duffy/atwater © 2005 prentice hall chapter 9 leader or follower?

Duffy/Atwater © 2005 Prentice Hall

Chapter 9

Leader or Follower?


CHAPTER SUMMARY

A. Kinds of Groups

1. Primary groups

2. Secondary groups

3. Collectives

4. In-groups

5. Out-groups


CHAPTER SUMMARY CONT’D

B. How do groups form?

C. Why join a group?

D. What goes on in groups?

1. Communication

2. Social influence

3. Social loafing

4. Group polarization


CHAPTER SUMMARY CONT’D

E. Are Leaders Made or Born?

1. The great man theory

2. Situational explanations of leadership

3. Contingency theory

4. Contemporary theories

5. Gender and leadership

6. Culture and leadership

F. When groups go wrong

1. Groupthink

2. Group conflict


Kinds of Groups

• Primary groups: small, intimate, face-to-face groups.

• Example: a family


•

.

Kinds of Groups Cont’d

• Secondary groups: larger and less intimate than primary groups. They often disband when the reason for their existence disappears.

• Example: classes in schools or committees.



• Collectives: very large groups that usually have no leader and no concrete rules.

• Example: audiences at official functions.



• In-groups: the group with which we identify.

• Example: a college sorority or small military squadron.


Kinds of Groups Cont’d • Out-groups: the groups we perceive as

being different from (outside of) our own group

• Example: an ethnic or racial group different from our group


In-group/Out-group processes include:

. Prejudice: an unfair, often negative attitude toward another person or group based solely on group membership.

Frederick Douglass

• Stereotyping: widespread generalizations about people (based on their group membership) which have little if any basis in fact.

• Discrimination: unfair treatment or negative treatment to groups on the basis of such features as age, sex, or race.


Culture also matters when it comes to the value of in-groups and out-groups.

- Individualistic cultures value an individual’s gain over group gains.

- Example: United States

(United States)

- Collective cultures value group gain over individual gain.

- Example: Many Asian cultures

(Japan)


How Do Groups Form?

• Forming: the initial state of group development when individuals first come together.

• Storming: the second stage of development where members begin to conflict with each other as they come to know one another’s opinions.

• Norming: the group comes to agreement about the rules under which it will operate.

• Performing: the group eventually comes to agreement (or consensus) and begins to function better.

(See Diagram In Next Frame)


This cycle repeats itself even within the same group


Why Join A Group?

• To affiliate or be with others

• To learn information we otherwise wouldn’t know

• To compare ourselves relative to others (social comparison)

• For social support in times of need

• To benefit from collective power


What Goes On In Groups?

• Communication

• Social Influence

• Social Loafing

• Group Polarization


Group Communication Patterns

Centralized Networks: One or two individuals control the flow of information

Example: A

supervisor of

multiple work

groups


Group Communication Patterns Cont’d

Decentralized Networks: individuals communicate in relatively freely with one another; no one person is central to the group.

Example: The rumor mill


Centralized Networks

• If the central person is not competent, the group is not competent

• Best for simple group decision-making

• These groups usually perform fairly efficiently

• Satisfaction of individual members is not particularly high


Decentralized Networks

• Best for complicated decision-making (e.g. two heads are sometimes better than one)

• Group functioning is often disjointed because no one central person has all the information

• If everyone can communicate, communication can become distorted or noisy

• Individual members may feel they have more freedom to communicate


Group Size

• A group with many members has the potential for many ideas to be generated

• The number of ideas generated, though, is not directly proportional to the group size

• Interactions in large groups are more likely to be formal (e.g. more rules)

• In large groups, a few members are more likely to dominate the group


Electronic Communication

• Examples include e-mail, cell phones, voice mail, etc.

• In electronic communication, the impact of nonverbal cues is diminished, so miscommunication is more likely

• Status inequities between high and low status group members are reduced

• Via electronic communication, group members are more likely to communicate than in face-to-face interactions

• Electronic communication is more efficient because it tends to be more task-oriented than is face-to-face communication


Social Influence in Groups

• Social Influence involves efforts on the part of one person to alter the behavior or attitudes of one or more other people

• There are three types of social influence

- Conformity

- Compliance

- Obedience


ConformityConformity is a change in behavior due to the real or

imagined influence of other people

• Small groups of approximately

four people are most likely

to exhibit conformity

• When there are no non-

conforming allies, a

nonconformist will not

hold his or her ground for long

• Some cultures revere conformity (e.g. collective societies)

while in American society we relish nonconformity and

rugged individualism

[See Asch conformity simulation on next slide.]


The Asch Conformity Experiment

Standard A B C


Re-elect Joe Doe Compliance

• Compliance can be defined as a change in behavior in response to a direct request from another person to do so.

• An example is when someone asks you to loan them money and you do. There is subtle pressure for you to comply, particularly if you borrowed from the individual in the past.

• Some people comply with requests publicly but disagree in private with the request.


