ATTITUDE-PERSONALITY:Job Satisfaction, Work Situation, Self - Monitoring

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Leadership & Team Management MGMT 623

Lesson 13

ATTITUDE-PERSONALITY

In lecture 12, we started understanding leader as individual. Continuing from previous lecture, to

understand individual knowing the basis of behavior of individuals is very important.

Why is it important to know an individual's values? Although Values strongly influence a person's

perception, attitudes and ultimately the behavior; Knowledge of an individual's value system can

provide insight into his/her attitudes.

Leaders should be interested in their employees' attitudes because attitudes give warnings of potential

problems and because they influence behavior. Satisfied and committed employees, for instance, have

lower rates of turnover and absenteeism.

Work attitudes are collections of feelings, beliefs, and thoughts about how to behave that people

currently hold about their jobs and organizations.

a. Work attitudes are more specific than values, and not as long lasting.

b. Two work attitudes that have important implications for organizational behavior are

"job satisfaction" and "organizational commitment".

Job Satisfaction: It refers to a collection of feelings that an individual holds toward his or her job. A

high level of job satisfaction brings positive attitudes toward the job and vice versa. Employee attitudes

and job satisfaction are frequently used interchangeably. Often when people speak of "employee

attitudes" they mean "employee job satisfaction. Other definition, a pleasurable or positive emotional

state resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experience

Jobs require interaction with coworkers and bosses, following organizational rules and policies,

meeting performance standards, living with working conditions that are often less than ideal. This

means that an employee's assessment of how satisfied or dissatisfied he or she is with his/her job is a

complex summation of a number of discrete job elements.

Four factors affect the level of job satisfaction a person experiences: personality, values, the work

situation, and social influence.

Personality: Personality, the enduring ways a person has of feeling, thinking, and behaving, is the first

determinant of how people think and feel about their jobs or job satisfaction.

a. Researchers have found that genetic factors accounted for about 30 percent of the differences in

levels of job satisfaction across respondents in a study of twins.

b. The study suggested that people seek out jobs that are suited to their genetic make up.

c. Implications for managers include the suggestion that part of job satisfaction is determined by

employees' personalities, which an organization or manager cannot change in the short run.

d. However, since 70 percent (as indicated in the twins study) of the variation in job satisfaction

remains on other factors, managers/leaders should focus on change or influence in this area.

Values: Values have an impact on levels of job satisfaction because they

reflect employees'

convictions about the outcomes that work should lead to and how one should behave at work.

Work Situation: Perhaps the most important source of job satisfaction is the work situation itself, the

tasks a person performs (for example, how interesting or boring they are), the people, a jobholder

interacts with (customers, subordinates, supervisors), the surroundings in which a person works (noise

level, crowdedness, temperature), and the way the organization treats the jobholder (working hours, job

security, the extent to which pay and benefits are generous or fair).

Organizational Citizenship Behavior: When one think of organization beyond their official

responsibility. People start owning the organization and start caring about it beyond the legal or job

requirements.

Leadership & Team Management MGMT 623

It seems logical to assume that job satisfaction should be a major determinant of an employee's

organizational citizenship behavior. More recent evidence, however, suggests that satisfaction

influences organizational citizenship behavior, but through perceptions of fairness.

There is a modest overall relationship between job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior.

Basically, job satisfaction comes down to conceptions of fair outcomes, treatment, and procedures.

When you trust your employer, you are more likely to engage in behaviors that go beyond your formal

job requirements.

Organizational Commitment: A state in which an employee identifies with a particular organization

and its goals.

Affective Commitment: Emotional attachment to the organization and belief in its values.

Continuance Commitment: Value of remaining with an organization compared to alternatives. Can't afford to

leave the organization.

Normative Commitment: Obligation to remain with the organization for moral or ethical reasons.

