EMPLOYEE FEEDBACK:
REVEALING LEADERSHIP BLIND SPOTS

by

  Frank M. Shipper, Ph.D.
Professor of Management
Franklin P. Perdue School of Business
Salisbury University
Salisbury, Maryland 21801
Phone: (410) 543-6333
FAX: (410)548-2908

E-mail fmshipper@salisbury.edu

Overview of the Skills and Attributes of the Leadership Cycle

LEADERSHIP CYCLE

Entrepreneurial Vision B - Risk-Taking/Venturesomeness. Having the nerve to take a chance.
 
 

Phase II: C - Organizational Sensitivity. Skill at sizing up the stakeholders affected by a proposed change.

Sensing the Environment D - Personal Awareness. Sensing one's own influence; openness to feedback.
 
 

Phase III: E - Persuasiveness. Convincing the right people plus those who oppose or sit on the fence.

Gaining Commitment F - Teaming. Developing group support for proposed change goals.
 
 

Phase IV: G - Standards of Performance. Aiming for the best and expecting the best from co-workers.

Drive H - Perseverance. Sticking with it despite opposition.

I - Push/Pressure. Demanding performance but not creating resistance. (***)

Phase V: J - Recognition. Sharing the rewards with those who support a change.

Reinforcing Change
 
 

RESIDUAL IMPACT K - Effectiveness/Outcomes. Reputation for making better things happen.

L - Personal Standards. Being honorable with positive moral values.

M - Consistency. Matching actions with words; walking like you talk.

N - Coping with Stress. Handling problems and obstacles but keeping cool.

O. Charisma. Possessing the attributes that make people glad to follow.
 
 

SOURCES OF INFLUENCE P - Technical Competence

Q - Control of Incentives/Pay (***)

R - Managerial Competence

S - Personal Connections (***)

T - Job Title/Position (***)

U - Pressure (***)

V - Teamwork with Others

W - Compatible Values

(***) Must be interpreted in light of the other observations.

EMPLOYEE FEEDBACK:

REVEALING LEADERSHIP BLIND SPOTS

EXERCISE

INSTRUCTIONS AND BACKGROUND FOR INSTRUCTOR

INTRODUCTION:

This exercise is intended as an introductory or a stand alone exercise on leadership. This exercise allows the participants to validate the ability of the Survey of Leadership Practices to pinpoint the specific leadership competencies that differentiate between effective and ineffective leaders. It also demonstrates the mechanics by a hands on exercise of how employee observations can be used as realistic skills assessment tools. In addition, this exercise leads to much discussion on the pros and cons of good leadership as well as how and how not to lead. Furthermore, this exercise never fails to generate much energy and excitement.

MATERIALS:

1 - TENSION SURVEY PER PARTICIPANT

1 - GROUP COMMITMENT SURVEY PER PARTICIPANT

1 - SURVEY OF LEADERSHIP PRACTICES PER PARTICIPANT

Form SMP-JQ - The Self-Scoring Form

(Available from The Clark Wilson Group, (800) 537-7249)

1 - YOUR LEADERSHIP SURVEY FEEDBACK FORM PER PARTICIPANT
 
 

1 - OVERHEAD OF YOUR LEADERSHIP SURVEY FEEDBACK PER 3 to 6 PARTICIPANTS

1 - OVERHEAD MARKER PER 3 to 8 PARTICIPANTS

Use a different color for each group.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. After introducing the group to the idea that a change in leadership is essential for improvement in organizational effectiveness, ask them to participate in an exercise to illustrate this point.

2. Ask the participants to focus for this exercise on their current position or a former position where they had worked for the same manager for six weeks or longer. Also be sure to ask if they have their current manager in the room, or if anyone else who would be uncomfortable describing his/her current manager to focus on a position that s(he) held earlier in his/her career. Be sure to tell the participants that the purpose of these instructions is to preserve their anonymity.

3. Hand out the TENSION SURVEY and ask the participants to complete it. Tell them that there are no right or wrong answers, and that their first impressions are usually the best answers on surveys like this. After completing it, ask them to seal it in an envelope, and to keep the envelope with them at all times in this exercise.

4. Hand out the GROUP COMMITMENT SURVEY and ask the participants to also complete it. Remind them once again that there are no right or wrong answers, and that their first impressions are usually the best answers on surveys like this.

5. Ask the participants to put the last four digits of their phone numbers or their social security numbers in the upper right-hand corner of the GROUP COMMITMENT SURVEY. Collect the surveys from the participants.

