Week Two Alternative Solutions to Leadership Problems

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Week TwoAlternative Solutions to Leadership
Problems
TransformationalLeadership
MBA 520 January/February 2006 Sources
Organizational Behavior, Wagner Hollenbeck,
Hellriegel Slocum
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Slide 1Learning Objectives

• Analyze the influence of leadership styles on
  individual performance
• Develop strategies for managing the group process
• Examine the roles and interaction of group and
  team members
• Apply conflict management methods to enhance
  group and team

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Slide 2The Nature of Transformational Leadership

• May be found at all levels of an organization
  teams, departments, divisions, and the
  organization as a whole
• Model builds on and extends the features of
  transactional and charismatic leadership
• For a leader, this model is the most
  comprehensive and challenging to implement
• Models components that relate to followers
  inspirational motivation, intellectual
  stimulation, idealized influence, and individual
  performance

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Slide 3The Nature of Transformational Leadership

• INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE
• TLs pay special attention to each followers
  needs for achievement and growth
• TLs may act as a coach, mentor, facilitator,
  confidant, and counselor
• Individuals are encouraged by TLs to develop to
  successively higher levels of their potential
• TLs empower followers to make decisions while at
  the same time, they monitor followers to
  determine whether they need additional support or
  direction to assess progress

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Slide 4Impact of Goal Setting on Performance

• Goals guide and direct behavior
• Goals provide challenges and standards against
  which performance can be assessed
• Goals justify tasks and the use of resources
• Goals define the basis for the organizations
  design
• Goals serve an organizing function
• Goals provide a framework for planning and
  control activities

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Slide 5Influence of Goals on Individual
Performance
WHEN GOALS ARE
PERFORMANCE WILL TEND TO BE

• Specific and clear Higher
• Vague Lower
• Difficult and challenging Higher
• Easy and boring Lower
• Set participatively Higher
• Set by management (top down) Lower
• Accepted by employees Higher
• Rejected by employees Lower
• Accompanied by rewards Higher
• Unrelated to rewards Lower

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Slide 6Why Goal Setting MotivatesHigh
Performance

• Difficult but achievable goals prompt people to
  focus on achieving the goals
• Difficult goals motivate people to spend time and
  effort on developing methods for achieving them
• Difficult goals increase peoples persistence in
  achieving their goals

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Slide 7Why Goal Setting Works

• Goals serve as a directive function
• Goals have an energizing function
• Goals affect persistence
• Goals affect action
• Goals commit people to behavior

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Slide 8Limitations to Goal Setting

• Lack of skills and abilities prevents goal
  setting from leading to high performance
• When a considerable amount of learning is needed,
  successful goal setting takes longer
• When the goal-setting system rewards the wrong
  behavior, major problems can result

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Slide 9Goals and Strategies

• For complex tasks, the task strategies (i.e.,
  plans of action devised) greatly influence the
  outcome of those efforts
• Setting specific and difficult goals may increase
  strategy development, but the resulting
  strategies are not guaranteed to be effective
• Because developing strategies consumes time that
  might be otherwise devoted to task performance,
  goals may actually hinder performance in some
  situations

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Slide 10Goals and Strategies

• A performance drop-off often occurs when people
  switch from well-
• learned strategies to new and different ones
• Example If a person has gained a great deal of
  proficiency with one word-processing program,
  that individual may express reluctance to upgrade
  to a new and improved program while learning the
  new program, the employee fears that he/she will
  not work as quickly as was possible with the old
  program. Even if convinced that in long run will
  be able to work more rapidly with the new
  program, the employee may still be unwilling to
  pay the short-term performance costs of learning
  the new program.

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Slide 11Goals and Strategies

• GOAL ORIENTATION
• Differentiates between approaching a task with
  the goal of learning how to
• improve versus goals focused strictly on
  performing at a certain level.
• People with a strict performance orientation
  often perform best on simple, stable, short-term
  tasks
• People with a learning orientation often perform
  better on complex, dynamic, long-term tasks
• Bottom Line Objectives of any managerially
  inspired goal-setting program must
• account for the need to perform at a high level
  as well as the need to create
• Enough slack in the system to allow people to
  experiment with new and
• potentially improved task strategies.

