Leadership depends on interaction. Interaction depends on physical proximity, social and organizational propinquity, and networks of open channels of communications. And so, not surprisingly, the emergence and success of leadership depend to some degree on physical and social arrangements. Such arrangements may also be substitutes for leadership.
Interaction potential is the likelihood that any two individuals will interact with each other. The more the individuals interact, the more one is likely to influence or lead the other. Although the purpose of interaction with another person may often be to give or receive information, to play, or to do other things that are unrelated to attempts to lead, many interactions are attempts to influence and to lead. Whatever increases the potential for interaction is also likely to increase attempts to lead. Successful leadership requires such attempts and thus is likely also to be correlated with interaction potential.
Physical proximity and the availability of channels of communication increase interaction potential. Thus, in reviewing studies of the effect of the spatial arrangement of participants in a small group, C. D. Ward (1968) concluded that the distance between participants was the most important single factor that influenced interaction. It was even more important than friendship. But friendship, familiarity, similarity, and other social factors also increase the potential to interact (Bass, 1960). Furthermore, the interaction of individuals may be a consequence of their freedom and autonomy from a higher authority. Some jobs permit more autonomy from a superior. This greater autonomy, in turn, increases the time that individuals spend communicating with others (Yammarino & Naughton, 1988).
Organizational proximity of members also increases their potential to interact and to communicate. With ecco analysis, members of an organization report whether they received a particular message and, if they received it, the time of receipt and the immediate source of the message. Using ecco analysis, Davis (1968b) showed that organizational proximity makes a difference in the extent to which informal communications for a particular oral message will be received. Thus the percentage of higher-level supervisors and managers who reported receiving information about parking or layoffs originated by those at the top of the organization was more than was reported by assistant foremen and foremen at lower levels. As messages moved downward through the system, the time of receipt increased along with delays and blockages.
Physical barriers would be expected to decrease the interaction between those with such barriers between them. But the opposite seems to be true, according to 99 employees in two high-tech firms surveyed by Hatch (1987). Interaction appeared to increase with the height of partitions between offices and the use of a secretary and a door between the offices. The only negative effect on interaction (which would be expected, according to Stech, 1981) was when a desk was positioned away from the office entrance. Nonetheless, fences and walls have been built to protect property, to control the borders of countries, to protect cities from attackers, to cut off the free flow of aliens illegally into the United States, to provide privacy of homeowners from neighbors, and to block uncontrolled movement from the West Bank into Israel.
The spatial proximity of the leader to the led systematically enhances the influence process and the quality of the exchange between them. Conversely, the distance between them reduces the possibilities of influence and the quality of their exchange. It is not surprising that the traditional Inuit culture was highly individualistic rather than cooperative or competitive (Mead, Mirsky, Landes, et al., 1937). The low population density of the Arctic meant that the opportunity for contact among people was low. And without such an opportunity, the amount of influence and leadership was severely limited. Worthy (undated) noted that the rise of organized civilizations required the development of management that could occur only with denser settlements. Stable agriculture, animal husbandry, and fishing were needed to support the requisite density of population in which such organizing leadership was possible, as well as for civilization to emerge. Density was particularly important to agriculture, which needed irrigation works to support it.
Schrag (1954) found physical proximity to be an important determinant of leadership among prison inmates. Toki (1935) studied the effects on groups of children of the introduction of physical distance to separate them from their adult leaders. The early separation and distancing of the leaders had much more deleterious effects on the groups that were early in their development than did such separation later on. Podsakoff, Todor, Grover, and Huber (1984) analyzed1 1,946 employees’ descriptions of the reinforcement behavior of their superiors. The greater the spatial distance between the superior and the subordinates, significantly more likely was the superior to practice noncontingent punishment and less likely was the superior to practice either contingent or noncontingent reward. Other direct and indirect effects of the leader’s physical proximity to followers were observed in territorial behavior, choice of friends, communication patterns, and physical arrangements. When followers were more physically distant than close, charismatic leaders were seen to be more ideological in their visions and opinions. If closer, they were seen to be more open, considerate, and task-motivating (Shamir, 1995). Also, distant charismatic bank leaders demonstrated greater effects on financial performance than did closer charismatics (Howell, Neufeld, & Avolio, 1998).
Leadership and Territoriality. Territoriality implies ownership of physically closer space and has similar effects on efforts to influence and the processes of influencing. Our interaction is higher with those who are within the boundaries of what we consider to be our territory. Our interaction and potential for leadership expand if we can stretch those boundaries. Leadership will contract if the boundaries are contracted. Territoriality is one of the major phenomena of interest to students of animal behavior. One of the primary functions of leadership in animal societies appears to be the location and protection of territory (Allee, 1945, 1951; Allee, Emerson, Park, et al., 1949). It has its counterpart in the attitudes of delinquent gangs about their own “turf” and domestic firms about foreign imports.
Proximity and Friendship. The potential to influence others is seen indirectly in the effects of proximity and distance on choice and acceptance. Willerman and Swanson (1952) found that sorority girls who lived in the same house chose each other as friends significantly more often than did girls who lived in more scattered locations in town. Proximity contributed to mutual choice. Maisonneuve (1952) and Priest and Sawyer (1967) also found proximity to be a factor in interpersonal choice. Gullahorn (1952) examined the interactions of female clerks seated in rows separated by filing cabinets. Interaction within rows was greater than that across rows. Within rows, the clerks related more with those near them than with those seated at a distance. When distance did not operate as a factor, friendship was the next most important influence on the clerks’ choice of others with whom to interact.
Proximity of distance between persons may also be a consequence, rather than a cause, of the relations between those who are engaged in interactions. Willis (1966) observed that individuals stand closer to one another when talking to friends and assume a greater distance when talking to strangers or persons of high status. It may be a matter of custom and habit. Latin Americans stand closer to each other than do Anglo Americans. Again, Little (1965) observed pairs of individuals in various situations. The distance between pairs of individuals in interaction was found to increase as their relationship changed from that of friend to acquaintance to stranger. Distance between pairs increased as the impersonality of the situation increased from living room to office to street corner. Streufert (1965) indicated that attitudes toward a member who deviates from group norms become more unfavorable as the distance between the member and the respondent increases. In the same way, attitudes toward a conforming member become more favorable as the member’s proximity to the respondent increases.
Effect of Distance on Communication. Indirect evidence of the effects of distance on influence processes is also seen in studies of communication. Gullahorn (1952) observed that greater distance between the work locations of clerical personnel led to less communication among them. Allen and Gerstberger (1973) discovered that communication among product engineers was significantly higher with an open, nonterritorial office layout than with the traditional arrangements of office walls and assigned permanent workplaces. To the contrary, Hage (1974) found that the more the departments of an organization were physically dispersed, the more intensive were committee and departmental meetings and unscheduled communications. Also, there were fewer interactions within physically dispersed departments and more frequent interactions between physically dispersed departments. In explanation, Klauss and Bass (1982) concluded that physical distance among organizational entities increases the physical need for coordination, as shown by the increased volume of communication between distant organizational units. Although physical distance may initially hamper interpersonal communication, over time social structure compensates for physical distance and barriers (Barnlund & Harland, 1963). Similarly, modern technology provides alternative modes of communication to help overcome the factors of distance. Conrath (1973a) noted that when authority was involved in an interaction, communications were in writing; when task issues were involved, the telephone was used instead. The impact of information technology on eliminating the effects of distance will be discussed later.
