MGMT440 (Leadership in a Complex World) Exam #1

MICEE

1. Model The Way

2. Inspire a Shared Vision

3. Challenge The Process

4. Enable Others to Act

5. Encourage the Heart

Definitions of leadership

How we define it in 310A:

• Use of power and influence to accomplish organizational goals through other people

Kouzes & Posner define as:

• The art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations

What Can Clarity on Values Provide to You as a Leader?

When you are clear on your values:

• There is more “automaticity” to your actions and decisions

• This means you can take on more and accomplish more, but…

• It also allows you to know what to say no to

• It keeps the group on course when they veer off of it

What Does a Values-Driven Culture Look Like?

jetBlue: founded by David Neeleman, who hired Ann Rhoades as Sr. VP of HR (both from Southwest)

• One of main goals: Stay union free

• Created list of core values as one of the first activities with all of the managers in a multiple-day retreat

• Safety, Caring, Integrity, Fun, Passion.

These core values drove all of their HR activities:

• Behavioral-based interviews that focused on the values

• Onboarding/orientation program that instilled values from Day 1

• Performance appraisal instruments designed around values

• Counseled people out for not behaving in ways consistent with value

What did Rhoades do particularly well?

Created shared values by involving other people:

• To arrive at this list, she asked all managers at the retreat: “what are the characteristics of the best organizations you know?”

• “I didn't want a mission statement nobody reads. I wanted words that allow everybody to talk together. Having shared values made decision making so much easier.”

Shared values are broadly endorsed beliefs about what’s important to the people who hold them.

Bill Walsh, Former Head Coach, SF 49ers

“Others follow you based on the quality of your actions rather than the magnitude of your declarations.”

Effective Leaders Follow Through on Promises (Virtually All of the Time)

86% of leaders who “almost always” follow through on promises are trusted; only 12% of those leaders who do this “usually” are trusted.

How Can You Live the Values You Claim to Have?

• Your self-perceptions are one thing, but you cannot get better without feedback from others

• People who seek out disconfirming feedback (feedback contrary to their

self-perceptions) perform better than those who listen to people who only talk about their positive qualities

• Being aware of your weaknesses and shortcomings is critical to improvement

To Assist With Living the Shared Values with Your Followers…

• Spend time and attention on the things you say are important

• Use language intentionally

• Ask questions strategically

• Seek feedback (in the form of “advice”)

Teach Others to Model the Values: Step 1

Confront critical incidents

• What is a critical incident? A disruptive, unexpected, or high-stakes situation involving a follower, and for our purposes here—when they are not living the values.

• When someone is not living the values, you have to remind them of this (confront them), but you still have to model concern and care.

Why is confronting critical incidents important?

• Maintain credibility and consistency

• Encourages problem solving and learning

• Be on the lookout for “teachable moments”

• When they only see their side during a conflict

• When their “A” game isn’t there in high stakes situations

• When they’re not aware of the impression they are leaving

Teach Others to Model the Values: Step 2

Tell stories that show the importance of values:

• Your followers are going be adults; can you just tell them to do things?

• Telling stories about how someone did something, and how they were successful or unsuccessful after, is much more helpful

What are components of good storytelling (from Chris Anderson of TED)?

• Base it on a character your audience can relate to

• Build tension with curiosity, intrigue, or actual danger

• Offer the right level of detail

• End with a satisfying resolution, whether funny, moving, or revealing

Teach Others to Model the Values: Step 3

Formally reinforce the behaviors you want repeated (learning theory!):

• NHL has always tracked assists, but did not award points to players for them

• Dramatically increased passing and made the game better

• This also brings up another point: don’t reinforce things you don’t want people to do (sometimes this happens unintentionally)

People pay attention to which behaviors and outcomes…

• Get rewarded

• Get reprimanded/called out

• Get people promoted

Teach Others to Model the Values: Step 4

Informally reinforce the behaviors you want

• Artifacts are symbols of the organization’s culture, or the culture that a manager wants to promote

• Posters, pictures on walls, art, displaying organization’s values

• Names on parking spaces (confers status)

• How offices are arranged (open spaces, closed doors, location of executives)

Ernest Shackleton

• Led his first expedition to Antarctica, determined to be the first to reach the Geographic South Pole.

• His ship, Nimrod, departed England in August 1907.

• In late 1908, Shackleton led a party of four in an attempt to be the first to reach the Geographic South Pole. After man-hauling for two-and-a-half months, and 97 nautical miles from the Pole, Shackleton famously made the decision to turn for home.

A vision can be defined as:

A statement or mental picture about what the ideal future looks like.

How to create a vision:

1. Think about your past.

2. Attend to the present

3. Prospect the future

Chapter 4 (Envision the Future): Take Away

Discover a Common Purpose

• Reflect on your past

• Attend to the present

• Prospect the future

Discover a Common Purpose

• Listen deeply to others

• Make it a cause for commitment

• Look forward in times of rapid change

What is charisma?

Personal quality of presence or charm that others find compelling and want to be around.

Charismatic Leadership Theory

• Pioneered by Robert House, worked mostly at Wharton

• (Some) leaders have the “personal abilities that make them capable of having profound and extraordinary effects on followers”

• (Some) leaders can “inspire followers to accept and execute the will of the leaders without hesitation or question or regard to one’s own self-interest

What are the key elements of charisma that can be learned?

• Presence: “Stare Like a Lover”

• Power: “Stand Like a Gorilla”

• Warmth: “Speak Like a Preacher”

How To Paint Clearer Pictures? - “Mental Time Travel”

In a study by researchers at Wharton and Cornell, one group of real-life leaders got the following instructions before constructing a vision statement:

“Imagine you enter a time machine and emerge in the future just after your company has achieved its vision. What does this future look like? Take a picture with your camera. Think of how to make your vision embody what you saw in the picture you took.”

Evidence for Status Quo Bias: Consumers of Electric Power

California electric power consumers were asked about their preferences regarding trade-offs between service reliability and rates.

• They were given several options with different price levels and previous levels of reliability.

• Of those who already had power that was the highest-reliability, highest-price, 60.2 percent chose the status quo.

• Only 5.7 percent chose to switch to the lowest-reliability, lowest-price option that the other group had been experiencing.

• Of those who already had lowest-reliability, lowest-price power, 58.3 chose their low-reliability (and low-price) status quo

• Only 5.8 chose the highest price, high-reliability option

More Evidence for the Status Quo Bias: The Power of Defaults

Lack of viable organs for donation contributes to many preventable deaths:

• In the U.S., 100,000 people are awaiting organ donation and 17 people die each day due to lack of available organs

• Why? In the U.S., the default option is that people are not donors on their driver’s license and must opt in

Experiment with three conditions:

• Default is not organ donor, must opt in

• Default is organ donor, must opt out

• No default; must choose one or the other

People become comfortable with the status quo and do not like change- but in order to be a really effective leader, you have to be able to constantly

make improvements, and ask what can I do to…

• Make my employees better?

• Make work processes better?

• Make our organization more successful?