Late Night Talk Shows

January 21, 2013 by kml5444

A few days ago, I could not sleep so I started to flip through the television channels to find something to watch that would make me fall asleep. Nothing was really on except for church sermons and late night talk television. I must say that I usually never watch these shows. I begin watching The Wendy Williams Show. I really can’t tell you what the show was about because I was so shocked that people were actually in the audience and doing live tweets while the show was taping. What shocked me and raised many questions was how could anyone follow this talk show host who looked (to me) like a clown, who has an annoying voice, and who talked about nothing. The show was about gossip and not about anything that was worthwhile (to me). So, what makes this person a leader?

What is leadership according to the trait approach? It has been known for years to be one of the “first systematic attempts to study leadership” by looking at what qualities make a good leader. This in turn prompted the development of the great man theory which focused on “identifying the innate qualities and characteristics”. (Northouse, Pg. 19) For me, the qualities that initially catch my attention are the physical qualities – stature, composure, eye contact, and smile as well as one’s personality qualities – humor, sincerity, empathy, and ambition. When I watched this show, I started to become concern for the future of this country because it just seemed like the public’s attention has moved away from reality and towards “brain goop” which is what my husband calls anything on television that does not help educate or enhance one’s mind. I guess by knowing how crazy Tom Cruise is, how many men Taylor Swift has dated, or how to correctly say “how you doing” is necessary in today’s world.

Many researchers have identified several traits that are associated with leadership. According to R. M. Stodgill, a few traits that are positively associated with leadership are person’s drive, persistence, risk taking, self-confidence, and willingness to accept consequences. (Northouse, Pg. 21) Did I see any of those traits from the host of the show? A few of them – risk taking, drive, and self-confidence. It takes a lot of nerve and ambition in order to get out on a stage in front an audience and cameras knowing that everything you do and say will be heard and analyzed. Talk about being under the microscope! Kirkpatrick and Locke identified such traits as drive, desire, honesty, and self-confidence as being traits of a leader. (Northouse, Pg. 22) Did I see any of those traits from the host? I have to say “yes”. To be honest, all of them were shown by the host.

The personality of the host was awesome. Did I say that? She was funny, charismatic, and seemingly intelligent. As I continued to watch the show, I started to ask myself, ‘Does personality play a vital role in identifying a leader’? According to the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality, there are five traits called CANOE – Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Openness to experience, and Extraversion. (Northouse, Pgs. 26-27) Without knowing or working the host personally, I could not tell if these traits applied. I feel that with such traits a deeper analysis of the person’s behavior or personality is needed and not just through a one time or quick view of a person. I can’t help but think about the assessment tests that people take when trying to get a job. How can any test make a conclusion about a person in just one, two, or three encounters without further analysis such as actually seeing their work behaviors and attitudes? That would mean that the person would have to be hired first then assessed second. Right?

In conclusion, even though I could not believe my eyes and ears when flipping through the television channels to find something to watch one fateful night, my attention towards the host was drawn to Wendy Williams’ personality and how she carried herself with the audience and in the situation of being on television. There were a few traits from this week’s class reading that truly identified her as a leader, such as drive and self-confidence. Do I see myself following her and her show? Probably not, because I know what kind of person I am when it comes to my time, entertainment, and education. But I have to be honest, further review is much needed. Maybe I will secretly catch another show and let you know then.

References

Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership – Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Power and Influence in the Office

October 11, 2012 by

Some of the types of power in this week’s lesson commentary are very apparent in my office and it was fun to be able to put labels to some of the characters I work with. My direct supervisor, Rick, has never been a supervisor before. I am his first subordinate, yet I have more industry experience than he does. In this case, he would have legitimate power because he’s my leader according to the organization. (PSU WC, 2012) However, because I have more industry experience and he sometimes asks for my input on work, I might have expert power in select situations. (PSU WC, 2012) On the flip side, because Rick has a very timid personality, he doesn’t come across as having a great deal of influence. He may suggest a change in behavior, but it is generally a suggestion and not a requirement; especially if I can make an alternative suggestion or explain why the original way was efficient. As my boss, he certainly has SOME degree of influence, even if it’s infrequent, but legitimate power is more prevalent. He has the capacity to create change because of his organizational position, but lacks influence as behaviors are rarely actually changed. (PSU WC, 2012)

