MGMT 4170: Organizational Behavior
Week
TOPICS TO BE COVERED
1. Communication
2. Leadership
READING ASSIGNMENT
Read Chapters 10 and 11
I. COMMUNICATION
Many experts today contend that effective management is synonymous
with effective communication. These notes will cover the following topics:
definition of communication, directions of organizational communications,
informal versus formal communication, nonverbal behavior, and common
barriers to communications.
Communication Defined
In my book,"Organizational Communication: A Managerial Perspective,"
I define communication as "the transfer of meaning from sender to
receiver." Here is a simple model of how communication occurs:
"Noise"
Sender encodes a message 
Message is transferred Message
is received Receiver decodes the message "Understanding"
occurs Feedback
"Noise"
Note from the model that the message is "encoded" by the sender and
"decoded" by the receiver, thus much room for misinterpretation exists.
We encode/decode or put into words according to our own past experience
and assumptions. Thus, if I tell you to get this report to me as quickly
as possible, I may mean I need it now, and you may think that next week is
OK. "Understanding" is put into quotes because what the sender wants you
to understand may be far different than what you actually get out of the
message. Also, all communication occurs in the midst of "noise" which is
defined here as anything which interferes with the communication process,
thus someone walking by your office door and diverting your attention
from the conversation you are having is "noise."
Directions of Organizational Communication
Organizational communication can take place in one of four
directions: upward, downward, horizontal, or diagonal.
Downward communication is the most traditional. In scientific
management days, it was the only sanctioned communication in most
organizations. Supervisors gave directions to employees and there was
no need for upward response. Downward communication channels are still
the way employees find out about policies and procedures with which they
are not directly involved.
Upward communication became popular with the advent of human
relations. This channel is used to find out what employees are thinking
and to give them routine ways to have input. Meetings and suggestion
boxes are two forms of upward communication channels.
Horizontal or lateral communications take place between people at
the same level in the organization. A work group engages in horizontal
communications as do department heads when they have their weekly meeting.
Diagonal communications take place between people at different levels
in the organization and also in different departments. Perhaps an
employee in one department calls the H.R. director to ask about a
transfer--an example of diagonal communication.
Informal vs Formal Communication
Every organization has a formal and informal system. The formal
system is established by the organization and illustrated by the
organization chart. Formal communications follow established paths and
are largely written and slow.
Informal communications are often referred to as the grapevine.
The organizational grapevine has gotten a bad rap over the years. It is
not as much a rumor mill as you may have heard. Studies show that 75% or
more of the information communicated in the grapevine is factual! The
informal communication system is controlled by employees, but effective
managers are tuned in so that they know what people are talking about.
Unlike the formal system, the informal system is largely verbal, not
written, and information travels fast. Informal communications are
particularly active when employees are anxious about something or feel
that management is not giving them enough information.
Nonverbal Behavior
Nonverbal behavior is extremely important in communication. Often
what we say is contradicted by how we look or our tone of voice. In those
cases, the nonverbal behavior is believed, not the verbal!! Nonverbal
behavior can be broken into three categories: kinesics, proxemics, and
paralanguage.
Kinesics
Kinesics refers to body language and facial expression and is the
type of nonverbal behavior we usually think about. Be warned that
gestures and other types of body language are not universal but vary from
culture to culture. In the U. S., for example, parents teach their
children to look them in the eye when talking. If our kids won't look us
in the eye, we feel they are lying to us. In some Latin American
cultures, however, children are taught that looking an adult in the eye is
disrespectful. When these kids refuse to look their U.S. teacher in the
eye when asked a direct question, what does the teacher wrongly conclude?
Proxemics
Proxemics is the study of the use of space. It is based on
territoriality; man is a territorial animal just like all the other
animals. We value our space and dare anyone to sit on our car or even
walk across our lawn without our permission. Space can be broken down into
three types: fixed feature space, semi-fixed feature space, and personal
space.
Fixed feature space refers to the immovable area we are given, such
as a classroom. The walls and floor and ceiling clearly delineate where
our space starts and stops. Semi-fixed feature space refers to the
moveable objects within that space--how will we arrange the tables and
chairs, for example. This can be extended to how you arrange your office.
The patterns of furniture have an impact on the type of communication that
will take place. Think of a classroom setting where the chairs are all
arranged in a circle--isn't there more individual communication than when
the classroom is arranged in typical lecture fashion?