Bass, Klauss, and DeMarco (1977) found that as physical distance increases among members of an organization at the same organizational level, there is a direct increase in the use of the telephone instead of face-to-face meetings for interacting with colleagues. But as the hierarchical distance in the number of organizational levels between a manager and a colleague increased along with physical distance, agreeing with Conrath’s (1973) findings, Bass, Klauss, and DeMarco, found an increase in the use of memos instead of face-to-face contact or the telephone. The introduction of electronic mail moderated these effects of physical distance as such on collegial efforts to influence one another.
Leadership and Physical Location. The respective physical locations of individuals make a difference. The group discussant who grabs the chalk and controls the blackboard at a meeting can influence what ideas are singled out for attention. A. M. Rose (1968) identified job occupants who, because of their physical locations, take on “ecologically influential” roles of leadership. Their leadership is not based on personal, social, or psychological traits. These persons may be somewhat influential because they occupy a position that permits them to mediate ideas among several societal groups. Beauticians, barbers, bartenders, and traveling salespeople are examples of such leaders. In the same way, those who settled at the crossroads of several communities before the advent of the telephone were more likely to emerge as leaders. As will be noted later, those at the center of a network are more likely to lead those at the periphery.
As was noted in the last chapter, the physical presence of formal leaders helped their groups to cope better with a panic situation. Likewise, Ronan, Latham, and Kinne (1973) demonstrated that when supervisors of timber workers stayed on the job with the workers after assigning goals, they generated more output from their crews than did supervisors who assigned goals but did not stay on the job. Supervisors who remained on the job could effectively emphasize the importance of reaching or exceeding the goal and serve as reminders and monitors.
Seating Arrangements. Seating arrangements are not as trivial a matter as they might seem. A major difficulty in beginning serious peace negotiations among the United States, the Viet Cong, the South Vietnamese, and the North Vietnamese was disagreement over the shape of the table, round or square. A considerable amount of research has been completed on the extent to which one’s influence in a small discussion group is dependent on the location of one’s seat in relation to the rest of the group. Traditionally, the appointed leader took his or her place at the head of the table and those who were near in status to the appointed leader were grouped around him or her. Low-status people, as in feudal times, gathered “below the salt.” This pattern is still maintained in informal groups, according to several studies. Leaders in small discussion groups tend to gravitate toward the head of the table (Sommer, 1959).2 In simulated juries, Strodtbeck and Hook (1961) found that those who sat at the end of the table were more likely to be elected jury foreman. For U-shaped arrangements, those with higher status outside the group gravitate toward the apex (Bass & Klubeck, 1952). When the leader does not occupy the head position, other members tend to sit opposite, rather than alongside, him or her. When more than one leader or person of high status is present, these persons tend to seat themselves symmetrically around one end of the table (Sommer, 1961). Members as a whole tend to seat themselves closer to peers in status than to members who are higher or lower than themselves in status (Lott & Sommer, 1967). In a study of 88 supervisors and their managers, Bass and Wurster (1953b) found that the first-level supervisors seated themselves on one side of a long table while their second-level superiors sat down on the other side of the table. More dominant members of a group were observed by Hare and Bales (1963) to choose central seats and to do most of the talking. Group members sitting at end positions of a rectangular arrangement participate more and were rated as wielding more influence than are those seated at the sides (Strodtbeck & Hook, 1961). Lecuyer (1976) found, with French undergraduates, that the leader’s position at the end of a rectangular table enhanced the leader’s ability to direct the group.
H. Harris (1949) suggested that a semicircular or U arrangement, such as for a panel discussion, isolates those at the ends and spotlights those at the center. But Bass and Klubeck (1952) failed to find any such differences when the status of participants outside the group was taken into account. Howells and Becker (1962) seated two group members on one side of a table and three members on the opposite side. A greater number of leaders than would be expected by chance emerged on the side with two seats. C. D. Ward (1968) studied groups of strangers seated in a circle with several empty seats. The individuals facing the largest number of other members were most likely to be judged as leaders by other group members.
Are you more likely to interact with and influence someone sitting next to you or across the table from you? The evidence is mixed. Steinzor (1950) noted that when members of a discussion group were seated in a circle, an individual seated opposite a member who had just stopped talking, rather than one alongside the member, tended to speak next. Similarly, Festinger, Schachter, and Back (1950) showed that individuals who were positioned opposite each other interacted more than did those who were side by side. However, Sommer (1959) found that persons in neighboring seats interacted more than did persons in distant locations. Those in corner positions interacted more than did those who sat side by side or opposite each other. Felipe (1966) also found that such spatial arrangements similarly affected the rates of interaction. It may be that one is more likely to speak to the group after someone else across the table has just finished but to respond privately to those adjacent.
Seating arrangements are also a consequence of the purposes of meetings. Sommer (1965) reported that casual groups prefer corner seating, cooperating groups sit side by side, coacting groups sit at a distance, and competing groups sit opposite each other.3 Stech (1983) suggested that managers who preferred relations-oriented leadership or task-oriented leadership could affect their success by choosing various layouts for their offices that determine the seating arrangements of themselves and those who visit their offices. Some of his differentiations are shown in Table 29.1
The impact of psychosocial space on leadership is mapped by sociometry. The choice of friends, work partners, and leaders can be displayed in two or three dimensions of space and the correlated networks and linkages can be seen. Moreno (1934/1953) invented this approach to examine patterns of interaction. He asked each member of a group to choose among the others according to some criterion such as whom he or she liked best. Usually, the large share of choices was garnered by just a few individual members. Figure 29.1 presents a sociometric diagram for a group of eight members. Only the first and second choices are shown. Member A, who received five choices, is the most highly preferred member of the group. Members B and E, who did not receive any choices, are isolates.
Table 29.1 Office Layout to Enhance a Manager’s Relations Orientation or Task Orientation
Relations-Oriented Layout |
Task-Oriented Layout |
1. The desk is placed against the wall. The manager turns away from the desk to talk with vistiors. |
1. The desk is placed so the visitors are seated across from the manager. |
2. An informal conversation area is used. For example, the manager and visitor can sit side by sie at a coffe table. |
2. Most of the space for visitors consists of large, formal furniture. |
3. All participants in a conversation are seated on the same level |
3. The manager’s chair elevates him or her to a physically higher level that of others. |
4. The office door is open. |
4. The office door is closed, and a secretary acts as a buffer. |
5. The office space is relatively small and the seats are fairly close together. |
5. The office space is large, and furniture is placed so that there are large distances between persons. |
SOURCE: Stech (1981, pp. 73–74).
Here are some of the kinds of questions asked members of groups and organizations from which interaction and the influence process can be discerned and mapped: With whom do you spend your work time? Whom do you contact in your organization if you have a particular problem? Whom do you avoid? We are more likely to contact and to spend more time with those we esteem, those we regard as important, those with whom we are more familiar, those whom we regard as friends, and those whom we think are more like us than different from us. Those who are esteemed, competent, knowledgeable, familiar, friends, or similar to us have more potential to interact with us than do those who are unesteemed, incompetent, strangers, and different from us. The latter have less potential to interact with us and, therefore, are less likely to be able to influence us. This conclusion is supported by considerable evidence.
