Groups and Leadership (Eric Dodge)

My leadership style varies greatly depending on the groups I am with, and the situations that I face. I am the oldest of four children, so I usually have to play the big brother role when I am with my family. This is not too bad, though because my family is really laid back and we usually just joke around with each other. I do have to take more of a leadership role than my younger siblings, but I never think of it as a burden. We still joke around and have fun with each other, so it's not like I have to always try and be in charge. I usually take on a leadership role with my family, so I don't feel like my leadership style changes that much within this group.

When I hang out with my friends I employ a lot of different leadership styles. I am totally fine with being a follower and letting others take on leadership roles, as long as they aren't pushing something that I don't want to do. I am pretty relaxed and open to ideas, so this is usually not an issue. But when the leader is pushing something that I don't want to do, I take on more of a leadership role. There are also times when it seems like the group needs some leadership, and at these times I will usually step in and give some direction. When I hang out with my friends my leadership style varies greatly based on the situation.

Overall I am comfortable in a leadership role, but I usually do not make myself the leader unless it looks like the group is struggling, or I have some type of expertise in the specific situation. I have not been at my current job for very long, so I do not have much expertise, and people do not usually look to me as a leader. This means that at work I usually end up being a follower, which is fine most of the time. But lately I have been given more opportunities to lead, which has actually been a lot of fun. I have been developing my skills and getting a chance to take leadership roles more often. So at work I am now getting a better balance between being a leader and a follower.

I really like having this balance between being a leader and a follower. It seems like I look for this type of balance in all of the groups that I am a part of. I don't really like it if I have to be a leader all of the time, and I definitely don't like it if I have to be a follower all the time. With my family and friends I feel like I already have a good balance between the time I spend leading versus following. I like being able to sit back and let others lead sometimes, but I also like to have a little more say and be the leader at times. Now at work I am beginning to get a little better balance between the two, which has made me feel much more useful and happier at work.

TOPIC 12: GROUPS AND LEADERSHIP by Onder

You can change a job you don’t like and resign from a volunteer organization, but you cannot trade your family for another one or stop participating in family activities.  At least, you must endure a lot more stress or abuse before dropping out of the family.  This is because your family is your “in” group, and the values that apply to your relationship with the family are quite different than those that apply to “out” groups.  Of course, the family values vary between cultures.  In agrarian societies the greater family must live and work together without regard to individual preferences of the family members, as maintaining the unity of the farmland has utmost importance for all family members.  In societies like the one we live in, where the interdependency between family members is not that significant for the wellbeing of the individuals, the membership in the family group is more voluntary and drop-outs, although rare, can and do happen.

I feel that the appropriate leadership style within the family group is different than in a workplace and it changes with time as well as with circumstances.  One difference from the workplace is that within the family strong and conflicting emotions are usually in play, such as love, jealousy, competition for attention, feeling of neglect, feeling of not being respected, etc.  Over the years, I have recognized that keeping the “harmony” within the immediate and greater family is very important.  Without harmony, the mutual moral support function of the family would not work.  So, I have become a lot more relaxed, tolerant, and permissive and a lot less assertive in my dealings with the family.  I ignore many things that would have bothered me before, avoid arguments about politics and religion, and refrain from giving advice without being asked.  On the other hand, I do keep in mind my responsibility to interfere if and when something of serious nature happens.  For example, I would definitely not keep quiet if I see a family member getting involved with drugs. 

Some holiday gatherings are happier than others.  This Thanksgiving we did not have the whole family together as one of us is about to have a serious surgery and we did not want to take any chances with exposing him to flu or common cold.  We are counting on having the whole family together again next Thanksgiving, and we will make sure that the turkey is the biggest one ever.

Groups and Leadership - Christine Cho

I definitely can see how my leadership style changes depending on the groups of which I am a member.  I feel that I am more effective in groups I lead and it is difficult for me to be a follower.  I  am in the Netherlands this week working on a project that I am not leading.  We just wrapped up day one and I found myself taking on a leadership role in the project because I couldn't stand behind and just participate.  One thing that I do notice is that it is easier for me to take charge a group that I have not worked with for a long time.  I am more focused on the required task and not distracted by personal relationships.  At my own site, I find it difficult to lead my own group of colleagues because we have worked together for years and are also clsoe friends.  One thing I have definitely noticed is that I feel less engaged when I am not leading a group, which is probably a sign that I have control issues.  However, I am able to give up control if I feel that someone in the group has more subject matter expertise than I do.

