Cognitive mapping the topic of leadership
Joseph
Kim-keung Ho
Independent Trainer
Hong Kong, China
Abstract: The topic of leadership in the
subject of business management is complex. By making use of the cognitive
mapping technique to conduct a brief literature review on the leadership topic,
the writer renders a systemic image on the topic of leadership. The result of
the study, in the form of a cognitive map on leadership, should be useful to
those who are interested in the topics of cognitive mapping, literature review
and leadership.
Key words: leadership,
cognitive mapping, literature review
Introduction
As a
topic in business management, leadership is complex. It is thus useful to
employ some learning tool to conduct its study, notably for literature review
purpose. For a teacher in research methods, systems thinking and management, the writer is specifically interested in finding
out how the cognitive mapping technique can be employed to go through a
literature review on leadership. This
literature review exercise is taken up and reported in this article.
On the cognitive mapping exercise for
literature review
Literature
review is an important intellectual learning exercise, and not just for doing
final year dissertation projects for tertiary education students. On these two
topics of intellectual learning and literature review, the writer has compiled
some e-learning resources. They are the Managerial
intellectual learning Facebook page and the Literature on literature review Facebook page. Conducting
literature review with the cognitive mapping technique is not novel in the
cognitive mapping literature, see Eden and Simpson (1989), Eden, Jones and Sims
(1983), Open University (n.d) and the Literature
on cognitive mapping Facebook page. In this article, the specific steps
involved in the cognitive mapping exercise are as follows:
Step 1:
gather some main points from a number of academic journal articles on leadership.
This result in the production of a table (Table 1) with the main points and
associated references.
Step 2: consolidate the main points from Table 1 to come up with
a table listing the cognitive map variables (re: Table 2).
Step 3: link
up the cognitive map variables in a
plausible way to produce a cognitive map (re: Figure 1) on the topic under
review.
The next
section applies these three steps to produce a cognitive map on leadership.
Descriptions of cognitive map variables on
the leadership topic
From the
reading of some academic articles on leadership, a number of main points (e.g.,
viewpoints, concepts and empirical findings) were gathered by the writer. They are shown in Table 1 with
explicit referencing on the points.
Table 1: Main
points from the leadership literature and referencing
Main points from the leadership
literature
|
Referencing
|
Point
1: "What distinguishes great leaders from merely good ones?.... It's
emotional intelligence [EI]: a group of five skills that enable the best leaders to maximize
their own and their followers'
performance... The EI skills are:
. Self-awareness.... .Self-regulation ....
.Motivation...
.Empathy..... .Social
skill".
|
Goleman,
D. 2011. "What Makes a Leader?" Harvard
Business School Publishing On Leadership: HBR's 10 must reads, pp: 1-21,
Harvard Business Review Press, Boston.
|
Point
2: "Companies today face.... adaptive challenges. Changes in societies,
markets, customers, competition, and technology around the globe are forcing
organizations to clarify their values, develop new strategies and learn new
ways of operating. Often the toughest task for leaders in effecting change is mobilizing
people throughout the organization to do adaptive work".
|
Heiftez,
R.A. and D.L. Laurie. 2011 "The Work of Leadership" Harvard Business School Publishing On
Leadership: HBR's 10 must reads, pp: 57-78, Harvard Business Review
Press, Boston.
|
Point
3: "Level 5 leaders blend the
paradoxical combination of deep personal humility with intense professional
will. This rare combination also defies our assumptions about what makes a
great leader".
|
Collins,
J. 2011 "Level 5 Leadership" Harvard
Business School Publishing On Leadership: HBR's 10 must reads, pp:
115-136, Harvard Business Review Press, Boston.
|
Point
4: "Nobody wants to work with a
perfect leader - he doesn't appear to need help. So show you're human - warts
and all. You'll build collaboration and solidarity between you and your
followers, and underscore your approachability".
|
Goffee,
R. and G. Jones. 2011 "Why Should
Anyone Be Led by You?" Harvard Business School Publishing On
Leadership: HBR's 10 must reads, pp: 79-95, Harvard Business Review
Press, Boston.
|
Point
5: Leadership can be defined as "a process whereby an individual
influences a group of individuals to achieve a goal".
