Leadership is something of
interest to businesses administrators, students and politicians. Leadership is
often defined using both its results as
well as its traits. Recently, altruism has garnered greater interest among
researchers as an additional trait of inclusion in high performance leaders.
New research helps to understand what connection altruism has with networking,
interpersonal influence, effectiveness and success.
Leadership ability often comes
from the social capital built within greater networks. Nothing great can be
done alone. These networks are described as a purposeful focus on how a person
is perceived in relationships (Luthans, et. al, 1988). It is this perception of
self that creates positive affectivity by balancing the leader’s personal image
with that of others. If you don’t have an understanding of how people are perceiving
you it will be impossible to enhance that impression.
The researchers further move on to argue that
performance, satisfaction and subordinate organizational commitment are
symptoms of effective leaders. Such leaders should be able to encourage
performance in others, develop a level of commitment to particular causes, and
ensuring the needs of followers during this process.
To develop maximize performance and create strong
social networks that encourage focused action a level social intelligence is
needed (Kolodinsky, 2003). Social networks must run both inside and outside
organizations to create effectiveness. Without being able to understand the
subtle nature of social cues and influences it will be hard to develop higher
levels of influence.
This influence also relies on emotional stability,
optimism, intelligence, analytic ability, intuition and interpersonal relations
(Kotter, 1982). By using these skills to a higher degree, leaders can develop a
level of effectiveness that sets them apart from others. Each skill should be
toned and developed to its full bloom to create a multitude of methods in order
to see and solve problems adequately.
Few would trust a leader if their social
intelligence were used only for self-serving purposes. A level of altruism and
concern for the greater good needs to be part of the decision making process. Therefore,
leadership cannot be separate from moral character (Kanungo, 2001). That moral
character is the ability to serve others and go above the call of duty to
create ethical successes (Price, 2003).
Research conducted by Moss & Barbuto (2010) analyzed interpersonal political skills
and its success as moderated by altruism. They used a multi-level model
centering on employees from four organizations to create a variety of
conditions. A total of 217 participants were used gauge overall perceived
effectiveness of such leaders in determining the association of elements.
Results:
-Interpersonal influence was positively related to
effectiveness.
-Networking ability was positively related to effectiveness
and success.
-Altruism strengthened the relationship to social
intelligences and effectiveness.
-Altruism decreased the relationship between
networking and success.
Business Analysis:
Networking and connecting with others is an
important part of leadership. Through this networking, people are more able to
be effective and successful in their endeavors. Altruism seems to enhance one’s
social intelligences and overall effectiveness in their leadership abilities.
However, altruism also seems to have an opposite effect on networking and
success. It is possible that there is a level of selfishness in some people’s
use of networking. It may lead to an assumption that many people use their
social networks to gain personal success but that that success is not based in
the need to enhance people. Further research could uncover the percentage of
people who network for their own benefit versus the benefit of others. History seems to confirm this belief that
politicking and altruistic behaviors are not necessarily mutually exclusive but
are different activities that lead to effectiveness. It is we that define what
effectiveness means. You may want to ask yourself what the differences are
between greater and lesser leadership.
Luthans, F., Hodgetts, R. M.,
& Rosenkrantz, S. A. (1988). Successful vs. effective real
managers. The Academy of
Management Executive, 11, 127-132.
Moss, J. & Barbuto, J. (2010)
Testing the Relationship Between
Interpersonal Political Skills, Altruism, Leadership Success and Effectiveness:
A Multilevel Model. Institute of Behavioral and Applied
Management.
Kolodinsky, R. W. (2003). The
role of political skill in intra-organizational outcomes: An
initial
empirical examination.
Paper presented at the Academy of Management
national conference, Seattle, WA.
Kotter, J. P. (1982). General
managers are not generalists. Organizational Dynamics,
10, 5-19.
Kanungo, R. N. (2001). Ethical
values of transactional and transformational leaders.
Price, T. L. (2003). The ethics
of authentic transformational leadership. The Leadership
Quarterly, 14, 67-81. Canadian
Journal of Administrative Sciences, 18, 257-265.