6. For purposes of expediency, hand out copies of the SURVEY OF LEADERSHIP PRACTICES and YOUR LEADERSHIP SURVEY FEEDBACK to the participants as they are filling out the GROUP COMMITMENT SURVEY. After collecting the GROUP COMMITMENT SURVEY, explain to the participants that the survey that they have just received is an observational form and that they are to record their observations of the manager of the unit on which they are focusing.

7. As the participants are completing and scoring the SURVEY OF LEADERSHIP PRACTICES, sort the GROUP COMMITMENT SURVEYS from high to low. Divide the participants into either high, medium, and low or high and low groups depending on the number of participants. Each group should have a minimum of 3 participants and not more than 6 if possible. Be sure to put all participants with the same score on the GROUP COMMITMENT SURVEY in the same group. When making up the groups, look for natural breaks in the scores. For the exercise to be effective, each group should be as similar in score as possible. Equal size of the groups is not as important as similar scores within groups. List the make-up of the groups on either a flip chart or the board. Ask the participants to reassemble themselves in these groups. Assign a table in the room to each group.

8. Once the participants are at their tables in their groups, hand each group a YOUR LEADERSHIP SURVEY FEEDBACK overhead and a marker. Hand the high commitment group a green marker and the low commitment group a red marker or some equally contrasting colors. Ask the groups now to develop a composite profile of the mythical leader of each group. The quickest way to develop this profile is to ask the group to divide the scales among themselves and to read off the individual scores in a round robin fashion and for each person to perform the addition and the division on the scales assigned. If you have a number of simple to use calculators, you might hand one of them out to each group to expedite the exercise. One person in each group should then record the average scores on the overhead and draw a line connecting the scores.

9. Next collect the overheads, and display them one at a time beginning with the one from the low commitment group first. Ask the participants to describe in words the behavior of this leader. Now overlay the moderate commitment group's mythical leader's profile and ask them to describe that leader's behavior in words. Finally, display the profile of the mythical leader of the high commitment group and ask the participants again to describe the behavior of this leader in words. Also, ask the participants as to what they see are the major differences in behaviors among the leaders. At this point, the participants can be asked if they see these behaviors as more personality or skill related. Also, ask the participants if these leaders are mythical or real to them.

10. Move into a discussion of group effectiveness. By this time the group may know how the groups were formed. If not, ask the participants how they think the groups were formed. Next, ask the participants what they think the profiles would look like if the group splits had been made on performance. The reality is that they do not vary significantly. There will be always someone in the audience who will say that they read that the relationship between commitment and performance is very low. The response to that comment is to acknowledge that the reported relationship has been very low, but many different surveys have been used to measure commitment and many different measures have been used for performance. In the research done to validate these measures, leaders with a complete complement of skills (as on the high profile) have been found to have significantly higher performance and commitment in their work units than leaders with an incomplete complement of skills.

11. After the discussion on leadership effectiveness, commitment, and performance has drawn to a close, ask the participants what they think the relationship between these three variables and tension might be. After a few minutes ask the groups to open their envelopes, compute their average tension scores, and report that to the instructor. In every case so far the low commitment group has reported the highest tension level, and the high commitment group has reported the lowest tension level. Again, someone in the audience will say that they heard that tension and performance are related by an inverted "U" shape curve. Your response should acknowledge that relationship has been hypothesized and even supported by short-exercises with college sophomores. Recent analysis of a large sample of working people in a number of organizations, however, has shown that tension at any significant level over the long-run decreases performance.

REFERENCES

Jamal, Muhammad, (1985). "Job Stress and Job Performance: An Empirical Assessment," Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, February 1984, pp. 1-21.

Jamal, Muhammad, (1985). "Relationship of Job Stress to Job Performance," Human Relations, May 1985, pp. 409-24.

Shipper, Frank, (1995). "A Study of the Psychometric Properties of the Managerial Skill Scales of the Survey of Management Practices," Journal of Educational and Psychological Measurement, Vol. 55, No. 3, pp 486-497.

Shipper, Frank, (1994). "A Study of Managerial Skills of Women and Men and Their Impact on Employees' Attitudes and Career Success in a Nontraditional Organization." Abstract published in the Proceedings of the Academy of Management, Dallas, Texas, August 14-17, 1994, p. 471.

Shipper, Frank, (1991). "Mastery and Frequency of Managerial Behaviors Relative to Sub-unit Effectiveness," Human Relations, Vol. 44, No. 4, pp. 371-388.

