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A manager is someone in the organisation who gets things done through the efforts of other people./Managers engage in the four basic functions of POLC. These functions are applied to human, financial, physical, and information resources with the ultimate purpose of efficiently and effectively attaining organisational goals./A leader is an individual who is able to exert influence over other people and inspires, motivates and directs their activities to achieve group or organisational goals.//“Not all leaders are managers, nor are all managers leaders.”/“Managers do things right. Leaders do the right things.” (Warren Bennis)//Leaders:Inspire others to share their vision.;Motivate others to act on that vision.;Encourage others./Managers:POLC things and/or people.//Leadership and decision making:Individuals make decisions – choosing from two or more alternatives./Usually, decision making occurs as a reaction to a problem./One person’s problem is another’s satisfactory situation./How does bounded rationality work? Once a problem is identified, the search for criteria and options begins. Then intuitive decision making occurs//Power is everywhere in organisations and people are concerned with it – those who have it want to keep it, and those who don’t have it often want to get it./Power often refers to the potential of one person to cause another to act in accordance with their wishes, whereas influence refers to the actual behaviour of that person./The essence of power may be control over the behaviour of others or the ability to influence others./Leaders use power as a means of attaining group goals.//Formal power:Legitimate power:The authority that a manager has by virtue of his or her position in an organisation’s hierarchy. Example: the power to hire or fire employees./Reward power:The ability of a manager to give or withhold tangible (pay raises, bonuses, and choice job assignments) and intangible rewards (verbal praise, a pat on back, preferred work shifts, or respect). Effective managers use reward power to show appreciation for employees’ good work and effort./Coercive power:The ability of a manager to punish others. Overuse of coercive power can even result in dangerous working conditions. Examples include verbal reprimand, demotions, reductions in pay or hours, or actual dismissal.Informal power:Expert power:Based on know-how, skills, and expertise that the leader possesses. Tends to be used in a guiding or coaching manner./Referent power:Comes from subordinates’ and coworkers’ respect , admiration, and loyalty. It is more informal than the other kinds of power. Possessed by leaders who are likable and whom subordinates wish to use as a role model. Because referent power is a function of the personal characteristics of a leader, managers can increase their referent power by taking time to get to know their subordinates and showing interest in them. E.g.: commercials, celebrities.
Power tactics refer to the ways in which people use their power/Some examples of power tactics used in organisations are:– Friendliness,Persuasion;Coalitions;Control of information;Use of rewards and punishments;Creating obligations;Bringing in outside experts to provide support for your ideas//Empowerment:a process where managers delegate power to employees who use it to make decisions affecting both themselves and their work./It might seem to be the opposite of effective leadership because managers are allowing subordinates to take a more active role in leading themselves. However, it can contribute to effective leadership for several reasons:It increases a manager’s ability to get things done, as the manager has the support and help of subordinates who may have special knowledge of work tasks./It often increases workers’ involvement, motivation, and commitment and ensures that they are working toward organisational goals./It gives managers more time to concentrate on their pressing concerns, because they spend less time on day-to-day supervisory responsibilities.//Organisational politics refer to activities that are not required as part of one’s formal role in the organization, but that influence the distribution of advantages/rewards within the organization./Common political tactics in organisations include:Using and controlling information;Controlling lines of communication § Spreading rumours;Leaking confidential information;Networking;Controlling the agenda;Use of favours and benefits;Image building;Building coalitions;Controlling decision parameters//A workplace perceived as highly political may threaten employees:Decreased job satisfaction, reduced performance, increased turnover, increased anxiety and stress//Sources of feedback:Nonsocial sources:feedback not conveyed directly by people (e.g., electronic displays, survey results);Use nonsocial feedback for goal progress feedback./Social sources:feedback directly from others (e.g., manager, customers, multisource).;Multisource feedback is potentially accurate and fair, but it is expensive, time-consuming, ambiguous, inflated, etc.;Use social sources for conveying positive feedback as it enhances employee’s self-esteem.//Characteristics of feedback/Specific: Information refers to identifiable behaviours and (when possible) measurable outcomes, for example, “Sales increased by 5% this month.”/Relevant: Relates to the behaviour and outcomes within employee’s control./Timely: Available as soon as possible so employees see a clear association between their actions and consequences./Credible: Information source should have complete and accurate information, recall information reliably, be unbiased in communicating and applying the feedback, describe the feedback in a supportive and empathetic manner./Sufficiently frequent: Information is provided more often for those learning new tasks, and according to the job cycle’s frequency.
