity. More contemporary theories of motivation, with more acceptable research validity, include self-determination theory , which holds that people prefer to have control over their actions. If a task an individual enjoyed now feels like a chore, then this will undermine motivation. Higher self-determined motivation (or intrinsically determined motivation) is correlated with increased wellbeing, job satisfaction, commitment, and decreased burnout and turnover intent. In this regard, Fernet, Gagne, and Austin ( 2010 ) found that work motivation relates to reactions to interpersonal relationships at work and organizational burnout. Thus, by supporting work self-determination, managers can help facilitate adaptive employee organizational behaviors while decreasing turnover intention (Richer, Blanchard, & Vallerand, 2002 ).

Core self-evaluation (CSE) theory is a relatively new concept that relates to self-confidence in general, such that people with higher CSE tend to be more committed to goals (Bono & Colbert, 2005 ). These core self-evaluations also extend to interpersonal relationships, as well as employee creativity. Employees with higher CSE are more likely to trust coworkers, which may also contribute to increased motivation for goal attainment (Johnson, Kristof-Brown, van Vianen, de Pater, & Klein, 2003 ). In general, employees with positive CSE tend to be more intrinsically motivated, thus additionally playing a role in increasing employee creativity (Judge, Bono, Erez, & Locke, 2005 ). Finally, according to research by Amabile ( 1996 ), intrinsic motivation or self-determined goal attainment is critical in facilitating employee creativity.

Goal-Setting and Conservation of Resources

While self-determination theory and CSE focus on the reward system behind motivation and employee work behaviors, Locke and Latham’s ( 1990 ) goal-setting theory specifically addresses the impact that goal specificity, challenge, and feedback has on motivation and performance. These authors posit that our performance is increased when specific and difficult goals are set, rather than ambiguous and general goals. Goal-setting seems to be an important motivational tool, but it is important that the employee has had a chance to take part in the goal-setting process so they are more likely to attain their goals and perform highly.

Related to goal-setting is Hobfoll’s ( 1989 ) conservation of resources (COR) theory, which holds that people have a basic motivation to obtain, maintain, and protect what they value (i.e., their resources). Additionally there is a global application of goal-setting theory for each of the motivation theories. Not enough research has been conducted regarding the value of goal-setting in global contexts, however, and because of this, goal-setting is not recommended without consideration of cultural and work-related differences (Konopaske & Ivancevich, 2004 ).

Self-Efficacy and Motivation

Other motivational theories include self-efficacy theory, and reinforcement, equity, and expectancy theories. Self-efficacy or social cognitive or learning theory is an individual’s belief that s/he can perform a task (Bandura, 1977 ). This theory complements goal-setting theory in that self-efficacy is higher when a manager assigns a difficult task because employees attribute the manager’s behavior to him or her thinking that the employee is capable; the employee in turn feels more confident and capable.

Reinforcement theory (Skinner, 1938 ) counters goal-setting theory insofar as it is a behaviorist approach rather than cognitive and is based in the notion that reinforcement conditions behavior, or in other words focuses on external causes rather than the value an individual attributes to goals. Furthermore, this theory instead emphasizes the behavior itself rather than what precedes the behavior. Additionally, managers may use operant conditioning, a part of behaviorism, to reinforce people to act in a desired way.

Social-learning theory (Bandura, 1977 ) extends operant conditioning and also acknowledges the influence of observational learning and perception, and the fact that people can learn and retain information by paying attention, observing, and modeling the desired behavior.

Equity theory (Adams, 1963 ) looks at how employees compare themselves to others and how that affects their motivation and in turn their organizational behaviors. Employees who perceive inequity for instance, will either change how much effort they are putting in (their inputs), change or distort their perceptions (either of self or others in relation to work), change their outcomes, turnover, or choose a different referent (acknowledge performance in relation to another employee but find someone else they can be better than).

Last but not least, Vroom’s ( 1964 ) expectancy theory holds that individuals are motivated by the extent to which they can see that their effort is likely to result in valued outcomes. This theory has received strong support in empirical research (see Van Erde & Thierry, 1996 , for meta-analytic results). Like each of the preceding theories, expectancy theory has important implications that managers should consider. For instance, managers should communicate with employees to determine their preferences to know what rewards to offer subordinates to elicit motivation. Managers can also make sure to identify and communicate clearly the level of performance they desire from an employee, as well as to establish attainable goals with the employee and to be very clear and precise about how and when performance will be rewarded (Konopaske & Ivancevich, 2004 ).

The Meso (Group) Level of Analysis

The second level of OB research also emerges from social and organizational psychology and relates to groups or teams. Topics covered so far include individual differences: diversity, personality and emotions, values and attitudes, motivation, and decision-making. Thus, in this section, attention turns to how individuals come together to form groups and teams, and begins laying the foundation for understanding the dynamics of group and team behavior. Topics at this level also include communication, leadership, power and politics, and conflict.

A group consists of two or more individuals who come together to achieve a similar goal. Groups can be formal or informal. A formal group on the one hand is assigned by the organization’s management and is a component of the organization’s structure. An informal group on the other hand is not determined by the organization and often forms in response to a need for social contact. Teams are formal groups that come together to meet a specific group goal.

Although groups are thought to go through five stages of development (Tuckman, 1965 : forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning) and to transition to effectiveness at the halfway mark (Gersick, 1988 ), group effectiveness is in fact far more complex. For example, two types of conformity to group norms are possible: compliance (just going along with the group’s norms but not accepting them) and personal acceptance (when group members’ individual beliefs match group norms). Behavior in groups then falls into required behavior usually defined by the formal group and emergent behavior that grows out of interactions among group members (Champoux, 2011 ).

Group Decision-Making

Although many of the decisions made in organizations occur in groups and teams, such decisions are not necessarily optimal. Groups may have more complex knowledge and increased perspectives than individuals but may suffer from conformity pressures or domination by one or two members. Group decision-making has the potential to be affected by groupthink or group shift. In groupthink , group pressures to conform to the group norms deter the group from thinking of alternative courses of action (Janis & Mann, 1977 ). In the past, researchers attempted to explain the effects of group discussion on decision-making through the following approaches: group decision rules, interpersonal comparisons, and informational influence. Myers and Lamm ( 1976 ), however, present a conceptual schema comprised of interpersonal comparisons and informational influence approaches that focus on attitude development in a more social context. They found that their research is consistent with the group polarization hypothesis: The initial majority predicts the consensus outcome 90% of the time. The term group polarization was founded in Serge Moscovici and his colleagues’ literature (e.g., Moscovici & Zavalloni, 1969 ). Polarization refers to an increase in the extremity of the average response of the subject population.

In other words, the Myer and Lamm ( 1976 ) schema is based on the idea that four elements feed into one another: social motivation, cognitive foundation, attitude change, and action commitment. Social motivation (comparing self with others in order to be perceived favorably) feeds into cognitive foundation , which in turn feeds into attitude change and action commitment . Managers of organizations can help reduce the negative phenomena and increase the likelihood of functional groups by encouraging brainstorming or openly looking at alternatives in the process of decision-making such as the nominal group technique (which involves restricting interpersonal communication in order to encourage free thinking and proceeding to a decision in a formal and systematic fashion such as voting).

Elements of Team Performance

OB researchers typically focus on team performance and especially the factors that make teams most effective. Researchers (e.g., see De Dreu & Van Vianen, 2001 ) have organized the critical components of effective teams into three main categories: context, composition, and process. Context refers to the team’s physical and psychological environment, and in particular the factors that enable a climate of trust. Composition refers to the means whereby the abilities of each individual member can best be most effectively marshaled. Process is maximized when members have a common goal or are able to reflect and adjust the team plan (for reflexivity, see West, 1996 ).

Communication

In order to build high-performing work teams, communication is critical, especially if team conflict is to be minimized. Communication serves four main functions: control, motivation, emotional expression, and information (Scott & Mitchell, 1976 ). The communication process involves the transfer of meaning from a sender to a receiver through formal channels established by an organization and informal channels, created spontaneously and emerging out of individual choice. Communication can flow downward from managers to subordinates, upward from subordinates to managers, or between members of the same group. Meaning can be transferred from one person to another orally, through writing, or nonverbally through facial expressions and body movement. In fact, body movement and body language may complicate verbal communication and add ambiguity to the situation as does physical distance between team members.

High-performance teams tend to have some of the following characteristics: interpersonal trust, psychological and physical safety, openness to challenges and ideas, an ability to listen to other points of view, and an ability to share knowledge readily to reduce task ambiguity (Castka, Bamber, Sharp, & Belohoubek, 2001 ). Although the development of communication competence is essential for a work team to become high-performing, that communication competence is also influenced by gender, personality, ability, and emotional intelligence of the members. Ironically, it is the self-reliant team members who are often able to develop this communication competence. Although capable of working autonomously, self-reliant team members know when to ask for support from others and act interdependently.

