Chapter 9 - Foundations of Group Behaviour

Group: two or more individuals, interacting and interdependent, who have come together achieve
particular objective.

Two types of Groups

1.Formal Group 2. Informal group

 Formal Group: defined by the organization’s structure, with designated work assignments
establishing tasks.
 Command Group : Superior and Subordinate group
 Task Group: A group that works together to complete a task

Informal group: neither formally structured nor organizationally determined. Informal groups are natural
formations in the work environment that appear in response to the need for social contact. Example: Lunch
or coffee together.
 Interest group: Group that work together to attain a specific objective
 Friendship group: Group that share common characteristics

Organisation: A consciously coordinated social unit, composed of two or more people, that functions on a
relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals.

Crowd: A large number of people gathered together often voluntarily with common varied goals (ex.
Market, railway station)

Mob: A large number of people mobilized or even voluntarily gathered to sort out an issue at hand. Often
ride on emotions and even may resort to violence to achieve the goals.

Team: it is a group whose members have complementary skills and are committed to a common purpose or
set of performance goals for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.

Why Do People Form Groups?

Social Identity Theory: Social identity theory proposes that people have emotional reactions to the failure
or success of their group because their self-esteem gets tied into the group’s performance. When your
group does well, you bask in reflected glory, and your own self-esteem rises. When your group does poorly,
you might feel bad about yourself, or you might even reject that part of your identity, like “fair-weather
fans.” Social identities also help people reduce uncertainty about who they are and what they should do.
Perspective that considers when and why individuals consider themselves members of groups.

Why Social Identity is important for an individual

 Status
 Similarity
 Distinctiveness
 Uncertainty Reduction

Ingroup Favouritism: means we see members of our ingroup as better than other people, and people
not in our group as all the same.

Outgroup: An outgroup, conversely, is a social category or group with which you do not identify.

Stages of Group Development

 Forming
 Storming
 Norming
  Performing
 Adjourning

Forming: It is characterized by a great deal of uncertainty about the group’s purpose, structure, and
leadership. Members “test the waters “to determine what types of behaviours are acceptable. This stage is
complete when members have begun to think of themselves as part of a group.

Storming: The storming stage is one of intragroup conflict. Members accept the existence of the group but
resist the constraints it imposes on individuality. There is conflict over who will control the group. When this
stage is complete, there will be a relatively clear hierarchy of leadership within the group.

Conflict

Norming: In the third stage, close relationships develop and the group demonstrates cohesiveness. There is
now a strong sense of group identity and camaraderie. This norming stage is complete when the group
structure solidifies and the group has assimilated a common set of expectations of what defines correct
member behaviour.
Performing: The fourth stage is performing. The structure at this point is fully functional and accepted.
Group energy has moved from getting to know and understand each other to performing the task at hand.
For permanent work groups, performing is the last stage in development.

Adjourning: For permanent work groups, performing is the last stage in development. However, for
temporary committees, teams, task forces, and similar groups that have a limited task to perform, the
adjourning stage is for wrapping up activities and preparing to disband. Some group members are upbeat,
basking in the group’s accomplishments. Others may be depressed over the loss of camaraderie and
friendships gained during the work group’s life.
Alternative Model for Temporary Group – Punctuated Equilibrium Model

1. Phase One: The first meeting of the team sets the direction of the team. According to the model, a
framework of behavioral patterns and assumptions through which a team approaches its project in
its first meeting, the team stays within that framework throughout the first half of the life of the
team. Teams show a little progress during this phase. The reason behind this is that the members
are unable to perceive a use for the information they are generating until they revise the initial
framework. The first phase of group activity is one of the inertias.
2. Transition Point: A transition takes place at the end of the first phase, which occurs exactly when
the team has used up half its allotted time. The transition initiates major changes. After this time,
the teams often experience a shift in their work approach. This approach enables the team
members to learn what they have done and make changes to their current work approach. This
point is a powerful opportunity to alter the course of the life of the team. This transition should be
used wisely, because once this point is over it is impossible to make changes to the team again.
3. Phase Two: This phase is the second phase of inertia in the team. In this phase, the team makes the
changes as planned in the transition stage. The team makes the final effort to achieve its goals and
experiences the positive and negative consequences of past choices.

Group Properties

1.Roles; 2. Norms; 3. Status; 4. Size; 5. Cohesiveness; 6. Diversity

1. Roles: set of expected behaviour patterns attributed to a person occupying a given position in
a social unit. Behaviour is significantly influenced by the role one must perform.
a. Role Perception: An individual’s view of how he or she is supposed to act in a given
situation.
b. Role Expectation: the way others expect an individual to act under specific circumstances
c. Role Conflict: phenomenon under which an individual is confronted with divergent role
expectations. Example: If you, as a manager were to provide a performance evaluation of a
person you mentored. Your roles as evaluator and mentor may conflict.
d. Interrole Conflict: A situation in which the expectations of an individual’s different,
separate groups are in opposition. Example: Bill Patterson had to deal with role conflicts,
such as his attempt to reconcile the expectations placed on him as a husband and father
with those placed on him as an executive with EMM Industries. Bill’s wife and children want
to remain in Phoenix, while EMM expects its employees to be responsive to the company’s
needs and requirements.
e. psychological contract: an unwritten agreement that exists between employees and
employer. This agreement sets out mutual expectations: what management expects from
workers and vice versa.
2.Norms: Acceptable standards of behaviour within a group that are shared by the group’s member that
express what they ought to do and ought not to do under certain circumstances.
a. Conformity: The adjustment of one’s behaviour to align with the norms of the group.
b. reference groups: are important groups to which individuals belong or hope to belong and
with whose norm’s individuals are likely to conform.
c. Deviant workplace behaviour: (also called antisocial behaviour or workplace incivility ) is
voluntary behaviour that violates significant organizational norms and, in doing so,
threatens the well-being of the organization or its members.

3.Status: a socially defined position or rank given to groups or group members by others
a. status characteristics theory: A theory that states that differences in status characteristics
create status hierarchies within groups.
- The power a person wields over others
- A person’s ability to contribute to a group’s goals
- An individual’s personal characteristics

4.Size: Does the size of a group affect the group’s overall behaviour? Yes, but the effect depends on what
dependent variables we look at. Smaller groups are faster at completing tasks than larger ones, and
individuals perform better in smaller groups. However, in problem solving, large groups consistently get
better marks than their smaller counterparts. Translating these results into specific numbers is a bit more
hazardous, but groups with a dozen or more members are good for gaining diverse input. So if the goal is
fact-finding, larger groups should be more effective. Smaller groups of about seven members are better at
doing something productive with that input.
 Social loafing: the tendency for individuals to expend less effort when working collectively
than alone
o Ways to Prevent Social loafing
1. Set group goals, so the group has a common purpose to strive toward;
2. increase intergroup competition, which again focuses on the shared
outcome;
3. engage in peer evaluation so each person evaluates each other person’s
contribution;
4. Select members who have high motivation and prefer to work in groups
5. if possible, base group rewards in part on each member’s unique
contributions.

5. Cohesiveness: the degree to which members are attracted to each other and motivated to stay in the
group.

6. Diversity: the degree to which members of the group are similar to, or different from, one another.

Social Network: A social network is a set of social system, members connected by links or ties that indicate
the relationships (or lacks of relationships) between them

Sociometry is often expressed in a Sociogram. Sociogram is a diagram that graphically maps the preferred
social interactions and networks.

