Leadership

PSYCH 485 blog

Application of Contingency and path goal theory in McDonald’s employee trainning

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2020, is a year of turmoil, the pandemic has caused the world economy to go down and people’s lives to be harder. I will use McDonald’s employee training as the main character to demonstrate how contingency theory and path-goal theory can be used in worker’s daily life.

As we all know, the most common definition for leadership is about how to organize a group of people to accomplish the same goal. When we talk about leadership and employee training in the McDonald’s restaurant, the leadership theory that should be choosing it would be the contingency theory and path-goal theory. (Northouse, 2019) This is because the restaurant will face a variety of different situations that will require the manager of the team to put more weight on the situation variables. The contingency leadership theory belief that successful leadership will change based on their situation, in one case it may be successful, but in another case, it may not be. The path-goal theory is about adjusting a leader’s behavior to motivate the followers.

Thus, when creating the employee leadership training, it should introduce the Hersey-Blanchard model and the Path-Goal theory but not the Vroom-Yetton contingency model, the Path-Goal theory would be the most recommended. This is because the Vroom model is focused on building the relationship between the manager and employee but would not be beneficial for the Fast-food restaurant since their employee turnover rate is high. (Hamel, 2021) The Hersey- Blanchard model will require more maturate team members, who are highly trained or have many work experiences and capable of working independently without the interference of the manager. Nonetheless, this is not the most case for the McDonald’s restaurant. Thus, the Path-Goal theory would work better, since it is focused on adjusting the manager’s leadership style to motivate the employee to work more efficiently and productively. What’s more, it is still important for managers to provide instant and objective feedback and to create a comity employee-employer relationship. (Northouse 2019) Even there are many limitations between the contingency theory and path-goal theory, but those are the most preferred and advanced theories that can be used. Then within those two, it is up to the leader and the situation to choose to use which theory.

References:

  1. Hamel, R. (n.d.). PSY 485 Lesson 6: Contingency and path-goal theory, Penn State University, 2021
  2. Yammarino, F.J. (2000). Leadership skills: Introduction and overview. Leadership Quarterly, 11(1), 5-9.
  3. Northouse, P.G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

How Culture differences influence Style and Situational Leadership approaches

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Style approaches mainly focus on leadership behaviors, this approach has two key dimensions one is initiating structure, which also called task behaviors, another one is a consideration, which also called relationship behaviors. The first dimension talks about how many leaders would focus on the completion of the tasks, specific target the mission or the goal itself. The second dimension would talk about how leaders solve relationship-related problems like teamwork and corporation with others. This is very related to cultural differences because as we can see that Frances is very high on individualist, which means the leader should adjust their leadership style in relationship behavior strategy to focus more on individual personal goal more and focus more on collectivize goal more for Singapore. What’s more, they should also adjust their task behavior based on Uncertainty avoidance. During the process of accomplishing tasks, France would not like to be more creative and likely to follow the rules since they score very high on uncertainty avoidances. However, leaders should also change in Singapore since they score very low on uncertainty avoidances, which means they would likely be more creative and riskier taking. (Northouse, 2019)

 

Name of the Country Power distance Individualistic Masculine Uncertainty Avoidance Long term
France 68 71 43 86 63
Singapore 74 20 48 8 72

 

The situational approach mainly focuses on the interaction between the leader and follower, they create different segments in leader’s behaviors like directing, coaching, supporting, and delegating. Each also separates by using two main dimensions, task behavior, and relationship behavior. Then, the theory creates four segments in follower’s developmental levels and are segmented by followers’ ableness, willingness, and confidence to perform the new task. Those can also be influenced by cultural differences, for example during the relational behavior, if the leader target more on individual development in France may increase their follower’s willingness to perform the task, vice versa for Singapore. The directive and supportive behavior will also be different because of cultural differences, it may be beneficial for leaders in France to be more supportive, but in Singapore, it may be better to be high on directive since they are more creative just need to focus more on the direction. (Northouse, 2019)

 

Those we can assume that it would be beneficial for leaders and followers to adjust their behavior or to recognize the differences between each other’s cultures. Then the leader should use a strategy that most fits one countries culture not the other one.

