Functional leadership: Developing functional leadership behaviours among managers in local government organizations
Short description
More than 450 billion SEK annually are spent worldwide on leadership development interventions. Despite this, research on the effectiveness of leadership development interventions is still rudimentary, partly due to a lack of randomized controlled trials. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an effective method for developing functional behaviors and developing managers' leadership behaviors with CBT have shown promising results. The purpose of the Functional-leadership project is to improve managers' leadership by developing managers' leadership behaviors using CBT-based managerial behavioral training. This research project is a collaboration between Gothenburg University, Stockholm University and the Center for Leadership Development in the City of Gothenburg.
Background
Functional leadership is an important foundation for healthy and productive work environments. Functional leadership is about managing the reinforcement contingencies in an organization so that behaviors that generate desirable long-term results for the organization and its employees are reinforced. Leadership consists of two types of behaviors: antecedents and consequences. Antecedents activate employee behaviors. Examples of antecedents that managers use are delegations, directives, instructions, checklists, policies, rules, goals and visions. Consequences succeed employee behaviors. Examples of consequences that managers use are feedback, follow-up, confirmation, attention, response, reward, answers to questions, follow-up questions, using employee input in decision-making, and providing new interesting tasks. Managers tend to over-rely on antecedents and underestimate the importance of consequences. Operant learning theory is the basis of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and has shown that what happens after we do something predicts whether we continue with the behavior. Hence, Functional leadership is about understanding how operant learning influence your own and others’ behaviors, and shift focus from antecedents to consequences.
Purpose
The aim of the Functional-leadership project is to improve managers' leadership by developing managers' functional leadership behaviors using CBT-based managerial behavioral training, as well as investigating the importance of managers' leadership behaviors for employees' work environment and productivity.
Method
For the project, a managerial behavioral-training (MBT) manual in functional-leadership behaviors was developed and evaluated through a randomized controlled trial (RCT), a quantitative process evaluation, and a qualitative process evaluation. Questionnaires were sent out to the managers themselves, their employees, and their superior managers. For the RCT, employees' ratings of their managers’ leadership behaviors and performance were used for outcome measures. In the quantitative process evaluation, we examined how managers' work environment moderated the effect of MBT on managers’ leadership, i.e., how managers' work environment influences the extent to which they develop as leadership through MBT. For the quantitative process evaluation, we also used the managers' ratings of their work environment. For the qualitative process evaluation, interviews were conducted with the managers who had received MBT.
A central part of functional leadership is the measurement of specific leadership behaviors and therefore a sub-study of methods for behavioral observation of leadership behaviors was also carried out. In this sub-study, the predictive validity of assessment-center exercises was investigated, i.e. the correlation between the observable leadership behaviors managers perform in a recruitment process and the leadership behaviors they display in their future job.
Results
The results from the RCT have been published in Grill et al. (2024) and show that MBT affects managers' leadership by increasing the functional leadership behaviors of goal setting, performance feedback, value-based performance feedback, and consequential listening, as well as managers’ leadership performance in terms of leader effectiveness and employee engagement. In Grill (2023) it was also found that MBT resulted in a long-term increase in employee productivity. The preliminary results from the quantitative process evaluation (Pousette & Grill, manuscript) indicate that the managers who showed the greatest improvement in their leadership were those who received social support from their superior manager and who were not exposed to role stress at work. In the qualitative process evaluation, Henriksson & Grill (2023) identified four success factors that facilitate learning during MBT: 1) Scheduled time for reflection with a supervisor enabled adjustment of dysfunctional leadership behaviors in new situations, 2) Allowing time to listen to employees' perspectives led to engaged employees and increased productivity, 3) Scheduling time to plan and set clear goals for the team and for individual employees was important for employee motivation and productivity, and 4) Taking time for recovery and having a meaningful personal life was found to enable successful decision-making. Regarding managers' influence on employees' work environment, Grill (2023) found that time-bound changes in employees’ meaning of work and work productivity are influenced by four types of destructive leadership behaviors: incoherent planning, assigning unnecessary tasks, ambiguous expectations, and autocratic behavior; that is, a high degree of these behaviors leads to decreasing motivation and productivity, while a low degree of these behaviors leads to increasing motivation and productivity. Finally, Sjöberg & Grill's (2024) study on the predictive validity of assessment-center observations of managers' leadership behaviors showed that behavioral observations can predict considerate behaviors but not influencing-others or planning behaviors.
Education
In the Functional leadership project, undergraduate theses are produced. Asseraf & Wannehag (2021) analyzed video recordings of CBT psychologists' behaviors to investigate if specific therapist behaviors influence how managers develop during MBT. Holmström & Ullgren perform exploratory and confirmatory factor analyzes to develop questionnaire scales for measuring specific leadership behaviors. Elgueta Rodríguez plans to investigate how managers' leadership behaviors develop over time.
Researchers
Principal investigator
Martin Grill, Associate professor at the Department of Psychology
Members from the University of Gothenburg
Annika Björnsdotter, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Psychology
Anders Pousette, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Psychology
Maria Henriksson, Research assistant at the Department of Psychology
Members from other partners
Anders Sjöberg, Associate professor at the University of Stockholm
Malin Holmberg, Psychologist at the Center for Leadership Development in the City of Gothenburg
Tony Ullgren, Psychologist at the Center for Leadership Development in the City of Gothenburg
Patricia Bergenhem, Psychologist at the Center for Leadership Development in the City of Gothenburg
Anna Krook, Psychologist at the Center for Leadership Development in the City of Gothenburg
Hanna Locking, Psychologist at the Center for Leadership Development in the City of Gothenburg