Group Decision Making

Decision Making Barriers/illness
 Groupthink
 Groupshift
 Spreadthink
 Clanthink
 The nut island effect
Groupthink: A phenomenon in which the norm for consensus overrides the realistic appraisal of alternative
courses of action.

Groupshift: A change between a group’s decision and an individual decision that a member within the
group would make; the shift can be toward either conservatism or greater risk but it generally is toward a
more extreme version of the group’s original position.

Spreadthink: groups unable to reach any "genuine consensus, or even majority view toward component
aspects of a complex issue”. Spreadthink reflects the fact that any time a group meets to work together on
a complex issue using ordinary and familiar group processes, the individuals in the group will not agree on
what are the most important sub-issues, and in general will not have a majority view on the merits of any
of the many sub-issues.

Clanthink : Clanthink is a group pathology that occurs when everyone in a group believes in an idea or
concept that is wrong. Clanthink is similar to groupthink, but it's more extreme. Clanthink is characterized
by:
 An inability to manage disagreement
 Relying on authority and assumptions rather than logic
 Everyone in the group believing in the idea or concept, even if it's wrong

The Nut Island effect: The Nut Island effect describes a phenomenon in organisations whereby teams of
talented employees become isolated from managers, making it impossible for the team to perform a key
function or task.

Teamthink: Teamthink is the collaborative thinking that comes from people who care about each other and
their goal enough to listen carefully, consider options and make the best decision for themselves and those
they serve.

Groupthink to Teamthink

Group Decision Making Techniques

 Interacting group: Typical groups in which members interact with each other face to face.
 Brainstorming: An idea-generation process that specifically encourages any and all alternatives
while withholding any criticism of those alternatives.
 Nominal group technique: A group decision-making method in which individual members meet
face to face to pool their judgments in a systematic but independent fashion.
 Electronic meeting: Meeting in which members interact on computers, allowing for anonymity of
comments and aggregation of votes.

Chapter 10 – Understanding Work Teams

Group: two or more individuals, interacting and interdependent, who have come together achieve
particular objective.
Workgroup: A workgroup is a group that interacts primarily to share information and make decisions to
help each member perform within his or her area of responsibility. A workgroup is a collection of individuals
doing their work, albeit with interaction and/or dependency.
Work Team: A group whose individual efforts result in performance that is greater than the sum of the
individual inputs. Work team generates positive synergy through coordination.

Difference between Workgroup and Work Team

Types of Teams
 Problem Solving Teams
 Self-Managed Teams
 Cross Functional Teams
 Virtual Teams
 Multiteam System.

Problem Solving Teams: Groups of 5 to12 employees from the same department who meet for a few hours
each week to discuss ways of improving quality, efficiency, and the work environment.

Self – Managed Teams: Self-managed work teams are groups of employees (typically 10 to 15 in number)
who perform highly related or interdependent jobs; these teams take on some supervisory responsibilities.

Cross Functional Teams: Employees from about the same hierarchical level, but from different work areas,
who come together to accomplish a task. Cross-functional teams are an effective means of allowing people
from diverse areas within or even between organizations to exchange information, develop new ideas,
solve problems, and coordinate complex projects. However, due to the high need for coordination, cross-
functional teams are not simple to manage.

Virtual Teams: Teams that use computer technology to tie together physically dispersed members in order
to achieve a common goal. For virtual teams to be effective, management should ensure that (1) trust is
established among members (one inflammatory remark in an e-mail can severely undermine team trust),
(2) progress is monitored closely (so the team doesn’t lose sight of its goals and no team member
“disappears”), and (3) the efforts and products of the team are publicized throughout the organization (so
the team does not become invisible)
Multiteam System: A collection of two or more interdependent teams that share a superordinate goal; a
team of teams. a multiteam system is the best choice either when a team has become too large to be
effective, or when teams with distinct functions need to be highly coordinated.

Creating Effective teams:

Team Context : there are 4 contextual factors related to team performance.

 adequate resources,
 effective leadership,
 a climate of trust,
 a performance evaluation and reward system that reflects team contributions.
Adequate Resources: Teams are part of a larger organization system; every work team relies on resources
outside the group to sustain it. A scarcity of resources directly reduces the ability of a team to perform its
job effectively and achieve its goals.

Effective Leadership: Teams can’t function if they can’t agree on who is to do what and ensure all members
share the workload. Agreeing on the specifics of work and how they fit together to integrate individual skills
requires leadership and structure, either from management or from team members themselves. In self-
managed teams, members absorb many of the duties typically assumed by managers.

Climate of trust: Trust is the foundation of leadership; it allows a team to accept and commit to the
leader’s goals and decisions. Members of effective teams exhibit trust in their leaders.24 They also trust
each other. Interpersonal trust among team members facilitates cooperation, reduces the need to monitor
each other’s behaviour, and bonds individuals through the belief that members won’t take advantage of
them. Members are more likely to take risks and expose vulnerabilities when they can trust others on their
team.

Performance Evaluation and reward system: Individual performance evaluations and incentives may
interfere with the development of high-performance teams. So, in addition to evaluating and rewarding
employees for their individual contributions, management should utilize hybrid performance systems that
incorporate an individual member component to recognize individual contributions and a group reward to
recognize positive team outcomes.

Crises and Extreme Contexts: these are crucible in which the merits of teams can be put to the test. These
contexts can unlock the potential of team members who do truly great things under stress.
Team Composition: The team composition category includes variables that relate to how teams should be
staffed:
Variables are
 Abilities of Members
 personalities of team members
 allocation of roles,
 diversity,
 cultural differences,
 size of the team
 members’ preferences for teamwork.

Abilities of Members: A team’s performance depends in part on the knowledge, skills, and abilities of
individual members. Abilities set limits on what members can do and how effectively they will perform on a
team. High-ability teams are also more adaptable to changing situations; they can more effectively apply
existing knowledge to new problems. Finally, the ability of the team’s leader matters. Smart team leaders
help less intelligent team members when they struggle with a task. A less intelligent leader can, conversely,
neutralize the effect of a high-ability team.

Personality of Members: Big 5 personality traits

 Conscientious: Conscientious people are good backing up other team members and sensing when
their support is truly needed. Conscientious teams also have other advantages—one study found
that behavioural tendencies such as organization, achievement orientation, and endurance were all
related to higher levels of team performance
 Openness: Teams with a high level of openness to experience tend to perform better, and research
indicates that constructive task conflict enhances the effect. Open team members communicate
better with one another and throw out more ideas, which makes teams composed of open people
more creative and innovative.
 Task Conflict: Task conflict also enhances performance for teams with high levels of emotional
stability. It’s not so much that the conflict itself improves performance for these teams, but that
 teams characterized by openness and emotional stability are able to handle conflict and leverage it
to improve performance.
 Agreeableness: The minimum level of team member agreeableness matters, too: teams do worse
when they have one or more highly disagreeable members.
 Extraversion: high mean level of extraversion in a team can increase the level of helping
behaviours, particularly in a climate of cooperation.
Allocation of roles: Teams have different needs, and members should be selected to ensure all the various
roles are filled. We can identify nine potential team roles. Successful work teams have selected people to
play all these roles based on their skills and preferences.