In family groups, I definitely regress to the same role.  I am the middle child and I always find that I am the mediator in the family.  In my family group, I always find that I am willing to make more compromises than I would at work.  In our family, my sister takes a leadership role because she is the oldest.  When we were younger, my dad used to have more of the leader role but the family dynamics have changed as we have gotten older.  With my closest friends, I notice that we all have preferences on things we like to take the lead on.  My friend Jane likes to plan dinners out while I like to plan trips.  Our friend, Julie, normally chooses the food we order at restaurants.  We each have a role and it doesn't change over time.  We each take the lead on things we feel most passionate about.

In observing other leaders, I noticed that leaders always set direction and keep people focused on the bigger picture.  Effective leaders are able to establish a strategy and explain to their followers why they decided to choose that path.  Sometimes leaders emerge based on their Subject Matter Expertise.  When we did the survival exercise, Josh was the leader because he knew what we needed to do to survive.  The first question he asked our team was whether we wanted to stay in one place or take the hike.  Once he established his expertise with the group, we all let him lead the effort.

I think I am comfortable leading, but there are also days where I am ok sitting back and just being a follower.

Blog Topic 12: Groups and leadership

It is likely that over this long weekend, you are finding yourself interacting with friendship groups and family groups more intensely than you usually do. The holidays and celebrations typically bring people together - which is sometimes good and sometimes bad.

In class, we talked about adjusting your leadership for different kinds of groups - volunteer groups, paid groups, etc. Take this time to reflect on your leadership in the different types of groups of which you are a member (even if you didn't see them all this week). How does your leadership style change? Are you more effective in one group versus another? Do you fall into a pattern such that you are in the same role in all groups? Or, as is typical in family groups, do you find yourself regressing to the same role in the family that you've always played, regardless of other accomplishments? Think about other leaders in these groups. What do they do that is effective and how can you learn from them?

Seeing ourselves as others see us- Josh Malament

Nothing was really surprising to me. Most scores were pretty close to my own scores. although one item line was a bit lower. It was the ability to regulate own emotions. This has been a weakness of mine ever since i can remember. In many situations i feel that i have let my emotions overpower any rational thinking. In my professional life and my personal life i feel that my emotions get the better of me, more than i would like. It is something that i am constantly working on. It is an aspect that i work on as i move towards my leadership goals.

I receive authentic feedback on a regular basis in both personal and professional lives. I work for a small company so the relationships are close and everyone is very approachable, which allows for frequent constructive feedback. The partners in the company are all very seasoned vets in the industry, but are very open minded as too the process in which the work gets successfully completed.

In striving to achieve goals, it is always good to allow for constructive feedback. I know im not perfect, and i may do things in ways that others may not... and if im doing something wrong, i would like to know about it, preferably as soon as possible. This will prevent bad habits from forming as well. Constructive criticism allows for positive feedback from a different perspective. This can only help with striving for my goals.

Seeing ourselves as others see us (Eric Dodge)

I have been out of the country for the past week so I was unable to attend class last week. This means that I did not get a chance to see the feedback on how others see me in a leadership role. I am curious to know what the people that filled out the survey for me think of my leadership abilities. It should be interesting to see because, although I work at the same company as all of them, we have worked together in very different forms. About half the people are senior to me and have worked as my supervisor, but at different times during my tenure with the company. The others are people that have worked on the same level with me in the different departments I have worked in. I have not had that many opportunities to show my leadership abilities so it will be interesting to find out what my colleagues think of me. When I do get a chance to look at the feedback that I received I will be able to think about what leadership abilities are most important for me to develop.

I feel like I receive authentic feedback pretty often in my personal as well as my professional life. I probably receive more authentic feedback in my personal life. I think this is because I am a pretty easy going person and I take criticism well. As a result people feel like they can tell me when I do or say something that they don't agree with or don't like. I like this because people tell me if I am doing something weird, that I usually don't even notice. It helps to keep me aware of the things that I am doing.

