|
|
|
|
|
|
Lesson#13
|
ATTITUDE-PERSONALITY
|
|
|
|
ATTITUDE-PERSONALITY
In lecture 12, we started understanding leader as individual. Continuing
from previous lecture, to
understand individual knowing the basis of behavior of individuals is very
important.
Why is it important to know an individual’s values? Although Values strongly
influence a person’s
perception, attitudes and ultimately the behavior; Knowledge of an
individual’s value system can
provide insight into his/her attitudes.
Leaders should be interested in their employees’ attitudes because attitudes
give warnings of potential
problems and because they influence behavior. Satisfied and committed
employees, for instance, have
lower rates of turnover and absenteeism.
Work attitudes are collections of feelings, beliefs, and thoughts about how
to behave that people
currently hold about their jobs and organizations.
a. Work attitudes are more specific than values, and not as long lasting.
b. Two work attitudes that have important implications for organizational
behavior are
“job satisfaction” and “organizational commitment”.
Job Satisfaction: It refers to a collection of feelings that an
individual holds toward his or her job. A
high level of job satisfaction brings positive attitudes toward the job and
vice versa. Employee attitudes
and job satisfaction are frequently used interchangeably. Often when people
speak of “employee
attitudes” they mean “employee job satisfaction. Other definition, a
pleasurable or positive emotional
state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experience
Jobs require interaction with coworkers and bosses, following organizational
rules and policies,
meeting performance standards, living with working conditions that are often
less than ideal. This
means that an employee’s assessment of how satisfied or dissatisfied he or
she is with his/her job is a
complex summation of a number of discrete job elements.
Four factors affect the level of job satisfaction a person experiences:
personality, values, the work
situation, and social influence.
Personality: Personality, the enduring ways a person has of feeling,
thinking, and behaving, is the first
determinant of how people think and feel about their jobs or job
satisfaction.
a. Researchers have found that genetic factors accounted for about 30
percent of the differences in
levels of job satisfaction across respondents in a study of twins.
b. The study suggested that people seek out jobs that are suited to their
genetic make up.
c. Implications for managers include the suggestion that part of job
satisfaction is determined by
employees’ personalities, which an organization or manager cannot change in
the short run.
d. However, since 70 percent (as indicated in the twins study) of the
variation in job satisfaction
remains on other factors, managers/leaders should focus on change or
influence in this area.
Values: Values have an impact on levels of job satisfaction because they
reflect employees’
convictions about the outcomes that work should lead to and how one should
behave at work.
Work Situation: Perhaps the most important source of job satisfaction is
the work situation itself, the
tasks a person performs (for example, how interesting or boring they are),
the people, a jobholder
interacts with (customers, subordinates, supervisors), the surroundings in
which a person works (noise
level, crowdedness, temperature), and the way the organization treats the
jobholder (working hours, job
security, the extent to which pay and benefits are generous or fair).
Organizational Citizenship Behavior: When one think of organization
beyond their official
responsibility. People start owning the organization and start caring about
it beyond the legal or job
requirements.
It seems logical to assume that job satisfaction should be a major
determinant of an employee’s
organizational citizenship behavior. More recent evidence, however, suggests
that satisfaction
influences organizational citizenship behavior, but through perceptions of
fairness.
There is a modest overall relationship between job satisfaction and
organizational citizenship behavior.
Basically, job satisfaction comes down to conceptions of fair outcomes,
treatment, and procedures.
When you trust your employer, you are more likely to engage in behaviors
that go beyond your formal
job requirements.
Organizational Commitment: A state in which an employee identifies with a
particular organization
and its goals.
Affective Commitment: Emotional attachment to the organization and belief
in its values.
Continuance Commitment: Value of remaining with an organization compared
to alternatives. Can’t afford to
leave the organization.
Normative Commitment: Obligation to remain with the organization for
moral or ethical reasons.
• Conditions that enhance:
– Job satisfaction (strong, positive relationship)
– Participation
– Job security
– Job characteristics (autonomy, responsibility, interesting work)
• Advantages:
– Lower absenteeism, lower turnover, higher quality, higher productivity,
higher performance
An individual’s level of organizational commitment is a better indicator of
turnover than the far more
frequently used job satisfaction predictor because it is a more global and
enduring response to the
organization as a whole than is job satisfaction.
