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Social Psychology in Organisations > College 2 > Flashcards

College 2 Flashcards

Power and leadership

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1
Q

What is leadership?

A

“Leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives.”

It’s about influencing.

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2
Q

How can you be a leader?

A
  • You have to stand out.
  • You have to be easy to follow.
  • You have to nurture your first followers and treat them as equal.

You are nothing without followers.

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3
Q

What is the difference between leaders and managers?

A

Manager

  • A manager is a day-to-day problem solver.
  • Managers are concerned with controlling the operations of the organization efficiently.

Leader

  • A leader is focused on developing new approaches and options for the future.
  • A leader has a strong vision.
  • A leader inspires others to follow his or her vision for the organization.
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4
Q

What is the overlap between managers and leaders?

A

Managerial leadership: adapting to situational demands.

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5
Q

What are the different leadership approaches?

A
  • Trait approach
  • Behavior approach
  • Situational approach
  • LMX approach
  • Transformational approach
  • Moral approaches (ethical, authentic and servant)

The first one is the oldest and the bottom one is the newest approach. They are all still relevant today.

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6
Q

Trait approach

A

Leaders are born with talents and abilities for leadership.

  • This gained popularity during WOII because they needed leaders for the divisions in the army.

Select the “right” people for leadership positions rather than train them.

Leaders exhibit special attributes that make them great leaders.

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7
Q

What is a criticism on the trait approach?

A

If you ask people with what characteristics they would describe a leader, they will come up with a lot of different characteristics.

A problem with this:

  • Nobody has it all.
  • It depends on the eye of the beholder.
  • It doesn’t take the situation into account.
  • It was difficult to predict the outcomes of good leadership.
    o Because it depends on the situation and the follower.

So then they started to look at the behaviors of leaders.

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8
Q

Ohio State University Study

A

A list of leader behaviors followers came up with when asked to describe what their leaders did.

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9
Q

What are the categories for leader behaviors?

A

Initiating structure

  • Focused on the task
  • E.g., defining tasks, setting deadlines, focusing on goals, using standard operating procedures

Consideration

  • Focused on the person, consideration for your followers
  • It is more about trust, respect, making sure everyone is heard, reducing conflict, relational.
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10
Q

Blake mouton managerial grid

A

A grid with concern for results on the x-axis from low to high and on the y-axis concern for people from low to high.

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11
Q

What are the five management styles of the Blake mouton managerial grid?

A
  • High concern for people and low concern for results = country club management
  • Low concern for people and low concern for results = impoverished management
  • High concern for people and high concern for results = team management
  • Low concern for people and high concern for results = produce or perish management
  • Middle concern for people and middle concern for results = middle-of-the-road management
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12
Q

Looking at the blake mouton managerial grid, what is the best management style?

A

Looking at this grid you would think team management is the best because it cares about the results and also has concerns about the people.

But this also appeared to be less predictive of the outcome. So, only focusing on the behavior does not always predict how well a team is performing.

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13
Q

What is the criticism on the blake mouton managerial grid?

A

One of the things that was missing was the situation.

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14
Q

What is the relationship between leadership and team performance moderated by/dependent on?

A

The situation or the context.

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15
Q

What can have a strong effect on the effectiveness of a leadership style on the team performance?

A

The situation or the context.

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16
Q

What are types of situations or context that can influence the relationship between leadership style and team performance?

A
  • The task (e.g., boring or complex).
  • The ability of the group (experts vs. amateurs).
  • The urgency/time constraints.
  • Competition (e.g., between leaders/teams).
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17
Q

Path-goal theory

A

A situational approach.

It is about how you can motivate your followers.

You can have a goal and a vision, but there can be certain obstacles. As a leader you can remove these obstacles by showing them a path and help them to clear the path to get to these goals.

Leaders motivate followers to accomplish goals by establishing the paths to the goals.

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18
Q

What are four leadership behaviors (to get to the goal)?