I don't get as much authentic feedback in my professional life as I do in my personal life. This may be because most of the people at work don't know me as well, so they don't feel as comfortable giving me authentic feedback. But there are some people at work that I can always count on to give me good feedback, whether I like it or not. This could mean that some people are more willing to give authentic feedback than others. Some people have a problem criticizing or complementing others, so they are less likely to give authentic feedback. Personally I prefer people that will give honest feedback because that is what helps you to improve in many different ways.

Without honest feedback you might not even know that there is something that you need to work on. Honest feedback is the first step to improving, because you need to know the problem before you can fix it.

Seeing ourselves as other see us - Christine Cho

Most of the feedback that I received from others regarding how they saw me in a leadership role was not surprising. The delta between my score and how others rated me were pretty close in most cases. I think that can be explained by the fact that most of the people who rated me in the assessment are people that I work with regularly. One thing that surprised me is that I rated high on inspirational. This surprised me because most of the people who rated me were peers who were more senior than me.

I receive authentic feedback constantly in my everyday life. I work in an environment where people are not shy about providing direct feedback. I've worked with the same group of people for over six years. People are very comfortable with giving me direct feedback. A couple of weeks ago, I was having a really bad day and everyone around me noticed. At the end of the day, one of my colleagues pulled me aside and said that when I have bad days, it really shows. I really took that to heart because we had just read about displaying our emotions. When I have a bad day, I shouldn't take it out on the people around me.

At my company, we receive formal 360 feedback once a year and we use the feedback received to develop in the following year. The benefit of our 360 feedback system is that it doesn't really affect your appraisal so employees who select tougher reviewers will actually benefit if they are looking for areas of improvement. We are currently undergoing our 360 feedback review process and this year I made a point of selecting different reviewers to get new perspective.

I think I am harder on myself than others are. I've been approached by different hiring managers for Senior Manager positions at my company. I have been hesitant to go for these positions because I am not confident that people who have more years of experience would want to report to a Manager who is much younger than them. In comparison to many of the available talent at my company, I don't feel I have as much experience to offer. Recently, I was considering an internal position at my company. I talked to my manager and told him I didn't really think I looked good on paper. After talking to him, he reminded me about all the projects I've led and told me to focus on my successful track record at the company. At the end of the day, I guess it is hard to see what I do well because the measuring stick for doing well in my mind is different from others.

TOPIC 11: SEEING OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US by Onder

I am surprised that others rated my emotional intelligence significantly higher than my self-ratings.  My opinion of myself is that I am quite aware of my own emotions, but often I fail to regulate them.  I also think that I am not that good at identifying other’s emotions.  My raters thought I did reasonably well at all fronts.  Possibilities are:  1) I am being too hard on myself; 2) my raters were trying to be “nice;” or, 3) the surveys are not that accurate.  There is quite a bit of controversial discussion in the literature about the emotional intelligence and its measurement.  Giving science the benefit of the doubt, I think the truth is somewhere between 1 and 2.   Perhaps the best thing I can get out of this comparison is that I may not be as emotionally retarded as I thought, and I should not be so hung up on not being able to regulate my own emotions or read emotions of others.  The power of self-fulfilling prophecy may even amplify the effects of such positive thinking.

My self-rating for using inspirational appeal for influencing others is much lower than that of my raters.  Thinking about it, I do appeal to “values, ideals, and aspirations” in trying to influence some people.  That is good feedback.  On the other hand, my raters rated me very poorly for using “exchange” for influencing others, and I think they are right.  In the past, I have been very reluctant to do favors in order to get favors.  I would normally not mind doing favors for people, but I would have an issue with asking for a favor from someone because I did one for him.  Asking for a favor in exchange for one, I thought, cheapened my favor and made it look like a bribe.  Carrying my “self-analysis” further, I think my behavior was related to my background of being from a poor family.  My friends from wealthier families enjoyed the benefits of the favors others owed to their parents, and nobody owed any favors to my parents.  I had to get things done and influence people by using other tactics, such as rational persuasion.  Now that I am no longer poor, I am in a position to do favors, and that I learned using exchange as an influence tactic can be an ethical way of doing business, I will have no problems with using exchange as a way of doing business or getting things done.  My raters thought I am likely to use the remaining tactics with fairly uniform likelihood.  I am pleased with that perception.  I think one needs to adapt his tactics of influence to specific circumstances, and having some confirmation from others that I am able to do so makes me feel pretty good.

