Psychology of leadership: theory and practice. Chapter I. Theories of leadership in psychological science (A. V. Shilakina, 2020)

Many people want to become a leader, capable of leading social groups and teams. We see and hear a lot of information, for example, about politicians, presidents, heads of large corporations who managed to lead a team, and we want to accomplish similar “feats.”

A person is born with some leadership abilities, but they are not enough to become a full-fledged leader. They should be developed and learned to use. Such characteristics appear in childhood - some children are able to unite a kindergarten group, while others cannot defend the right to a toy. Let's take a closer look at what leadership is, who can be called a leader, and how the psychology of this phenomenon works.

Leadership theory

The most popular theory is that leaders are born, not made, that is, the theory of character, or “great man.” This refers to the innate inclinations and abilities of a person that help a person become a leader.

The second theory is situational. According to it, innate characteristics alone are not enough; certain conditions of the external world and the relationship between these conditions and a given individual are also needed. That is, the role is played by the extent to which the situation allows the leader to express himself.

Let's talk about the features of office etiquette

When there are behavioral rules governing the interaction of top managers, heads of departments and their subordinates (office etiquette), the enterprise “breathes easier.”

One of the fundamental rules is to reduce the distance. Both physical (distance) and ethical (formalization of relationships). In large Russian companies there are fixed provisions governing the relationship between manager and subordinate.

For example, the distance between employees:

official distance = 89-111 cm.
friendly distance = 49-52 cm.

Reducing the distance is a signal that the official tone of the conversation is turning into a friendly tone. Top managers perform a similar “trick” to win the favor of a business partner or subordinate employee. However, the initiator must be the one who is higher in the table of ranks.

Leader Features

The most important feature of leaders is charisma. Read more about this in the article “Charisma: what is it in a person and how to develop it.” Other characteristics of a leader include:

high level of aspirations;
a high self-evaluation;
self-esteem;
self-awareness;
adequate assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of one’s personality;
the desire for success (importance and responsibility), recognition, power (managing people, directing them in a certain direction).

Of course, without certain competencies and abilities, a set of such qualities can give a completely different result. Therefore, other qualities of a leader include:

above average intelligence, ability to solve complex and abstract problems;
independence, resourcefulness, business activity, readiness for action, initiative;
the ability to see the situation broadly, to consider beyond the particular;
knowledge and experience in a specific field;
good health, developed imagination, attention, memory, thinking;
emotional balance and stress resistance;
the ability to self-regulate (the ability to relieve stress);
communication skills;
ability for psychoanalysis;
eloquence;
visuality (external attractiveness).

Thus, all the qualities of a leader can be divided into general, specific, personal-business and psychological-pedagogical.

Leadership and management in small groups

A macrogroup is a collection of people united by common principles and values. In small groups, leadership and management coexist best. Thanks to a small number of people, they effectively carry out the activities for which the macro group was created.

Often the leader becomes the person who takes the most active part in the life of the macrogroup. The positive results of his participation are obvious from the moment the macrogroup emerged. He has the ability to give impetus to fruitful work to all members of the macrogroup. The leader assumes certain responsibilities and is endowed with rights, including holding members of the macrogroup accountable. Each participant acknowledges the leadership of the leader.

The leader has every chance of advancing if the macro group moves forward within the larger group.

If his merits are appreciated, he will become a leader. Acquiring additional powers will help him strengthen the position of the macrogroup.

Types of Leadership

Leadership can be emotional, business and informational.

Emotional

It arises on the basis of sympathy in the group between the participants and the leader. An emotional leader creates a favorable psychological climate, inspires trust, relieves tension, and instills confidence. This is the heart of the group. You can always contact him. As a rule, an emotional leader appears in informal groups.

Business

This type of leadership is found in formal teams. A business leader is distinguished by high competence, the ability to solve problems, and organize activities. These are the hands of the collective. A business leader builds relationships and communicates closely with management.

Informational

The information leader is the brain of the team. He is well versed in information flows and is highly erudite. People turn to the information leader for help and advice. He helps you search for information or answers questions himself.

The ideal option is a combination of all three types in one leader, but this rarely happens. More often there is a combination of a business leader and an emotional or informational one.

The direction of leadership can be:

Constructive. Helps achieve organizational goals.
Destructive. The leader's aspirations are detrimental to the organization.
Neutral. Does not affect performance.

How to cultivate and not kill motivation

Motivating employees is an important component of the work process at any enterprise. Therefore, the manager or owner needs to get used to the role of a leader and inspirer who will lead all employees.

The first step will be to get rid of slobs and those who do nothing but receive money. These people are demotivators.