|
Corwin.com.
n.d. "Chapter 1: Leadership: What is it?" Corwin.com (url address:
https://www.corwin.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/15104_Rowe_Chapter_01.pdf)
[visited at April 30, 2017].
|
Point
6: There are several key components to the leadership phenomenon. They are
(a) "Leadership is a process", (b) "leadership involves
influencing others", (c) "leadership happens within the context of
a group", (d) "leadership involves goal attainment", and (e)
"these goals are shared by leaders and their followers".
|
Corwin.com.
n.d. "Chapter 1: Leadership: What is it?" Corwin.com (url address:
https://www.corwin.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/15104_Rowe_Chapter_01.pdf)
[visited at April 30, 2017].
|
Point
7: "...leadership is a two-way, interactive event between leaders and
followers rather than a linear, one-way event in which the leader affects the
followers but not vice versa".
|
Corwin.com.
n.d. "Chapter 1: Leadership: What is it?" Corwin.com (url address:
https://www.corwin.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/15104_Rowe_Chapter_01.pdf)
[visited at April 30, 2017].
|
Point
8: "....leadership is not restricted to just one person in a group who
has formal power (i.e., the formally
appointed leader)".
|
Corwin.com.
n.d. "Chapter 1: Leadership: What is it?" Corwin.com (url address:
https://www.corwin.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/15104_Rowe_Chapter_01.pdf)
[visited at April 30, 2017].
|
Point
9: "...having influence means that there is a greater need on the part
of leaders to exercise their influence ethically".
|
Corwin.com.
n.d. "Chapter 1: Leadership: What is it?" Corwin.com (url address:
https://www.corwin.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/15104_Rowe_Chapter_01.pdf)
[visited at April 30, 2017].
|
Point
10: "...the trait approach emphasizes leaders' attributes such as
personality, motives, values and skills... Underlying this approach was the assumption that
some people are natural leaders, endowed with certain traits not
possessed by other people".
|
Corwin.com.
n.d. "Chapter 1: Leadership: What is it?" Corwin.com (url address:
https://www.corwin.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/15104_Rowe_Chapter_01.pdf)
[visited at April 30, 2017].
|
Point
11: "Today's firms need effective leaders who understand the
complexities of the rapidly changing global environment".
|
Franco,
M. and P.G. Matos. 2015. "Leadership styles in SMEs: a mixed-method
approach" Int Entrep Manag J.
11: 425-451.
|
Point
12: "An effective leader influences followers in a desired manner to achieve desired goals".
|
Franco,
M. and P.G. Matos. 2015. "Leadership styles in SMEs: a mixed-method
approach" Int Entrep Manag J.
11: 425-451.
|
Point 13: "... in essence leadership is an
act of motivating people to act by non-coercive means".
|
Franco,
M. and P.G. Matos. 2015. "Leadership styles in SMEs: a mixed-method
approach" Int Entrep Manag J.
11: 425-451.
|
Point
14: "Despite the great interest in the topic of leadership, at the
moment there is a limited amount of empirical research..... This situation is
found even more in the context of SMEs [small and medium-sized
enterprises]".
|
Franco,
M. and P.G. Matos. 2015. "Leadership styles in SMEs: a mixed-method
approach" Int Entrep Manag J.
11: 425-451.
|
Point
15: "Knowing and following certain leadership styles can help managers and owners of SMEs to ensure their firms'
growth and competitiveness".
|
Franco,
M. and P.G. Matos. 2015. "Leadership styles in SMEs: a mixed-method
approach" Int Entrep Manag J.
11: 425-451.
|
Point
16: "Leadership is a universal phenomenon inasmuch as it appears in one
form or another in different
organizations and contexts".
|
Franco,
M. and P.G. Matos. 2015. "Leadership styles in SMEs: a mixed-method
approach" Int Entrep Manag J.
11: 425-451.
|
Point
17: "...without leadership, the probability of mistakes occurring
increases and the opportunities for success become more and more
reduced".
|
Franco,
M. and P.G. Matos. 2015. "Leadership styles in SMEs: a mixed-method
approach" Int Entrep Manag J.