On transformational leadership, my raters rated me fairly uniformly (between five and six) in all six orientations.  I am pleased with the uniformity of the ratings across all the orientations, as I think all six orientations are equally significant for transformational leadership.  Such confirmation makes me more confident about my ability to influence people in bringing about change.

I believe in “continuous improvement” towards being a whole person.  I also believe, improving one’s leadership abilities is the same as trying to achieve mastery in other things:  one will never reach the ultimate mastery.  In order to continue to improve myself, I need to know what needs to be improved.  Unfortunately, I do not get “honest feedback” from people during my daily life (except for the continuous feedback from my Wife-but she has self-interest). Honest feedback from others is an opportunity to recognize what I may need to improve and act on it.

Blog Topic 11: Seeing ourselves as other see us

Last week, you received feedback on how other people see you in a leadership roles. Was anything surprising to you? You've had a few days to digest the feedback, how can the information you received move you towards your leadership goals? How frequently do you receive authentic feedback in your everyday life? How can acquiring honest feedback help you achieve your goals?

Motivation-Josh Malament

team,

I have an ongoing issue with motivation in my current profession, and i need some suggestions. My motivation is at an all time low. I am sick and tired of the routine and brainless tasks that I'm doing on a daily basis at my job. I feel that it's killing my creative personality and not stimulating my brain enough to move forward.

For those of you that have spoken to me even once have realized that my energy, personality, and creativity is what drives me and motivates me. So being in a very routine tasked job is not a good fit. From our readings and the book "Drive", we know that for jobs that are routine task oriented, rewards that stimulate external motivation is the primary solution. but, for me, even if i was making six figures, yeah, my bank account would look nice, and any kind of financial stress would be eliminated, but i would still hate waking up to go to work, and still be angry at work that is meaningless and routine....

So what do i do..? I have a few options, i manage a video production company which provides me with a creative outlet, but is not ready to provide for me to be financially secure.... I have a few ventures in the making that will allow me to do something that i love as well answer to myself and a partner only. I think that my current full-time job has ran its course, and my gut may be telling me its time to get out. Im a very positive person, but recently i've been on edge, angry, and negative.... and i think this job is the basis for those feelings.... but without it, i may increase a level of financial stress that will not be good, but may also make me hungry and more aggressively to pursue what i want and need in my life!

suggestions?

Motivation - Christine Cho

When I first started working, I thought making lots of money and having a fancy title would be enough to keep me motivated and focused on my job. At the end of the day, I go my fancy title and the pay that goes with it, but found that it was just a job. What really motivated me more was the competitiveness of getting to where I was. The main reason I was self-motivated to pursue my MBA was based on competitiveness. I was on a business trip and noticed that a colleague of mine from another site had the same accounting book I used in undergraduate school. I mentioned that I had the book and she responded, "You don't have this book, this is the MBA version." I didn't really know how to respond to her comment in a tactful way, but I just said, "No really, it's the same book. They used the same book for undergrad and graduate students at my school." The same year I was promoted to a level higher than her, so I felt that I had won that battle. However, I thought I'd show her by getting my MBA just in case she wanted to make a similar comment in the future.

There are times when I really hate my job. Generally, it's at the beginning of the month when we have to produce monthly reports and metrics. I dread these days because the tasks are boring and repetitive. However, there are ways to make it fun. We track the same metrics across all of all company sites so I compare my performance to others within the company. Competition keeps me motivated at work. I'm a better leader than a follower.

I really hate using fear to motivate others. I think having a common goal and motivating others to compete to win is my approach to motivation. My energy when I am determined to win is motivating to others around me. Recently, we had a department team building competition. I was the Captain of my team. I had a team of underdogs, but we managed to take 1st place in the team building.

Fear is commonly used at work by our Site Vice President. Unfortunately, his use of fear has caused people to do unethical things and those people were fired. I believe fear should be used as a last resort. People should know that you have the power, but will only use it if every other option has been exhausted. I am in a position of power because I work in Quality and that carries a lot of weight in the pharmaceutical industry. In addition, I work closely with the Site Quality Head and people know that I can influence his decision. Therefore, most people will comply with my requests and cooperate because they know if they don't, the outcome can be far worse.

