exam for group behaviour

Leadership

  • Leadership is dynamic - it involves the leader, followers and the situation 

  • Interpersonal, transactional, reciprocal/cooperatives process between one person and a group

  • No leadership without followership

  • Criterion for an effective leader = goal achievement 

  • Leadership is long term 


Leadership vs Management 

Leadership

Management

Affects people 

How work needs to be done

Innovative

Originates Develops/Establishes direction 

Long range perspective 

Affects work

What work needs to be done

Administrative/Organize

Focus on systems and structures

Planning/short range view

Eye on bottom line 



The Concept of Leadership 

  • Leadership Emergence

    • From within the group, gradually achieves leadership position - extraverted, assertive

  • Leadership effectiveness 

    • Which traits and behaviours of the leader led to the outcome (Task), affective/relational (social) valued by the work group or organisation (both task and social)

  • Theories of Leadership

    • The DNA of leadership: high energy, aggressiveness, dominance, self reliance

Personality Qualities of Leaders

  • Extraversion, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness

  • General intelligence, practical intelligence and emotional intelligence

  • Expreitise


What does a Leader Do?

  • Leader Behaviour Description Questionnaire (LBDQ)

    • Looks at tasks and relationships

  • A leader analyzes, coordinates, decides, monitors, negotiates, plans, presents, innovates, coaches,, cheerleader, etc..

  • Task Leadership

    • Promotes task completion, regulating behaviour, monitoring communication and reducing goal ambiguity 

  • Relationship Leadership

    • Maintiing and enhancing positive interpersonal relations in the group. Friendliness, mutual trust, openness, recognizing performance 


WHo Will Lead?

  • Bias against women and minorities

  • Implicit leadership theories

    • Eaglys social role theory: ILTs are not consistent with intuitive expectations about men and women “think leader, think male”

    • Hogg - SOcial Identity Theory: protoype/sterotpes. What is needed for the group, who are we as a group 


Leadership Effectiveness

  • Contingency Approaches (Fiedler's Contingency Model

    • Determined by interaction between leadership style and characteristics of the situation 

    • Either classified as person or task oriented

    • Situation can be favourable, unfavourable or moderate 

    • Strengths

      • Looks at situations not just traits and behaviours 

      • Research support

      • Don't have to be effective in all situations 

    • Limitations

      • Does not fully explain why some styles are more effective

      • LPC scale - doesnt examine direct leadership style

      • Too many situational variables

  • Leadership Grid - Blake and Mouton

    • X and Y axis from 1 (low) to 9 (high)

  • Situational Theory -  Hersey & Blanchard / Blake & Mouton

    • Extension of leadership grid 

    • Telling/Directing, Selling/coaching, participating/supporting and delegating 


Situational Leadership

  • Effective leadership requires selecting a style that reflect the groups maturity 

    • M1/S1: unwilling/neither confident or competent. → telling/directing 

    • M2/S2: unable but willing/motivated but lack skills → selling/coaching

    • M3/S3: able but willing → participating/supporting

    • M4/S4: able and willing intrinsically motivated → delegating 


Leader-Member Exchange Theory

  • Based on exchanges between the leader and follower

    • Two groups

      • In-group

        • Viewed by the leader as competent, trustworthy and highly motivated

        • Leadership used 

      • Out-group 

        • Viewed as incompetent, untrustworthy and poorly motivated 

        • Supervision used

    • Series of exchanges/interactions

      • Phase 1: Role-taking

      • Phase 2: Role Making

      • Phase 3: Role routinization 

Transformational Leadership 

  • Elements of transformational leadership

    • Creating a strategic vision

    • Communicating the vision

    • Building commitment

    • Modeling the vision

  • 4 general strategies

    • Inspirational motivation: ability to motivate others through emotions - vision for the future, optimism and hope 

    • Idealised influence: eliciting respect from others, conviction, commitment, purpose

    • Intellectual stimulation: new ways of thinking and doing things - developing intellectual needs

    • Individualized consideration: consider followers needs, abilities and aspirations



Power


  • Social power: the capacity/ability to influence others 

    • Direct or indirect power tactics 

    • Extreme authority ca lead to disastrous outcomes (e.g cults)

  • Constructive vs Destructive Power 

    • Power is the ability or authority to influence and motivate others - leaders may ot be able to lead w/o it .