 

References:

Insights, H. (2020, August 12). Country comparison. Retrieved February 21, 2021, from https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison/singapore/

Northouse, P. G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Sage Publishing

The Pennsylvania State University. (2021). Leadership in Work Settings, PSYCH 485, Lesson 4: Introduction to Style and situational Approaches

Self-Evaluation for Skill Approach

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Skill Approach is different from the Trait approach mainly because one is trained, and another is born. This means, there is a chance for me to learn about those traits and to prepare for the coming work life. I will use Mumford’s skill approach models as my reference to do self-analysis.

I will avoid the individual attributes, since other than professional objective analysis, is hard to do a self-evaluation. There are three main skills that need to be learned: problem-solving skills, social judgment skills, and knowledge.

Problem-solving skills mainly discuss people’s abilities to solve problems that have never occur in their life. It is very important to have the creativity and the ability to connect or discover potential alternative choices. In terms of self-analysis, I would need to improve my ability to discover potential alternatives. This is because in my personal opinion creativity is not the ability that I will need in this stage. For people like me who are about to graduate and go into the workforce. Under the condition that I lack working experience, it is very needed to connect the situation that I will face in the work to the problem that I have solved in academic life. I need to be able to solve problems like writing an essay in college, predict and think of an outline of what I should do in this task, and making the adjustment when there is a new idea that appeared in my head. (Northouse, 2019)

Social judgment skills mainly discuss personal’s empathy, social perceptiveness, behavioral flexibility, and persuasive ability. In that aspect, the things I need to be working on is social perceptiveness and behavior flexibility. Social perceptiveness is the ability of one can read potential social cues, which is very hard for students who just enter the workforce. In this aspect, it would be necessary to do some research about the potential social cues that have been posted online and to discuss with friends who have just finish working for one year. Then it would be behavior flexibility, this is about people’s ability to adjust their solution in a changing situation. Under academic life, what we have learned and trained has taught us mainly about how to perform in a fixed pattern like how to prepare for the exam, presentation evaluation table, and how the syllabus will be changed with. However, this is not the case in real life, there are no exam study guide, syllabus for the job, and clear instruction of how the presentation will be evaluated with. It is all blur and untold, thus it is important for me to learn, ask and watch how our coworkers will act and find out the possible standards that will make us to getting an A on the work we have done. (Northouse, 2019)

Knowledge is something that everyone has to spend their life learning, and the thing I need to remember is to not stop learning even after college. I hope with those self-evaluation and analysis, I will be prepared and be ready in the first few years of work life. Hopefully one day, I will be able to do my jobs like drinking water, ease, and comfort.

References:

Northouse, P.G. (2019).  Leadership: Theory and Practice.  Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

Hamel, R. (n.d.). Lesson 4: Skills Approach, 2021. 

Does leader have to be responsible for follower’s mistake? If so what they should do?

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As we all know that follower it is the people who have belief in the leader and willing to work or support the leader to accomplish the same goal. Many people in the past would only think of the leader in shaping the follower’s behavior and cognition but have never thought of the possibility that the follower will also influence the leaders. In the lesson, we learned that in a relationship-based perspective, leadership is created because of the interaction between leader and follower but not only by the leader. It is not like in the past people would think that leadership is role-based. Therefore, since we know that leadership is created because both the leader and follower will leader or should a leader be responsible for the mistake their follower has created? In my opinion, I think leaders should be responsible for follower’s mistake in most cases. (Hamel, 2021)

