Leading - Comprehensive Chapter Notes

Leading

Unit 4 Overview

  • The unit covers leading, individual behavior, motivation theory and practice, and teams, teamwork, and collaboration.
  • Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, emphasizes the importance of the people industry over merely serving coffee.

Learning Goals

  • Describe the nature of leadership.
  • Explain important leadership traits and behaviors.
  • Describe the contingency theories of leadership.
  • State and explain current issues in leadership development.
  • Explain the communication process.
  • Describe how communication can be improved.

Developing Leaders: A Firm's Most Important Job

  • A.G. Lafley's Transition at P&G:
    • Lafley stepped down as CEO of Procter & Gamble (P&G) after 10 years, replaced by Bob McDonald.
    • Lafley intentionally distanced himself during the transition, symbolizing a change in leadership.
  • Bob McDonald's Background:
    • McDonald has a global career, including turning around P&G's laundry products division in Canada.
    • He succeeded by adapting to the local culture and valuing his team, avoiding a "one-size-fits-all" approach.
  • P&G's Leadership Development:
    • P&G prioritizes leadership development, captured in a "Talent Portfolio" (a blue binder).
    • The portfolio identifies high-potential leaders, those "at risk," and readiness for promotion.
    • For each major job, there are at least three possible candidates.
    • Executives are evaluated every six months on financial measures, leadership, and team-building abilities.
    • Evaluations come from bosses, lateral managers, and direct reports.
  • Benchmark:
    • Leadership development at P&G is supported from the top, with executives expected to develop leadership skills in themselves and others.
    • P&G was recognized as one of the World's Best Companies for Leaders by Fortune magazine.

Integrity

  • Definition: Integrity is being honest, credible, and consistent.
  • Lack of Integrity Examples:
    • Giving special treatment to favored people.
    • Willingness to lie.
    • Blaming others for personal mistakes.
    • Letting others take blame for personal mistakes.
    • Wanting others to fail.
    • Falsifying reports and records.
    • Instigating conflict and disharmony.
    • Taking credit for others' ideas.
    • Stealing.
  • Peter Drucker's View: The notion of "service" is central to integrity; leaders serve the organization.
    • It's a leader’s duty to subordinate their likes, wishes, preferences to the welfare of the institution.
    • A leader must see the world as it is, not as they want it to be.
  • Integrity Line:
    • Leaders should be humble and selfless.
    • Leaders should avoid being dishonest, inconsistent, conceited and selfish.

Leading

  • Definition: Inspiring others to work hard to accomplish important tasks.
  • Leadership vs. Management:
    • Grace Hopper: "You manage things; you lead people."
    • Barry Posner: Managers deal with the status quo; leaders focus on change.
    • Tom Peters: Leaders thrive through the successes of others, not necessarily being the best performers themselves.
  • Core Consensus: Great leaders bring out the best in people.
  • Modern Challenges:
    • Shorter time frames for accomplishments.
    • Expectation of getting things right the first time.
    • Complex, ambiguous, and multidimensional problems.
    • Maintaining focus on long-term goals amidst short-term pressures.

The Nature of Leadership

  • Leadership is inspiring others to work hard to accomplish important tasks.
  • It is one of the four management functions: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.
  • Planning sets the direction and objectives.
  • Organizing brings together resources to turn plans into action.
  • Leading builds commitment and enthusiasm.
  • Controlling ensures results.

Leadership and Power

  • Leadership success rests on the ability to make things happen for the team or organization's goals.
  • Power Definition: The ability to get someone else to do something you want done or to make things happen the way you want.
  • Positive power is influencing and controlling others for the good of the group or organization.
  • Leaders gain power from their positions and personal qualities.
  • Position power includes reward, coercive, and legitimate power.
  • Personal power includes expertise, referent, and relational power.