Figure 29.1 Sociometric Diagram
SOURCE: Author
Psychological distance between leaders and followers is due to differences between them in status, power, demography, and perceived dissimilarity. Structural distance is physical or organizational. Functional distance is a matter of the distance of leaders and followers in working relationships (Antonakis & Atwater, 2002). The authors offered 17 propositions about the effects of such distances on leader-follower relations. For instance, they expected that power distance between leader and followers would correlate with their distance in social status. Leaders with strong need for power would maintain greater social distance from their followers than leaders low in need for power. Leaders with strong need for affiliation would do the opposite, while leaders with strong need for achievement would be expected to interact more with followers about their tasks.
Status Differences. Differences in status can be either emphasized or minimized in the search for organizational effectiveness. Status differences can be accentuated by the physical characteristics of one’s office, dress, and privileges, as well as more subtle social calibrations, such as the use of “Sir” or “Madam” by a younger person addressing an older one. Status differences can be minimized by uniform offices, dress, and privileges, as well as by casual speech, familiar address, self-disclosure, and humor. Claims of common views, common leadership, cooperativeness, sympathy, and understanding also reduce the perceived differences in status (Drake & Moberg, 1986). (For more details about accorded status, see Chapter 10.)
Seeman (1960) studied teachers’ and principals’ perceptions of the differences in their status in 27 public school systems and found that teachers who perceived wide differences between their status and that of the principal tended to describe the principal as being more changeable in leadership but less dominating. Principals were identified who rated themselves high in status. They saw sharp differences between their status and that of their teachers. Such principals were described by their teachers as communicative, changeable in behavior, and effective as leaders. In an earlier study, Seeman (1950) found that teachers who favored wide differences in status in society and in organizations tended to prefer a directive rather than a group-oriented style of leadership. The number of teachers with these preferences was considerably greater than expected.4 Rettig, Despres, and Pasamanick (1960) obtained results indicating that persons in professional positions who perceived wide differences in status among various occupations tended to attach greater importance to personal freedom than did those who perceived narrow differences in status.
Differences in status can give rise to physical, psychological, and social distancing. McKenzie and Strongman (1981) compared the way British police superintendents, inspectors, and constables placed figurines to indicate how each of them would be positioned for an ordinary conversation between them. The figurines were placed at a greater distance for conversations with those of higher status (the superintendents). The superintendents then set up figurine placements with larger distances between themselves and those of lower status.
Utility of Psychosocial Distance. Psychosocial distance in sentiment appears to increase for high-status persons who have coercive power over low-status persons and decrease for low-status persons. Prison guards distance themselves from prisoners (Zimbardo, 1973), but prisoners and hostages, in time, come closer in sentiment to their terrorist captors (Eckholm, 1985)—the “Stockholm Syndrome.” Controversy continues about whether such distance is necessary or desirable for leadership and organizational effectiveness. Social and behavioral theorists like J. R. Gibb (1964) and Argyris (1962) and many others in the Human Relations Movement saw greater costs to leaders and organizations when psychosocial distance was maintained. More virtue was seen in reducing the psychosocial distance among organizational members and in maintaining close, personal relations among those of different status and at various levels in the organization. On the other hand, Martin and Sims (1956), Jameson (1945), and Pfiffner (1951) argued strongly for maintaining such psychosocial distance to promote organizational effectiveness.
In a questionnaire on what respondents thought was required to succeed in business, administered to 107 MBA students, Bass (1968c) found a factor endorsing the maintenance of social distance and prerogatives. This factor was correlated with the students’ perceptions of the importance of personal gain as a motivator to students with strong economic values and to students with less human or social concerns, as revealed in simulated budgeting decisions. Working managers saw somewhat less utility in maintaining such psychosocial distance than did the MBA students. Also less supportive of maintaining social distance were managers with human relations training (Bass, 1970b).
Proponents of the maintenance of psychosocial distance from followers suggest that by doing so leaders enhance their power and effectiveness. To maintain distance, leaders limit access to themselves and accent the difference between their status, esteem, ability, and power and those of their followers. They avoid personal self-disclosures and intimacy with their followers and employ various symbolic separations. (Emperors, sultans, and kings raised the height of their thrones above their audience chambers so they could literally talk down to their subjects from “on high.”) Such social distance may either promote the legitimacy of the leader and follower roles or be a consequence of it.5 By maintaining psychosocial distance, a leader can remain impartial, task-directed, and free of emotional concern for individual followers. A general can order individual groups of soldiers to a high risk of death for the sake of expected victory. A manager who would have difficulty discharging an incompetent personal secretary might find it easier to lay off a hundred employees several levels below in the hierarchy.
Barnard (1946a) suggested that the maintenance of psychosocial distance in an organization serves several other functions. It may help coordination, protects members from the need to compete for leadership, and acknowledges the importance of each individual’s special contribution. It also protects the integrity of the individual in that it acknowledges certain rights, privileges, and obligations that pertain to his or her position. Furthermore, it obviates the necessity of unfavorable comparisons between individuals who differ in training and ability.
Social distance can reduce the amount of extraneous talking between employees that may interfere with their productivity. Such extraneous talking may, on occasion, replace work and thus have distracting and deleterious effects on the productive efforts of individual members. Thus, Ingham, Levinger, Graves, and Peckham (1974) observed that individuals did not work quite as hard when they were paired with one or two others than when they worked alone.
The costs of psychosocial distancing can be high. They can include more defensive behavior by followers, loss of contact, poorer quality of communications, poorer selection of goals, less commitment to the group’s goals, incipient revolt, and organizational rigidity. Barnard (1946a) observed that psychosocial distance can limit the adaptability of the organization, distort the system of distributive justice, and exalt the symbolic function at the expense of efficient performance. In the same vein, Reykowski (1982) inferred that the more socially distant from us are other persons, the less is our tendency to maintain equal exchange relationships with them. One may dehumanize psychosocially distant persons and show less concern for justice in dealing with them.
Variations in Preferences and Effects. The optimal social distance between the leader and the follower appears to vary from one leader-follower relationship to another. Differences in preferences occur for both leaders and followers. The effects of psychosocial distance depend on such personal factors as the leader’s and followers’ motivation to achieve and their degree of friendship. The effects of distance also depend on situational factors such as the favorableness of the situation to the leader.
There seems to be some optimal psychosocial distance between the leader and his or her subordinates. Carp, Vitola, and McLanathan (1963) found that effective leaders have a perceptual set that enables them to maintain optimal psychological distance from subordinates—neither so close that they are hampered by emotional ties nor so distant that they lose emotional contact. Consistent with this finding, in writing about what it takes to be a successful captain of a ship in the U.S. Navy, Mack and Konetzni (1982, p. 3) described this optimum: “The successful commanding officer … must learn to become as one with his wardroom and his crew; yet, at the same time, he must remain above and apart. … It is a skill that must be mastered in turn by each commander if he is to carry out his task with success.” To reduce the social distance between a senior executive and operating employees, to move it closer to the optimum, the executive practices walk-around management. General Joseph Stilwell went much further to reduce the psychosocial distance between himself and his enlisted personnel. He was known for his tendency to wear an unmarked private’s uniform, lead infantry marches on foot, and eat in the enlisted men’s mess (Tuchman, 1971).
