Instrumental leadership

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The term instrumental leadership describes a leadership style that essentially includes strategic (e.g. environment analysis) and employee support (e.g. feedback during the ongoing work process) leadership behavior. Instrumental leadership was first described by the two leadership researchers J. Antonakis and R. House (2002, 2004).

Development of the instrumental tour

Antonakis and House (2002, 2004) criticized the Full Range Leadership Model in that it lacks important leadership behaviors that are often shown in practice. Therefore, they developed instrumental leadership with its four behaviors in order to meaningfully expand the full range leadership model.

definition

An instrumental manager analyzes the environment with regard to opportunities and risks , formulates a strategy , supports those being led in achieving their goals and gives continuous feedback on work results. Instrumental leadership consists of the following four dimensions:

  1. Environment analysis . Managers are responsible for searching the respective internal and external environment of their department or company for possible challenges and opportunities. This is the only way to ensure - in the sense of a later competitive factor - that changes in the market or with (potential) customers are discovered in good time. In addition, the timely perception of z. B. technological developments that enable the planning and implementation of current, performance-enhancing resources for employees (e.g. current hardware and software).
  2. Strategy . Whilethe vision appears to be important as a meaningful maxim for employee motivationin the theory of transformational leadership , there is no implementation or concretization of this with regard to the managed employees. Using a strategy, instrumental managers “translate” the vision into manageable sub-goals. They also define milestones on the way to target achievement.
  3. Path-goal support . In day-to-day business, managers support their respective employees by removing obstacles in achieving their goals and by offering support during ongoing work processes. The professional experience and specialist knowledge of managers help here.
  4. Result feedback . Whilefeedback is only given at very long intervals in transactional management (e.g. in the annual employee appraisal ), instrumental managers support their respective employees at regular intervals by providing feedback on results. During the ongoing work process, u. a. talked about avoiding mistakes. In addition, constructive feedback is given on the achievement of goals so far, so that the respective employee can see where he is on the way to goal achievement and what is still missing, e.g. B. To achieve a specific performance goal.

Empirical results

Instrumental leadership has not been studied as often as the other leadership styles. In three independent studies in German companies, Rowold (2014) was able to demonstrate strong positive relationships between instrumental leadership and job satisfaction . In addition, the three of the four different aspects of instrumental leadership were positively related to the objective performance of the employees being led. Finally, the route-goal support promoted the loyalty of the guided employees to the company.

An independent study by the Swiss scientist John Antonakis showed that instrumental leadership correlates positively with leadership effectiveness. Taken together, these first empirical results show that instrumental leadership is an interesting addition to the current standard model of leadership, the Full Range Leadership Model.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Antonakis, J., & House, RJ (2002). The full-range leadership theory: The way forward. In B. Avolio & F. Yammarino (Eds.), Transformational and charismatic leadership: The road ahead (pp. 3-34). Amsterdam: JAI.
  2. ↑ a b Antonakis, J., & House, R. (2004). On instrumental leadership: Beyond transactions and transformations. Omaha: UNL Gallup Leadership Institute Summit.
  3. ↑ Instrumental leadership: Measurement and extension of transformational – transactional leadership theory . In: The Leadership Quarterly . tape 25 , no. 4 , August 1, 2014, ISSN  1048-9843 , p. 746–771 , doi : 10.1016 / j.leaqua.2014.04.005 ( sciencedirect.com [accessed October 17, 2018]).
  4. ^ Jens Rowold: Instrumental leadership: Extending the transformational-transactional leadership paradigm . In: Journal for Personnel Research. German Journal of Research in Human Resource Management . No. 3 , 2014, ISSN  1862-0000 , p. 367–390 , doi : 10.1688 / ZfP-2014-03-Rowold ( repec.org [accessed June 24, 2019]).