Leadership and Communication

Question 1

What is leadership

Answer 1

Leadership is the process of influencing others to achieve group or organisational goals.

Question 2

Compare managers and leaders

Answer 2

Managers and leaders both do the right thing.
Managers are short term whereas leaders are long term.
Managers make the means, leaders make the ends.
Managers problem solve, whereas leaders inspire and motivate.

Question 3

Explain the Trait (Characteristics) Theory

Answer 3

Traits are stable characteristics.
Effective leaders possess similar traits such are a desire to lead, drive, knowledge of business, cognitive ability, emotional stability, self-confidence and honesty.

Question 4

Explain leadership behaviour

Answer 4

Initiating structure is the degree to which a leader structures the roles of followers by setting goals, giving directions, setting deadlines and assigning tasks.
Consideration is the extent to which a leader is friendly, approachable and supportive and shows concern for employees.

Question 5

Explain Strategic Leadership

Answer 5

The ability to anticipate, envision, maintain flexibility, think strategically and work with others to initiate changes that will create a positive future for an organisation.

Question 6

Explain Visionary Leadership

Answer 6

Creates a positive image of the future that motivates staff and provides direction for planning and goal setting.

Question 7

Explain Charismatic Leadership

Answer 7

Have strong, confident, dynamic personalities that attract followers.

Strong relationship between leaders and followers.

They have a clear vision based on values, consistent with a vision, communication high performance and display confidence in followers’ abilities.

Question 8

Compare Ethical vs Unethical Charismatics

Answer 8

Ethical charismatics:
○ Developmental opportunities
○ Negative and positive feedback
○ Recognise others
○ Share information

Unethical charismatics:
○ Control and manipulate followers
○ Selfish
○ Only want positive feedback
Moral standards that put themselves before others.

Question 9

Explain Transactional Leadership

Answer 9

Exchange where followers are rewarded/punished for their performance.

Question 10

Explain Transformational Leadership

Answer 10

Creates awareness of purpose and mission. Gets employees to see past their own needs to those of the group.

Question 11

What are the elements of Transformational Leadership

Answer 11

○ Charisma or idealised influence: Transformational leaders act as a role models for their followers.

○ Inspirational Motivation: Followers are motivated and inspired by providing meaning to their work.

○ Intellectual stimulation: Followers are encourages to be creative and innovative. They are encouraged to look at problems in different light, even if it differs from the leaders ideas.

Individualised Consideration: Creating learning opportunities for individuals and accepting differences. This is achieved by being a good learner.

Question 12

Define Perception

Answer 12

A process in which individuals attend to, organise, interpret and retain information from their environments.

Question 13

Define Perception Filters

Answer 13

Personality, psychology or experienced-based difference that influences people to ignore or pay attention to particular stimulus.

Question 14

Perception Problems: Selective Perception

Answer 14

Accepts objects and information that is consistent with values/beliefs and screens out inconsistent information.

Question 15

Perception Problems: Closure

Answer 15

Fills gaps of missing information by assuming what we don’t know is consistent with that is known.

Question 16

Perception of Others: Attribution Theory

Answer 16

Attribution Theory: Humans need to understand causes of other people’s behaviour.
○ Internal Attribution: Behaviour is voluntary
○ External Attribution: Behaviour is involuntary
○ Defensive Bias: People seeing themselves as similar to someone who is having difficulty.
○ Fundamental Attribution Error: People ignore external causes of behaviour and attribute other people’s actions to internal causes.

Question 17

Explain Perception of Self

Answer 17

Self serving basis: People attribute success to themselves and failure with the external environment.

Question 18

What is the Communication Process

Answer 18

The communication process is the process of transferring information or meaning from one individual or group to another.

Question 19

Explain the steps in the Communication Process

Answer 19

○ Sender: Begins with a sender thinking of a message that he or she wants to convey to another person.
○ Encoding: Putting a message into a written, verbal or symbolic form that can be recognised and understood by the receiver.
○ Transmit the Message: The sender then transmits the message via communication channels.
○ Decoding: The process by which the receiver translates the form of a message into understood message.
○ Feedback: The last step is feedback is sent to the sender that indicates the receiver’s understanding of the message.

Question 20

What is ‘noise’ in relation to the communication process

Answer 20

‘Noise’ is anything that interferes with the transmission of the intended message.
Noise can occur is the sender is unsure what message to communicate, not clearly encoded, the wrong channel is chosen, improperly decoded and the receiver lacks experience or time.

Question 21

Explain Formal Communication Channels

Answer 21

Official approved communication channels
○ Downward Communication: Flows from higher to lower levels
○ Upward communication: Flows from lower to higher levels.
○ Horizontal communication: Flows from mangers and workers at the same level.

Formal communication can be improved by:
○ Decreasing reliance on downward communication.
○ Increase favour for upward communication.
○ Encourage horizontal communication.
○ Awareness of problems.

Question 22

Explain Informal Communication Channels

Answer 22

Messages from employee to employee outside of formal channels, aka ‘through the grapevine.’

It is highly accurate, information is timely, senders seek feedback and accuracy can be verified.
 Managing organisational grapevines:
○ Do not withhold information
○ Do not punish those who use it
○ Embrace the grapevine
Utilise it as a source of information

Question 23

Coaching Communications

Answer 23

To improve the person’s on the job performance or behaviour.

Question 24

Counselling Communications

Answer 24

Discussing non-work related issues that can affect someone’s performance at work.

Question 25

Non-Verbal Communication

Answer 25

Kinesics (visual body language)

Paralanguage (vocal language)

Question 26

Communication Medium

Answer 26

The method that is chosen to deliver a message, either written or oral.

Oral communication is receiving spoken messages. Considered to be rich communication as it allows managers to

Question 27

Empathetic Listening

Answer 27

Empathetic listening is the desire to understand and reflect on feelings and emotions.

Question 28

Active Listening

Answer 28

Active listening is a conscious effort to listen and not just to hear. It involves a two-way communication and non-judgemental feedback.

Question 29

Constructive Feedback

Answer 29

Constructive feedback is intended to be helpful, corrective and encouraging.

Question 30

Destructive Feedback

Answer 30

Destructive feedback disapproves without any intention of being helpful and almost always causes a negative or defensive reaction in the recipient.

Question 31

Improving Reception

Answer 31

Company Hotlines: Phone numbers that anyone can call to leaver information for upper management.

Survey Feedback: Information that is collected and then returned and analysed to develop action places for the future.

Informal Meetings: Between upper and lower level employees

Surprise visits: Allowing a realistic view on the situation.