Personal space is even more interesting. In the greater U. S.
culture, we carry about a 3 foot bubble of "personal space" around us. We
are not comfortable with strangers getting closer than that to us. Again,
this is a cultural phenomenon. In some middle Eastern countries, for
example, business is conducted in much closer proximity than is normal
here in the U.S. The U.S. business person will back off as the Middle
Easterner draws closer, the latter will be offended or simply step forward
to reestablish that closer proximity.
Paralanguage
Paralanguage refers to "how you say what you say." It considers tone
of voice, loudness or softness, rate of speech, insertion of little filler
words like "uh", or "OK". Paralanguage is vocal, i.e., it can be heard,
but it is not verbal, i.e., there is no word content to it.
Common Barriers to Communications
Several common barriers to communications are filtering, semantics,
selective perception, and listening.
Filtering is what we do when we simply have too much information. We
sift and sort and sometimes we don't do a good job at separating out the
really important communications from those that are far less important.
Semantics covers a whole area of communication barriers based on
language. These barriers can be a simple case of unshared language such
as computer experts trying to explain a problem to someone who does not
understand computer terms. Another instance of a semantical problem is
the phenomenon which occurs when messages are repeated over and over--
each time some distortion sets in and by the time the message is repeated
for four or five times, little of the original message remains.
The confusion of inference for fact is another semantical problem.
We often pass along opinion as if it were fact. If I tell you, "It's 95
degrees today," and I've gotten this information from the weather station,
it's probably fact. But, if I tell you, "It's hot today," that's my
opinion and it's inference. What is hot to me may not be hot to you!
E-mail gibson@polaris.nova.edu
Listening is the communication skill many of us do least well. Of
the four communication areas: speaking, writing, listening, and reading,
we get the least training in listening. Studies dating back to the 1950s
and 1960s by Ralph Nichols showed that Americans listen with only about a
25% efficiency rate--this means that we remember only about 25% of what we
listened to 24 hours ago. Listening is very different than hearing. While
the latter is merely a physical phenomenon, listening takes concentration
and hard work. Listening is very rewarding, however, and is quite
motivational when used with employees. Don't you feel valued when someone
really listens to you?
One of the primary barriers to effective listening is the difference
between speech speed and thought speed. We can think 3 or 4 times faster
than we can speak, so when we are listening to someone speak, we still
have a lot of capacity to daydream or think about other things at the same
time. A good way to avoid this loss of concentration is to keep our extra
thoughts on the same general subject. Try summarizing in your mind what
the speaker is saying; think ahead to what the speaker might say next--if
you are right, you have reinforced the subject; if you are not right, the
contrast will still reinforce the subject!
II. LEADERSHIP
Leadership is a hot topic today. Over the years, there have been
several schools of thought about leadership. This section of the week's
notes will define leadership, and then describe the three main schools of
thought about leadership: trait, behavioral, and situational. This
section will end with some notes on current perspectives on leadership.
Leadership Defined
Robbins defines leadership as "the ability to influence a group
toward the achievement of goals." I usually define leadership as,
"getting things done through other people," or "accomplishing
organizational goals through other people."
Leadership is as much an art as it is a science. People may be able
to teach you effective leadership techniques, but unless you master the
"art" of managing people, the art of influence, the essence of leadership
will escape you.
Did you know that there was a time when scholars thought that a
leader was "born, not made." If that were the dominant theory today,
there would be little reason to study leadership. The old belief in "born
leaders", however, is typical of the trait school of leadership. Before
looking at trait theory, however, let me point out the model by Tannenbaum
and Schmidt that looks at leadership according to how much authority and
influence leaders have as opposed to subordinates. On one end of the
Tannenbaum and Schmidt continuum, leaders make all the decisions and
announce them to their subordinates; employees have no authority. On the
opposite end of the continuum, leaders delegate almost all decision
-making authority to employees. In between, there are many combinations
of leader-subordinate authority distribution.
You can relate this model back to the motivational model of Theory X
and Theory Y. Theory X was very authoritarian, you will recall, and said
the supervisor should have almost complete authority; Theory Y, on the
other hand, espoused much delegation of authority to employees.
Throughout the leadership theories that follow, you will find frequent
reference to this dilemma, i.e., how much authority should be given to
employees?
Trait Theories of Leadership
Trait theories of leadership attempt to define what characteristics
make for great leaders. Countless studies have tried to isolate these
characteristics and only one thing has become clear--there is no
consistent answer to this question. In fact, many studies find different
answers. One of the few frequent conclusions is that leaders have
above-average intelligence. Gradually, trait leadership theories have
fallen from favor. Starting in the 1940s, more interest was focused on
how leaders behave.