Shipper, Frank. & Dillard, John E., Jr., (1994). "Comparing the Skills of Early Derailers vs. Fast Trackers, Late Derailers vs. Long-Term Fast Trackers, and Mid-career Derailers vs. "Recoverers." Abstract published in the Proceedings of the Academy of Management, Dallas, Texas, August 14-17, 1994, p. 424, (Winner of the Outstanding Paper on Management Development Award).

Shipper, Frank & Neck, Chris, (1990). "Subordinates' Observations: Feedback for Management Development," Human Resource Development Quarterly, Winter, pp. 371-385.

Shipper, Frank & White, Charles S. "Mastery, Frequency & Interaction of Managerial Behavior Relative to Subunit Effectiveness." Abstract to be published in the 1995 Proceedings of the Academy of Management, Vancouver, British Columbia, August 4-9, 1995.

Shipper, Frank & Wilson, Clark L., (1992). "The Impact of Managerial Behaviors on Group Performance, Stress and Commitment," published in Impact of Leadership, Kenneth E. Clark, Miriam B. Clark, and Donald P. Campbell, eds., Greensboro, NC: The Center for Creative Leadership, pp. 119-129.

Wilson, Clark L., (1980). "Identify Needs With Cost in Mind," Training and Development Journal, pp. 58-62.

Wilson, Clark L., O'Hare, Donal, & Shipper, Frank, (1990). "Task Cycle Theory: The Processes of Influence," In Measures of Leadership, Kenneth F. Clark and Miriam B. Clark, Editors. West Orange, New Jersey: Leadership Library of America, Inc.

Wilson, Clark L., & Wilson, Jane L., (1991). Teams and leaders: A manual for the Clark Wilson Publishing Company training and development programs. Silver Spring: The Clark Wilson Group.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR PARTICIPANTS

1. During this exercise focus on the position that you currently hold or that you held in the past.

If your manager is in the room or you will be uncomfortable describing your present manager's behavior, complete this exercise on a prior position in your career.

2. Complete the TENSION SURVEY and seal it in the envelope provided. Keep this envelope with you.

There are no right or wrong answers to questionnaires like this, and your first impression is usually your best answer.

3. Complete the GROUP COMMITMENT SURVEY. Be sure to place the last four digits of your social security number or telephone number in the upper right-hand corner. Pass this questionnaire to the facilitator when you have completed it.

4. Complete the SURVEY OF LEADERSHIP PRACTICES following the instructions on its front page.

5. After completing the SURVEY OF LEADERSHIP PRACTICES separate the questionnaire pages from the backing pages and follow the instructions on the backing page.

6. After the facilitator has assigned you to a group, develop a profile of the "mythical" leader of the members of the group by adding the scores for all members together for each scale and dividing by the number of members in the group. The quickest way to develop this profile is for the group members to divide the scales (A - W) among themselves and to read off the individual scores in a round robin fashion. Each person should record and perform the addition and the division on the scales assigned. If you have a calculator, this will expedite the exercise. One person in each group should then record the average scores on the overhead and draw a line connecting the scores. Plot the profile of the mythical leader on the overhead provided. Signal the instructor when you have completed this task.

7. While waiting for other groups to complete their profiles, develop a description of the leaders represented by the profile. List below adjectives or characteristics describing that individual. Compare your list to those of other members in your group. Which ones are similar or different to those on your list?

___________________________________ ____________________________________

___________________________________ ____________________________________

___________________________________ ____________________________________

___________________________________ ____________________________________

___________________________________ ____________________________________

8. Join in the discussion of the profiles.
 
 

9. When the facilitator indicates, open your sealed envelope containing the TENSION SURVEY and develop an average for your group.
 
 
 
 

Exercise Developed By: Frank Shipper, Ph.D. The Franklin P. Perdue School of Business, Salisbury University, Salisbury, MD 21801

TENSION

Please give a rating for the five statements below on how each one reflects your feelings about your job. Give your frank personal opinion.

You may think of the degree or extent to which each is true. Or if it is more appropriate, you may think of the frequency: 1, 2 = "Extremely low degree, seldom or never"; 3, 4, 5 = "An average degree, some of the time or about half"; 6, 7 = "A very high degree, all or almost all of the time."

Circle your rating for each question and then enter that rating in the column at the right. When you have finished, add up the numbers and write the total at the bottom of the column.