Build a Better Boss
Two weeks ago, this column discussed how corporate managers can use criticism to maximize their employees' performance. But what about improving the boss's own performance? Is there any way of predicting which leadership styles are likely to be most effective, and which ones ineffective? There is, according to a growing body of academic research. Studies both in the United States and in Canada have shown that the personality of a senior executive can have a significant impact not only on employee morale-no real surprise there-but also on group productivity and profitability. One of the most frequently cited studies of leadership effectiveness took place at the University of British Columbia during the early 1980s. One hundred and forty-four undergraduates were recruited to work on a project that was ostensibly Abstract: A study of business leadership styles found that 'charismatic' CEOs are more effective than 'considerate' or 'structuring' CEOs. Charismatic managers were able to mot
That's the theory, but how does it stand up in the real world? In 1992, House and two other researchers, David Waldman and Leanne Atwater of Arizona State University, launched a still-unpublished study of 63 U.S. and 49 Canadian corporations, including Northern Telecom, Molson, Gulf Canada and Manulife. By mailing questionnaires to senior executives at each company who reported directly to the chief executive officer, the researchers were able to rate each CEO's charisma and compare that to the company's financial performance. Sadly, the need to guarantee anonymity to the participants means that we will never know how, for example, the recently departed CEO of Molson, Mickey Cohen, stacked up against Paul Stern, the former boss of Nortel, on the charisma scale-certainly neither company was a stellar performer at the time of the study. Nevertheless, the researchers concluded that between 15 and 25 per cent of the variation in profitability among the companies was accounted for by the lead
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Approximate Word count = 668
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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