A
  • Directive
  • Supportive
  • Participative
  • Achievement-oriented
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19
Q

What is the directive leadership behavior (path-goal theory)?

A
  • It’s about initiating structure
  • It’s about the task
  • What to expect
  • Setting standards for performance
  • E.g., setting clear goals, setting deadline, explaining the rules
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20
Q

What is the supportive leadership behavior (path-goal theory)?

A
  • Related to consideration.
  • Focused only on the person; focused more on the well-being of the people.
  • E.g., showing concern for others, being friendly, being approachable.
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21
Q

What is the participative leadership behavior (path-goal theory)?

A
  • You allow followers to have a voice in the decisions that affect them; that you’re open to the ideas of your followers.
  • You share the information.
  • About the person but also a little bit about the task.
  • It’s a little bit more about the task than the supportive leadership behavior.
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22
Q

What is the achievement-oriented leadership behavior (path-goal theory)?

A
  • Focused more on challenging followers to get to excellence.
  • You set standards for excellence.
  • Showing confidence that they will reach these goals.
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23
Q

True or false: in real life, according to the path-goal theory, you should only use one style depending on the type of situation.

A

False. In real life, according to the path-goal theory, you could use all of them depending on the type of situation, but you can also mix them a little bit, even though there is a clear distinction.

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24
Q

What leadership style could you use for a boring task, using the path-goal theory?

A

A boring task can use both a directive and supportive leadership style.

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25
Q

What is the criticism on the situational approach?

A

It doesn’t make a distinction between different types of followers. It looks at followers as a team; as a whole.

So, depending on the situation there is a different leadership style that is more effective, but this is only when you see the whole group as one.

This is why they came up with LMX, which makes a distinction between the different types of followers.

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26
Q

Who is a leader? Why are people following a leader?

A

Followership can be puzzling from an evolutionary perspective: a leader has the best sources, followers just follow.

You can be both a follower or a leader depending on the situation, e.g., in the time of gatherers and hunters you can be good in one field and bad in another field.

Exampleof the early humans: in the time of the hunters and gatherers there were egalitarian communities. So, there were leaders, but they depended on the situation, it was a rather informal role. If you were good at hunting, you would take the lead at hunting, but if you were not so good at something you would not take the lead and be more of a follower. So you can be both a follower and a leader. So it would really differ per situation and on the consensus, if everyone agreed with it.

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27
Q

What is important to take into account when you’re studying leadership and leadership styles?

A

It is really important to take into account the followership, because without followers there is no leader.

So to study leadership and leadership styles, it is important to take the role of the followers into account as well.

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28
Q

Leadership-member exchange model (LMX)

A

An approach that really focuses on the relationship between the leader and each individual member of a group.

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29
Q

What is the definition of a leader-member exchange (LMX)?

A

The quality of the working relationship that is developed with each individual follower.

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30
Q

What has the LMX model shown?

A

That in a relatively short period of time, leaders decide who is in their “in-group” and who is in their “out-group”.

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31
Q

Leader-Member Exchange in-group

A
  • These are the leader’s “go to” people in a work group.
  • They are dependable, trustworthy, and assist the leader in reaching his or her goals.
  • They receive better performance evaluations; higher salary increases and are promoted at a rate faster than their peers.
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32
Q

Leader-Member Exchange out-group

A
  • Out-group members are not poor performers.
  • Out-group members perform to the specifications in their job descriptions but
    o don’t go above and beyond
    o don’t take on extra work
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33
Q

Leader-Member Exchange development

A
  1. Role taking
    - They ask for more and look at who takes up this extra work
  2. Role making
    - The roles are established
  3. Role routinization
    - The leader knows where to go for what he needs

In the LMX it is not only from the side of the leader but also from the side of the follower.

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34
Q

Why should you manage your boss?

A
  • LMX has been related to promotions and salary increases.
  • An effective working relationship with your boss predicts performance, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, motivation, and lower turnover.
35
Q

What are the steps to managing your boss?