Emotions also play a part in communicating a message or attitude to other team members. Emotional contagion, for instance, is a fascinating effect of emotions on nonverbal communication, and it is the subconscious process of sharing another person’s emotions by mimicking that team member’s nonverbal behavior (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1993 ). Importantly, positive communication, expressions, and support of team members distinguished high-performing teams from low-performing ones (Bakker & Schaufeli, 2008 ).

Team Conflict

Because of member interdependence, teams are inclined to more conflict than individual workers. In particular, diversity in individual differences leads to conflict (Thomas, 1992 ; Wall & Callister, 1995 ; see also Cohen & Bailey, 1997 ). Jehn ( 1997 ) identifies three types of conflict: task, relationship, and process. Process conflict concerns how task accomplishment should proceed and who is responsible for what; task conflict focuses on the actual content and goals of the work (Robbins et al., 2014 ); and relationship conflict is based on differences in interpersonal relationships. While conflict, and especially task conflict, does have some positive benefits such as greater innovation (Tjosvold, 1997 ), it can also lead to lowered team performance and decreased job satisfaction, or even turnover. De Dreu and Van Vianen ( 2001 ) found that team conflict can result in one of three responses: (1) collaborating with others to find an acceptable solution; (2) contending and pushing one member’s perspective on others; or (3) avoiding and ignoring the problem.

Team Effectiveness and Relationship Conflict

Team effectiveness can suffer in particular from relationship conflict, which may threaten team members’ personal identities and self-esteem (Pelled, 1995 ). In this regard, Murnighan and Conlon ( 1991 ) studied members of British string quartets and found that the most successful teams avoided relationship conflict while collaborating to resolve task conflicts. This may be because relationship conflict distracts team members from the task, reducing team performance and functioning. As noted earlier, positive affect is associated with collaboration, cooperation, and problem resolution, while negative affect tends to be associated with competitive behaviors, especially during conflict (Rhoades, Arnold, & Jay, 2001 ).

Team Climate and Emotionality

Emotional climate is now recognized as important to team processes (Ashkanasy & Härtel, 2014 ), and team climate in general has important implications for how individuals behave individually and collectively to effect organizational outcomes. This idea is consistent with Druskat and Wolff’s ( 2001 ) notion that team emotional-intelligence climate can help a team manage both types of conflict (task and relationship). In Jehn’s ( 1997 ) study, she found that emotion was most often negative during team conflict, and this had a negative effect on performance and satisfaction regardless of the type of conflict team members were experiencing. High emotionality, as Jehn calls it, causes team members to lose sight of the work task and focus instead on the negative affect. Jehn noted, however, that absence of group conflict might also may block innovative ideas and stifle creativity (Jehn, 1997 ).

Power and Politics

Power and organizational politics can trigger employee conflict, thus affecting employee wellbeing, job satisfaction, and performance, in turn affecting team and organizational productivity (Vigoda, 2000 ). Because power is a function of dependency, it can often lead to unethical behavior and thus become a source of conflict. Types of power include formal and personal power. Formal power embodies coercive, reward, and legitimate power. Coercive power depends on fear. Reward power is the opposite and occurs when an individual complies because s/he receives positive benefits from acting in accordance with the person in power. In formal groups and organizations, the most easily accessed form of power is legitimate because this form comes to be from one’s position in the organizational hierarchy (Raven, 1993 ). Power tactics represent the means by which those in a position of power translate their power base (formal or personal) into specific actions.

The nine influence tactics that managers use according to Yukl and Tracey ( 1992 ) are (1) rational persuasion, (2) inspirational appeal, (3) consultation, (4) ingratiation, (5) exchange, (6) personal appeal, (7) coalition, (8) legitimating, and (9) pressure. Of these tactics, inspirational appeal, consultation, and rational persuasion were among the strategies most effective in influencing task commitment. In this study, there was also a correlation found between a manager’s rational persuasion and a subordinate rating her effectively. Perhaps this is because persuasion requires some level of expertise, although more research is needed to verify which methods are most successful. Moreover, resource dependence theory dominates much theorizing about power and organizational politics. In fact, it is one of the central themes of Pfeffer and Salancik’s ( 1973 ) treatise on the external control of organizations. First, the theory emphasizes the importance of the organizational environment in understanding the context of how decisions of power are made (see also Pfeffer & Leblebici, 1973 ). Resource dependence theory is based on the premise that some organizations have more power than others, occasioned by specifics regarding their interdependence. Pfeffer and Salancik further propose that external interdependence and internal organizational processes are related and that this relationship is mediated by power.

Organizational Politics

Political skill is the ability to use power tactics to influence others to enhance an individual’s personal objectives. In addition, a politically skilled person is able to influence another person without being detected (one reason why he or she is effective). Persons exerting political skill leave a sense of trust and sincerity with the people they interact with. An individual possessing a high level of political skill must understand the organizational culture they are exerting influence within in order to make an impression on his or her target. While some researchers suggest political behavior is a critical way to understand behavior that occurs in organizations, others simply see it as a necessary evil of work life (Champoux, 2011 ). Political behavior focuses on using power to reach a result and can be viewed as unofficial and unsanctioned behavior (Mintzberg, 1985 ). Unlike other organizational processes, political behavior involves both power and influence (Mayes & Allen, 1977 ). Moreover, because political behavior involves the use of power to influence others, it can often result in conflict.

Organizational Politics, Power, and Ethics

In concluding this section on power and politics, it is also appropriate to address the dark side, where organizational members who are persuasive and powerful enough might become prone to abuse standards of equity and justice and thereby engage in unethical behavior. An employee who takes advantage of her position of power may use deception, lying, or intimidation to advance her own interests (Champoux, 2011 ). When exploring interpersonal injustice, it is important to consider the intent of the perpetrator, as well as the effect of the perpetrator’s treatment from the victim’s point of view. Umphress, Simmons, Folger, Ren, and Bobocel ( 2013 ) found in this regard that not only does injustice perceived by the self or coworkers influence attitudes and behavior within organizations, but injustice also influences observer reactions both inside and outside of the organization.

Leadership plays an integrative part in understanding group behavior, because the leader is engaged in directing individuals toward attitudes and behaviors, hopefully also in the direction of those group members’ goals. Although there is no set of universal leadership traits, extraversion from the Big Five personality framework has been shown in meta-analytic studies to be positively correlated with transformational, while neuroticism appears to be negatively correlated (Bono & Judge, 2004 ). There are also various perspectives to leadership, including the competency perspective, which addresses the personality traits of leaders; the behavioral perspective, which addresses leader behaviors, specifically task versus people-oriented leadership; and the contingency perspective, which is based on the idea that leadership involves an interaction of personal traits and situational factors. Fiedler’s ( 1967 ) contingency, for example, suggests that leader effectiveness depends on the person’s natural fit to the situation and the leader’s score on a “least preferred coworker” scale.

More recently identified styles of leadership include transformational leadership (Bass, Avolio, & Atwater, 1996 ), charismatic leadership (Conger & Kanungo, 1988 ), and authentic leadership (Luthans & Avolio, 2003 ). In a nutshell, transformational leaders inspire followers to act based on the good of the organization; charismatic leaders project a vision and convey a new set of values; and authentic leaders convey trust and genuine sentiment.

Leader-member exchange theory (LMX; see Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995 ) assumes that leadership emerges from exchange relationships between a leader and her or his followers. More recently, Tse, Troth, and Ashkanasy ( 2015 ) expanded on LMX to include social processes (e.g., emotional intelligence, emotional labor, and discrete emotions), arguing that affect plays a large part in the leader-member relationship.

Leadership Development

An emerging new topic in leadership concerns leadership development, which embodies the readiness of leadership aspirants to change (Hannah & Avolio, 2010 ). In this regard, the learning literature suggests that intrinsic motivation is necessary in order to engage in development (see Hidi & Harackiewicz, 2000 ), but also that the individual needs to be goal-oriented and have developmental efficacy or self-confidence that s/he can successfully perform in leadership contexts.

Ashkanasy, Dasborough, and Ascough ( 2009 ) argue further that developing the affective side of leaders is important. In this case, because emotions are so pervasive within organizations, it is important that leaders learn how to manage them in order to improve team performance and interactions with employees that affect attitudes and behavior at almost every organizational level.

Abusive Leadership

Leaders, or those in positions of power, are particularly more likely to run into ethical issues, and only more recently have organizational behavior researchers considered the ethical implications of leadership. As Gallagher, Mazur, and Ashkanasy ( 2015 ) describe, since 2009 , organizations have been under increasing pressure to cut costs or “do more with less,” and this sometimes can lead to abusive supervision, whereby employee job demands exceed employee resources, and supervisors engage in bullying, undermining, victimization, or personal attacks on subordinates (Tepper, 2000 ).

