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Why Do People Tend to Give Leaders Too Much Credit or Blame for Organizational Outcomes? Discuss Using Appropriate Theories and Examples

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Why Do People Tend to Give Leaders Too Much Credit or Blame for Organizational Outcomes? Discuss Using Appropriate Theories and Examples
The objective of this essay is to critically evaluate why followers and public give too much credit or blame to leaders for organisational outcomes. The content of this essay comprises an analysis of what makes leaders effective and how followers view the leaders’ influence on organisational outcomes. I will discuss a number of theories (attribution, contingency, initiation and consideration) and examples of leaders from international organisations; including James Burke Chief Executive Officer of Johnson and Johnson and Tony Hayward Chief Executive Officer of British Petroleum (BP). These leaders influenced their employees, the public and world media and were subjected to credit or blame.

An effective leader is one who achieves productive results through the use of personal attributes to contribute to an organisation and by influencing others to achieve imperative objectives. An ideal leader looks after those around them and has the aptitude to develop their people into leaders, by inspiring confidence and support. Leaders should allow employees to learn, develop and contribute; increasing capacity to grow for organisations to advance. Diminutive objects and people matter to leaders as they are vital for the success of implementing new decisions, and ensuring they are positively attributed. Leaders should practice what they preach, with the capacity to recognise how to accept blame and criticism all the while being able to give credit.

Leaders frequently share a combination of cognitive skills and personal traits, or at least must do in order to attract followers and to achieve their organisation driven results. Cognitive skills include but are not limited to: technical and professional competence, knowledgeable, problem solving skills, creative, flexible, courageous, innovative, visionary and experimental. Many personality traits are usually related to trends that you are born with, consisting of: enthusiasm, self awareness, self confidence,



Bibliography: Bass, B.M., 1990. Bass and Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership. New York: Free Press. BBC, 2010. BP boss Tony Hayward 's gaffes. BBC News, [online] 10 June. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10360084 [Accessed: 15 August 2011]. BBC, 2011. US oil spill: 'Bad management ' led to BP disaster. BBC News, [online] 6 January. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12124830 [Accessed: 15 August 2011]. Dattner, B., 2011. The Blame Game. New York: Free Press. Enderle, G., 1987. Some perspectives of managerial ethical leadership. Journal of Business Ethics, 6(8), pp.657-663. Kanter, R. M., 2010. BP 's Tony Hayward and the Failure of Leadership Accountability. Harvard Business Review, [blog] 7 June, Available at: http://blogs.hbr.org/kanter/2010/06/bps-tony-hayward-and-the-failu.html [Accessed: 12 August 2011]. Landers, B., 2006. Ethical Leadership. Money-zine, [online]. Available at: http://www.money-zine.com/Career-Development/Leadership-Skill/Ethical-Leadership/ [Accessed: 19 August 2011]. Mullins, L. J., 2010. Management & Organisational Behaviour. 9th ed. England: Pearson. New York Times, 2010. Oil Spill’s Blow to BP’s Image May Eclipse Costs. New York Times Business, [online] 30 April. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/business/30bp.html [Accessed: 15 August 2011]. Schreisheim, C.A. & Stogdill, R.M., 1975. Differences in the factor structure across three versions of the Ohio State Leadership scales. Personnel Psychology, 28(2), pp. 189-206. Yang, J. L., 2007. How to recover from a corporate scandal, CNN Money, [Online]. Available at: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/05/28/100033741/index.htm [Accessed date: 10 August 2011]. Yukl, G., 2010 Leadership in Organizations. 7th ed. New Jersey: Pearson. Zemba, Y., Young, M. J., & Morris, M. W., 2006. Blaming leaders for organizational accidents: Proxy logic in collective- versus individual-agency cultures. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 101(1), pp. 36–51.

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