Leadership - Chapter 4

Self-serving Bias

Tendency to overestimate the influence of internal factors on one's successes and the influence of external factors on one's failures.

Perceptual defense

Tendency to protect oneself by disregarding ideas, situations or people that are unpleasant.

Projection

Tendency to see one's own personal traits in other people.

Fundamental Attribution Error

Tendency to to underestimate the influence of external factors on another's behavior and overestimate the influence of internal factors.

External attributions

Says something about the situation positive person's behavior: example (my subordinate missed the deadline because he didn't have the team support and resources he needed)

End Values

Sometimes called terminal values, these are beliefs about the kind of goals or or outcomes that are worth trying to pursue.

Stereotyping

Tendency to assign an individual to a broad category and then attribute generalizations about the group to the individual.

Distinctiveness, consistency, consensus

Three factors that influence whether an attribution will be external or internal.

Quadrant D

The part of the brain associated in the whole brain model with conceptualizing, synthesizing and integrating facts and patterns.

Quadrant C

The part of the brain associated in the whole brain model with interpersonal relationships and intuitive and emotional thought processes.

Quadrant A

The part of the brain associated in the whole brain model with logical thinking, analysis of facts and processing numbers.

Quadrant B

The part of the brain associated in the whole brain model with planning, organizing facts, and careful detailed review.

Perception

The process people use to make sense out of the environment by selecting, organizing and interpreting information.

Personality

The set of unseen characteristics and processes that underlie a relatively stable pattern of behavior in response to ideas, objects, and people in the environment

Consensus

Whether other people tend to respond to similar situations in the same way. A person who has observed others handle similar situation in the same way will likely make an external attribution that is it will seem that the situation produces the type of behavior observed.

Consistency

Whether the person being observed has a history of behaving in the same way people generally make internal attributions about consistent behavior.

Attribution Theory

how people draw conclusions about what caused certain behaviors or events.

Emotional Stability

(Big Five Personality Dimensions)Degree to which a person is well adjusted, calm and secure

Big Five personality dimensions

5 general dimensions that describe personality: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to experience.

Theory Y

Assumption that people do not inherently dislike work and will commit themselves willingly to work that they care about.

Cognition, affect, behavior

Attitudes have three components, they are:

Attitude

Evaluation either positive or negative about people, events or things

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

Test that measures how individuals differ in gathering and evaluating information for solving problems and making decisions.

Distinctiveness

Behavior is unusual for that person (In contrast to a person's displaying the same kind of behavior in many situations). If the behavior is distinctive the perceiver probably will make an external attribution.

Authoritarianism

Belief that power and status differences should exist in an organization.

Instrumental Values

Beliefs about the types of behavior that are appropriate for reaching goals.

Dogmatism

Closely related to authoritarianism, refers to a person's receptive this to others' ideas and opinions.

Self-concept

Collection of attitudes we have about ourselves; includes self-esteem and whether a person generally has a positive or negative feeling about himself/herself

Judging

Concerns and individuals attitudes towards ambiguity and how quickly a person makes a decision. ____ types like certainty and closure. Enjoy having goals and deadlines and tend to make decisions quickly based on available data.

Perceiving

Concerns and individuals attitudes towards ambiguity and how quickly a person makes a decision. _____ types enjoy ambiguity dislike deadlines and may change their mind several times before making a final decision. Like together in large amount of data and information before making a decision.

Affect

Concerns how an individual feels about the option of an attitude. Example leader resents having to routinely answer questions or help employees perform certain tasks.

Locus of control

Defines whether a person places the primary responsibility for what happens to him or her within himself/herself or on outside forces.

extroversion

Dimension focuses on where people gain interpersonal strength and mental energy. Extroverts gain energy from being around others.

Introversion

Dimension focuses on where people gain interpersonal strength and mental energy. Introverts gain energy by focusing on personal thoughts and feelings.

Thinking

Dimension relates to how much consideration a person gives to motion in making a decision. ____ types tend to rely more on logic and be very objective in decision-making

Feeling

Dimension relates to how much consideration a person gives to motion in making a decision. ______types tend to rely more on their values and senses of what is right and wrong and they consider how a decision will affect other people's feelings.

Values

Fundamental beliefs that an individual considers to be important, that are relatively stable over time and that have an impact on attitudes and behavior.

Agreeableness

(Big Five Personality Dimensions) Degree to which a person is able to get along with others by being good natured cooperative, forgiving, compassionate, understanding and trusting.

Theory X

Assumption that people are basically lazy and not motivated to work and that they have a natural tendency to avoid responsibility

Theory X & Theory Y

Douglas McGregor identified two sets of assumptions about human nature they are:

Cognitive Style

How a person perceives processes interprets and uses information.

Cognition

Ideas and knowledge a person has about the object of an attitude such as a leader's knowledge and ideas about specific employees performance and abilities.

Sensing

Identifies how a person absorbs information. Gathers and absorbs information thru the five senses.

Intuition

Identifies how a person absorbs information. Rely on less direct perception- example focus more on patterns than on direct perception of facts and details.

Halo Effect

Overall impression of a person or situation based on one characteristic, either favorable or unfavorable.

Internal attributions

Say characteristics of the person led to the behavior example: (my subordinate missed the deadline because he's lazy and incompetent)

Openness to Experience

(Big Five Personality Dimensions) Degree to which a person has a broad range of interests and is imaginative, creative and willing to consider new ides.

Extraversion

(Big Five Personality Dimensions) Degree to which a person is outgoing, sociable, talkative and comfortable meeting and talking to new people.

Conscientiousness

(Big Five Personality Dimensions) Degree to which a person is responsible, dependable, persistent and achievement oriented.

Whole Brain Concept

Approach that considers not only a person's preference for right- brained versus left-brained thinking, but also conceptual versus experiential thinking, identifies four quadrants of the brain related to different thinking styles.

Behavior

Attitude predisposes A person to act in a certain way. Example leader might avoid the employee or failed to include him or her in certain activities of the group.