Supervisors who are very high or low in emotional intelligence may be more likely to experience stress associated with a very demanding high-performance organizational culture. These supervisors may be more likely to try to meet the high demands and pressures through manipulative behaviors (Kilduff, Chiaburu, & Menges, 2010 ). This has serious implications for employee wellbeing and the organization as a whole. Abusive supervision detracts from the ability for those under attack to perform effectively, and targets often come to doubt their own ability to perform (Tepper, 2000 ).

The Macro (Organizational) Level of Analysis

The final level of OB derives from research traditions across three disciplines: organizational psychology, organizational sociology, and organizational anthropology. Moreover, just as teams and groups are more than the sum of their individual team members, organizations are also more than the sum of the teams or groups residing within them. As such, structure, climate, and culture play key roles in shaping and being shaped by employee attitudes and behaviors, and they ultimately determine organizational performance and productivity.

Organizational Structure

Organizational structure is a sociological phenomenon that determines the way tasks are formally divided and coordinated within an organization. In this regard, jobs are often grouped by the similarity of functions performed, the product or service produced, or the geographical location. Often, the number of forms of departmentalization will depend on the size of the organization, with larger organizations having more forms of departmentalization than others. Organizations are also organized by the chain of command or the hierarchy of authority that determines the span of control, or how many employees a manager can efficiently and effectively lead. With efforts to reduce costs since the global financial crisis of 2009 , organizations have tended to adopt a wider, flatter span of control, where more employees report to one supervisor.

Organizational structure also concerns the level of centralization or decentralization, the degree to which decision-making is focused at a single point within an organization. Formalization is also the degree to which jobs are organized in an organization. These levels are determined by the organization and also vary greatly across the world. For example, Finnish organizations tend to be more decentralized than their Australian counterparts and, as a consequence, are more innovative (Leiponen & Helfat, 2011 ).

Mintzberg ( 1979 ) was the first to set out a taxonomy of organizational structure. Within his model, the most common organizational design is the simple structure characterized by a low level of departmentalization, a wide span of control, and centralized authority. Other organizational types emerge in larger organizations, which tend to be bureaucratic and more routinized. Rules are formalized, tasks are grouped into departments, authority is centralized, and the chain of command involves narrow spans of control and decision-making. An alternative is the matrix structure, often found in hospitals, universities, and government agencies. This form of organization combines functional and product departmentalization where employees answer to two bosses: functional department managers and product managers.

New design options include the virtual organization and the boundaryless organization , an organization that has no chain of command and limitless spans of control. Structures differ based on whether the organization seeks to use an innovation strategy, imitation strategy, or cost-minimization strategy (Galunic & Eisenhardt, 1994 ). Organizational structure can have a significant effect on employee attitudes and behavior. Evidence generally shows that work specialization leads to higher employee productivity but also lower job satisfaction (Porter & Lawler, 1965 ). Gagné and Deci emphasize that autonomous work motivation (i.e., intrinsic motivation and integrated extrinsic motivation) is promoted in work climates that are interesting, challenging, and allow choice. Parker, Wall, and Jackson ( 1997 ) specifically relate job enlargement to autonomous motivation. Job enlargement was first discussed by management theorists like Lawler and Hall ( 1970 ), who believed that jobs should be enlarged to improve the intrinsic motivation of workers. Today, most of the job-design literature is built around the issue of work specialization (job enlargement and enrichment). In Parker, Wall, and Jackson’s study, they observed that horizontally enlarging jobs through team-based assembly cells led to greater understanding and acceptance of the company’s vision and more engagement in new work roles. (In sum, by structuring work to allow more autonomy among employees and identification among individual work groups, employees stand to gain more internal autonomous motivation leading to improved work outcomes (van Knippenberg & van Schie, 2000 ).

The Physical Environment of Work

Ashkanasy, Ayoko, and Jehn ( 2014 ) extend the topic of organizational structure to discuss, from a psychological perspective, how the physical work environment shapes employee attitudes, behaviors, and organizational outcomes. Elsbach ( 2003 ) pointed out that the space within which employees conduct their work is critical to employees’ levels of performance and productivity. In their study, Ashkanasy and his colleagues looked at the underlying processes influencing how the physical environment determines employee attitudes and behaviors, in turn affecting productivity levels. They base their model on affective events theory (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996 ), which holds that particular “affective” events in the work environment are likely to be the immediate cause of employee behavior and performance in organizations (see also Ashkanasy & Humphrey, 2011 ). Specifically, Ashkanasy and colleagues ( 2014 ) looked at how this theory holds in extremely crowded open-plan office designs and how employees in these offices are more likely to experience negative affect, conflict, and territoriality, negatively impacting attitudes, behaviors, and work performance.

• Organizational Climate and Culture

Although organizational structure and the physical environment are important determinants of employee attitudes and behaviors, organizational culture and climate lie at the heart of organizational interactions (Ashkanasy & Jackson, 2001 ). Organizational culture derives from an anthropological research tradition, while organizational climate is based on organizational psychology.

A central presumption of culture is that, as Smircich ( 1983 ) noted, organizational behavior is not a function of what goes on inside individual employees’ heads, but between employees, as evidenced in daily organizational communication and language. As such, organizational culture allows one organization to distinguish itself from another, while conveying a sense of identity for its members.

Organizational Climate and its Relation to Organizational Culture

Organizational culture creates organizational climate or employees’ shared perceptions about their organization and work environment. Organizational climate has been found to facilitate and/or inhibit displays of certain behaviors in one study (Smith-Crowe, Burke, & Landis, 2003 ), and overall, organizational climate is often viewed as a surface-level indicator of the functioning of the employee/organizational environment relationship (Ryan, Horvath, Ployhart, Schmitt, & Slade, 2000 ). For instance, a more restrictive climate may inhibit individual decision-making in contrast to a more supportive climate in which the organization may intervene at the individual level and in which the ability/job performance relationship is supported (James, Demaree, Mulaik, & Ladd, 1992 ). In a study focused on safety climate, Smith-Crowe and colleagues found that organizational climate is essential in determining whether training will transfer to employee performance, and this is most likely because organizational climate moderates the knowledge/performance relationship. Gibbs and Cooper ( 2010 ) also found that a supportive organizational climate is positively related to employee performance. They specifically looked at PsyCap, the higher-order construct of psychological capital first proposed by Luthans and Youssef ( 2004 ).

Organizational Change

The final topic covered in this article is organizational change. Organizational culture and climate can both be negatively impacted by organizational change and, in turn, negatively affect employee wellbeing, attitudes, and performance, reflecting onto organizational performance. Often, there is great resistance to change, and the success rate of organizational change initiatives averages at less than 30% (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015 ). In order to overcome this resistance, it is important that managers plan ahead for changes and emphasize education and communication about them. As organizations becoming increasingly globalized, change has become the norm, and this will continue into the future.

Additionally, as organizations become increasingly globalized, organizational changes often involve mergers that have important organizational implications. In this regard, Kavanagh and Ashkanasy ( 2006 ) found that, for a merger to be successful, there needs to be alignment between the individual values and organizational cultures of merging partners. Managers during a merger situation need to be especially cognizant of how this organizational change affects the company’s original organizational culture.

Organizational development (OD), a collection of planned change interventions, may be the way to improve organizational performance and increase employee wellbeing. OD focuses on employees respecting one another, trust and support, equal power, confrontation of problems, and participation of everyone affected by the organizational change (Lines, 2004 ). Moreover, when an organization already has an established climate and culture that support change and innovation, an organization may have less trouble adapting to the change.

Organizational change research encompasses almost all aspects of organizational behavior. Individuals and employees are motivated to achieve success and be perceived as successful. In this regard, each of the individual differences—personality, affect, past experiences, values, and perceptions—plays into whether individuals can transcend obstacles and deal with the barriers encountered along the journey toward achievement. Teams are similarly motivated to be successful in a collective sense and to prove that they contribute to the organization as a whole. In addition to individual differences, team members deal with bringing all those individual differences together, which can wreak havoc on team communication and cause further obstacles in terms of power differences and conflicts in regard to decision-making processes. Last, at the organizational level of organizational behavior, it is important to account for all of these micro- and meso-level differences, and to address the complexity of economic pressures, increasing globalization, and global and transnational organizations to the mix. This is at the top level of sophistication because, as emphasized before, just as groups equal much more than the sum of individual members, organizations are much more than the sum of their teams. The organizational structure, the formal organization, the organizational culture, and climate and organizational rules all impact whether an organization can perform effectively. Organizational behavior, through its complex study of human behavior at its very conception, offers much-needed practical implications for managers in understanding people at work.