Step two. An important motivational point is financial reward for work, ideas, and exceeding the plan. The most reliable factor. The reward system must be logically and correctly designed. However, the material side does not always work out. Then moral encouragement “turns on.”

Step three. Create comfortable conditions for team members. This includes drawing up a convenient work schedule for valuable personnel, holding general events with awards for outstanding employees, and creating a personnel reserve in the enterprise. The goal is to increase employee engagement.

Step four. There is also a negative (negative) motivation: the procedure for punishing guilty colleagues: demotion, imposition of a fine. Bilateral (positive + negative) motivation is very effective. The steps taken must become part of the corporate ethics and culture.

Types of Leadership

Among the types we can distinguish a leader, a leader in the narrow sense and a situational leader:

The leader acts by suggestion. He is active, strong, physically developed, healthy, strives for success, self-confident, has the ability to adapt, is smart, has developed creativity and intuition, is tactful, sociable and easy to communicate.
A leader has less authority than a leader. He also convinces and inspires, but he also motivates using the “do as I do” method.
A situational leader emerges in a specific situation due to his strong abilities needed at the moment.

In relation to the attitude of the team to the leader, it is customary to distinguish the following types:

"One of us". He does not stand out among the group in any way, but is perceived by her as first among equals.
"The best of us." In almost all qualities he stands out from the group and acts as a model.
"Good man". Valued and distinguished by the team for his moral qualities.
"Servant." Considered as an intermediary, a representative of interests.

The same leader can be perceived differently by team members, that is, he belongs to several types at once. In general, there are leaders in any group, both official and unofficial, both destructive and constructive. For example, the example known to everyone since school was the prefects (formal leader) and hooligans (informal leader) of the class.

External manifestations of leadership psychology

Leadership is understood as the ability to influence an individual or a group of people, focusing on achieving goals. This is a natural process of the socio-psychological type, when personal authority is used to influence the activities of group members. The leader influences the team - implements behavior that makes changes in the system of relationships, the sensory zone of the individual. You can influence through ideas, verbally, using the mechanisms of suggestion, emotionally infecting the team, using authority, personal example.

Leadership psychology notes that character, way of thinking, and external factors are important for managing a team. The leader, through his behavior and habits, stands out from the rest, demonstrates confidence and readiness to manage the team, taking responsibility for the decisions and behavior of the team.

The ability to use verbal and non-verbal influence is amazing. The leader openly gestures, demonstrates confidence and the ability to dominate. It stands out with its decisive look, free gait, sharp movements, and straight back.

Facial expressions and gestures of the dominant individual are just the tip of the iceberg. The internal state and type of thinking are important. A leader loves, knows how to take risks, and takes on new projects. Possessing great willpower, he, through his communication skills and ability to motivate, infects the group with confidence. The leader has a psychological impact on the team, so everyone is imbued with common ideas and shows a desire to achieve their goals.

Leader and manager

Leadership is a formal position of a person that has nothing to do with his personal qualities, although they influence the leadership style. Leadership is a position occupied by a person due to his individual personal characteristics. Perhaps this is the main difference.

Among the similarities are the following:

orientation to the goals of the organization;
communication with people and groups of people;
motivating employees and other influence on them;
creating and maintaining a favorable psychological climate.

Sometimes a manager and a leader are considered synonymous if these roles coexist in one person. But this doesn't always happen. It is also possible for the leader to identify a leader or leaders of the group and identify informal leaders.

The leader is interested in and participates in the work process. He consults, gives advice, supports feedback and pushes people to independence, leads, and sets a personal example. The manager may not do this; he may not even know his subordinates personally. Leaders do not provide ready-made solutions; together with other team members, they develop creative and problem-solving thinking.

Leadership can be transferred from one person to another depending on what knowledge, abilities, skills, qualities and abilities are needed to solve the current problem.

The nature of the power of a manager and a leader differs. The leader is endowed with authority and status. The leader wins the favor of the group and motivates them to successfully complete tasks with his authority and charisma. The power of authority is many times stronger than the power of authority. But this same power is easier to lose, since it is based on respect for the very personality of the leader.

Thus, we can highlight the following differences between a leader and a manager:

The manager organizes all activities; the leader is largely responsible for vertical psychological relationships.
The leader is officially appointed immediately after the organization is created, the leader is nominated spontaneously through the relationships of group members.
The leader manages all activities and external relations of the organization; the leader is responsible for communication, activities and the nature of relationships within the group.
The leader controls and rules, the leader himself fulfills the norms of the organization.
The manager focuses on the prescribed rights, the leader - on the moral and psychological norms that have arisen in the group.
Leadership is more stable, leadership depends on the relationships and opinions of team members, as a result of which leadership is changeable.

