The Leader as an Individual

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Chapter 4

• The Leader as an Individual

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Definition of Personality

• A set of relatively stable characteristics that
  lead to consistent patterns of behavior
• As a manager, how can you know or assess an
  individuals personality? Why would you want to
  do this?

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Ex. 4.1 The Big Five Personality Dimensions
Outgoing, energetic, gregarious
Quiet, withdrawn, unassertive
Extroversion
Low
High
Warm, considerate, good-natured
Aloof, easily irritated
Agreeableness
Low
High
Impulsive, carefree
Responsible, dependable , goal-oriented
Conscientiousness
Low
High
Moody, tense, lower self-confidence
Stable, confident
Emotional Stability
Low
High
Imaginative, curious, open to new ideas
Narrow field of interests, likes the
tried-and-true
Openness to Experience
Low
High
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• Some evidence that people who are high on
  extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness,
  and emotional stability are more successful
  leaders.
• Value of understanding personality is primarily
  to help leaders understand their own basic
  personality dimensions, and then to learn to
  emphasize the positive and mitigate the negative
  aspects of their own style.
• Also helps you understand others to know
  something about their personality knowledge
  that you can use to guide YOUR behavior.

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Personality Traits

• Locus of Control
• Defines whether a person places the primary
  responsibility for what happens to him or her
  within himself/herself or on outside forces
• Authoritarianism
• The belief that power and status differences
  should exist in an organization
• Dogmatism receptiveness to others ideas and
  opinions. Highly dogmatic people are close
  minded and not receptive to others ideas.

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Locus of control

• Generalized belief about self control vs. control
  by the situation or others
• Internals have higher job satisfaction, are more
  likely to assume managerial positions, prefer
  participative management, have higher work
  motivation, hold stronger belief that efforts
  lead to performance, receive higher salaries, and
  display less anxiety than externals. Will not
  react well to being closely supervised.
• Externals prefer more structured work setting and
  may be more reluctant to participate in decision
  making.

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Self-monitoring

• The extent to which people base their behavior on
  cues from other people and situations
• High SM pay attention to what is appropriate in
  particular situations and to the behavior of
  other people, and they behave accordingly
• Low SM are not as vigilant to situational cues
  and act from internal states rather than paying
  attention to the situation

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Self - Monitoring

• High self monitors
• flexible adjust behavior according to the
  situation and the behavior of others
• can appear unpredictable inconsistent
• Good in teams
• Accept feedback well

• Low self monitors
• act from internal states rather than from
  situational cues
• Consistent, but may also be resistant to change
• less likely to respond to work group norms or
  supervisory feedback

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Machiavellianism
Machiavellianism - A personality characteristic
indicating ones willingness to do whatever it
takes to get ones own way. Strong influence on
perception of ethical behavior.
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Machiavellianism

• A personality trait involving willingness to
  manipulate others for ones own (selfish)
  purposes.
• Machiavellian tactics
• Neglecting to share important information (e.g.,
  claiming to forget to tell you about key
  meetings and assignments).
• Finding subtle ways of making you look bad to
  management (e.g., damning you with faint praise).
• Failing to meet obligations (e.g., not holding up
  their end on joint projects, thereby causing you
  to look bad).
• Spreading false rumors about you (e.g., making up
  things about you that embarrass you in front of
  others).

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Values

• Fundamental beliefs that an individual considers
  to be important, that are relatively stable over
  time, and that have an impact on attitudes and
  behavior.
• End Values
• Sometimes called terminal values, these are
  beliefs about the kind of goals or outcomes that
  are worth trying to pursue (happiness,
  prosperity, freedom, equality, salvation).
• Instrumental Values
• Beliefs about the types of behavior that are
  appropriate for reaching goals (e.g. honesty,
  politeness, courage).

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• Values affect your perception of situations.
  Perception is the process people use to make
  sense of the world by selecting, organizing, and
  interpreting information.
• Affect how leaders relate to others
• Guide leaders choices and actions.

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Attitude

• An evaluation (either positive or negative) about
  people, events, or things.
• Self-Concept
• The collection of attitudes we have about
  ourselves includes self-esteem and whether a
  person generally has a positive or negative
  feeling about him/herself.

Should poor performance be blamed on a bad
attitude?
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ABC Model of an Attitude
Component Measured by
Example
A
B
C
ognition Attitude scales
I believe my Verbal
statements boss plays
about beliefs favorites.
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Theory X and Theory Y
Theory X the assumption that people are
basically lazy and not motivated to work and that
they have a natural tendency to avoid
responsibility
Theory Y the assumption that people do not
inherently dislike work and will commit
themselves willingly to work that they care about
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Management Assumptions

• Theory X
• Dislike work
• Must be threatened with punishment
• Avoid responsibilities
• Seek formal direction
• Require security
• Little ambition
• Workers are costs

• Theory Y
• View work as natural
• Self-directed
• Exercise self-control
• Accept responsibility
• Seek responsibility
• Make innovative decisions
• Workers are assets

How do you explain lazy behavior?
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Work Attitudes Job Satisfaction

• Job Satisfaction - a pleasurable or positive
  emotional state resulting from the appraisal of
  ones job or job experience
• Organizational Citizenship Behavior
• Behavior that is above and beyond duty
• Related to job satisfaction

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Task Performance

• The relationship between satisfaction and task
  performance is positive, but it is not very
  strong.
• Job satisfaction and performance may not be
  directly linked. Any direct relationship between
  them may stem from the fact that both are related
  to other factors receipt of various rewards and
  organizational commitment.

