لخّصلي

he basic premise of interactional theory is that leadership behavior is generally determined by the relationship between the leader’s personality and the specific situation. Schein (1970), an interactional theorist, was the first to propose a model of humans as complex beings whose working environment was an open system to which they responded. A system may be defined as a set of objects, with relationships between the objects and between their attributes. A system is considered open if it exchanges matter, energy, or information with its environment. Schein’s model, based on systems theory, had the following assumptions:
People are very complex and highly variable. They have multiple motives for doing things. For example, a pay raise might mean status to one person, security to another, and both to a third.
People’s motives do not stay constant; instead, they change over time.
Goals can differ in various situations. For example, an informal group’s goals may be quite distinct from
77

a formal group’s goals.
A person’s performance and productivity are affected by the nature of the task and by his or her ability, experience, and motivation.
No single leadership strategy is effective in every situation.
To be successful, the leader must diagnose the situation and select appropriate strategies from a large repertoire of skills. Hollander (1978) was among the first to recognize that both leaders and followers have roles outside of the leadership situation and that both may be influenced by events occurring in their other roles.
With leader and follower contributing to the working relationship and both receiving something from it, Hollander (1978) saw leadership as a dynamic two-way process. According to Hollander, a leadership exchange involves three basic elements:
The leader, including his or her personality, perceptions, and abilities
The followers, with their personalities, perceptions, and abilities
The situation within which the leader and the followers function, including formal and informal group norms, size, and density
Leadership effectiveness, according to Hollander (1978), requires the ability to use the problem-solving process; maintain group effectiveness; communicate well; demonstrate leader fairness, competence, dependability, and creativity; and develop group identification.
Ouchi (1981) was a pioneer in introducing interactional leadership theory in his application of Japanese style management to corporate America. Theory Z, the term Ouchi used for this type of management, is an expansion of McGregor’s Theory Y and supports democratic leadership. Characteristics of Theory Z include consensus decision making, fitting employees to their jobs, job security, slower promotions, examining the long-term consequences of management decision making, quality circles, guarantee of lifetime employment, establishment of strong bonds of responsibility between superiors and subordinates, and a holistic concern for the workers (Ouchi, 1981). Ouchi was able to find components of Japanese style management in many successful American companies.
In the 1990s, Theory Z lost its favor with many management theorists. American managers seemed unable to put these same ideas into practice in the United States. Instead, many continued to boss-manage workers in an attempt to make them do what they do not want to do. Although Theory Z is more comprehensive than many of the earlier theories, it too neglects some of the variables that influence leadership effectiveness. It has the same shortcomings as situational theories in inadequately recognizing the dynamics of the interaction between the worker and the leader.
One of the pioneering leadership theorists of this time was Kanter (1977), who developed the theory that the structural aspects of the job shape a leader’s effectiveness. She postulated that the leader becomes empowered through both formal and informal systems of the organization. A leader must develop relationships with a variety of people and groups within the organization in order to maximize job empowerment and be successful. The three major work empowerment structures within the organization are opportunity, power, and proportion. Kanter asserts that these work structures have the potential to explain differences in leader responses, behaviors, and attitudes in the work environment.
Nelson and Burns (1984) suggested that organizations and their leaders have four developmental levels and that these levels influence productivity and worker satisfaction. The first of these levels is reactive. The reactive leader focuses on the past, is crisis driven, and is frequently abusive to subordinates. In the next level, responsive, the leader is able to mold subordinates to work together as a team, although the leader maintains most decision-making responsibility. At the proactive level, the leader and followers become more future oriented and hold common driving values. Management and decision making are more participative. At the last level, high-performance teams, maximum productivity and worker satisfaction are apparent.
Kanter (1989) perhaps best summarized the work of the interactive theorists by her assertion that title and position authority were no longer sufficient to mold a workforce where subordinates are encouraged to think for themselves, and instead managers must learn to work synergistically with others.