Methods Designed to Induce Compliance

• The norm of reciprocity involves an unwritten rule whereby when someone does you a favor, you are obligated to return afavor

• Ingratiation occurs when you try to leave a good impression on someone so that you can ask for a favor (e.g. flattery)

• The door-in-the-face-effect happens when someone issues a large, unreasonable request, and then when you refuse, asks for a smaller and more likely to be granted request


Obedience

• Obedience occurs following a direct order or command

• In a classic experiment on obedience, 65% of Americans obeyed a command to shock another person (Milgram, 1974) [see next slide for illustration of his shock generator]

• One way to reduce harmful obedience is to place the “victim” closer to the person issued the order to do harm


A Shock Generator

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 XXX-Extreme Shock


Social Loafing

• Social loafing means that individuals contribute less to a group effort than they would contribute as a single individual

• There are ways to reduce social loafing:

- inform people that their individual performance will be evaluated

- reinforce to the group that the task is important

- make the task challenging so people enjoy it

- assure the group that failure IS possible but NOT acceptable


Group Polarization

• Psychologists once believed that groups made riskier decisions than individuals. Individuals probably feel more responsible for failure than members of a group

• A newer idea is that groups make EITHER riskier or more conservative decisions than individuals

• This latter phenomenon is known as the group polarization effect


Are Leaders Made or Born?

• The Great Man Theory: suggests that leaders are born with (or acquire) a set of traits common to all leaders. There is little empirical support for this theory.

• Situational Explanations of Leadership: a leader is simply in the right place at the right time, such as at the head of the table

• Contingency theory: combines both approaches into one theory


Contingency Theory of Leadership

• Common Traits of leaders: person-centered (or people-oriented) VERSUS task-centered (or oriented toward getting the job done)

• Situations can vary in the level of control the leader has as well as other factors, such as whether they respect the leader

• Both traits and situations interact to determine whether the leader and group will perform well.

• People-oriented leaders are better in medium control or medium good situations

• Task-oriented leaders are better in situations of high or low control

Can You Explain Why?


A Graph Showing the Effects of Leader Style and Situational Control as They Affect Group Performance (According to Contingency Theory):


Other Types of Leaders

. Many leaders have high levels of emotional intelligence or the ability to regulate one’s own emotions as well as be empathetic toward others

• Charismatic leaders inspire social change, are visionary, and appeal to their follows’ self-concepts and values

• Transformational leaders stimulate interest among followers to view their own work from a new perspective. They do this by generating awareness of the mission or vision of the group. They help group members move beyond their own needs.


Other Leadership Issues Gender

• Women tend to be more democratic and are more likely to consult with subordinates than are men

• Men and women are equally effective as leaders, but they adopt different styles

• As leaders, women are generally evaluated less positively than men

• Women leaders may be more conflicted than men about career versus family life


Culture • Styles of interaction between leaders and subordinates

differ across cultures

• Power-distance is an important element of interaction in various cultures

• Power distance is the idea that people in groups accept the concept that people in a group rightfully have different levels of power and authority

High power distance cultures emphasize

leader- driven decision making

(e.g.Asian countries)

Low power distance cultures: (e.g. U.S.) subordinates

President George W. Bush – U.S. expect and promote more. Prime Minister Koizumi - Japan participatory styles of leadership


When Groups Go Wrong

Groupthink

• Groupthink is the tendency for groups to reach consensus prematurely because of the desire for harmony

• Symptoms of groupthink:

- The group develops an illusion of vulnerability

- Mindguards “guard” the few ideas generated

- There appears to be little disagreement as members censor their serious concerns

- Group members derogate the out-group

- Members become rather self-righteous


Consequences

of groupthink

- few ideas are generated

- the group fails to discuss the problems related to their proposed solution

- no contingency plans are developed in the event a problem develops

First teacher in space.

A shuttle explosion ended

her life. Psychologists

suspect groupthink

caused the explosion.


Preventing groupthink

- promote open inquiry and skepticism

- form subgroups and request each to develop

several ideas

- the leader should refrain from expressing an

opinion

- call in outside experts to provide needed feedback

- hold a “second chance” meeting in case doubts arise after the decision is made


Groups in Conflict

• Conflict can occur within a group or between groups

• Conflict has a good side; often it results in positive change

• Conflict can be used to provide a growth experience

• Conflicts, however, can often spiral out of control

• Threats, stereotypes, prejudices, and other factors also contribute to the escalation of group conflict


Different cultures manage conflict differently

• In collective societies, face-saving is very important, with disputants trying to maintain each others’ self-respect and dignity

• In individualistic societies disputants are more concerned with trying to preserve their own self-image rather than anyone else’s

• Styles of managing conflict also differ. Members of individualistic societies try to overpower opponents, but members of collective societies try to avoid conflict altogether


Conflict Management

• Conflict can be better managed if each person knows what the other person really wants. Thus, communication is very important. World Trade Center

• GRIT (Graduated and Reciprocated Initiative in Tension-Reduction) is a method whereby each side gradually concedes something to the other side. Concessionsare usually made public.

• Mediation is when a neutral person helps disputants resolveor manage their conflict.

• Arbitration is where a neutral person decides how theconflict will be resolved. Arbitrators generally try to mediatefirst.

duffy/atwater © 2005 prentice hall chapter 9 leader or follower?

Documents

group example

group membership

group gains

group processes

kinds of groups contdingroups

groups form

facetoface groups

large groups