A
  • Find out what ‘good’ looks like and how this is evaluated, to make sure you meet expectations.
  • Ask your boss what kind of follow-up he/she/they wants.
    o Be very proactive
  • Examine and adjust to your boss’ style.
    o E.g., are they more of a reader or a listener; do they first look at the data and then listen or the other way around.
  • Tell your boss when you feel you haven’t been fully heard.
    o It is hard but it helps to create a strong and good relationship.
  • Become aware of other manager’s styles.
  • Manage up.
    o There are always new projects coming up, so you can always start managing your boss.
36
Q

What do you need to keep in mind if you want to be in the in-group of the leader?

A

It is not a one way relation, leaders also depend on what the followers will be doing.

37
Q

What is also important if you talk about the style of your boss?

A

If you talk about the style of your boss, the reaction of the followers is also important.

38
Q

How can followers react to authority?

A
  • Counterdependent
    o These people don’t like authorities and resent being told what to do.
  • Overdependent
    o They complain about the authority that they have to deal with but they give in all the time.
  • Interdependent
    o The best way.
    o In between counter- and overdependent.
    o You accept authority but also acknowledge that you also have some influence on your boss.
39
Q

What is an important aspect of the leader-membership exchange and how to study this?

A

People have to judge and evaluate the other person to decide who they can trust and depend on.

We do this by looking at people’s behaviours.

But if we evaluate and judge people’s behaviours, we also look for a cause for these behaviours.

40
Q

What is an attribution?

A

A person’s attempt to assign a cause to a behavior or event.

41
Q

Attribution and leader-member relations

A
  • The attributions people make about events and behavior can be classified as either internal or external.
  • Assigning causes to certain behaviour or a certain event happens mostly when an event or certain behaviour is unexpected, important, novel or negative.
42
Q

Internal vs. external attributions

A
  • An internal attribution occurs when people infer that an event or a person’s behavior is due to character traits or abilities.
  • If a person makes an external attribution, they believe that a person’s behavior is due to situational factors.

E.g., if someone is late for work, you can attribute this to the person, for example the person is not motivated, but you can also attribute it to something in the situation, for example a traffic jam.

43
Q

True or false: How we attribute and what kind of attributions we use also determine how we see other people’s behaviours.

A

True.

44
Q

True or false: We make quite a lot of misattributions, we have some errors and biases, which results in how we evaluate people.

A

True.

45
Q

Attribution errors

A

Attributions can bias how we process information and make decisions.

  • Fundamental attribution error
  • Self-serving bias
46
Q

What is the fundamental attribution error?

A

Yourself vs. the other, if something good happens you make an internal attribution and of something poor happens you make an external attribution. The opposite is true for the other person.

47
Q

Trust

A

Trust is a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behavior of another.

48
Q

Calculus-based trust

A
  • A form of trust based on keeping records of what another person does for you and what you do for them.
    o I do this for you so you do this for me.
  • It is an “arm’s length” form of trust in which neither party really becomes vulnerable to the behavior of the other person.
  • The expectations are like contracts, and the consequences of violating trust are punishment or the severing of the relationship.
49
Q

Knowledge-based trust

A
  • Level of trust is grounded in how predictable the other person is.
  • Developed over time:
    o Through interactions.
    o People come to expect the other person to come through for them and do it well.
    o Information is gathered about the other person.
50
Q

Identification-based trust

A
  • This form of trust is characterized by the leader and follower sharing the same goals and objectives.
  • And also stepping in when it is not asked of you.
  • This is the highest degree of trust in the organizational field.
51
Q

Transformational approach: full-range leadership development model

A

It’s a model that is more of a continuum between a transactional leadership style and a transformational leader style. A continuum from being passive to active, from ineffective to effective leadership styles.

