Organizational Leadership Exam Notes

Leadership Elements

• Key elements of leadership:
  • Leaders-followers
  • Influence
  • Change

Understanding Others

• The ability to understand others: Social awareness

Emotional Control

• The ability to control disruptive emotions: Self management

Personality Dimensions

• Big Five personality dimensions:
  • Adjustment
  • Surgency
  • Agreeableness
  • Attractiveness is NOT a Big Five personality dimension

Self-Control Under Pressure

• Personality dimension includes traits related to self-control and how well one remains under pressure: Adjustment

Leadership and Extraversion

• Leadership and extraversion traits are part of: Surgency personality dimension

Individual Behavior Classification

• The combination of traits that classifies an individual's behavior: Personality

Leaders vs. Managers

• Statements regarding leaders and managers:
  • A manager always has the ability to influence others; a leader may not. (FALSE)
  • All managers perform four major functions: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. (TRUE)
  • A manager has a formal title and authority. (TRUE)
  • A leader may either be a manager or a nonmanager. (TRUE)

Decisional Leadership Roles

• Decisional leadership roles:
  • Resource-allocator
  • Entrepreneur
  • Disturbance-handler
  • Spokesperson is NOT one of the decisional leaderhsip roles

Figurehead Role

• Examples of a figurehead role:
  • Scheduling when employees will use material and equipment
  • Serving on committees with members from outside the organizational unit
  • Signing official documents
  • Answering letters

Derailed Managers

• Managers who had derailed tend to have: Been overly ambitious

Executive Derailment

• Major reasons for executive derailment:
  • Being viewed as cold, aloof, and arrogant.
  • Betraying personal trust.
  • Using a bullying style viewed as intimidating, insensitive, and abrasive.
  • NOT Undermanaging.

Managerial Roles

• Designing a new performance evaluation system: Entrepreneur managerial role

Time Planning

• A time plan for completing activities: Schedule

Essential Managerial Skill

• Managerial leadership skill that all leaders need to be successful: Decision-making

Leader-Follower Relationship

• Description of the leader-follower relationship: Leadership and followership merge and are linked concepts.

Emotional Intelligence

• Emotional intelligence includes:
  • Self-awareness
  • Self-management
  • Social awareness
  • NOT self-concept.

Conscientiousness Traits

• Traits of high conscientiousness:
  • Credibility
  • Conformity
  • Organization
  • NOT extraversion

Conscientiousness Dimension

• Low job commitment and counterproductive behavior are linked to low dependability trait of the conscientiousness dimension.

Behavioral Leadership Theory

• Contributions of behavioral leadership theory:
  • Organizations need both production and people leadership.
  • It led to the shift in paradigm to contingency leadership theory.
  • Manager does not have to perform both production and people functions.
  • NOT Task and relationship behavior tend to correlate strongly with subordinate performance.

Reward Power

• Reward power: A form of position power.

Motivation Process

• Motivation process: Need to motive to behavior to consequence to satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

• Major assumptions of Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory:
  • People's needs are arranged in order of importance going from basic to complex needs.
  • People will not be motivated to satisfy a higher-level need unless the lower-level need(s) has been at least minimally satisfied.
  • People have five classifications of needs.
  • NOT Both met and unmet needs motivate.

Working with Others

• The ability to work well with others: Relationship management.

Accomplishing Objectives

• Creating obligations and developing alliances, and using them to accomplish objectives: Reciprocity.

Consultation Tactic

• The consultation influencing tactic: Participative management

Influencing Tactic

• Influencing tactic used to get people in a good mood by being friendly and praising others before asking for what you want: Ingratiation

Oral Message-Sending

• Steps in the oral message-sending process:

  • State your communication objective
  • Develop rapport
  • Transmit your message
  • NOT Check the receiver's commitment

• The first step in the oral message-sending process: Develop rapport.

Leadership Defined

• Leadership: The process of a leader communicating ideas, gaining acceptance of them, and motivating followers to support and implement the ideas through change.

Message Planning

• Issues to consider when inaugurating a major quality initiative:
  • Goal and mode of the message
  • Timing of the message
  • Who should receive the message

Conveying Information

• The process of conveying information and meaning: Communication.

