Transformational Leadership and Shared Values Essay

Problem Identification

Effective leadership occurs in an environment of compromise. Consequently, it is important to investigate how different leadership styles help in the development of trust as a shared value. Indeed, this examination constitutes the main research problem in Gillespie and Mann’s article titled ‘Transformational Leadership and Shared Values: The Building Blocks of Trust’. In line with Mitrabinda and Goo’s words, “effective leadership is different…it has to do with values internalized and the willingness to sacrifice for others” (126).

Hence, developing the ability to care about the people one leads to precedes effective leadership. It is impossible to lead without a complete sense of commitment. Crucial to note is that successful headship develops in an environment of mutual trust and respect. Therefore, the article reveals that it is important for any leadership theory deployed in an organization to ensure that leaders uphold trust as an imperative shared value.

Hypothesis Identification

Gillespie and Mann’s research uses four hypotheses. They hypothesize (H1_a) that for research and design teams, perceptions such as appeal, enthusiasm, and influence among others possessed by the group members towards their leaders relate positively with the trust that the parties have in their bosses. An alternative hypothesis (H1_b) is that trust in team leaders correlates positively with the results of deploying contingent rewards in leadership. The second alternative hypothesis is that confidence in a leader depends on the perceptions of the team members that the boss uses consultative leadership.

The second hypothesis (H2_a) is that leadership confidence does not relate to the perceptions held by team members that a leader uses active-corrective leadership (Gillespie and Mann 593). The alternative hypothesis (H2_b) is that laissez-faire coupled with passive-corrective leadership styles relate negatively with the trust that team members have in a leader.

Gillespie and Mann anticipated (H3) that the perception of sharing common values with a leader would relate positively with confidence in a leader and that (H4) such conviction would lead to higher effort at work, the effectiveness of the workers, job approval, and effective interaction between the leader and the team members (Gillespie and Mann 594).

The Need for Research

Leadership is vital in all organizations that use people to achieve their goals, mission, aims, and objectives. It involves influencing other people to facilitate the achievement of a given goal. Leaders prepare, manage, direct, and/or steer other people towards attaining common mutual objectives and goals. Leadership occurs through the interaction of three main contexts: leaders, followers, and the situation that prompts the deployment of leadership skills.

To reap from employees without their exhaustion, it is important to deploy appropriate leadership styles that guarantee trust between the followers and the leader. To this extent, there was a need for Gillespie and Mann to research leadership style aspects that correlate well with team members’ faith in the leaders. Without confidence, it is incredibly difficult for parties to follow the directions and/or comply with the controls developed by a leader.

Research Methodology

A questionnaire was deployed as the tool for data collection among research and design work teams in an Australian organization. Gillespie and Mann assert, “Data was collected from 33 teams across two divisions that had 2 to 15 members with a median of six members” (594). Through random sampling, some project leaders and members of work teams filled a questionnaire that focuses on trust and leadership issues.

About 85 questionnaires from team members and 33 from team leaders were filled ready from the analysis. Demographically, 22% of the sample comprised female leaders while 35% of team members were females. The rest were males. Team members spent about 4 hours communicating face-to-face with their leader every week. Measures of trust included behavioral, affective, cognitive, and overall trust. The researchers deployed the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire to measure various aspects of leadership (Gillespie and Mann 596).

Literature Review Summary

Gillespie and Mann discuss various past researches indicating the role of leaders in creating an environment of trust. The article shows how this role fits with research and design work teams. From the literature review, Gillespie and Mann note that the process of research and design involves a high level of interdependence among organizational leaders and work teams. In research and design, Piercey addresses the role of partnership among leaders and other interested parties in steering the success of their organizations (55). Such victory can only be realized in an environment of interpersonal trust.

Gillespie and Mann’s main concern is in responding to the question of how leaders in charge of research and design projects can gain the trust of the team members they lead. Therefore, they review researches that highlight the necessity for investigating how leadership styles influence the trust of the followers in a leader. According to Trochim, measurement of variables is important in any quantitative research (par.7).

To develop an approach to measuring trust and leadership, Gillespie and Mann review the literature on “conceptualization and measurement of trust” (Gillespie and Mann 589). The researchers identify various attempts to establish a relationship between trust and different leadership styles such as transformational, transactional, consultative, corrective and passive, and avoidant leadership techniques.

Gillespie and Mann discuss studies that relate trust to shared values within an organization. They assert that despite the existence of a large scholarly body of research on how shared values contribute to building trust, no empirical studies have been conducted to test such a relationship. The last section of the literature offers a discussion of various researches that examine the contribution of trust in ensuring leadership effectiveness.

Sekhon et al. address the need for people such as health practitioners to create an environment of trust, not only between themselves but also between patients and their service providers (409). The research indicates a direct relationship between the two variables. However, the article identifies an opportunity for further investigation since no past study has tested the relationship in the context of research and design work teams.

