Popularity - Effects - in The Workplace - Leadership Popularity

Leadership Popularity

Sometimes, employees really like and get along with their managers, but in other circumstances they clash. With a greater focus on groups in the workplace, it is essential that leaders undergo training on how to deal with and mediate groups to avoid such clashing. Sometimes, a leader doesn’t need to be popular to be effective, but there are a few characteristics that can help a leader be more accepted and better liked by his group. Without group or team cohesiveness, there is no correlation between leadership and popularity; however, when a group is cohesive, the higher up someone is in the leadership hierarchy, the more popular they are for two reasons. First, a cohesive group feels more personal responsibility for their work, thus placing more value on better performance. Cohesive members see leaders as taking a bulk of the work and investing a lot of personal time, so when they see a job's value they can ascribe it's success to the leader. This greatest contribution principle is perceived as a great asset to the team, and members view the leader more favorably and he gains popularity. Secondly, cohesive groups have well established group values. Leaders can become more popular in these groups by realizing and acting on dominant group values. Supporting group morals and standards leads to high positive valuation from the group, leading to popularity.