Leadership is social influence, which is based on the principle of legal relations, distribution of roles, power, control and discipline. Leadership is a psychological influence based on perception, imitation, mutual understanding and suggestion. This is voluntary submission and free communication.

The leader is the top position in the legal social-role hierarchy. A leader is the top in the hierarchy of authority and prestige.

What psychological skills should a leader have?

The first and main skill of a manager is to create a team of diverse employees. A well-coordinated and united team. This is the most difficult thing, especially if the team has creative specialties. Therefore, every manager selects employees in whom he is confident as excellent implementers of his ideas. Even if a manager comes to an existing fully staffed enterprise, personnel changes are considered a completely logical phenomenon. These measures are only justified when the situation in the workplace develops and gets better, when profits and employee salaries increase. In order for such a result to become possible, the manager must have certain skills.

A leader must see the future, he must be able to dream sensibly, his thinking must be intelligently creative, his imagination must be realistic.
Each employee is a set of qualities that are valuable for production; we need to discern and develop them, and try to block negative traits. Moreover, all this must be determined at the interview stage when applying for a job.
When developing the positive qualities of an employee, it is necessary to competently stimulate his growth through promotion.
Select employees not only according to their level of professional training, but also according to their compatibility with each other.
Possess the basics of diagnosing the psychological qualities of employees for selection into structural divisions of the company.
See psychological problems in the team, both permanent and temporary. Have the skills to stop the consequences and causes of such problems.
Develop analytical skills, carry out work in this direction not only in a team, but also with yourself. Strive for development, to learn new things, to be an example in everything for your subordinates.
Read a lot and, based on other people’s experience, derive your own postulates and principles of psychological work. Improving persuasion skills to create an effective team.
Use your own example to convince employees of responsibility for their affairs. If you make a decision, you bear full responsibility for it. The employee makes a decision within his competence, and for it he also bears full and unconditional responsibility; this idea must be clearly but correctly conveyed to the understanding of his subordinates.
Learn to consult competently with employees. If you establish such a rule, to jointly make a deliberative decision regarding any issue, then each employee will feel a share of responsibility for the path that the enterprise takes. Please note that the decision is made jointly, and the director personally makes it final.
Develop your speed of thinking, the ability to correctly express your thoughts and quickly analyze what they tell you. The fate of the entire business sometimes depends on the speed of decision-making. And only by looking at the manager’s business qualities, subordinates will be able to understand where to go and what to strive for.
Show your strong-willed qualities, and lead your subordinates to demonstrate them, but in a completely deliberate, business-like manner. The strong-willed qualities are initiative, independence, courage, healthy risk-taking and self-reliance. I note that, first of all, these are the qualities of a leader, and only selected employees besides him can afford to demonstrate them in the production process. Improve your skills, hone them daily, show your subordinates that you are ahead of the curve, that you are working both for the benefit of the company and for yourself. And they will follow you, certainly and irrevocably.

Features of a leader

As I already said, the best option is a combination of management and leadership in one person. The leader-manager does not order or put pressure on employees. He clearly explains to them the goals and leads them towards these goals. In addition, the leader-manager:

Able to perceive and accept common needs and problems, and take responsibility for solving them.
Able to organize joint activities: formulating tasks that are relevant for the entire team, creating conditions for their implementation, taking responsibility, taking into account the interests and capabilities of each participant, planning work taking into account these features, considering and recognizing opposing opinions, distributing responsibilities, motivating staff.
He is distinguished by empathy, tactfulness, trust, ability to communicate, sensitivity: he will listen, help, share secrets, defend interests, resolve conflicts.
Able to represent the entire team on his own behalf, express a common opinion, take initiatives to higher organizations to meet the needs of the team.
Knows how to emotionally and psychologically influence, attract people without coercion or orders, convinces and encourages.
He thinks positively, which instills self-confidence in the entire team.

In conclusion, I want to say that the mere presence of inclinations and leadership abilities does not guarantee anything. As we see, many qualities of a leader are acquired in the process of life. Abilities help to develop them better and faster.

When a leader is respected

Based on my practice in personnel management, I decided to share my thoughts about the number one modern problem in the enterprise - employee turnover.

I want to draw attention to one of the significant reasons for staff turnover, the most characteristic and typical reason, which lies in the weak psychological culture of human relations, in insufficient understanding of its content, the very essence of this concept.