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Analysis of Leadership Style in Organizations: A Case Study of the Movie Disclosure

5 Pages Posted: 3 Jun 2021

Victor Birikorang Danquah

Business School Netherlands; Independent; Society of Petroleum Engineers

Date Written: June 2, 2021

From the standpoint of an organization, a growing amount of research demonstrates that leadership has an impact on performance. (Waldman et al., 2004; Agle et al., 2006). According to a survey, only a small percentage of people in leadership roles genuinely lead, with the great majority reacting, either to please shareholders or to protect their reputation (Kakabadse and Kakabadse 2007). In 1994, right before Christmas, the film 'Disclosure' was released. The CEO, Bob Garvin, and his subordinates' leadership styles and behaviors are examined in this research. This research looks at power in the workplace in particular and suggests transformational leadership. "A process by which a person inspires a group of persons to attain a common goal" is how leadership is defined (Northhouse, 2019 p. 43). This concept of leadership, according to Northouse (2019), involves three things: procedures, influences, and groups. Leadership theory, like any other theory, must explain three key questions: what, why, and how (Whetten, 2002). Thus, in leadership theory, the "what" reflects the goal that the leader seeks to achieve, "how" describes how the leader achieves the goal, and "why" explains why this particular approach for achieving the objective was chosen. Power is required to be able to influence followers (French and Raven, 1959). There are six power bases.: Informational, Reward, Coercion, Legitimate, Expertise, and Referent (Raven, 2008). One's leadership style is determined by the types of power he or she wields. Coercive leaders, authoritative leaders, affiliative leaders, democratic leaders, pacesetting leaders, and coaching leaders are among the six types of leaders identified (Goleman, 2000). Coercive leadership, according to Goleman, should only be employed with extreme caution and in the few cases where it is absolutely essential. For example, when a turnaround is imminent or when a hostile takeover is imminent. To be effective, he suggests that leaders master at least four types, including authoritative, democratic, affiliative, and coaching, and be able to move between them quickly. According to Raven (2008), an effective leader must utilize informational power to properly explain concerns to subordinates with persuasive arguments for the subordinates to grasp and accept the reasons. The theory of the great man is linked to coercive leadership styles (Matchan 2020). According to the belief, great men leaders place a greater emphasis on the I rather than the we. The “great man” idea (Carlyle, 2007; James, 1880) is concerned with the personality attributes that leaders are born with (Kakabadse and Kakabadse, 1999). Associated with great man theory are transactional leadership. Transactional leaders are said to be incapable of building trusting, mutually beneficial leader-member relationships (Notgrass, 2014). Employees favor leaders that can inspire a group vision, stimulate creativity, reward achievement, develop trust, and promote a sense of belonging (Notgrass, 2014). .

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Behavioral Theories in Leadership

• 1.0.2 Styles of Leadership in Behavioral Theories
• 1.0.3 The Ohio State Studies – Two Factor Concept
• 1.0.4 The Michigan Leadership Studies
• 1.0.5 The Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid
• 2.0.1 Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Vis-a-vis Behavioral Theories
• 2.0.2 Transactional Leadership – An offshoot of the Ohio State Studies
• 2.0.3 Transformational Leadership – Linkage with the Michigan Leadership Studies
• 2.0.4 Charismatic Leadership Vis-a-vis the Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid
• 2.0.5 Contingency Theories – Consideration and Initiating Structure in Context
• 2.0.6 Practical Examples in the Corporate World
• 4.0.1 Path-goal theory of Leadership
• 4.0.2 Leader-Member Exchange Theory (LMX)
• 4.0.3 Authentic Leadership
• 4.0.4 Servant Leadership

Understanding Behavioral Theories in Leadership

In this article, we will review Behavioral Theories in Leadership .

Let’s start by understanding these two words individually:

• Behavioral : This focuses on actions. How someone reacts in certain situations.
• Theory : An idea or set of ideas intended to explain something.

Let’s merge these terms and understand the phrase, ‘Behavioral Theories of Leadership’. Essentially, these dictate that great leaders are made, not born. These theories try to explain how leaders can be made in an organizational environment.

Styles of Leadership in Behavioral Theories

• Autocratic leadership : Here’s a style akin to a classroom with a stern teacher. This leader makes all decisions, unilaterally. The leader does not consult team members or consider their needs and opinions.
• Democratic leadership : Picture a teacher who loves group work, where everyone gets a say. Here, the leader involves employees in decision-making processes, encourages teamwork, and fosters creativity and initiative.
• Laissez-Faire leadership : Think of a substitute teacher who lets the class do what they want, and only steps in when required. This leader allows members to make decisions while retaining ultimate responsibility.

The Ohio State Studies – Two Factor Concept

The Ohio State University carried out extensive research on behavioral theories and came up with a two-factor concept:

• Leaders who exhibit consideration , that is, friendliness, respect, and nurturing relationships.
• Leaders who showcase initiating structure : this means clarifying roles , scheduling work, and giving directions.

The Michigan Leadership Studies

The University of Michigan conducted their studies, focusing on two types of leadership:

• Employee orientation : Here, leaders take an interest in their followers as individuals.
• Production orientation : Here, leaders emphasize technical aspects of the job.

The Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid

The theory suggests five potential leadership styles, based on concern for people and concern for production.

• Impoverished Management : Low concern for both people and production.
• Country Club Management : High concern for people, low concern for production.
• Authority-obedience : Low concern for people, high concern for production.
• Middle-road Management : Median concern for both parameters.
• Team Management : High concern for both people and production.

Understanding these key sections and theories will give you a comprehensive knowledge of the behavioral theories of leadership.

Keep in mind, each leadership style has its own merit, and the best leaders are often able to adapt and switch styles, based on the situation at hand.

Examining Case Studies Application of Behavioral Theories

Hersey-blanchard situational leadership vis-a-vis behavioral theories.

The Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership theory is a concrete example of the practical application of behavioral theories.

In this approach, leaders adjust their style depending on the maturity and capability level of their team. Essentially, the theory posits that there’s no one-size-fits-all leadership style – it changes based on the situation.

This bears a striking resemblance to the various leadership styles highlighted in our discussion about styles of leadership in behavioral theories such as Democratic, Autocratic, and Laissez-Faire leadership.

Transactional Leadership – An offshoot of the Ohio State Studies

Transactional leadership is another notable example. This approach relies heavily on the concept of “initiating structure” identified in the Ohio State Studies.

Leaders set clear tasks and rewards or punishments for their completion or non-completion, respectively. It’s like a business transaction, so you can see the connection to our earlier discussions, can’t you?

Transformational Leadership – Linkage with the Michigan Leadership Studies

In transformational leadership , leaders motivate their teams by setting high expectations and inspiring them to meet these goals.

The leaders, in turn, highly regard their team members’ abilities. This relationship-oriented leadership style relates to the “employee-oriented” type identified in the Michigan Leadership Studies.

Charismatic Leadership Vis-a-vis the Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid

Charismatic leadership, where leaders inspire enthusiastic support and acceptance through charisma, is a practical application of the “high concern for people” identified in the Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid. The leader’s appeal lies in their character and how they use it to influence their team.

Contingency Theories – Consideration and Initiating Structure in Context

In Contingency theories, the leader’s effectiveness is contingent or dependent on how their leadership style fits the context.

The leader uses a mix of initiating structure and consideration factors, thereby aligning with the behavioral theories from the Ohio State Studies.

Practical Examples in the Corporate World

To illustrate, take Apple, Inc. After Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he exhibited transformational leadership, inspiring a corporate turnaround which pushed Apple to the forefront of innovative technology. Jobs set high expectations, focused on building a good workplace culture, and motivated his team to produce groundbreaking devices. That sounds a lot like the employee orientation discussed in the Michigan Leadership studies, doesn’t it?

In contrast, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is reputedly a transactional leader. His demanding and exacting standards, coupled with a structured work environment, mirrors the production orientation and initiating structure from the Ohio State Studies.

Why not take a moment to consider some leaders you know or have read about, and see if you can identify examples of these leadership styles? You’ll be surprised at how these behavioral theories come to life in the real-world scenarios.

Limitations of Behavioral Theories in Leadership

One of the main limitations of behavioral theories is that they largely overlook individual differences. These theories often propose a “one-size-fits-all” approach to leadership, suggesting that certain behaviors will be effective regardless of the characteristics of the team members or the context. However, in reality, people have diverse perspectives, abilities, and motivations that could impact how they react to different leadership styles.

Here is an example: A democratic leadership style involves team members in decision making, which can foster a sense of belonging and commitment. However, if team members are more introverted or lack experience, they might prefer autocratic leadership, where decisions are made by the leader alone.