Most days I am fortunate enough to rely on my likability and people will do things for me because they like me. Perhaps, as a leader this is not always the best way to motivate people. It works for me and people are willing to help me out because in the end they know that I would never throw them under the bus... unless they really deserve it.

TOPIC 10: MOTIVATION by Onder

The clip of Mihaly C’s talk is very interesting.  I am fascinated by what some people do.  Mihaly C has been trying to figure out what makes people happy.  What a contrast with what I do for a living:  figure out how to make structures stand up!

Mihaly C’s chart of skills vs. challenges is quite consistent with my experience.  I have always been very happy (experienced flow) doing projects that appeared beyond my skill levels (I was aroused by the challenge).  For such projects I spent a lot of time to do research, study new theories, and learn new techniques.  The time I spent on such projects usually far exceeded what I could fairly charge my clients.  The balance of the payment was the “fun” I had doing the job.

On the other hand, I have to do a lot of routine work that requires very little expertise and presents no challenge for me.  Such work is boring, but I have to do such boring work just to pay the bills.  I wish I always worked on challenging projects, but that is not always possible in the real world.

Transforming these ideas to motivating others, it becomes clear that a manager must have a good knowledge of the skill levels of people who work for him.  He also must understand the personality of these people.  I think Mihaly C’s chart applies to most people, but there are some exceptions.  While most people may be aroused by challenges and enjoy improving their skills, some people are very happy doing the minimum work they have to in order to meet the requirements.  I imagine, in a well run high-technology company, the latter people would not survive too long.  For the former people, the challenge for the manager would be to choose the workers’ assignments so that the skill level required by the job is at or slightly above the workers’ skills.  Of course, he would also have to make sure that the workers get support for increasing their skills, such as in-house training, mentoring, attendance to courses and conferences, etc.

As I mentioned in the class a while ago, in a company I worked for a project manager had to “recruit” the people to work on his project.  An employee could turn down an offer to work on a specific project for any reason, including that he just did not like to work on such projects.  The result was that almost all employees were happy with what they were doing.  They were also continuously improving their skills, since they worked on projects that they liked (or have fun with) and part of the fun came from being challenged.  That was one company that did very little routine work; most projects involved solving problems that other engineers in town could not.

I never worked in a manufacturing company or a similar organization, where people would do routine, repetitive work.  So, I do not have first-hand experience with using fear or screaming at people in order to get more work out of them.  However, I am very sure that these would not work in organizations where highly skilled people do creative work.

Blog Topic 10: Motivation

In retrospect, our discussion of motivation in class went in two directions: how to motivate others and how to motivate oneself. The two aren't necessarily unrelated, but it is helpful to consider them separately before combining them. The videos below concern self-motivation, but could also be applied to understanding your followers.

What do you think motivates you? Are there times when you are just trying to get by and are there times when you are striving something really great? When do you experience each kind of feeling? Which feeling are your more comfortable with?

Having considered what motivates you, think about how you might motivate others. Can you shift gears between different styles and types of motivation when working with your followers? Can you use fear? Can you use anger? Can you use inspiration? How can you improve your motivational repertoire?

Geography of Thought (Eric Dodge)

I was born in upstate New York and lived there until I was ten, when my family moved out here to California. All of my relatives still live back on the East Coast and the Midwest, so I know what those areas are like and that they do have different cultures and mindsets. I feel lucky because I have been exposed to all these different cultures and ideas. A lot of people are not even aware that others think and act differently from them, so they are surprised when everyone does not act in the same way as them. I'm happy that I learned at a relatively young age how much different people from different areas are.

I also work for a company that has sites all over the world, which means that I work with people from all different cultures. We have sites in Europe, Asia, North America, and South America, so there are lots of different cultures that you run into. Even working with people from different parts of the United States I can notice the differences in cultures and the way people think. I went to Iowa over the summer on business and it reminded me how different the culture is there compared to California.

As a result of my exposure to all these different cultures and ways of thinking, I think I have become pretty good at not doing things that would be considered culturally unacceptable. The first step in the process of getting along with other cultures is realizing that they exist, and that they act in ways much different than ours. This makes interacting with other cultures much more enjoyable because you can learn to appreciate their differences, rather than being bothered by them. When I interact with someone from a culture that I don't I understand, I try to pick up on the ways that they act or think differently from our culture.

