Five Factor Model of Personality (FFM)

June 25, 2014 by pjt140

The five trait model of personality defines ideal leadership qualities as CANOE (Consciousness, Agreeableness, Low Neuroticism, Openness to Experience, Extraversion.) (PSU, 2014, p.3) If one does not possess any or all of these personality traits one is not likely to be a leader. Now the question is does that automatically make one a follower? What if the opposite where true? What if someone is unreliable, disagreeable, neurotic, close minded, and introverted? Does this define a follower?

Have you ever been under the leadership of someone who is unreliable, disagreeable, neurotic, close minded, and introverted? This describes the leadership of many work environments.

In the interview you were promised certain benefits or opportunities when you come on board but instead you discover that your boss or management is unreliable, consistently giving out mixed messages. You come to work with a good attitude but find your co-workers and superiors to be disagreeable. You and your supervisor work in a tedious, repetitive, and mundane work environment – your supervisor is neurotic. You come to work with a positive attitude toward the company and are eager to share your ideas with the owner for the mutual benefit of everyone at the business, but your boss, the owner, although he has been very successful running the business for the past 40 years, thinks he knows everything. He is close-minded blowing off your intelligent suggestions. Your boss inherited the business from his father – assigned leadership – (Northouse, 2013, p.8) but his personality is the opposite, he is an introvert and fears conflict at every turn. He tries to live up to his father’s reputation and wants to meet people’s expectations. When he wants to tell you something, he tells his confidant employee to tell you. It is hard to speak with him directly.

Many people have encountered these situations in very successful businesses. So how is it that these businesses continue to thrive while others with much more talented leadership sometimes do not succeed?
Many a business or endeavor have taken a long time to be built with much hard work and sacrifice and continue with an indefinite life of their own for a long time past the point where the change in leadership occurred. It is hard to lead something that you did not build. Who is the leader, the one with the title or the go between with enthusiasm – emergent leadership – (Northouse, 2013, p.8) such as the secretary, assistant, or middle manager who helps make it all happen?

Researching the legacy of leadership could reveal a lot of insight and serve as beacon for those who are currently at the leadership helm whether they are in fact leaders or not (managers). (Northouse, 2013, p.12). It may take years or even decade before people realize that they were simply following ghost leadership.

References
Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice (Sixth ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Penn State World Campus. (2014). Lesson 2: Trait Approach. Retrieved June 24, 2014, from Psych 485: Leadership in Work Settings: https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/su14/psych485/002/content/02_lesson/printlesson.html

[Hitler Season #2] Psychodynamic analysis on Hitler

June 24, 2014 by eoc5107

You might be bored with Hitler, again, haha, but this cannot be more interesting subject with our lesson about psychodynamic. As he is an historical figure, we cannot know how his personality really was. However, With the psychodynamic approach, analysis of Hitler’s leadership would be easier. As psychodynamic approach focuses on family origin and one’s youth, we might get some clues with Hitler’s leadership.

First of all, he was raised in strict discipline of his strong father, Alois Hitler, an Austrian custom official. Klara Polzl, his mother, had six children, but only Adolf Hitler and his sister survived (Gilblin, 2002). According to the maturation approach of psychodynamic, children becomes more individual and unique from their parents, however, the key factors are the relationships to authority figures and intimacy (Penn State World Campus, 2014). Hitler’s strict father might have influenced to his maturation, as more authoritarian.

Even though he was smart, outgoing and confident when he was young, he became morose, detached and sullen after the death of his younger brother, Edmund (Payne, 1990). We cannot know the details, but it might have influenced Hitler’s repression, the negative aspect of oneself. If one changes extremely negative from the past, then I guess it means one’s negative aspects overflow from the inside and even cover outside.

Other clues from Hitler’s background come here. He had an ambition to be a famous artist. He loved painting, but he always failed at school. He never got allowed by his father, and continuously failed to get admission from Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, too. He finally left school, and quit art at the age of 16 (Grimm & French, 2014). I guess this also could have influenced his repression and also archetype. Continuous failure of his own dream and the fact that he was not admitted by his father could have affected his archetype, collective archetype.

Psychodynamic analysis has limitation because it was derived only from individuals with serious problem, two-parent family, exclusion of organizational and situational factors. However, because Hitler had serious problem and had two-parent family, I think psychodynamic analysis can be applied to him. (Consideration of situational factors was not mentioned here, but it was mentioned in my first post about Hitler.)