It goes from ineffective and passive to effective and active in the following order:

  • Laissez-Faire
  • Management-by-Exception, Passive
  • Mangement-by-Exception, Active
  • Contingent Reward
  • 4 I’s
52
Q

Transactional leadership

A

Behaviors that motivate followers through rewards and corrective actions.

It is about exchanging benefits (e.g., if you do this for me I will do this for you).

Contingent reward-promising or delivering rewards.

53
Q

Management-by-exception (MBE)

A

Transactional leadership

  • Active form (MBEA)
    o You are looking for rules to avoid people making mistakes.
  • Passive form (MBEP)
    o You wait for people to make mistakes and then correct them; you are looking for people that are making mistakes
54
Q

Transformational leadership

A

Showing your followers a clear vision, inspiring them to follow you, mobilizing them.

It’s appealing to people’s followers’ moral values and in order to make them conscious to e.g., their ethical choices.

This set of behaviors is most related to positive attitudes, commitment, and performance of followers.

Behaviors that mobilize extra effort from followers through emphasis on change through articulating a new vision for the organization.

55
Q

The 4 I’s

A

Transformational leadership

  • Idealized influence
    o Charismatic
  • Inspirational motivation
    o You are able to clearly articulate your vision
  • Intellectual stimulation
    o You ask people for their ideas; you encourage them to share their ideas and don’t criticize them.
    o You are willing to take risks
  • Individualized consideration
    o You treat each follower as a unique person and attend to their needs.
56
Q

True or false: you can only learn some of the 4 I’s.

A

False. You can learn all of these to a certain extent, but some aspects are harder to learn than others.

57
Q

Laissez-Faire

A

You basically don’t do anything.

This is not very effective.

58
Q

Study on the effect on leadership effectiveness

A

Contingent reward was positively related to leadership job performance, and also a little bit to the follower motivation.

Transformational leadership had a stronger effect on the follower motivation/follower satisfaction with the leader. Transformational leadership also had a little bit of an effect on the performance, but not on leadership job performance.

Both transformational leadership and contingent reward had some positive influence on performance of followers and on the motivation of followers, transformational a little bit more but also on different types of outcomes.

So it shows that you need to take into account different outcomes, not only looking at single outcomes, because it doesn’t paint a whole picture.

As expected, laissez-faire leadership and passive management by exception were negatively related to leadership performance/effectiveness, meaning that it negatively affected the motivation of followers and also their performance. It was also negatively related to transformational leadership, so the more transformational leadership style they showed, the less they showed the other leadership styles.

59
Q

Moral approaches

A

More concerns for the ethical aspect of leadership

Ethical, authentic and servant.

60
Q

Power

A

Power is inherent to being in a leadership role. But it’s also important to note that a leader without power is not really effective.

Power has a negative connotation, e.g., power corrupts and power is bad, but this is not necessarily the case.

You need some power to be able to influence people.

61
Q

Power and influence

A

Power is the potential of one person (or group) to influence another person or group.

Influence can, therefore, be thought of as “power in use”.

Power is the potential of someone to influence people; to move people to a certain direction; to change their behaviours; to change their attitudes. So you need some form of power as a leader to actually influence other people and influence can be seen as a power in use. The potential of having power already influences people, but you can also use your influence because of the power that you have in order to change people’s behaviour and attitudes.

You can also have influence without having power. Even though another person has more power you can still influence them. It depends on the basis of power, the basis of power also determines how people respond to you and whether you are influenced or not.

62
Q

Bases of power (structural/positional)

A

Some bases of power are more structural/positional, so they are the result of what type of position you hold in the organization.

  • Coercive power
  • Reward power
  • Legitimate power
63
Q

Coercive vs. reward power

A

Structural/positional bases of power.

Coercive power: the authority to punish

  • Threats, social exclusion

Reward power: the authority to provide incentives or other things valued

  • Bonuses, benefits, promotions, responsibility
64
Q

Legitimate power

A

Structural/positional bases of power.