Effects of Follower Motivation to Achieve. W. W. Burke (1965) studied different combinations of leaders and followers, each combination differentiated by social distance and the need to achieve. In a group situation that varied in tenseness, followers with a strong need to achieve rated the situation as more tense under a socially close leader than did followers with a strong need to achieve who were under a socially distant leader. Followers with a weak need to achieve rated the situation as less tense under a socially close leader than under a socially distant leader. Followers with a strong need to achieve rated socially close leaders as more autocratic than they did socially distant leaders. Followers with a weak need to achieve rated socially distant leaders as more autocratic. At the same time, regardless of the followers’ needs for achievement, socially distant leaders were rated more effective in a coding task and socially close leaders were rated more effective in a human relations task. Overall, followers with a socially distant leader considered their groups to be less productive and less satisfying than did those with a socially close leader.
Sociograms are sensitive to interaction potential because they show the choices members make about other members of the group. Some members are overchosen; others are underchosen. The patterns of choice point to interpersonal attractiveness and familiarity among members and help to identify the leaders. Different uses have been made of sociometry in the study of leadership. H. H. Jennings (1943) used sociometry to distinguish the choice of leaders from the choice of others. She found that group members are much more selective in choosing leaders than they are in choosing friends or roommates. R. L. French (1951) studied the choice patterns of companies of naval recruits. The frequency of sick bay attendance was negatively related to sociometric choice by peers; leadership ratings were positively related to being chosen. In a study of bomber crews, Roby (1953) found that the sociometric choices of members were unrelated to ratings of the effectiveness of the crews. Nevertheless, as with the preponderance of military studies, Levi, Torrance, and Pletts (1954) observed that the effectiveness of aircrews was enhanced when the officially designated leader was also the sociometrically chosen leader of the crew. The formal and informal structures were congruent.6 (see Figure 29.1)
Massarik, Tannenbaum, Kahane, and Weschler (1953) used five sociometric indexes in studying an organization. The indexes were (1) relations prescribed by the organizational chart, (2) perceived relations, (3) reported interactions, (4) preferred interactions, and (5) rejected interactions. Preferred interactions were more highly related to members’ satisfaction than were prescribed or reported interactions. The members related more freely and were better satisfied under participative than under more directive leadership.
College Presidents’ Relationships. The leadership role of college presidents can be more fully appreciated by examining with whom they spend their time, according to interviews with 44 presidents. The average university president is fairly isolated. Most of his contacts center on his inner circle of staff and vice presidents. The isolation is broken mainly by contacts with students. Only 11% of the 44 presidents reported daily contacts with faculty members, while 18% to 21% reported daily contact with visitors and students. A factor analysis of these data uncovered four types of college presidents: bureaucrats, intellectuals, egalitarians, and counselors. The bureaucrats spent more of their time with their academic and fiscal vice presidents and their staffs. They tended to communicate to others indirectly, through their staffs. These presidents were perceived by faculty members and other administrators as remote, ineffective, and closed. The intellectuals spent relatively more of their time with faculty members and other administrators whom they perceived as intellectuals. Egalitarians and counselors spent more time with students and faculty, respectively, and those individuals involved in student and faculty affairs. They tended to be more highly rated by both faculty and students (Astin & Scherrei, 1980).
Communal Relationships. Bradley (1987) found that different sociometric patterns emerged in communes with different types of leaders. Sociograms were constructed of the responses to the questions of whether the relations with each other member in a communal network were loving, optimistic, and exciting. Systematic differences in sociograms were found when the commune’s charismatic leader lived in the commune or was an absent and distant leader. They showed when it was possible for charismatic leadership to emerge. Charismatic leadership, particularly when the leader is in residence, coincided with many more members’ being in affectionate connection with each other. Other relations were more loving and exciting when the charismatic leader was charismatic. The least communal linkages were seen in a commune without the potential for the emergence of a charismatic leader.
Effects of Interpersonal Attractiveness. Sociometric analyses and other interpersonal assessment procedures make possible the study of interpersonal attractiveness and its effects. Variables of consequence here include esteem, popularity, likeability, and perceived friendliness. Each of these variables has been found to increase interaction potential and therefore attempts to lead and successful leadership. Frequency of contact may increase esteem and less often may decrease such admiration. Some interaction between individuals is usually necessary before they can increase or decrease their evaluation of each other. If the interaction or its effects are unrewarding, mutual esteem between the individuals is likely to lessen.
Individuals are more likely to interact the more they value each other and the more they value the interaction among them (Bass, 1960). Thus, Blau (1954a) found that the more esteemed members of a law enforcement agency were contacted by the rest of the group more frequently. Conversely, Festinger and Hutte (1954) reported that people tended to talk least with those toward whom they felt indifferent.
Mutual esteem, familiarity, contact, and influence are interdependent. When 140 sorority women chose the seven most and seven least valued members of their sorority, correlations of .48 to .58 emerged between the tendency to be mentioned at all and to be selected as a competent leader (Bass, Wurster, Doll, & Clair, 1953). Similar results were obtained with salesmen.7 The tendency to be mentioned (visibility) correlated positively with sociometrically rated value, ability, and influence as a salesman (Bass, 1960). Bovard (1951b) reported that more pleasant interactions yielded greater attraction among members. But Festinger and Kelley (1951) found that unpleasant interactions resulted in no change in mutual attraction. However, according to Seashore (1954), a longer duration of shared group friendship yielded greater cohesiveness among 228 factory groups. Similarly, a mean increase in “likeability” among dramatics participants over an 11-week rehearsal period was found by Timmons (1944). If mutual esteem increases interaction, it should also increase effectiveness, and such was found by Van Zelst (1952a). Carpenters and bricklayers were paired either arbitrarily or with work partners they chose sociometrically. Sociometrically assembled pairs were considerably more productive than were pairs who were assembled arbitrarily.
Kelley (1950) presented information to some college students that a visiting instructor would be warm but told other students that the visiting instructor would be cold. The students asked more questions of the “warm” instructor than of the “cold” one. They formed more positive impressions of the “warm” instructor and more negative impressions of the “cold,” instructor even though the visiting instructor behaved in the same way in both conditions.
Generally, physically attractive persons tend to make more favorable impressions on others and to be contacted more frequently and for longer periods (Berscheid & Walster, 1969). But the converse has also been seen. Subjects tend to terminate interactions with physically handicapped persons more quickly (Kleck, Ono, & Hastorf, 1966). Similarly, subjects working with supposedly mentally ill persons talk less, initiate less conversation, and express opinions that are less representative of their beliefs (Farina, Allen, & Saul, 1966).