Team formation:Researchers have identified five stages of team development that many teams seem to pass through:/Forming: “Ice-breaking” stage. People join the group and then define the team’s purpose, structure, and leadership./Storming: time of testing, characterised by intragroup conflict./ Norming: close ties, consensus, and cohesiveness begin to develop between group members./Performing: when the group is fully functional and works on team task. This is the last stage of development for permanent work groups./Adjourning: the final stage of group development for temporary groups during which group members are concerned with wrapping up activities rather than task performance.//Types of teams:Teams can serve a variety of functions in organisations./Depending on the task to be achieved, or the working environment in which it is to be completed, different types of teams with varying structures can be developed./Five types of teams commonly found in organisations are:Cross-functional:Self-managed;Problem-solving;Virtual;Management//A virtual team is one where the team members are dispersed geographically and where the team communicates and collaborates together through the use of a variety of electronic systems./Advantages of virtual teams:Savings in time and expenses as travel time is reduced;Allow organisations to draw on a wider pool of talent when selecting team members as they are no longer restricted by geographical location/Disadvantages of virtual teams:Communication difficulties as many of the non-verbal signals between members are neglected;Challenging for managers to develop and foster a sense of trust between team members in a virtual setting//Challenges for virtual teams:Lack of face-to-face interaction;Communication is limited;Decision-making might have biases and perceived inequities;Leadership:May be difficult to build rich relationships;Diversity:Differences are difficult to appreciate.//Groups and teams/Groups are two or more people who interact together to achieve a common objective and are interdependent./In an organizational behaviour context, a team is defined as a group of people working together with a defined purpose in order to achieve a common goal./Groups interact primarily to share information and to make decisions to help each member do his or her job more efficiently and effectively. There’s no need or opportunity for work groups to engage in collective work that requires joint effort. On the other hand, work teams are groups whose members work intensely on a specific, common goal using their positive synergy, individual and mutual accountability, and complementary skills.//Work Teams:Leadership role is shared;Accountable to self and team;Team creates specific purpose;Work is done collectively;Meetings characterised by open-ended discussion and collaborative problem-solving;Performance is measured directly by evaluating collective work output;Work is decided upon and done together;Can be quickly assembled, deployed, refocused, and disbanded/Work Groups:One leader clearly in charge;Accountable only to self;Purpose is same as broader organisational purpose;Work is done individually;Meetings characterised by efficiency; no collaboration or open-ended discussion;Performance is measured indirectly according to its influence on others;Work is decided upon by group leader and delegated to individual group members//Characteristics of effective teams:Clear goals. High-performance teams have a clear understanding of the goal to be achieved./Relevant skills. Effective teams are composed of competent individuals who have the necessary technical and interpersonal skills to achieve the desired goals while working well together./Mutual trust among members. Maintaining this trust requires careful attention by managers./Unified commitment is characterized by dedication to the team’s goals and a willingness to expend extraordinary amounts of energy to achieve them.
Good communication. Members convey messages, verbally and nonverbally, between each other in ways that are readily and clearly understood./Negotiating skills. Effective teams are continually making adjustments to whom does what because problems and relationships regularly change within teams./Appropriate leadership is important to motivate, guide and support the team./Internal and external support.//Teams aren’t always the answer:Complexity of work: Can the work be done better by more than one person?/Common purpose: Does the work create a common purpose or set of goals for the people in the group that is more than the aggregate of individual goals?/Interdependence: Are the members of the group interdependent?/If these three questions all can be answered with a yes, then a team might be the solution!//Influence on behaviour and performance/There are many variables which affect overall group performance such as Group roles: a role is a pattern of behaviour expected of a group member. We are required to play a number of diverse roles, both on and off our jobs. Many of these roles are compatible; some create conflicts. Different groups impose different role requirements on individuals./Group size. The larger the group the more difficult it is to have clear lines of communication and to coordinate tasks. Where a group is small and the task is complex, there may not be enough resources to complete the task./Group size/Advantages of small groups:Interact more with each other and easier to coordinate;More motivated, satisfied, and committed;Easier to share information;Better able to see the importance of their personal contributions/Disadvantage of small groups:Have fewer resources available to accomplish their goals/Advantages of large groups:More resources at their disposal to achieve group goals;Enables managers to obtain division of labour advantages – splitting the work to be performed into tasks and assigning tasks to workers./Disadvantages of large groups:Problem of communication and coordination;Lower level of motivation;Members might not think their efforts are really needed//Influence on behaviour and performance:Group cohesiveness is the force that binds a group together.;Group conformity to the group’s standard and norms./Norms. All groups have norms, or acceptable standards of behaviour that are shared by the group’s members. Norms tell members what they should and shouldn’t do under certain circumstances. Norms control behaviour by establishing standards of right and wrong/Culture. Do people in collectivist cultures have different norms than people in individualist cultures? Of course they do. Our orientation may be changed, even after years of living in one society//Teams as performance enhance:One of the main advantages of using groups is the opportunity to obtain synergy—performance gains that result when individuals and departments coordinate their actions./People working in a group are able to produce more or higher-quality outputs than would have been produced if each person had worked separately./“The whole is more than the sum of its parts.”/If a group does not have a sense of interdependence it will have to work much harder to stay together as it has little real incentive to collaborate beyond a superficial level.//Social loafing is the tendency of individuals to put forth less effort in a group than individually./Results in possibly lower group performance, others being forced to work harder and failure to attain group goals.//Implications for managers:Recognise that groups can have a dramatic impact on individual behaviour in organizations, to either positive or negative effect. Therefore, pay special attention to roles, norms, and cohesion – to understand how these are operating within a group is to understand how the group is likely to behave./Managers should decrease the possibility of deviant workplace activities (e.g., stealing from the organisation, wasting resources) and ensure that group norms do not support antisocial behaviour.