I must catch up to them, for I am their leader...

A google scholar keyword search for leadership returns over 18,000 hits for 2011 alone. If I limit the search terms to entries where "leadership" is in the title, scholar reports about a third less (~6,000) total entires. I don't have the time to rifle through all of them, so I skimmed the results until I stumbled across this interesting article:

Klein, K. J., A. P. Knight, et al. (2011). "When team members’ values differ: The moderating role of team leadership." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 114(1): 25-36.

The one thing that I recognize is that teams are diverse, even those typically thought to be fairly homogenized. Within any given team, there are a range of opinions, values, and communication styles.  According to Klein and her colleagues, this increases conflict and reduces the effectiveness of the group to get things done. They argue that the ability of a group to get things done depends highly on the behavior style of the group's leader. They break this down into two broad types of leadership: person-oriented and task-oriented. They argue that person-oriented leaders allow for team members to express their diversity, but that could lead to greater conflict and reduced effectiveness. Conversely, a task-oriented leader limits individual expression which could reduce conflict. Overall, they suggest that the intra-group conflict mediates the effect of diversity and leadership on the group's effectiveness. They surveyed 845 people who were members of 100 different groups and assessed the values, leadership styles, and the group's effectiveness.  Between the two leadership types, they found that each was beneficial for reducing conflict and increasing group effectiveness, but for different reasons.


What does this mean? Basically, defining the right leader depends on the dynamics for the group, and when group diversity is high, it may be best for a leader to take a task oriented approach in order to reduce group conflict. I think that this may be too limited, however, because I get the sense that leadership in groups with a lot of conflict become an exercise in delegation. Delegation can be problematic for a number of reasons, especially, when group members are not always privy to the bigger-picture objectives of the group. They become a cog in the machine, mindlessly performing tasks. This may be the ideal fate for some, but it could lead to reduced group effectiveness when the overall project or goal requires a complex set of interrelated tasks. Even in highly "task-oriented" situations it is important to stress the common shared value of reliability. Team members need to be able to count on the capabilities of each other, and an effective leader can foster that kind of atmosphere whether they use a personal or task-based approach.