In the meantime, there’s the woman known around the office as “The Pretend Boss”. I think all of us have worked with this person at one time or another! Lynda has the most tenure with the company within the department and is our administrative assistant. She’s bossy and loud and makes it known how SHE prefers even mundane tasks to be completed. There is little or no “expert” about her; it’s a matter of a strong personality and being set in her way. In this instance, I don’t think Lynda’s behavior would be considered power. Instead, based on the course commentary, she has more influence than power, as influence is the “degree of actual change in attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors.” (PSU WC, 2012) As much as I hate to admit it, Lynda tends to change behaviors in the department, simply because most of us don’t want to hear her gripe and complain when we don’t do things her way. Very few situations warrant arguing with her, as it falls under choosing your battles. A very trivial situation would involve our filing. Alphabetically, last names starting with “Mc”, such as McGregor, should be filed after names beginning with “Ma”, like Matthew. But Lynda believes that is incorrect, despite Microsoft Word, Excel, etc. all saying otherwise, and has our files organized according to her understanding of alphabetical. In our cabinets, “Mc” comes first, then the rest. Instead of arguing the matter, the rest of us simply play along and change our behavior, filing her way.

Finally, there is Robin. She is the Director of HR and is my boss’ supervisor. She maintains both power and influence. She has power as the director over the department. In addition, she has great influence. Most of us have some experience with a director or regional boss; they say jump and we say “How high?” Robin’s power is not only legitimate in that the organization says she is the director; it’s also referent power as she works to have a relationship with everyone in the department and reward power as she controls pay rates, promotions and other rewards. (PSU WC, 2012)

Even within a department of only six employees, many bases of power can be found. Fortunately, at my office, these types of power tend to work well together, with minimal conflict. As a result each person has a role in the forward movement of our tasks and company overall.

Reference

Penn State World Campus (2012). PSYCH 485 Lesson 7: Power and Influence. Retrieved on October 11, 2012, from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa12/psych485/002/content/07_lesson.html.

Plugging in to Sources of Leadership Power

October 9, 2012 by jtr5097

Despite being short due to the lack of any text from Northouse on the subject, this week’s lesson had proven itself more immediately applicable and useful to my current professional life than any other lesson in any other class I’ve taken. Part of my duties as an analyst has been working with workforce-level leaders (supervisors) to help them find ways to increase the job performance and organizational compliance of their subordinates (e.g. the workforce). This usually begins with a discussion between organizational-level leaders (managers, directors) to elicit what types of problems or concerns are being experienced in terms of production or adherence from the workforce or to explore where we think gains in those areas may be found. When there are no easily identifiable or specific thoughts along these lines, I am tasked with identifying a vector for meaningful increases in the behavior that leadership desires from the workforce. I was fortunate enough to get done early last week with the rest of my studies so I dove into this week’s lesson a few days early. When I came across the section about the Taxonomy of Social Power based on the work done by French and Raven, it immediately crystallized something that I’d observed and known for quite some time but had, up until this point, been unable to successfully articulate to leaders. In the past, I would tell leaders to “exploit your sources of influence” as a way to increase their leadership potential. This made complete sense to me and it did tend to produce some manner of positive results for many leaders, but I have always used the mantra as more of a value-add rather than as a fundamental premise for improved leadership and workforce production.

For a quick review, the 5 forms of power as identified by French and Raven (1956; Raven, 1992), cited in our course content (“Taxonomy of social,” n.d.) with additional thoughts provided by Changingminds.org (Straker, 2002):

Legitimate Power: Power derived from one’s authority based on their position or role in an organization. People with legitimate power often have titles that convey their position such as manager or director –or even officer or judge in a non-occupational sense. Followers are led based on the fulfillment of organizational, occupational or social roles, which are often reinforced via other forms of power afforded to the leader with legitimate power such as coercive or reward power.

Coercive Power: Power derived from the ability to leverage fears of penalty or punishment. Followers are led based on an aversion to such undesirable consequences. Coercive power is often, but not always part of a leader’s role as it is assigned via legitimate power.

Reward Power: Power derived from the ability to provide positive or negative reinforcement in exchange for desired follower behavior. Followers are led based on a leader’s ability to produce desirable or reduce undesirable conditions or consequences. Like coercive power, reward power is often, but not always part of a leader’s role as it is assigned via legitimate power.

