test 3

Question 1

• What is meant by the term legitimate power of supervisors?

Answer 1

o Legitimate power is appointed by the organization. Legitimate power allows supervisors to reward and punish their employees. Their ability to influence employees is based on the formal authority inherent in their positions.

Question 2

• What is leadership? What are some of the characteristics/traits of an effective leader?

Answer 2

o Leadership = the ability to influence others to act in a particular way. Leaders can influence others to perform beyond the actions dictated by formal authority.
• Characteristics and traits
• Drive, relevant knowledge, intelligence, self-confidence, honest and moral character, desire to influence others.

Question 3

• What are the characteristics and differences between the following types of leadership styles?

Answer 3

o Charismatic
• An individual with a vision or sense of purpose, an ability to communicate that vision in clear terms that followers can understand, a demonstrated consistency and focus in pursuit of the vision, and an understanding of his or her own strengths.
o Visionary
• Creates and articulates realistic, credible, and attractive visions of the future that grows out of, and improves upon, the present.
o Situational
• Adjustment of a leadership style to specific situations to reflect employee needs.
o People-centered
• An individual who emphasizes interpersonal relations with those he or she leads.

Question 4

• What are the four categories of leadership skills?

Answer 4

o Technical, conceptual, networking, and human relations skills.

Question 5

• How does a leader build trust with their followers?

Answer 5

o For a leader to build trust with their followers they must have these dimensions: integrity, competence, consistency, loyalty, and openness

Question 6

• Explain the components of the communication cycle. Understand what occurs at each component

Answer 6

o Sender – where the message is coming from
o Encoding – the conversion of a message into symbolic form
o Channel – the medium by which a message travels
o Decoding – a receiver’s translation of a sender’s message
o Receiver – where the message is to be delivered
o Feedback loop – information received by the sender from a receiver regarding a message that was sent

Question 7

• Communication requires what in order to be effective?

Answer 7

o Understanding of the message

Question 8

• What is meant by the term “verbal intonation”?

Answer 8

o The emphasis an individual gives to words or phrases through speech (Ex. Tonality)

Question 9

• How do the biases of senders and receivers influence communication?

Answer 9

o The biases of senders and receivers distort the message to be conveyed or received. The receiver may only listen to what they want to listen to.

Question 10

• Be able to identify and explain at least four barriers to communication.

Answer 10

o Language
• If people can’t speak the same language, the message they are trying to send is useless. Likewise, if the sender is using words that the receiver doesn’t understand, then the message becomes unclear.
o Emotions
• Your emotions can cause you to miss the meaning of messages. If you are cranky or upset about something, then you are less likely to give your full attention to a message and you may react poorly to it.
o Information medium
• It is difficult to communicate to somebody if the medium you choose for the communication does not fit well with the receiver. For instance, somebody who is unable to run a computer may not communicate best though email.
o Perception
• If the receiver feels that the sender is incompetent or lacks knowledge, the receiver may not listen to the message very clearly. The receiver may make assumptions about the message based on their perceptions.

Question 11

• How does one overcome communication barriers?

Answer 11

o Choose a better channel for the communication.

Question 12

• What is the purpose of communication?

Answer 12

o The purpose of communication is to transfer meaning and have it understood.

Question 13

• What is the difference between formal and informal communication?

Answer 13

o Formal communication addresses task-related issues and tends to follow an authority chain.
o Informal communication moves in any direction, skips authority, and is as likely to satisfy social needs as it is to facilitate task accomplishments.

Question 14

• Why is face-to-face communication more effective than any other form of communication?

Answer 14

o Face-to-face communication allows for immediate feedback, either physical or verbal. There is also the personal touch of being there and there is a greater richness of information. More information overall can be communicated through face-to-face communication.

Question 15

• What is the purpose of employee appraisals?

Answer 15

o They review the past performance of an employee and emphasize positive accomplishments as well as deficiencies. They help employees improve future performance.

Question 16

• What is the difference between formal and informal employee appraisals? How often should each be performed by a supervisor?

Answer 16

o Formal appraisals examine and evaluate employees by comparing them to a standard. The deviation from the standard that the employee shows is then used to show where improvements need to be made.
• Formal employee appraisals should be performed once a year at a minimum.
o Informal appraisals are the day-to-day assessment a supervisor makes of an employees performance and the ongoing feedback the supervisor gives the employee about that performance.
• Ex. Supervisors walking around and talking with employees.
• Informal appraisals should happen all the time.

Question 17

• Performance appraisal criteria must be based on what?

Answer 17

o Individual task outcomes, behaviors, and traits of the employee.

Question 18

• Know the difference between written essays, checklists, and adjective rating scales.

Answer 18

o Written essays – a written narrative describing an employee’s strengths, weaknesses, past performance, potential, and suggestions for improvement
o Checklists – a list of behavior descriptions that are checked off when they apply to an employee
o Adjective rating scales – a method of appraisal that uses a scale or continuum that best describes the employee using factors. (professor evals use this)

Question 19

• Understand each of the following performance appraisal errors

Answer 19

o Halo error – a tendency to rate an individual high or low on all factors as a result of the impression of a high or low rating on some specific factor. (He is dependable so he must be good everywhere else)
o Recency error – an error that occurs when appraisers recall and give greater importance to employee job behaviors that have occurred near the end of the performance-measuring period.
o Central tendency error – the tendency to avoid the “excellent” category as well as the “unacceptable” category and assign all rating around the “average” or midpoint range.
o Similarity error – rating others in a way that gives special consideration to qualities that appraisers perceive in themselves. (Im aggressive, and so are you. Im rating you well)

Question 20

• How can supervisors overcome appraisal errors?

Answer 20

o Continually document employee performance, use behaviorally based measures, combine absolute and relative standards, use multiple raters, rate selectively, participate in appraisal training, and conduct performance appraisals of teams.

Question 21

• What is a 360 appraisal evaluation?

Answer 21

o Performance feedback provided by supervisors, employees, peers, oneself, and possibly others.

Question 22

• Why is performance appraisal training more important today than ever before?

Answer 22

o There is evidence that the training can make you a more accurate rater. Common errors such as leniency and halo have been minimized or eliminated by performance appraisal training.