Diversity of Members: Organisational Demography

The degree to which members of a work unit share a common demographic attribute, such as age, sex,
race, educational level, or length of service in an organization, and the impact of this attribute on turnover.

Cultural Differences: the most effective teams have five to nine members. Experts suggest using the
smallest number of people who can do the task. Unfortunately, managers often err by making teams too
large. It may require only four or five members to develop an array of views and skills, while coordination
problems can increase as team members are added. When teams have excess members, cohesiveness and
mutual accountability decline, social loafing

Member Preferences: when selecting team members, managers should consider individual preferences
along with abilities, personalities, and skills. High-performing teams are likely to be composed of people
who prefer working as part of a group.

Team Process:

The final category related to team effectiveness includes process variables such as
 Common Plan and Purpose
 establishment of specific team goals or Motivation,
 team efficacy,
 team identity,
 team cohesion,
 mental models,
 a managed level of conflict,
 minimized social loafing.
 Team trust

Common Plan and Purpose: Members of successful teams put a tremendous amount of time and effort
into discussing, shaping, and agreeing on a purpose that belongs to them collectively and individually. This
common purpose, when accepted by the team, becomes what GPS is to a ship captain: It provides direction
and guidance under any conditions. Teams should agree on whether their purpose is to learn about and
master a task or simply to perform the task; evidence suggests that differing perspectives on learning
versus performance lead to lower levels of team performance overall. Team must have a good plan, but it
needs to be willing and able to adapt when conditions call for it.
- reflexivity: A team characteristic of reflecting on and adjusting the master plan when
necessary. teams high in reflexivity are better able to adapt to conflicting plans and goals
among team members.

Specific Goals and Motivation: Successful teams translate their common purpose into specific, measurable,
and realistic performance goals. Specific goals facilitate clear communication. They help teams maintain
their focus on getting results. Consistent with the research on individual goals, team goals should be
challenging. Difficult but achievable goals raise team performance on those criteria for which they’re set.
So, for instance, goals for quantity tend to increase quantity, goals for accuracy increase accuracy, and so
on.

Team Efficacy: A team’s collective belief that they can succeed at their tasks. Teams that have been
successful raise their beliefs about future success, which, in turn, motivates them to work harder. Two
options to increase team efficacy: 1. Help the team achieve small successes that build confidence, 2.
providing training to improve members’ technical and interpersonal skills.

Team Identity: A team member’s affinity for and sense of belongingness to his or her team.
Organizational identity is important, too. Rarely do teams operate in a more often teams interact with
other teams, requiring inter team coordination. Individuals with a positive team identity but without a
positive organizational identity can become fixed to their teams and unwilling to coordinate with other
teams within the organization.

Team Cohesion: It means members are emotionally attached to one another and motivated toward the
team because of their attachment. Team cohesion is a strong predictor of team performance such that
when cohesion is harmed, performance may also be harmed.

Mental Models: organized mental representations of the key elements within a team’s environment that
team
members share. Team members’ knowledge and beliefs about how the work gets done by the team.

Conflict Levels:
- Relationship conflict: those based on interpersonal incompatibility, tension, and animosity
toward others—are almost always dysfunctional
- Task conflict: It is the disagreements about task content when teams are performing
nonroutine activities. Task conflict can stimulate discussion, promote critical assessment of
problems and options, and can lead to better team decisions.

Social loafing: individuals can engage in social loafing and coast on the group’s effort when their particular
contributions (or lack thereof) can’t be identified. Effective teams undermine this tendency by making
members individually and jointly accountable for the team’s purpose, goals, and approach. Therefore,
members should be clear on what they are individually and jointly responsible for on the team.

Team Trust: Trust in teams entails a mutual, positive state of positive expectations between team
members. When you trust a team member, you believe in their reliability and dependability and are
genuinely concerned for their welfare and vice versa. Team Trust has a sizable effect in team performance;
especially virtual teams. Team trust evolves over time as members share with one another, put effort into
the team, and monitor one another’s performance.

Team Roles
While performing specific functional tasks, a group member is likely to bring in natural characteristics and
assume certain team roles like bringing in fresh ideas, gather data or coordinate the activities of the group
etc. This natural and assumed role is known as team roles

1. Chairperson or Coordinator: Needed to focus on the team's objectives, draw out team members
and delegate work appropriately
2. Shaper: Provides the necessary drive to ensure that the team keeps moving and does not lose focus
or momentum.
3. Plant: Tends to be highly creative and good at solving problems in unconventional ways.
 4. Resource investigator: Uses their inquisitive nature to find ideas to bring back to the team.
5. Monitor Evaluator: Provides a logical eye, making impartial judgements where required and weighs
up the team's options in a dispassionate way.
6. Implementer: Needed to plan a workable strategy and carry it out as efficiently as possible.
7. Team worker: Helps the team to gel, using their versatility to identify the work required and
complete it on behalf of the team.
8. Finisher: Most effectively used at the end of tasks to polish and scrutinise the work for errors,
subjecting it to the highest standards of quality control.
9. Specialist: Brings in-depth knowledge of a key area to the team.

Team outcomes

Team Tasks:

Teamwork Competency

Chapter 17 – Conflict and Negotiations

Conflict : it is a process that begins when one party perceives another party has or is about to negatively
affect something the first party cares about.

Views of Conflict
 Traditional View of Conflict: The belief that all conflict is harmful and must be avoided. The view
that all conflict is bad certainly offers a simple approach to looking at the behaviour of people who
create conflict. We need merely direct our attention to the causes of conflict and correct those
malfunctions to improve group and organizational performance.
 Interactionist View of Conflict: The belief that conflict is not only a positive force in a group but
also an absolute necessity for a group to perform effectively. The major contribution of this view is
recognizing that a minimal level of conflict can help keep a group viable, self-critical, and creative.
- Functional Conflict: Constructive form of conflict that supports the goals of the group and
improves its performance.
- Dysfunctional Conflict: Conflict that hinders group performance

Differentiation of Functional and Dysfunctional is based on the type of conflict : Task, relationship, Process

Task Conflict: it is the conflict over content and goals of the work. Low to moderate levels of task conflict
stimulate discussion of ideas. This means task conflicts relate positively to creativity and innovation, but
they are not related to routine task performance. Groups performing routine tasks that don’t require
creativity won’t benefit from taskconflict. Moreover, if the group is already engaged in active discussion of
ideas in a nonconfrontational way, adding conflict will not help generate more ideas. Task conflict is also
related to these positive outcomes only when all members share the same goals and have high levels of
trust. Another way of saying this is that task conflicts are related to increased performance only when all
members believe the team is a safe place for taking risks and that members will not deliberately undermine
or reject those who speak up.

Relationship conflict: Conflict based on interpersonal relationships. Studies demonstrate that relationship
conflicts are almost always dysfunctional. Why? It appears that the friction and interpersonal hostilities
inherent
in relationship conflicts increase personality clashes and decrease mutual understanding, which hinders the
completion of organizational tasks.
Process conflict: it is a conflict relates to how the work gets done.

Resolution-Focused view of conflict: It is the conflict which focuses more on managing the whole context
in which conflicts occur, both before and after the behavioural stage of conflict occurs. A growing body of
research, which we review later, suggests we can minimize the negative effects of conflict by focusing on
preparing people for conflicts, developing resolution strategies, and facilitating open discussion.