Lack of Versatility:

The behavioral theories of leadership do not account for the need for versatility in leadership styles. The idea of employing just one style across all situations seems rather unrealistic.

Real-life example: Steve Jobs was known for his autocratic leadership style in the early years of Apple, a style that might not have worked at all in a startup where collective consensus is often essential.

Time and Context are Ignored:

Behavioral theories tend to ignore the dimension of time and context. The world is not static and neither should leadership styles. It means that what worked in the 1980s might not work as well in the 2020s due to changes in technology, societal norms, and our understanding of human psychology.

Take Amazon as a case study:

The company’s leadership principles, formulated by Jeff Bezos, have been essential to its success. However, they have also been critiqued due to the high-pressure environment they can foster, hinting at the need for transformational leadership that meshes well with the pace of technological evolution.

Overemphasis on Observable Behaviors:

Behavioral theories tend to focus too much on observable behaviors, ignoring mental processes and inherent traits that could affect a leader’s effectiveness. This lack of focus on internal dynamics fails to account for the impact of a leader’s perception, personality , and motivations.

Limited Use for Training:

In terms of practicality, these theories are limited. Behavioral theories provide a broad understanding of leadership but fail to offer clear guidance for developing effective leaders. So while they help you identify what behaviors are associated with effective leadership, they don’t exactly lay out a roadmap for how to develop them.

While the behavioral theories offer valuable insights on the roles leadership styles play, their limitations mean they should not be treated as the definitive guide to effective leadership.

Instead, incorporating a variety of frameworks, including flexibility in leadership styles and specific situational analysis, is essential in understanding and applying leadership effectively.

Photo by benofthenorth on Unsplash

Alternative Leadership Theories

Path-goal theory of leadership.

One significant alternative theory to the behavioral leadership approach is the path-goal theory . Developed by Robert House, this theory takes the perspective that a leader’s job is to assist their followers in attaining their goals and to provide the necessary direction and support to ensure that their goals are compatible with the overarching objectives of the group or organization.

It maintains that the leader’s style can be flexible and adjusted to fit the employee’s needs and the working environment.

Now, let’s break down an example of this in practice. Imagine a coach for a youth basketball team. If a player is struggling with their shooting, the coach can adjust their style to be more explanatory and hands-on to help the player, providing more direct assistance.

This type of adjustment and flexibility is one key aspect of the path-goal theory – it stresses upon the importance of leaders being adaptable to meet team members’ needs.

Leader-Member Exchange Theory (LMX)

Another alternative theory is the Leader-Member Exchange Theory (LMX). This theory emphasizes the two-way relationship between supervisors and subordinates.

A high-quality relationship between a leader and a subordinate is characterized by mutual trust, respect, and obligation. High-quality exchanges will result in deeper connection, and consequently, more positive organizational outcomes.

Take UPS, for instance. The logistics company is known for its unique culture of promoting from within and listening to employees at all levels. This method creates a sense of mutual respect between the leaders and the employees, something that is crucial in the LMX theory.

Authentic Leadership

Authentic Leadership , another non-behavioral theory, is all about leaders who are deeply aware of how they think and behave, and are perceived by others as being aware of their own and others’ values/moral perspectives, knowledge, and strengths.

Authentic leaders are seen as people who promote openness. They are often characterized by a transparent approach towards their followers.

An example here is Howard Schultz, the former CEO of Starbucks. Schultz is known for building trust with employees by being transparent about company policies and future goals. By increasing transparency, he was able to promote a sense of authenticity and trust, hallmarks of authentic leadership.

Servant Leadership

Finally, Servant Leadership is a leadership theory that emphasizes the leader’s role as a steward of the resources provided by the organization. It encourages leaders to serve others while still achieving organizational goals. They put their team’s needs before their own, thereby improving the overall performance and morale.

A good example of this kind of leader is Mahatma Gandhi. He exerted influence not by asserting authority, but by dedicated service to his followers and unwavering commitment to his principles.

Each of these theories offers a different perspective on leadership, countering the behavioral approach. They emphasize adaptability , two-way relationships, authenticity, and serving others as alternative styles of effective leadership.

It’s important to remember, however, that no one approach is necessarily “the best”. It’s the unique combination of approaches, tailored to individual teams and scenarios, which makes a truly effective leader.

About The Author

Geoff Fripp

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• OB and Leadership

This case study underscores the complex problem-solving using digital transformation and associated change management. The case was set at the beginning of 2022 when the Chief Executive Officer of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) reflected on the digital transformation enabled by the implementation of Aadhaar, a unique 12-digit identity number every Indian resident can apply for. The case study describes the various phases of the implementation and its consequent multiplier effect on the country. Given the immense success of Aadhaar (deployed across about 1.3 billion residents) and its pivotal role in India's digital journey, implying benefits for the public and private sectors, it is important to contemplate on the next steps for its future.

Learning Objective

• Understand complex problem-solving and the associated multiplier effect.
• Decode long-term implications of digital transformation for public and private sector benefits.
• Appreciate complex projects' challenges, design, and implementation involving multiple stakeholders from different backgrounds.
• Assess the social impact of a mega project such as Aadhaar, which played a key role in digitalizing the Indian service infrastructure.

The case describes the digitalization of L&T Construction, the largest business of L&T, from conception to implementation. The CEO and MD of L&T believed that the organization-wide implementation of digital at L&T Construction would have a significant impact on the business. As a project organization with a limited number of high-value customers and relatively few customer touch points, the primary goal of digitalization in its case would be to improve operational effectiveness. It created a separate digital department and identified digital officers and champions across projects and sites for effective implementation. The transformation was championed from the top and the digital team initiated a variety of initiatives to facilitate digital at L&T. Within two years, they had developed and deployed a large number of solutions across hundreds of project sites, completely transforming the way work was performed. Buoyed by the success of the digitalization effort at L&T Construction, it was decided to extend it to other group companies.

• Understand the various contributors to the success of DT in a traditional organization
• Appreciate that DTs require an entrepreneurial mindset
• Understand what approaches can be used to manage the effective implementation of digital solutions
• Appreciate the leadership competencies required for DT
• Recognize the need for building capabilities to support transformation
• Examine the nuances of scaling up digitalization to other BUs
• Explore ways to create a new mindset and culture

The case, set in 2016, follows Lavanya Nalli, a fifth-generation member of the Nalli family business, as she contemplates a critical decision about her future. Nalli Silks, an Indian ethnic wear retailer, had built an enviable reputation for quality and customer orientation over 90 years. As a female member of a conservative family business, she was not expected to enter the business and play an active role in it. Yet, she joined Nalli Silks after earning a degree in engineering and planned and pursued her own induction and learning in the firm. Over the next couple of years, she displayed her entrepreneurial drive by conceptualizing and setting up a successful business within the larger business. However, sensing that there were limited avenues within the firm to feed her ambition and keenness to learn and grow, she left India for the United States to pursue an MBA at Harvard Business School. After graduating, she worked at McKinsey, a leading consulting firm. In 2014, Lavanya returned to India and joined Myntra, a rapidly growing Indian fashion e-commerce company. These experiences provided her with rich and varied insights and perspectives. After seven years away, she was considering returning to the Nalli group with tentative plans of setting up a separate e-commerce vertical from scratch. Three generations of her family - her grandfather, her father and her brother - were active in the business and held independent charge of different parts of the Nalli group. There were serious reservations within the family and the organization about Lavanya's proposal to venture into e-commerce. She herself had some concerns about the larger strategy and set-up of the business, such as the absence of a leadership pipeline and inattention to market trends. The case closes with her reflections and questions on the way forward.

Understand how next-gen family members approach career choices and how this influences their enterprises. Appreciate the challenges of balancing values and aspirations among family, business and individual next-generation family members. Comprehend how next-generation family members can successfully build careers within an existing family business by being entrepreneurial without crossing value boundaries. Learn what family businesses can do to attract / retain next-generation family members.

Annapurna Studios was founded by legendary Indian actor Akkineni Nageswara Rao (ANR) in Hyderabad in 1975. Over the years, Annapurna had grown to become a modern-day powerhouse in the field of entertainment and filmmaking. In 2019, it was well known for its state-of-the-art production facilities, creative content production, and film and media institute. ANR's older son, Venkat joined the studio a few years after its inception but struggled to keep it afloat. Nagarjuna, ANR's younger son, began helping out at the studio after finishing college, but the studio's fortunes only changed in the mid-80s when Nagarjuna decided to become an actor In 1999, Venkat handed over management control of the studio to Nagarjuna. Their niece Supriya joined the business as a management executive. The studio had two divisions: operations and content creation. The operations division, which included post-production, editing and dubbing facilities, ran smoothly under the COO with minimal intervention from the family. In the content creation side of the business, the family's presence was greater. Nagarjuna and Supriya made all the critical decisions related to content, guided by their business sense and passion. With the second generation of the family still at the helm of Annapurna Studios, the next generation's involvement was relatively low. Chaitanya (Nagarjuna's son) had started showing some interest, but the other members of the third generation were either not yet involved in the studio or were busy with their own acting careers. Nagarjuna was worried that the next generation might not have the same level of passion for the studio as the previous generations. He wanted to ensure that the studio's legacy sustained into the future. What strategy should the studio to adopt to ensure its long-term survival in the risky and ever-changing film and entertainment business?