Position Power

  • Reward Power:
    • Ability to influence through rewards (pay raises, bonuses, promotions).
    • Manager's message: "If you do what I ask, I'll give you a reward.”
  • Coercive Power:
    • Ability to influence through punishment (reprimands, pay penalties, termination).
    • Manager's message: "If you don't do what I ask, I'll punish you."
  • Legitimate Power:
    • Ability to influence through authority (rights of office).
    • Manager's message: "I am the boss; therefore, you are supposed to do as I ask."

Personal Power

  • Expert Power:
    • Ability to influence through special expertise and information.
    • Manager's message: "You should do what I want because of my special expertise or information.”
  • Referent Power:
    • Ability to influence through identification (admiration and wanting to identify with you).
    • Manager's message: "You should do what I want in order to maintain a positive, self-defined relationship with me."
  • Relational Power:
    • Ability to work and function well in a team toward a collective goal.
    • Manager's message: "You should do what I want because it is in the best interests of the team."

Leadership and Vision

  • Great leaders inspire and motivate others toward a common purpose, using their power well.
  • Vision is a future one hopes to create to improve the present.
  • Visionary Leadership:
    • A leader with a clear and compelling sense of the future.
    • Understands the actions needed to get there successfully.
    • Involves having a clear vision, communicating it, and motivating/inspiring people to pursue it.
    • Brings meaning to people's work.
  • Lorraine Monroe Leadership Institute:
    • Mission: develop and support public school leaders who view solid education as a necessity for transforming children’s lives.
    • Monroe Doctrine: Reform society only if every place we live becomes a site of reform.
    • Leader articulate a vision that others are inspired to follow and makes everybody in an organization understand how to make the vision active.

Leadership as Service

  • The concept of "service" is central to integrity; leaders act as servants of the organization (Peter Drucker).
  • Servant Leadership:
    • Commitment to serving others and helping them use their talents for organizations that benefit society.
    • Focuses on the needs of followers over the leader.
    • Shifts the focus away from the self and toward others.
    • Generate empowerment in terms of the leadership directions and opportunities.
  • Empowerment:
    • Managers enable and help others gain power and achieve influence.
    • Involves providing information, responsibility, authority, and trust to make decisions independently.
    • Power is not a zero-sum quantity; everyone can gain power.
  • Servant leadership quotes:
    • Robert Greenleaf: Institutions function better when the idea, the dream, is to the fore, and the person, the leader, is seen as servant to the dream.
    • Max DePree: Praises leaders who permit others to share ownership of problems to take possession of the situation.
    • Lorraine Monroe: Real leader is a servant of the people she leads; a really great boss is not afraid to hire smart people.

Knowledge & Understanding 1

  • Define leadership.
  • Define power.
  • Describe the "positive” face of power.
  • State and define the three types of position power.
  • State and define the three types of personal power.
  • Define vision.
  • Define visionary leadership.
  • What is servant leadership?
  • What is empowerment?
  • Explain the benefits of servant leadership.

Leadership Traits and Behaviours

  • Leadership success has been studied from trait, behavioral, and contingency approaches.
  • Each approach offers a slightly different explanation of leadership effectiveness and development.

Leadership Traits

  • Early research focused on universal traits that distinguish effective leaders (the "great person theory").
  • Physical characteristics don't determine leadership success.
  • Certain personal traits are common among the best leaders.
  • Study of over 3,400 managers found that followers admired leaders who were honest, competent, forward-looking, inspiring, and credible.
  • Kirkpatrick and Locke's Personal Traits of Successful Leaders:
    • Drive: High energy, initiative, and tenacity.
    • Self-confidence: Trust in themselves and confidence in their abilities.
    • Creativity: Original in their thinking.
    • Cognitive ability: Intelligence to integrate and interpret information.
    • Job-relevant knowledge: Knowledge of their industry and its technical foundations.
    • Motivation: Enjoy influencing others to achieve shared goals.
    • Flexibility: Adapt to fit the needs of followers and situations.
    • Honesty and integrity: Trustworthy, honest, predictable, and dependable.