Hierarchical Effects. T. Burns (1954) reported that middle managers spent more time with superiors than with subordinates, while the reverse was true for first-level supervisors. Likewise, Guest (1956) and Piersol (1958) reported that first-level supervisors spent more time with their subordinates than with their superiors. Zajonc and Wolfe (1966) found that managers in high-level positions and those performing staff functions maintained the widest range of formal contacts within the organization, but these informal contacts did not seem to follow a distinct pattern associated with hierarchical level or function.
Effects of Familiarity. The potential to interact with another particular member increases as the group becomes smaller. Open network connections among members also increase the likelihood of interaction. In addition, familiarity, as such, breeds interaction, and interaction breeds familiarity. (Neither necessarily breeds contempt.) The more intimate or familiar we are with one another, the more likely we are to interact. The more we interact, the more intimate we become (Bass, 1960). Thelen (1954) noted that subgroups that are composed of friends are likely to have more energy to spend in participation with each other than are subgroups composed of strangers.
Intimacy and familiarity are not identical. Caplow and Forman (1950) found that the length of residence in a college community merely increased the number of one’s acquaintances rather than the intensity of relationships with one’s neighbors. We can be familiar without being intimate, although they are likely to be correlated. According to Klauss and Bass (1982), data from a large governmental agency indicated that the familiarity of a colleague with a focal person was associated directly with the frequency of their contact during any given week, as well as with the length of their acquaintanceship. Likewise, intimacy among 75 college students was a function of the frequency and amount of hours of contact among the students (Fischer, 1953).
In studying a rumor’s origin and spread, Festinger, Cartwright, Barber, et al. (1947) observed that people were less restrained in talking about such rumors to close friends than to mere acquaintances. Similarly, Hare and Hare (1948) noted a positive correlation between the amount of social activity and the number of family friends among 70 families in a veterans’ housing project. Increased congeniality of members was observed by Curtis and Gibbard (1955) with the members’ increased experience with one another in both voluntary and compulsory college groups. Likewise, Seashore (1954) found that members’ attraction for each other was greater in factory groups in which the members were friends for longer periods of time. Finally, Faunce and Beegle (1948) found that cliques at a teenage farmers’ camp gradually developed on the basis of newly emerged familiarities, although they were initially formed around homogeneity of age, sex, and country of origin. Bass (1960) advanced two reasons for interaction among members of groups as their familiarity and intimacy increased: (1) members feel more secure in interacting with friends than with strangers and (2) since they can predict each other’s actions, they can interact with less difficulty.
Morgan and Sawyer (1967) found that schoolboys prefer strict equality in the distribution of rewards, both with friends and with others. (We see this preference repeatedly when conducting experimental gaming with students.) Nevertheless, although they prefer equality, friends are willing to accept inequality if one friend thinks that the other friend may want it. But ordinarily friends are less willing to accept inequality. Familiarity with what the other expects facilitates the ability to reach agreement about how rewards should be distributed.
Effectiveness in the form of goal attainment tends to be associated with increased interaction. If so, it should also be associated with increased familiarity and/or intimacy. Husband (1940) found that pairs of close friends took less time than pairs of strangers to solve problems in code, puzzles, and arithmetic. Similarly, Goodacre (1953) reported that the members of the most effective of 26 infantry squads in handling field problems had a greater tendency to socialize together after hours. However, Horsfall and Arensberg (1949), in a study of a shoe factory, failed to find any relationship between productivity and the tendency of its supervisors to interact frequently.
Klauss and Bass (1982) reported that colleagues of 577 governmental professionals thought that the more familiar focal colleagues were more trustworthy, informative, and dynamic than were the less familiar focal ones. Colleagues also felt more satisfied in their relations with the more familiar focal persons. A correlation of .27 emerged between familiarity and perceived effectiveness of relations. But the length of acquaintanceship between the colleagues and the focal persons was unrelated to measures of effective communication. A higher frequency of interaction between colleagues and focal persons, however, correlated with satisfaction and effectiveness but not with the colleagues’ judgments of the trustworthiness and informativeness of the focal persons.
Effects of Similarity. Individuals interact more with those who are like them than those who are unlike them (Bass, 1960). The effect can be seen in student cafeterias, where students are attracted to eat at tables according to sex, race, ethnicity, class, age, and status. Pfiffner (1951) observed that employees of the same age, physical attractiveness, marital status, education, and race tended to group together. Strangers associate first on the basis of their homogeneity of sex, age, and place of origin, according to Faunce and Beegle’s (1948) study of campers. Likewise, Caplow and Forman (1950) found that interaction among neighbors in a university community was greater if families were homogeneous in occupation, number of children in the family, length of residence, and type of housing. Similarly, in the more turbulent neighborhoods of Chicago, leaders of 181 public and private human service organizations who had similar racial or educational backgrounds were more likely to establish cooperative relations with one another than were those from different backgrounds (Galaskiewicz & Shatin, 1981).
Formal versus Informal Organization. Stogdill (1949) asked members of organizations to estimate the amount of time they actually spent with other members. Socio-metric charts of these working relationships were superimposed on the formal organizational chart to determine the correspondence between the formally specified and actual working relationships. Such a determination would make it possible to diagnose communication and interactional problems within the organization. Such a chart is shown in Figure 29.2. It should be noted that in this figure, the vice president, rather than the president, is the focus of working interactions. Department heads A and B also tend to be foci of interactions. Department head C is bypassed by his subordinates, who do not interact much with each other, which suggests that the department head is not an effective leader of his group. With such a pattern of interactions, it is apparent that coordination is effected either by the vice president or by the cross-departmental contacts among section heads. The dominant trend of contact here is upward rather than downward. This trend is consistent with the commonly observed latent pressure to communicate upward more than downward. Such efforts to initiate interactions with superiors may serve more to reduce anxiety and to increase feelings of security and less to communicate about issues of work (A. Kadushin, 1968; Schwartzbaum & Gruenfeld, 1969).
Figure 29.2 Sociometric Diagram Superimposed on Organization
SOURCE: Author
Stogdill (1951a) plotted the number of times each of 22 officers in a small U.S. Navy organization was mentioned as a work partner by his peers. Officers who occupied high-level positions tended to mention subordinates and outsiders more frequently and superiors less frequently than did officers in lower-level positions. The same trend was observed in the number of mentions received. High levels of responsibility were related to more total mentions given and received and to more mentions received from members inside one’s own unit and from superiors. Scope of authority was not significantly related to any sociometric scores. Those who delegated most freely tended to be mentioned most frequently as work partners by members inside their own units.
Social distance and status differences can be increased or decreased by the network available or imposed. A network is a set of people connected by friendship, influence, work, or communications.8 Networks are composed of people or stations and links between them. Within organizations, it is a reciprocating set of relationships that stabilizes the manager’s world and gives it predictability (Sayles, 1964). As shown in Figure 29.3, a manager’s network is likely to include vertical, horizontal, and diagonal segments, with mutual contacts with his or her boss, his or her subordinates and their subordinates, and many other colleagues at the same level or at higher and lower levels. It is also likely to include individuals outside the organization, such as consultants, clients, and suppliers. Network analysis is the study of the links that bind such people and their positions.
Figure 29.3 Organizational Network
SOURCE: Adapted from Graen and Scandura (1987, p. 203) by permission of JAI Press Inc., Greenwich, CT.
