Chapter 2

28

Leadership Traits and Ethics

2 L E A R N I N G O U T C O M E S

After studying this chapter, you should be able to:

1. List the benefits of classifying personality traits. p.31

2. Describe the Big Five personality dimensions. p.32

3. Explain the universality of traits of effective leaders. p.35

4. Discuss why the trait of dominance is so important for managersto have. p.36

5. State how the Achievement Motivation Theory and the Leader Profile are related and different. p.42

6. Identify similarities and differences among Theory X and Theory Y, thePygmalion effect, and self-concept. p.48

7. Describe how attitudes are used to develop four leadership styles. p.53

8. Compare the three levels of moral development. p.56

9. Explain the stakeholder approach to ethics. p.61

10. Define the following key terms (in order of appearance in the chapter):

traitspersonalityBig Five Model of Personalitysurgency personality dimensionagreeableness personality

dimensionadjustment personality dimensionconscientiousness personality

dimensionopenness-to-experience

personality dimensionpersonality profilesself-awarenesssocial awarenessself-managementrelationship managementAchievement Motivation Theory

Leader Motive Profile TheoryLeader Motive Profile (LMP) attitudesTheory X and Theory YPygmalion effectself-conceptethicsmoral justificationdisplacement of responsibilitydiffusion of responsibilityadvantageous comparisondisregard or distortion of

consequencesattribution of blameeuphemistic labelingstakeholder approach

to ethics

Opening Case Application

Lorraine Monroe was the principal of Harlem’s Frederick Douglass Academy from 1991 to 1997.When Monroe started the new high school, the goal was to create a special college prepara-tory high school. The prior school was well known for its violence, its poor attendance, and itspersistently low level of academic achievement. Within five years, student test scores rankedamong New York City’s best, and 96 percent of the school’s graduates went on to college. Howdid she turn an inner city school around? Through great leadership. Monroe restored order anddiscipline primarily through her “Twelve Non-Negotiable Rules,” which are based on respectfor oneself, for one’s associates, and for property.

In order to develop school administrators’ leadership skills, she founded the School Lead-ership Academy at the Center for Educational Innovation in 1997. She went on to found theLorraine Monroe Leadership Institute (LMLI) in July 2001. She is its director and continues toconsult to develop leaders. Monroe is the author of Nothing’s Impossible: Leadership Lessonsfrom Inside and Outside the Classroom and The Monroe Doctrine: An ABC Guide to What GreatBosses Do.

The Lorraine Monroe success story was told on TV (60 Minutes, Tony Brown’s Journal,The McCreary Report ), in magazines (Ebony, Reader’s Digest, Fast Company) and in severalnewspapers (including the New York Times and the national Sunday supplement Parade).1

Opening Case Questions:

1. What Big Five personality traits does Lorraine Monroe possess?2. Which traits of effective leaders does Lorraine Monroe possess?3. Does Lorraine Monroe have the personality profile of an effective leader? And what does

she say in response to businesspeople who continually ask her, “What makes a goodleader”?

4. How did “attitude” help change the performance of Frederick Douglass Academy?5. How did Lorraine Monroe’s self-concept affect her leadership?6. What role did ethics play in changing the performance of Frederick Douglass Academy?

To learn more about Lorraine Monroe and the LMLI, visit the LMLI’s website athttp://www.lorrainemonroe.com or log on to InfoTrac® College Edition at http://infotrac.thomsonlearning.com, where you can research and read articles on Lor-

raine Monroe and the LMLI. To learn more about Monroe and her teaching methods, select theadvanced search option and key in record number A18953524.

29

C H A P T E R O U T L I N E

Personality Traits andLeadershipPersonality and TraitsThe Big Five Model of PersonalityPersonality ProfilesDerailed Leadership Traits

Traits of Effective LeadersDominanceHigh EnergySelf-ConfidenceLocus of ControlStabilityIntegrityIntelligenceFlexibilitySensitivity to Others

The Personality Profile ofEffective LeadersAchievement Motivation TheoryLeader Motive Profile Theory

Leadership AttitudesTheory X and Theory YThe Pygmalion EffectSelf-ConceptHow Attitudes Develop

Leadership Styles

Ethical LeadershipDoes Ethical Behavior Pay?How Personality Traits and

Attitudes, Moral Development,and the Situation Affect EthicalBehavior

How People Justify UnethicalBehavior

Simple Guides to Ethical BehaviorStakeholder Approach to EthicsBeing an Ethical Leader

Lorraine Monroe is a strong, entrepreneurial leader. The focus of this chap-ter is on leadership traits, which includes ethics. We begin by learning

about personality traits of leaders and the personality profile of effective lead-ers. Next we learn how attitudes affect leadership. We end with a discussion ofethics in leadership.

Personality Traits and LeadershipRecall that trait theory of leadership was the foundation for the field of lead-ership studies.2 Trait theory is still being studied.3 The original study of traittheory was called the Great Man (Person) Approach, which sought to identifythe traits effective leaders possessed. Trait researchers examined personality,physical abilities, and social- and work-related characteristics.4 Substantialprogress in the development of personality theory and traits has been madesince the early 1980s.5 In this section we discuss traits and personality, the BigFive Model of Personality, reasons why executives fail, and the traits of effec-tive leaders.

Before you learn about personality traits, complete Self-Assessment 1 todetermine your personality profile. Throughout this chapter, you will gain abetter understanding of your personality traits, which help explain why peopledo the things they do (behavior).

30 / Part 1 • Indiv iduals as Leaders

Personal i ty Prof i le

There are no right or wrong answers, so be honestand you will really increase your self-awareness. Wesuggest doing this exercise in pencil or making acopy before you write on it. We will explain whylater.

Using the scale below, rate each of the 25 state-ments according to how accurately it describes you.Place a number from 1 to 7 on the line before eachstatement.Like me Somewhat like me Not like me7 6 5 4 3 2 1

1. I step forward and take charge in leaderlesssituations.

2. I am concerned about getting along wellwith others.

3. I have good self-control; I don’t get emo-tional, angry, or yell.

4. I’m dependable; when I say I will do some-thing, it’s done well and on time.

5. I try to do things differently to improve myperformance.

6. I enjoy competing and winning; losing both-ers me.

7. I enjoy having lots of friends and going toparties.

8. I perform well under pressure.

9. I work hard to be successful.

10. I go to new places and enjoy traveling.

11. I am outgoing and willing to confront peo-ple when in conflict.

12. I try to see things from other people’s pointsof view.

13. I am an optimistic person who sees thepositive side of situations (the cup is halffull).

14. I am a well-organized person.

15. When I go to a new restaurant, I order foodsI haven’t tried.

16. I want to climb the corporate ladder to ashigh a level of management as I can.

Self-Assessment 1

Chapter 2 • Leadership Tra i ts and Eth ics / 31

17. I want other people to like me and to viewme as very friendly.

18. I give people lots of praise and encourage-ment; I don’t put people down and criticize.

19. I conform by following the rules of an organization.

20. I volunteer to be the first to learn and donew tasks at work.

21. I try to influence other people to get my way.

22. I enjoy working with others more thanworking alone.

23. I view myself as being relaxed and secure,rather than nervous and insecure.

24. I am considered to be credible because I do agood job and come through for people.

25. When people suggest doing things differ-ently, I support them and help bring itabout; I don’t make statements like these: itwon’t work, we never did it before, no oneelse ever did it, or we can’t do it.

To determine your personality profile: (1) In theblanks, place the number from 1 to 7 that representsyour score for each statement. (2) Add up each col-umn—your total should be a number from 5 to 35.(3) On the number scale, circle the number that isclosest to your total score. Each column in the chartrepresents a specific personality dimension.

Surgency3530

_____ 1. 25_____ 6. 20_____ 11. 15_____ 16. 10_____ 21. 5_____ Total Bar

Agreeableness3530

_____ 2. 25_____ 7. 20_____ 12. 15_____ 17. 10_____ 22. 5_____ Total Bar

Adjustment 3530

_____ 3. 25_____ 8. 20_____ 13. 15_____ 18. 10_____ 23. 5_____ Total Bar

Conscientiousness 3530

_____ 4. 25_____ 9. 20_____ 14. 15_____ 19. 10_____ 24. 5_____ Total Bar

Openness to Experience

3530

_____ 5. 25_____ 10. 20_____ 15. 15_____ 20. 10_____ 25. 5_____ Total Bar

The higher the total number, the stronger is thepersonality dimension that describes your personality.What is your strongest and weakest dimension?

Continue reading the chapter for specifics about yourpersonality in each of the five dimensions.

You may visit http://ipip.ori.org to complete a 50-or 100-item Big 5 personality assessment.

Learning Outcome 1List the benefits of classifying personality traits.

Personality and TraitsWhy are some people outgoing and others shy, loud and quiet, warm and cold,aggressive and passive? This list of behaviors is made up of individual traits.6

Traits are distinguishing personal characteristics. Personality is a combinationof traits that classifies an individual’s behavior. Understanding people’s per-sonalities is important because personality affects behavior as well as percep-tions and attitudes.7 Knowing personalities helps you to explain and predictothers’ behavior and job performance.8 For a simple example, if you know aperson is very shy, you can better understand why they are quiet when meetingnew people. You can also predict that the person will be quiet when they goplaces and meet new people. You can also better understand why the person


would not seek a job as a salesperson; and if he or she did, you could predictthat the person might not be very successful.

Personality is developed based on genetics and environmental factors. Thegenes you received before you were born influence your personality traits.9

Your family, friends, school, and work also influence your personality. Thereare many personality classification methods. However, the Big Five Model ofPersonality traits is the most widely accepted way to classify personalities, be-cause of its strong research support.10

Learning Outcome 2Describe the Big Five personality dimensions.

The Big Five Model of PersonalityThe purpose of the Big Five is to reliably categorize, into one of five dimen-sions, most if not all of the traits you would use to describe someone else.11

Thus, each dimension includes multiple traits.12 The Big Five Model of Per-sonality categorizes traits into the dimensions of surgency, agreeableness, ad-justment, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. The dimensions arelisted in Exhibit 2-1 and described below. As noted in descriptions, however,some researchers have slightly different names for the five dimensions.13

✩Adjustment

Openness to experienceConscientiousness

Agreeableness

Source: Adapted from T. A. Judge, D. Heller, and M. K. Mount. “Five-Factor Model of Personality and JobSatisfaction: A Meta-Analysis.” Journal of Applied Psychology 87 (June 2002). 530(12).

Exhibit 2-1 Big Five dimensions of traits.

Surgency

SurgencyThe surgency personality dimension includes leadership and extraversiontraits. (1) People strong in surgency—more commonly called dominance—personality traits want to be in charge. Their dominant behavior ranges frominterest in getting ahead and leading through competing and influencing. Peo-ple weak in surgency want to be followers, and don’t want to compete or in-fluence. (2) Extraversion is on a continuum between extravert and introvert.Extraverts are outgoing, like to meet new people, and are willing to confrontothers, whereas introverts are shy. Review Self-Assessment 1 statements 1, 6,11, 16, and 21 for examples of surgency traits. How strong is your desire to bea leader?

AgreeablenessUnlike surgency behavior to get ahead of others, the agreeableness personalitydimension includes traits related to getting along with people. Agreeablepersonality behavior is strong when a person is called warm, easygoing, com-passionate, friendly, and sociable; it is weak when a person is called cold,difficult, uncompassionate, unfriendly, and unsociable. Strongly agreeable per-sonality types are sociable, spend most of their time with people, and have lotsof friends. Review Self-Assessment 1 statements 2, 7, 12, 17, and 22 for ex-amples of agreeableness traits. How important is having good relationships toyou?

AdjustmentThe adjustment personality dimension includes traits related to emotional sta-bility. Adjustment is on a continuum between being emotionally stable and un-stable. Stable refers to self-control, being calm—good under pressure, relaxed,secure, and positive—praising others; unstable is out of control—poor underpressure, nervous, insecure, and negative—criticizing others. Review Self-Assessment 1 statements 3, 8, 13, 18, and 23 for examples of adjustment traits.How emotionally stable are you?

ConscientiousnessThe conscientiousness personality dimension includes traits related to achieve-ment. Conscientiousness is also on a continuum between responsible/dependable to irresponsible/undependable. Other traits of high conscientious-ness include credibility, conformity, and organization. People with this trait arecharacterized as willing to work hard and put in extra time and effort to ac-complish goals to achieve success.14 Review Self-Assessment 1 statements 4, 9,14, 19, and 24 for examples of conscientiousness. How strong is your desire tobe successful?

Openness to ExperienceThe openness-to-experience personality dimension includes traits related tobeing willing to change and try new things. People strong in openness to expe-rience seek change and trying new things, while those with a weak opennessdimension avoid change and new things. Review Self-Assessment 1 statements


5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 for examples of openness-to-experience traits. How will-ing are you to change and try new things?

Personality ProfilesPersonality profiles identify individual stronger and weaker traits. Studentscompleting Self-Assessment 1 tend to have a range of scores for the five dimen-sions. Review your personality profile. Do you have higher scores (strongertraits) on some dimensions and lower scores (weaker traits) on others?

