Being promoted to a leadership position is something most graduates aspire to achieve, but not many are aware of the intricate behavioural and psychological characteristics that make up truly effective and inspiring leaders. “There are so many key characteristics that make up a great leader, depending on the level of leadership, the business environment and so on.
“I’ve always been interested to look at executive leadership, and how a leader influences people’s discretionary behaviour,” said Professor Iain Densten, a prominent leadership scholar for more than twenty years, and current Director of the MBA Program at Monash University Malaysia.
Prof Densten said that at an executive leadership level, one of the challenges was finding the right motivation for employees. “If I say to students, if you come to my class 10 minutes early every day, I’ll give you one extra point each time, then students will surely come early. But once I stop, it is highly likely that they won’t come early anymore. That’s a transactional way of looking at how to lead people.
“This is not a sustainable method because you’ll need to keep giving rewards to motivate people. But soon you’ll run out of rewards. So what leaders need to try to do is to inspire people to do things without rewards, to rise above having money as a source of motivation,” he said.
Prof Densten’s current research interest lies in the study of the use of gaze in achieving leadership goals. “A person can actually influence another by just looking at him or her. So when you have a leader who has to talk to three or four people, how the leader uses the gaze to communicate with all these people at one time is what I’m currently looking into now,” he said.
His field of research is closely related to psychology and neuroscience. “With modern technology, we can conduct experiments to see if people use gaze in a certain way to achieve certain end results.
“We can also track electronically, the differences in a gaze if a group that is being addressed was all female, or all males, or of different religious and cultural backgrounds,” said Prof Densten, adding that this area was relatively new, and holds much potential especially with the advent of newer and more detailed ways to track gazes.
He also plans to merge his current study interest with an area he has worked on for many years, which is understanding executive leadership at the CEO level. “One of the interesting aspects I look at is social desirability. We all have a tendency to say things that make us socially desirable, as we are social creatures.
“But for a leader, having that need to be socially desirable can actually be a handicap. If you always need to have everybody like you, while having to tell people off when something is wrong, there’s definitely going to be a conflict there,” he said.
Prof Densten emphasised that whatever the organisation, a leader’s inherent role is to mould the culture of an organisation by creating the right climate. “When a person enters an organisation, he or she comes in with a fixed culture which cannot be changed, but a leader can change the climate.
“If the employee is exposed to this climate every day, it will eventually affect the culture of the person as well as the organisation. Leadership is about changing the culture of an organisation through how they act, how they behave and so on. For example, if the CEO of a company is less compassionate, the organisation will be less compassionate.”
Spearheading the launch of Monash University’s MBA program next year, Prof Densten says he is excited about introducing a course that will prepare students to lead in an ever-changing global business environment. “Leaders need to be able to be flexible in the way they lead at times, because it’s only through them that an organisation will be able to change and adapt to changing business environments,” he said.
“We believe that the work we do here at Monash for our business students will prepare them for such an environment.”
The Monash MBA in Malaysia program commences in January 2015. Students are encouraged to apply early to gain admission in the program. For more information on the Monash Malaysia MBA program, visit www.buseco.monash.edu.my/mba.
Professor Iain Densten has taught for over twenty years in leading international research universities in the United Kingdom and Australia, where he has held three professorships. Currently, he is spearheading the launch of the highly successful Monash University MBA into Malaysia and conducting research into the challenges facing strategic leaders, in terms of culture, sustainability, innovation, and resilience.