Networks can be formed in a variety of ways and for a variety of purposes. Clearinghouses of information can serve as the centers of networks of influence. The insurance industry encourages social responsibility and community leadership by its individual member companies in this manner (Karson, 1979). Brown and Detterman’s (1987) longitudinal study of the community networks of leaders in a large metropolitan center found that a formal leadership program increased contacts among the white but not among the black participants. New networks emerged and old ones were strengthened for addressing community problems. Underlying the networks were the social establishment, political leaders, business leaders, and community activists.
The vertical, diagonal, and lateral dyads, each of which may be formal or informal, make up the organizational network shown in Figure 29.3. The dyadic relations particularly important to the focal manager are displayed. It can be seen here that relations between other members of the organization may be important to a third member. For instance, the dyadic relations between a director and his associate director may have consequences for a staff scientist, who has no direct connection with either person. A more powerful analysis of networks may be provided by triadic analysis (Holland & Leinhardt, 1976). An analysis of three members might show, for instance, two members linked to a third, but the third member not reciprocating. Bradley (1987) reported systematic differences in which the type of triads appearing in communes was a function of whether the charismatic leader of the commune was in residence or was an absentee leader.
The typical supervisor’s communications network is composed of links to his or her subordinates, to one or more peers and superiors, and to outsiders, as well as to libraries, databases, and computers. The links may be oral, written, and electronic. Unless replaced by e-mail, at least one-third of the supervisor’s time is spent mainly in face-to-face contact with subordinates (Jablin, 1985), but these links may not be seen as being as important and challenging as those with outsiders (Whitely, 1984).
Ordinarily, a manager’s network operates on a transactional exchange relationship: managers receive information, services, and resources in exchange for promises, returned favors, support, and recognition (Kaplan & Mazique, 1983). Nonetheless, networks are important to both transformational and transactional leaders. For instance, in a changing organization, old networks are broken up and new ones are established. The transformational leader manages “to foster a new set of social networks with new flows and ties” (Tichy & Devanna, 1986, p. 193). Managers also develop networks of lateral reciprocal exchanges with their peers. Such trading connections enable them to get their own department’s work done (Kaplan & Mazique, 1983).
Networking supports one’s image in the organization. Managers earn esteem by linking themselves to winning causes (Kotter, 1979), and such alliances promote their advancement. Few managers can function without the linkage of their networks (McCall, Morrison, & Hanman, 1978). With the exponential increase in knowledge and the knowledge worker, communication networks have taken on an ever-increasing role of importance in the success or failure of organizations (Cleveland, 1985). Networks connecting managers in separate organizations play an important role in the hiring of members for top management teams (Williamson & Cable, 2003).
In the absence of finding much research about managerial and professional networking, Hall-Merenda and Howell (undated) proposed that the networks are a form of socialized exchanges. Networkers concentrate their boundary spanning to identify useful ties for projects. They find gaps in the organizational structure in which to establish ties. An exchange at first is based on a formal agreement; subsequent exchanges can be based on trust. Successful completion of projects increases trust and the retention of partners and creates wider opportunities for partnering. Yukl (1998, p. 39) concluded that best practices for networkers are to seek opportunities to make contacts, to do unconditional favors, to become a valuable trading partner, and to keep in touch with network members.
Leaders’ performance and effects depend on their centrality in networks, their domain of influence, and their contacts and connections in the networks (McElroy & Schrader, 1987). In an analysis of 140 full-time nonsupervisory employees of a newspaper publishing company, Brass (1984) showed that perceived influence and promotion to a supervisory position depended on one’s location in the networks of work flow, communication, and friendship. Contacts beyond the normal work requirements were important in the acquisition of influence, particularly by technical core employees. Also important to perceived influence were the critical importance of one’s position to operations and one’s centrality in the networks. The leadership potential of professional members of a Russian high-tech consulting firm, as assessed by their superiors, was significantly related to their centrality in advice and friendship networks based on socio-metric nominations (Korotov & Onyemah, 2003).
Insko, Thibaut, Moehle, et al. (1980) showed that when 432 students were organized into trading groups, the group through which all trades had to be channeled made the most money and emerged as the leading group. Such functional centrality was also seen to be important to leadership by Tropp and Landers (1979), who examined the relationship of emergent leadership to the frequency of passing to field hockey teammates. Spatial centrality was not as important as functional centrality to effective plays. As hypothesized for 308 executives in 32 firms by Liang, Ndofor, & Picken (2003), network centrality in their communication patterns was more effective if it fit with the uncertainty of their environment. And although the leader of a jazz ensemble is its central figure, the role is tempered by the number of criticisms received and disagreements on interpretations that af-fect the quality of the performance (Voyer & Faulkner, 1986).
Open and Closed Channels. The mutual influence of leaders and followers depends on how open or closed the channels of communication are between them. Thus, those who have access to the political leaders and decision makers in a community are more likely to be influential in the community (Bockman & Gayk, 1977). Group members can also influence each other more readily if they are in open communication with each other.
The openness of a channel between superior and subordinate must be two-way. That is, both must be perceived as being ready both to communicate and to listen (Redding, 1972). Both verbal and nonverbal behavior (such as eye gaze, posture, tone of voice, and facial expressions) can signal such readiness or lack of it (Tjosvold, 1984b). Subordinates’ satisfaction with their work and with their superiors is strongly related to their perception of the possibilities of open communication with their superior (Pincus, 1986).
The direction of the flow of information in a channel between the superior and the subordinate and the superior’s style of relating to the subordinate will depend on who initially has more information that is relevant to their joint task. Shapira (1976) confirmed that if the superior initially posseses more information than the subordinate about what needs to be done, the superior will be more directive with the subordinate. If the superior initially possesses less information about what needs to be done, he or she will be more consultative or participative.9
The use of a channel appears to depend more on its openness and accessibility than on the perceived quality of the information that can be obtained from it (Allen, 1966) or the ease of its use (Gerstberger & Allen, 1968). Thus, neighborhood leaders who have common membership in different organizations tend to have more open cooperative relations with one another (Galaskiewicz & Shatin, 1981). More upward communication channels will be used in hierarchical organizations if trust is present and aspirations for mobility are high (Level & Johnson, 1978; O’Reilly & Roberts, 1974). Horizontal flows of unsolicited information will be increased by reductions in organizational constraints (Albaum, 1964) and increases in the organization’s technological certainty (Randolph & Finch, 1977).
Network Preferences. To accommodate their own influence and work preferences, U.S. presidents differed in the networks of staff assistants they constructed. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s immediate staff reported to him indirectly through his chief of staff, Sherman Adams. John F. Kennedy was the center of a network of his immediate staff. Lyndon B. Johnson used the telephone extensively to extend his network of direct contacts. Jimmy Carter created groups of staff assistants, each of whom dealt comprehensively and independently with a single different source, and he related directly to each group. Ronald Reagan, like Eisenhower, depended heavily on a chief of staff to screen and funnel the staff’s recommendations.