References

James Cross Giblin. (2002). The life and death of Adolf Hitler. New York. USA:Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Grimm, L. & French, L. (2014). Adolf Hitler biography. biography.com. Retrieved from http://www.biography.com/people/adolf-hitler-9340144#death-and-legacy&awesm=~oIaiwo86zFxQd4

Hitler’s leadership or his luck of that era?

June 24, 2014 by eoc5107

I am currently majoring in International Politics, and I have had many (too many) opportunities to access and analyze historical events in international history. The one huge event that we cannot omit from the international history is about Holocaust and Nazism. While we were studying the traits of leadership, I just came up with the example of Adolf Hitler, who was actually a ‘great’ leader – he led whole nation even though what they did was not rational at all. Even though we just learned a part of psychology of leadership, I want to examine Hitler’s leadership based on what we have learned. Was the Holocaust possible because of Hitler’s great leadership? or, was it because of the characteristic of that era matched with Hitler’s luck?

Adolf Hitler is one of the most notorious people overall of human history. However, with the result of what he did, it seems hard to deny that he was a great leader at that time. He literally made all German to think same and act same. With the Stogdill (1974)’s standards for leadership, Hitler satisfied most of them. He had strong goal to eliminate every Jews in German, and he made it with his sturdy responsibility and vigor pursuit of goal. There is no doubt that he had great ability to influence other persons’ behavior. And his method, to eliminate every Jews who are inferior to German, was very, extremely venturesome. I still cannot believe how whole nation can be strongly influenced to KILL OTHERS by just one person.

Self-confidence seems common trait for both Stogdill (1974) and Kirkpatrick and Lock (1991). There is no accurate evidence if Hitler was self-confident or not. But according to Payne (1990), Hitler was smart, confident and outgoing student when he was young, but changed to morose, detached and sullen after the death of his younger brother. I am not trying to talk about Hitler’s background. I want to focus more on his personality or trait as a leader at that time. And the record from his childhood seems the one and only source that can estimate Hitler’s trait, I guess. Hitler doesn’t seem self-confident enough, but considering that he was a great speaker, it might not be true.

Even though Hitler is considered as a popular leader who showed great leadership, there is also an argument that Holocaust affair was not because of Hitler, but more because of nationalism. Nationalism, the idea that the country is more important than one individual, had also led to imperialism, justifying the idea of taking advantage other for their national benefits, and also to the massacre of Jews. It is said that Hitler was lucky to grab public opinion at the times of unstable stance of nation.

How do you think about this? Do you think Hitler had enough traits as a good leader, or was he lucky?

References

Robert Payne. (1990) The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler. New York: Dorset Press

Servant Leadership – The WGirls

June 24, 2014 by Shaunna Davis Heller

The WGirls is a nonprofit organization aimed encouraging disadvantaged women and children to rise above their circumstances in pursuit of education, financial independence and self sufficiency (WGIRLS). While this organization has the primary focus of helping these underprivileged women and children, president and founder Amy Heller, has used the WGirls to empower the members of the WGirls themselves through servant leadership.While there are ten characteristics of a servant leader, three specific to Ms. Heller stand out in her method of leading the WGirls.

Building community is an extremely important characteristic involved in servant leading. Starting off with just a single New York based chapter, WGirls has grown into an international organization with hundreds of members and women in leadership positions. It has been Amy’s goal to provide members with a sense of community in larger cities where many women can feel lost. WGirls focuses on helping others while fostering meaningful relationships with it’s members. This sense of community provides comfort and promotes success in the lives of these young women.

Servant leadership involves commitment to the growth of people. With chapters throughout the world, leadership positions within the organization are encouraged. Leading by example, Amy’s goal is to empower the women involved in her organization into becoming leading women not only within the WGirls but, in their personal and professional lives as well.

Foresight is also an extremely important characteristic involved in servant leading. The WGirls mission is to “Provide underprivileged women and children in local communities, and in times of international crisis around the world, with the support and resources necessary to achieve health, happiness, and the ability to lead productive and successful adult lives” (WGIRLS). Members help achieve this mission through the regular planning of creative benefit and charity events. Members are able to do so through Ms. Heller’s constant inspirational thinking. With a mind-set of “the job is never done”, Ms. Heller proves to be an exceptional servant leader helping not only those who need it, but those who provide assistance in the organization as well. Amy Heller’s exemplifies servant leadership through this very successful nonprofit organization.

Mission and Vision. (n.d.). WGIRLS. Retrieved June 24, 2014, from http://www.wgirls.org/about-us/mission-and-vision/

Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: theory and practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications

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/