Glossary

Attraction-Selection-Attrition (ASA) process:

A process where people with matching values are attracted to and selected by an organization, while those who don't fit leave via attrition.

Authoritarian:

Keeping close and strict control over subordinates, maintaining a distinct professional relationship, and supervising employees to ensure productivity.

Boundedly-rational decision-making:

Accounts for the critiques of the rational model of decision-making by suggesting people search for a solution that is "good enough."

Brainstorming:

A group decision-making process that consists of generating concepts and ideas quickly and without criticism.

Change implementation:

Executing the change plan in organizational change.

Competing values framework (CVF):

A popular model of culture comprising two dimensions: orientation of the culture (internal vs. external focus) and the environment (flexible vs. stable).

Compliance:

Behaving the way others expect you to, whether you agree with it or not.

Conflict resolution:

Bringing disagreements to an end by using one of five approaches: avoiding, forcing, collaborating, compromising, or accommodating.

Contingencies:

Events that are likely to happen in connection with or as a consequence of something else.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR):

When a business views itself as a member of society with social obligations and responsibility for its effects on environmental and social well-being.

Democratic:

Promoting social equity among workers by sharing ideas.

Distal traits:

Remote attributes such as personality, cognitive ability, and values that have an indirect effect on leadership style.

Diversity:

Refers to how people are similar or different from each other.

Emotional intelligence:

The ability to manage one's own emotions and those of others.

Ethics:

The standards of behavior we hold ourselves to in our personal and professional lives.

Expert power:

Power that comes from a person's superior skills and knowledge in a specific area.

Fault line:

Attributes that split groups into subgroups.

Forming:

The stage when the group first meets, people introduce themselves and test their membership, and leadership is sought.

Group cohesion:

When a group's members possess bonds linking them to each other and the whole group.

Group decision-making:

A process that will generate less biased, more varied, and more creative ideas than individual decision-making.

Idealized influences:

Behaviors that promote a broad, inclusive vision, leading by example, showing a strong commitment to goals, and creating trust and confidence in employees.

Individualized consideration:

Leaders discuss and empathize with the needs of individual employees, showing genuine compassion, and encouraging professional development and personal growth.

Influence:

Occurs when a person's emotions, opinions, or behaviors are affected by others.

Inspirational motivation:

Inspiring employees to improve their outcomes, explaining how the organization will change over time, fostering a strong sense of purpose, and linking individual employee and organizational goals.

Intellectual stimulation:

Encouraging employees, creating, challenging the status quo, aiming for consistent innovation, and empowering employees to disagree with leadership.

Internalization:

Occurs when you accept a set of values that leads to behavior that reflects those values.

Kurt Lewin's change model:

Consists of three steps: unfreezing, change implementation, and refreezing.

Laissez-faire:

Delegating as much autonomy as possible to employees, allowing them the freedom to make their own decisions about how to complete tasks.

Leadership:

A process of social influence where one person enlists the aid and support of others in accomplishing a common task.

Legitimate power:

A person's rightful claim to ask another to complete a task based on their position or title.

MacGregor's Theory X:

Assumes workers are lazy, will only work if rewarded, and must be punished for disobedience.

Management:

The act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively.

Negotiation:

The process whereby conflicting parties attempt to resolve their divergent goals by redefining the terms of their interdependence.

Norming:

The stage where the group decides on roles and norms for completing work and begins developing shared values, beliefs, and attitudes.

Observable artifacts:

Elements that tell the outside world about the organization's culture at the surface level.

Organizational culture:

The system of shared values, norms, attitudes, and beliefs an organization holds that guide employee behavior.

Path-goal theory:

A theory where leaders set goals for success with their subordinates and then clear a path of obstacles to allow workers to achieve the goals effectively.

Performing:

The stage where the group has formed an identity, communicates efficiently, and its members trust each other and work interdependently.

Power:

The ability to influence the behavior of others.

Proximal traits:

Personal characteristics such as interpersonal, problem-solving, and communication skills that have a direct effect on leadership style.

Rational decision-making:

A process that involves identifying the problem, generating alternatives, evaluating, choosing the optimal alternative, and evaluating effectiveness.

Referent power:

Power that comes from a person's natural attractiveness and others' desire to emulate them.

Refreezing:

Reinforcing the change in organizational culture.

Satisficing:

The idea that people often engage in a limited search to find a solution that is close enough to optimal.

Selective perception:

When we screen out information we wish to ignore and instead focus only on information we find salient.

Self-managing teams:

Teams allowed to be accountable for teaching others about their actions.

Shared values:

What the organization wants newcomers to learn and internalize as they become oriented with the organization.

Similarity-attraction phenomenon:

The phenomenon where the hiring manager chooses someone demographically similar over a more qualified candidate from a different demographic.

Situational favorableness:

The combination of contingencies in a work situation that determines if it is favorable or unfavorable.

Situational theories:

Describe leadership success that results from leadership behaviors modified by employee and situational contingencies.

Social control:

When internalized norms and values guide people's behavior, reducing the need for supervision to run efficiently.

Stakeholders:

All the individuals and groups affected by a business' decisions.

Storming:

The stage where group goals and expectations are discussed, leadership is tested, and work processes are questioned.

Theories of leadership:

Split into trait theories, behavioral theories, situational theories, and visionary theories.

Transactional leadership:

Motivates employees by exchanging time and effort for rewards, such as money.

Transformational leadership:

Motivates employees by inspiring a shared vision, which encourages employees to forego personal interests and to work according to organizational values.

Underlying assumptions:

The taken-for-granted knowledge people come to understand about the organization after becoming an insider.

Unfreezing:

Preparing employee mindset for change.

Virtual team:

Groups who work together from different geographic locations and rely on communication technology.

Vision:

A clear, distinctive, and specific view of the future that is usually connected with a leader's strategic advances.