Exploration and Exploitation as Effective Parts of Leadership

Exploration and Exploitation are two facets of leadership not often discussed in academic circles. Exploration in leadership is a process that leads to new creative breakthroughs and knowledge while exploitation is the process of using that new knowledge in a way that creates the most effective outcomes. Well rounded leaders should be able to explore new ideas and then develop strategies to capitalize on their findings.

Exploration makes possible the understanding of new information and gathering knowledge on key issues. Exploitation is the ability implement sound strategies that can meet and achieve organizational objectives. People who are able to expand their current knowledge and then put that knowledge to good use are an asset to the organization.

According to Keller & Weibler (2014) both exploration and exploitation comes with certain personality traits. For example exploration is associated with open to experience and environmental dynamism while exploitation are closely tied to conscientiousness and transactional behaviors. Without an open mind it is difficult to learn new ideas and without conscientiousness it can be hard to create effective policies.

Leaders should be good managers and managers should strive to be better leaders. Leadership is based in part on our personality traits and our ability to rise above current processes to explore and implement new ideas. These ideas cannot be haphazard or unfounded but should be goal directed and effective. Leaders will need to be good managers to be effective.

Exploration is leader’s process of learning that allows them to tap into new ideas, find different associations, and improve existing processes by trying something new. Exploitation is the ability effectively and efficiently maximize that learning to find concrete results. Leaders who have both the ability to experiment with new ideas and the knowledge to implement new strategy effectively will do well in leading their organizations through change to higher levels of performance.

Keller, T. & Weibler, J. (2014). Behind managers ambidexterity-studying personality traits, leadership and environmental conditions associated with exploration and exploitation. Schmalenbach Business Review, 66 (3).

Leadership Traits and Behaviors

Making sense out of leadership literature can be difficult. Sometimes using a meta-analysis of other people’s research can help in creating stronger understanding. Derue, et. al. (2011) reviews the need to integrate leadership into a more cohesive framework by testing four concepts of leader effectiveness, group performance, follower job satisfaction and satisfaction of leadership. Understanding how traits and behaviors match to create effectiveness is important for determining the overall abilities of the leader to meet goals. 

Leadership effectiveness is often predicted from the demographics, personality traits, skills and abilities of the leader (Eagly, et. al., 1995). The combination of these factors meshed together into leadership behavior may be most successful.  Therefore, successful leadership relies on both behavior and traits to be effective. 

Leadership behavior creates overall effectiveness (Judge & Piccolo, 2004). Behavior is most often goal-oriented in the sense that it focused on specific outcomes that seek manifest a vision the leader has. Without action there cannot be change within the environment or movement toward higher forms of performance. 

Leadership can be categorized into traits or behaviors (Bass & Bass, 2008; Derue, et. al., 2011):

Traits: demographics, task competence, and interpersonal attributes.

Behaviors: task processes, relational dynamics or change. 

Traits are inherent within the individual and can be enhanced or learned over time. Behaviors are the outward actions that focus on the completion of goal seeking behavior. These are the tasks one completes on a daily basis, the activities of other they engage with or the behavioral activity focused on change. When the traits are matched with certain behaviors they can create effective leadership. 

The researchers Derue, et. al. (2011) reviewed 13 meta-analysis and 46 primary studies to find patterns toward model integration. It was their way of systematically analyzing previous research to determine how effective leadership is developed. Leadership traits like conscientiousness appeared to have the highest predictive value for effectiveness. When leadership traits were matched with task competence effectiveness appeared to be higher. Interpersonal attributes were associated with relationship-oriented behavior that increased employee satisfaction. Where task competence and interpersonal attributes matched, there was a higher degree of change oriented action. As expected the “do nothing” or passive leaders were least effective. 

The findings further our understanding that leadership traits pair with behaviors to create effectiveness. Leaders are likely to rely on both innate and learned traits to direct their goal seeking behavior. It is this goal directed behavior that creates task completion that results in effectiveness. It is a life-long process of development where traits and successful behaviors match to make the dynamic combo many leaders seek. How that is manifested in terms of being people or task oriented will determine the type of leadership style used. Despite these preferences leaders still have the ability to use both as the situation demands to be even more effective.

Bass ,B & Bass, R. (2008). TheBass handbook of leadership: Theory, research, and managerial

applications. New York, NJ: Free Press.

Derue, D., et. al. (2011). Trait and behavioral theories of leadership: an integration and meta-analytic test of their relative validity. Personnel Psychology, 64 (1).

Eagly A., et. al. (1995). Gender and the effectiveness of leaders: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 125–145.

Judge T, & Piccolo R.. (2004). Transformational and transactional leadership: A metaanalytic test of their relative validity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 755–768.

Altruism as an Enhancement to Leadership

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.

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