Referent Power: Power derived based on the relationship between the leader and the followers. Followers are led based on the degree to which they find the leader likable and/or respectable. Individuals that exhibit personality traits or behaviors that endear them to others such as charm, friendliness, demonstrable integrity, honor or sacrifice take on positions as role models or leaders based on social perception or personal relations.

Expert Power: Power derived from the leader’s possession and ability to demonstrate a superior level of knowledge or skills relevant to the leadership situation. Followers are led based on the presumption that the leader’s expertise in a certain field or subject matter is greater than other group members and remains relevant to achieving a group or organizational goal. Subject matter experts who have little or no legitimate power can have expert power, which means that sometimes a follower will have more expert power in a given area than the organizationally appointed or identified leader.

French and Raven actually presented 6 bases of power, with the one omitted from the lesson text being Information Power. This power is similar to Expert Power, but should not be confused with it. Expert Power is about having and demonstrating expertise, Information Power is derived from a leader’s ability to control the information presented to or received by others in a way that produces desired behavior such as compliance with policy or authority or the achievement of a goal (French & Raven, 1956; Raven, 1992).

After reading this week’s lesson content and looking up the later study done by Raven to expand the theory as well as a few other websites on the topic, I decided that I would pursue the theory with my current supervisor team in an attempt to help identify, improve and enhance the powers each has or exhibits as well as to try and cultivate at least one that they are weak in or simply do not possess.

I began by holding a session where I handed out a questionnaire that asked the supervisors to rate how well a given statement described them on a 5 point Likert scale. Each statement was in some way directly related to one of the forms of power. Some examples of the statements included are, ‘Others see me as a leader, at least partially because of my title’ and ‘I try to be liked by my associates, and I generally succeed’. Afterwards, I defined and explored the 5 bases of power –I would have done the 6^th as well, but it didn’t seem to apply to our leadership situation so I omitted it much the same as the course content did– and then had them examine the answers on their questionnaire to see how well these bases of power truly defined who they were as a leader. We then had a roundtable discussion where supervisors provided input to each other in order to determine how well internal self-images matched external perceptions as well as to try and combat the types of bias that are sometimes inherent in Likert scales –central tendency, acquiescence or social desirability, among others (Friedman, Herskovitz & Pollack, 1994; McLeod, 2008; Sauro, 2010).

From these exercises, the supervisors were able to identify where their leadership power originated from and also where they could improve or cultivate greater power. I gave the supervisors some individual feedback as to how they might explore this further. They decided to hold similar sessions once a month, to be referred to as “plugging in” as a play on words. My final organizational analysis included suggestions such as:

The organization should identify in greater detail for the associates precisely what authority and responsibilities the supervisors have, which should unify and in some cases, increase the influence of Legitimate Power.

The supervisors should share their strategies for rewards to come to a uniform and cohesive policy that maximizes power and performance and reduces the likelihood of rewarding them too frequently.

The supervisors should be mindful of how much they rely on Referent Power which can be fickle and to take opportunities to expand their bases of Expert Power which would generally be more stable.

The organization should increase training and education opportunities for the supervisors to aid them in expanding their Expert Power.

All in all, it’s been a very productive week and it’s only Tuesday. The organization has some avenues to pursue to improve the leadership abilities of workforce-level supervisors and the supervisors themselves are plugged in to their potential for leadership power. This week’s lesson made more of an impact than I thought a single lesson could.

References:

French, J., & Raven, B. H. (1956). A formal theory of social power. Psychological Review, 63(3), 181-194.

Friedman H. H., Herskovitz P. J., & Pollack S., (1994) Biasing effects of scale-checking styles on responses to a Likert scale. 792-795. Retrieved from http://www.amstat.org/sections/srms/Proceedings/papers/1993_133.pdf

McLeod, S. A. (2008). Likert scale. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/likert-scale.html

Raven, B. H. (1992). A power/interaction model of interpersonal influence: French and Raven thirty years later. Journal of Social Behavior & Personality, 7(2), 217-244.

Sauro, J. (2010). Survey respondents prefer the left side of a rating scale. Retrieved from http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/left-side-bias.php

Straker, D. (2002). http://changingminds.org. Retrieved from http://changingminds.org/explanations/power/french_and_raven.htm

Taxonomy of social power. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa12/psych485/002/content/07_lesson/05_page.html