The authority to make a request and get a response due to the nature of the roles between two people (e.g., boss and direct report or police officers).

  • It’s based on the role that you have or you are assigned
  • It’s about the relationship you have with your follower or the other person
65
Q

Bases of power (personal)

A
  • Expert power
  • Referent power
66
Q

Expert power

A

Bases of personal power.

  • The ability to influence others due to knowledge, abilities or a special skill set.
  • You can be an expert on something without having an official role in an organisation. If people need your knowledge they will come to you, this automatically gives you some form of power.
67
Q

Referent power

A

Bases of personal power.

  • The ability to influence based on others’ identification with the individual and followers’ desire to be like her. E.g., influencers
68
Q

Reactions to power and influence

A
  • Commitment
  • Compliance
  • Resistance
69
Q

Commitment to a certain request, as reaction to power and influence

A
  • You are very motivated to actually perform the task, you don’t only change your behavior but also your attitude.
  • You internalize the request.
70
Q

Compliance as reaction to power and influence

A
  • You complete the task, but you don’t do anything extra.
  • You only change your behavior
71
Q

Resistance as reaction to power and influence

A
  • You refuse to do the request.
  • You might obstruct it, delay it or not do anything.
72
Q

Bases of power and the responses from followers

A

Based on research they found that in general, the different power bases also result in different responses from the followers that are asked to do something.

If people have a coercive power base, their power is caused by the ability to punish other people, then people have the tendency to resist that request and they show low performance or even sabotage the whole activity.

People comply with a request if people have a reward power base, a legitimate power base or an expert power base. This is called the zone of indifference, they just do it because it is asked of them but they don’t go the extra mile; they don’t feel enthusiastic about the whole request and don’t change their attitudes about the whole activity.

People are more motivated to do the request when they have a referent based power, they also change their attitudes. Here you can also see that identification, again, that is also related to transformational leadership, that people want to identify with their leader. This has a strong influence on how people respond to a request and how people behave in an organisation.

73
Q

Can you change your power base as a leader?

A

You can as a leader you can change the perception people have of you; you can use impression management.

74
Q

Impression management

A

Behaviors people use to protect their self-image and/or change the way they are seen by others.

75
Q

Why do people use impression management?

A

Goal (people think they need a certain image for a promotion).

76
Q

Apologies strategy for impression management

A

Goal: minimizing bad.

Example: saying you’re sorry when you violate a coworker’s trust.

77
Q

Excuses strategy for impression management

A

Goal: minimizing bad.

Example: not taking responsibility for your failures.

78
Q

Justifications strategy for impression managament

A

Goal: minimizing bad.

Example: blaming poor performance on another department’s failure to respond.

79
Q

Exemplification strategy for impression management

A

Goal: maximizing good.

Example: trying to appear busy, even when things are slower at work.

80
Q

Ingratiation strategy for impression management

A

Goal: maximizing good.

Example: using flattery to make your coworkers like you more.

81
Q

Self-promotion strategy for impression management

A

Goal: maximizing good.

Example: hanging your diplomas on your office wall so that people are aware of your accomplishments.

82
Q

Perceptions of organisational politics

A

People use politics, a political skill and political will, to change things.

But the perception of people who use politics in order to get better at the expense of others is called perception of organisational politics.

It can have a negative influence on different outcomes, it can result in anxiety, stress, low job performance and increased turnover.

83
Q

What causes perceptions of organisational politics?

A

It is caused, or at least affected by, things in an organisation.

Examples:
* Unfair procedures
* Little opportunities
* If there are no clear job opportunities
* If there is a mistrust in management
* The personality of people

84
Q

What are the moderators of perceptions of organisational politics?

A
  • Feeling like you have a high control over your work.
  • The feeling that you understand why people behave the way they behave and this environment is at it is.

This reduces the negative effect of perceptions of organizational politics and its outcomes.

Social Psychology in Organisations (8 decks)

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