Personality profiles are used to categorize people as a means of predictingjob success.15 Many organizations (such as the National Football Leagueteams, including the Giants, 49ers, and Dolphins) give personality tests to en-sure a proper match between the worker and the job. For example, a study re-vealed that personality profiles of engineers and accountants tended to belower in the trait of surgency but higher in the trait of dependability. Market-ing and salespeople were lower in dependability but higher in surgency.16 Fortypercent of organizations give personality tests to determine if a person has thepersonality profile that can predict job success.17

The Big Five model has universal application across cultures. Studies haveshown that people from Asian, Western European, Middle Eastern, EasternEuropean, and North and South American cultures seem to use the same fivepersonality dimensions. However, some cultures do place varying importanceon different personality dimensions. Overall, the best predictor of job successon a global basis is the conscientiousness dimension.18


App

lyin

g th

eC

once

pt 1

Personality DimensionsIdentify each of these seven traits/behaviors by its personality dimension.Write the appropriate letter in the blank before each item.

a. surgency d. conscientiousnessb. agreeableness e. openness to experiencec. adjustment

1. The manager is influencing the follower to do the job the waythe leader wants it done.

____ 2. The sales representative submitted the monthly expense reporton time as usual.

____ 3. The leader is saying a warm, friendly good morning to followersas they arrive at work.

____ 4. The leader is seeking ideas from followers on how to speed upthe flow of work.

____ 5. As a follower is yelling a complaint, the leader calmly explainswhat went wrong.

____ 6. The leader is being very quiet when meeting some unexpectedvisitors in the work unit.

____ 7. The leader is giving in to a follower to avoid a conflict.

WorkApplication1Select a present or past manager, and de-scribe his or her personality profile usingeach of the Big Five dimensions. After rat-ing each dimension as strong, moderate, orweak, give an example of traits and typicalbehavior of the manager for each dimen-sion. Which dimensions are strongest andweakest?

OP

ENIN

G C

AS

E A

PP

LIC

ATI

ON

1. What Big Five Personality Traits Does Lorraine MonroePossess?To a large extent, Lorraine Monroe was a successful founder andleader because of her strong personality in the Big Five: She has astrong need for surgency while being agreeable and well adjusted,yet she is conscientious and open to new experience.

Derailed Leadership TraitsBefore we go on to the next section and discuss the traits of effective leaders,let’s identify traits that led to leadership failure. A study was conducted thatcompared 21 derailed executives with 20 executives who had successfullyclimbed the corporate ladder to the top.19 The derailed executives had priorsuccess and were expected to go far, but they were passed over for promotionagain, were fired, or were forced to retire early. See Exhibit 2-2 for a list of thesix major reasons for derailment.

None of the derailed executives had all six weaknesses. Overall, theirproblem was poor human relations skills; they did not treat people as valuableassets. Derailed executives failed to make the paradigm shift from managementto leadership. Destructive narcissistic (adjustment trait) managers cause signif-icant damage to an organization.20 Greed and resistance to change also lead tofailed leadership.21

Successful leaders have a range of stronger and weaker dimensions in theBig Five. However, as our definition of leadership indicates, they are relativelystrong on all five dimensions and avoid derailment.22

You’ll learn about the more specific personality profile of successful lead-ers in the “Leader Motive Profile Theory” section of this chapter. But first, let’sidentify specific traits of effective leaders.

Learning Outcome 3Explain the universality of traits of effective leaders.


• They used a bullying style viewed as intimidating, insensitive, and abrasive.• They were viewed as being cold, aloof, and arrogant.• They betrayed personal trust.• They were self-centered and viewed as overly ambitious and thinking of the next job.• They had specific performance problems with the business.• They overmanaged and were unable to delegate or build a team.

Exhibit 2-2 Why executives are derailed.

WorkApplication2Select a present or past manager, andstate whether he or she has any of the sixtraits of derailment. Give specific examplesof weaknesses.

Traits of Effective LeadersResearchers who were not concerned with personality or a system of catego-rizing traits wanted to identify a list of traits that effective leaders have. Thereappear to be some traits that consistently differentiate leaders from others, sotrait theory does have some claim to universality.23 For the theory to be trulyuniversal, all leaders would have to have all the same traits. However, againyou should realize that there is no one list of traits accepted by all researchers,and that not all effective leaders have all these traits. In this section, you willlearn which traits have strong research support. So if you are not strong onevery one, it doesn’t mean that you can’t be a successful leader. Furthermore,you can develop these traits with some effort.

See Exhibit 2-3 for a list of the nine traits. In the following paragraphs, wewill categorize each trait using the Big Five.

Learning Outcome 4Discuss why the trait of dominance is so important for managers to have.

DominanceDominance, which we called leadership, is one of the two major traits of thesurgency Big Five section. Successful leaders want to be managers and to takecharge.24 However, they are not overly bossy, nor do they use a bullying style.If a person does not want to be a leader, chances are they will not be an effec-tive manager. Thus, the dominance trait affects all the other traits related to ef-fective leaders. For example, if you push people into management positions,there is a high probability that they will lack self-confidence and not havemuch energy for the job. Due to the pressure of the job they don’t want, theymay also not be stable in the position or sensitive to others, and the trait of in-telligence may be questioned. To reach full leadership potential, you’ve got towant to be a leader, work to develop your skills, and enjoy it.25

High EnergyLeaders have drive and work hard to achieve goals.26 They have stamina andtolerate stress well. Leaders have enthusiasm and don’t give up. They deal with


Internal locus of control

Sensitivity to othersIntelligenceStability

Integrity FlexibilityHigh energyDominance

Self-confidence

Traits

Exhibit 2-3 Traits of effective leaders.

but don’t accept setbacks.27 However, they are not viewed as pushy and ob-noxious. They have a high tolerance for frustration as they strive to overcomeobstacles through preparation. Leaders take initiative to bring about improve-ments rather than ask permission; they don’t have to be told what to do.28

High energy is best categorized as the conscientiousness dimension of the BigFive. Do you have a high energy level?

Self-ConfidenceSelf-confidence, on a continuum from strong to weak, indicates whether youare self-assured in your judgments, decision making, ideas, and capabilities.Leaders display self-assurance about their abilities and foster confidenceamong followers.29 As leaders gain their followers’ respect, they also influencethem.

Self-confidence influences individual goals, efforts, and task persistence.Without strong self-confidence, leaders are less likely to attempt to influencefollowers, to take on difficult tasks, and to set challenging objectives for them-selves and followers.30 Self-confidence is positively related to effectiveness andis a predictor of advancement to higher levels of management.31

Leaders are, however, realistically self-confident;32 they are not viewed asarrogant “know it alls” who alienate people. Self-confidence is best categorizedas the conscientiousness Big Five dimension, because people who are depend-able often have high self-confidence and high energy. Even though most peoplewith a high surgency dimension have self-confidence, not all people with self-confidence want to be managers. People with strong self-confidence also often,but not always, have strong adjustment traits. Are you self-confident?

Locus of ControlLocus of control is on a continuum between external and internal belief in con-trol over one’s destiny. Externalizers believe that they have no control overtheir fate and that their behavior has little to do with their performance. Theygenerally have lower levels of performance. Internalizers (leaders) believe thatthey control their fate and that their behavior directly affects their perform-ance.33 Leaders take responsibility for who they are, for their behavior andperformance, and for the performance of their organizational unit. Internaliz-ers tend to be future oriented, setting objectives and developing plans to ac-complish them. They are usually self-confident and learn from their mistakes,rather than blaming others or just bad luck.34 The Big Five category is theopenness-to-experience dimension. Externalizers (followers) are generally re-luctant to change. Are you more of an internalizer or an externalizer?

StabilityStability, the adjustment Big Five dimension, is associated with managerial ef-fectiveness and advancement. Stable leaders are emotionally in control of them-selves, secure, and positive.35 Unfortunately, there are some unstable leaders36—such as Adolph Hitler—who misuse power. It has also been shown that effectiveleaders have a good understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses, andthey are oriented toward self-improvement rather than being defensive.37 This


WorkApplication3Select a present or past manager. For thatperson, decide which of the followingtraits is or was strongest and weakest:dominance, high energy, self-confidence,internal locus of control, and stability.Explain your answers.

relates to effective leaders knowing when to lead and when to follow; they com-pensate for weaknesses by letting others with the strength lead in those areas. Ifyou are an internalizer, you will tend to believe this; and if you are conscien-tious, you will work to improve yourself and advance.

IntegrityIntegrity refers to behavior that is honest and ethical, making a person trust-worthy.38 Ethics will be discussed later in this chapter. Honesty refers to truth-fulness rather than deception.39 Honesty is nearly always the best policy; manybelieve that integrity is the most important asset you can possess.40 Trustwor-thiness is an important part of business success; trusting relationships are at theheart of profit making and sustainability in the global knowledge-based econ-omy.41 Honesty and trust are so important at CompUSA that any employeecaught telling a lie is fired immediately; according to the CEO, “We all trusteach other.”42

The ability to influence is based on integrity. Followers must trust theleader. Unless you are perceived to be trustworthy, it is difficult to retain theloyalty of followers or to obtain cooperation and support from peers and su-periors.43 To be viewed as trustworthy, leaders need to be honest, support theirfollowers, and keep confidences.44 If followers find out their leader has lied orin some way manipulated them for personal gain, changed his or her mindafter making a decision, blamed others for a poor decision, taken credit for fol-lowers’ work or given blame that is unjust, or betrayed confidences, then theleader will lose the followers’ trust. Recall that these negative types of behav-iors lead to executive derailment. Integrity is so important at GE that it is itscore value. Former CEO Jack Welch told employees to do everything with in-tegrity. Integrity is categorized as the Big Five dimension of conscientiousness.Do you have integrity?


Downsizing and Part-Time Workers

As firms struggle to compete in the global economy, many have downsized.45

Downsizing is the process of cutting resources to get more done with less toincrease productivity. The primary area of cutting is human resources, and manylaid-off factory workers find their jobs drying up for good.46 With downsizing,many firms are using new structures that have fewer levels of management.47 Insome firms, downsized full-time employees are replaced with part-time workers.

Another method of keeping costs down is to use part-time employees thatdo not receive benefits (i.e., health care), rather than full-time employees withbenefits. Wal-Mart is known for having a very heavy ratio of part- to full-timeemployees to keep costs down. Wal-Mart is expanding its sales of groceryitems, competing directly with supermarket chains. One of the reasons Wal-Mart has lower prices is because it uses mostly part-time workers at minimumwage, or close, without benefits. Most supermarket chain employees are

Ethical Dilemma 1

(Continued )

IntelligenceLeaders generally have above-average intelligence. Intelligence refers to cogni-tive ability to think critically, to solve problems, and to make decisions. Orga-nizations are investing heavily in developing their intellectual capital, as theytrain people to think critically and creatively.48

Contemporary research on intelligence offers renewed potential for leader-ship trait research. The notion of multiple intelligence has implications formanagerial roles, meaning that differences in cognitive abilities between leadersand nonleaders may well go beyond conventional intelligence quotient (IQ)measures.49 Simply, multiple intelligence means that people are better at somethings than others. Intelligence has been categorized with the Big Five openness-to-experience dimension. Being in college implies that you most likely haveabove-average intelligence. This is one reason why most college graduates getbetter jobs and are paid more than those who do not go to (or finish) college.

Emotional IntelligenceAn offshoot of IQ is EQ (emotional quotient or intelligence—EI), which isclearly related to the Big Five personality dimension of adjustment. EQ is theability to work well with people. People’s emotions both on and off the jobaffect human relations at work. September 11, 2001 brought out emotions inthe workplace. EQ is a hot management topic today because emotions affectjob performance.50 Many organizations, including Intel, Sun Microsystems,Netscape, Advanced Micro Devices, and Lucent Technologies, have their em-ployees attend EQ training programs to build better relationships.

Jeff Taylor, founder of Monster.com, and Matt Goldman, cofounder ofBlue Man Group, recommend developing your people skills, or your EQ.51 Ithas been said, “IQ gets you the job, EQ gets you promoted.”52 There are fourcomponents of EQ:53

• Self-awareness relates to being conscious of your emotions and how theyaffect your personal and professional life. Using your “gut feelings” canhelp you make decisions. Some believe that self-awareness is the greatestpredictor of success in everything we do.54 Use your self-awareness to


Ethical Dilemma 1

unionized and get higher wages and more benefits. In 2003 into 2004, super-market workers were on strike in California to keep higher wages and benefits.The supermarket chain stated that it can’t afford wage and benefits increases,as it must compete with Wal-Mart.

1. Do you view Wal-Mart as a company with integrity?2. Is downsizing ethical and socially responsible?3. Is using part-time employees, rather than full-time, ethical and socially

responsible?

(Continued )

accurately assess your strengths and limitations, which leads to higher self-confidence.

• Social awareness relates to the ability to understand others. Steve Case,cofounder of America Online, recommends developing your empathyskills.55 Empathy is the ability to put yourself in other people’s situations,sense their emotions, and understand things from their perspective. Suc-cessful leaders can deal with a diversity of people with different points ofview and feelings, including personalities that are not emotionally stable.56

Social awareness also includes the ability to develop networks and playorganizational politics, which we discuss in Chapter 4.

• Self-management relates to the ability to control disruptive emotions.Successful leaders don’t let negative emotions (worry, anxiety, fear, anger)interfere with getting things done effectively.57 Characteristics of self-management include: self-motivation, integrity/trustworthiness, conscien-tiousness, adaptability, and optimism. You need to be optimistic despiteobstacles, setbacks, and failure. Optimism can be learned,58 so think andbe positive.