Five Stages of Conflict Process

 Potential Opposition or Incompatibility
 Cognition And Personalization
 Intentions
 Behaviour
 Outcomes

Stage 1 : Potential Opposition or Incompatibility: The first step in the conflict process is the appearance of
conditions that create opportunities for conflict to arise. We group the conditions (which we can also look
at as causes or sources of conflict) into three general categories: communication, structure, and personal
variables.
- Communication: research suggests that differing word connotations, jargon, insufficient exchange
of information, and noise in the communication channel are all barriers to communication and
potential antecedent conditions to conflict. Research has further demonstrated a surprising finding:
the potential for conflict increases when either too little or too much communication takes place.
- Structure: The term structure in this context includes variables such as size of the group, degree of
specialization in the tasks assigned to group members, jurisdictional clarity member–goal
compatibility, leadership styles, reward systems, and the degree of dependence between groups.
- Personal variables: this includes personality, emotions, and values. Personality does appear to play
a role in the conflict process: some people just tend to get into conflicts a lot. In particular, people
high in the personality traits of disagreeableness, neuroticism, or self-monitoring are prone to
tangle with other people more often, and to react poorly when conflicts occur.

Stage 2: Cognition and Personalisation: Stage II is important because it’s where conflict issues tend to be
defined, where the parties decide what the conflicts about. Our second point is that emotions play a major
role in shaping perceptions. Negative emotions allow us to oversimplify issues, lose trust, and put negative
interpretations on the other party’s behaviour. In contrast, positive feelings increase our tendency to see
potential relationships among the elements of a problem, to take a broader view of the situation, and to
develop more innovative solutions
- Perceived conflict: Awareness by one or more parties of the existence of conditions that create
opportunities for conflict to arise.
- felt conflict - when individuals become emotionally involved, that they experience anxiety, tension,
frustration, or hostility

Stage 3: Intentions: Intentions intervene between people’s perceptions and emotions and them overt
behaviour. They are decisions to act in a given way.
2 dimensions of Conflict intentions:
a) Cooperativeness: the degree to which one party attempts to satisfy the other party’s concerns
b) Assertiveness: the degree to which one party attempts to satisfy his or her own concerns
5 Dimension of Conflict Handling Intentions:
- Competing: (Assertive and Uncooperative) A desire to satisfy one’s interests, regardless of the
impact on the other party to the conflict.
- Collaborating: (Assertive and Cooperative) A situation in which the parties to a conflict each desire
to satisfy fully the concerns of all parties
- Avoiding: (Unassertive and Uncooperative) The desire to withdraw from or suppress a conflict.
 - Accommodating: (Unassertive and Cooperative) The willingness of one party in a conflict to place
the opponent’s interests above his or her own.
- Compromising: (midrange on both Assertive and Cooperative) A situation in which each party to a
conflict is willing to give up something.

Stage 4: Behaviour: Conflict situations become very visible. The behaviour stage includes the statements,
actions, and reactions made by the conflicting parties, usually as overt attempts to implement their own
intentions. It helps to think of Stage IV as a dynamic process of interaction. All conflicts exist somewhere
along this continuum.

Conflict Management: The use of conflict resolution to control conflict level and conflict stimulation
techniques to achieve the desired level of conflict.

Stage 5: Outcomes: The action–reaction interplay between the conflicting parties’ results in consequences.
As our model demonstrates these outcomes may be functional, if the conflict improves the group’s
performance, or dysfunctional, if it hinders performance.

Functional Outcomes:
- Conflict is constructive when it improves the quality of decisions, stimulates creativity and
innovation, encourages interest and curiosity among group members, provides the medium
through which problems can be aired and tensions released, and fosters an environment of self-
evaluation and change.
- Conflict is an antidote for groupthink. Conflict challenges the status quo and therefore furthers the
creation of new ideas, promotes reassessment of group goals and activities, and increases the
probability that the group will respond to change
- Groups whose members have different interests tend to produce higher quality solutions to a
variety of problems than do homogeneous groups.
- Team members with greater differences in work styles and experience also tend to share more
information with one another.
- Heterogeneity among group and organization members can increase creativity, improve the quality
of decisions, and facilitate change by enhancing member flexibility.
- The ethnically diverse groups produced more effective and more feasible ideas, and the unique
ideas they generated tended to be of higher quality than the unique ideas produced by the all-
Caucasian group

Dysfunctional Outcomes:
- The destructive consequences of conflict on the performance of a group or an organization are
generally well known: uncontrolled opposition breeds discontent, which acts to dissolve common
ties and eventually leads to the destruction of the group.
- Among the undesirable consequences are poor communication, reductions in group cohesiveness,
and subordination of group goals to the primacy of infighting among members.

Negotiation: A process in which two or more parties exchange goods or services and attempt to agree on
the exchange rate for them.

Two Approaches of Negotiation

1. Distributive Bargaining
2. Integrative Bargaining
Distributive Bargaining:
- It is a negotiation approach that seeks to divide up a fixed number of resources; a win–lose
situation.
- The essence of distributive bargaining is negotiating over who gets what share of a fixed pie. By
fixed pie, we mean a set amount of goods or services to be divvied up. When the pie is fixed, or the
parties believe it is, they tend to bargain distributively.
- Target Point: what he or she would like to achieve.
- Resistance Point: which marks the lowest acceptable outcome—the point below which the party
would break off negotiations rather than accept a less favourable settlement.

Tactic 1: Make the 1st offer and make it aggressive; Making the first offer shows power; individuals in
power are much more likely to make initial offers, speak first at meetings, and thereby gain the advantage.
Another reason this is a good strategy is the anchoring bias. Once that anchoring point is set, they fail to
adequately adjust it based on subsequent information. A savvy negotiator sets an anchor with the initial
offer, and scores of negotiation studies show that such anchors greatly favour the person who sets them.

Tactic 2: Another distributive bargaining tactic is revealing a deadline. Negotiators who reveal deadlines
speed concessions from their negotiating counterparts, making them reconsider their position. And even
though negotiators don’t think this tactic works, in reality, negotiators who reveal deadlines do better.

Integrative Bargaining
- It is a Negotiation approach that seeks one or more settlements that can create a win–win solution.
- In terms of intraorganizational behaviour, all things being equal, integrative bargaining is preferable
to distributive bargaining because the former builds long-term relationships. Integrative bargaining
bonds negotiators and allows them to leave the bargaining table feeling they have achieved a
victory
- Individuals who bargain in teams reach more integrative agreements than those who bargain
individually because more ideas are generated when more people are at the bargaining table

Steps of Negotiation Process

1. Preparation and Planning
2. Definition of Ground rules
3. Clarification and Justification
4. Bargaining and Problem solving
5. Closure and implementation

Step 1: Preparation and Planning:

- Before you start negotiating, you need to do your homework. What’s the nature of the conflict?
What’s the history leading up to this negotiation? Who’s involved and what are their perceptions of
the conflict? What do you want from the negotiation? What are your goals?
- You also want to assess what you think are the other party’s goals. What are they likely to ask?
How entrenched is their position likely to be? What intangible or hidden interests may be
important to them? On what might they be willing to settle? When you can anticipate your
opponent’s position, you are better equipped to counter arguments with the facts and figures that
support your position.
- BATNA: Best alternative to a negotiated agreement: BATNA determines the lowest value
acceptable to you for a negotiated agreement. Any offer you receive that is higher than your
BATNA is better than an impasse.