Leadership Behaviors

  • Research shifted to how leaders behave with followers (leadership styles).
  • Leadership style is the recurring patterns of behaviors exhibited by leaders.
  • Research at Ohio State University and University of Michigan focused on two dimensions of leadership style:
    • Concern for the task.
    • Concern for the people doing the work.
  • Ohio State studies used the terms initiating structure and consideration.
  • University of Michigan studies used production-centered and employee-centered.
  • Leader Behaviors:
    • High Concern for Task: Plans work, assigns responsibilities, sets standards, urges completion, monitors performance.
    • High Concern for People: Acts warm and supportive, maintains good relations, respects feelings, is sensitive to needs, shows trust.
  • Leadership Grid (Blake and Mouton): Describes how leaders vary in tendencies toward people and production concerns.
    • The preferred combination is "high-high" leadership called the team manager.
    • This leader shares decisions with team members, empowers them, encourages participation, and supports teamwork.

Classic Leadership Styles

  • Autocratic Style: (Authority-Obedience Manager) Emphasizes task over people, retains authority and information, acts in a command-and-control fashion.
  • Human Relations Style: (Country Club Manager) Emphasizes people over tasks.
  • Laissez-Faire Style: (Impoverished Manager) Shows little concern for the task, lets the group make decisions, acts with a “do the best you can and don’t bother me” attitude.
  • Democratic Style: (Team Manager) High People, High Task; Committed to both task and people, shares information, encourages participation, and helps others develop their skills.

Knowledge & Understanding 2

  • State and define the personal traits identified by Kirkpatrick and Locke.
  • Define leadership styles.
  • Identify the two dimensions of leadership styles.
  • Illustrate the leader behaviours consistent with a high concern for task.
  • Illustrate the leader behaviours consistent with a high concern for people.
  • State and describe the five types of leaders in Blake and Mouton's leadership grid.
  • State and describe the four classic leadership styles.

Contingency Approaches to Leadership

  • Scholars recognized the need to examine under what circumstances any one leadership style is preferable to others.
  • Contingency approaches aim to understand conditions for leadership success in different situations.
  • This approach looks at when and under what cirucmstances a type of leadership is best.

Fiedler's Contingency Model

  • Good leadership depends on a match between leadership style (task-motivated or relationship-motivated) and situational demands.
  • Understanding Leadership Style:
    • Measured on the least-preferred co-worker scale (LPC).
    • Task-motivated leaders (low LPC score).
    • Relationship-motivated leaders (high LPC score).
    • Leadership style is part of one's personality and difficult to change.
    • Key to success is using existing styles in appropriate situations.
  • Understanding Leadership Situations:
    • Situational control is critical.
    • Contingency variables to diagnose situational control:
      • Leader-member relations (good or poor) - degree to which the group supports the leader.
      • Task structure (high or low) - extent to which task goals, procedures, and guidelines are clearly spelled out.
      • Position power (strong or weak) - degree to which the position gives the leader power to reward and punish subordinates.
  • Matching Leadership Style and Situation:
    • Neither task-oriented nor relationship-oriented leadership is effective all the time.
    • Each style works best when used in the right situation.
    • Proposition 1: A task-oriented leader will be most successful in high-control or low-control situations.
    • Proposition 2: A relationship-oriented leader will be most successful in situations of moderate control.

Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Model

  • Successful leaders adjust their styles based on the maturity of followers (readiness to perform).
  • Readiness is based on how able, willing, or confident followers are to perform tasks.
  • Styles:
    • Delegating—Low Task, Low Relationship: Allowing the group to take responsibility for task decisions.
    • Participating—Low Task, High Relationship: Emphasizing shared ideas and participative decisions on task directions.
    • Selling—High Task, High Relationship: Explaining task directions in a supportive and persuasive way.
    • Telling—High Task, Low Relationship: Giving specific task directions and closely supervising work.
  • Delegating works best in high-readiness situations.
  • Telling works best in low-readiness situations.
  • Participating is recommended for low-to-moderate-readiness followers.
  • Selling is for moderate-to-high-readiness followers.
  • Leadership styles should be adjusted as followers change over time.