• Relationship management relates to their ability to work well with others,which is dependent on the other three EQ components. Successful leadersbuild effective relationships by communicating, responding to emotions,handling conflict, and influencing others. Most of this book focuses ondeveloping relationship management skills.

These four components of EQ explain the way we manage emotions. Howhigh is your EQ?

FlexibilityFlexibility refers to the ability to adjust to different situations. Recall that lead-ers who set objectives and possess the ability to influence others bring aboutchange. Leaders need to stay ahead of the immense changes in the world, andthe pace of change will continue to increase. Without flexibility, leaders wouldbe successful only in the limited situations that fit their style of leadership.Thus effective leaders are flexible and adapt to the situation. Cynthia Danaher,general manager of the Hewlett-Packard Medical Products Group, says,“Change is painful, and someone may have to be the bad guy. You need tocharge ahead, accepting that not everyone will follow and that some won’tsurvive.”59 Flexibility is categorized with the Big Five openness-to-experiencedimension. Are you flexible?

Sensitivity to OthersSensitivity to others refers to understanding group members as individuals,what their positions on issues are, and how best to communicate with and in-fluence them. To be sensitive to others requires empathy. In today’s globaleconomy, companies need people-centered leaders, because financial success isincreasingly being based on the commitment to management practices thattreat people as valuable assets.60

Lack of sensitivity is part of the reason for executive derailment. You needto have and convey an interest in other people. Sensitivity means not focusingon putting yourself first and remembering that often the more you give away,the more you have. Sensitivity is critical when playing the negotiator leadershiprole. If you are concerned only about yourself and don’t understand what the


WorkApplication4Select a present or past manager. For thatperson, decide which of the followingtraits is or was strongest and weakest:integrity, intelligence, flexibility, and sen-sitivity to others. Explain your answers.

OP

ENIN

G C

AS

E A

PP

LIC

ATI

ON

2. What Traits of Effective Leaders Does Lorraine Monroe Possess?She has dominance, high energy, and self-confidence, and shefounded and led two leadership institutes and was a high schoolprincipal. Monroe is an internalizer (locus of control); she believedshe could turn a poorly performing high school into a top per-former. The key to Monroe’s leadership success in high school washer stability and integrity, and the teachers trusted and followed herto success. She is intelligent, holding a doctorate degree, but shealso has emotional intelligence to motivate others to achieve her vi-sion. Monroe is also flexible as shown in her doctrine where shesuggests breaking the rules to meet your mission. Her sensitivity tostudents and faculty was critical to the successful turnaround ofFrederick Douglass Academy.


App

lyin

g th

eC

once

pt 2

Personality Traits of Effective LeadersIdentify each of the following eight behaviors by its trait. The leader maybe behaving effectively, or the behavior may be the opposite of the effec-tive trait behavior. Write the appropriate letter in the blank before eachitem.a. dominance d. internal locus of control g. intelligenceb. high energy e. stability h. flexibilityc. self-confidence f. integrity i. sensitivity to others

____ 8. The leader is engaged in getting the production line working.

____ 9. The leader is acting very nervously while she is disciplining anemployee.

____10. The leader tells a follower that he can have Tuesday off nextweek. But the next day, the leader tells the follower that he haschanged his mind.

____11. The leader very attentively listens to the follower complain, thenparaphrases the complaint back to the follower.

____12. The leader in situation 1 is still working to solve the problem;it’s her fifth attempt.

____13. The leader is telling her manager that her unit’s poor perform-ance is not her fault; she says that the employees are lazy andthere’s nothing she can do to improve performance.

____14. The leader is telling his manager that his department is right onschedule to meet the deadline, hoping that he can catch up be-fore the boss finds out.

____15. The leader assigns a task to one follower, giving him very spe-cific instructions. Then the leader gives another assignment to adifferent follower, telling her to complete the task any way shewants to.

other party wants, you probably will not be very successful. You will learnhow to negotiate in Chapter 4. Sensitivity to others is categorized as the BigFive dimension of agreeableness. Are you sensitive to others?

The Personality Profile of Effective LeadersEffective leaders have specific personality traits.61 McClelland’s trait theoriesof Achievement Motivation Theory and Leader Motive Profile Theory havestrong research support and a great deal of relevance to the practice of leader-ship.62 Achievement Motivation Theory identifies three major traits, whichMcClelland calls needs. Leader Motive Profile Theory identifies the personal-ity profile of effective leaders. You will learn about both of these theories in thissection.

Learning Outcome 5State how the Achievement Motivation Theory and the Leader Motive Profile

are related and different.

Achievement Motivation TheoryAchievement Motivation Theory attempts to explain and predict behavior andperformance based on a person’s need for achievement, power, and affiliation.David McClelland originally developed Achievement Motivation Theory inthe 1940s.63 He believes that we have needs and that our needs motivate us tosatisfy them. Our behavior is thus motivated by our needs. However,McClelland says this is an unconscious process. He further states that needsare based on personality and are developed as we interact with the environ-ment. All people possess the need for achievement, power, and affiliation, butto varying degrees. One of the three needs tends to be dominant in each one ofus and motivates our behavior.

The Need for Achievement (n Ach)The need for achievement is the unconscious concern for excellence in accom-plishments through individual efforts. People with strong n Ach tend to havean internal locus of control, self-confidence, and high energy traits. High n Achis categorized as the Big Five dimension of conscientiousness. People with highn Ach tend to be characterized as wanting to take personal responsibility forsolving problems. They are goal oriented and set moderate, realistic, attainablegoals. They seek challenge, excellence, and individuality; take calculated, mod-erate risk; desire concrete feedback on their performance, and work hard.64

People with high n Ach think about ways to do a better job, how to accomplishsomething unusual or important, and career progression. They perform well innonroutine, challenging, and competitive situations, while people low in n Achdo not.

McClelland’s research showed that only about 10 percent of the U.S. pop-ulation has a “strong” dominant need for achievement. There is evidence of acorrelation between high achievement need and high performance in the gen-eral population.65 People with high n Ach tend to enjoy entrepreneurial-typepositions.66

The Need for Power (n Pow)The need for power is the unconscious concern for influencing others and seek-ing positions of authority. People with strong n Pow have the dominance traitand tend to be self-confident with high energy. High n Pow is categorized as the


Big Five dimension of surgency. People with a high need for power tend to becharacterized as wanting to control the situation, wanting influence or controlover others, enjoying competition in which they can win (they don’t like tolose), being willing to confront others, and seeking positions of authority andstatus. People with high n Pow tend to be ambitious and have a lower need foraffiliation. They are more concerned about getting their own way (influencingothers) than about what others think of them. They are attuned to power andpolitics as essential for successful leadership.

The Need for Affiliation (n Aff)The need for affiliation is the unconscious concern for developing, maintain-ing, and restoring close personal relationships. People with strong n Aff havethe trait of sensitivity to others. High n Aff is categorized as the Big Five di-mension of agreeableness. People with high n Aff tend to be characterized asseeking close relationships with others, wanting to be liked by others, enjoyinglots of social activities, and seeking to belong; so they join groups and organi-zations. People with high n Aff think about friends and relationships. Theytend to enjoy developing, helping, and teaching others. They seek jobs asteachers, in human resource management, and in other helping professions.People with high n Aff are more concerned about what others think of themthan about getting their own way (influencing others). They tend to have a lown Pow; they tend to avoid management because they like to be one of the grouprather than its leader.

Your Motive ProfileNote that McClelland does not have a classification for the adjustment andopenness-to-experience Big Five personality dimensions; they are not needs. Aperson can have a high or low need for achievement, power, and affiliation andbe either well adjusted or not, and either open or closed to new experiences. Sothese two dimensions of personality are ignored in determining the Achieve-ment Motivation Theory personality profile. Complete Self-Assessment 2 todetermine your motive profile now.

Knowing a motive profile is useful, because it can explain and predict be-havior and performance. For example, if you know people have a high need foraffiliation, you can understand why they tend to have friends and get alongwell with people. You can predict that if they are assigned a job as a mentor,they will enjoy the tasks and display helpful, supportive behavior toward thementoree and will do a good job. Complete Work Application 5, then read onto determine if you have the motive profile of an effective leader.

Leader Motive Profile TheoryLeader Motive Profile Theory attempts to explain and predict leadership suc-cess based on a person’s need for achievement, power, and affiliation motiveprofile. McClelland found that effective leaders consistently have the same mo-tive profile, and that Leader Motive Profile (LMP) has been found to be a reli-able predictor of leader effectiveness.67 Let’s first define the profile of effectiveleaders and then discuss why it results in success. The Leader Motive Profile in-cludes a high need for power, which is socialized; that is, greater than the needfor affiliation and with a moderate need for achievement. The achievement


WorkApplication5Explain how your need for achievement,power, and/or affiliation has affected yourbehavior and performance, or that of some-one you work with or have worked with.Give an example of the behavior and per-formance, and list your predicted motiveneed.


Motive Prof i le

Return to Self-Assessment 1 and place the scores from your Big Five per-sonality profile in the following blanks, next to their correspondingneeds. On the number scale, circle your total score for each need.

Self-Assessment 2

Need for Achievement(conscientiousness)

3530252015105

Total Score ________

Need for Power(surgency)

3530252015105


Need for Affiliation(agreeableness)

3530252015105


There is no right or wrong score for this profile. To interpret yourscore, check to see if there is much difference between the three needscores. If all three are about the same, one need is not stronger than theothers are. If scores vary, one need is higher than the others and is calledthe stronger or dominant need, and the lower score is the weaker need.You can also have other combinations, such as two stronger and oneweaker, or vice versa. Do you have stronger and weaker needs?

score is usually somewhere between the power and affiliation score, and thereason is described below.

PowerPower is essential to leaders because it is a means of influencing followers.Without power, there is no leadership. To be successful, leaders need to wantto be in charge and enjoy the leadership role. You will need power to influenceyour followers, peers, and higher-level managers. You will learn more abouthow to gain power and be successful in organizational politics in Chapter 4.

Socialized PowerMcClelland further identified power as neither good nor bad. It can be used forpersonal gain at the expense of others (personalized power), or it can be usedto help oneself and others (socialized power).68 Social power is discussed later,with ethics. Effective leaders use socialized power, which includes the traits ofsensitivity to others and stability, and is the Big Five adjustment dimension.Thus a person with a low need for affiliation can have a high sensitivity toothers. McClelland’s research supports the reasons for executive derailment,because these negative traits are personalized power. Socialized power is notincluded in the motive profile, so complete Self-Assessment 3 to determine yourmotive profile with socialized power.


Motive Prof i le withSocial ized Power

Need for Power(surgency)

3530252015105

Total Score ______

Socialized Power(adjustment)

3530252015105

Total Score ______

Need for Affiliation(agreeableness)

3530252015105

Total Score ______

Need for Achievement(conscientiousness)

3530252015105

Total Score ______

Return to Self-Assessment 1 and place the scores from Self-Assessment 2 (your motive profile) in thefollowing blanks. On the number scale, circle your total score.

Again, there is no right or wrong score. The adjustment score will give you an idea if your power ismore social or personal. Also realize that the questions in Self-Assessment 1 (3, 8, 13, 18, and 23) are nottotally focused on social power. Thus, if you believe you have higher sensitivity to others, your score onMcClelland’s LMP could be higher.

Self-Assessment 3

App

lyin

g th

eC

once

pt 3

Achievement Motivation TheoryIdentify each of the five behaviors below by its need, writing the appro-priate letter in the blank before each item. The person may be behavingbased on a strong need, or the behavior may be the opposite, indicating aweak need. Also state how the behavior meets the need and predict theperformance.

a. achievement b. power c. affiliation

16. The person is refusing to be the spokesperson for the group.

____17. The person is going to talk to a fellow employee, with whom shehad a disagreement earlier in the day, to peacefully resolve theconflict.

____18. The person is working hard to meet a difficult deadline.

____19. An accounting major has volunteered to calculate the financialanalysis for the group’s case and to make the presentation to theclass.

____20. The fellow employee in situation 2 has made up his mind that hewill not be the first one to make a move to resolve the conflictwith the other person; but when the other party comes to him,he will be receptive.

OP

ENIN

G C

AS

E A

PP

LIC

ATI

ON

AchievementTo be effective, leaders generally need to have a moderate need for achieve-ment. They have high energy, self-confidence, and openness-to-experiencetraits, and they are conscientious (Big Five dimension). The reason for a mod-erate rather than high need for achievement, which would include a lower needfor power, is the danger of personalized power. People with a high need forachievement tend to seek individual achievement, and when they are not inter-ested in being a leader, there is the chance for personalized power andderailment.

AffiliationEffective leaders have a lower need for affiliation than power, so that relation-ships don’t get in the way of influencing followers. If the achievement score islower than that for affiliation, the probability of the following problems oc-curring may be increased. Leaders with high n Aff tend to have a lower needfor power and are thus reluctant to play the bad-guy role, such as when disci-plining and influencing followers to do things they would rather not do—likechange. They have been found to show favoritism behavior toward theirfriends. However, recall that effective leaders do have concern for followers—socialized power.

The Leader Motive Profile is included in the definition of leadership. Ourdefinition of leadership includes the five key elements of leadership (Exhibit 1-1) in theLMP. Our definition of leadership includes influencing and leaders-followers(power) and getting along with people (social power). It also includes organi-zational objectives (which achievers set and accomplish well) and change(which achievers are open to).