Step 2: Definition of Ground rules:

o Who will do the negotiating? Where will it take place? What time constraints, if any, will apply? To
what issues will negotiation be limited? Will you follow a specific procedure if an impasse is
reached? During this phase, the parties will also exchange their initial proposals or demands.
Step 3: Clarification and Justification
o When you have exchanged initial positions, both you and the other party will explain, amplify,
clarify, bolster, and justify your original demands. This step needn’t be confrontational. Rather, it’s
an opportunity for educating and informing each other on the issues, why they are important, and
how you arrived at your initial demands.

Step 4: Bargaining and Problem Solving

o The essence of the negotiation process is the actual give-and-take in trying to hash out an
agreement. This is where both parties will undoubtedly need to make concessions.

Step 5: Closure and Implementation

o The final step in the negotiation process is formalizing the agreement you have worked out and
developing any procedures necessary for implementing and monitoring it. It is either in the form of
a contract or a handshake sometimes.

Issues in Negotiations: Four factors influence how effectively individuals negotiate: personality traits,
mood/emotions, culture, and gender.

Factor 1 : Personality Traits

o Personality and negotiation outcomes are related but only weakly, the answer is, at best,
“sort of.”
o Negotiators who are agreeable or extraverted are not very successful in distributive
bargaining because extraverts are outgoing and friendly, they tend to share more
information than they should.
o the best distributive bargainer appears to be a disagreeable introvert—someone more
interested in his or her own outcomes than in pleasing the other party and having a
pleasant social exchange
o People who are highly interested in having positive relationships with other people, and
who are not very concerned about their own outcomes, are especially poor negotiators.
These people tend to be very anxious about disagreements and plan to give in quickly to
avoid unpleasant conflicts even before negotiations start.

Factor 2: Moods/Emotions in Negotiations

o moods and emotions influence negotiation based on the type of negotiation – distributive
or integrative.
o In distributive negotiations, it appears that negotiators in a position of power or equal
status who show anger negotiate better outcomes because their anger induces concessions
from their opponents. Angry negotiators also feel more focused and assertive in striking a
bargain. Evidence suggests that being angry has a spillover effect, such that angry
negotiators are perceived as “tough” when the parties meet a second time, which leads
negotiation partners to give up more concessions again
o Anxiety also appears to have an impact on negotiation. Individuals who experienced more
anxiety about a negotiation used more deceptions in dealing with others. anxious
negotiators expect lower outcomes from negotiations, respond to offers more quickly, and
exit the bargaining process more quickly, which leads them to obtain worse outcomes
o In integrative negotiations, in contrast, positive moods and emotions appear to lead to
more integrative agreements (higher levels of joint gain). This may happen because,
positive mood is related to creativity

Factor 3: Culture in Negotiations

o early offers by U.S. managers led to the anchoring effect we noted when discussing
distributive negotiation.
 o for Japanese negotiators, early offers led to more information sharing and better
integrative outcomes
o high power-distance countries, those in positions of power might exercise more restraint

Factor 4: Gender Differences in Negotiations

o women are more likely to engage in assertive negotiation when they are bargaining on
behalf of someone else than when they are bargaining on their own behalf.
o Women are also less likely than men to see an ambiguous situation as an opportunity for
negotiation. It appears that women may unduly penalize themselves by failing to engage in
negotiations that would be in their best interests. Some research suggests that women are
less aggressive in negotiations because they are worried about backlash from others.

3rd Party Negotiations.

o we’ve discussed bargaining in terms of direct negotiations. Occasionally, however,
individuals or group representatives reach a stalemate and are unable to resolve their
differences through direct negotiations. In such cases, they may turn to a third party to
help them find a solution. There are 3 types party roles: mediator, arbitrator, and
conciliator.
o Mediator: A mediator is a neutral third party who facilitates a negotiated solution by using
reasoning and persuasion, suggesting alternatives, and the like. Assess the roles and
functions of third-party; negotiations
o Arbitrator: An arbitrator is a third party with the authority to dictate an agreement.
Arbitration can be voluntary (requested by the parties) or compulsory (forced on the
parties by law or contract). The big plus of arbitration over mediation is that it always
results in a settlement.
o Conciliators: A conciliator is a trusted third party who provides an informal communication
link between the negotiator and the opponent. In practice, conciliators typically act as
more than mere communication conduits. They also engage in fact-finding, interpret
messages, and persuade disputants to develop agreements.

Chapter 13: Leadership

Leadership: The ability to influence a group toward the achievement of a vision or set of goals.

Manager Vs Leader

Trait Theories of Leadership:

 Theories that consider personal qualities and characteristics that differentiate leaders from
nonleaders.
 This theory is built on the Big Five Framework – Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness,
Openness to Experience, Neuroticism.
Extraversion
 - Sociable and dominant people are more likely to assert themselves in group situations, but leaders
need to make sure they’re not too assertive—one study found leaders who scored very high on
assertiveness were less effective than those who were moderately high.
- Extraverted Leaders may be more effective when leading groups of passive employees rather than
proactive employees
Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience
- conscientiousness and openness to experience also showed strong relationships to leadership,
though not quite as strong as extraversion
- Leaders who like being around people and are able to assert themselves(extraverted), who are
disciplined and able to keep commitments they make(conscientious), and who are creative and
flexible (open) do have an apparent advantage when it comes to leadership.
Dark Side Traits (Machiavellianism, Narcissism, Psychopathy)
- Midrange scores on Dark side personality traits are optimal for effective leadership; Low and high
scores are associated with ineffective leadership.
- Building Self awareness and Self-regulation skills may be helpful for leaders to control the effects of
their dark side traits.
Emotional Intelligence
- A core component of EI is empathy. Empathetic leaders can sense others’ needs, listen to what
followers say (and don’t say), and read the reactions of others.
- A leader who effectively displays and manages emotions will find it easier to influence the feelings
of followers, by both expressing genuine sympathy and enthusiasm for good performance and by
using irritation for those who fail to perform.
- people high in EI are more likely to emerge as leaders, even after taking cognitive ability and
personality into account

Behavioral Theories of Leadership

 Theories proposing that specific behaviours differentiate leaders from nonleaders.
 Ohio State Studies list 2 important Leadership behaviour
- Initiating Structure – It is the extent to which a leader is likely to define and structure his or her
role and those of employees in the search for goal attainment. It includes behaviour that
attempts to organize work, work relationships, and goals. A leader high in initiating structure is
someone who “assigns group members to particular tasks,” “expects workers to maintain
definite standards of performance,” and “emphasizes the meeting of deadlines
- Consideration: It is the extent to which a person’s job relationships are characterized by mutual
trust, respect for employees’ ideas, and regard for their feelings. A leader high in consideration
helps employees with personal problems, is friendly and approachable, treats all employees as
equals, and expresses appreciation and support.
 Michigan Studies listed 2 important Leadership behaviour
- Employee Oriented Leader: A leader who emphasizes interpersonal relations, takes a personal
interest in the needs of employees, and accepts individual differences among members. It is
similar to consideration.
- Production oriented leader - A leader who emphasizes technical or task aspects of the job,
focusing on accomplishing the group’s tasks. It is similar to Initiating Structure.
 A leader high in initiating structure (relatively task-oriented) will do best and can make decisions in
a relatively autocratic manner. A manager who scores high on consideration (people oriented) may
find that style backfiring in France.
 Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid (Leadership grid)
o The grid depicted two dimensions of leader behaviour, concern for people (accommodating
people’s needs and giving them priority) on y-axis and concern for production (keeping
tight schedules) on x-axis, with each dimension ranging from low (1) to high (9), thus
creating 81 different positions in which the leader’s style may fall. (See figure 1).