In my practice, I often encounter typical signs of poor personnel management and, as a result, staff turnover is high at such enterprises. These are the signs:

lack of loyalty, both among management and employees
low organizational skills of managers, weak authority of the leader, poor knowledge of Human psychology
many teams are a weak team: there is gossip, squabbles, and frequent conflicts in the team
a young team in which almost all peers suffer from a lack of discipline, subordination, and business ethics (they walk together, drink together, shift responsibility and responsibilities to each other, and as a result, mark time)
typical primitive recruitment schemes: where were you born? where did you study? where did you work? All!
weak moral qualities, vague goals and values among employees, which requires their advanced training and training

All of the factors listed above relate directly to the psychology of human relations, to the psychology of personnel management. Most managers are specialists in their field, professionals in creating the product of their business, but have little knowledge of the psychology of relationships in a team, which is why many have low indicators in personnel management. Today it is important to check personnel for loyalty. While consulting with a HR manager at a fairly large enterprise, I was faced with a misunderstanding by the administration of what the concept of “loyalty” is in its full extent and how to achieve loyalty from employees. The English word “Loyal” means correctness, a correct attitude towards someone or something, including the law, the authorities, etc. Much depends on the loyalty of employees: the success and prosperity of the company, its leadership position in business, a favorable attitude towards the company, which is expressed in personnel stability. It is a mistake to believe that high employee loyalty can be achieved through high salaries. A high salary, to a certain extent, keeps an employee at the enterprise, but not for long if the enterprise has low loyalty from the administration itself to its employees. Loyalty in an enterprise must be mutual. High employee loyalty is where there is respect for them, where employees clearly know their duties and responsibilities, where “punishment” is fair and rewards are fair, where employees feel important in creating socially necessary goods or services and are proud of the quality of their products. In this case, people respect their leader, are ready to work with an optimal average salary, and they work with greater efficiency than in enterprises with high salaries but low loyalty from the administration. High loyalty is achieved by high reciprocity of relationships! In the USA, represented by the state, through the “one law for all” policy, through the media, moral values, patriotism, responsibility, determination, achieving desires, and career growth are promoted for Americans. In America, since about the 1930s (!), “psychology” has been working for people in the form of seminars, courses, and trainings on achieving success, both in business and in life in general. The basis of success in business lies precisely in successful communication: “manager-employee”, “employee-employee”, “employee-customer”, and success in life in general depends on skillful communication with loved ones and others. In the former USSR, to a certain extent it was the same approach. The role of the state was played by the party, which, in the person of party organizers, Komsomol organizers, and also with the help of the media, instilled in young people (I write without sarcasm) patriotism, love of work, i.e. to the common state cause, cultivated significant values, such as honesty, decency, responsibility in the team and other positive qualities. But the “psychology of success” did not work in the USSR, and even belonged to the category of prohibited sciences. Psychology was studied only in medical institutes, child psychology - in pedagogical institutes. But what about today? And today neither the state nor the media are interested in the “morality” of society. This topic is low on money. The role of an “educator”, a psychologist in an enterprise falls on the manager. Much in personnel management depends on the manager, as a mentor, teacher, authority, ideologist, or this role in a large team should be performed by a professional personnel psychologist, HR manager, to whom it can be delegated these functions, because the manager of an enterprise most often does not have enough time to “educate” employees. Today, many understand to a greater extent how a radio, a car and, to a certain extent, a rocket work, but they know and understand catastrophically little how a person works, where he has “gas” or “brakes”, what are feelings, emotions, ambitions, how do they work, why do people behave differently under the same conditions? How the human psyche works in general and what it is in general... Psychology, as an applied science, did not work for Soviet people during almost the entire Soviet period. An ideology worked, which partly “cultivated” in people, indeed, quite a lot of positive qualities. The lack of basic knowledge of human psychology and the psychology of human relations is one of the main reasons for almost the majority of modern managers, heads of personnel departments, HR managers, who high turnover at the enterprise. There are not enough domestic psychologists in the field of business among the older generation (there simply hasn’t been a business for 70 years), there are many young psychologists, but most of them are still “immature”, due to age and little practical experience, skills, as in everyday life psychology and social. Today there is a lot of literature on psychology, but nevertheless, the subject is only from a book, without a teacher or specialist you cannot master it well, by 10-20 percent, and this is too little. Therefore, you should not ignore seminars on business psychology. A large business can afford expensive training for its employees, attracting foreign managers and VIP specialists, while small and medium-sized businesses mostly save on training. All the “troubles” in the team, as well as in general everyday troubles in the family are due to the inability to communicate , lack of psychological culture. Psychological culture is the unity of the culture of Human behavior and the internal culture of Man. If there is no internal culture of Man, then where does cultural behavior come from? The internal culture of Man is connected with the spirituality of man. The higher the spirituality, the higher the culture. Psychology as a whole is a synthesis of religion, philosophy and scientific knowledge in the fields of physics, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, astrology:

