16-1Copyright © 2012 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/Irwin

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Skills for OptimizingLeadership as

Situations Change

Cha

pter 1616

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Introduction

Advanced leadership skills are needed in specific situations and when situations change. This chapter will cover:

•Creating a compelling vision.

•Managing conflict.

•Negotiation.

•Diagnosing performance problems in individuals, groups, and organizations.

•Team building at the top.

•Punishment.

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Creating a Compelling Vision

Leaders often struggle with giving a compelling description of how they add value and may have difficulty getting anyone excited to become part of their team.

A leader’s vision should address these issues and should have a pervasive effect on followers and the team.

The vision should be a short, concise, personal statement that answers several questions.

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Leader’s Vision

• Where is the team going, and how will it get there?

• How does the team win, and how does it contribute to the broader organization’s success?

• How does the speaker define leadership?

• What gets the speaker excited about being a leader?

• What are the speaker’s key values?

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Components of a Leader’s Vision

Figure 16.1: The Four Components of a Leadership Vision

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Managing conflictConflict - when opposing parties have interests or goals that appear to be incompatible.

Aspects of conflict that have an impact on the resolution process:

•The nature of the conflict

– The size of an issue

– The extent to which the problem is defined egocentrically

– The existence of hidden agendas

•Seeing a conflict situation in win–lose or zero-sum terms

•Perceiving the conflict is unresolvable.

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Sources of Conflict

• When team members:

– Have strong differences in values, beliefs, or goals

– Have high levels of task or lateral interdependence

– Are competing for scarce resources or rewards

– Are under high levels of stress

– Face uncertain or incompatible demands

• Breakdowns in communication.

• Leaders acting inconsistently with their goals and vision they articulated for the organization

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Thomas’ Conflict Resolution Strategies

Thomas described five general approaches to managing conflict based on how cooperative or uncooperative the parties are and how assertive or unassertive they are.

•Competition: reflects a desire to achieve one’s own ends at the expense of someone else. This is domination, also known as a win–lose orientation.

•Accommodation: reflects a mirror image of competition - entirely giving in to someone else’s concerns without making any effort to achieve one’s own ends. This is a tactic of appeasement.

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Thomas’ Conflict Resolution Strategies (continued)

• Sharing: is an approach that represents a compromise between domination and appeasement. Both parties give up something, yet both parties get something.

• Collaboration: reflects an effort to fully satisfy both parties. This is a problem-solving approach that requires the integration of each party’s concerns.

• Avoidance: involves indifference to the concerns of both parties. It reflects a withdrawal from or neglect of any party’s interests.

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Conflict Resolution Strategy Grid

Figure 16.2: Five Conflict-Handling Orientations, Plotted According to the Parties’ Desire to Satisfy Own and Other’s Concerns

Source: K. W. Thomas, “Conflict and Conflict Management,” in Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, ed. M. D. Dunnette (Chicago:Rand McNally, 1976). Reprinted with permission of Marvin D. Dunnette.

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Negotiation

Fisher and Ury offer the following tips for negotiating

•Prepare for the Negotiation – considerable time should be spent in preparation for the negotiation.

•Separate the People from the Problem - negotiations involve substantive issues and relationships

•Focus on Interests, Not Positions - it is important to focus both on your counterpart’s interests (not position) and on your own interests (not position).

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Diagnosing Performance Problems

A model of performance was presented in Figure 16.3 and is illustrated here.

This model is a framework for understanding why a follower or team may not be performing up to expectations and what the leader can do to improve the situation.

Performance = ƒ(Expectations x Capabilities x Opportunities x Motivation)

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Components of the Model of Performance• Expectations- performance problems often occur

because individuals or groups do not understand what they are supposed to do.

• Capabilities- followers can not always do things just because they understand what they are supposed to do. Abilities and skills are the two components that make up capabilities.

• Opportunities - followers may lack the opportunity to demonstrate acquired skills.

• Motivation – will followers or groups choose to perform or exhibit the level of effort necessary to accomplish a task.

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Team Building at the Top

Top teams are similar to other types of teams, but executive teams may be different in two ways.

First, executive teams members must apply technical and individual skills that got them ton the team, and the high-performance teamwork skills for when a team situation presents itself.

•Two requirements:– Leaders must have the diagnostic skills to discern whether a challenge

involves an individual situation or a team situation.

– Leaders must “stay the course” when a team situation is present.

Second, executive teams have an opportunity to enhance teamwork throughout the organization. Only the executive team can change organizational systems.

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Hackman’s Tripwire Lessons for Executive Teams

• Trip Wire 1: Call the performing unit a team but really manage members as individuals

• Trip Wire 2: Create an inappropriate authority Balance

• Trip Wire 3: Assemble a large group of people, tell them in general terms what needs to be accomplished, and let them “work out the details”

• Trip Wire 4: Specify challenging team objectives, but skimp on organizational supports

• Trip Wire 5: Assume that members already have all the competence they need to work well as a team

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Punishment

Punishment is the provision of an undesirable consequence or the withdrawal of a desirable consequence, which in turn decreases the likelihood that a particular behavior will be repeated.

Arvey and Ivancevich reviewed three myths about punishment:

•The belief that punishment results in undesirable emotional side effects on the part of the recipient.

•Punishment is unethical and inhumane

•Punishment rarely works anyway (it seldom eliminates the undesirable behavior)

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Effectively Administering PunishmentTo make punishment effective:

•Leaders have to recognize they are biased toward making internal attributions about performance, being aware of this bias and getting as many facts as possible before deciding whether to administer punishment

•Punishment is most effective when it focuses on the act, not the person.

•Punishment needs to be consistent across both behaviors and leaders;