Behavioral Theories of Leadership
Be sure to read the material in your text carefully about the
Michigan State Studies and the Ohio State Studies. Both took place in the
late 1940s and are of great historical significance in the study of
leadership. The Michigan State Studies separated leadership behavior into
employee-centered or production-centered. They found that production-
centered leadership led to increased productivity, increased absenteeism,
increased turnover, and decreased job satisfaction. While the
productivity increase was good, the negative absenteeism, turnover and job
satisfaction findings could be used to predict an eventual downturn in
productivity.
Employee-centered leadership fared better. Here, job satisfaction
and productivity went up and turnover and absenteeism went down--a much
better combination. The conclusions of the study naturally favored
employee-centered leadership.
The Ohio State Studies also looked at the same factors but called
them "initiating structure" (concern for task) and "consideration"
(concern for people). They saw leadership, however, as a two-dimensional
grid, not a one-dimensional continuum. Therefore, you could score high
on both initiating structure and consideration--the preferred leadership
style according to this theory.
The best-known behavioral leadership theory is Robert Blake and
Jane Mouton's Managerial Grid, depicted in your text book. Notice again
the two-dimensional nature of this model. Similar to the Ohio State
model, the Grid measures leaders based on their "concern for people" and
their "concern for task." You can score from 1-9 on both dimensions with l
being low and 9 being high. While there are 81 possible positions on the
Grid, there are 5 main styles as follows:
1,1: Impoverished management or "retired on the job"
The 1,1 manager has low concern for production and low
concern for task. This is a laissez-faire person who
doesn't get involved much. Usually, this is a poor
leadership style.
9,1: Authority-obedience. This is an autocratic leadership style.
This leader has a high concern for task but very low concern
for people.
1,9: Country club manager. This leader has a high concern for
people and a low concern for task. This person believes
that if interpersonal relations are maximized then the
task will automatically be taken care of.
5,5: Organization man manager or "the compromiser." This
style has a moderate concern for task and a
moderate concern for people.
9,9: Team manager or "integrative manager". This person has a
high concern for both people and task. It is the ideal
style according to the Grid.
According to Grid theory, everyone has a primary style and a backup
style; thus, a 9,9 manager under pressure may revert to l,9 management or
even l,9 management. The problem with the 5,5 manager is when they switch
a bit in any direction, they are into a very different style--one day l,9,
one day 9,l. People don't know what to expect from them and spend a lot
of time trying to figure them out. The Managerial Grid people have
developed a complete training program that trains managers to become 9,9
leaders. While this training has been very popular in American
organizations, there are many who now think that even the 9,9 style is not
appropriate for every occasion. These people subscribe instead to
situational theories of leadership.
To learn more about the Managerial Grid, check out their web page.
The Managerial Grid
Situational Leadership Theories
Situational leadership theories are referred to as contingency
theories in your text. Regardless of the term, situational theories teach
that there is no one best way of leadership--that it all depends on the
situation. (Remember Mary Parker Follett?) Two of the most influential
situational theories are those by Fred Fiedler (Contingency Leadership)
and Ken Blanchard and Paul Hersey (Situational Leadership). Other
situational theories include Leader-Member Exchange Theory and Path-Goal
Theory. The Leader-Participation Model described in your book is just too
complex for practical application.
Contingency Leadership Theory
Contingency Leadership Theory was the original situational leadership
theory and belongs to a man by the name of Fred Fiedler. Study the model
in your book and notice that Fiedler defines the "situation" with three
factors:
Leader-member Relations: How are the leader and followers
getting along?
Position Power: How strong is the leader's power?
Task Structure: Is the task stable and structured or dynamic
and changing?
Depending on the situational favorableness, Fiedler teaches that you
need either a task oriented leader (what he calls low LPC) or people
oriented (high LPC). The LPC category comes from your score on his Least
Preferred Coworker Questionnaire (LPCQ) which I, for one, find highly
marginal to predict anything. Nevertheless, I think you can categorize
people into either task-oriented or people-oriented.
The theory concludes that if the situation is highly favorable or
highly unfavorable you need a task person to lead. Likewise if the
situation is moderately favorable or unfavorable, you need a people
person. This seems to make sense. If things are very bad, you need a
take-charge, goal-oriented leader before you go out of business. If
things are very good, interpersonal relations are already smooth, and a
goal-setter can take you to the next place. I think, however, that most
situations are somewhat in the middle and might demand someone with human
relations skills.
The secret according to Fiedler is to match the person to the
situation. Analyze the situation and hire or promote the right type of
leader. Nor does he think that the average leader can change from one
style to another. Leadership style, according to Fielder, is very much a
matter of personality and hard to change. I agree. By the way, research
to validate Fiedler's model is generally positive.