The steps that the family needs to take to institutionalize the studio and continue its legacy will make for an engaging classroom discussion, through which students will gain an understanding of: • The importance of professionalization, meritocracy and performance evaluation in a family business • The elements of parallel planning and resource building • Institutionalization of a family firm • Legacy building challenges and responsibilities of family stakeholders • Revitalizing a business in a new context • Ownership as a responsibility

The case, set in May 2018, follows an analyst as she undertakes the challenge of decoding the acquisition strategy behind a deal that rattled both venture capitalist and tech startup circles in India. Ananya Menon, Chief Consultant for Retail and E-Commerce at a research and consulting firm in India, had been asked by a client to provide a report on the recent acquisition of the Indian marketplace major Flipkart Pvt. Limited by the Arkansas-based retail behemoth Walmart Inc. Founded in 2007, Flipkart, buoyed by multiple massive funding rounds, had registered meteoric growth both in terms of revenue and market share, and dominated the Indian online retail industry. Though it faced a few setbacks due to misplaced strategies and regulatory changes, it managed to cement its position as the market leader with a share of nearly 40% of the market in terms of gross merchandise value (GMV). However, analysts were sceptical about the sustainability of this position, as the company was a long way from profitability and was burning cash in the form of massive discounts to augment its customer base. Moreover, Amazon Inc., another leading global marketplace company, with deep pockets and top-of-the-line technological capabilities, was close on its heels. Walmart had waited on the fringes of the Indian retail industry since 2007 when the market was opened to foreign investors, but regulatory barriers had confined its operations to the wholesale segment. The e-commerce segment was opened to foreign investment eventually, but under several restrictive conditions. Walmart leapt at the chance and acquired a 77% stake in Flipkart, the leader in the online retail segment. However, the deal price of US$ 16 billion for a company that was consistently making huge net losses sent shockwaves across the VC and e-commerce community. As speculation and debate over the move mounted, Menon was tasked by her client with demystifying the strategic rationale behind the deal.

From the case discussion, students will learn to: · Analyze and evaluate the rationale for M&A deals; · Analyse the risks and implications involved in M&A; · Value a tech startup that is a potential acquisition target. This case is suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate classes exploring market entry and consolidation strategies, and for introducing them to the fundamentals of business valuation.

Quess Corp Limited acquired Magna Infotech, an IT contract staffing company in 2009 to go beyond general staffing and get into professional staffing. Magna, founded in 1997 by Pradeep Mittal had achieved the status of being the market leader in IT staffing in India by being highly entrepreneurial, consistently focused on business development, delivery and automation of core staffing processes. Quess carried out a thorough diagnosis of Magna after acquisition. The diagnosis helped identify specific areas where potential for performance improvement existed. Priorities were worked out and systematic efforts were taken up to focus on those areas. Planning and execution of action steps created effective alignment of thought processes among key stakeholders and high levels of engagement and employee motivation. The various interventions resulted in Magna tripling its revenues; the operating profits grew six-fold. But by 2017, the business context had changed for Magna and there were totally new set of challenges that confronted the organization. The case presents a story of an acquisition where despite taking over a successful high-performing company with high levels of motivation, the new leadership team still managed to substantially improve both the topline and bottom line performance through effective execution of a carefully planned change agenda. In the following 8 years, the company retained its market leadership and become much larger. But it now confronted far-reaching changes in business context. How should the leaders reignite the entrepreneurial zeal in a much bigger, more stable and more successful organization?

Understand the key elements of successful acquisition. Understand how changes in any part of the organization require attention to inter-dependent elements to realize larger goals. Appreciate how individual backgrounds & socialization and business context impact an individual's management style. Appreciate what approaches can help enhance organizational learning and performance. Explore ways for organizations to combine control & agility to respond to new emerging realities.

Symphony Limited, an air cooler company decided to buy International Metal Products Company (IMPCO) in 2009. IMPCO, based in Mexico manufactured industrial coolers that complemented Symphony's product line. Additionally, the acquisition provided Symphony access to the US market. IMPCO, however, was a loss making company and was on the verge of bankruptcy. On taking over IMPCO, Symphony dealt with several issues like financial crisis, operational inefficiencies, low employee productivity, IMPCO's poor brand image, lack of product innovation and weak sales and distribution. This case briefly describes the history of Symphony and outlines the various challenges faced by the organization in turning around IMPCO. The case closes with another opportunity that lands on Symphony's lap - acquisition of Munters Keruilai Air Treatment Equipment Co Ltd (MKE), an air cooler manufacturing company in China. Like IMPCO, MKE was also a loss-making air cooler company. But otherwise, the challenges and the context were starkly different in the two cases. Achal Bakeri, founder and CEO of Symphony wondered how the Symphony team should approach the newest challenge.

Understand that an entrepreneurial journey often runs into a few setbacks and failures; but these crises also become sources of valuable insights if we're willing to learn from them. Understand the nature of challenges in international acquisition and the importance of managing `hard' and `soft' issues for successful acquisitions. Recognize the elements of effective execution. Gain insight into the nature of turnaround process. Analyze leadership characteristics of Level 5 leaders.

Vittala International Institute of Ophthalmology (Vittala), a not-for-profit orgnization was involved in providing free/highly subsidized eye care to the rural and the economically underprivileged population in the state of Karnataka, India. The case describes the challenges faced by the founder and his family in building the state-of-the-art institution and sustaining it through its difficult initial years. They had to build awareness of avoidable blindness, make eye care accessible and affordable, and develop the right networks and alliances, all within limited resources. Unlike certain eye care issues such as cataract, Vittala focused on retinal eye care problems that required periodic monitoring and treatment. Diagnosis required sophisticated and expensive equipment, which had to be made available in far-flung small towns and villages, and that posed difficulties. To address the challenges, the organization and its founders executed pioneering innovations in organizational arrangements and processes. The case closes with the dilemma facing Krishna, Director of Vittala, which was to examine how the social enterprise could enhance the revenue streams to increase Vittala's reach in providing eye to the economically disadvantaged citizens. He needs to consider issues like creating the right balance of paying and non-paying patients to ensure sustainable operations, consistent quality of care, keeping technology updated, and attracting and retaining medical staff with right skills and values. The case is significant as it highlights what is required to make healthcare accessible and affordable to the poor, and how policy measures can be executed at the ground level through appropriate organizing efforts. It describes how the founder inculcated a system of values to keep the family members together, thus contributing to the effectiveness and sustainability of the social enterprise.

To understand the factors influencing the setting up of a not-for-profit enterprise in the health care sector and exposing the students to the realities of present system of health care in India; To explore the process and organizing innovations required to deliver affordable eye care to rural areas; To emphasize the importance of aligning multiple stakeholders to build effective and sustainable operations; To emphasize the importance of values in family run organizations to build togetherness.

CV Anand, a senior officer of the Indian Police Service (IPS) was assigned to lead the Food and Civil Supplies Department in the state of Telangana, India by the Chief Minister - the top political executive of the state. Since the role involved policy making and implementation relating to procurement and processing of grains, transportation and distribution to the poorer sections of the society, this was a highly unusual role assignment for an IPS officer. The organization had the responsibility of procuring food grains from farmers at minimum support price, and then after rice milling, arranging distribution to lower income population needing rice at subsidized rates. Anand observed a culture of ritualistic decision making, political power plays, and shortage of talent leading to the neglect of key aspects. The funds crisis had arisen due to non-receipt of dues and there were mounting interest charges. Certain parties were exploiting the system and getting away with it. There were archaic procedures, and corruption at different levels. Anand initiated multiple initiatives in the areas of: organizational aspects, technology and systems. He made conscious efforts to mobilize support. With passion, persistence and hard work, different stakeholders were influenced. Time, energy and commitment were allocated to high leverage activities. Within a year of assuming leadership, the result of turnaround was evident - the funds crisis had eased, bulk of leakages had been plugged and the system had become responsive to the needs of its key stakeholders - the farmers and the needy beneficiaries. Anand knew that he was on a short-term deputation and that he would be transferred to another assignment in the following six to eight months. He was concerned about what he should do in the remaining months to ensure that the changes stick and are not leader-dependent for their continuation.

