A Study of Leadership Prototypes in Small Teams
When I entered Atkinson Graduate School of Management’s early career program at the same time I began my senior year of undergraduate work I knew that my BA in sociology would culminate in a research project of my own design. I chose to focus on a research subject that was applicable to both degrees: leadership prototypes.
A prototype is a set image of a specific role and its characteristics. They are the expectations we hold for someone in a certain position; in this case, the leadership position in a small group. When a group chooses a leader or evaluates a leader’s performance the leader is measured against the prototype. Leadership prototypes are reproduced either through explicit lessons in educational settings or observed in everyday situations and vary across time and context. Previous research indicated that prototypes would vary across cultures, leadership roles for women and men would be perceived differently, and leaders would display authority through their communication.
My sample for this research came from a yearlong experiential learning course through my MBA program. All students entering Atkinson are required to take part in this course, which requires teams of students to do x, y, and z during the academic year. Teams are selected so that each team should be a representative sample of the first year students. The team I studied consisted of four women and five men; six members were from the United States and three were international students. Team leadership was left to the people within the group. With the start of the second semester the team I was working with was going through a transition from the current leader to an incoming one. Each leader had their own structure: the first with set sub-teams and the second with some assigned roles in the general group. This transition allowed me to look at the differences in leadership styles and the behavior of the rest of the team towards the leaders.
Going into this research, I expected each respondent to hold a set image of what a leader should be and that these prototypes would influence leader selection and respondents’ relationships with leaders. Through my research, I concluded that prototypes were affected by explicit educational lessons and fit into dominant culture. The team members took personally questionnaires such as DISC and the identity from that assessment were frequently used as a shorthand for explaining leaders and group members’ behavior. The “dominant” personality traits were most frequently brought up as a potential source of conflict within the team. For the first group structure all team members with “dominant” personalities were on separate sub-teams and kept out of conflict with one another. However, in the second group structure a dominant personality led the group and was respected for decisiveness and firmness but there were also more conflicts. Based off of these finding I concluded that understanding personality traits of employees can be important for managers to effectively communicate and understand the dynamics of their organization.
In a heterogeneous group like the one I was working in, leaders’ sense of self-efficacy is more dramatically divergent than in a more homogenous group, which was reflected in the attitudes of the group. If the group was doing well leaders felt a heightened sense of personal achievement and when the group was underperforming leaders felt the issues were out of their hands and the byproduct of larger group dynamics. For our group, nationality provided much of the heterogeneity. In my report I found that international members were more reluctant to take an active leadership position in a US context they were unfamiliar with and conversely, US students would dominate meetings. When leaders on the team encouraged participation from all team members and ensure balanced roles, their leadership effectiveness was viewed more highly.
Through the leadership selection and maintenance process team members challenged or conformed to what they are taught about leadership. For organizations such as the one in this study, awareness of how leadership is playing out is important for improving performance; Findings in a study such as this are invaluable to understanding group dynamics. I was able to gather concrete feedback on what team members saw as effective or ineffective displays of leadership and provide that information to these students who are on the path to becoming leader in the business world.