Path-Goal Leadership Theory

  • Robert House's theory suggests that an effective leader clarifies paths for followers to achieve task-related and personal goals.
  • Leaders help followers by clarifying goals, removing barriers, and providing valued rewards.
  • Styles:
    • Directive leadership: Letting subordinates know what is expected; giving directions; scheduling work; maintaining standards; clarifying the leader's role.
    • Supportive leadership: Making work more pleasant; treating members as equals; being friendly and approachable; showing concern.
    • Achievement-oriented leadership: Setting challenging goals; expecting high performance; emphasizing continuous improvement; displaying confidence.
    • Participative leadership: Involving subordinates in decision-making; consulting with subordinates; asking for suggestions.
  • Path-Goal Contingencies:
    • Use leadership styles that fit situational needs.
    • Add value by contributing things that are missing or need strengthening.
    • Avoid redundant behaviors.
  • Important contingencies include:
    • Follower characteristics (ability, experience, locus of control).
    • Work environment characteristics (task structure, authority system, work group).
  • Appropriate leadership examples:
    • Unclear job assignments: directive leadership.
    • Low worker self-confidence: supportive leadership.
    • Poor performance incentives: participative leadership.
    • Insufficient task challenge: achievement-oriented leadership.

Substitutes for Leadership

  • Aspects of the work setting and people involved that reduce the need for a leader's personal involvement.
  • Leadership is already provided from within the situation.
  • Include:
    • Subordinate characteristics (ability, experience, independence).
    • Task characteristics (routineness, availability of feedback).
    • Organizational characteristics (clarity of plans, formalization of rules).
  • Managers should focus on other and more important leadership contributions.

Leader-Member Exchange Theory (LMX)

  • Leaders develop “special” relationships with some team members.
  • People fall into "in-groups" and "out-groups."
  • In-group:
    • Best performers, enjoy high-exchange relationships with the leader.
    • Special assignments, privileges, and access to information.
  • Out-group:
    • Excluded from these attributions and benefits;
    • Low-exchange relationship with the leader.
  • As a leader and follower interact over time, their exchanges define the follower's role.
  • Benefits and downfalls of LMX:
    • High LMX can have positive implications for rewards, access to information, and other favorable treatments
    • Low-LMX relationships can mean fewer rewards, less information, and little or no special attention.

Leader-Participation Model (Vroom-Jago)

  • Leadership success results when the decision-making method used by a leader best fits the problem being faced.
  • Decisions:
    • Authority decision is made by the leader and then communicated to the group.
    • Consultative decision is made by a leader after receiving information, advice, or opinions from group members.
    • Group decision is made by group members themselves.
  • The leader's choice among the decision-making methods is governed by three rules:
    • Decision quality: based on who has needed information.
    • Decision acceptance: based on the importance of follower acceptance.
    • Decision time: based on the available time..
  • Authority Decisions:
    • Work best when:
      • Leaders have the expertise to solve the problem;
      • They are confident and capable of acting alone;
      • Others will accept the decision; and
      • Little time is available.
  • Consultative & Group Decisions:
    • Work best when:
      • The leader lacks expertise or information;
      • The problem is unclear;
      • Acceptance and commitment are necessary;
      • Adequate time is available.
  • Benefits of participation:
    • Improves decision quality by bringing more information.
    • Improves decision acceptance through commitment.
    • Contributes to leadership development.
  • Potential cost:
    • Lost efficiency.

