Candice Ann Dolgash

Can you hear me, now?

July 3, 2014 by Candice Ann Dolgash

Candice Dolgash

Over the last few decades, researchers in the leadership field have (finally) started asking the question, “Why aren’t there more women in elite leadership positions?”
You would think, after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans job discrimination by race, sex, color, religion, or national origin, that there is now no reason we would not see as many – or even nearly as many – women as men in executive positions.

I asked a friend to name a few female CEO’s, off of the top of his head. His response was, “Well, there’s that one from General Motors.” One response… and not even a name.
(The reason given, when prompted, of why he thought of her was because she’s recently been in the news, for having to testify, on behalf of GM, for a failure to recall autos with faulty ignition switches.)

Unfortunately, this is not unusual. There have been numerous attempts to explain why women are still underrepresented in major leadership positions. Some focus on women’s “lack of human capital investment” in education, training, and work experience, although there is not substantial evidence to support this.
There is evidence that women assume significantly more domestic responsibility, which contributes to less work experience and career interruptions. Also, and unfortunately, women receive less formal training and have fewer developmental opportunities at work than men (Northouse, 2013).

Aside from these, the most strongly supported explanation is, simply, predjudice. Gender stereotypes are still in evidence today. The feminine is still not aligned with our society’s idea of leadership. These biases are damaging to the process of selecting leaders in the workplace.

Perhaps, there’s even more to this than we realize.

I read an interesting article, by Soraya Chemaly (2014), called, “10 Words Every Girl Should Learn.” In it, she postulates that, due to differences in child rearing and socailization, men simply don’t listen to women. And not in the way that you ask your significant other to take out the garbage and it doesn’t get done for 3 days. More like in the way that they don’t allow us our fair share of the conversation.

Chemaly (2014) states that, “We socialize girls to take turns, listen more carefully, not curse, and resist interrupting in ways we do not expect boys to.” “I routinely find myself in mixed-gender environments (life) where men interrupt me.” “This irksome reality goes along with another — men who make no eye contact. For example, a waiter who only directs information and questions to men at a table, or the man last week who simply pretended I wasn’t part of a circle of five people (I was the only woman).”

Chemaly (2014) credits writer, Rebecca Solnit, with giving the explanation that the tendency some men have to grant their own speech greater import than a perfectly competent woman’s is not a universal male trait, but the “intersection between overconfidence and cluelessness where some portion of that gender gets stuck. ”
This idea is closely related to the concept of homosocial reproduction, a tendency for a group to reproduce itself in its own image (Kanter, 1977). People have an inherent preference for the thoughts and opinions of others like them.

She continues to offer numerous examples in society that show men’s speech being given more authority and creditbility: classrooms, boardrooms, legislative bodies, media, religious institutions, even courtrooms (Chemaly, 2014).

Perhaps, part of, or yet another, component in gender prejudice in leadership positions is this “socialized male speech dominance.” If we’re not being heard, we can’t be recognized.
So, what can we, as competent, intellegent, capable women do to enact change? Chemaly (2014) suggests we learn, and teach your daughters, the following phrases:

“Stop interrupting me,”
“I just said that,” and
“No explanation needed.”

Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Chemaly, S. (2014, Jun 30). 10 Words Every Girl Should Learn. Huffington Post, The Blog. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/soraya-chemaly/10-words-every-girl-should-learn_b_5544203.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063

Kanter, R. (1977). Men and women of the corporation. New York: Basic Books.

Authenticity, in practice

June 29, 2014 by Candice Ann Dolgash

Candice Dolgash

Why do we have leaders?

An article in the Ivey Business Journal, by Paul R. Lawrence (2011), discusses the evolution of decision-making and leadership. Animals evolved with unique traits and instincts that help them survive. Humans, on the other hand, were able to use their intelligence to adapt to a wide variety of situations.

“While early humans were not physically very powerful as individuals, they became extremely powerful in groups because they actually cared about at least some of their fellow humans, not just themselves and their own offspring. In short, humans learned to get what they needed and to deal with threats by taking into account not only their own needs, but also the needs of their companions, along with whatever knowledge and experience could be brought to bear. Such an inclusive and resourceful type of decision-making eventually led to complex human societies, to organizations of all kinds, and to leadership.” (Lawrence, 2011)

It’s the concept of leading, by caring for others, that is the basis of the authentic leadership theory. Authentic leadership describes leadership that is transparent, morally grounded, and responsive to people’s needs and values. (Northouse, 2013)
This theory is still being researched and developed, but there are three perspectives to understanding it more clearly. The intrapersonal perspective focuses on the leader and his or her knowledge and self-awareness. The interpersonal perspective claims it is a process built by leaders and followers together. The developmental perspective is the idea that authentic leadership skills develop throughout your life and are affected by major life events. (Northouse, 2013)

One practical way to apply these concepts is using Robert Terry’s Authentic Action Wheel (1993).