3. Does Lorraine Monroe Have the Personality Profile of anEffective Leader? And What Does She Say in Response toBusinesspeople Who Continually Ask Her, “What Makes a GoodLeader?”Lorraine Monroe has an LMP. Her need for power is illustratedthrough being a school principal and founding tow leadership insti-tutes to train leaders. Monroe has a socialized need for power asshe shows concern for students, teachers, and administrators. Herneed for achievement leads to continued success. She also has alower need for affiliation as she set standards for discipline inschool, and she consistently observed teachers (although they com-plained at first), improving their performance.

Businesspeople continually ask Monroe, “What makes a goodleader?” Part of her answer is that the leader is the person whokeeps a vision in front of people and reminds them of their mission.Leaders need to give employees a sense of purpose beyond a pay-check, the feeling that they can make a difference, and something tobe proud of. Leaders have high expectations and demand continu-ous measurable improvement through creativity. Employees havelatent productivity; it is the leader’s job to bring it out. Leaders


WorkApplication6Make an intelligent guess about your pres-ent or past manager’s motive profile. Is itan LMP? Explain.

demonstrate their ability. They walk around and watch people dotheir work and talk to them about improving as they give praise.Leaders treat people well, listen to what they have to say, do nicethings for them, and get them together to talk so they feel con-nected.

Do you have an LMP? Complete Self-Assessment 4 now.Before we go on and discuss leadership attitudes, let’s review what we’ve

covered so far in Exhibit 2-4 by putting together the Big Five Model of Per-sonality, the nine traits of effective leaders, and Achievement Motivation The-ory and LMP.

Leadership AttitudesAttitudes are positive or negative feelings about people, things, and issues.There has been considerable interest in how attitudes affect performance, andcompanies are recruiting workers with positive attitudes.69 We all have


Self-Assessment 4Leadership Interest

Select the option that best describes your interest inleadership now.

____ 1. I am, or want to become, a manager andleader.

____ 2. I am, or want to become, a leader withoutbeing a manager.

____ 3. I am not interested in being a leader; I wantto be a follower.

If you want to be a leader, recall that researchhas shown that you can develop your leadershipskills.

If you selected option 1, do you have an LMP? Ifyou answered yes, it does not guarantee that you willclimb the corporate ladder. However, having an LMPdoes increase your chances, because it is a predictorof leadership success. On the other hand, an LMP isnot enough; you need leadership skills to be success-ful. If your Self-Assessment 3 score doesn’t indicatethat you have an LMP, go back to Self-Assessment 1and review questions 1, 6, 11, 16, and 21. Did youscore them accurately? The most important questionis 16. If you believe you have an LMP, be aware thatyour profile could be different using McClelland’sLMP questionnaire. Also recall that not all successfulleaders have an LMP, so you can still be successful.

Developing your leadership skills, through effort, willincrease your chances of leadership success.

If you selected option 2, don’t be concernedabout your LMP. Focus on developing your leader-ship skills. However, your personality profile can helpyou to better understand your strengths and weak-nesses to identify areas to improve on. This alsoholds true for people who selected option 1.

If you selected option 3, that’s fine. Most peoplein the general population probably would select thisoption. Many professionals who have great jobs andincomes are followers, and they have no interest inbecoming managers. However, recall that researchhas shown that leaders and followers need the sameskills, that organizations are looking for employeeswith leadership skills, and that organizations conductskills training with employees at all levels. To in-crease your chances of having a successful and satis-fying career, you may want to develop your leader-ship skills. You may someday change your mindabout becoming a leader and manager.

Your need for power and LMP can change overtime, along with your interest in leadership and man-agement and your skill level, regardless of whichoption you selected.

favorable or positive attitudes, and unfavorable or negative attitudes aboutlife, leadership, work, school, and everything else.70

Optimism is a good predictor of job performance.71 W. Marriott, Jr., pres-ident of Marriott Corporation, stated that the company’s success dependsmore upon employee attitudes than any other single factor. Larry King, host ofCNN’s Larry King Live, says that the right attitude is basic to success. Leg-endary football coach Lou Holtz says that attitude is the most important thingin this world and that we each choose the attitude we have. So being a positiveor negative person is your choice.72 People with positive, optimistic attitudesgenerally have a well-adjusted personality profile, and successful leaders havepositive, optimistic attitudes. So follow Jack Welch’s advice and have a positiveattitude to advance.73

Like personality traits, attitudes have an important influence on behaviorand performance.74 For example, attitude toward a class or job can be positiveor negative. Generally, if you like a class or job, you will attend more often andwork harder; but not necessarily. Even if you have a negative attitude towarda class or job, you may still attend and work hard due to other factors, such asyour personality traits and motives. If you have a high need for affiliation, andyou like the instructor and/or students, you may try hard. If you have a highneed for achievement, you may work hard to succeed even with a negativeattitude toward the class or job.

In this section, we’ll discuss how leadership attitudes relate to Theory Xand Theory Y, and how the Pygmalion effect influences followers’ behaviorand performance. Then we will discuss self-concept and how it affects theleader’s behavior and performance. Lastly, we will consider how the leader’sattitudes about followers, and about his or her self-concept, affect the leader-ship style of the leader.

Learning Outcome 6Identify similarities and differences among Theory X and Theory Y,

the Pygmalion effect, and self-concept.


AchievementThe Big Five Model Nine Traits of Motivation Theory

of Personality Effective Leaders and LMP

Surgency Dominance Need for power

Agreeableness Sensitivity to others Need for affliation

Adjustment Stability Socialized power (LMP)

Conscientiousness High energy Need for achievementSelf-confidenceIntegrity

Openness to experience Internal locus of control No separate need; includedIntelligence within other needsFlexibility

Exhibit 2-4 Combined traits and needs.

Theory X and Theory YToday, Theory X and Theory Y attempt to explain and predict leadership be-havior and performance based on the leader’s attitude about followers. Beforeyou read about Theory X and Y, complete Self-Assessment 5.

Douglas McGregor classified attitudes or belief systems, which he called as-sumptions, as Theory X and Theory Y.75 People with Theory X attitudes holdthat employees dislike work and must be closely supervised in order to do theirwork. Theory Y attitudes hold that employees like to work and do not need tobe closely supervised in order to do their work. In each of the eight pairs of


Self-Assessment 5Theory X and Theory Y At t i tudes

For each pair of statements distribute 5 points, basedon how characteristic each statement is of your atti-tude or belief system. If the first statement totally re-flects your attitude and the second does not, give 5points to the first and 0 to the second. If it’s the op-posite, use 0 and 5. If the statement is usually yourattitude, then distribution can be 4 and 1, or 1 and4. If both statements reflect your attitude, the distri-bution should be 3 and 2, or 2 and 3. Again, thecombined score for each pair of statements mustequal 5.

Here are the scoring distributions for each pairof statements:

0–5 or 5–0 One of the statements is totally likeyou, the other not like you at all.

1–4 or 4–1 One statement is usually like you,the other not.

2–3 or 3–2 Both statements are like you,although one is slightly more like you.

____ 1. People enjoy working.

____ People do not like to work.

____ 2. Employees don’t have to be closely super-vised to do their job well.

____ Employees will not do a good job unless youclosely supervise them.

____ 3. Employees will do a task well for you if youask them to.

____ If you want something done right, you needto do it yourself.

____ 4. Employees want to be involved in makingdecisions.

____ Employees want the managers to make thedecisions.

____ 5. Employees will do their best work if youallow them to do the job their own way.

____ Employees will do their best work if they aretaught how to do it the one best way.

____ 6. Managers should let employees have full ac-cess to information that is not confidential.

____ Managers should give employees only the in-formation they need to know to do their job.

____ 7. If the manager is not around, the employeeswill work just as hard.

____ If the manager is not around, the employeeswill take it easier than when being watched.

____ 8. Managers should share the management re-sponsibilities with group members.

____ Managers should perform the managementfunctions for the group.

To determine your attitude or belief system aboutpeople at work, add up the numbers (0–5) for thefirst statement in each pair; don’t bother adding thenumbers for the second statements. The total shouldbe between 0 and 40. Place your score on the contin-uum below.

Theory X 0—5—10—15—20—25—30—35—40 Theory Y

Generally, the higher your score, the greater areyour Theory Y beliefs, and the lower the score, thegreater your Theory X beliefs.

statements in Self-Assessment 5, the first lines are Theory Y attitudes and thesecond lines are Theory X attitudes.

Managers with Theory X attitudes tend to have a negative, pessimistic viewof employees and display more coercive, autocratic leadership styles using ex-ternal means of controls, such as threats and punishment. Managers with The-ory Y attitudes tend to have a positive, optimistic view of employees and displaymore participative leadership styles using internal motivation and rewards. In1966 when McGregor published his Theory X and Theory Y, most managershad Theory X attitudes, and he was calling for a change to Theory Y attitudes.More recently, the paradigm shift from management to leadership also reflectsthis change in attitudes, as more managers use participative leadership styles.76

Managers should acknowledge the influence of attitudes on behavior andperformance.77 A study of over 12,000 managers explored the relationship be-tween managerial achievement and attitudes toward subordinates.78 The man-agers with Theory Y attitudes were better at accomplishing organizationalobjectives and better at tapping the potential of subordinates. The managerswith strong Theory X attitudes were far more likely to be in the low-achievinggroup. Your attitudes are important, because your leadership style will springfrom your core attitudes about your followers. If you scored higher in TheoryX for Self-Assessment 5, it does not mean that you cannot be an effectiveleader. As with personality traits, you can change your attitudes, with effort.79

You don’t have to be an autocratic leader.

The Pygmalion EffectThe Pygmalion effect proposes that leaders’ attitudes toward and expectationsof followers, and their treatment of them, explain and predict followers’ be-havior and performance. Research by J. Sterling Livingston popularized thistheory, and others have supported it as discussed here.80 We have alreadytalked about attitudes and how they affect behavior (how to treat others) andperformance, so let’s add expectations. In business, expectations are stated asobjectives and standards. Effective leaders set clear standards and expect thebest from their followers.81

In a study of welding students, the foreman who was training the groupwas given the names of students who were quite intelligent and would do well.Actually, the students were selected at random. The only difference was theforeman’s expectations. The so-called intelligent students did significantly out-perform the other group members. Why this happened is what this theory is allabout: The foreman’s expectations influenced the behavior and performance ofthe followers.82

Lou Holtz advises setting a higher standard; the worst disservice you cando as a coach, teacher, parent, or leader is to say to your followers, “I don’tthink you are capable of doing very much—so I’m going to lower the stan-dard,” or just to do it without saying anything. Lou says there are two kinds ofleaders: those who are optimists and lift others up, and those who pull every-body down. If you are in a leadership role, don’t worry about being popular(need for affiliation); worry about raising the self-image and productivity ofyour followers. Having two different teams win the national college footballchampionship within a couple of years after he took the job as head coachshows Lou’s ability to set a higher standard.


WorkApplication7Give an example of when a person (parent,friend, teacher, coach, manager) really ex-pected you either to perform well or to fail,and treated you like you would, whichresulted in your success or failure.

4. How Did “Attitude” Help Change the Performance ofFrederick Douglass Academy?A major factor in Lorraine Monroe’s turning Harlem’s FrederickDouglass Academy from a poor performer into a high performer,with 96 percent of inner-city graduates going on to college, wasthrough her Theory Y attitude and use of the Pygmalion effect.Monroe encouraged her faculty to be creative and try new things.She set higher standards and treated students and teachers like ca-pable winners—which they became.

Self-ConceptSo far, we have discussed the leaders’ attitudes about followers. Now we willexamine leaders’ attitudes about themselves. Self-concept refers to the positiveor negative attitudes people have about themselves. If you have a positive viewof yourself as being a capable person, you will tend to have the positive self-confidence trait.83 A related concept, self-efficacy, is the belief in your own ca-pability to perform in a specific situation. Self-efficacy is based on self-conceptand is closely related to the self-confidence trait, because if you believe you canbe successful, you will often have self-confidence.84

There is a lot of truth in the saying, “if you think you can you can, if youthink you can’t you can’t.” Recall times when you had positive self-efficacy andwere successful or negative self-efficacy and failed. Think of sports: sinking abasket, getting a goal or a hit, running a certain distance or time, or lifting aweight. Think of school: passing a test, getting a good grade on an assignment,or getting a certain final grade. Think of work: completing a task, meeting adeadline, making a sale, or solving a problem. Successful leaders have positiveattitudes with strong self-concepts, are optimistic, and believe they can make apositive difference.85 If you don’t believe you can be a successful leader, youprobably won’t be.

5. How Did Lorraine Monroe’s Self-Concept Affect Her Leadership?Lorraine Monroe grew up in Harlem and went to its public schools.Her parents did not go to college, but they did teach her to neverdoubt that she could do whatever she applied herself to accomplish.If she did not believe she could successfully turn the academyaround, things would not have changed. Monroe began her leader-ship training in school. For example, she served as class president inhigh school. As stated in her doctrine, “Becoming a leader is an actof self-invention. Imagine yourself as a leader: Act as if you are aleader until you actually become one.”