Oral Message-Sending Steps

• Steps in the oral message-sending process:
  • Transmit your message.
  • State your communication objective.
  • Develop rapport.
  • NOT Translate the meaning of the message.

Conflict Resolution

• Neutral third party who helps resolve a conflict: Mediator.

Communication Channel

• The richest channel of communication: Oral face-to-face.

Leader-Follower Influence

• The leader-follower relationship: Represents the influence between the leader and the follower.

In-Groups and Out-Groups

• Statements regarding in-groups and out-groups:
  • In-group followers routinely receive higher performance ratings than out-group followers. (TRUE)
  • Out-group followers routinely show higher levels of turnover than in-group followers. (TRUE)
  • In-group followers give more positive ratings when evaluating organizational climate than out-group followers. (TRUE)
  • In-group followers do not require as much attention as out-group followers. (FALSE)

Groups and Teams

• Statements regarding groups and teams:
  • The leadership style in a team tends to be very hierarchical. (FALSE)
  • Groups focus on individual performance and goals. (TRUE)
  • Group members have shared responsibilities. (FALSE)
  • A team is characterized by a mentality of "what's in it for me." (FALSE)

Formal Evaluations

• Receiving formal evaluations from many people: 360-degree feedback.

Types of Followers

• Follower who is high on involvement but low on critical thinking: Conformist

Employee-Boss Relationship

• Employee who says, "The relationship is simple—he tells me what to do and I do it…" is likely: An out-group member

Building a Team

• To build a real team, the leader should: Form a relationship with each member

Team vs. Group

• A team implies a sense of shared mission.

Teamwork

• Involves the creative cooperation of people working together to achieve something beyond the capacities of individuals working alone: Synergy

Team Goals

• An understanding and commitment to group goals on the part of all team members: Teamwork.

Teamwork Advantages

• Advantages of teamwork:
  • Major errors are likely to be avoided
  • Work environment is created that encourages people to become self-motivated
  • Being a member of a team makes it possible to satisfy more needs than if one worked alone
  • NOT an untrustworthy work environment is created

Teamwork Disadvantages

• Disadvantages of teamwork:
  • Situations can occur in which individuals perceive that the team impinges on their autonomy.

Crisis Management Importance

• Emerging trends in the current business environment that make crisis management especially important among the skills of leadership include: Technological advances

Mitigating Crisis Consequences

• Best way to mitigate the negative consequences of any crisis: A pre-crisis plan.

Strategic Vision

• An ambitious view of the future that everyone in the organization can believe in and that is not readily attainable, yet offers a future that is better in important ways than what exists now: A strategic vision.

Organizational Capability

• The organization's capability to identify major changes in the external environment and respond promptly: Strategic flexibility.

Pre-Crisis Planning

• Components of pre-crisis planning:
  • Analyzing the environment
  • Assessing risk
  • Creating a crisis response team
  • NOT Appointing a crisis leader

Crisis Response

• New employee agreed to work through the weekend in order to provide the client with improved services as leadership worked to save the relationship. A likely result of this episode: The employee will get more opportunities for responsibility.

Effective Crisis Plan

• An effective crisis management plan:
  • Coordinated and controlled across levels and units of the organization
  • Upgraded frequently
  • Supported by training and periodic drill sessions
  • NOT Upgraded every 10 years

Low-Probability High-Impact Events

• Low probability, high-impact event that threatens the viability of the organization and is characterized by ambiguity of cause, effect and means of resolution: Crisis.

Strategic Crisis Leadership

• Strategic crisis leadership requires:
  • Integrating crisis management into the strategic management process so it remains a regular part of the overall strategy evaluation process.
  • Using environmental monitoring techniques to identify events that could trigger crises in the future.
  • Identifying emerging patterns or trends in the regulatory environment, competitive landscape, and social environment
  • Establishing a culture that embraces crisis awareness and preparation as a way of life.

Crisis Leader Duties

• Primary duties of the crisis leader:
  • Requiring individuals or departments to keep logs of complaints or incidents
  • Coordinating the activities of the crisis management team to ensure that the members work well together
  • Monitoring customer and employee complaints and behavior
  • NOT Consider all employee grievances as legitimate concerns

Workplace Processes

• Fear of new workplace processes: Learning anxiety

Pre-crisis planning benefits:

• Allows leaders and followers to make good decisions under severe pressure in the most difficult circumstances.