    • Power is used to enhance group effectiveness than to reduce it 

    • Power is used to benefit the followers and the group

    • The use of power is agreed to by others rather than occurring without their agreement

  • Positive Effects of power

    • proactive , engaged

    • Positive, strong motions

    • Goal focused

    • Positive emotions

    • Enhances cognitive functioning

    • Insulates from influence


Milgram's “Obedience to Authority” Study

  • Milgram wanted to see if there was a certain personality than would be more willing to comply with orders from an authority 

  • Confederates and Participants

  • RESULTS

    • No one withdrew before 300 volts (at this point the first five refused) 

    • 26/40 went all the way (65% obeys all the way until the end)

  • Milgram altered the study adding 2 confederates as “participants”

    • If 2 others gave shocks, 92% obedience 

    • If 2 others reduces, 90% disobedience 

  • Replication Studies (Jerry M. Burger)

    • Noticed that if you went up to 150v, you would go the entire rest of the way 

    • Focused on the power of the situation


Personality Implications 

  • People differed in age personality and life experiences 

  • Milgram study - people who adhered to conventional values, paired with an uncritical acceptance of authority were mre likely to give more intense shocks 

  • Burger Study - people who disobey had higher levels of empathy and moral maturity


Stanford Prison Experiment 

  • Focused more on the situation rather than the individual 

  • Participants randomly assigned to prisoner or inmate 


Power Processes in Groups

  • Superior-subordinate relations - acknowledgement of hierarchical positioning 

    • Interpersonal complementarity hypothesis: individuals behave in ways that evoke complimentary behaviour in others 

    • Agentic State: higher responsibility to the authority and lowered responsibility to the actions 

  • Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE): tendency to overestimate the causal influence of dispositional factors that underemphasize the causal influence of situational factors 

    • Dispositional: Inside the individual (The Bad Apple)

    • Situational External (The Bad Barrel)

    • Systemic: Broad influences (e.g Political, economical, legal power [The Bad Barrel Makers])


Sources of Powers in Groups

  • French and Ravens Power Bases Theory

    • Reward: rewards given

    • Coercive: punishment for non-compliance

    • Legitimate: sanctioned right to power

    • Referent: Charismatic, attraction for power holder, respect given

    • Expert: follower believes they have special qualities 

    • Informational: access or control to information or withholding of information 

  • Personal Power

    • Referent, Expert 

  • Positional Power

    • Informational, Legitimate, Coercive, Reward


Power Techniques 

  • Direct v Indirect tactics

  • Rational (logic) vs Non Rational (emotional)

  • Unilateral (enacted without cooperation) vs Bilateral (more interactive)

  • Behavioural Commitment 

    • Foot in the Door Technique 

      • Small request then bigger request

    • Foot in the Face Technique

      • Big request followed by small ones

  • Using Power to Influence Others

    • Kelman's Three Stage Model of Conversion

      • Compliance

        • Comply w demands but they do not agree

      • Identification

        • Group members are motivated to please authority 

      • Internalization

        • Group members follow because orders are congruent with personal beliefs 

  • Effects of Power

    • Approach Inhibition model of power 

      • Power leads to approach behaviour 

      • Powerlessness leads to inhibition 

    • Corrupting effects of power 

      • Power motivation: the need for power - more vigorously than others 

      • Social dominance orientation - a dispositional tendency to accept and even prefer circumstances that sustain social inequalities - greater male preference 

    • Corrupting Influence of Power 

      • Mandate Phenomenon: a tendency for leaders to overstep the bounds of their authority when they feel they have support from the group

      • Michels iron law of oligarchy; any group where power is concentrated with few power holders doing whatever possible to protect and enhance their power. 