Assumptions, Limitations, and Potential for Future Research

The research assumes that leadership styles and their contribution to the development of trust towards a leader depend on a set of limited variables that define the behavior of leaders who deploy various headship techniques in leading research and design work teams. The research has the limitation of generalizing its results. The concept refers to the applicability of results of any research beyond the limits of situations of a study (Collis and Hussey 56).

Gillespie and Mann do not provide an insight into whether the research findings would apply to the entire population of research and design work teams. The researchers propose a study to build on their findings stating, “Theory and research testing the potential differential impact of leadership practices and shared values on the various components of trust (cognitive, affective, and behavioral) is another promising line of research” (Gillespie and Mann 603). However, before completing such researches, they note that the testing of components to establish whether they are different empirically is a vital process.

Conclusion and Research Findings

Gillespie and Mann’s study provides empirical evidence that supports the role of common values between work team members in research and design and their leaders in building trust in the leader. The researchers find a positive and significant correlation between transformational leadership aspects such as contingent rewards and consultative leadership in the creation of team members’ confidence in a leader.

Hence, H1 was confirmed. Gillespie and Mann also confirmed H3. The extent of sharing common values between team members and leaders depended on shared common values. The testing of H2 yielded a negative association. The research and design department pays incredible emphasis on compliance with standards. Active correction leadership practices yielded no effect on trust. Thus, in other contexts, other than research and design, an active correctional leadership style would be associated with trust, although Gillespie and Mann do not attest to this possibility.

Article Critique

Gillespie and Mann identify various studies that support the contribution of trust in enhancing communication, commitment to an organization, and solving problems among other issues that are believed to have positive outcomes in an organization (Gillespie and Mann 588). The article’s research findings confirm earlier research results on the role played by leaders in work teams.

Gillespie and Mann confirm that effective leadership is important in enhancing organizational commitment and work morale, including satisfaction among research and design team members. To this extent, consistent with past researches on the role of leadership, Gillespie and Mann’s research acknowledges the significance of headship in influencing followers to work diligently. Nevertheless, they do not explore the literature on followership theories, including how the presumptions relate to team members’ trust in leaders.

The failure to explore management and followership theories is detrimental to the successful evaluation of past literature on leadership and trust. Successful leadership is demonstrated effectiveness in influencing work teams. Polychroniou contends with this assertion by asserting, “Leadership involves influencing people to get things done to a standard and quality above their norm in a willing way” (343). Therefore, effective leadership entails complex processes that are often characterized by influential processes, the interaction of various actors (followers and leaders), and a range of possible anticipated outcomes (Samad 164).

Leaders play a variety of roles, including serving as sources of inspiration, inducing organizational change through corporate leadership, and acting as the main source of organizational power and vision (Samad 165). It is crucial to note, “People change when they are emotionally engaged and committed” (Kehler par.4). Since one of the noble responsibilities of leaders in an organization is to bring about change, it follows that effective leaders also need to be emotionally intelligent. Nevertheless, Gillespie and Mann’s article does not include emotional intelligence (EI) as an important attribute of leaders. EI helps to develop team members’ trust in their leaders.

Quantitative research begins with the selection of sample size or the number of research subjects. The sample size varies based on the expected statistical confidence levels. After determining the target group of the research, a researcher establishes research confidence intervals. While it is inappropriate to comment on the sample used by Gillespie and Mann since no particular samples may be viewed as perfect, there is the need for setting limits for the permissible error or the confidence level. Scott reckons, “Confidence level determines how much higher or lower (than the population) researchers are willing to let their sample mean to fall in” (89). Gillespie and Mann do not capture or elaborate on this aspect of their quantitative research.

Works Cited

Collis, Jill, and Rogger Hussey. Business Research: A Practical Guide for Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students, London: Macmillan Business, 2003. Print.

Gillespie, Nicole, and Leon Mann. “Transformational Leadership and Shared Values: The Building Blocks of Trust.” Journal of Managerial Psychology 19.6(2004): 588-607. Print.

Kehler, Katherine. Principles of Effective Leadership, 2011.

Mitrabinda, Stephen, and Lewis Goo. “Evaluating the correlation between Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Effective Leadership (EL) among Managers in Miri Shipbuilding Industry.” Business and Marketing Management 29.7(2012): 122-128. Print.

Piercey, David. A Leadership Conundrum: If Education Leaders want Teachers to Collaborate more, then Leaders must Truly Lead the Way and Model the Collaboration that they want to see among Teachers, 2010.

Polychroniou, Victor. “Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Transformational Leadership of Supervisors.” Team Performance Management 15.8(2009): 340-357. Print.

Samad, Sylvester. “The Influence of Emotional Intelligence on Effective Leadership among Managers in Malaysian Business Organizations.” The Business Review 13.1(2009): 158-171. Print.

Sekhon, Harjit, Christine Ennew, Husni Kharouf, and James Devlin. “Trustworthiness and trust: influences and implications.” Journal of Marketing Management 30.3(2014): 409-430.

Scott, Smith. “Research Methodology: Sampling Techniques.” Journal of Scientific Research 2.1(2011): 87-92. Print.

Trochim, Williams. Research Methods Knowledge Base, 2006.