By perception, we mean the process people use to make sense out of their surround- ings by selecting, organizing, and interpreting information. Values and attitudes affect perceptions, and vice versa. For example, a person might have developed the attitude that leaders are insensitive and arrogant, based on a pattern of perceiving arrogant and insensitive behavior from supervisors over a period of time. If the person moves to a new job, this attitude will continue to affect the way he or she perceives superiors in the new environment, even though his superiors in the new workplace might take
EXHIBIT 4.3 Attitudes and Assumptions of Theory X and Theory Y Assumptions of Theory X Assumptions of Theory Y
•The average human being has an inherent dis- like of work and will avoid it if possible.
•Because of the human characteristic of dislike for work, most people must be coerced, controlled, directed, or threatened with punishment to get them to put forth adequate effort toward the achievement of organizational objectives.
•The average human being prefers to be directed, wishes to avoid responsibility, has relatively little ambition, and wants security above all.
•The expenditure of physical and mental effort in work is as natural as play or rest. The average human being does not inherently dislike work.
•External control and the threat of punishment are not the only means for bringing about effort toward organizational objectives. A person will exercise self-direction and self-control in the ser- vice of objectives to which he or she is committed.
•The average human being learns, under proper conditions, not only to accept but also to seek responsibility.
•The capacity to exercise a relatively high degree of imagination, ingenuity, and creativity in the solution of organizational problems is widely, not narrowly, distributed in the population.
•Under the conditions of modern industrial life, the intellectual potentialities of the average human being are only partially utilized.
Source: Based on Douglas McGregor, The Human Side of Enterprise (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960), pp. 33–48.
CHAPTER 4THE LEADER AS AN INDIVIDUAL 113
Perception
the process people use to make sense out of the environment by selecting, organizing, and interpreting information
great pains to understand and respond to employees’ needs. As another example, a leader who greatly values ambition and career success may perceive a problem or a subordinate’s mistake as an impediment to her own success, whereas a leader who values helpfulness and obedience might see it as a chance to help a subordinate improve or grow.
Because of individual differences in attitudes, personality, values, interests, and experiences, people often “see” the same thing in different ways. Consider that one survey of nearly 2,000 workers in the United States found that 92 percent of managers think they are doing an “excellent” or “good” job managing employees, but only 67 percent of workers agree. As another example, in a survey of finance professionals, 40 percent of women said they perceive that women face a “glass ceiling” that keeps them from reaching top management levels, whereas only 10 percent of men share that perception.48
Perceptual Distortions
Of particular concern for leaders are perceptual distortions, errors in perceptual judgment that arise from inaccuracies in perception. Some types of errors are so common that leaders should become familiar with them. These include stereotyp- ing, the halo effect, projection, and perceptual defense. Leaders who recognize these perceptual distortions can better adjust their perceptions to more closely match objective reality.
Stereotyping is the tendency to assign an individual to a group or broad category (e.g., female, black, elderly or male, white, disabled) and then to attribute widely held generalizations about the group to the individual. Thus, someone meets a new colleague, sees he is in a wheelchair, assigns him to the category “physically disabled,” and attributes to this colleague generalizations she believes about people with disabilities, which may include a belief that he is less able than other cowor- kers. However, the person’s inability to walk should not be seen as indicative of lesser abilities in other areas. Indeed, the assumption of limitations may not only offend him, but it also prevents the person making the stereotypical judgment from benefiting from the many ways in which this person can contribute. Stereotyp- ing prevents people from truly knowing those they classify in this way. In addition, negative stereotypes prevent talented people from advancing in an organization and fully contributing their talents to the organization’s success.
The halo effectoccurs when the perceiver develops an overall impression of a person or situation based on one characteristic, either favorable or unfavorable. In other words, a halo blinds the perceiver to other characteristics that should be used in generating a more complete assessment. The halo effect can play a significant role in performance appraisal. For example, a person with an outstanding atten- dance record may be assessed as responsible, industrious, and highly productive;
another person with less-than-average attendance may be assessed as a poor performer.
Either assessment may be true, but it is the leader’s job to be sure the assessment is based on complete information about all job-related characteristics and not just his or her preferences for good attendance.
Projectionis the tendency of perceivers to see their own personal traits in other people; that is, they project their own needs, feelings, values, and attitudes into their judgment of others. A leader who is achievement oriented might assume that subor- dinates are as well. This might cause the manager to restructure jobs to be less routine and more challenging without regard for employees’ actual satisfaction. The best safeguards against errors based on projection are self-awareness and empathy.
114 PART 3 THE PERSONAL SIDE OF LEADERSHIP
Perceptual distortions errors in judgment that arise from inaccuracies in the perceptual process Stereotyping the tendency to assign an individual to a broad cate- gory and then attribute generalizations about the group to the individual Halo effect
an overall impression of a person or situation based on one characteristic, either favorable or unfavorable Projection
the tendency to see one’s own personal traits in other people
Find more at http://www.downloadslide.com
Perceptual defense is the tendency of perceivers to protect themselves against ideas, objects, or people that are threatening. People perceive things that are satisfy- ing and pleasant but tend to disregard things that are disturbing and unpleasant.