Job Satisfaction and Absenteeism: We find a consistent negative
relationship between satisfaction
and absenteeism. The more satisfied you are, the less likely you are to miss
work. It makes sense that
dissatisfied employees are more likely to miss work, but other factors have
an impact on the
relationship and reduce the correlation coefficient. For example, you might
be a satisfied worker, yet
still take a “mental health” to head for the beach now and again.
Job Satisfaction and Turnover: Satisfaction is also negatively related to
turnover, but the correlation
is stronger than what we found for absenteeism. Other factors such as labor
market conditions,
expectations about alternative job opportunities, and length of tenure with
the organization are
important constraints on the actual decision to leave one’s current job.
Job Satisfaction and Job Performance: Leader’s interest in job
satisfaction tends to center on its
effect on employee performance. Much research has been done on the impact of
job satisfaction on
employee job performance, absenteeism, and turnover. Happy workers are not
necessarily productive
workers—the evidence suggests that productivity is likely to lead to
satisfaction. At the organization
level, there is renewed support for the original satisfaction-performance
relationship. It seems
organizations with more satisfied workers as a whole are more productive
organizations.
Individual Behavior-Perception: Perception is the process by which
individuals select, organize, and
interpret the input from their senses (vision, hearing, touch, smell, and
taste) to give meaning and order
to the world around them. Interpretation of a situation is known as
perception. Through perception,
people try to make sense of their environment and the objects, events, and
other people in it. Play major
role on the behaviors of the people.
• Perception has three components:
o The perceiver is the person
trying to interpret some observation that he or she has just
made, or the input from his or her senses.
41
o The target of perception is
whatever the perceiver is trying to make sense of. In
organizational behavior, we are often concerned with person perception, or
another person
as the target of perception.
o The situation is the context
in which perception takes place.
Characteristics of all three components influence what is actually perceived
Impression Management: Self-presentation---is the process by which people
attempt to manage or
control the perceptions other form of them. Impression management is an
attempt to control the
perceptions or impressions of others.
a. Just as a perceiver actively constructs reality through his or her
perceptions, target of perception
can also play an active role in managing the perceptions that others have of
him or her.
b. People in organizations use several impression management tactics to
affect how others perceive
them.
c. Five common impression management tactics are:
1. Behavior matching.
2. Self-promotion.
3. Conforming to situational norms.
4. Appreciating or flattering others.
5. Being consistent.
Conforming to situational norms—the informal rules of behavior that most
members of an
organizational follow is a particularly important Impression Management
tactic.
People differ in the extent to which they conform to situational norms and
engage in other forms of
impression management.
Conforming to situational norms can often be difficult for people operating
in the international arena.
Common courtesies and gestures that are taken for granted in one culture or
country may be frowned on
or downright insulting in another.
People are likely to engage in impression management when they are likely to
benefit from it.
Self-presentation: Is the process by which people attempt to manage or
control the perceptions other
form of them.
Employee Impression Management Strategies
_ Demotion-preventative
strategies
_ Accounts
_ Apologies
_ Disassociation
_ Promotion-enhancing strategies
_ Entitlement
_ Enhancement
_ Obstacles disclosures
_ Association
Individual as the Independent and Interdependent
Relationship of Culture and the Self is also very important to understand
the behavior of individuals.
Collectivism and individualism are the two examples.
Collectivism:
Giving priority to the goals of one’s group and defining one’s identity
accordingly. The emphasis is on
harmony and blending in.
42
Individualism:
Giving priority to personal goals and defining one’s identity accordingly.
The emphasis is on
uniqueness and standing out.
Personality Traits
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. People differ in how much
control they believe they have
over the situation they are in and over what happens to them. The locus of
control trait captures the difference
between individuals who seem in control and those who are not.
• Externals, individuals
with an external locus of control, tend to believe that outside
forces are largely
responsible for their fate, and they see little connection between their own
actions and what happens to
them.