· Conditions that enhance:

Job satisfaction (strong, positive relationship)

Participation

Job security

Job characteristics (autonomy, responsibility, interesting work)

Advantages:

Lower absenteeism, lower turnover, higher quality, higher productivity, higher performance

An individual's level of organizational commitment is a better indicator of turnover than the far more

frequently used job satisfaction predictor because it is a more global and enduring response to the

organization as a whole than is job satisfaction.

Job Satisfaction and Absenteeism: We find a consistent negative relationship between satisfaction

and absenteeism. The more satisfied you are, the less likely you are to miss work. It makes sense that

dissatisfied employees are more likely to miss work, but other factors have an impact on the

relationship and reduce the correlation coefficient. For example, you might be a satisfied worker, yet

still take a "mental health" to head for the beach now and again.

Job Satisfaction and Turnover: Satisfaction is also negatively related to turnover, but the correlation

is stronger than what we found for absenteeism. Other factors such as labor market conditions,

expectations about alternative job opportunities, and length of tenure with the organization are

important constraints on the actual decision to leave one's current job.

Job Satisfaction and Job Performance: Leader's interest in job satisfaction tends to center on its

effect on employee performance. Much research has been done on the impact of job satisfaction on

employee job performance, absenteeism, and turnover. Happy workers are not necessarily productive

workers--the evidence suggests that productivity is likely to lead to satisfaction. At the organization

level, there is renewed support for the original satisfaction-performance relationship. It seems

organizations with more satisfied workers as a whole are more productive organizations.

Individual Behavior-Perception: Perception is the process by which individuals select, organize, and

interpret the input from their senses (vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste) to give meaning and order

to the world around them. Interpretation of a situation is known as perception. Through perception,

people try to make sense of their environment and the objects, events, and other people in it. Play major

role on the behaviors of the people.

Perception has three components:

The perceiver is the person trying to interpret some observation that he or she has just

made, or the input from his or her senses.

Leadership & Team Management MGMT 623

o The target of perception is whatever the perceiver is trying to make sense of. In

organizational behavior, we are often concerned with person perception, or another person

as the target of perception.

The situation is the context in which perception takes place.

Characteristics of all three components influence what is actually perceived

Impression Management: Self-presentation---is the process by which people attempt to manage or

control the perceptions other form of them. Impression management is an attempt to control the

perceptions or impressions of others.

a. Just as a perceiver actively constructs reality through his or her perceptions, target of perception

can also play an active role in managing the perceptions that others have of him or her.

b. People in organizations use several impression management tactics to affect how others perceive

them.

c. Five common impression management tactics are:

1. Behavior matching.

2. Self-promotion.

3. Conforming to situational norms.

4. Appreciating or flattering others.

5. Being consistent.

Conforming to situational norms--the informal rules of behavior that most members of

organizational follow is a particularly important Impression Management tactic.

People differ in the extent to which they conform to situational norms and engage in other forms of

impression management.

Conforming to situational norms can often be difficult for people operating in the international arena.

Common courtesies and gestures that are taken for granted in one culture or country may be frowned on

or downright insulting in another.

People are likely to engage in impression management when they are likely to benefit from it.

Self-presentation: Is the process by which people attempt to manage or control the perceptions other

form of them.

Employee Impression Management Strategies

Demotion-preventative strategies

Accounts

Apologies

Disassociation

Promotion-enhancing strategies

Entitlement

Enhancement

Obstacles disclosures

Association

Individual as the Independent and Interdependent

Relationship of Culture and the Self is also very important to understand the behavior of individuals.

Collectivism and individualism are the two examples.

Collectivism:

Giving priority to the goals of one's group and defining one's identity accordingly. The emphasis is on

harmony and blending in.

Leadership & Team Management MGMT 623

Individualism:

Giving priority to personal goals and defining one's identity accordingly. The emphasis is on

uniqueness and standing out.

Personality Traits

Locus of Control defines whether a person places the primary responsibility for what happens to him or

her within himself/herself or on outside forces. People differ in how much control they believe they have

over the situation they are in and over what happens to them. The locus of control trait captures the difference

between individuals who seem in control and those who are not.