The self-interests of the senders and receivers of information will contribute to distorting or shutting down channels by tactics of overloading, circumventing, or reinterpreting the organization’s policies and regulations (P. J. Frost, 1986). Leaders can expand their networks informally to increase their own influence. For instance, Admiral Hyman Rickover greatly increased his control and influence by building a large network of his nuclear-trained officers, all of whom reported directly to him each week, bypassing the official channels (Polmar & Allen, 1981).
Networks of communication in an organization can result from the demands of authority, the demands for information, the demands of particular tasks, the bonds of friendship, or the more formal status characteristics of organizations. The purpose served by a network affects how information is transmitted within it. For example, communication in an authority network is typically more formalized than is communication in a friendship network (Bass & Ryterband, 1979). Heise and Miller (1951) concluded that the task faced by the network is a determinant of the leadership and the group behavior that are likely to occur. The uniqueness of the solution, the number of decisions to be made, and the amount of previous structure are all involved. For example, G. B. Cohen (1969) studied groups who performed an information-processing task and found that centrality facilitated their performance most when the tasks were highly interdependent.
Systematic effects on the leadership effectiveness of those led emerge as a consequence of the communication pattern fostered by the leader, policy, motivation, and training.
Leadership and Styles of Communication. An important aspect of a manager’s leadership style is the way he or she communicates with colleagues and subordinates. Thus, under authoritarian managers, networks with restricted communications take less time to plan than do groups led with less direction and structure. However, the results of the planning are likely to be less efficient in accomplishing the required tasks (Snadowsky, 1972).
Table 29.2 shows the correlations between leadership and communication styles that Klauss and Bass (1982) obtained when 71 subordinates described the leadership and communication styles of their 28 focal managers. It can be seen that participative leadership styles10 correlated highly with the leader’s being seen as an informal, frank, open, two-way communicator, careful transmitter, and careful listener. Trustworthiness and informativeness, but not dynamism, were also highly correlated with participative styles of leadership. Directive leadership was less highly correlated with careful transmission, being open and frank and a careful listener, but not at all with being informal and a careful listener. Dynamism was highly correlated with directiveness but at the expense of trustworthiness. Being negotiative and manipulative was unrelated to the style of communication.
Table 29.2 Correlations between Communication Styles, Credibility, and Leadership Styles as Seen by 71 Subordinates of 28 Focal Managers
SOURCE: Adapted from Klauss and Bass (1982).
Posner and Kouzes (1988b) obtained even stronger linkages between transformational leadership and the communication styles of 146 senior managers, according to their 998 subordinates. Transformational leadership was measured by the Leadership Practices Inventory (Kouzes & Posner, 1987). The five factors (challenging the proces, inspiring a shared vision, enabling others to act, modeling the way, and encouraging the heart) correlated between .40 and .68 with the trustworthiness, informativeness, and dynamism of the leaders’ communication styles, as measured by Klauss and Bass (1982). For instance, inspirational envisioning correlated .56 with trustworthiness, .58 with informativeness, and .68 with dynamism.
Ordinarily, open, easy, ready communications contribute to the extent the leader and the group can influence each other and to the extent to which they will be effective. On the basis of research with B-29 aircrews, Roby and Forgays (1953) noted that crews who could send information faster to decision stations could solve problems faster. In a report on maintenance in four medium bomber wings, Bates (1953) inferred that in the two better-performing maintenance systems, there was more contact among subgroups. The system’s leaders were usually involved in such contacts. Torrance (1954b) ascertained that plane crews in simulated survival exercises were most likely to “survive” if communications were resumed quickly among scattered crew members, leading to a clarification of the situation. Again, such resumption of communication was usually connected to the initiatives of the formal or emerging leadership.
The leadership is often responsible for the ease with which members of a group can communicate with one another. Thus, O’Reilly (1977) found that decision making by subordinates was improved if they could readily make use of their supervisors as sources of information. Such easy communication correlated highly with the described effectiveness of 500 work groups (Bass, 1954b) and teams engaged in naval ordnance testing (Weschler & Shepard, 1954). Leaders who scheduled regular meetings with their groups made for more effective group operations. Dyer and Lambert (1953) found that in two medium bomber wings, regular personnel meetings were scheduled in the wing with a better record of performance and effectiveness but not in the less effective wing. In addition, the executive officer of the superior wing was a more active communicator of information to others in the wing. Likewise, Habbe (1952) noted that in an individual plant with regularly scheduled meetings of work groups, workers felt freer to talk about their problems with the supervisor and favored such meetings more than did workers of a plant without such regular meetings.
Generally, the imposition of a complex hierarchical structure tends to impede the flow of information, particularly the flow upward. The formal channels may need to be bypassed to reduce the difficulties of communication (Wilensky, 1967). The formal authority structure supposedly enables the necessary flow of technical information, but an informal structure may be needed to increase the ease of the flow, according to a study of an R & D organization by Allen and Cohen (1969). Upward communication that must be relayed through intermediate levels often suffers greatly from filtering by officials at these intermediate levels. The problem is particularly severe for U.S. presidents. The advice and judgment of foreign-area experts at the working level, for example, are blocked or filtered by intermediates to give the president more of what the intermediates believe is consistent with the presidents’ beliefs and stated policies than with the realistic facts about pending crises (L. R. Anderson, 1983). Much of the faulty U.S. decisions about Iraq’s intentions and capabilities leading to war in 2003 and its aftermath could be attributed to blockages and filtering of intelligence in its upward flow from field agents, analysts, and policy experts to the White House political staff and the president.
Communication and Successful Performance. The successful performance of social service professionals, industrial managers, and military officers11 was found by Klauss and Bass (1982) to relate to aspects of the way they were seen to communicate. However, the results depended on whether the questionnaire descriptions were obtained from their subordinates, peers, or supervisors. The more successful social service professionals were seen as more open and two-way communicators by their subordinates and peers but less trustworthy by their supervisors. The more successful industrial managers were described by their supervisors as more careful transmitters, more frank, and more informative. The more successful military officers were described by their subordinates as more careful listeners and more open and two-way in their communications. They were less careful transmitters, according to their peers.
Successful leadership hinges on access to information. Leaders who successfully influenced community opinion about public affairs, education, and family planning in 450 households in a South African black township were found by Heath and Bekker (1986) to have greater exposure to newspapers and television than were those who were not influential. In comparison with the nonleaders, the leaders were more active in interpersonal communication. The network opinion leaders also had more contact with white change agents.
Networks may be built on consistent patterns of oral, written, or electronic contacts or combinations thereof. The medium will make a difference in what happens and how. Channels of oral communication are favored over channels based on written messages. Face-to-face meetings are favored over telephone conversations (Lee & Lee, 1956). Oral communication is promoted by the cultural norms of information sharing in the organization. Written communications are substituted in the absense of such norms (Dewhirst, 1971b). Crucial information can be communicated orally through successive channels more readily than can routine information, which is better transmitted in writing. Thus, Davis (1968b) found that routine information on parking was poorly communicated orally down the managerial hierarchy, while information on a production-oriented layoff was very well communicated orally. Nevertheless, in a survey of 72 business supervisors, Level (1972) found that in dealing with each of 10 problems at the workplace, the supervisors thought that oral communication followed by written communication was likely to be most effective. E-communication has become a favored and effective addition to networking.