Knowledge & Understanding 3

  • Explain how contingency theories are different from the leadership traits theories.
  • What is the LPC scale?
  • What does the LPC scale measure?
  • Describe what Fiedler believes in relation to leadership style and personality.
  • State and explain Fiedler's three contingency variables.
  • State the two propositions according to Fiedler.
  • Explain what the maturity of followers refers to in the Hersey-Blanchard situational leadership model.
  • State and explain the four leadership styles in the Hersey-Blanchard situational leadership model.
  • How does the path-goal leadership theory differ from Fiedler's contingency model?
  • State and explain the four leadership styles in the path-goal leadership theory.
  • According to the path-goal leadership theory, define follower characteristics and work environment characteristics.
  • What are substitutes for leadership?
  • State four possible substitutes for leadership.
  • Describe the follower in a high-LMX relationship.
  • Describe the follower in a low-LMX relationship.
  • Define an authority decision.
  • Define a consultative decision.
  • Define a group decision.
  • State the three rules of decision-making according to the Vroom-Jago model.
  • When do authority decisions work best?
  • When do consultative and group decisions work best?

Issues in Leadership Development

  • There is interest in "superleaders" or charismatic leaders with extraordinary impact.
  • Charisma can be developed with foresight and practice.

Transformational Leadership

  • Transactional leadership focuses on frameworks, style adjustments, task management, and reward allocation.
  • Notable absent from this approach is enthusiasm or emotion.
  • Transformational leadership is inspiring; leaders are personally excited about their work and arouse others to seek extraordinary performance accomplishments.
  • Transformational leaders raise aspirations and shift systems into new, high-performance patterns.
  • Followers are enthusiastic, work hard, remain loyal, and strive for superior performance.
  • Challenges for leaders include those with inspiration and compelling personality.
  • Qualities of a Transformational Leader:
    • Vision: Having ideas and a clear direction, communicating these to others, developing excitement about shared “dreams.”
    • Charisma: Using personal reference and emotion to arouse enthusiasm, faith, loyalty, pride, and trust.
    • Symbolism: Identifying “heroes” and holding ceremonies to celebrate excellence.
    • Empowerment: Helping others develop by removing obstacles, sharing responsibilities, and delegating challenging work.
    • Intellectual stimulation: Gaining involvement by creating awareness of problems and stirring imaginations.
    • Integrity: Being honest and credible, acting consistently out of personal conviction, and following through on commitments.

Emotional Intelligence and Leadership

  • Emotional intelligence (EI) is linked with leadership effectiveness, especially in senior management.
  • Daniel Goleman defines EI as “the ability to manage ourselves and our relationships effectively.”
  • EI skills can be learned.
    • Self-Awareness: to understand our own’ moods and emotions, and to understand their impact on our work and on others.
    • Self-Management: is the ability to think before we act and to control otherwise disruptive impulses.
    • Motivation: able to work hard with persistence and for reasons other than money and status.
    • Social awareness: have the ability to understand the emotions of others and to use this understanding to better relate to them.
    • Relationship Management: This is the ability to establish rapport with others and to build good relationships and networks.

Gender and Leadership

  • Men and women can be equally effective as leaders.
  • Research supports the gender similarities hypothesis; males and females are very similar psychologically.
  • HOWEVER: Research shows that men and women are sometimes perceived differently as leaders.
  • Women are expected to act as "take care" leaders (supportive and nurturing).
  • Men are expected to act as "take charge" leaders (task-oriented and directive).
  • Interactive Leadership Style: Women/Female managers are more participative in decision-making than men; strong on motivating others, fostering communication, listening, mentoring, and supporting high-quality work.
  • Interactive leaders are good communicators and typically act in a democratic and participative manner.
  • In today's organizations, successful leadership requires the capacity to lead through openness, positive relationships, support, and empowerment for both men and women.

Moral Leadership

  • Society expects organizations to be run with moral leadership, using ethical standards of being “good” and “correct.”
  • Requires high ethical standards, building/maintaining ethical cultures, helping/requiring others to behave ethically.
  • Begins with personal integrity (honesty, credibility, and consistency in putting values into action).
  • Managers in high-pressure environments need leadership strongly anchored in personal integrity.
  • Authentic leadership is activated by the positive psychological states of confidence, hope, optimism, and resilience which allows for clear reflection and actions in decision making.