OP

ENIN

G C

AS

E A

PP

LIC

ATI

ON

OP

ENIN

G C

AS

E A

PP

LIC

ATI

ON

Developing a More Positive Attitude and Self-ConceptYour behavior and performance will be consistent with the way you see your-self.86 You cannot be an effective leader, or follower, if you don’t have a posi-tive self-concept. The environment around us influences our attitudes. Usuallywe cannot control our environment, but we can control our attitudes.87 Thinkand act like a winner, and you may become one. Following are some ideas tohelp you change your attitudes and develop a more positive self-concept:

1. Consciously try to have and maintain a positive, optimistic attitude. If youdon’t have a positive attitude, it may be caused by your unconsciousthoughts and behavior. Only with conscious effort can you improve yourself-concept.

2. Realize that there are few, if any, benefits to negative, pessimistic attitudesabout others and yourself. Do holding a grudge, worrying, and beingafraid of failure help you to succeed?

3. Cultivate optimistic thoughts. Scientific evidence suggests that yourthoughts affect every cell in your body. Every time you think positivethoughts, your body, mind, and spirit respond. You will likely feel moremotivated and energetic. Use positive self-talk—I will do a good job; it willbe done on time; etc. Also use mental imagery—picture yourself achievingyour goal.

4. If you catch yourself complaining or being negative in any way, stop andchange to a positive attitude. With time, you will catch yourself less oftenas you become more positive about yourself.88

5. Avoid negative people, especially any that make you feel negative aboutyourself. Associate with people who have a positive self-concept, and usetheir positive behavior.

6. Set and achieve goals. Set short-term goals (daily, weekly, monthly) thatyou can achieve. Achieving specific goals will improve your self-concept,helping you to view yourself as successful.

7. Focus on your success; don’t dwell on failure. If you achieve five of sixgoals, dwell on the five and forget the one you missed. We are all going tomake mistakes and experience failure. Winston Churchill defined successas the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.The difference between effective leaders and less-effective leaders is thatthe successful ones learn from their mistakes.89 They bounce back fromdisappointment and don’t let it affect them negatively in the future. LouHoltz says happiness is nothing more than a poor memory for the badthings that happen to you.

8. Accept compliments. When someone compliments you, say thank you; itbuilds self-concept. Don’t say things like it was nothing, or anyone couldhave done it, because you lose the opportunity for a buildup.

9. Don’t belittle accomplishments or compare yourself to others. If you meeta goal and say it was easy anyway, you are being negative. If you compareyourself to someone else and say they are better, you are being negative.No matter how good you are, there is almost always someone better. Sofocus on being the best that you can be, rather than putting yourself downfor not being the best.


10. Think for yourself. Develop your own attitudes based on others’ input;don’t simply copy others’ attitudes.

11. Be a positive role model. If the leader has a positive attitude, the followersusually do too.90

We can choose to be optimistic or pessimistic—and we usually find whatwe are looking for. If you look for the positive, you are likely to be happierand get more out of life; why look for the negative and be unhappy? Evenwhen the worst in life happens to you, you have the choice of being posi-tive or negative. Christopher Reeve was a successful film star, best knownas Superman, until he fell off a horse and was paralyzed. Rather than beingbitter and negative toward life, and sitting at home feeling sorry for him-self, Reeve started a foundation (The Christopher Reeve Foundation) toraise money to develop a cure for spinal cord injuries. Reeve raised mil-lions of dollars by getting out and asking for donations. He also starred ina TV movie and was a director. During an interview, he said, “I’m actuallybusier now than I was before the accident. I find work more fulfilling thanever.” When asked how he maintained a positive attitude that kept himgoing, he said, “I believe you have two choices in life. One is to look for-ward and the other is to look backwards. To look backwards gets younowhere. Backwards thinking leads to a place of negativity. That’s notwhere I want to dwell.”91 Hopefully, your disappointments in life will notbe so dramatic. But we all have disappointments in life, and we have thechoice of going on with a positive or negative attitude. Here’s one final tip:

12. When things go wrong and you’re feeling down, do something to helpsomeone who is worse off than you. You will realize that you don’t have itso bad, and you will realize that the more you give, the more you get. Vol-unteering at a jail, hospital, soup kitchen, or homeless shelter can helpchange your attitude.

Learning Outcome 7Describe how attitudes are used to develop four leadership styles.

How Attitudes Develop Leadership StylesWe now put together the leader’s attitudes toward others, using Theory X andTheory Y, and the leader’s attitude toward self, using self-concept, to illustratehow these two sets of attitudes develop into four leadership styles. Combiningattitudes with the Leader Motive Profile (LMP), an effective leader tends tohave Theory Y attitudes with a positive self-concept. See Exhibit 2-5 to under-stand how attitudes toward self and others affect leadership styles.

Ethical LeadershipBefore we discuss ethical behavior, complete Self-Assessment 6 to find out howethical your behavior is.

Ethics is an especially hot topic, because it is a major concern to both man-agers and employees.92 It is so important that some large organizations haveethics officers who are responsible for developing and implementing ethicscodes. Business ethics, and ethics codes, should provide assistance in making


WorkApplication8Recall a present or past manager. UsingExhibit 2-5, which combinations of atti-tudes best describe your manager’s leader-ship style? Give examples of the manager’sbehavior that illustrate his or her attitudes.


Theory Y Attitudes Theory X Attitudes

Positive The leader typically gives and The leader typically is bossy, pushy,self-concept accepts positive feedback, and impatient, does much criticizing

expects others to succeed, and with little praising, and is verylets others do the job their way. autocratic.

Negative The leader typically is The leader typically blames othersself-concept afraid to make decisions, when things go wrong, is pessimistic

is unassertive, and self- about resolving personal or blaming when things go organizational problems, and promotes wrong. a feeling of hopelessness among

followers.

Exhibit 2-5 Leadership styles based on attitudes.

Self-Assessment 6How Ethical Is Your Behavior

For this exercise, you will be using the same set ofstatements twice. The first time you answer them,focus on your own behavior and the frequency withwhich you use it for each question. On the line be-fore the question number, place the number 1–4 thatrepresents how often you “did do” the behavior inthe past, if you “do the behavior now,” or if you“would do” the behavior if you had the chance. These numbers will allow you to determine yourlevel of ethics. You can be honest without fear ofhaving to tell others your score in class. Sharingethics scores is not part of the exercise.

Frequently Never

1 2 3 4The second time you use the same statements,

focus on other people in an organization that youwork/worked for. Place an “O” on the line after thenumber if you observed someone doing this behav-ior. Also place an “R” on the line if you reported(whistleblowing) this behavior within the organiza-tion or externally.

O—observed R—reported

1–4O–R

College ____ 1. ___ Cheating on homework assignments.

____ 2. ___ Cheating on exams.

____ 3. ___ Passing in papers that were completedby someone else, as your own work.

Workplace____ 4. ___ Lying to others to get what you want or

stay out of trouble.

____ 5. ___ Coming to work late, leaving workearly, taking long breaks/lunches andgetting paid for it.

____ 6. ___ Socializing, goofing off, or doing personalwork rather than doing the work thatshould be done and getting paid for it.

____ 7. ___ Calling in sick to get a day off, whennot sick.

____ 8. ___ Using the organization’s phone, com-puter, Internet, copier, mail, car, andso on for personal use.

____ 9. ___ Taking home company tools/equipmentwithout permission for personal use andreturning it.

____ 10. ___ Taking home organizational supplies ormerchandise and keeping it.

____ 11. ___ Giving company supplies or merchan-dise to friends or allowing them to takethem without saying anything.

____ 12. ___ Putting in for reimbursement for mealsand travel or other expenses thatweren’t actually eaten or taken.

____ 13. ___ Taking spouse/friends out to eat or onbusiness trips and charging it to theorganizational expense account.


ethical decisions.93 However, you cannot go too many days without hearing orreading, in the mass media, some scandal related to unethical and/or unlawfulbehavior. Ethics are the standards of right and wrong that influence behavior.Right behavior is considered ethical, and wrong behavior is consideredunethical.

Government laws and regulations are designed to help keep business hon-est. After the unethical and illegal business practices of WorldCom, Enron, andArthur Andersen, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 to helpensure that complaints about financial irregularities would surface and beswiftly acted upon, without retaliation against the person who exposed the un-ethical behavior (“whistle-blower”).94 However, we can’t depend on the gov-ernment to make people ethical.95

____ 14. ___ Accepting gifts from customers/suppliers in exchange for giving thembusiness.

____ 15. ___ Cheating on your taxes.

____ 16. ___ Misleading customer to make a sale,such as short delivery dates.

____ 17. ___ Misleading competitors to get informa-tion to use to compete against them,such as saying/pretending to be acustomer/supplier.

____ 18. ___ Planting things to look good.

____ 19. ___ Selling more of the product than thecustomer needs, to get the commission.

____ 20. ___ Spreading false rumors about cowork-ers or competitors to make yourselflook better for advancement or to makemore sales.

____ 21. ___ Lying for your boss when asked/told todo so.

____ 22. ___ Deleting information that makes youlook bad or changing informationto look better than actual results—falseinformation.

____ 23. ___ Being pressured, or pressuring others,to sign off on documents with falseinformation.

____ 24. ___ Being pressured, or pressuring others,to sign off on documents you haven’tread knowing they may contain infor-mation or decisions that might be con-sidered inappropriate.

____ 25. If you were to give this assessment to a per-son you work with whom you do not getalong with very well, would s/he agree withyour answers? Use a scale of yes 4—1 no onthe line before the number 25 and skip Oor R.

Other Unethical Behavior:

Add other unethical behaviors you observed. Identifyif you reported the behavior using R.

26. _____

27. _____

28. _____

Note: This self-assessment is not meant to be a pre-cise measure of your ethical behavior. It is designedto get you thinking about ethics and your behaviorand that of others from an ethical perspective. Thereis no right or wrong score; however, each of these ac-tions is considered unethical behavior in most organi-zations. Another ethical issue of this exercise is yourhonesty when rating the frequencies of your behavior.How honest were you?Scoring: To determine your ethics score, add thenumbers 1–4. Your total will be between 25 and 100.Place the number here ____ and on the continuumbelow that represents your score. The higher yourscore the more ethical is your behavior, and viceversa for lower scores.

25–30—40—50—60—70—80—90—100Unethical Ethical

Ethical behavior goes beyond legal requirements and the difference be-tween ethical and unethical behavior is not always clear because there is no setof rational, consistent moral principles within one country, 96 and the problembecomes much worse on a global scale.97What is considered unethical in somecountries is considered ethical in others. For example, in the United States, it isethical to give a gift but unethical to give a bribe (a gift as a condition of ac-quiring business). However, the difference between a gift and a bribe is notalways clear-cut. In some countries giving bribes is the standard business prac-tice. In this section, you will learn that ethical behavior does pay; how person-ality traits and attitudes, moral development, and the situation affect ethicalbehavior; how people justify unethical behavior; some simple guides to ethicalbehavior, and about being an ethical leader.

Does Ethical Behavior Pay?Generally, the answer is yes. Research studies have reported a positive rela-tionship between ethical behavior and leadership effectiveness.98 From the so-cietal level of analysis, the public has a negative image of big business. Enron’sunethical behavior cost many organizations and people a great deal of moneydirectly, but it also hurt everyone in the stock market, and the general econ-omy, as the unethical behavior contributed to the bear market (i.e., whenstocks trend downward for a long period of time). From the organizationallevel, Enron is no longer the company it was, and its auditor Arthur Andersenlost many of its clients and had to sell most of its business due to unethical be-havior. From the individual level, you may say that people like former EnronCEO Kenneth Lay made millions for their unethical behavior. However, somecould end up in prison, and they may never hold high-level positions again.With all the negative media coverage, unethical leaders’ lives will never be thesame. Unfortunately, greed has destroyed leaders. Mahatma Gandhi calledbusiness without morality a sin.

Recall that integrity is an important trait of effective leaders, and ethicsand trust are part of integrity. The Enron scandal and other unethical businesspractices have bred cynicism as many employees question how much, if at all,they can trust their top bosses. Employees who don’t trust their boss are notgoing to be productive and committed employees.99 Talk is cheap. Ethics hasto be encouraged by leaders who themselves are honest and willing to admittheir mistakes. Effective managers lead by example and reward integrity inothers.100

Learning Outcome 8Compare the three levels of moral development.

How Personality Traits and Attitudes, Moral Development,and the Situation Affect Ethical Behavior

Personality Traits and AttitudesOur ethical behavior is related to our individual needs and personalitytraits.101 Leaders with surgency (dominance) personality traits have twochoices: to use power for personal benefit or to use socialized power. To gain


power and to be conscientious with high achievement, some people will useunethical behavior;102 also, irresponsible people often do not perform tostandard by cutting corners and other behavior which may be considered un-ethical. An agreeableness personality sensitive to others can lead to followingthe crowd in either ethical or unethical behavior; having a high self-concepttends to lead to doing what the person believes is right and not following thecrowd’s unethical behavior. Emotionally unstable people and those with externallocus of control (they do not take personal responsibility for their behavior—it is not their fault) are more likely to use unethical behavior. Being ethical ispart of integrity. People open to new experiences are often ethical. People withpositive attitudes about ethics tend to be more ethical than those with negativeor weak attitudes about ethics.