In essence, people develop blind spots in the perceptual process so that negative sensory data do not hurt them. For example, the director of a nonprofit educational organization in Tennessee hated dealing with conflict because he had grown up with parents who constantly argued and often put him in the middle of their argu- ments. The director consistently overlooked discord among staff members until things would reach a boiling point. When the blow-up occurred, the director would be shocked and dismayed because he had truly perceived that everything was going smoothly among the staff. Recognizing perceptual blind spots can help people develop a clearer picture of reality.
Attributions
As people organize what they perceive, they often draw conclusions based on their perception.49Attributionsare judgments about what caused an event or behavior—
(a) something about the person or (b) something about the situation. For example, many people attribute the success or failure of an organization to the top leader, when in reality there may be many factors that contribute to organizational perfor- mance. People also make attributions or judgments as a way to understand what caused their own or another person’s behavior:
• An internal attribution says characteristics of the person led to the behavior (“My subordinate missed the deadline because he’s lazy and incompetent”).
• An external attribution says something about the situation caused the person’s behavior (“My subordinate missed the deadline because he didn’t have the team support and resources he needed”).
Attributions are important because they help people decide how to handle a situation. In the case of a subordinate missing a deadline, a leader who blames the mistake on the employee’s personal characteristics might reprimand the person or, more effectively, provide additional training and direction. A leader who blames the mistake on external factors will try to help prevent such situations in the future, such as making sure team members have the resources they need, providing support to remove obstacles, and insuring that deadlines are realistic.
The Fundamental Attribution Error People tend to have biases that they apply when making attributions. When evaluating others, many people underestimate the influ- ence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors. This ten- dency is called thefundamental attribution error. Consider the case of someone being promoted to CEO. Employees, outsiders, and the media generally focus on the characteristics of the person that allowed him or her to achieve the promotion. In reality, however, the selection of that person might have been heavily influenced by external factors, such as business conditions creating a need for someone with a strong financial or marketing background at that particular time.
The Self-Serving Bias Another bias that distorts attributions involves attributions we make about our own behavior. People tend to overestimate the contribution of internal factors to their successes and overestimate the contribution of external fac- tors to their failures. This tendency, called the self-serving bias, means people give
CHAPTER 4THE LEADER AS AN INDIVIDUAL 115
Perceptual defense the tendency to protect oneself by disregarding ideas, situations, or people that are unpleasant Attributions
judgments about what caused a person’s behavior—either characteristics of the person or of the situation
Fundamental attribution error the tendency to underesti- mate the influence of exter- nal factors on another’s behavior and overestimate the influence of internal factors
Self-serving bias the tendency to overesti- mate the influence of inter- nal factors on one’s successes and the influence of external factors on one’s failures
themselves too much credit for what they do well and give external forces too much blame when they fail. Thus, if a leader’s subordinates say she doesn’t listen well enough, and the leader thinks subordinates don’t communicate well enough, the truth may actually lie somewhere in between. At Emerald Packaging, Kevin Kelly examined his attributions and improved his leadership effectiveness by overcoming the self-serving bias, as described in the following example.
IN THE LEAD
Kevin Kelly, Emerald Packaging
As the top leader of his family’s California company, Emerald Packaging—a maker of plastic bags for the food industry—Kevin Kelly thought of himself as indispensable. He considered himself to be chief architect of the company’s growing sales and profits. When Emerald began to falter, Kelly blamed it on his managers’ resistance to new ideas that could keep the business thriving. He thought everyone needed to change except him.
For some time, Kelly’s leadership approach was to reprimand and complain. Then, he decided to look at things in a different way. Was it really all his managers’ fault? Realizing that everyone was under stress from several years of rapid growth, Kelly hired a pack of new managers to reinforce his exhausted troops. Surprisingly, though, things just seemed to get worse. Kelly had to face a hard truth: Rather than being the one person in the orga- nization who didn’t need to change, as Kelly had previously thought, he realized he was a big part of the problem.
Kelly sought consultants and classes to help boost his people skills. He began meeting regularly with veteran managers and new hires and implemented changes that successfully united the two groups into a cohesive team. Then, Kelly did something radical (at least for him). He took a real 10-day vacation, the first time he hadn’t been in routine contact with Emerald since he took over the company. Visions of disaster filled his head as he wondered how they could get along without him. As it turned out, people got along just fine. Crises got solved, production continued, and customers didn’t even seem to notice he was gone.
By examining his attributions and shifting his perception of himself, the organizational situation, and his managers’ abilities, Kelly made changes that allowed his managers to flourish and his company to grow even more successful.50