There are lots of little things that are considered taboo in some cultures, but are totally acceptable in others. This means that it will be impossible to interact with different cultures without occasionally offending someone. The trick is to be aware of these instances and learn from them. This can be fun too because you get a chance to learn about people that are different from the ones that you interact with everyday.

TOPIC 8: GOEGRAPHY OF THOUGHT by Onder

I came to the U.S. from Turkey when I was 21.  I first lived in the International House in Berkeley for about a year.  I had to adapt not only to a new culture in a new country, but I also had to live with people from all over the World.  In retrospect, I can say that living in the I-House was good for me, as it protected me from a “cultural shock.”  I think I would have been a lot more stressed and felt lonely if I were the only “Middle-Eastern” in a dorm.  Living in a place where everybody was “different” made me feel more comfortable with who I was, while helping me quickly acquire an understanding that different cultures had different ways of thinking and doing things, and no one was better or worse than the others.

My first roommate in I-House was a German student, Peter.  First morning, I woke up very early to see that my roommate was doing his exercises in the room, stark naked.  I could put up with being waken up early in the morning, but I was bothered with his nudity.  Where I came from nobody walked around naked, not even in the locker room.  After a few days of considering what to do, I finally explained to Peter that his nudity bothered me, as I was just not used to it.  He was very understanding, and began putting his shorts on when I was in the room.  We did become good friends; he even gave me a ride in his beloved Porsche.

Living and working in this Country for a long time, I have become more of an American culturally than a Turk.  I can claim that my behavior is more consistent with a low power distance, individualistic, low masculinity, and high-uncertainty-avoiding culture.  Turkish culture is the opposite; it can be characterized by high power distance, high collectivism, high masculinity, and low uncertainty avoidance.  I am not sure about my long/short term orientation; there seems to be conflicting interpretations of this dimension.  My cultural transformation was confirmed a few years ago when a salesperson in the town I was born in asked me:  “Where did you learn Turkish, you speak so well”?

 I wish it were possible for me to be more of an American without losing my previous culture so that I could behave “properly” when I visit Turkey.  Unfortunately, I cannot revert back to my old culture on demand.  I seem to get into trouble with friends and family by asking direct questions and freely expressing my thoughts.  I find it strange that some women do not want to be treated as equals of men.  I was laughed at by some teenagers when I picked up the sandwich bag someone threw on the sidewalk; they told each other that I was behaving like a “garbage man.”   I cannot be rude to people who serve me, although it seems like you are almost expected to do so if you are wearing a suite and a tie.  I am always happy to be back home in the Bay Area.

Geography of Thought - Christine Cho

Working in a highly regulated industry, we have regulators from different countries visit our company frequently. Last year, the PMDA (Japanese equivalent of FDA) visit our site for a license approval inspection. As the first site in the company to have a visit from the PMDA, we were given cultural awareness training to ensure that we were all trained on the differences between the Japanese and American culture. The amount of planning that went into the visit was unbelievable. For weeks, we worked on seating charts because where a person sat in a room represented their power. We also practiced business card exchanges to ensure that when we did exchange cards, we bowed the right way.

When the big visit finally came, everyone was ready as practiced. The only surprise was that the visitors were educated in the United States and didn't follow most of the traditional Japanese customs. We were told that the inspectors didn't speak English and we hired translators for the visit. Interestingly, although the inspectors understood English, they preferred to use the translators. One specific comment we received back from the inspectors was that they noticed that the people they interacted with did not make eye contact with them. When speakers spoke to the inspectors, they spoke directly to the translators. It was an interesting experience because when people talk, they want to ensure that the translators understood what was said, so they purposely made eye contact with them. We did not realize that this would be offensive to the inspectors.

Fortunately, growing in California, I've had the opportunity to interact with people from different backgrounds. Growing up in a diverse state has provided me with the opportunity to experience different cultures and understand different social norms.

Sometimes I wish people wouldn't force their culture on me. On my first business trip to Puerto Rico, I was traveling with colleagues from different locations. Some of my colleagues were from Europe and they insisted on greeting me with hugs and kisses. It's rare for me to hug and kiss anyone, and I think it is more awkward to hug and kiss my colleagues. I'm getting better at it now. I do the informal hug with a pat on the back, but I'm still not a kissy person. We'll see how I do on my next business trip to Europe.