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Chapter 8. Building an Effective, Ethical Small Group

The Leader and the Small Group

Leaders spend a great deal of their time in small groups, either chairing or participating in meetings.

Meeting expert John Tropman points out that high-quality management is the product of high-quality meetings that render high-quality decisions.

Groups meet for many different purposes: to coordinate activities, to pass along important information, to clarify misunderstandings, and to build relationships.

© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Fostering Ethical Accountability

A group’s success or failure is highly dependent on the behaviors of its individual members.

The job of the leader is to foster ethical accountability, to encourage followers to live up to their moral responsibilities to the rest of the group.

A critical moral duty of group members is to pursue shared goals—to cooperate.



Cooperative groups: Are more willing to take on difficult tasks and

persist in the face of difficulties Retain more information Engage in higher-level reasoning and more critical

thinking Generate more creative ideas, tactics, and solutions Transfer more learning from the group to individual

members Are more positive about the task Spend more time working on tasks



Creating a cooperative climate is also difficult when group members fail to do their fair share of the work.

Social psychologists use the term social loafing to describe the fact that individuals often reduce their efforts when placed in groups.


Fostering Individual Ethical Accountability

Explanations for Social Loafing

When people work in a group, they may feel that their efforts will have little impact on the final result.

Karau and Williams believe that “individuals will be willing to exert effort on a collective task only to the degree that they expect their efforts to be instrumental in obtaining outcomes that they value personally. The motivation in this theory relies on expectancy,

instrumentality, and valence.


Resisting Groupthink and False Agreement

Groupthink Social psychologist Irving Janis developed the label

groupthink to describe groups that put unanimous agreement ahead of reasoned problem solving.

Groups that suffer from groupthink fail to: (a) consider all the alternatives, (b) gather additional information, (c) reexamine a course of action when it’s not

working, (d) carefully weigh risks, (e) work out contingency plans, or (f) discuss important moral issues.


Promoting Ethical Group Interaction

Leaders need to encourage productive communication patterns that enable members to establish positive bonds and make wise ethical choices.

Important communication skills and tactics include comprehensive, critical listening; supportive communication; emotional intelligence, productive conflict management; argumentation, and expression of minority opinion.


Comprehensive, Critical Listening

All listening involves receiving, paying attention to, interpreting, and then remembering messages.

Type of listening:

Discriminative listening Comprehensive listening Therapeutic or empathetic listening Critical listening Appreciative listening


Comprehensive, Critical Listening

Suggestions for improving listening performance in a group setting: Avoid interruptions Seek areas of agreement Search for meanings and avoid arguing about specific words Ask questions and request clarification Be patient Compensate for attitudinal biases Listen for principles, concepts, and feelings Compensate for emotion-arousing words and ideas Be flexible Listen, even if the message is boring or tough to follow


Defensive Versus Supportive Communication

Defensiveness is a major threat to accurate listening.

On the other hand, supportive messages increase accuracy because group members devote more energy to interpreting the content and emotional states of sources.


Defensive Versus Supportive Communication

6 pairs of behaviors that promote either a defensive or a supportive group atmosphere.

Evaluation Versus Description Control Versus Problem Orientation Strategy Versus Spontaneity Neutrality Versus Empathy Superiority Versus Equality Certainty Versus Provisionalism


Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence consists of: 1. Awareness and management of personal

emotions 2. Recognizing and influencing the emotions of

others

Teams with a high emotional intelligence (EI) effectively address three levels of emotions: Individual Within the team Outside groups


Emotional Intelligence

Raising team EI is an important leadership responsibility, which is accomplished largely through role modeling and establishing norms. Demonstrate our EI as leaders before we can improve

the emotional climate of the group Display emotions that are appropriate to the situation Refrain from hostility Be sensitive to group moods Take the lead in confronting emotional issues


Norms That Help Regulate Emotions

Norms That Help Regulate Emotions Confronting

Caring

Creating resources for working with emotions

Creating an affirmative environment

Building external relationships


Productive Conflict

Positive outcomes of substantive (constructive) conflict: Accurate understanding of the arguments and positions of

others in the group Higher-level moral reasoning Thorough problem analysis Improved self-understanding and self-improvement Stronger, deeper relationships Creativity and change Greater motivation to solve the problem Improved mastery and retention of information Deeper commitment to the outcome of the discussion Increased group cohesion and cooperation Improved ability to deal with future conflicts High-quality solutions that integrate the perspective of all

members


Leadership Ethics at the Movies: The Avengers

Discussion Questions:

What signs of competitive and individualistic attitudes do you note in the Avenger team?