This approach gives leaders a tangible method to determine what is really going on in a situation and determine what can be done that would be most beneficial to the leader, followers and organization. (Northouse, 2013)
Perhaps some examples, from my own experience, will help further the understanding of this approach.

At my current employment, there has been some unrest among the employees due to scheduling issues. They complain of the extra hours and the uncertainty of work times, which causes conflicts in their personal lives.
Those of us in a management/supervisory capacity have been struggling to get schedules out on a timely basis and they tend to change frequently when venues alter their plans, to accomodate clients.

This type of situation can be shown, as below, on the action wheel:

As a problem with structure, our leadership would need to implement certain policies and procedures to solve it. By reviewing the job calendar two or three weeks prior, missing information can be attained, or problems mitigated, and a schedule can be created and sent to the staff ahead of time. Also, we could create a policy that would require venues to notify us immediately for any changes on their part, that will affect setup and teardown times.

Another issue that has been developing is that the staff is not completing full cleanup/organization of the warehouse before the next week’s preparations begin. They’re having difficulty finding items, which is slowing progress, and some equipment that would improve logistics, are just not available to them, at this time. Things are taking longer, are being forgotton, or require too much manual labor.

These types of issues are problems with a lack of the proper resources. Not having enough manpower is preventing the staff from completing all housekeeping duties on a timely basis. Also, capital investments in racking, an inventory system, and equipment would improve the workflow greatly. Unfortunately, it takes time to aquire the capital and these items must be purchased a bit at a time. These plan items must be completed, though, for the health and safety of our staff and success of the operation.
“Work smarter, not harder!”

Hopefully, these examples have provided you with a better understanding of this approach to becoming an authentic leader. It provides the “how to” steps, but be sure to ask yourself, underneath the surface, what’s really going on? This will help you, as a leader, and your followers get closer to reaching the ultimate goal of fulfillment!

Lawrence, P.R. (Jan/Feb 2011). Human Evolution Has Given Us What We Need for Good Corporate Leadership. Ivey Business Journal. Retrieved from http://iveybusinessjournal.com/topics/leadership/human-evolution-has-given-us-what-we-need-for-good-corporate-leadership

Northouse, P.G. (2013) Leadership (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Terry, R.W. (1993) Authentic Leadership: Courage in action. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Power in the Labor Movement

June 23, 2014 by Candice Ann Dolgash

Candice Dolgash

I am, currently, taking a class in labor relations, which reviews aspects of the labor movement from creation to collective bargaining to inequality in the workplace. In the readings, it’s been very interesting to see a progression from the meager beginnings of unions, what they hoped to achieve, to the “powerhouses” they’ve become today.

Unions began as a way to protect workers and fight for fair treatment in the workplace. They felt that by joining together, it would give them greater power during negotiations and more influence over the employers’ decisions.

Power is the capacity to produce effects on others (House, 1984), or the potential to influence others (Bass, 1990). Influence is the change in a target agent’s attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors as a result of influence tactics (Pennsylvania State University, 2014).
French and Raven (1959) tell us there are five different bases of power. I’d like to examine how each of these have been wielded by the labor movement.

Expert Power: Expert power is the power of knowledge.
Unions, by nature, are made up of “experts.” They are organized teams of individuals with a particular craft or skill. Employers seek the knowledge and expertise of these people, in order to make the product/process that will make the company successful.

Referent Power: Referent power is the potential influence one had due to the strength of the relationship between the leader and followers. When the leader is seen as a role model, he/she has referent power.
This kind of power develops between the union officials and the “rank-and-file” employees. The stewards and representatives are elected by the employees to be their representation in contract negotiations. They work together with the rank-and-file on a daily basis and are the individuals that the employees look to for guidance and assistance in resolving greivances.

Legitimate Power: Legitimate power depends on a person’s role in the organization and can be thought of as one’s formal authority.
We can see this, again, in the positions the officials hold. This gives them certain responsibilities and rights. They are the individuals “burdened” with representing 100% of the employees in negotiations pertaining to wages, benefits, and many other issues that are a priority to the employees.

Reward Power: Reward power involves the potential to influence others due to one’s control over desired resources.
This is more evident when considering the employers, in items such as hiring and firing, but many of the items we would think of as rewards – wages, bonuses, health benefits, paid vacations/holidays, pension plans – are in direct response to how the contract is negotiated by the employer and union officials. The union’s representation has the power to bring many rewards to its membership.

Coercive Power: Coercive power is the ability to control others through the fear of punishment or the loss of valued outcomes.
Unfortunately, armed with exclusive representation, union officials have a variety of ways to threaten, intimidate, and force out anyone who questions their conduct or disagrees with their actions.They control union treasuries, union offices, strike votes, contract negotiations, and all other union power and privileges without fear of workers exercising any practical restraint on the union officials’ control (nrtwc.org, 2014). Many a union official has been accused and/or convicted of corruption.