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Organizational Citizenship Behavior

• Behavior that is above and beyond the call of
  duty. Things that affect OCB may be
• Job Satisfaction
• Procedural justice
• Helps explain why individual level job
  satisfaction is related to organizational
  performance.

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Work Attitudes Organizational Commitment
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Commitment

• Conditions that enhance
• Job satisfaction (strong, positive relationship)
• Participation
• Job security
• Job characteristics (autonomy, responsibility,
  interesting work)
• Advantages
• Lower absenteeism, lower turnover, higher
  quality, higher productivity, higher performance

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Organizational Justice
Distributive Justice- fairness of the outcomes
that individuals receive in an organization
Procedural Justice- fairness by which the
outcomes are allocated in an organization
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• Procedural Justice perceived fairness of
  process (rules and procedures) used to make a
  decision
• Perceived fairness of procedures used to allocate
  pay raises is a better predictor of satisfaction
  than the absolute amount of the pay raise
  received.
• Affects trust in management, intention to leave,
  evaluation of supervisor, job satisfaction, and
  employee theft, layoff survivors.

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Cognitive Style
How a person perceives, processes, interprets,
and uses information
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Ex. 4.4 Hermanns Whole Brain Model
D Upper right
A Upper left
Logical Analytical Fact-based Quantitative
Holistic Intuitive Integrating Synthesizing
Organized Sequential Planned Detailed
Interpersonal Feeling-based Kinesthetic Emotional
C Lower right
B Lower left
There is a reason why people think (and act)
differently than you
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Action memo

• Strive for whole-brain thinking to deal
  effectively with a wide variety of people and
  complex issues.
• Be aware of your natural thinking patterns and
  engage in activities that help develop a wider
  range of styles.
• When possible, tailor your communications and
  leadership approach to the thinking styles of
  followers.

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Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
Personality test that measures how individuals
differ in gathering and evaluating information
for solving problems and making decisions
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MBTI Preferences
(see page 146 for more)
E/I S/N T/F J/P
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MBTI

• All individuals have some development of both
  sides of each pair of functions/attitudes.
• Each type has advantages and pitfalls. No type
  is better than another.
• Accepting and understanding type helps
  individuals be more effective.
• Understanding the full range of types helps an
  individual to communicate and work effectively
  with others.
• Pitfalls labeling or excuse for behavior

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WSJ Article on Kerrys decision making style

• What MBTI type do you think both Kerry and Bush
  are?

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Ex. 4.5 Distinguishing Characteristics of
Charismatic and Noncharismatic Leaders
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Dark side of charisma

• Personalized
• self-aggrandizing, nonegalitarian, exploitative.
  
• Based on caring about self.
• Detrimental impact on long-term organizational
  purpose
• Socialized
• empowering, egalitarian, supportive.
• Based on valuing others.
• Related to successful organizational purpose

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Transactional versus Transformational Leadership
Transactional leadership a transaction or
exchange process between leaders and followers
Transformational Leadership leadership
characterized by the ability to bring about
significant change in followers and the
organization
See page 154 for differences
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Variables Influencing Individual Behavior
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Total Process
materials
methods
supervision
measurement
equipment
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Individual effort
training
staffing
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WSJ Article on Bowling

• Why did we read this article? What principle
  does it illustrate?

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Attribution in Organizations
Attribution Theory Explanations of behavior in
others Consensus - the extent to which peers in
the same situation behave the same
way Distinctiveness - degree to which the person
behaves the same way in other situations Consisten
cy - the frequency of a particular behavior over
time
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The Attribution Process
Antecedents-- factors internal to the perceiver

• Information
• Beliefs
• Motivation

• Perceived external
• or internal causes
• of behavior

Attributions made by the perceiver

• Behavior
• Feelings
• Expectations

Consequences for the perceiver
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Attributions of Internal and External Causes of
Behavior (in others)
Consistency is low Distinctiveness is
high Consensus is high
Attribution of external causes
Consistency is high Distinctiveness is
low Consensus is low
Attribution of internal causes
Consistency is low
Attribution of either external or internal
causes
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Information Cues Attributions
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Information Cues Attributions
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• Attributions (explanations) of the causes of
  behavior in yourself.
• Internal
• Ability and effort
• External
• Task difficulty and luck
• Change potential
• Stable or unstable

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Causal Attributions Of Your Behavior (Success and
Failure)
Stable Unstable
S esteem, efficacy F depression
Internal External
S luck F hope/optimism
F frustration
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Attributional biases

• Two types of attribution errors
• Fundamental attribution error tendency to make
  attributions to internal causes when focusing on
  someone elses behavior
• Self-serving bias
• Prevents individuals from accurately assessing
  their own performance and abilities and makes
  more difficult determining real cause of failure
• Tendency to blame others for a persons own
  failures associated with poor performance and an
  inability to establish satisfying interpersonal
  relationships at work and other social settings
• When problems occur at work, managers and
  employees often make different attributions about
  the causes.

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Advice for managers when problems occur at work

• Avoid the fundamental attribution error (stop
  blaming)
• Anticipate the employees self-serving bias and
  be proactive. Know that the employee will
  attribute causes of failure to (blame) the
  environment, including management. Account for
  the impact of the environment, including your own
  behavior, on the employees behavior. Look
  inside first. Eliminate all other causes as much
  as possible before you blame employees.
  Employees that see you doing this will credit you
  with procedural justice.
• If the environment is a major cause, it will be
  affecting others as well. Fix the system and
  stop blaming.