Moral DevelopmentA second factor affecting ethical behavior is moral development, which refers tounderstanding right from wrong and choosing to do the right thing. Our abilityto make ethical choices is related to our level of moral development. There arethree levels of personal moral development, as discussed in Exhibit 2-6. At thefirst level, preconventional, you choose right and wrong behavior based on your


3. PostconventionalBehavior is motivated by universal principles of right and wrong, regardless of the expectations of the leaderor group. One seeks to balance the concerns for self with those of others and the common good. Will followethical principles even if they violate the law at the risk of social rejection, economic loss, and physical pun-ishment (Martin Luther King, Jr., broke what he considered unjust laws and spent time in jail seeking uni-versal dignity and justice).

“I don’t lie to customers because it is wrong.”The common leadership style is visionary and committed to serving others and a higher cause while empow-ering followers to reach this level.

2. ConventionalLiving up to expectations of acceptable behavior defined by others motivates behavior to fulfill duties andobligations. It is common for followers to copy the behavior of the leaders and group. If the group (can besociety/organization/department) accepts lying, cheating, stealing, etc., when dealing with customers/suppliers/government/competitors, so will the individual. On the other hand, if these behaviors are notaccepted, the individual will not do them either. Peer pressure is used to enforce group norms.

“I lie to customers because the other sales reps do it too.”It is common for lower-level managers to use a similar leadership style of the higher-level managers.

1. PreconventionalSelf-interest motivates behavior to meet ones’ own needs to gain rewards while following rules and beingobedient to authority to avoid punishment.

“I lie to customers to sell more products and get higher commission checks.”The common leadership style is autocratic towards others while using one’s position for personal advantage.

Exhibit 2-6 Levels of moral development.

Source: Adapted from Lawrence Kohlberg, “Moral Stages and Moralization: The Cognitive-DevelopmentApproach.” In Thomas Likona (ed.), Moral Development and Behavior: Theory, Research, and SocialIssues(Austin, TX: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976), 31–53.

WorkApplication9Give an organizational example of behaviorat each of the three levels of moral devel-opment.

OP

ENIN

G C

AS

E A

PP

LIC

ATI

ON

self-interest and the consequences (reward and punishment). With ethicalreasoning at the second level, conventional, you seek to maintain expected stan-dards and live up to the expectations of others. At the third level, postconven-tional, you make an effort to define moral principles regardless of leader orgroup ethics. Although most of us have the ability to reach the third level ofmoral development, postconventional, only about 20 percent of people reachthis level. Most people behave at the second level, conventional, while somehave not advanced beyond the first level, preconventional. How do you handlepeer pressure? What level of moral development are you on? What can you doto further develop your ethical behavior? We will discuss how to be an ethicalleader.

The SituationOur third factor affecting ethical behavior is the situation. Highly competitiveand unsupervised situations increase the odds of unethical behavior. Unethicalbehavior occurs more often when there is no formal ethics policy or code ofethics, and when unethical behavior is not punished, and it is especially preva-lent when it is rewarded. People are also less likely to report unethical behav-ior (blow the whistle) when they perceive the violation as not being serious andwhen the offenders are their friends.103

To tie the three factors affecting ethical behavior together, we need to real-ize that personality traits and attitudes and moral development interact withthe situation to determine if a person will use ethical or unethical behavior.104

In this chapter we use the individual level of analysis, meaning: Am I ethical,and how can I improve my ethical behavior? At the organizational level, manyfirms offer training programs and develop codes of ethics to help employees be-have ethically. The organizational level of analysis is examined in Part III ofthis book; therefore, ethics and whistle-blowing will be further discussed inChapter 10.

6. What Role Did Ethics Play in Changing the Performance of Frederick Douglass Academy?As discussed thus far, Lorraine Monroe possesses the traits and at-titudes of effective leaders; therefore we can assume that she usesethical behavior. Monroe is on the postconventional level of moraldevelopment. During her consulting, ethics is an important issue.As a school principal, in her “Twelve Non-Negotiable Rules,”Monroe made it clear what ethical behavior was and rewarded it,and what unethical behavior was and punished it. Ethics played arole in transforming Frederick Douglass Academy.


How People Justify Unethical BehaviorMost people understand right and wrong behavior and have a conscience. Sowhy do good people do bad things? When most people use unethical behavior,it is not due to some type of character flaw or being born a bad person. Fewpeople see themselves as unethical. We all want to view ourselves in a positivemanner. Therefore, when we do use unethical behavior, we often justify the be-havior to protect our self-concept so that we don’t have a guilty conscience orfeel remorse. Let’s discuss several thinking processes used to justify unethicalbehavior.105

Moral justification is the process of reinterpreting immoral behavior interms of a higher purpose. The terrorists of 9/11 killed innocent people, as dosuicide bombers, yet they believe their killing is for the good and that theywill go to heaven for their actions. People state that they have conducted un-ethical behavior (lie about a competitor to hurt its reputation, fix prices, stealconfidential information, etc.) for the good of the organization or employ-ees.106

People at the postconventional level of moral development may seekhigher purpose (Martin Luther King, Jr.), as well as those at lower levels. How-ever, people at the preconventional and conventional levels of moral develop-ment more commonly use the following justifications.

• Displacement of responsibility is the process of blaming one’s unethical be-havior on others. “I was only following orders, my boss told me to inflatethe figures.”

• Diffusion of responsibility is the process of the group using the unethicalbehavior with no one person being held responsible. “We all take bribes/kickbacks; it’s the way we do business,” or “we all take merchandise home(steal).” As related to conventional morality, peer pressure is used to en-force group norms.107

• Advantageous comparison is the process of comparing oneself to otherswho are worse. “I call in sick when I’m not sick only a few times a year;Tom and Ellen do it all the time.” “We pollute less than our competitorsdo.”

• Disregard or distortion of consequences is the process of minimizing theharm caused by the unethical behavior. “If I inflate the figures, no one willbe hurt and I will not get caught. And if I do, I’ll just get a slap on the wristanyway.” Was this the case at Enron?

• Attribution of blame is the process of claiming the unethical behavior wascaused by someone else’s behavior. “It’s my co-worker’s fault that I repeat-edly hit him and put him in the hospital. He called me/did xxx, so I had tohit him.”

• Euphemistic labeling is the process of using “cosmetic” words to make thebehavior sound acceptable. Terrorist group sounds bad but freedomfighter sounds justifiable. Misleading or covering up sounds better thanlying to others.

Which justification processes have you used? How can you improve yourethical behavior by not using justification?


WorkApplication10Give at least two organizational examplesof unethical behavior and the process ofjustification.

Simple Guides to Ethical BehaviorEvery day in your personal and professional life, you face situations in whichyou can make ethical or unethical choices. As discussed, you make thesechoices based on your personality traits and attitudes, level of moral develop-ment, and the situation. Never misrepresent yourself.109

Following are some guides that can help you make the right decisions.

Golden RuleFollowing the golden rule will help you to use ethical behavior. The goldenrule is:

“Do unto others as you want them to do unto you.” Or, put other ways,


Sex and Violence

Over the years, various social activist groups, including the Parents TelevisionCouncil, National Viewers and Listeners Association, and the National Coali-tion Against Censorship, have taken a stance for and against censorship of sexand violence on TV and in the movies. People call for more censorship to pro-tect children from seeing sex and violence (many children watch as many asfive hours of TV per day), while others don’t want censorship, stating it violatesfree speech laws.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has the power to regulatetelevision. Based on societal pressures, the FCC was considering imposing amore severe form of regulation and the possible termination of specific televi-sion programs containing explicit sex and violence.108

Advocates for less regulation state that TV shows like CSI: Crime SceneInvestigation are shown late at night while children should not be watching.However, advocates of regulation state the fact than many daytime soap op-eras are sexual and that cable stations show reruns of major network shows inthe day and early evening when children are watching. For example, many ofthe former Seinfeld shows were based on sexual themes, and the show wasnot aired until 9:00, but now it is shown on cable stations at all hours.

1. Does the media (TV, movies, and music) influence societal values?2. Does the media, with sex and violence, reflect current religious and

societal values?3. Should the FCC regulate the media, and if yes, how far should it go?

Should it require toning down the sex and violence, or take shows likeSex and the City off the air?

4. Is it ethical and socially responsible to show sex and violence againstwomen, and to portray women as sex objects?

5. Which of the six justifications of unethical behavior does the media useto defend sex and violence?

Ethical Dilemma 2

“Don’t do anything to other people that you would not want them to doto you.”

“Lead others as you want to be led.”

Four-Way TestRotary International developed the four-way test of the things we think and doto guide business transactions. The four questions are (1) Is it the truth? (2) Isit fair to all concerned? (3) Will it build goodwill and better friendship? (4) Willit be beneficial to all concerned? When making your decision, if you can an-swer yes to these four questions, it is probably ethical.

Learning Outcome 9Explain the stakeholder approach to ethics.

Stakeholder Approach to EthicsUnder the stakeholder approach to ethics, one creates a win-win situation forrelevant parties affected by the decision. A win-win situation meets the needsof the organization and employees as well as those of other stakeholders, sothat everyone benefits from the decision. The effective leader uses the moral ex-ercise of power—socialized power, rather than personalized. Stakeholders in-clude everyone affected by the decision, which may include followers, govern-ments, customers, suppliers, society, stockholders, and so on. The higher up inmanagement you go, the more stakeholders you have to deal with. You can askyourself one simple question to help you determine if your decision is ethicalfrom a stakeholder approach:

“Am I proud to tell relevant stakeholders my decision?”

If you are proud to tell relevant stakeholders your decision, it is probablyethical. If you are not proud to tell others your decision, or you keep justifyingit, the decision may not be ethical. Justifying by saying everybody else does itis usually a cop-out. Everybody does not do it, and even if many other em-ployees do it, that doesn’t make it right. If you are not sure whether a decisionis ethical, talk to your manager, higher-level managers, ethics committee mem-bers, and other people with high ethical standards. If you are reluctant to talkto others for advice on an ethical decision because you think you may not liketheir answers, the decision may not be ethical.

Being an Ethical LeaderIt is sad that a recent survey found that over two-thirds (71 percent) ofAmericans rated corporations low for operating in a fair and honest man-ner.110 It has been said that a culture of lying is infecting American business.111

Why is ethics such a problem today? There is no easy answer, but in addi-tion to our prior discussion, here are a few more reasons.

• A root cause of the problem is that greed tends to overtake ethics, throughlooking out only for one’s own self-interest, often at the expense of others.Many people have the idea that if you are making money, any behavioris acceptable.112 This notion is supported by reality TV shows set in a cut-throat world where business competition is likened to a struggle for


survival on an island. The message people are absorbing from these shows,and the unethical news headlines, is that success means clawing your wayto the top of the heap at the expense of your competition—so long as youdon’t get caught.113

• Some people have lost touch with basic ethical values. Being unethical is amore accepted part of doing business today; unfortunately, being ethical isnot often rewarded, and being unethical is even rewarded.114 Some whistle-blowers suffer negative consequences.

• When it comes to ethics, most people are followers, not leaders.115 Morethan half the people surveyed said they would be willing to misrepresentfinancial information if asked to by a superior.116 A survey found that19 percent of employees have seen coworkers lie to customers, vendors, orthe public, and that 12 percent have seen coworkers steal from customersor the company. And 35 percent admit keeping quiet when they seecoworker misconduct.117 Are you a leader or follower? Refer back to Self-Assessment 6—how many unethical behaviors have you observed? Howmany have you reported?

Now let’s focus on how to be an ethical leader, not necessarily an ethicalmanager. Most people are followers when it comes to ethics, and to somedegree, silence means you are a follower despite your own personal conduct.118

So you have to lead by example from the postconventional level, be one of the20 percent, by doing the right thing, even when no one is looking, and youshould blow the whistle when appropriate.

Ethical leadership requires courage—the ability to do the right thing at therisk of rejection and loss. Courage is difficult in an organization that focuses ongetting along and fitting in without rocking the boat in order to get approval,promotions, and raises. It is difficult to say no when most others are saying yes,to go against the status quo and offer new alternatives to the group. Couragedoesn’t mean that you don’t have doubt or fear rejection, ridicule, and loss; itmeans you do the right thing in spite of fear. You need to take risks to makechange by speaking your mind and fighting for what you believe is right.Courage also requires taking responsibility for mistakes and failures, ratherthan trying to cover them up or blaming others when you do take risks.

You need to remember that moral values are important and that businessis not just about making money; it’s about meeting the needs of all stakehold-ers. It’s not okay to lie. Any lie has hidden costs, not only in teamwork and pro-ductivity, but also in your own self-respect. One lie often leads to a trail of liesas you try to cover up the first lie. Once you start to lie, it’s easy to continue onto bigger lies.119 It is okay to blow the whistle.

People tend to make rapid judgments about ethical dilemmas.120 So slowdown your decisions that affect various stakeholders. Seek out mentors who canadvise you on ethical dilemmas.121 If you are a manager, make sure you lead byethical example and enforce ethical standards. If you are not in power and ob-serve unethical behavior and want to blow the whistle, go to someone higher inthe organization who is committed to ethical behavior.122 If there are no higher-level managers who care about ethics, maybe you should search for another job.

Here are a few ways you can find courage to do the right thing.123

• Focus on a higher purpose, such as helping or looking out for the well-being of customers and employees.


• Draw strength from others. People with courage often get it from the sup-port of friends at work and/or a supporting family.