o Impoverished Management (1, 1): Managers with this approach are low on both the
dimensions and exercise minimum effort to get the work done from subordinates; The
 leader has low concern for employee satisfaction and work deadlines and as a result
disharmony and disorganization prevail within the organization. The leaders are termed
ineffective wherein their action is merely aimed at preserving job and seniority.
o Task management (9, 1): Also called dictatorial or perish style. Here leaders are more
concerned about production and have less concern for people. The style is based on theory
X of McGregor.
o Middle-of-the-Road (5, 5): This is basically a compromising style wherein the leader tries to
maintain a balance between goals of company and the needs of people.
o Country Club (1, 9): This is a collegial style characterized by low task and high people
orientation where the leader gives thoughtful attention to the needs of people thus
providing them with a friendly and comfortable environment. However, a low focus on
tasks can hamper production and lead to questionable results.
o Team Management (9, 9): Characterized by high people and task focus, the style is based
on the theory Y of McGregor and has been termed as most effective style according to
Blake and Mouton. The leader feels that empowerment, commitment, trust, and respect
are the key elements in creating a team atmosphere which will automatically result in high
employee satisfaction and production.
 Scandinavian Studies of Leadership
o Based on the premise that in a changing world, effective leaders would be development
oriented
o Development oriented leader- one who values experimentation, seeking new ideas and
generating and implementing change.

Contingency Theory of Leadership

 Theory indicated situations or circumstances determine which would the most effective way of
leadership
 4 approaches to isolating situational variables:
o the Fiedler model,
o situational theory
o path–goal theory
o the leader-participation model.
 Fiedler Model
- It is the theory that effective groups depend on a proper match between a leader’s style of
interacting with subordinates and the degree to which the situation gives control and
influence to the leader.
- least preferred co-worker (LPC) questionnaire: to identify leadership style by measuring
whether a person is task or relationship oriented.
- The LPC questionnaire asks respondents to think of all the co-workers they have ever had
and describe the one they least enjoyed working with by rating that person on a scale of 1
to 8 for each of 16 sets of contrasting adjectives (such as pleasant–unpleasant, efficient–
inefficient, open–guarded, supportive–hostile). If you describe the person, you are least
able to work with in favourable terms (a high LPC score), Fiedler would label you
relationship oriented If you see your least-preferred co-worker in unfavourable terms (a
low LPC score), you are primarily interested in productivity and are task oriented.
- After assessing an individual’s basic leadership style through the LPC questionnaire, we
match the leader with the situation. Fiedler has identified three contingency or situational
dimensions:
1. Leader–member relations is the degree of confidence, trust, and respect
co-workers have in their leader.
2. Task structure is the degree to which the job assignments are regimented
that is, structured or unstructured.
3. Position power is the degree of influence a leader has over power variables
such as hiring, firing, discipline, promotions, and salary increases.
 - Model states the better the leader–member relations, the more task structure, and the
stronger the position power, the more control the leader has.
- Task oriented Leaders perform best in most favourable and most unfavourable situations
- Relationship oriented Leaders perform best in moderate situations
- Fiedler views an individual’s leadership style as fixed. Therefore, there are only two ways to
improve leader effectiveness.
o you can change the leader to fit the situation
o you can change the situation to fit the leader

 Situational Leadership Theory

- It is a contingency theory that focuses on followers’ readiness to accomplish a specific task
- A leader should choose one of four behaviours depending on follower readiness
o If followers are unable and unwilling to do a task, the leader needs to give clear and
specific directions; - Directing Leadership
o if they are unable and willing, the leader needs to display high task orientation to
compensate for followers’ lack of ability and high relationship orientation to get them
to “buy into” the leader’s desires.
o If followers are able and unwilling, the leader needs to use a supportive and
participative style;
o if they are both able and willing, the leader doesn’t need to do much.

 Path Goal Theory

- A theory that states that it is the leader’s job to assist followers in attaining their goals and
to provide the necessary direction and/or support to ensure that their goals are compatible
with the overall objectives of the group or organization. The term path–goal implies
effective leaders clarify followers’ paths to their work goals and make the journey easier by
reducing roadblocks.
- Directive leadership yields greater satisfaction when tasks are ambiguous or stressful than
when they are highly structured and well laid out.
- Supportive leadership results in high performance and satisfaction when employees are
performing structured tasks.
- Directive leadership is likely to be perceived as redundant among employees with high
ability or considerable experience.

 Leader-Participation Model
- A leadership theory that provides a set of rules to determine the form and amount of
participative decision making in different situations.
- Reflects a decision tree with 12 contingencies and 5 alternative leadership styles
- It is complicated and cannot be used on a regular basis by a typical manager

Leader Member Exchange (LMX Theory)

 Leaders tend to create in- and out-groups.
 Due to time pressure, leaders create a special relationship with a small number of employees.
These employees are then part of the in-group.
 The characteristics of the employees are driving the leader’s categorisation decision, although the
leader chooses the employees that will be part of the in-group.
 Ingroup members have demographic, attitude, and personality characteristics similar to those of
their leader or a higher level of competence than outgroup members
 Leader does the choosing, and the follower‟s characteristics drive the categorizing decision
 Leaders and followers of the same gender tend to have closer (higher LMX) relationships than
those of different genders.
Charismatic Leadership Theory:
- A leadership theory that states that followers make attributions of heroic or extraordinary
leadership abilities when they observe certain behaviours.

- Main personal characteristics of charismatic leaders:

 Have a vision
 Sensitive to follower’s needs
 Exhibit behaviours that are not ordinary
 Willing to take risks
- charismatic leaders are likely to be extraverted, self-confident, and achievement oriented
- Three step process to train individuals to exhibit charismatic behaviour
1. Person must develop an aura of charisma by having an optimistic view
2. Person draws in others by inspiring them to follow
3. Person unleashes the potential of followers by tapping into their emotions.
- Four step process followed by charismatic leader to influence followers
1. Leader should articulate a vision. A long-term strategy used to achieve a goal or a set of goals.
2. Inspirational possibilities of a vision are value centred, realizable and have superior imagery and
articulation. Articulation of vision should be accompanied by a vision statement. A vision
statement is a formal articulation of an organisation’s vision or mission.
3. Leader should convey a new set of values and use his/her behaviour to create an example for
followers to imitate.
4. Leader should use emotional appeals and unconventional behaviour to demonstrate courage
and convictions about the vision.
- Charismatic leadership is effective usually effective when the follower’s task has an ideological
component and there is a high level of stress and uncertainty.
- Charismatic leaders who are larger than life don’t necessarily act in the best interests of their
organizations. Many have allowed their personal goals to override the goals of the organization.
Individuals who are narcissistic are also higher in some behaviours associated with charismatic
leadership.