people in life situations can be “attracted” or “repelled,” just like equally or oppositely charged particles in physical processes.
man is a biochemical being. Under the influence of feelings and emotions, various biochemical reactions occur in our bodies. For example, in a situation of grief or failure, biochemical processes occur in a person that destroy the body, and in a situation of joy and happiness, processes occur that restore the vitality of the body.
a person, as in mathematics, obeys the laws of linear and nonlinear order, the laws of attraction, various schemes-algorithms of situational behavior, etc.
the laws of astrology also play an important role in Human life, such as lunar tides, solar eclipses and emissions, magnetic storms, etc.

And if we take psychological culture as a whole, then it corresponds to the “golden rule” of religion and philosophy: treat others the way you want to be treated. Therefore, what you demand from your subordinates, demand from yourself. The leader must be as fair as possible in criticizing, punishing, and also not forget about encouragement (!). What is important to take / glean from the knowledge of Human psychology, the psychology of human relationships? It is important to distinguish employees by temperament in order to understand who is choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic and who is melancholic? Temperament (not to be confused with sexual!) is a property of the nervous system that characterizes a person’s endurance and resistance to physiological stress. You can learn to distinguish temperament by characteristic signs (behavior, loudness of speech, patience, temperament, and other indicators of temperament) or entrust temperament testing to a specialist. Why is this necessary? And then, to choose the right job assignments and responsibilities for an employee or new employee. A choleric person should not be entrusted with monotonous work, for example, being hired as a driver for a manager who has frequent meetings and meetings and the driver will have to wait for a long time and be idle in the car. Such an employee will not stay long, because his temperament corresponds to work associated with movement and high activity. But a melancholic person can withstand a monotonous, cyclical pace of work. Sanguine and phlegmatic people are the most balanced and resilient in temperament, i.e. according to the loads of people. When making a decision, especially a collective one, it would not hurt managers to know and distinguish their employees by character and method of behavior in controversial and conflict situations. Who is characterized by “avoidance” (“my hut is on edge”), who is characterized by “adaptation”, and who is characterized by “competition” or “cooperation”. Looking through the resume, you are surprised that all (!) applicants write about themselves: “communicative” , “non-conflict”, “not ambitious”, “stress-resistant”, etc., sometimes without knowing what this means. It is important to know and understand the essence of such personal qualities of a person as “communication”, “ambitiousness”, “stress resistance” etc. Communicative is not the same thing as talkative, talkative, “will not go into his pocket for a word.” Communication in the business sphere is the ability to express one’s thoughts clearly and clearly, convey them to others, the ability to reliably convey information without distorting its importance or value, the ability to negotiate reasonedly, the ability to create clear instructions, reports, etc. “Not ambitious” - This is good? It’s bad if a Person has practically no ambitions, then he is simply a “spineless” person. It’s bad if the ambitions are too high, that is, a person either resists everything and everyone without any argumentation, or literally “beats himself in the chest” and shouts “everything is fine,” because “I’m saying this,” again without citing significant facts and arguments. But healthy ambition is good. In this case, a person can defend his point of view with the help of arguments and facts or admit his mistake after listening to the arguments of another. Stress resistance is also important, because it includes the endurance to work under tight deadlines, in a team with people of different personalities. This is resistance to criticism, comments, and conflicts. And having brought clarity to the understanding of the essence of things, you understand that we have very few people who have good communication skills, healthy ambition and resistance to stress. In their resume, everyone values honesty, fairness, friendship, and compromise. But what really? Where is all this in the team? Most people’s understanding of the essence of the above values is too one-sided and narrow. In relation to “my beloved self” “I appreciate everything good”, in relation to someone “I value nothing”, in the best case, and in the worst case I will also rejoice (quietly “to myself”) if someone falls .You can endlessly reveal such important qualities of a Person as objectivity, adequacy, rationalism, pragmatism, etc. - all this is psychology - an amazing (!) science about Human behavior, about his inner world, about his feelings. It is the knowledge of psychology that helps you improve, helps you raise your internal culture and be more successful than others. Tested by time, tested by practice, including our own. It is with a leader focused on knowledge of Human psychology, on the psychology of Human relationships (or a leader who is a naturally “everyday” psychologist) that the team, as a rule, is quite loyal and the turnover rate of such a leader is lower average. Such a leader is respected because Psychological comfort in an enterprise is a serious motivation and incentive for employees to work with greater efficiency. © V. Marchenko, 2008 © Published with the kind permission of the author