Business Leadership Fundamentals - Chapter 1 Review

This set of flashcards covers key vocabulary terms and concepts from the Business Leadership Fundamentals lecture notes, focusing on management, teamwork, and effective leadership.

Leader Breeders

Executives who develop future leaders by recruiting high potentials, coaching, mentoring, giving feedback, creating stretch assignments, rewarding success, and treating failure as learning. They also surrender their high performers for development in critical roles.

Golden Rule

A principle emphasizing the importance of applying concepts to real-life situations.

Social Loafing

The phenomenon where individuals exert less effort when working in a group than when working alone.

Groupthink

A phenomenon where the desire for group consensus overrides critical thinking, leading to poor decisions.

Synergy

The creation of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Cohesion

The degree to which members are attracted to and motivated to remain part of a team.

Facilitator

A person who guides a group to reach a shared goal, typically impartial, with strong communication and listening skills.

Norms

Informal rules a group adopts to regulate the behavior of its members.

Ringleman Effect

A specific finding illustrating social loafing, showing that as more people join a task, individual productivity drops.

Emotional Intelligence (EI)

The ability to manage oneself and relationships effectively, important for leaders and managers to inspire, motivate, and guide teams. Characteristics of an EI leader: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.

Tuckman's Five Stages

A model describing the stages of team development: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, Adjourning.

Accountability

The requirement for a manager to answer to a higher authority for relevant performance results.

Corporate Governance

The system of controls that holds top management responsible for organizational performance.

Diversity Bias

Prejudices and barriers that arise due to differences in backgrounds and perspectives.

Glass Ceiling Effect

An invisible barrier preventing women and minorities from advancing to top-level executive positions.

Technical Skills

The ability to apply expertise to perform a special task, crucial for lower-level managers.

Human & Interpersonal Skills

The ability to cooperate and build positive relationships, important at all managerial levels.

Conceptual Skills

The ability to think analytically and solve complex problems, essential for top-level managers.

Performance Norms

Consensus on the quality and quantity of work required for a project.

Self-Managing Work Teams

Teams that are given the authority to make decisions about how to do required work, functioning autonomously.

First Impressions

The initial judgments or opinions formed about a person, group, or situation, often made quickly and influencing subsequent interactions.

Email Etiquette

A set of guidelines and best practices for composing professional and effective emails, including considerations for clarity, tone, conciseness, and appropriate salutations/closings.

Management

The process of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling resources to achieve organizational goals effectively and efficiently.

Facilitation

The process of guiding a group to achieve a shared goal, often by managing discussion, encouraging participation, and enabling effective decision-making.

Lessons from the Flight of Geese

Insights into effective teamwork from geese flying in a V-formation, highlighting principles such as sharing leadership, mutual support, clear communication for direction, and encouraging collective effort.

Team

A collection of people who regularly interact to pursue a common goal, are committed to a common purpose, have a shared vision, and are accountable to each other.

Teamwork

The collaborative effort of a group to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way.

Managerial Roles in Teams

Different roles managers can take within or supporting teams: 1. Supervisor / Team Leader: Directly oversees team activities. 2. Network Facilitator: Serves as a liaison, connecting team members and external stakeholders. 3. Team Member / Participant: Active contributor to the team's tasks. 4. External Coach: Provides guidance and expertise from an outside perspective.

Usefulness of Teams

Teams are useful for various reasons, including enhancing creativity and innovation, improving problem-solving, increasing organizational flexibility, and boosting employee engagement and morale.

Formal Groups

Officially designated working groups in an organization, created to fulfill specific organizational missions or tasks (e.g., departments, committees, project teams).

Informal Groups

Unofficial groups that emerge spontaneously in the workplace based on common interests, friendships, or shared social needs (e.g., social clubs, support networks). These can offer employees social satisfaction and help fill gaps in formal structures.

Managers as Linking Pins

Managers serving as 'linking pins' connect different teams or levels within an organization, facilitating communication, coordination, and resource sharing across boundaries.

Committees

A formal group composed of members from different departments or levels, typically with an ongoing official assignment, such as addressing a recurring issue or making policy recommendations.

Project Teams / Task Forces

Temporary formal groups created to complete a specific project or task with a finite lifespan, disbanding once the objective is achieved.

Cross-Functional Teams

Teams composed of members from different functional departments (e.g., marketing, finance, production) working together to solve problems or achieve strategic objectives.