What does it take to bring team members together?

What parallels do you see between the Avengers and real life teams?


Engaging in Effective Argument

An argument is an assertion or a claim that is supported by evidence and reasons.

In the argumentation process, group members interact with each other using claims, evidence, and reasoning in hopes of reaching the best decision.

Argumentation in a small group is not very formal or structured.


Engaging in Effective Argument

Basic tasks in leading an effective argument 1. Identify just what the controversy is about. 2. Assemble and present your arguments. 3. Back up your claim with examples, personal

experience, testimonials from others, and statistics. 4. Supply reasons or logic for your position. 5. Identify and attack the weaknesses in the positions

of other participants. 6. Members of successful groups catch their errors

and get the group back on track through corrective communication called counteractive influence.


Minority Opinion

Leaders, then, need to both foster minority opinion and protect dissenters. You can do so by: (1) forming groups made up of members who have significantly

different backgrounds and perspectives, (2) encouraging participation from all group members, (3) appointing individuals to argue for an alternative point of

view, (4) developing two options for group members to evaluate

based on two different sets of assumptions, (5) reminding members of the importance of minority views, (6) creating a group learning orientation which is more focused

on finding better solutions than defending one position or another, and

(7) offering their support for dissenters.


Avoiding Moral Pitfalls: Groupthink

Symptoms of Groupthink Signs of overconfidence

Illusion of invulnerability. Belief in the inherent morality of the group.

Signs of Closed-Mindedness Collective rationalization. Stereotypes of outside groups.

Signs of Group Pressure Pressure on dissenters. Self-censorship. Illusion of unanimity. Self-appointed mind guards.


Follower Ethics

Self-Leadership in Self-Managed Teams Business experts Christopher Neck and Charles

Manz believe that self-leadership is key to living up to our duties as followers.

3 components of self-leadership: 1. We need to lead ourselves to do unattractive but

necessary tasks. 2. The second component is taking advantages of

naturally rewarding activities. 3. We need to shape our psychological worlds or

thought self leadership.


Groupthink

Suggestions for reducing groupthink: If you’re appointed as the group’s leader, avoid

expressing a preference for a particular solution. Divide regularly into subgroups, then bring the

whole group back together. Bring in outsiders to challenge the group’s ideas. Avoid isolation. Role-play the reactions. Once the decision has been made, give group

members one last chance to express any remaining doubts about the decision.


Teamthink

Charles Manz and his colleagues believe that self-managing work teams should replace groupthink with “teamthink.”

In teamthink, groups encourage divergent views, combining the open expression of concerns and doubts with a healthy respect for their limitations.

Teamthink, like thought self-leadership, is a combination of mental imagery, self-dialogue, and realistic thinking.


False Agreement

George Washington University management professor Jerry Harvey offers an alternative to groupthink based on false agreement.

Harvey believes that blaming group pressure is just an excuse for our individual shortcomings.


Abilene Paradox

5 Psychological factors that account for the Abilene Paradox 1. Action anxiety

2. Negative fantasies

3. Real risk

4. Fear of separation

5. Psychological reversal of risk and certainty


Escalation of Commitment

One of the consequences of mismanaged agreement is continuing to pursue a failed course of action. Social psychologists refer to this tendency as escalation of commitment.

Escalation of commitment is driven by a number of factors. The first is self-enhancement or the need to look good. Sunk costs also drive escalation. Risk seeking is a third factor driving escalation.


Escalation of Commitment

Keil and Montealegre offer seven steps to help leaders and groups navigate this process: 1. Don’t ignore negative feedback or external

pressure 2. Hire an external auditor 3. Don’t be afraid to withhold further funding 4. Look for opportunities to redefine the problem 5. Manage impressions 6. Prepare your stakeholders 7. Deinstitutionalize the project


Establishing Ethical Relationships with Other Groups

Intergroup leadership is the process of bringing diverse groups to achieve common goals.

Competition and conflict are significant barriers to intergroup leadership.


Case Study: Weed and the Workplace

Discussion Questions: Would you have voted for the marijuana initiatives

in Colorado and Washington? Why or why not? Do you think that marijuana has a legitimate

medical use? What values are in conflict in this case? What ethical principles can be applied when

deciding whether or not to fire employees who test positive for legal marijuana use?

Is it ethical for employers to fire employees testing positive for legal marijuana use? Why or why not?


59185 08p

Education

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