Drucker's “Old-Fashioned” Leadership

  • Leadership effectiveness must have strong foundations.
  • Emphasizes defining and establishing a sense of mission and accountability.
  • Essentials:
    • Define and communicate a clear vision.
    • Accept leadership as a responsibility, not a rank.
    • Surround yourself with talented people.
    • Don't blame others when things go wrong.
    • Keep your integrity; earn the trust of others.
    • Don't be clever; be consistent.

Knowledge & Understanding 4

  • Define transactional leadership.
  • Define transformational leadership.
  • State the qualities of a transformational leader.
  • What is emotional intelligence?
  • State and describe the five elements of emotional intelligence.
  • What is the gender similarities hypothesis?
  • State the differences between men and women leaders.
  • Define interactive leadership.
  • What is moral leadership?
  • Define integrity.
  • What is authentic leadership?
  • State Drucker's leadership wisdom.

The Communication Process

  • Communication is an interpersonal process of sending and receiving symbols with messages attached to them.
  • Key questions: "Who?" (sender) "Says what?” (message) "In what way?” (channel) "To whom?” (receiver) "With what result?” (interpreted meaning).
  • A sender encodes an intended message into symbols (verbal and nonverbal).
  • The message is sent through a channel to a receiver, who decodes it.
  • Interpretation may or may not match the sender's intentions.
  • Feedback conveys the receiver's response back to the sender.

Effective Communication

  • Good oral and written skills are critical and the foundation of effective leadership.
  • Through communication, people exchange information, share understandsing and influence behaviors.
  • Effective communication: The sender's message is fully understood by the receiver.
  • Efficient communication: Occurs at minimum cost in terms of resources expended.
  • Poor skills can limit effectiveness, and efficiency is sometimes traded for effectiveness.
  • Barriers can hurt both effectiveness and effeciency.

Communication Barriers

  • Noise interferes with the effectiveness of the communication process.
  • Common sources of noise:
    • Poor choice of channels.
    • Poor written or oral expression.
    • Failures to recognize nonverbal signals.
    • Physical distractions.
    • Status effects.

Poor Choice of Channels

  • A communication channel is the pathway through which a message moves from sender to receiver.
  • Good managers choose the right channel or combination of channels.
  • Written channels are acceptable for simple messages, extensive dissemination, and formal policies.
  • Spoken channels work best for complex messages and immediate feedback; more personal and creates a supportive climate.

Poor Written or Oral Expression

  • Communication is effective only if the sender expresses a message clearly.
  • Words must be well chosen and properly used.
  • National Commission on Writing found that over one-third of employees were deficient in writing skills, costing employers over $3 billion annually for training.
  • Effective email usage and formal speaking skills must be developed and practiced in order to be effective.

Failure to Recognize Nonverbal Signals

  • Nonverbal communication takes place through hand movements, facial expressions, body posture, eye contact, and interpersonal space.
  • Can transmit 55% of message's impact and creates context for communications.
  • A problem in electronic communications is loss of gestures and nonverbal signals, lowering effectiveness.
  • Mixed message: A person's words communicate one thing, while their actions, body language, appearance, or interpersonal space communicate something else.
  • You can be communicating with or without speaking.

Physical Distractions

  • Interruptions like telephone calls, drop-in visitors, and lack of privacy interfere with communication.
  • Distractions can be avoided or minimized through proper planning, and intention should also be there.

Status Effects

  • Hierarchy creates another potential barrier to effective communications. (Corporate cover-up).
  • Fear of retribution for bringing bad news, an unwillingness to identify personal mistakes, or just a general desire to please can be a potential situation.
  • Filtering: The intentional distortion of information to make it appear favorable to the recipient.
  • Can lead to poor decisions due to biased and inaccurate information.

Knowledge & Understanding 5

  • What is communication?
  • Define effective communication.
  • Define efficient communication.
  • Provide examples of effective communication methods.
  • Provide examples of efficient communication methods.
  • Why is it difficult to be effective and efficient simultaneously?
  • What is a communication channel?
  • List the common communication barriers.
  • Define nonverbal communication.
  • Define mixed message.
  • How might someone react physically to feeling under attack?
  • Define filtering.