11: 425-451.
|
Point
18: "Bolden and Gosling....
conclude that competencies do not provide 'a sufficiently rich
vocabulary' for the subtle, textured, complex, embodied and highly situated
mindset that is required for leadership".
|
Carroll,
B., L. Levy and D. Richmond. 2008. "Leadership as Practice: Challenging
the Competency Paradigm" Leadership
4(4), Sage: 363-379.
|
Point
19: Competency can be defined as "an underlying characteristic of an individual that is causally related
to effective or superior performance in a job".
|
Carroll,
B., L. Levy and D. Richmond. 2008. "Leadership as Practice: Challenging
the Competency Paradigm" Leadership
4(4), Sage: 363-379.
|
Point
20: "Dissatisfaction with the relevance of the 1970s situational models
of leadership as, in essence, simply balancing concern for task and
production with a concern for people, in the context of the tumultuous change
that followed the major recession of the 1970s, led some writers to regard
them as best described as relating to 'management', as distinct from what we
now regard as 'leadership'".
|
Alimo-Metcalfe,
B. and J. Alban-Metcalfe. 2005. "Leadership: Time for a New
Direction?" Leadership 1(1),
Sage: 51-71.
|
Point
21: "What emerged out of the new approach to studying leadership - i.e.
dealing with the realities of constant change - came to be known as 'New
Paradigm' models, which relate to concepts such as 'charismatic leadership'..., 'visionary leadership'...
and 'transformational leadership".
|
Alimo-Metcalfe,
B. and J. Alban-Metcalfe. 2005. "Leadership: Time for a New
Direction?" Leadership 1(1),
Sage: 51-71.
|
Point
22: ”Whereas earlier 'old paradigm' models see leadership as a process, that
(a) involves influencing others, (b) occurs within a group context, and (c)
involves goal attainment..., more recent definitions of leadership have
emphasized the role of leader as 'defining organizational reality'".
|
Alimo-Metcalfe,
B. and J. Alban-Metcalfe. 2005. "Leadership: Time for a New
Direction?" Leadership 1(1),
Sage: 51-71.
|
Point
23: "US research on the new transformational paradigm has been based, in
the main, on observations of top
managers in organizations, rather than middle and lower level managers....
This contrasts with earlier leadership research, such as the Ohio State
studies of the 1950s and 1960s, which focused on the styles of lower level
managers and supervisors".
|
Alimo-Metcalfe,
B. and J. Alban-Metcalfe. 2005. "Leadership: Time for a New
Direction?" Leadership 1(1),
Sage: 51-71.
|
Point
24: "Since the early 1990s, a number of studies have found gender
differences with respect to aspects of leadership style preference".
|
Alimo-Metcalfe,
B. and J. Alban-Metcalfe. 2005. "Leadership: Time for a New
Direction?" Leadership 1(1),
Sage: 51-71.
|
Point
25: "The question of what skills are needed by global leaders to perform
successfully has been the subject of intense study during the past decade, as
organizations have increasingly turned to international strategies in various
aspects of the operations to maintain or attain a position of
competitive advantage in the global
marketplace".
|
Herd,
A.M., M. Alagaraja and D.M. Cumberland. 2016. "Assessing global
leadership competencies: the critical role of assessment centre
methodology" Human Resource
Development International 19(1), Routledge: 27-43.
|
Point
26: "Effective assessment and measurement of leadership competencies is
an important undertaking for organizations operating in a global
environment".
|
Herd,
A.M., M. Alagaraja and D.M. Cumberland. 2016. "Assessing global
leadership competencies: the critical role of assessment centre
methodology" Human Resource
Development International 19(1), Routledge: 27-43.
|
With a
set of main points collected, the writer produces a set of cognitive map
variables. These variables are informed by the set of main points from Table 1.
These variables are presented in Table 2.
Table 2:
Cognitive map variables based on Table 1
Cognitive
map variables
|
Literature
review points
|
Variable
1: Factors that promote interest in leadership studies
|
Point 2: "Companies today face....
adaptive challenges. Changes in societies, markets, customers, competition,
and technology around the globe are forcing organizations to clarify their
values, develop new strategies and learn new ways of operating. Often the
toughest task for leaders in effecting
change is mobilizing people throughout the organization to do adaptive
work".