In my past internship experience, when an employee mistake has been made and has caused tremendous repercussion, it is standard procedure for the company to have a meeting to discuss every single detail of that case. The supervisor would sit with the employee and talk about how everything has been started and how they have communicated. Then they will tag the mistake as to who’s a fault, if there is a miscommunication it will be both faults, if the supervisor forgets to mention something important it will be the supervisor faults and if the employee has not done something that was being requested it will be the employee’s fault. Thus after a discussion of the whole event, the supervisor will take the employee to go to our customer and to apologize for them and to provide a possible solution for the problem. If a company would be able to use this procedure and be objective then this problem will be solved. However, miscommunication is something very counterintuitive, for example when the supervisor uses an interval to describe some quantified required goal it is hard for people to decide who is the one who has caused the problem. What’s more, if the supervisor verbally requests something to be done but the employee forgets it is also hard to say who’s a fault it will be. Those it can only be judged by the case. There are many ways the company can use to decide will supervisor be responsible for the follower’s mistake. (Northouse, P.G. 2013).

Yet, there is no way to find out if a leader of the company, have employee more than 2000, and one employee has made a big mistake and the leader has to be punished. Many outsiders would think it is this leader’s fault to not manage well, but to be honest it will be hard to be able to manage every single person in the company and to make sure they have to act well. What’s more, if the leader has given clear instruction for something to be done, but the follower still has not followed the order. Then when the leader asks for progress, the follower still reported that they have followed the order and have not to change anything. When this thing creates negative consequences, it is natural that the leader will take the blame due to management issues. Thus, there are three things the leader has to do.

First, it is important for the leader to document every single process during communication, to make sure that the leader has done everything they can to make sure the work has been ordered it.

Second, it needs to closely monitor the employee to make sure they have done what the leader has been asking and to not being lied from the employee.

Third and last, to select the right person to do the work and the person who they can trust. It is very important for the employer to identify which employee will be fit for what kind of work.

Those things are not limited, it is only the bases for what leader should do during management. As a leader, who has a great social position and is being well compensated, it is his/her responsibility to make sure the work has been done well.

 

 

References:

Northouse, P. G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Sage Publishing

The Pennsylvania State University. (2021). Leadership in Work Settings, PSYCH 485, Lesson 3: Followership

Leadership theory need situation factors

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As the class lecture and the book has indicated there are many similar personality factors that can be found in similar leadership style. However, some people who have all those traits do not show or have the ability to be a leader and this is because of the situation that they are in.

Based on Vroom’s research in 2007 there are few situations that are in need to be discussed: organization effectiveness, situation shapes how leader behave and the situation influences the leadership results.

The first organization effectiveness it means in many organizations, the success of certain events or certain war are not win only because of their leader but it is because of the whole organization. If a certain part of the process has failed it can still lead to the failure of the who situation. Thus, without the success of the followers, there will be no success of the leader. In some cases, the leader’s success can actually cause because of the success of the follower. (Vrooms, 2007)

Another thing that classic leadership theory has not to consider is the external factors that will shape how a leader behaves. Recent leadership theory has mainly been focused on individual differences, how the leader is different from their followers and how the leader is different from other people. However, there is evidence from Vroom’s research that it is important to corporate the situation factor in the research and this is because if the researcher finds out the situation factor will have three more times of various than individual difference will have. Thus, it can conclude the lack of situation factors may not be accurate to describe the success of a leader. (Vrooms, 2007)

The last thing that currents leadership theory has not done is to say that situation will also change’ leader’s behavior result. This is because in a different situation even a leader’s behavior and the organizational behavior has not changed, they may be successful in one situation due to their overall environment but have failed in another situation and may be caused by multiple different factors. Vroom’s research has tried to use the different situation factors in the same leadership decision making and to find in what circumstances the leader will be successful and in what environment the leader will fail. (Vrooms, 2007)

That research has suggested that it is not enough to only consider the individual differences within people but it is also important to consider the situation factor in their research.

 

References:

Northouse, P. G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Sage Publishing

The Pennsylvania State University. (2021). Leadership in Work Settings, PSYCH 485, Lesson 2: Trait Approach

Vroom, V. H., & Jago, A. G. (2007). The role of the situation in leadership. American Psychologist, 62(1), 17-24. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1037/0003-066X.62.1.17

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