Understand the functioning of an government organization involved with supporting the underprivileged population; Examine the factors that lead to ritualistic decision making, helplessness and ineffectiveness in the face of self-serving behavior and political power plays; Explore different actions that can lead to a successful turnaround of an organization; Explore processes that lead to overcoming indifference and fostering ownership; Examine the key role of influence and conflict management.

It provides an overview of the digitalization of other BUs of the L&T group. The digital teams in the various BUs were organized in a decentralized manner; they reported to the CEOs of their respective businesses. At the same time, strong processes and mechanisms were set up to foster coordination, knowledge sharing, and mentoring from the central digital hub. Over the next few months, the non- construction businesses were able to move quickly and successfully implement several digital initiatives. These included solutions that were designed to facilitate the safety of people in work locations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Having reached this juncture, L&T turned its focus to two key agenda items: Diffusing and strengthening the digital mindset and culture in the organization, and Systematic tracking of benefit realization across BUs. CEO was also keen to look at different options to enhance digital effectiveness.

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Leadership Case Studies

Here is a sample of three case studies from the book, Leadership Case Studies, that are most instructive and impactful to developing leadership skills.

For the past 30 years, I have conducted seminars and workshops and taught college classes on leadership.

I used a variety of teaching aids including books, articles, case studies, role-plays, and videos.

I recently created a book, Leadership Case Studies that includes some of the case studies and role-plays that I found to be most instructive and impactful.

Here is a sample of three case studies.

Peter Weaver Case Study

Peter Weaver doesn’t like to follow the crowd. He thinks groupthink is a common problem in many organizations. This former director of marketing for a consumer products company believes differences of opinion should be heard and appreciated. As Weaver states, “I have always believed I should speak for what I believe to be true.”

He demonstrated his belief in being direct and candid throughout his career. On one occasion, he was assigned to market Paul’s spaghetti-sauce products. During the brand review, the company president said, “Our spaghetti sauce is losing out to price-cutting competitors. We need to cut our prices!”

Peter found the courage to say he disagreed with the president. He then explained the product line needed more variety and a larger advertising budget. Prices should not be cut. The president accepted Weaver’s reasoning. Later, his supervisor approached him and said, “I wanted to say that, but I just didn’t have the courage to challenge the president.”

On another occasion, the president sent Weaver and 16 other executives to a weeklong seminar on strategic planning. Weaver soon concluded the consultants were off base and going down the wrong path. Between sessions, most of the other executives indicated they didn’t think the consultants were on the right path. The consultants heard about the dissent and dramatically asked participants whether they were in or out. Those who said “Out” had to leave immediately.

As the consultants went around the room, every executive who privately grumbled about the session said “In.” Weaver was fourth from last. When it was his turn, he said “Out” and left the room.

All leaders spend time in reflection and self-examination to identify what they truly believe and value. Their beliefs are tested and fine-tuned over time. True leaders can tell you, without hesitation, what they believe and why. They don’t need a teleprompter to remind them of their core beliefs. And, they find the courage to speak up even when they know others will disagree.

• What leadership traits did Weaver exhibit?
• If you were in Weaver’s shoes, what would you have done?
• Where does courage come from?
• List your three most important values.

Dealing with a Crisis Case Study

Assume you are the VP of Sales and Marketing for a large insurance company. Once a year your company rewards and recognizes the top 100 sales agents by taking them to a luxury resort for a four-day conference. Business presentation meetings are held during the morning. Afternoons are free time. Agents and spouses can choose from an assortment of activities including golf, tennis, boating, fishing, shopping, swimming, etc.

On day 2 at 3:00 p.m., you are at the gym working out on the treadmill, when you see Sue your administrative assistant rushing towards you. She says, “I need to talk to you immediately.”

You get off the treadmill and say, “What’s up?” Sue states, “We’ve had a tragedy. Several agents went boating and swimming at the lake. Randy, our agent from California died while swimming.”

(Background information – Randy is 28 years old. His wife did not come on the trip. She is home in California with their three children).

• Explain what you would communicate to the following people.
• Your Human Resources Department
• The local police
• The attendees at the conference (Would you continue the conference?)
• How will you notify Randy’s wife?
• If Randy’s wife and a few family members want to visit the location of Randy’s death, what would you do?
• What are some “guiding principles” that leaders need to follow in a crisis situation?

 Arsenic and Old Lace Case Study

Review the YouTube video, “ I’ll show them who is boss Arsenic and Old Lace.”   

Background Information

The Vernon Road Bleaching and Dyeing Company is a British lace dyeing business. It was purchased in bankruptcy by the father/son team of Henry and Richard Chaplin. Richard has been acting as “Managing Director” which is the same as a general manager or president of a company.

The company has had 50-to-150 employees with 35-to-100 being shop floor, production employees. The company produces and sells various dyed fabrics to the garment industry.

Gerry Robinson is a consultant who was asked to help transform methods of conducting business to save the company.

Jeff is the factory manager.

• What are Richard’s strengths and weaknesses as a leader?
• What could Richard have done to make the problems of quality and unhappy customers more visible to the workforce?
• What do you think Richard’s top three priorities should be for the next 12 months?
• What could Richard have done to motivate the workforce?
• Evaluate Jeff’s approach and effectiveness as a leader.

The book contains 16 case studies, four role-plays, and six articles. I hope you find some of the content useful and helpful in your efforts to teach leadership.

Click for additional leadership case studies and resources .

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HBS Case Selections

NIO: A Chinese EV Company's Global Strategy

• William C. Kirby
• Noah B. Truwit

India: Will the Giant Emerge?

• Christian H.M. Ketels
• Radhika Kak

JPMorgan Chase in Paris

• Joseph L. Bower
• Dante Roscini
• Elena Corsi
• Michael Norris

OpenAI: Idealism Meets Capitalism

• Shikhar Ghosh
• Shweta Bagai

Generative AI and the Future of Work

• Christopher Stanton
• Matt Higgins

Copilot(s): Generative AI at Microsoft and GitHub

• Frank Nagle
• Shane Greenstein
• Maria P. Roche
• Nataliya Langburd Wright
• Sarah Mehta

Innovation at Moog Inc.

• Brian J. Hall
• Ashley V. Whillans
• Davis Heniford
• Dominika Randle
• Caroline Witten

Innovation at Google Ads: The Sales Acceleration and Innovation Labs (SAIL) (A)

• Linda A. Hill
• Emily Tedards

Juan Valdez: Innovation in Caffeination

• Michael I. Norton
• Jeremy Dann

UGG Steps into the Metaverse

• Shunyuan Zhang
• Sharon Joseph
• Sunil Gupta
• Julia Kelley

Metaverse Wars

• David B. Yoffie

Roblox: Virtual Commerce in the Metaverse

• Ayelet Israeli
• Nicole Tempest Keller

Timnit Gebru: "SILENCED No More" on AI Bias and The Harms of Large Language Models

• Tsedal Neeley
• Stefani Ruper

Hugging Face: Serving AI on a Platform

• Kerry Herman
• Sarah Gulick

SmartOne: Building an AI Data Business

• Karim R. Lakhani
• Pippa Tubman Armerding
• Gamze Yucaoglu
• Fares Khrais

Honeywell and the Great Recession (A)

• Sandra J. Sucher
• Susan Winterberg

Target: Responding to the Recession

• Ranjay Gulati
• Catherine Ross
• Richard S. Ruback
• Royce Yudkoff

Hometown Foods: Changing Price Amid Inflation

• Julian De Freitas
• Jeremy Yang
• Das Narayandas

Elon Musk's Big Bets

• Eric Baldwin

Elon Musk: Balancing Purpose and Risk

Tesla's ceo compensation plan.

