The cognitive resource theory states the influence of the leader's resources on his or her reaction to stress. The cognitive resources of a leader are experience, intelligence, competence, and task-relevant knowledge. Stress is common in resource managing situations, and this cognitive theory emphasizes how intelligence and experience are each best under different stress situations. This theory is the reconceptualization of the Fiedler model.
In the early 1990s, the original model of Fiedler was re-conceptualized by Fiedler and his associate Joe Garcia, as Cognitive Resource Theory. In this model, the focus has been laid on the role of stress as a form of situational un-favorableness and how a leader’s intelligence and experience influence her/his reaction to stress.
Cognition is the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. Good examples of cognition are learning and our ability to reason through logic. Cognitive processes use existing knowledge and generate new knowledge. Cognitive processes are analyzed from different perspectives within different contexts like psychiatry, psychology, education, philosophy, and computer science.
The Contingency Model developed by Fiedler was criticized for its lack of flexibility and also over the accuracy of the LPC scale. Fiedler then went on to develop the Cognitive Resource Theory (CRT) which takes into account the personality of the leader, degree of situational stress, and group-leader relations.
The assumption behind this theory is that stress impacts the ability to make decisions. It is the enemy of rationality and a leader cannot think in a logical and analytical manner if she/he is under a high level of stress. According to this proposition, the importance of a leader’s intelligence and experience to effectiveness differs under low and high-stress situations.
Fiedler and Gracia state that a leader’s intellectual ability correlates positively with performance under low stress but negatively under high stress. And conversely, a leader’s experience correlates negatively with performance under low stress but positively under high stress.
Thus, according to Fiedler and Gracia, the level of stress in a situation, determines whether an individual’s intelligence or experience will contribute to leadership performance.
The Cognitive Resource theory predicts that the leader's abilities and intelligence can aid organizational success only when leaders adopt a directive leadership style, the situation is stress-free, the group members are supportive and the task requires high intellect. These attributes are discussed below:
When a leader is better in cognitive abilities like intelligence, planning, and decision-making, he must follow a directive approach to improve the overall performance of the team. He needs to communicate to the group what to do, to ensure his plans and decisions are implemented, hence improving the overall performance of the group.
When the group and the people on the group are better than the leader in cognitive abilities, then the leader should choose a non-directive approach. He should seek ideas from the group and identify the best approach/idea and move ahead with the same.
A leader's cognitive ability contributes to the performance of the team only when the leader uses the directive leadership style.
Stress has a direct co-relation with intelligence and decision quality.
When there is a low stress, then intelligence is fully functional and makes an optimal contribution.
When there is high stress, natural intelligence does not make any difference, but may also have a negative effect.
A leader's abilities will contribute to group performance only when group members are supportive of the leader and his goals. In such a situation leader's directions can be easily followed and implemented.
The intellectual abilities and intelligence of the leader can only be utilized efficiently in difficult, cognitively demanding tasks.
The theory proposes the style of leadership required depending on three variables – the degree of stress, situational control, and task structure.
Leaders should be trained on stress management so that a leader's intellect can be most effectively utilized and also to train leaders to take a directive approach when their knowledge will benefit the group but a less directive approach when group member abilities will contribute to performance.
Based on this theory, for a given situation, depending on the level of the stress, leaders can decide on whether to rely on intelligence or on experience. For low-stress situations, one should rely on intelligence; however, for high-stress situations, one should rely on experience.
In high-stress situations, leaders who are more experienced will produce more quality results. In high-stress situations, rational solutions are generally not available and hence intelligence will not be able to support the decision-making process, whereas previous experience can allow the leader to react.
The cognitive resources of a leader refer to their experience, intelligence, competence, and task-relevant knowledge. A leader's knowledge can contribute to performance if it is efficiently communicated, hence requiring a directive leader and also a compliant group that is willing to undertake the commands of the leader.
Management theories are the recommended management strategies that enable us to better understand and approach management. Many management frameworks and guidelines were developed during the last four decades.
Functional leadership theory addresses specific leader behaviors that are expected to contribute most to the organizational effectiveness by focusing on how the leadership process occurs. The leader should ensure that all needs of the group get addressed.
Bass's Transformational Leadership Theory
Bass Transformational Leadership Theory is based on performance beyond expectations approach which defines four elements of transformational leadership. The 4 elements described by Bernard A. Bass in 1985 are Idealised Influence, Intellectual Stimulation, Individualised Consideration, and Inspirational Motivation. This study highlights four key insights about performance beyond expectations and associated criteria to measure it.
Reciprocal influence theory also known as reciprocal determinism is authored by Albert Bandura and states that an individual's behavior influences and is influenced by both the social world and personal characteristics. Three factors that influence behavior are the environment, the individual, and the behavior itself. Certain leader behaviors can cause subordinate behaviors and reciprocal influence on the leader by the group.
All the teams are dynamic in nature and they take time to come together, they form, develop, and grow in stages, over a period of time. Teams go through five progressive stages: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning. In this article, we want to introduce you to these stages of team development and certain strategies that you can use to help the team grow and develop in each of these stages.
Five Factors Model (FFM) also known as Five-Factor Personality Model is based on five broad personality traits which are extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness represented by acronym OCEAN, these traits are often referred to as the “Big Five”.
The social identity theory of leadership views leadership as a group process. Social identity is a person's sense of who they are based on their group membership. Social identity theory sets agendas and goals generated by social categorization, defines who we are based on processes associated with social identity, and motivates to conduct ourselves based on what followers think of the leader.
Communication has as its central objective the transmission of meaning. The process of communication is successful only when the receiver understands an idea as the sender intended it. How does a message or an idea travel from one person to another? To transmit our message, we engage in a sensitive and complex process of communication, with different elements like sender, message, channels, receiver, noise, and feedback.
Attribution Theory of Leadership
The attribution theory of leadership deals with the formation of individual opinions about the reasons for particular events or observations. People will always try to understand why people do what they do. The leader will make a judgment about his employees based on his attribution of the causes of the employees' performance. Individuals will also make inferences about the leader and react to poor performance by the leader.
According to the three-skill approach of Katz, the individual's leadership abilities vary depending on where leaders are in a management hierarchy. The practical implication of skills approach to leadership is that leaders can improve their capabilities in leadership skills through training and experience.
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