Improving Communication

  • Things to reduce noise, overcome barriers, and improve communication:
    • Active listening.
    • Constructive feedback.
    • Use of space.
    • Choosing channels.
    • Understanding electronic communication.
    • Interactive management.
    • Cross-cultural sensitivity.

Active Listening

  • Active listening helps the source of a message say what he or she really means.
  • Being sincere and trying to find the full meaning of what is being said, while controlling emotions and withholding premature evaluations.
  • Rules of Active Listening:
    1. Listen for message content: Try to hear exactly what content is being conveyed in the message.
    2. Listen for feelings: Try to identify how the source feels about the content in the message.
    3. Respond to feelings: Let the source know that her or his feelings are being recognized.
    4. Note all cues: Be sensitive to nonverbal and verbal messages; be alert for mixed messages.
    5. Paraphrase and restate: State back to the source what you think you are hearing.

Constructive Feedback

  • Feedback is the process of telling someone else how you feel about something that person did or said or about the situation in general.
  • Feedback may be:
    • Evaluative.
    • Interpretive.
    • Descriptive.
  • Ensure that feedback is useful and constructive, rather than harmful.
  • A manager should also make sure that feedback is always understandable, acceptable, and plausible.
  • Guidelines for giving feedback:
    • Give feedback directly and with real feeling, based on trust between you and the receiver.
    • Make sure that feedback is specific rather than general; use good, clear, and preferably recent examples to make your points.
    • Give feedback at a time when the receiver seems most willing or able to accept it.
    • Make sure the feedback is valid; limit it to things the receiver can be expected to do something about.
    • Give feedback in small doses; never give more than the receiver can handle at any particular time.

Space Design

  • Proxemics involves the use of space in communication of messages both consciously and unconsciously.
  • The distance between people conveys varying intentions in terms of intimacy, openness, and status.
  • Physical layout of an office or room is a form of nonverbal communication.

Channel Selection

  • Channel richness is the capacity to carry information in an effective manner.
  • Face-to-face communication is high in richness, enabling two-way interaction and real-time feedback.
  • Written reports, memos, and text messages are low in richness due to impersonal, one-way interaction with limited feedback.
  • Managers need to understand the limits of channels and choose wisely.

Electronic Communication

  • The era of communication includes use of email, voice mail, text messages, instant messaging, teleconferencing, online discussions, video conferencing, virtual meetings, intranets, and web portals.
  • Need to be aware of how and when to use these mediums.
  • Also must consider your purpose and privacy.
  • Electronic messages fly with equal speed and intensity; needs to factual based to be functional.
  • Grapevine can be helpful or lead to rumors and mistrust.

Interactive Management

  • Interactive management approaches use a variety of means to keep communication channels open between levels.
  • Management by wandering around (MBWA)—dealing directly with subordinates by regularly spending time walking around and talking with them.
  • Communicating face to face to find out what is going on.
  • Electronic communication also offers means to use electronic office hours, discussions, or consults.

Cross-Cultural Communication

  • Communicating when the sender and receiver are from different cultures presents a significant challenge.
  • Cultural differences exist in nonverbal communication.
  • The best cross-cultural communicators take the time to learn about other cultures and customs.
  • Ethnocentrism: The tendency to consider one's culture superior to any and all others, which can impact communications negatively.

Knowledge & Understanding 6

  • What is active listening?
  • State the five rules of active listening.
  • Define feedback.
  • State three of the guidelines for giving feedback.
  • Define proxemics.
  • Define channel richness.
  • State methods of communication that are high in channel richness.
  • State methods of communication that are low in channel richness.
  • What are the advantages and disadvantages of methods of communication that are low in channel richness?
  • Why is "Thanx 4 the IView," not appropriate communication in an email to thank a prospective employer for an interview?
  • State five tips for managing your email.
  • What is the electronic grapevine?
  • What is MBWA? Why is it important?
  • State four forms of electronic interactive management.
  • Define ethnocentrism.