Contingency Leadership Model

• Contingency leadership model variables:
  • The followers
  • The leader
  • The situation
  • NOT the economy

Power Dynamics

• Power based on the user's personal relationship with others: Referent Power.
• Power based on the user's ability to influence others with something of value to them: Reward Power.

Leadership Grid

• The Leadership Grid is based on two leadership dimensions called: Concern for production and concern for people.
• The Leadership Grid identifies:
  • authority-compliance.
  • country-club.
  • impoverished.
  • NOT end-of-the road.

Graduate Skills

• Today, more companies are looking for graduates with: International openness and flexibility.

Leadership Model

• A leadership model:
  • Is used when selecting the appropriate leadership style for a given situation.

Recruiter Survey Attributes

• Survey of recruiters - high ranked attributes:
  • analytical and problem-solving skills
  • communication and interpersonal skills
  • ability to work well in a team
  • NOT political savvy

Managerial Leadership Skills

• To be a successful leader, you need three managerial leadership skills, one of which is technical skill and involves the ability to use methods and techniques to perform a task.

Manager Characteristics

• The manager of an engineering consulting firm is extraverted and gets along well with others…This manager is displaying: Surgency, agreeableness, and adjustment.

Employee Promotion

• Most employees are promoted to their first management position primarily because of their technical skills.

Leadership Model

• The contingency leadership model is used to determine if a person's leadership style is task- or relationship-oriented, and if the situation matches the leader's style to maximize performance.

Personality Types

• The personality type that has a lively temperament: Sanguine

Leadership Style for Emergencies

• The best leadership style for an emergency situation: Autocratic

Unethical Behavior

• The process of blaming one's unethical behavior on others: Displacement of responsibility

Responsibility

• The shirking of individual responsibility: Social loafing

Social Loafing

• Social loafing is likely to result when: Individual effort is not recognized and assessed

Power for Employees

• As an employee and not a manager in your organization, you can have personal power.

Manager-Employee Interactions

• Most day-to-day manager-employee interactions are based on legitimate power.

Power Dynamics in Leadership

• Leaders mostly use all of the following types of power to influence out-group members except referent power.

Relationship skills

• The process of developing relationships for the purpose of socializing and politicking is networking.

Performance Assessment

• Having employees assess their own performance is a part of coaching.

Coaching

• The form of coaching in which a more experienced manager helps a less experienced protege is mentoring.

Conflict Styles

• The avoiding conflict style that results in unresolved conflict: Lose-lose strategy

Negotiating

• The process in which two or more parties are in conflict and attempt to come to an agreement is negotiating.

Neutral Parties in Conflict

• The neutral third party who makes a binding decision to resolve a conflict is the arbitrator.

Qualities of Leaders

• The leader who has concern for both production and people has the high-high leadership trait.

Selflessness

• Leadership that transcends self-interest to serve the needs of others by helping them grow professionally and personally is servant leadership.

Stewardship Values

• The key to successful stewardship is based on all of the following values except reward assumption.

Groupthink

• The situation that results from members of a cohesive group agreeing on a decision in order to maintain group goodwill is groupthink.

Crises for Organizations

• Crises with which organizations may need to respond: Natural disasters, executive misconduct, and terrorist attacks.
  • NOT interoffice politics.

Group Member Social Relationships

• Group members' social relationships within and outside their groups and how these relationships affect group effectiveness is social capital.

Power Dynamics

• The process of gaining and using power is politics.

Charisma

• Charismatic leadership is seen as an extension of attribution theory.
• The Greek word charisma means "divinely inspired gift."

Culture

• The function of culture: It helps the organization adapt to the external environment.

Culture Characteristics

• Characteristics of a high-performance culture: intensely people oriented, culture reinforcement tools, and results oriented.
  • NOT organizational conflict

Organizational culture

• Insular thinking is an attribute of a low-performance culture.

• Statements regarding culture:

  • Culture is recognized as a source of competitive advantage.

Inclusion

• The inclusion of all groups at all levels in an organization is diversity.

Diversity Training Success

• Diversity training is most likely to be successful when it is an ongoing or repeated activity.