• Take risk without fear of failure. Accept the fact that we all fail at timesand that failure leads to success. Thomas Edison had something like athousand failures before he got the electric light to work. Learn from fail-ure and don’t repeat the same mistakes, but focus on the positive successes.Recall that happiness is nothing more than a poor memory for failure.Keep taking reasonable risks.

• Use your frustration and anger for good. When you observe unethical orineffective wrong behavior, use your emotions to have the courage to takeaction to stop it and prevent it from happening again.

Here are a couple of examples of ethical leadership. When Warren Buffetttook over Salomon Brothers it was full of scandals for unethical behavior. Buf-fett called a meeting with employees saying the unethical behavior had to stop.He was the compliance officer; he gave his home phone number and told em-ployees to call him if anyone observed any unethical behavior.124 FBI staffattorney Colleen Rowley, in Minneapolis, blew the whistle by sending a lettercalling attention to the FBI shortcoming that may have contributed to theSeptember 11, 2001 terrorist tragedy.

Go to the Internet (http://lussier.swlearning.com) where you willfind a broad array of resources to help maximize your learning.

• Review the vocabulary

• Try a quiz

• View chapter videos


WorkApplication11Give examples of times when you or othersyou know had the courage to do what wasright.

Chapter Summary

The chapter summary is organized to answer the 10 learningoutcomes for Chapter 2.

1. List the benefits of classifying personality traits.

Classifying personality traits helps to explain and predictbehavior and job performance.

2. Describe the Big Five personality dimensions.

The surgency personality dimension includes leadership andextraversion traits. The agreeableness personality dimensionincludes traits related to getting along with people. Theadjustment personality dimension includes traits related toemotional stability. The conscientiousness personality dimen-sion includes traits related to achievement. The openness-to-experience personality dimension includes traits related tobeing willing to change and try new things.

3. Explain the universality of traits of effective leaders.

Traits are universal in the sense that there are certain traits thatmost effective leaders have. However, traits are not universal inthe sense that there is no one list of traits that is clearly acceptedby all researchers, and not all effective leaders have all the traits.

4. Discuss why the trait of dominance is so important for

managers to have.

Because the dominance trait is based on desire to be a leader,this trait affects the other traits in a positive or negative waybased on that desire.

5. State how the Achievement Motivation Theory and the

Leader Profile are related and different.

Achievement Motivation and Leader Profile theories are re-lated because both are based on the need for achievement,

power, and affiliation. They are different because the Achieve-ment Motivation Theory is a general motive profile for ex-plaining and predicting behavior and performance, while theLMP is the one profile that specifically explains and predictsleadership success.

6. Identify similarities and differences among Theory X and

Theory Y, the Pygmalion effect, and self-concept.

The concept of Theory X and Theory Y is similar to the Pyg-malion effect, because both theories focus on the leader’s attitude about the followers. The Pygmalion effect extendsTheory X and Theory Y attitudes by including the leader’s ex-pectations and how he or she treats the followers, using this in-formation to explain and predict followers’ behavior and per-formance. In contrast, Theory X and Theory Y focus on theleader’s behavior and performance. Both approaches are dif-ferent from self-concept because they examine the leader’sattitudes about others, whereas self-concept relates to theleader’s attitude about themselves. Self-concept is also differ-ent because it focuses on how the leader’s attitude about them-selves affects his or her behavior and performance.

7. Describe how attitudes are used to develop four leader-

ship styles.

The leader’s attitude about others includes Theory Y (positive)and Theory X (negative) attitudes. The leader’s attitude aboutthemselves includes a positive self-concept or a negative self-concept. Combinations of these variables are used to identifyfour leadership styles: Theory Y positive self-concept, Theory Ynegative self-concept, Theory X positive self-concept, andTheory X negative self-concept.

8. Compare the three levels of moral development.

At the lowest level of moral development, preconventional,behavior is motivated by self-interest, seeking rewards, andavoiding punishment. At the second level, conventional, be-havior is motivated by meeting the group’s expectations to fitin by copying others’ behavior. At the highest level, postcon-ventional, behavior is motivated to do the right thing, at therisk of alienating the group. The higher the level of moraldevelopment, the more ethical is the behavior.

9. Explain the stakeholder approach to ethics.

Under the stakeholder approach to ethics, the leader (or fol-lower) creates a win-win situation for relevant parties affectedby the decision. If you are proud to tell relevant stakeholdersyour decision, it is probably ethical. If you are not proud to tellothers your decision, or you keep justifying it, the decisionmay not be ethical.

10. Define the following key terms (in order of appearance

in the chapter).

Select one or more methods: (1) fill in the missing key termsfrom memory, (2) match the key terms from the following listwith their definitions below, (3) copy the key terms in orderfrom the list at the beginning of the chapter.


________ are distinguishing personal characteristics.________ is a combination of traits that classifies an

individual’s behavior.________ categorizes traits into dimensions of surgency,

agreeableness, adjustment, conscientiousness, and openness toexperience.

________ includes leadership and extraversion traits.________ includes traits relatedtogettingalongwithpeople.________ includes traits related to emotional stability.________ includes traits related to achievement.________ includes traits related to being willing to change

and try new things.________ identify individual stronger and weaker traits.________ relates to being conscious of your emotions and

how they affect your personal and professional life.________ relates to the ability to understand others.________ relates to the ability to control disruptive emo-

tions.________ relates to the ability to work well with others.________ attempts to explain and predict behavior and

performance based on a person’s need for achievement, power,and affiliation.

________ attempts to explain and predict leadership successbased on a person’s need for achievement, power, and affiliation.

________ includes a high need for power, which is social-ized; that is, greater than the need for affiliation and with amoderate need for achievement.

________ are positive or negative feelings about people,things, and issues.

________attempt to explain and predict leadership behav-ior and performance based on the leader’s attitude about fol-lowers.

________ proposes that leaders’ attitudes toward and ex-pectations of followers, and their treatment of them, explainand predict followers’ behavior and performance.

________ refers to the positive or negative attitudes peo-ple have about themselves.

________ are the standards of right and wrong that influ-ence behavior.

________ is the process of reinterpreting immoral behav-ior in terms of a higher purpose.

________ is the process of blaming one’s unethical behav-ior on others.

________ is the process of the group using the unethicalbehavior with no one person being held responsible.

________ is the process of comparing oneself to otherswho are worse.

________ is the process of minimizing the harm caused bythe unethical behavior.

________ is the process of claiming the unethical behaviorwas caused by someone else’s behavior.

________ is the process of using “cosmetic” words tomake the behavior sound acceptable.

________ creates a win-win situation for relevant partiesaffected by the decision.


Key Terms

Achievement Motivation Theory, 42adjustment personality dimension, 33advantageous comparison, 59agreeableness personality dimension, 33attitudes, 47attribution of blame, 59Big Five Model of Personality, 32conscientiousness personality dimension,

33diffusion of responsibility, 59displacement of responsibility, 59

disregard or distortion of consequences, 59

ethics, 55euphemistic labeling, 59Leader Motive Profile (LMP), 43Leader Motive Profile Theory, 43moral justification, 59openness-to-experience personality

dimension, 33personality, 31

personality profiles, 34Pygmalion effect, 50relationship management, 40self-awareness, 39self-concept, 51self-management, 40social awareness, 40stakeholder approach to ethics, 61surgency personality dimension, 33Theory X and Theory Y, 49traits, 31

Review and Discussion Questions

1. Would you predict that a person with a very strongagreeableness personality dimension would be a success-ful computer programmer? Why or why not?

2. What is the primary use of personality profiles?3. What are some of the traits that describe the high-energy

trait?4. Is locus of control important to leaders? Why?5. What does intelligence have to do with leadership?6. Does sensitivity to others mean that the leader does what

the followers want to do?7. Does McClelland believe that power is good or bad?

Why?8. Should a leader have a dominant need for achievement

to be successful? Why or why not?9. McGregor published Theory X and Theory Y over 30

years ago. Do we still have Theory X managers? Why?

10. In text examples related to the Pygmalion effect, LouHoltz calls for setting a higher standard. Have the stan-dards in school, society, and work increased or decreasedover the last five years?

11. Do you believe that if you use ethical behavior it will payoff in the long run?

12. Can ethics be taught and learned?13. Which personality traits are more closely related to ethi-

cal and unethical behavior?14. Do people change their level of moral development

based on the situation?15. Why do people justify their unethical behavior?16. Which justification do you think is used most often?17. As related to the simple guide to ethical behavior, how

do you want to be led?

Case

BILL GATES—MICROSOFT

William (Bill) H. Gates III was born in 1955 and began pro-gramming mainframe computers at age 13. While attendingHarvard University, Gates developed a version of the program-ming language BASIC for the first microcomputer—the MITSAltair. In 1975, Gates and his childhood friend Paul Allenfounded Microsoft as a partnership, and it was incorporated in1981. Today, Microsoft is the worldwide leader in software,services, and Internet technologies for personal and businesscomputing. Gates is consistently ranked as the richest man inthe world. Depending on how the stock market is doing, hisstock ownership has been valued at over $70 billion.

Gates was a true visionary leader of his time, and he stillis. When the mainframe computers were still the focus of com-puting, with the personal computer (PC) in its infancy, Gatesenvisioned the future of today with a computer on every officedesktop and in every home. Unlike IBM, the developer andclear leader in early business PC sales, Microsoft stayed awayfrom hardware and focused on software. IBM did not envisionthe value of software. Only in his 20s, Gates, from smallMicrosoft, convinced giant IBM to put his operating system onits PCs. As hardware sales became very competitive with lowprofit margins, IBM lost its dominance in PC sales. After IBM


realized it missed the future, it developed its own operating sys-tem and some software, with poor results. IBM purchasedLotus to acquire its software, but the move was too little toolate. With PC sales lagging behind Dell, HP, and Gateway, IBMsold its PC business. In 2004, Microsoft was the world’s third-largest public company, ahead of IBM in fifteenth place.125

Gates gave his CEO position to Steve Ballmer. He stillruns Microsoft with his current title of chairman and chiefsoftware architect. Gates still provides strong leadership butnow focuses more on software development, with Ballmer fo-cusing on managing Microsoft. Gates actively participates inand coordinates business units, and holds Microsoft together,but he delegates authority to managers to run their independ-ent departments.

Today, Microsoft’s mission is to help people and busi-nesses throughout the world realize their full potential. To thisend, it has seven core business units: Windows Clients, Infor-mation Worker, Microsoft Business Solutions, Server andTools, Mobile and Embedded Devices, MSN, and Home andEntertainment.126 Bill Gates’s current vision is for Microsoft toplay a leading role in entertainment by combining productsand services from its core businesses.

With the explosion of digital music, movies, and images,Microsoft has lined up partners to deliver such products andservices in a more integrated way than any competitors. Theplan is to bring the PC into the living room experience throughits “Media Center PC,” which runs a version of Windows de-signed to be navigated by a remote control and viewed from10 feet or so away; it will also popularize Portable Media Cen-ters that play music, videos, and other content.

Gates’s vision is total access to your digital media, withevery screen in the house being a portable device. You can pickup a single remote control to get a rich, simple user interfacethat works for photos, music, video, instant messaging, and allthe things you want to do. Yes, cable and satellite providers,Apple, Yahoo, and Google are doing pieces of this, butMicrosoft will be the first one to put it all together.127

Gates is known as a demanding boss who encourages cre-ativity and recognizes employee achievements. Several of hisearly employees are now millionaires. Gates uses teams to im-prove existing software and to develop new products. Employ-ees are expected to be well informed, logical, vocal, and thick-skinned. Teams must present their ideas at “Bill” meetings.During the meetings, Gates often interrupts presentations toquestion facts and assumptions. He shouts criticisms and chal-lenges team members. Team members are expected to stand upto Gates, giving good logical answers to his questions.

Bill Gates founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,which has given away millions of dollars to charity causesworldwide. On the other hand, Gates has been accused of try-ing to monopolize the World Wide Web (Internet) softwaremarket and has had legal problems with the Department ofJustice. He admitted that Microsoft restricted the ability of itsInternet partners to deal with its rivals.128

GO TO THE INTERNET: To learn more about Bill Gates andMicrosoft, log on to InfoTrac® College Edition athttp://infotrac.thomsonlearning.com and use theadvanced search function.

Support your answers to the following questions withspecific information from the case and text or other informa-tion you get from the Web or other sources.

1. What do you think Bill Gates’s personality traits are foreach of the Big Five dimensions?

2. Which of the nine traits of effective leaders would yousay has had the greatest impact on Bill Gates’s success?

3. Which motivation would McClelland say was the majorneed driving Bill Gates to continue to work so harddespite being worth many billions of dollars?

4. Does Bill Gates have an LMP?5. What type of self-concept does Bill Gates have, and how

does it affect his business success?6. Is Bill Gates ethical in business? Which level of moral

development is he on?

Cumulative Case Question7. Which leadership managerial role(s) played by Bill Gates

had an important part in the success of Microsoft?(Chapter 1)

Case Exercise and Role-Play

Preparation. Think of a business that you would like to startsome day and answer these questions that will help you de-velop your plan. (1) What would be your company’s name? (2)What would be its mission (purpose or reason for being)? (3)What would your major products and/or services be? (4) Whowould be your major competitors? (5) What would be yourcompetitive advantage? (What makes you different from yourcompetitors? Why would anyone buy your product or servicerather than the competition’s?) Your instructor may elect to letyou break into groups to develop a group business idea. If youdo a group business, select one leader with thick skin who canhandle a “Bill” meeting to present the proposal to the entireclass. An alternative is to have a student(s) who has an actualbusiness idea/project/proposal of any type present it for feed-back.