Transformational Leadership
- Transactional Leaders: Leaders who guide or motivate their followers, on the basis of established
goals, by defining role and task requirements.
- Transformational Leaders: Leaders who inspire followers to transcend their own self-interests and
focus on organisational goals and have extraordinary effect on their followers
-

- Transactional and transformational leadership complement each other; they aren’t opposing
approaches to getting things done.
- Transformational leadership builds on transactional leadership and produces levels of follower
effort and performance beyond what transactional leadership alone can do. But the reverse isn’t
true.
- So, if you are a good transactional leader but do not have transformational qualities, you’ll likely
only be a mediocre leader. The best leaders are transactional and transformational.
- Transformational leaders are able to increase follower self-efficacy, giving the group a “can do”
spirit.
- It has a greater impact on the bottom line in smaller, privately held firms than in more complex
organizations
- Transformational leaders were more effective in improving group potency in teams higher in power
distance and collectivism.
- Individual-focused transformational leadership is behaviour that empowers individual followers to
develop, enhance their abilities, and increase self-efficacy.
 - Team-focused transformational leadership emphasizes group goals, shared values and beliefs, and
unified efforts.
Transformational vs Transactional Leadership
- Transformational leaders outperform transactional ones, because they are more creative and
inspire their followers to be more creative as well.
- Transformational leadership is related to low turnover rates, high levels of productivity, low levels
of employee stress and high levels of satisfaction.
Authentic Leadership
- Authentic Leaders: Leaders who know who they are, are aware of their values and beliefs and act
on those values and beliefs openly and candidly. Followers consider them as ethical people
- The primary quality produced by authentic leadership, therefore, is trust. Authentic leaders share
information, encourage open communication, and stick to their ideals. The result: people come to
have faith in them.
- Ethical Leaders: individuals that use their charisma to serve others in a socially constructive way.
- Unethical Leaders: serve their own interests and use their charisma to direct the behaviour of
others.
- Socialized Charismatic Leadership: a leadership framework that indicates that the values of leaders
who model ethical conduct are other-centred rather than self-centred

Servant Leadership
- It is a Leadership style marked by going beyond the leader’s own self-interest and instead focusing
on opportunities to help followers grow and develop.
- They don’t use power to achieve ends; they emphasize persuasion. Characteristic behaviours
include listening, empathizing, persuading, accepting stewardship, and actively developing
followers’ potential.
- servant leadership increases team potency; which in turn leads to higher levels of group
performance

Visionary Leadership
- The ability to create and articulate a realistic, credible, attractive vision of the future for an
organization or organizational unit that grows out of and improves up on the present.

Positive Leadership – Trust and Mentoring

 Trust: It is a psychological state that exists when you agree to make yourself vulnerable to another
because you have positive expectations about how things are going to turn out. A positive
expectation that another will not act opportunistically. Trust is the primary attribute of leadership
because breaking it has serious consequences on group performance

 Trust Development based on 3 factors

o Integrity: Integrity refers to honesty and truthfulness; Integrity also means having
consistency between what you do and say
o Benevolence: Benevolence means the trusted person has your interests at heart, even if
yours aren’t necessarily in line with theirs
o Ability: Ability encompasses an individual’s technical and interpersonal knowledge and
skills

 Types of Trust

 Trust Propensity
 o Trust propensity refers to how likely a particular employee is to trust a leader.
o Those who carefully document every promise or conversation with their supervisors aren’t
very high in trust propensity, and they probably aren’t going to take a leader’s word for
anything.
o Trust propensity is closely linked to the personality trait of agreeableness, while people
with lower self-esteem are less likely to trust others.
o
 Outcomes and Consequences of Trust
o Trust encourages taking risk
o Trust facilitates information sharing
o Trusting groups are more effective
o Trust enhances productivity

 Mentoring
o Mentor: a senior employee who sponsors and supports a less-experienced employee,
called a protégé.
o They present ideas clearly, listen well, and empathize with protégés’ problems. Mentoring
relationships serve both career functions and psychosocial functions.

Challenges of Leadership
1. Attribution Theory of Leadership:
- A leadership theory that says that leadership is merely an attribution that people make about other
individuals.
- the power of the attribution approach to leadership: hero and genius when things are going well,
villain when they aren’t
- Attribution theory suggests what’s important is projecting the appearance of being a leader rather
than focusing on actual accomplishments
2. Neutralizers: Attributes that make it impossible for leader behaviour to make any difference to follower
outcomes.
3. Substitutes: Attributes, such as experience and training, that can replace the need for a leader’s support
or ability to create structure.

Chapter 11 – Power and Politics

Power:
- It is the capacity that A has to influence B so that B behaves accordingly to the wishes of A
- The most important aspect of power is that it is a function of dependence
Dependence: B’s relationship to A when A possesses something that B requires. Money is a
powerful variable for dependence.
- Leaders use power as a means of attaining group goals. Three differences between Power and
Leadership
o Power does not require goal compatibility, just dependence. Leadership, on the other
hand, requires some congruence between the goals of the leader and those being led.
o A second difference relates to the direction of influence. Leadership research focuses on
the downward influence on followers. It minimizes the importance of lateral and upward
influence patterns. Power research takes all factors into consideration.
o leadership research often emphasizes style. The research on power focuses on tactics for
gaining compliance
Bases of Power – 2 General groupings: Formal Power and Personal Power

Formal Power: Formal power is based on an individual’s position in an organization. It can come from the
ability to coerce or reward, or from formal authority.

Types of Formal Power

o Coercive Power: The coercive power base depends on the target’s fear of negative results
from failing to comply. Coercive power comes also from withholding key information.
People in an organization who have data or knowledge others need can make others
dependent on them
o Reward Power: The opposite of coercive power is reward power, with which people
comply because it produces positive benefits; someone who can distribute rewards others
view as valuable will have power over them. These rewards can be financial—such as
controlling pay rates, raises, and bonuses—or nonfinancial, including recognition,
promotions, interesting work assignments, friendly colleagues, and preferred work shifts or
sales territories
o Legitimate Power: The power a person receives as a result of his or her position in the
formal hierarchy of an organization.
o Information power: Power that comes from access to and control over information

Personal Power: Personal power comes from an individual’s unique characteristics. There are 3 bases of
personal power
o Expert Power: Expert power is influence wielded as a result of expertise, special skills, or
knowledge. As jobs become more specialized, we become dependent on experts to achieve
goals. It is generally acknowledged that physicians have expertise and hence expert power.
o Referent Power: Referent power is based on identification with a person who has desirable
resources or personal traits. If I like, respect, and admire you, you can exercise power over
me because I want to please you. Referent power develops out of admiration of another
and a desire to be like that person. Some people who are not in formal leadership positions
have referent power and exert influence over others because of their charismatic
dynamism, likability, and emotional appeal.
o Charismatic power: Due to the charisma of the person and extension of referent power.

 Research suggests the personal sources of power are most effective. Both expert and referent
power are positively related to employees’ satisfaction with supervision, their organizational
commitment, and their performance, whereas reward and legitimate power seem to be unrelated
to these outcomes. One source of formal power—coercive power—can be damaging. Referent
power can be a powerful motivator.
Dependence: The General Dependence Postulate
 Let’s begin with a general postulate: The greater B’s dependence on A, the more power A has over
B. When you possess anything, others require that you alone control, you make them dependent
on you, and therefore you gain power over them.
 Independence reduces the power others can wield to limit our access to opportunities and
resources.