Point 11: "Today's firms need
effective leaders who understand the complexities of the rapidly changing
global environment".
Point 25: "The question of what
skills are needed by global leaders to perform successfully has been the
subject of intense study during the past decade, as organizations have
increasingly turned to international strategies in various aspects of the
operations to maintain or attain a position of competitive advantage in the global marketplace".
|
Variable
2: More intellectual knowledge on leadership
|
Point
5: Leadership can be defined as "a process whereby an individual
influences a group of individuals to achieve a goal".
Point
6: There are several key components to the leadership phenomenon. They are
(a) "Leadership is a process", (b) "leadership involves
influencing others", (c) "leadership happens within the context of
a group", (d) "leadership involves goal attainment", and (e)
"these goals are shared by leaders and their followers".
Point
7: "...leadership is a two-way, interactive event between leaders and
followers rather than a linear, one-way event in which the leader affects the
followers but not vice versa".
Point
8: "....leadership is not restricted to just one person in a group who
has formal power (i.e., the formally
appointed leader)".
Point
9: "...having influence means that there is a greater need on the part
of leaders to exercise their influence ethically".
Point
10: "...the trait approach emphasizes leaders' attributes such as
personality, motives, values and skills... Underlying this approach was the assumption that
some people are natural leaders, endowed with certain traits not
possessed by other people".
Point 13: "... in essence leadership is an
act of motivating people to act by non-coercive means".
Point
16: "Leadership is a universal phenomenon inasmuch as it appears in one
form or another in different
organizations and contexts".
Point
18: "Bolden and Gosling....
conclude that competencies do not provide 'a sufficiently rich
vocabulary' for the subtle, textured, complex, embodied and highly situated
mindset that is required for leadership".
Point
19: Competency can be defined as "an underlying characteristic of an individual that is causally related
to effective or superior performance in a job".
Point
20: "Dissatisfaction with the relevance of the 1970s situational models
of leadership as, in essence, simply balancing concern for task and
production with a concern for people, in the context of the tumultuous change
that followed the major recession of the 1970s, led some writers to regard
them as best described as relating to 'management', as distinct from what we
now regard as 'leadership'".
Point
21: "What emerged out of the new approach to studying leadership - i.e.
dealing with the realities of constant change - came to be known as 'New
Paradigm' models, which relate to concepts such as 'charismatic leadership'..., 'visionary leadership'...
and 'transformational leadership".
Point
22: ”Whereas earlier 'old paradigm' models see leadership as a process, that
(a) involves influencing others, (b) occurs within a group context, and (c)
involves goal attainment..., more recent definitions of leadership have
emphasized the role of leader as 'defining organizational reality'".
Point
23: "US research on the new transformational paradigm has been based, in
the main, on observations of top
managers in organizations, rather than middle and lower level managers....
This contrasts with earlier leadership research, such as the Ohio State
studies of the 1950s and 1960s, which focused on the styles of lower level
managers and supervisors".
|
Variable
3: Effective leadership practices
|
Point
1: "What distinguishes great leaders from merely good ones?.... It's
emotional intelligence [EI]: a group of five skills that enable the best leaders to maximize
their own and their followers'
performance... The EI skills are:
. Self-awareness.... .Self-regulation ....
.Motivation...
.Empathy..... .Social
skill".
Point
3: "Level 5 leaders blend the
paradoxical combination of deep personal humility with intense professional
will. This rare combination also defies our assumptions about what makes a
great leader".
Point
4: "Nobody wants to work with a
perfect leader - he doesn't appear to need help. So show you're human - warts
and all. You'll build collaboration and solidarity between you and your
followers, and underscore your approachability".
|
Variable
4: Positive outcomes of leadership practices
|
Point 12: "An
effective leader influences followers in a desired manner to achieve desired goals".
Point 15: "Knowing and following certain leadership styles can
help managers and owners of SMEs to
ensure their firms' growth and competitiveness".
Point 17: "...without
leadership, the probability of mistakes occurring increases and the
opportunities for success become more and more reduced".
|
Variable
5: Learn from leadership practices
|
Point 14: "Despite the great
interest in the topic of leadership, at the moment there is a limited amount
of empirical research..... This situation is found even more in the context
of SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises]".