Situational Theory
Situational Theory, according to Hersey and Blanchard, however, does
not agree. These theorists are of the mind that leaders can and do change
styles depending on with whom they are dealing. Situational Leadership is
the most popular leadership theory of the day. It is very friendly, easy
to understand, and many corporate staffs have received training in
Situational Leadership. Study the model carefully in the book and note
that the "situation" in this theory is defined by the "readiness" of the
followers. There are four readiness levels:
R1: Unable and unwilling
R2: Unable and willing
R3: Able and unwilling
R4: Able and willing
The four leadership styles that match these readiness levels are as
follows:
R1: Requires "Telling" high task-low relationship
R2: Requires "Selling" high task-high relationship
R3: Requires "Participating" low task-high relationship
R4: Requires "Delegating" low task-low relationship
Despite the popularity of the Hersey-Blanchard model, there is little
confirming research.
Leader-Member Exchange Theory
LMX Theory is based on the assumption that leaders have in-groups and
out-groups of employees and that the in-group is much more influential.
These people get special attention and are generally far more satisfied
with their jobs than those in the out-groups. Being part of the in-group
is often associated with having like characteristics to the leader and to
personality. Research on LMX theory is limited but generally supportive.
Path-Goal Theory
According to Robert House's path-goal theory, the leader's job is to
clear the path so that subordinates can attain both their personal and
organizational goals. Notice from House's model in the book that there
are two types of situational factors: those that are under the control of
the subordinates and those which are environmental factors. Depending on
the combination of these factors, House believes that there are four
leadership styles:
"Directive": task-oriented leadership
"Supportive": relationship-oriented leadership
"Participative": consults with subordinates before making
decisions
"Achievement-oriented": sets challenging goals and expects
high performance.
House seems to agree with Hersey and Blanchard that leaders can
change their styles as the need arises. What do you think? Early
research results are quite supportive of House's theory.
Recent Approaches to Leadership
Three recent approaches to leadership are attribution theory,
charismatic leadership theory, and transactional versus transformational
leadership.
Attribution Theory of Leadership
Attribution theory is based on cause and effect leadership. People
want to attribute cause and effect relationships to things they observe.
Attribution theory says that leadership is simply the perception that
people make about other people who they see as possessing intelligence,
outgoing personalities, strong verbal skills, aggressiveness, etc.
Charismatic Leadership Theory
When I ask students to think of people that have or had charisma, I
often get answers like Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Elvis, and
Franklin D. Roosevelt. Charisma is hard to define but everyone knows it
when they see it. A charismatic leader leads by example. Such a person
represents a vision for change--a change for a better future. They are
successful in rallying employees around this vision and they make
exceptional efforts through personal example to achieve the vision.
Charismatic leaders are exciting and energizing to their staffs.
Transactional vs. Transformational Leadership
Transactional leaders are those who guide or motivate followers
toward accomplishing organizational goals. Transactional leaders make
roles and requirements clear for employees. They establish rewards for
good performance and recognize accomplishments. They only get involved
when there is a problem (management by exception).
Transformational leaders have charisma and provide inspiration to
their employees. They tend to have individual relationships with
employees and provide intellectual stimulation. They act as advisors and
coaches and instill others with a sense of mission. Herb Kelleher, CEO of
Southwest Airlines, is widely believed to be a transformational leader.
To see what well-know author Warren Bennis has to say about
leadership, click on Bennis
Contemporary Issues in Leadership
Robbins (1996) ends his chapter on leadership by discussing several
contemporary issues about leadership. These include the influence of
gender on leadership style, the modern concept of empowerment,
followership, national culture, and biology.
There have been some interesting studies on the effects of gender on
leadership style. Successful male and female leaders tend to have many
similarities; yet,women as a group tend to be more democratic in their
style than men. The modern concept of managerial coaching may thus be
more natural for women than men.
Empowerment as a modern management technique has serious consequences
for how leaders behave. Far less authority is now centralized with the
leader. Leaders have become more like facilitators than dictators.
Great followers may make leaders look great. While there are many,
many leadership studies, there are few followership studies. Everyone, of
course, wants cooperative, talented, hard-working followers!
National culture is another variable in leadership style. Some
cultures rely more on authoritarian styles. This fits their culture.
For example, some LatiAmerican countries use far more directing leadership
while leaders in other countries such as Norway and Sweden are much more
participative in their approach.
The search for a biological basis of leadership has not yielded
significant results. Yet, some researchers have found that certain
hormones and brain chemistry equip leaders to deal with stress and perhaps
be more effective. This is a relatively new search about which we may
hear more.