Virtual Teams

Teams whose members work together and solve problems through largely computer-mediated communication rather than face-to-face interaction, often dispersed geographically or across different time zones.

Group Conformity

The tendency for individuals to change their attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors to align with group norms or the majority, even if it contradicts their personal beliefs.

Influencing Group Cohesiveness

Managers can influence group cohesiveness by: 1. Increasing interaction among members. 2. Decreasing team size. 3. Enhancing agreement on team goals. 4. Increasing member similarity. 5. Rewarding team vs. individual results. 6. Isolating the group from other groups. 7. Creating a sense of competition with other groups.

Methods of Dealing with Groupthink

Strategies to prevent groupthink include encouraging critical evaluation, assigning a 'devil's advocate', inviting outside experts, holding second-chance meetings, and fostering an open climate for debate and dissent.

Seven Sins of Deadly Meetings

Common dysfunctions that make meetings ineffective: 1. People attend without purpose. 2. The agenda is unclear or non-existent. 3. Discussions stray off-topic. 4. No decisions are made. 5. Follow-through is lacking. 6. Key people are absent. 7. Domination by a few individuals.

Intellectual Capital

The collective brainpower or shared knowledge of a workforce that can be used to create value, encompassing human, social, and organizational capital.

Tech IQ

A person's ability to use technology and to stay informed about its latest developments, crucial for navigating the modern workplace.

Conflict in Virtual Workplace

Challenges specifically arising in virtual work settings due to: 1. Availability issues: Differences in time zones or communication preferences. 2. Process issues: Difficulties in coordinating tasks or decision-making without face-to-face cues. 3. Perspective issues: Misunderstandings due to lack of non-verbal communication and cultural differences.

Optimizing Virtual Teams

Strategies to enhance the effectiveness of virtual teams by focusing on: 1. Testing Technology: Ensuring reliable communication tools. 2. Schmooze or Lose: Encouraging informal social interactions to build rapport. 3. Cave & Commons Design: Balancing private work spaces ('caves') with collaborative areas ('commons') for brainstorming and interaction.

Globalization

Worldwide interdependence of resources, markets, and business competition. It offers opportunities for new markets and challenges with diverse workforces and cultures.

Workforce Diversity

Differences among workers in terms of gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and able-bodiedness that contribute to a varied and rich organizational environment.

Prejudice

An irrational and unfair attitude formed about a person or group without sufficient knowledge or consideration of the facts, typically negative.

Xenophobia

Dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries.

Ethnocentrism

The belief that one's own cultural group is superior to others and that other cultures should be judged by the standards of one's own.

Racism

Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.

Explicit Attitudes

Conscious and deliberate attitudes that are openly expressed and endorsed, often reflecting socially acceptable views.

Implicit Attitudes

Unconscious and automatic attitudes or biases that affect understanding, actions, and decisions, often without an individual's awareness.

Micro Aggression

Brief, daily, often unintentional verbal or behavioral slights that convey hostile, derogatory, or negative prejudicial messages toward target individuals or groups.

Macro Aggression

Systemic and widespread patterns of discriminatory behavior or policies that affect a large group of people due to their identity.

Manager

A person who supports and is responsible for the work of others, by planning, organizing, leading, and controlling resources to achieve organizational goals.

Levels of Management

The hierarchical structure of management within an organization: 1. Top Managers: Guide the performance of the organization as a whole. 2. Middle Managers: Oversee the work of large departments or divisions. 3. First-Line / Lower-Level Managers: Directly supervise non-managerial employees and day-to-day operations.

Functional Managers

Managers with responsibility for a single area of activity, such as finance, marketing, production, human resources, or sales.

General Managers

Managers responsible for activities encompassing multiple functional areas or for a complex unit, such as a major product line or a geographical division.

Administrators

Managers in non-profit, public, or governmental organizations (e.g., hospital administrators, public agency administrators, school principals).

Shamrock Organization

A model describing the modern workforce as having three distinct 'leaves': 1. Core Workers: Permanent, full-time employees essential to the organization's core mission. 2. Contract / Freelance Workers: Outsourced individuals or businesses that provide specialized services. 3. Temporary / Part-Time Workers: Flexible workforce hired for temporary assignments or peak loads.

Mintzberg’s Conclusions on Managerial Work

Henry Mintzberg's research found that managers' work is characterized by brevity, variety, and fragmentation, indicating they deal with many brief, diverse, and often interrupted tasks, and rely heavily on verbal communication.