• Internals, individuals
with an internal locus of control, think that their own actions and
behaviors have
an impact in determining what happens to them.
In organizations, internals are more easily motivated than externals and do
not need as much direct
supervision because they are more likely to believe that their work
behaviors influence important outcomes
such as how well they perform their jobs, and the pay increases, praise, job
security, and promotions they
receive.
Authoritarianism: The degree to which leaders believe in authoritarianism
will influence how they use
their power and how they expect subordinates to behave in response. People
who are high in
authoritarianism would show respect for titles, formal authority, status and
rank.
Dogmatism: receptiveness to others’ ideas and opinions. Highly dogmatic
people are close minded and not
receptive to others’ ideas.
Self-Esteem: Self-esteem is the extent to which people have pride in
themselves and their capabilities.
Individuals with high self-esteem think they are generally capable and
worthy people who can deal with most
situations. Individuals with low self-esteem question their self-worth,
doubt their capabilities, and are
apprehensive about their ability to succeed in different endeavors.
Self-esteem influences people’s choices of
activities and jobs. In self esteem, challenges and goals are impacted.
Positive self-esteem is credited with:
• Enhancing performance.
• Increasing the likelihood of success.
• Fueling motivation.
Type A and Type B Personalities: Individuals who are Type A have
an intense desire to achieve, are
extremely competitive, have a sense of urgency, are impatient, and can be
hostile. Because these individuals
are so driven, they can be difficult to get along with. These individuals,
though they have the drive to
accomplish, do not do well in situations that require a lot of interaction
with others. These individuals are
more likely to have more conflicts.. Type B individuals are more
relaxed and easygoing. Type B
characterized as easy-going, relaxed, and able to listen carefully and
communicate more precisely than
Type-A individual.
Positive Affect - an individual’s tendency to highlight the positive
aspects of oneself, other people, and
the world in general
Negative Affect - an individual’s tendency to highlight the negative
aspects of oneself, other people,
and the world in general
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): A series of questions that ask people
to indicate their
preferred way of acting, thinking, or feeling in different situations. This
is a One of the most widely
used personality frameworks. It is a 100-question personality test that asks
people how they usually feel
or act in particular situations.
43
Individuals are classified as
_ Introversion/Extroversion (E or
I)
_ Sensing/Intuitive (S or N)
_ Feeling/Thinking (F or T)
_ Perceiving/Judging (P or J)
These classifications are then combined into sixteen personality types. For
example:
INTJs are visionaries. They usually have original minds and great drive
for their own ideas and
purposes. They are characterized as skeptical, critical, independent,
determined, and often stubborn.
_ ESTJs are organizers.
They are realistic, logical, analytical, decisive, and have a natural head
for
business or mechanics.
_ The ENTP type is a
conceptualizer. He or she is innovative, individualistic, versatile, and
attracted
to entrepreneurial ideas. This person tends to be resourceful in solving
challenging problems but
may neglect routine assignments.
_ We will discuss in detail about
MBTI during our next lecture.
Self-Monitoring: Self-monitoring (SM): is the extent to which people try
to control the way they present
themselves to others.
High SM: High self monitors want their behavior to be socially acceptable
and so are attuned to any
social cues that signal appropriate behavior in a situation. The opposite is
true for low self-monitors. High
self-monitors tend to perform well in sales positions or consulting.
Low SM: low self monitors are not as vigilant to situational cues and act
from internal states
rather than paying attention to the situation and are useful when open,
honest feedback is needed.
• High Self Monitors
– flexible: adjust behavior
according to the
situation and the
behavior of others
– can appear
unpredictable &
inconsistent
– Good in teams
– Accept feedback well
• Low Self Monitors
– act from internal
states rather than
from situational cues
– Consistent, but may
also be resistant to
change
– less likely to respond
to work group norms
or supervisory
feedback
Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Behavior that is above and beyond
the call of duty. Things that
affect OCB may be:
Job Satisfaction
Procedural justice
It helps to explain why individual level job satisfaction is related to
organizational performance. |
|
|
|
|