Role-Play “Bill” Meeting. One person (representing oneself ora group) may give the business proposal idea to the entireclass, or break into groups of 5 to 6 and, one at a time, deliverproposals. The members of the class that listen play the role ofBill Gates during the “Bill” meeting, or they challenge presen-ters and offer suggestions for improvement.


Video Case

The Timberland Company: Ethics and SocialResponsibilityTimberland is a global retailer that designs premium-qualityfootwear, apparel, and accessories for consumers who valuethe outdoors. Timberland’s dedication to making quality prod-ucts is matched by the company’s commitment to “doing welland doing good”—forging powerful partnerships among em-ployees, consumers, and service partners to carry out varioussocial responsibility initiatives. In addition to making qualityproducts, Timberland strongly believes that it has a responsi-bility to help effect positive change in local communities.

View the Video (10 minutes)View the video on Timberland in class or at http://lussier.swlearning.com.

Read the CaseTimberland considers a broad range of stakeholders in its busi-ness dealings. The company first recognizes the responsibility tobe profitable for investors. In addition to bottom-line consider-ations, Timberland seeks to serve its employee stakeholders—

the company is committed to diversity in its workforce and em-ploys a high percentage of non-Caucasian minorities andwomen. Timberland also believes in bettering communitiesthrough a variety of service projects. Employees for the apparelmaker have contributed literally hundreds of thousands ofhours to company-sponsored community service events. Fi-nally, Timberland considers the impact that its activities mayhave on the environment. The company’s Environmental Af-fairs department has a specific mission to minimize harmful ef-fects on the ecosystem and to support environmental causes.

While the true value of Timberland’s social responsibilityefforts is difficult to measure using traditional bottom-linemetrics, the company believes its community efforts increasesales, build marketing relationships, and enhance research anddevelopment, resulting in increased value for all stakeholders.

Answer the Questions1. Identify one of the community-service programs spon-

sored by Timberland, and explain why company leadersconsider it important.

2. How do Timberland’s social responsibility efforts andhigh ethical standards benefit the company?

Skill-Development Exercise 1

Preparing for Skill-Development Exercise 1You should have read and now understand attitudes and per-sonality traits. Effective leaders know themselves and work tomaximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. Asthe name of this exercise implies, you can improve your atti-tudes and personality traits through this exercise by followingthese steps.

1. Identify strengths and weaknesses. Review the six self-assessment exercises in this chapter. List your threemajor strengths and areas that can be improved:

Strengths: 1. ___________________________________2. ___________________________________3. ___________________________________

Areas to 1. ___________________________________Improve: 2. ___________________________________

3. ___________________________________

We don’t always see ourselves as others do. Research hasshown that many people are not accurate in describing theirown personalities, and that others can describe them more ob-jectively. Before going on with this exercise, you may want toask someone you know well to complete your personality pro-file (Self-Assessment 1), rate your attitude as positive or nega-tive, and list your strengths and areas for improvement.

2. Develop a plan for improving. Start with your number-one area to improve on. Write down specific things thatyou can do to improve. List specific times, dates, andplaces that you will implement your plans. You maywant to review the 12 tips for developing a more positiveattitude and self-concept for ideas. Use additional paperif you need more space.____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

IMPROVING ATTITUDES AND PERSONALITY TRAITS


3. Work on other areas for improvement. After you see im-provement in your first area, develop a new plan foryour second area, and proceed through the steps again.

Optional. If you have a negative attitude toward yourself orothers—or you would like to improve your behavior with oth-ers (family, coworkers), things, or issues (disliking school orwork)—try following the internationally known motivationalspeaker and trainer Zig Ziglar’s system.129 Thousands ofpeople have used this system successfully. This system can alsobe used for changing personality traits as well.

Here are the steps to follow, with an example plan for aperson who has a negative self-concept and also wants to bemore sensitive to others. Use this example as a guide for devel-oping your own plan.

1. Self-concept. Write down everything you like aboutyourself. List all your strengths. Then go on and list allyour weaknesses. Get a good friend to help you.

2. Make a clean new list, and using positive affirmations,write all your strengths. Example: “I am sensitive toothers’ needs.”

3. On another sheet of paper, again using positive affirma-tions, list all your weaknesses. For example, don’t write“I need to lose weight.” Write, “I am a slim (whateveryou realistically can weigh in 30 days) pounds.” Don’twrite, “I have to stop criticizing myself.” Write, “I posi-tively praise myself often, every day.” Write “I havegood communications skills,” not “I am a weak commu-nicator.” The following list gives example affirmationsfor improving sensitivity to others. Note the repetition;you can use a thesaurus to help.

I am sensitive to others.My behavior with others conveys my warmth for them.I convey my concern for others.My behavior conveys kindness toward others.My behavior helps others build their self-esteem.People find me easy to talk to.I give others my full attention.I patiently listen to others talk.I answer others slowly and in a polite manner.I answer questions and make comments with useful

information.My comments to others help them feel good about

themselves.I compliment others regularly.

4. Practice. Every morning and night for at least the next30 days, look at yourself in the mirror and read your listof positive affirmations. Be sure to look at yourself be-tween each affirmation as you read. Or, record the list ona tape recorder and listen to it while looking at yourselfin the mirror. If you are really motivated, you can repeat

this step at other times of the day. Start with your areasfor improvement. If it takes five minutes or more, don’tbother with the list of your strengths. Or stop at fiveminutes; this exercise is effective in short sessions. Al-though miracles won’t happen overnight, you may be-come more aware of your behavior in the first week. Inthe second or third week, you may become aware ofyourself using new behavior successfully. You may stillsee some negatives, but the number will decrease in timeas the positive increases.

Psychological research has shown that if a personhears something believable repeated for 30 days, theywill tend to believe it. Ziglar says that you cannotconsistently perform in a manner that is inconsistentwith the way you see yourself. So, as you listen to yourpositive affirmations, you will believe them, and youwill behave in a manner that is consistent with yourbelief. Put simply, your behavior will change with yourthoughts without a lot of hard work. For example, ifyou listen to the affirmation, “I am an honest person”(not, “I have to stop lying”), in time—without having towork at it—you will tell the truth. At first you may feeluncomfortable reading or listening to positive affirma-tions that you don’t really believe you have. But keeplooking at yourself in the mirror and reading or listen-ing, and with time you will feel comfortable and believeit and live it.

Are you thinking you don’t need to improve, orthat this method will not work? Yes, this system oftendoes work. Zig Ziglar has trained thousands of satisfiedpeople. One of this book’s authors tried the system him-self, and within two or three weeks, he could see im-provement in his behavior. The question isn’t will thesystem work for you, but rather will you work the sys-tem to improve?

5. When you slip, and we all do, don’t get down onyourself. In the sensitivity-to-others example, if you arerude to someone and catch yourself, apologize andchange to a positive tone. Effective leaders admit whenthey are wrong and apologize. If you have a hard timeadmitting you are wrong and saying you are sorry, atleast be obviously nice so that the other person realizesyou are saying you are sorry indirectly. Then forgetabout it and keep trying. Focus on your successes, notyour slips. Don’t let 10 good discussions be ruinedby one insensitive comment. If you were a baseballplayer and got 9 out of 10 hits, you’d be the best in theworld.

6. Set another goal. After 30 days, select a new topic, suchas developing a positive attitude toward work, school,or trying a specific leadership style that you want todevelop. You can also include more than one area towork on.



PERSONALITY PERCEPTIONS

Preparing for Skill-Development Exercise 2Read the section on “Personality Traits and Leadership,” andcomplete Self-Assessment 1. From that exercise, rank yourselfbelow from the highest score (1) to lowest (5) for each of theBig Five traits. Do not tell anyone your ranking until asked todo so._____ surgency _____ agreeableness_____ adjustment _____ conscientiousness_____ openness to experience

Doing Skill-Development Exercise 2 in Class

ObjectiveTo develop your skill at perceiving personality traits of otherpeople. With this skill, you can better understand and predictpeople’s behavior, which is helpful to leaders in influencingfollowers.

Procedure 1 (2–4 minutes)Break into groups of three, with people you know the best inthe class. You may need some groups of two. If you don’tknow people in the class, and you did Skill-Development Ex-ercise 1 in Chapter 1, “Getting to Know You by Name,” get ina group with those people.

Procedure 2 (4–6 minutes)Each person in the group writes down their perception of eachof the other two group members. Simply rank which trait youbelieve to be the highest and lowest (put the Big Five dimen-sion name on the line) for each person. Write a short reasonfor your perception, including some behavior you observedthat leads you to your perception.Name ____________________ Highest personality score______________ Lowest score ______________Reason for ranking ________________________________________________________________________________________


ObjectiveTo develop your skill at improving your attitudes and person-ality traits. As a leader, you can also use this skill to help yourfollowers improve.

PreparationYou should have identified at least one area for improvementand developed a plan to improve.

Procedure 1 (1–2 minutes)Break into groups of two or preferably three; be sure the oth-ers in your group are people you feel comfortable sharingwith.

Procedure 2 (4–6 minutes)Have one of the group members volunteer to go first. The firstvolunteer states the attitude or personality trait they want towork on and describes the plan. The other group membersgive feedback on how to improve the plan. Try to give otherplan ideas that can be helpful, and/or provide some specifichelp. You can also make an agreement to ask each other howyou are progressing at set class intervals. Don’t change rolesuntil you’re asked to do so.

Procedure 3 (4–6 minutes)A second group member volunteers to go next. Follow thesame procedure as above.

Procedure 4 (4–6 minutes)The third group member goes last. Follow the same procedureas above.

ConclusionThe instructor may lead a class discussion and/or make con-cluding remarks.

Apply It (2–4 minutes)What did I learn from this exercise? Will I really try to improvemy attitude and personality by implementing my plan?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

SharingIn the group, or to the entire class, volunteers may give theiranswers to the “Apply It” questions.


Name ____________________ Highest personality score______________ Lowest score ______________Reason for ranking ________________________________________________________________________________________

Procedure 3 (4–6 minutes)One of the group members volunteers to go first to hear theother group members’ perceptions.

1. One person tells the volunteer which Big Five dimensionhe or she selected as the person’s highest and lowestscore, and why these dimensions were selected. Do notdiscuss this information yet.

2. The other person also tells the volunteer the same infor-mation.

3. The volunteer gives the two others his or her actual high-est and lowest scores. The three group members discussthe accuracy of the perceptions.

Procedure 4 (4–6 minutes)A second group member volunteers to go next to receive per-ceptions. Follow the same procedure as above.

Procedure 5 (4–6 minutes)The third group member goes last. Follow the same procedureas above.

ConclusionThe instructor may lead a class discussion and/or make con-cluding remarks.

Apply It (2–4 minutes)What did I learn from this exercise? How will I use this knowl-edge in the future?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

SharingIn the group, or to the entire class, volunteers may give theiranswers to the “Apply It” questions.


Preparing for Skill-Development Exercise 3Now that you have completed Self-Assessment 6 regardingethical behavior, answer the discussion questions based onthat assessment.

Discussion Questions

1. For the “College” section, items 1–3, who is harmed andwho benefits from these unethical behaviors?

2. For the “Workplace” section, items 1–17, select the threeitems (circle their numbers) you consider the most se-verely unethical behavior. Who is harmed and who bene-fits by these unethical behaviors?

3. If you observed unethical behavior but didn’t report it,why didn’t you report the behavior? If you did blow thewhistle, why did you report the unethical behavior?What was the result?

4. As a manager, it is your responsibility to uphold ethicalbehavior. If you know employees are using any of theseunethical behaviors, will you take action to enforce com-pliance with ethical standards?


ObjectiveTo better understand ethics and whistle-blowing, and decidewhat you will do about unethical behavior.

PreparationYou should have completed the preparation for this exercise.

ExperienceYou will share your answers to the preparation questions, butare not requested to share your ethics score.

Procedure 1 (5–10 minutes)The instructor writes the numbers 1–20 on the board. For eachstatement, students first raise their hands if they have observedthis behavior, then if they have reported the behavior. The in-structor writes the numbers on the board. (Note: Procedure 1and procedure 2A can be combined.)

ETHICS AND WHISTLE-BLOWING


Procedure 2 (10–20 minutes)Option A: As the instructor takes a count of the students whohave observed and reported unethical behavior, he or she leadsa discussion on the statements.

Option B: Break into groups of four to six, and share youranswers to the four discussion questions at the end of thepreparation part of this exercise. The groups may be asked toreport the general consensus of the group to the entire class. Ifso, select a spokesperson before the discussion begins.

Option C: The instructor leads a class discussion on thefour discussion questions at the end of the preparation part ofthis exercise.

ConclusionThe instructor may make concluding remarks.

Apply It (2–4 minutes)What did I learn from this exercise? How will I use this knowl-edge in the future to be ethical? When will I use a simple guideto ethics?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

SharingVolunteers may give their answers to the “Apply It” questions.

Chapter 2

Documents

leadership personality

personality traits of

traits personality big

personality dimensions

great leadership

school leadership academy

leadership lessons

leader prole