Self-awareness is increasingly recognized as an important ingredient for effective leadership. Suppose that you are responsible for creating a leadership development program in a government organization. What activities or processes would you introduce to help participants in this program constructively develop a better self- awareness of their personality, values, and personal biases?

This is an important question because it lays the foundation for leadership development as well as improving perceptions about ourselves and others. The quick answer here is for leadership trainees to receive more feedback about themselves. This can occur through novel experiences which then provide feedback to the participant about his or her behavior and performance. One such example is an assessment centre, where observers monitor participant behaviors during exercises and later provide confidential feedback to those participants. A related activity is 36-degree feedback, where trainees receive systematically compiled feedback from peers, subordinates, and bosses in a form that offers clarity about strengths and areas for improvement. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“All decisions are ethical decisions.” Comment on this statement, particularly by referring to the concepts of moral intensity and moral sensitivity.

This sweeping statement is false. In other words, not all decisions are having equal right/wrong or good/bad dimensions. We are saying there is a threshold which defines ethical concern, and it is a function of moral intensity and moral sensitivity. For a decision to have an ethical dimension, i t has to have some moral intensity associated with it. Moral intensity is a characteristic of the situation. It refers to the degree to which an issue demands the application of ethical principles. “Who should be laid off?” would have high moral intensity. On the other hand, a decision to take an umbrella to work because it might rain has no moral intensity. This is because morally intense issues involve others in the society who may think the decision is good or evil, or the issue quickly affects people. Moral sensitivity refers to a characteristic of the decision maker, not the situation. Faced with the same issue, two decision makers may be more or less moral sensitive, depending on emp...
Read more

Is it possible to have a knowledge of what an organizational culture is before you become a part of the organization? How important is it for you to align yourself with your organizational culture?

Organizational culture is artifacts and shared values and assumptions. Artifacts may be observable before you become a part of the organization but the shared organizational values and assumptions are the intangibles and difficult to decipher before you become a part of it. It is important to align with the organizational culture because it represents the way things work in the organization. Organizational culture acts as the control system, the social glue and sense making. Any violation of what is shared by members of an organization is likely to create alienation for a new member.
Read more

The chief of police in a large city government describes the problem of getting his officers to do paperwork. The officers enjoy working with the public and apprehending criminals, not sitting at a desk. The paperwork is boring, but can make the difference in convictions. The Chief has no financial rewards (budget crunch) and promotions are determined by seniority, not the quality of paperwork. Officers were trained to perform street work, not fill out forms. Arrests, not paperwork, get noticed. Conviction success is due to too many factors to be a performance criterion. Use the MARS model of individual behavior and performance to diagnose the possible causes of the unacceptable behavior. Has the captain considered all possible solutions to the problems? If not, what else might he do?

Motivation . There are several facts that suggest that the poor paperwork is due to lack of motivation. First, officers come into this profession because they want to work with the public and catch criminals, not sit in an office filling out reports. Thus, the paperwork task does not fulfill their needs for personal growth. Second, social rewards (praise, recognition) result from the outside activities, not paperwork. Third, financial rewards do not encourage people to do paperwork. Promotions are based on seniority, so they motivate officers to stay with the force, not to complete paperwork. Competitions did not work, either. Ability . It isn’t certain that officers are able to complete the paperwork task well enough. They don’t seem to receive any training in this area. Role Perceptions . The captain seems to have emphasized the importance of paperwork to the officers, and they probably have learned that some cases have been lost due to poor reports. Thus, it is reasonable to con...
Read more