Attribution theory was a psychological theory first proposed by Fritz Heider in 1958 and extended by Harold Kelley in 1967. Terence R. Mitchell first introduced attribution theory as a leadership theory in 1979(Martinko, 1995).
This theory says that we observe the behavior of others and then attribute cause on it. It can be used in two sides of the leadership area. First, it can be used in attribute leadership qualities. Which is that followers’ judgment to their leaders depends on the leaders’ behaviors and performances.
Second, it can also use by leaders to attribute followers’ behavior.“A person is a leader (good or bad) because others say so” (McElroy, 1982). Followers or employees attribute causes to their leader’s performance and behaviors, and look for leadership quality from their leader. Depending on the attribution, followers will have either positive or negative impression about their leaders. For example, if a company is doing very well in the market and has increasing its revenue, its employees would probably attribute this success to both themselves and their leader.
And the leader of this company will have high prestige in the company; his/her subordinates are more willing to follow his/her steps and accept assigned tasks.Therefore, we say this leader is a good leader to the company. Charismatic leadership theory has the similar way with attribution theory, which is to observe the leader’s behaviors and skills; then we make attributions based on leader’s behaviors and performances. However, if a company is facing a recession and losing money, its employees will also attribute this to the ability of their leader.
Employees will think the recession is due to the ability of their leader. This group of leader will not have a high prestige in his/her employees’ mind and is hard to survive in the company. According to Shackleton’s (1995) example, in poorly performing football teams, it is usually fire the managers but not the players.The founder of Lenovo Liu Chuanzhi is a positive example of attribution theory in leadership. In 1984 Liu Chuanzhi founded Lenovo in Beijing, China with 200000 Yuan (almost 30000 dollars).
And regarding to CNN: “Liu Chuanzhi's Lenovo Group quietly became the world's second-largest personal computer vendor in 2011” (May, 2011). Lenovo cannot reach such a huge success without Liu Chuanzhi’s leadership.He is the person that led Lenovo from one success to another success. He has his own leadership theory, which is to build good relationship with employees. Liu Chuanzhi Always says that: “take the team, set strategy, with the team” (Minkey, 2009).
His unique leadership method gains Lenovo employees’ recognition and acceptance. Employees from Lenovo see Liu Chuanzhi as a great leader and attribute Lenovo’s achievements on him. Also because of the trust and acceptance from his employees, Liu Chuanzhi became a famous Chinese leader in the world.Attribution is also a two way process (Shackleton, 1995), of course to Leaders too. Leaders observe their employees’ behaviors and then attribute its causes.
Leaders view that employees’ behaviors also have effects on their performance. According to Reference for Business, if a manager attributes an employee's poor performance to a lack of effort, then the outcome is likely to be negative for that employee; he or she may receive a poor performance rating or even get fired. If a manager think that an employee's poor performance is due to a lack of skill, the manager may assign the employee further training.However, this attribution is not always 100% correct and it has bias. And it will affect the way leaders treat their followers. To the high-status employees, leaders are more likely to be classified them as high-performance internal factors; but for low-status employees, leaders are more likely to be classified them as low-performance internal factors.
It reminds us to compare the attribution theory with equity theory regarding to the leader’s fairness and accuracy to employees. Under attribution theory, employees are also motivated by the treatment from their leaders. Because of the fairness and accuracy treatment, employees will build whether positive or negative impression to their leaders. It also has directly impact of their leadership position in organizations.The strength about attribution theory is that it can be used to explain the difference in motivation between high and low achievers (Weiner, 1974).
People usually tend to believe that their success is due to their ability but failure is due to bad luck or other external conditions. Therefore, they can always remain self-confidence when dealing with difficult tasks. A real world example is that when a high grade occurs, student tends to think that caused by his/her behavior. And when a low grade occurs, student tends to find reasons from someone else; for example, their “lousy professors”. Attribution also increase the ability of people to understand their own and other’s ability.Furthermore, because “action speaks louder than words”, attribution theory observe the behavior of others and then attribute cause on it, it reminds leaders and employees to always take actions to rather than doing nothing.
Self-serving bias from both leaders and their followers is the biggest weakness of attribution theory. When individuals are attributed to the actions of others, they tend to underestimate the impact of external factors and overestimate the impact of internal factors. That is, when employees are successful, they tend to rate their leader as successful. When they are not, they tend to blame the leader and distance themselves from him or her (Shackleton, 1995). People tend to blame others and avoid personal beliefs. Low performing leaders and employees may tend to doubt their abilities or skills under attribution situation.
It will lead the organization’s employees become lack of self-confidence and motivation. Therefore, if leaders or employees cannot correctly observe and attribute the behavior of others, they will bring organizations to a worse situation.
