There is a useful distinction to be made between leadership as a personal quality and leadership as an organizational function. In the first, the emergent leader is chosen for his personal characteristics, while in the second, he is appointed and given the authority of leadership. Ideally the appointed or formal leader should possess the same abilities at the job as the emergent leader. In other words, managers may be leaders, but leaders do not have to be managers.

Leadership is the process of influencing people so that they will strive willingly for group objectives. Leading is quite different from pushing, and involves inspiring rather than driving, showing rather than threatening, and assuming responsibility rather than passing the Since certain people seem readily able to lead and others to follow, the early behaviorists concentrated their efforts on discovering the traits that seemed to be required for leadership.

Some traits listed were energy, emotional stability, and knowledge of human relations, empathy, objectivity, personal motivation, communicative skill, teaching ability, social skill, and technical competence. There are many such lists but no consensus among the experts.

Rensis Likert studied leadership by comparing employee-centered supervisors with job-centered supervisors. He found that first line supervisors who were employee-centered had more productive sections than those who were job-centered; first line managers who worked under general supervision were higher producers than those who were closely supervised; foremen who were nonpunitive and helpful got higher production than those who were punitive and critical. Throughout New Patterns of Management, Likert shows results which support the view that higher productive goals are achieved through enlightened and humanistic leadership.

Although the problem has been studied thoroughly, the qualities of leadership remain vague. There are many ways in which leaders may perform, but there is no one “best” way. Indeed, a manager may have leadership abilities in one situation but not in another. Recognizing that leadership develops unexpectedly, the manager should try to identify leaders and employ them as a means to attain goals. The tenure of leadership depends on how well the group that grants it is satisfied. When the leader fails, the group will replace him. Leadership is therefore as dynamic as the group to be led. To maintain his position, the leader must be responsive to the changing needs of his group. Leadership is therefore situational, and the ability to maintain it will depend on the ability to maintain equilibrium within the group. For the formally appointed leader, tenure will depend on his ability to maintain a balance between his responsibilities and the goals of the firm.

The behavioral science approach has revolutionized the thinking of many management theorists and practitioners. Some have tried to forget the classicists and start anew. Others have clung to what they thought good in the old system and tried to improve it with applications of the new. Someone following McGregor’s Theory Y must take an entirely different approach to management from someone following Theory X. If leadership theory and small group theory are both to be applied, an entirely new view of the formation and structure of the organization will be necessary,

The classical approach placed great stress on economic gain through specialization. The behaviorists saw that extreme specialization did more harm than good. They realized that as a job is broken down into smaller segments with fewer and simpler operations, monotony, boredom, and dissatisfaction set in. They therefore recommended job enlargement-rather than limiting operations, they would add steps or responsibilities to reduce monotony and boredom: they would rotate jobs to prevent the negative effects of repetition; and they would allow participation in decision-making at far lower levels than was formerly practiced.

Enlargement enriches a job and offers greater satisfaction. Rotation gives a broader view and greater understanding of the enterprise efforts as a whole, and as a by-product for management, trains more people who can fill many roles. Participation improves communication and gives a feeling of involvement and, identification. These behavioral methods may not work in every situation, but the manager who is aware of them has a great advantage.

The concept of the scalar, formalized hierarchy of organization points out still other weaknesses in the classical approach. The principle of unity of command may weaken the enterprise since it can run contrary to human behavior and the efficiency of the organization. The classical theorist Fayol recognized this in his principle called Fayol’s Bridge. The classical path of communication is from level to level of the organization. Fayol saw that it should be short-circuited if following the bridge would make communication difficult.

The use of overlays in the study of organization clearly indicates that patterns of interaction and power other than those portrayed in the classical line organization do exist. The behaviorists favor approaches that take these patterns into consideration. Contemporary theorists believe that a “tall” and “narrow” structure, with many administrative levels but few persons on each level, leads to more controlled management. Conversely, they believe that a “wide” and “flat” structure, with fewer levels and more people on each level, leads to more generalized management. This shows a change from a tall to a flat structure in a chain of retail stores. Shorter lines of communication, wider dispersal of decision-making, and extended horizontal links appear to have increased the opportunity for satisfying the needs of both the organization and the individuals in it.. A management technique which embodies both behavioral theory and the economic approach, introduced by Peter Drucker in the early 1950s, is called management by objectives (MBO). It was proposed as a means of motivating the enterprise. Drucker describes it thus: the objectives of the district manager’s job should be defined by the contribution he and the district sales force have to make to the sales department, the objectives of the project engineer’s job by the contribution he, his engineers, and draftsmen make to the engineering department….

His idea was to allow the manager who was responsible for a particular objective to perform the functions necessary to complete it. His system gave managers and their subordinates greater control and motivation in governing their own activities. Others have written on MBO, and the technique has often been applied. The guidelines emphasize that in an MBO program:

1. Superiors and subordinates meet and discuss goals (results) for the subordinates in line with overall organizational goals.

2. Superiors and subordinates jointly establish goals attainable by the subordinate.

3. Superiors and subordinates meet again after initial goals are established, and evaluate the subordinate’s performance in terms of the goals.

While procedures vary from firm to firm, the results should improve the contribution to the firm and to the morale and attitudes of the participants. It should also reduce the anxiety of the subordinate since he knows how he has been evaluated by his superiors.

Another new technique is sensitivity training, a type of training in human relations which has implications for management education. Through unstructured small group discussions under the loose guidance of a trained leader, sensitivity training seeks increased insight into self and others through frank discussion of problems of general interest to the group. In these discussions there is a strong emphasis on feelings and personal contact. As members freely criticize each other and their views, they tend to learn truths about themselves, their motives, their impact on others, and how they can modify their own behavior in order to gain greater acceptance and cooperation. The technique has wide applications outside of business, but some experience with it can be of great value in sharpening the personal effectiveness of management personnel. This unique presentation illustrates the flow of authority from the center outward and shows functions of the same importance more clearly. Since there is no bottom and no top, the unpleasant connotations of these positions are eliminated.