  • Resistance to Influence

    • Revolutionary coalitations: a subgroup formed within larger groups that seeks to disrupt the groups authority structure

    • Reactance: a reaction that occurs when individuals feel their freedom to make choices has been threatened

    • Conflict and Rebellion: against authority (the ripple effect)

  • The Dark Side of Personality 

    • Machiavellianism

    • Narcissism

    • Psychopathy

      • NOT a disorder but a subcategory of Antisocial Personality Disorder

      • PCLR

        • 20 items, form two broad scales = affective/interpersonal features and antisocial/social deviance features

  • Destructive Leadership 




Group Cohesion and Development 

  • Concept of equifinality = final state can be reached from different paths 

  • Two primary forms of cohesion: task and social 

    • Social cohesion: attraction of members to one another and the group as a whole

    • Task Cohesion: commitment among its members to achieve a goal and the capacity to perform successfully as a unit 

  • Definitions of Group COhesion

    • Individuals attraction to the group or team morale 

      • This is not strong enough – too one dimensional

    • “A dynamic process that is reflected in the tendency of a group to stick together and remain united in the pursuit of its instrumental objectives and/or for the satisfaction of member needs.” (Carron, Brawley and Widmeyer)

    • Cohesion = Unity (Group Unity and Sense of Belonging)

    • Cohesion = Teamwork (Collective Efficacy and Group Morale, Esprit de Corps)


Studying Group Cohesion

  • Carrons general antecedents of cohesion 

    • Environment

    • Personal 

    • Leadership

    • Team factors (structural cohesion)

  • Group Environment Questionnaire

    • Dimensions of perceived team cohesion 

      • Individual Attraction to Group Task

        • Feelings about involvement with group task

      • Individual Attraction to Group Social 

        • Regard for acceptance and interaction in group

      • Group Integration Task

        • Feelings about achieving group task

      • Group Integration Social

        • Feelings about group as social unit

  • Cohesion and Performance 

    • Attraction, Unity and Team Focus/Teamwork impact cohesion which impacts performance

    • Cohesion-performance relationship is strongest when members are committed to group tasks. 


Group Cohesion Overtime

  • Group development is a dynamic process, develops overtime

  • Tuckman's five-stage model of group development 

    • Forming

      • Orientation stage, people monitor their behaviour 

    • Storming

      • Tension over goals, procedures, personality differences, authority

    • Norming

      • Group becomes more unified, mutual trust and support, increase in communication

    • Performing

      • Difficult to get to this stage, many groups get side tracked in previous stages

    • Adjourning 

      • Either planned or spontaneous

  • Hazing




Group Decision Making 

  • Groups make better decisions together 

    • More information

    • More work being done

    • Discussions, processing of information

  • Groups have standards for decision making 

    • More people more support 

  • Types of Decisions

    • Intellective tasks (right or wrong)

    • Judgemental Tasks (no correct answer - jury's verdict)


Anatomy of Group Decision 

  • Functional Theory of Group Decision making 

  • Phases of decision making 

    • Orientation

      • Defining the problem

      • Planning the process

    • Discussion

      • Collective information processing model

      • Gathering and Remembering information

      • Exchanging Information 

      • Dialogue and Debate (processinging information)

      • Collective Memory: groups combined memory

      • Cross-Cueing: recall of memories improved through groups statements 

      • Transactive Memory: information is distributed to various members of the group

    • Decision

      • Social Decision Schemes

        • Delegation: individual or subgroup makes decision

        • Statistical Aggregation/Averaging: individual decisions are averaged

        • Voting/Plurality Decisions: publicly or secret ballot - 50% rule primarily used

        • Consensus/Unanimous Decision: discussion to unanimity

        • Random Choice/Decisions: left to chance 

      • Individual vs Group Decision Making 

        • Vroom's Normative Model of Decision Making 

          • Autocratic I & II (Decide)

            • Leader solves the problem on his/her own with information available at the time or obtains information from the group then decides

          • Consultative I & II (Consult)

            • Leader either shares problem with selected group members or the entire group

    • Implementation

    • Post-Mortem Discussion