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Slide 12Developing Strategies for Managing the
Group Process

• Group collection of two or more people
• who interact with one another in a way such
• that each person influences and is
• influenced by the others

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Slide 13Developing Strategies for Managing the
Group Process

• Generally, group members share ten
  characteristics
• Define themselves as members
• Defined by others as members
• Identify with one another
• Engage in frequent interaction
• Participate in a system of interlocking roles
• Share common norms
• Pursue shared, interdependent goals
• Feel their membership in the group is rewarding
• Have a collective perception of unity
• Stick together in any confrontation with other
  groups

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Slide 14Roles and Interaction of Group and Team
Members

• Team
• A small number of employees with complementary
• competencies (abilities, skills, and knowledge)
  who are
• committed to common performance goals and working
  
• relationships for which they hold themselves
  mutually
• accountable.

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Slide 15Developing Strategies for Managing the
Group Process

• To make groups, especially teams, more effective,
  you must know how
• to recognize effective and ineffective groups.
  Effective group will have
• the following basic characteristics
• Know why the group exists and have shared goals
• Support agreed upon guidelines or procedures for
  making decisions
• Communicate freely among themselves
• Receive help from one another and to give help to
  one another
• Deal with conflict within the group
• Diagnose individual and group processes and
  improve their own and the groups functioning.

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Slide 16Types of Teams

• Functional
• Includes individuals who work together daily on
  similar tasks
• Often exist within functional departments
  (marketing, production, finance, auditing, human
  resource, etc.)
• Problem-Solving
• Focus on specific issues in their areas of
  responsibility, develop potential solutions, and
  often are empowered to take action within defined
  limits
• Members can be from a specific department who
  meet once or twice a week for an hour or two

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Slide 17Types of Teams

• Cross-Functional
• People from various work areas brought together
  to identify and solve mutual problems
• Deal with problems that cut across departmental
  and functional lines to achieve their goals
• Self-Managed
• Employees who must work together effectively
  daily to manufacture an entire product (or major
  identifiable component) or provide an entire
  service to a set of customers. (Typically, this
  team is empowered)
• Virtual
• Group of individuals who collaborate through
  various information technologies on one or more
  projects while being at 2 or more locations
• Functional, Problem-Solving, Cross-Functional
  SMT operate as virtual

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Slide 18Managing Conflict to Enhance Performance

• Ability to understand and correctly diagnose
  conflict is
• essential to managing it
• A variety of conflict-management techniques have
  been developed to help resolve conflicts and deal
  with various kinds of negative effects such as
• Decrease in communication among members
• Isolation that results adds to the conflict,
  making resolution even more difficult to achieve
• Some members may engage in surveillance intended
  to provide information about attitudes,
  weaknesses, and likely behaviors

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Slide 19Managing Conflict to Enhance Performance

• In general there are two basic techniques for
  managing
• conflict
• Bargaining consists of offers, counteroffers,
  and
• concessions exchanged in a search for some
  mutually
• acceptable resolution
• Negotiation process by which the parties decide
  what
• each will give and take in an exchange.

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Slide 20Managing Conflict to Enhance Performance

• Five general approaches to managing different
  interests
• Competition (assertive, uncooperative) means
  overpowering
• other parties in the conflict and promoting ones
  own
• Concerns at the other parties expense. (Example
  Head of group of
• account executives may appeal to dir. of
  advertising to protect
• groups turf from intrusion by other account
  execs.)
• Accommodation (unassertive, cooperative) allows
  other
• parties to satisfy their own concerns at the
  expense of ones
• own interest. Differences are smoothed over to
  maintain
• superficial harmony. (Example Giving in to cope
  or avoid conflict)

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Slide 21Managing Conflict to Enhance Performance

• Five general approaches to managing different
  interests
• Avoidance (unassertive, uncooperative) requires
  staying neutral at all
• costs or refusing to take an active role in
  conflict resolution procedures.
• (Example the finance dept. that sticks its head
  in the sand hoping that
• dissension about budgetary allocations will
  simply go away, is exhibiting
• avoidance.)
• Collaboration (assertive, cooperative) attempts
  to satisfy everyone by
• working through differences and seeking solutions
  in which everyone
• gains. (Example Marketing dept. manufacturing
  dept. meet on regular
• basis to plan mutually acceptable production
  schedules by both sides)

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Slide 22Managing Conflict to Enhance Performance

• Five general approaches to managing different
  interests
• Compromise (midrange assertive, cooperative)
  seeks partial satisfaction
• of everyone through exchange and sacrifice,
  settling for acceptable rather
• than optimal resolution. (Example Contract
  bargaining between union
• representatives and management typically involves
  significant compromise
• by both sides.)