Externals, individuals with an external locus of control, tend to believe that outside forces are largely

responsible for their fate, and they see little connection between their own actions and what happens to

them.

Internals, individuals with an internal locus of control, think that their own actions and behaviors have

an impact in determining what happens to them.

In organizations, internals are more easily motivated than externals and do not need as much direct

supervision because they are more likely to believe that their work behaviors influence important outcomes

such as how well they perform their jobs, and the pay increases, praise, job security, and promotions they

receive.

Authoritarianism: The degree to which leaders believe in authoritarianism will influence how they use

their power and how they expect subordinates to behave in response. People who are high in

authoritarianism would show respect for titles, formal authority, status and rank.

Dogmatism: receptiveness to others' ideas and opinions. Highly dogmatic people are close minded and not

receptive to others' ideas.

Self-Esteem: Self-esteem is the extent to which people have pride in themselves and their capabilities.

Individuals with high self-esteem think they are generally capable and worthy people who can deal with most

situations. Individuals with low self-esteem question their self-worth, doubt their capabilities, and are

apprehensive about their ability to succeed in different endeavors. Self-esteem influences people's choices of

activities and jobs. In self esteem, challenges and goals are impacted. Positive self-esteem is credited with:

· Enhancing performance.

· Increasing the likelihood of success.

· Fueling motivation.

Type A and Type B Personalities: Individuals who are Type A have an intense desire to achieve, are

extremely competitive, have a sense of urgency, are impatient, and can be hostile. Because these individuals

are so driven, they can be difficult to get along with. These individuals, though they have the drive to

accomplish, do not do well in situations that require a lot of interaction with others. These individuals are

more likely to have more conflicts.. Type B individuals are more relaxed and easygoing. Type B

characterized as easy-going, relaxed, and able to listen carefully and communicate more precisely than

Type-A individual.

Positive Affect - an individual's tendency to highlight the positive aspects of oneself, other people, and

the world in general

Negative Affect - an individual's tendency to highlight the negative aspects of oneself, other people,

and the world in general

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): A series of questions that ask people to indicate their

preferred way of acting, thinking, or feeling in different situations. This is a One of the most widely

used personality frameworks. It is a 100-question personality test that asks people how they usually feel

or act in particular situations.

Leadership & Team Management MGMT 623

Individuals are classified as

Introversion/Extroversion (E or I)

Sensing/Intuitive (S or N)

Feeling/Thinking (F or T)

Perceiving/Judging (P or J)

These classifications are then combined into sixteen personality types. For example:

INTJs are visionaries. They usually have original minds and great drive for their own ideas and

purposes. They are characterized as skeptical, critical, independent, determined, and often stubborn.

ESTJs are organizers. They are realistic, logical, analytical, decisive, and have a natural head for

business or mechanics.

The ENTP type is a conceptualizer. He or she is innovative, individualistic, versatile, and attracted

to entrepreneurial ideas. This person tends to be resourceful in solving challenging problems but

may neglect routine assignments.

We will discuss in detail about MBTI during our next lecture.

Self-Monitoring: Self-monitoring (SM): is the extent to which people try to control the way they present

themselves to others.

High SM: High self monitors want their behavior to be socially acceptable and so are attuned to any

social cues that signal appropriate behavior in a situation. The opposite is true for low self-monitors. High

self-monitors tend to perform well in sales positions or consulting.

Low SM: low self monitors are not as vigilant to situational cues and act from internal states

rather than paying attention to the situation and are useful when open, honest feedback is needed.

Self - Monitoring

· Low Self Monitors

· High Self Monitors

act from internal

flexible: adjust behavior

states rather than

according to the

from situational cues

situation and the

Consistent, but may

behavior of others

also be resistant to

can appear

change

unpredictable &

less likely to respond

inconsistent

to work group norms

Good in teams

or supervisory

Accept feedback well

feedback

Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Behavior that is above and beyond the call of duty. Things that

affect OCB may be:

Job Satisfaction

Procedural justice

It helps to explain why individual level job satisfaction is related to organizational performance.

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