What creates Dependence?

 Importance: If nobody wants what you have, it’s not going to create dependence. However, note
that there are many degrees of importance, from needing the resource for survival to wanting a
resource that is in fashion or adds to convenience.
 Scarcity: It refers to the uniqueness of a resource. The more difficult something to obtain, the more
valuable it tends to be.
  Non-Substitutability: The fewer viable substitutes for a resource, the more power a person
controlling that resource has.

Power Tactics: Ways in which individuals translate power bases into specific actions. There are nine
distinct influencing tactics.
1. Legitimacy. Relying on your authority position or saying a request accords with organizational
policies or rules.
2. Rational persuasion. Presenting logical arguments and factual evidence to demonstrate a
request is reasonable.
3. Inspirational appeals. Developing emotional commitment by appealing to a target’s values,
needs, hopes, and aspirations.
4. Consultation. Increasing support by involving the target in deciding how to accomplish your
plan.
5. Exchange. Rewarding the target with benefits or favours in exchange for acceding to a request.
6. Personal appeals. Asking for compliance based on friendship or loyalty.
7. Ingratiation. Using flattery, praise, or friendly behaviour prior to making a request.
8. Pressure. Using warnings, repeated demands, and threats.
9. Coalitions. Enlisting the aid or support of others to persuade the target to agree.

Another model Influencing tactics

Using Power Tactics

 Rational persuasion, inspiration appeals, and consultation tend to be the most effective.
 rational persuasion is the only tactic effective across organizational levels.
 Inspirational appeals work best as a downward-influencing tactic with subordinates. When pressure
works, it’s generally downward only. Personal appeals and coalitions are most effective as lateral
influence.
 you’re more likely to be effective if you begin with “softer” tactics that rely on personal power, such
as personal and inspirational appeals, rational persuasion, and consultation. If these fail, you can
move to “harder” tactics; such as exchange, coalitions, and pressure, which emphasize formal
power and incur greater costs and risks.
 A single soft tactic is more effective than a single hard tactic, and combining two soft tactics or a
soft tactic and rational persuasions more effective than any single tactic or combination of hard
tactics.
 People especially likely to comply with soft power tactics tend to be more reflective and intrinsically
motivated; they have high self-esteem and a greater desire for control.
 Those likely to comply with hard power tactics are more action oriented and extrinsically
motivated, and more focused on getting along with others than on getting their own way.
 Preference for power tactics varies across cultures. Those from individualist countries tend to see
power in personalized terms and as a legitimate means of advancing their personal ends, whereas
those in collectivist countries see power in social terms and as a legitimate means of helping others.
 U.S. managers preferred rational appeal, whereas Chinese managers preferred coalition tactics

Applying Power Tactics

Political skill: the ability to influence others in such a way as to enhance one’s own objectives
 The politically skilled are more effective users of all the influence tactics.
 Political skill is also more effective when the stakes are high, such as when the individual is
accountable for important organizational outcomes.
 Finally, the politically skilled are able to exert their influence without others detecting it, a key
element in effectiveness (it’s damaging to be labelled political).
  These individuals are able to use their political skills in environments with low levels of procedural
and distributive justice
 extraverts tend to be more influential in team-oriented organizations, and highly conscientious
people are more influential in organizations that value working alone on technical tasks.

Power Variables
 First, the toxic effects of power depend on the wielder’s personality. Research suggests that if we
have an anxious personality, power does not corrupt us because we are less likely to think that
using power benefits us.
 Second, the corrosive effect of power can be contained by organizational systems. for example,
that while power made people behave in a self-serving manner, when accountability for this
behaviour was initiated, the self-serving behaviour stopped.
 Third, we have the means to blunt the negative effects of power. One study showed that simply
expressing gratitude toward powerful others makes them less likely to act aggressively against us.
 There can be general positive effects of power. Power energizes and increases motivation to
achieve goals. It also can enhance our motivation to help others.
 In those with a strong moral identity, power enhanced their moral awareness and willingness to
act.

Politics: Power in Action

Political Behaviour: Activities that are not required as part of one’s formal role in the organization, but that
influence, or attempt to influence, the distribution of advantages and disadvantages within the
organization.

Types of Political Behaviour

Factors Contributing to Political Behaviour

Individual Factors
 we find that employees who are high self-monitors, possess an internal locus of control,
and have a high need for power are more likely to engage in political behaviour.
 High Self Monitor: The high self-monitor is more sensitive to social cues, exhibits higher
levels of social conformity, and is more likely to be skilled in political behaviour than the
low self-monitor
 Internal locus of control: individuals with an internal locus of control are more prone to
take a proactive stance and attempt to manipulate situations in their favor.
 High Mach Personality: the Machiavellian personality—characterized by the will to
manipulate and the desire for power—is consistent with using politics as a means to
further personal interests
 Organisational Investment: An individual’s investment in the organization and perceived
alternatives influence the degree to which he or she will pursue illegitimate means of
political action. The more a person expects increased future benefits from the organization,
and the more that person has to lose if forced out, the less likely he or she is to use
illegitimate means.
 Perceived Job Alternatives : the more alternate job opportunities an individual has—due to a
favourable job market, possession of scarce skills or knowledge, prominent reputation, or
influential contacts outside the organization—the more likely the person is to employ politics
  Expectation of Success: An individual with low expectations of success from political means
is unlikely to use them. High expectations from such measures are most likely to be the
province of both experienced and powerful individuals with polished political skills, and
inexperienced and naïve employees who misjudge their chances

Organisational Factors
 Reallocation of Resources: When resources are reduced, people may engage in political
actions to safeguard what they have. Also, any changes, especially those implying
significant reallocation of resources within the organization, are likely to stimulate conflict
and increase politicking
 Promotional Opportunities and Low trust: Cultures characterized by low trust, role
ambiguity, unclear performance evaluation systems, zero-sum (win-lose) reward allocation
practices, democratic decision making, high pressure for performance, and self-serving
senior managers will also create breeding grounds for politicking.
 Role Ambiguity: Because political activities are not required as part of the employee’s
formal role, the greater the role ambiguity, the more employees can engage in unnoticed
political activity. Role ambiguity means the prescribed employee behaviours are not clear.
 Zero Sum Reward Practices: The more an organizational culture emphasizes the zero-sum
or win–lose approach to reward allocations, the more employees will be motivated to
engage in politicking. The zero-sum approach treats the reward “pie” as fixed, so any gain
one person or group achieves comes at the expense of another person or group.

People response to Organisation Politics

 Defensive behaviours—reactive and protective behaviours to avoid action, blame or change

 Political behaviour at work moderates the effects of ethical leadership
 One study found male employees were more responsive to ethical leadership and showed the most
citizenship behaviour when levels of both politics and ethical leadership were high. Women, on the
other hand, appeared most likely to engage in citizenship behaviour when the environment was
consistently ethical and apolitical.

Impression Management: The process by which individuals attempt to control the impression others form of
them. It is evident with people with high-self monitors. High self-monitors are good at reading situations and
molding their appearances and behaviour to fit each situation.

Impression Management Techniques

- Ingratiation forms: Conformity, Favors

- Defensive IM Techniques: Excuses and Apologies
- Self-focused IM techniques: Self Promotion and Enhancement
- Assertive IM Techniques: Flattery and Exemplification