Point 24: "Since the early 1990s, a
number of studies have found gender differences with respect to aspects of
leadership style preference".
Point 26: "Effective assessment and
measurement of leadership competencies is an important undertaking for
organizations operating in a global environment".
|
The next
step is to relate the cognitive map variables to make up a cognitive map on leadership.
The cognitive map and its explanation are presented in the next section.
A cognitive map on leadership and its
interpretation
By
relating the five variables identified in Table 2, the writer comes up with a
cognitive map on leadership, as shown in Figure 1.
These
cognitive map variables, five of them
altogether, are related to constitute a systemic image of leadership. The links
in the cognitive map (re: Figure 1) indicate direction of influences between
variables. The + sign shows that an increase in one variable leads to an
increase in another variable while a -ve sign tells us that in increase in one
variable leads to a decrease in another variable. If there no signs shown on the arrows, that
means the influences can be positive or negative. Readers are referred to the Literature on leadership studies Facebook
page for more information on the
topic.
Concluding remarks
The
cognitive mapping exercise captures in one diagram some of the main variables
involved in leadership. The resultant cognitive map promotes an exploratory way
to study leadership in a holistic tone. The experience of the cognitive mapping
exercise is that it can be a quick, efficient and entertaining way to explore a
complex topic such as leadership in business management. Finally, readers who
are interested in cognitive mapping should also find the article informative on
this mapping topic.
Bibliography
1.
Alimo-Metcalfe, B.
and J. Alban-Metcalfe. 2005. "Leadership: Time for a New Direction?" Leadership 1(1), Sage: 51-71.
2.
Carroll, B., L. Levy
and D. Richmond. 2008. "Leadership as Practice: Challenging the Competency
Paradigm" Leadership 4(4), Sage:
363-379.
3.
Collins, J. 2011
"Level 5 Leadership" Harvard
Business School Publishing On Leadership: HBR's 10 must reads, pp: 115-136,
Harvard Business Review Press, Boston.
4.
Corwin.com. n.d.
"Chapter 1: Leadership: What is it?" Corwin.com (url address:
https://www.corwin.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/15104_Rowe_Chapter_01.pdf)
[visited at April 30, 2017].
5.
Eden, C. and P.
Simpson. 1989. "SODA and cognitive mapping in practice", pp. 43-70,
in Rosenhead, J. (editor) Rational
Analysis for a Problematic World, Wiley, Chichester.
6.
Eden, C., C. Jones
and D. Sims. 1983. Messing about in
Problems: An informal structured approach to their identification and
management, Pergamon Press, Oxford.
7.
Franco, M. and P.G.
Matos. 2015. "Leadership styles in SMEs: a mixed-method approach" Int Entrep Manag J. 11: 425-451.
8.
Goffee, R. and G.
Jones. 2011 "Why Should Anyone Be
Led by You?" Harvard Business School Publishing On Leadership: HBR's 10 must reads,
pp: 79-95, Harvard Business Review Press, Boston.
9.
Goleman, D. 2011.
"What Makes a Leader?" Harvard
Business School Publishing On Leadership: HBR's 10 must reads, pp: 1-21,
Harvard Business Review Press, Boston.
10. Heiftez, R.A. and D.L. Laurie. 2011 "The Work of Leadership" Harvard Business School Publishing On Leadership:
HBR's 10 must reads, pp: 57-78, Harvard Business Review Press, Boston.
11. Herd, A.M., M. Alagaraja and D.M. Cumberland. 2016. "Assessing
global leadership competencies: the critical role of assessment centre
methodology" Human Resource
Development International 19(1), Routledge: 27-43.
12. Literature on
cognitive mapping Facebook page, maintained by
Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address:
https://www.facebook.com/Literature-on-cognitive-mapping-800894476751355/).
13. Literature on leadership
studies Facebook page, maintained by
Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/literature.leadership.studies/).
14. Literature on
literature review Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/literature.literaturereview/).
15. Managerial intellectual learning
Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address:
https://www.facebook.com/managerial.intellectual.learning/).
16. Open University. n.d. "Sign graph" Systems Thinking and Practice (T552): Diagramming, Open University,
U.K. (url address: http://systems.open.ac.uk/materials/T552/) [visited at April
10, 2017].