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Slide 23Managing Conflict to Enhance Performance

• Application of Different Styles of Managing
  Divergence
• Competing
• When quick, decisive action is required
• To cope with crises
• On important issues where unpopular solutions
  must be implemented, such as cost cutting or
  employee discipline
• On issues vital to organizational welfare when
  your group is certain that its position is
  correct
• Against groups who take advantage of
  noncompetitive behavior

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Slide 24Managing Conflict to Enhance Performance

• Application of Different Styles of Managing
  Divergence
• Accommodating
• When your group is wrong and wants both to show
  reasonableness and to encourage the expression of
  a more appropriate view
• When issues are more important to groups other
  than yours, to satisfy others and maintain
  cooperation
• To build credits or bank favors for later issues
• To minimize losses when your group is outmatched
  and losing
• When harmony and stability are especially
  important

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Slide 25Managing Conflict to Enhance Performance

• Application of Different Styles of Managing
  Divergence
• Avoiding
• When a conflict is trivial or more important
  conflicts are pressing
• When there is no chance that your group will
  satisfy its own needs
• When the costs of potential disruption outweigh
  the benefits of resolution
• To let groups cool down and gain perspective
• When others can resolve the conflict more
  effectively

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Slide 26Managing Conflict to Enhance Performance

• Application of Different Styles of Managing
  Divergence
• Collaborating
• To find an integrative solution when conflicting
  concerns are too important to be compromised
• When the most important objective is to learn
• To combine the ideas of people with different
  perspectives
• To gain commitment through the development of
  consensus
• To work through conflicting feelings in
  individuals and between groups

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Slide 27Managing Conflict to Enhance Performance

• Application of Different Styles of Managing
  Divergence
• Compromising
• When group concerns are important but not worth
  the disruption associated with more assertive
  styles
• When equally powerful groups are committed to
  pursuing mutually exclusive concerns
• To achieve temporary or transitional settlements
• To arrive at expedient resolutions under time
  pressure
• As a backup when neither competing nor
  problem-solving styles are successful

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Slide 28Power in Conflict Management

• Conflict in organizations often reflects
  interpersonal sources of power held and used by
  managers, subordinates, and coworkers
• Five Interpersonal Sources of Power
• Reward an individuals ability to influence
  others behaviors by
• rewarding them (i. e., Praise, promotions, money,
  time off, etc.)
• Coercive an individuals ability to influence
  others behavior by
• punishing them (i. e., reprimands, undesirable
  work assignments, closer
• supervision, tighter reinforcement of work rules,
  suspension without
• pay, etc.)

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Slide 29Power in Conflict Management

• Conflict in organizations often reflects
  interpersonal sources of power held and used by
  managers, subordinates, and coworkers
• Five Interpersonal Sources of Power
• Legitimate most often refers to a managers
  ability to influence
• subordinates behaviors because of the managers
  formal position in
• the organization. (The farther removed that
  managers get from their
• specific areas of responsibility, the weaker
  their legitimate power
• becomes.)
• Expert an individuals ability to influence
  others behaviors because of
• recognized competencies, talents, or specialized
  knowledge. (Expert
• power often is relatively narrow in scope.)

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Slide 30Power in Conflict Management

• Conflict in organizations often reflects
  interpersonal sources of power held and used by
  managers, subordinates, and coworkers
• Five Interpersonal Sources of Power
• Referent an individuals ability to influence
  others because he is
• respected, admire, or like. (Usually associated
  with individuals who
• possess admired personality characteristics,
  charisma, or a good
• reputation.)