• Krishna G. Palepu
• John R. Wells
• Gabriel Ellsworth

China Rapid Finance: The Collapse of China's P2P Lending Industry

• Bonnie Yining Cao
• John P. McHugh

Forbidden City: Launching a Craft Beer in China

• Christopher A. Bartlett
• Carole Carlson

Booking.com

• Stefan Thomke
• Daniela Beyersdorfer

Innovation at Uber: The Launch of Express POOL

• Chiara Farronato
• Alan MacCormack

Racial Discrimination on Airbnb (A)

• Michael Luca
• Scott Stern
• Hyunjin Kim

Unilever's Response to the Future of Work

• William R. Kerr
• Emilie Billaud
• Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej

AT&T, Retraining, and the Workforce of Tomorrow

• Joseph B. Fuller
• Carl Kreitzberg

Leading Change in Talent at L'Oreal

• Lakshmi Ramarajan
• Vincent Dessain
• Emer Moloney
• William W. George
• Andrew N. McLean

Eve Hall: The African American Investment Fund in Milwaukee

• Steven S. Rogers
• Alterrell Mills

United Housing - Otis Gates

• Mercer Cook

The Home Depot: Leadership in Crisis Management

• Herman B. Leonard
• Marc J. Epstein
• Melissa Tritter

The Great East Japan Earthquake (B): Fast Retailing Group's Response

• Hirotaka Takeuchi
• Kenichi Nonomura
• Dena Neuenschwander
• Meghan Ricci
• Kate Schoch
• Sergey Vartanov

Insurer of Last Resort?: The Federal Financial Response to September 11

• David A. Moss
• Sarah Brennan

Under Armour

• Rory McDonald
• Clayton M. Christensen
• Daniel West
• Jonathan E. Palmer
• Tonia Junker

Hunley, Inc.: Casting for Growth

• John A. Quelch
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Bitfury: Blockchain for Government

• Mitchell B. Weiss

Deutsche Bank: Pursuing Blockchain Opportunities (A)

• Lynda M. Applegate
• Christoph Muller-Bloch

Maersk: Betting on Blockchain

• Scott Johnson

Yum! Brands

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• Christopher Poliquin

Bharti Airtel in Africa

• Tanya Bijlani

Li & Fung 2012

• F. Warren McFarlan
• Michael Shih-ta Chen
• Keith Chi-ho Wong

Sony and the JK Wedding Dance

• John Deighton
• Leora Kornfeld

United Breaks Guitars

David dao on united airlines.

• Benjamin Edelman
• Jenny Sanford

Marketing Reading: Digital Marketing

• Joseph Davin

Social Strategy at Nike

• Mikolaj Jan Piskorski
• Ryan Johnson

The Tate's Digital Transformation

Social strategy at american express, mellon financial and the bank of new york.

• Carliss Y. Baldwin
• Ryan D. Taliaferro

The Walt Disney Company and Pixar, Inc.: To Acquire or Not to Acquire?

• Juan Alcacer
• David J. Collis

Dow's Bid for Rohm and Haas

• Benjamin C. Esty

Finance Reading: The Mergers and Acquisitions Process

• John Coates

Apple: Privacy vs. Safety? (A)

• Henry W. McGee
• Nien-he Hsieh
• Sarah McAra

Sidewalk Labs: Privacy in a City Built from the Internet Up

• Leslie K. John

Data Breach at Equifax

• Suraj Srinivasan
• Quinn Pitcher
• Jonah S. Goldberg

Apple's Core

• Noam Wasserman

Design Thinking and Innovation at Apple

• Barbara Feinberg

Apple Inc. in 2012

• Penelope Rossano

Iz-Lynn Chan at Far East Organization (Abridged)

• Anthony J. Mayo
• Dana M. Teppert

Barbara Norris: Leading Change in the General Surgery Unit

• Boris Groysberg
• Nitin Nohria
• Deborah Bell

Adobe Systems: Working Towards a "Suite" Release (A)

• David A. Thomas
• Lauren Barley

Home Nursing of North Carolina

Castronics, llc, gemini investors, angie's list: ratings pioneer turns 20.

• Robert J. Dolan

Basecamp: Pricing

• Frank V. Cespedes
• Robb Fitzsimmons

J.C. Penney's "Fair and Square" Pricing Strategy

J.c. penney's 'fair and square' strategy (c): back to the future.

• Jose B. Alvarez

Osaro: Picking the best path

• James Palano
• Bastiane Huang

HubSpot and Motion AI: Chatbot-Enabled CRM

• Thomas Steenburgh

GROW: Using Artificial Intelligence to Screen Human Intelligence

• Ethan S. Bernstein
• Paul D. McKinnon
• Paul Yarabe

GitLab and the Future of All-Remote Work (A)

• Prithwiraj Choudhury
• Emma Salomon

TCS: From Physical Offices to Borderless Work

Creating a virtual internship at goldman sachs.

• Iavor Bojinov
• Jan W. Rivkin

Starbucks Coffee Company: Transformation and Renewal

• Nancy F. Koehn
• Kelly McNamara
• Nora N. Khan
• Elizabeth Legris

JCPenney: Back in Business

• K. Shelette Stewart
• Christine Snively

Arup: Building the Water Cube

• Robert G. Eccles
• Amy C. Edmondson
• Dilyana Karadzhova

(Re)Building a Global Team: Tariq Khan at Tek

Managing a global team: greg james at sun microsystems, inc. (a).

• Thomas J. DeLong

Organizational Behavior Reading: Leading Global Teams

Ron ventura at mitchell memorial hospital.

• Heide Abelli

Anthony Starks at InSiL Therapeutics (A)

• Gary P. Pisano
• Vicki L. Sato

Wolfgang Keller at Konigsbrau-TAK (A)

• John J. Gabarro

The 2010 Chilean Mining Rescue (A)

• Faaiza Rashid

IDEO: Human-Centered Service Design

• Ryan W. Buell
• Andrew Otazo
• Benjamin Jones
• Alexis Brownell

Midland Energy Resources, Inc.: Cost of Capital

• Timothy A. Luehrman
• Joel L. Heilprin

Globalizing the Cost of Capital and Capital Budgeting at AES

• Mihir A. Desai
• Doug Schillinger

Cost of Capital at Ameritrade

• Mark Mitchell
• Erik Stafford

Finance Reading: Cost of Capital

Circles: series d financing.

• Paul W. Marshall
• Kristin J. Lieb
• William A. Sahlman
• Michael J. Roberts

Andreessen Horowitz

• Thomas R. Eisenmann

Entrepreneurship Reading: Partnering with Venture Capitalists

• Jeffrey J. Bussgang

David Neeleman: Flight Path of a Servant Leader (A)

• Matthew D. Breitfelder

Coach Hurley at St. Anthony High School

• Scott A. Snook
• Bradley C. Lawrence

Shapiro Global

• Michael Brookshire
• Monica Haugen
• Michelle Kravetz
• Sarah Sommer

Kathryn McNeil (A)

• Joseph L. Badaracco Jr.
• Jerry Useem

Carol Fishman Cohen: Professional Career Reentry (A)

• Myra M. Hart
• Robin J. Ely
• Susan Wojewoda

Alex Montana at ESH Manufacturing Co.

• Michael Kernish

Michelle Levene (A)

• Tiziana Casciaro
• Victoria W. Winston

John and Andrea Rice: Entrepreneurship and Life

• Howard H. Stevenson
• Janet Kraus
• Shirley M. Spence

Partner Center

A Case study of organizational behavior and Leadership: The Almost Glory Company

• Mohd Dzelwan Zainal Abidin
• Mohd Farid Shamsudin Farid
• Khairul Shahida Shabi

The case is written for MBA or senior undergraduate courses on Management and Organizational Behaviour, leadership or strategy implementation. The case can be taught towards the end of a Management course to learn about organization and its behavior. This case can be used in the segment focusing on action and leadership. The case study focusing on the progress on Bumiputra company and development where has implied an approach regarding leadership and how did the decision affected the development of the entity.

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STADA: Sustaining agility and entrepreneurship in a fast-growing pharma company

Peter Goldschmidt became the CEO of pharmaceuticals company STADA in 2018. He was a firm believer in culture as a driving force – and a predictor – of organizational performance and competitiveness. A year earlier, two private equity funds had become majority owners of the “old” STADA – essentially a loose, decentralized network of country operations. After taking the helm, Goldschmidt made building a growth culture one of the strategic pillars aimed at transforming the company into a leader in consumer health, global generics and specialty pharma. As a major lever to achieve that vision, the CEO put forward four core values to define the new, aspirational brand of STADA’s culture: agility, entrepreneurship, integrity and “one STADA.” In its quest for agility, resilience and speed, STADA’s leadership recognized the need for an ambitious transformation that would improve collaboration to leverage learning, talent and technology, while centralizing some processes and reducing duplication and waste. Amid the Covid pandemic, in March 2020, STADA reported the highest production output in the group’s 125-year history. By 2022, the company was well on its way to achieving the owners’ growth objectives of becoming a strong, well-run organization. In a short span of five years, between 2018 and 2023, STADA built a platform that should allow the business to scale to five times its current size.

• Examine the tensions, choices and trade-offs that STADA’s executives had to navigate in areas such as growth, product focus, talent and local operations.
• Appreciate the links between strategic differentiation and higher complexity: Whereas Big Pharma has significant resources to address this complexity, mid-sized firms need strategies that develop and draw on entrepreneurial, startup-like qualities to succeed.
• Recognize the trade-offs that leaders of agile, fast-growing businesses need to make between pursuing an ambitious growth strategy and building the capabilities and breadth of talent that such a strategy demands.
• Draw out the competing objectives and priorities that are inherent in the dual imperatives of achieving global centralization, synergy and scale vs. strengthening local, on-the-ground autonomy and empowerment.

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