There was a definite purpose and a dire need for unions when they were created. They still have many benefits, but like anything, there is bad with the good. Their officials must be wary of allowing a need for power to outweigh the good they are trying to do for the employees.
Naive employers are often stunned to find that union negotiators will frequently sacrifice higher wages, better hours and working conditions for their members to induce employer cooperation in stripping union-dues money from their employees’ pockets (nrtwc.org, 2014).

Hopefully union members, as followers, will exercise the influence they have over their leaders and continue to fight against discrimination, and for freedom of choice. Otherwise, history may repeat itself!

House, R. J. (1984). Power in Organizations: A Social Psychological Perspective. Unpublished manuscript, University of Toronto.

Bass, B. M., (1990). Bass and Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership. 3rd ed. New York: Free Press.

Pennsylvania State Univeristy. (2014). Lesson 7: Power and Influence. Retreived from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/su14/psych485/001/content/07_lesson/01_page.html

French, J. & Raven, B. H. (1959). The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Studies of Social Power. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research.

The Problem of Compulsory Unionism. (2014). Retrieved from http://nrtwc.org/about-2/the-problem/

The “Made” Leader

May 29, 2014 by Candice Ann Dolgash

I came across an article, in Forbes, written by Erika Andersen, author of Growing Great Employees, Being Strategic, and Leading So People Will Follow. In it, she discusses the question she repeatedly gets asked in interviews, “Are leaders born or made?”

She asserts that, “most folks who start out with a modicum of innate leadership capability can actually become very good, even great leaders.” This statement simultaneously covers two approaches to leadership: trait approach and skills approach.

The trait approach suggests that, “certain people were born with special traits that made them great leaders.” (Northouse, 2013). This is precisely what “innate leadership capability” means.
But stating that people can become good and great leaders suggests that they can affect their leadership abilities, learn to develop their leadership skills (skills approach).

But how do they do this?

Luckily, Andersen (2012) gives some words of wisdom. “The single most powerful way to grow as a leader: Become truly self-aware.”

Perhaps the two approaches can be used to self-evaluate and improve leadership capability.
Some of the central leadership traits are intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity and sociability (Northouse, 2013). If we can determine that individuals have some small measure of, at least, a few of these, maybe they can apply certain skills to further develop their leadership selves.

Based on research done by Charles Spearman, it has been determined that we all have a general mental ability (a.k.a. g factor), that intelligence is a single underlying factor for all abilities (PSU, 2014).
Self-confidence is the belief in one’s own abilities (M-W, 2014).
Sociability is the inclination to seek out pleasant social relationships (Northouse, 2013).

By cultivating problem-solving skills through activities such as recognizing & researching problems, and formulating & implementing solutions, individuals can begin to increase their knowledge base (Northouse, 2013). This, in turn, should begin to grow their confidence level in their abilities.
Sociability can be improved by practicing the following social judgement skills: perspective taking (understanding others’ points of view), social perceptiveness (awareness of how things affect others in the group), and social performance (ability to communicate effectively within the group) (Northouse, 2013).

There may be a select few that are, or are perceived to be, “born leaders,” but by implementing some of the techniques above, there is hope for all others to aspire to greatness, or at least “goodness!”

~ Candice Dolgash

Andersen, E. (2012). Are Leaders Born Or Made?. Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2012/11/21/are-leaders-born-or-made/

Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: theory and practice (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Pennsylvania State University (2014). Lesson 2: Trait Approach. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/su14/psych485/001/content/02_lesson/08_page.html

Merriam-Webster. (2014). Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Retrieved May 29th, 2014, from http://www.merriam-webster.com

Trait Approach – Yay or nay?

May 25, 2014 by Candice Ann Dolgash

I began this lesson with the belief that leadership skills can be learned and applied, when needed. The trait approach reading was very interesting, although, it has not yet changed my opinion.

In our Lesson 2 discussion board, I address an instance in which dark side personality traits affected leadership. Here I’d like to talk about a generally positive experience.

A previous employer of mine had begun his career as a floor supervisor in a distribution warehouse. Through his determination and years of hard work, he rose to Director of Warehousing. In his youth, he was an athlete that excelled in his sport and was on track to be a professional player. Unfortunately, circumstances changed and that did not occur.

You could make the arguement that because he excelled in sports and was a leader on the field, that he would make a great leader, in general. He showed conscientiousness in his hardwork, agreeableness in his jovial and positive attitude, low neuroticism in not letting high stress situations get to him, openness in his variety of outside interests, studies and hobbies, and a high level of extraversion.

He certainly would display evidence of insensitivity, narcissism and impulsivity, on occasion, but even so, was generally well-liked by his coworkers and employees, and trusted by his superiors. We would occasionally butt heads, but it always ended up feeling more like a learning experience than a negative one.

All of this may seem to support the trait approach to evaluating his leadship skills, but for one thing. I would say that what I learned by working with him, watching his methods and dealing with his personality has absolutely increased my leadership abilities and potential. What I have taken from my experience with this person, and others in my present and past, I have already begun to implement in my own leadership position today. I truly feel that I am now able to perform as a leader in ways that were not inherent to me from birth!