The mass application of electronic networking to work and life came along with more than a half century of computer and Internet development, greatly accelerated by the availability of the personal computer and the World Wide Web. The first teleworker was a Boston bank manager who installed a telephone in his home in 1876. In 1966, I forecast that in the year 2000, employees working at home would be supervised by telecommunications; supervisors in the business office and supervisees at home would be connected by cable networks (Bass, 1966). By 1996, in fact, 10% of the U.S workforce was doing some telecommuting. Two of three employees and almost all managers of Fortune 500 companies were teleworking to some degree by 2000, 137 million worldwide (Rivenbark, 2000) and by 2004, more than 30 million in the United States alone (Gibson, Blackwell, Dominicis, et al., 2002). In 2005, an estimated 400,000 U.S. federal tax returns were processed for the IRS in India. A hamburger order at a McDonald’s drive-through window off of a Missouri highway goes to a Colorado call center and is ready in a few minutes at the pickup window in Missouri. A call center operator in Bangalore may service your airline reservation request for a ticket from Dallas to Atlanta (Friedman, 2005).
We are familiar with the extent to which work can be supervised at a distance. E-communication makes possible continued instant interaction and networking between home and office, between distant shops, between distant speaker and audience, and between diagnostician and patient. With e-communication, the network of the individual organizational member is greatly expanded. Boundaries of time, geography, and organization disappear. Time and distance to information about resources, customers, markets, remote operations, and personnel are eliminated (Mohrman, 1998). When the oral and written channels of networks are joined by e-communication and information systems, the network of the individual organizational member is greatly expanded. The time spans between interchanges are greatly decreased, and overload of information becomes a much greater problem than does underload. Although the concern for privacy and security is heightened, some of the problems that are due to organizational distance decrease. With the filtering and transmission of information by e-mail, delays are eliminated. What originates at a high managerial level in the organization can quickly reach those at the lowest managerial level. Likewise, e-mail provides instant contact between physically distant employees at the same organization level (Bass, 2005). A physically networked organization can be replaced by a virtual one using desktop videoconferencing, collaborative software, and the Internet, as well as the intranet within the virtual organization (Townsend, DeMarie, & Hendrickson, 1998). Global organizations whose units are located in many different time zones can carry on work by moving developing information from zone to zone as each unit becomes available for work. Firms can integrate organizational functions in different time zones to fit organizational purposes. Radiologists in Stockholm can give diagnosticians in Montreal second opinions about X-ray results in a few hours. Work by Trend Micro on a computer antivirus program can begin in New York, to be ready for application when an office opens in California three hours later. Wipro Technologies has 17,000 of its 20,000 engineers and consultants in India—at one fifth the labor costs of those in Silicon Valley—connected to its executives in the United States, where most of its customers are located (Hamm, 2003).
Jobs Best Suited for Teleworking. The jobs best suited for teleworking are dynamic and service-oriented, like those in management, sales, marketing, consulting, design, and project engineering (Cascio, 2000a). According to a survey of 350 executives by Lee, Hecht, Harrison, Inc. (1999), 90% of the executives used e-mail, 88% used voice mail, 81% used fax, and 53% used the Internet. When Hewlett-Packard transferred its sales force to virtual workplaces, revenue doubled (O’Connell, 1996). Teleworking at US West improved productivity by as much as 40% (Matthes, 1992). Firms like Ford and Delta Air Lines have given personnel computers for home use (Cascio, 2000a).
Telecommuting from Home. The need for business office space is reduced and home-to-office commuting time and personal and environmental costs are eliminated when workers telecommute from home. More time can be spent by home-based sales personnel visiting with customers face to face. Some members of the sales and customer relations department of Florida Power & Light operate out of their homes (Parks, 1998).
A better work–family life balance can be achieved with teleworking from home. When 212 teleworkers were compared with 922 nonteleworkers in telephone interviews, the teleworkers were more satisfied with their jobs and more committed to their organization. Those who worked at home had greater autonomy and were most satisfied with their jobs (Davis & Polonko, 2003). When 157 IBM office teleworkers were compared with 89 traditional workers, productivity, flexibility and work–life balance were significantly better for the teleworkers with home offices, according to a quantitative multivariate analysis (Hill, Miller, Weiner, & Colihan, 1998). While only 9% of 769 managers surveyed worked regularly from their homes, four of five in a survey of 769 managers said they would telecommute from home if they had the option (Lee, Hecht, Harrison, Inc., 1999).
All-Channel Linkage. James Barksdale, CEO of Netscape, noted that with all its personnel linked, every Netscape manager and employee could be informed directly and immediately about another major organization’s announcement that might have a large impact on Netscape’s business. In the past, he would have called a meeting of the top executive team for consultation about the competitive development. Then meetings would be called at lower levels until everyone in the organization had been consulted. Barksdale was now able to get a message to every Netscape employee in the world in a few minutes.
Disadvantages of Teleworking. Costs include setup and maintenance of the equipment, loss of socializing, and feared loss of visibility when it comes to personal advancement (Cascio, 2001). Other costs are information overload, duplication of effort, message ambiguities causing conflict, frustration by the loss of face-to-face (FTF) communication, and not knowing the effect on the receiver of an e-mail message. A survey of 350 executives reported that a majority felt that they are bombarded with more information than they can handle. They see much duplication of effort and unnecessary actions. They suffer from information overload and the intrusion of e-communications into their personal lives. E-communications can lack clarity and cause unnecessary conflicts. Customers are frustrated by machine responses to their telephone inquiries. Executives can be frustrated by being unable to discuss matters FTF with their subordinates. The loss of socialization is expected to be offset as people become more comfortable with the Internet, e-mail, pagers, chat rooms, instant messaging, blog information, instant exchanges about daily life, and an enlarging set of e-mail acquaintances (Abernathy, 1999).
Electronic mail provides a communication channel through which people communicate more equally. Early in its use, electronic mail was more likely to be originated by those with keyboard skills. Social and business status differences are minimized as is the ability to judge others by visual clues. When rating others by e-mail, there is less bias due to liking the other person (Weisband & Atwater, 1999). E-mail was more likely to be sent to known users and its use was encouraged by company policy.
By 1989, R&D supervisors were being E-rated more than nonsupervisors. The ratings were also having more impact on the supervisors (Fulk, Schmitz, Ryn & Steinfeld, 1989). A successful experience with one application like income tax preparation was conducive to adapting other applications (Martins & Kambil, 1999). When electronic and paper surveys were compared, little difference was found in rate of response, but response time is shorter and more comments are produced in Web-based surveys.
Absence of Nonverbal Cues. Eye contact, dress, facial expression, voice modulation, and physical gestures that are available in face-to-face (FTF) interactions are missing in E-mail without video. What are likely to be affected when FTF interactions and their nonverbal cues are absent are the clarification of the transmitted information and contextual embellishments (Birdwhistell, 1970). With E-mail, senders may be less inhibited because their feelings can be disguised more readily. This adds to the need for supervisors to provide more empowerment and trust in their subordinates (Ahuja, Robert, & Chudoba, 2003), more trust of their superiors by subordinates (Speitzer & Mishra, 1999), and peer colleagues trust in each other. Identification with their organization needs to be strengthened. But, Hallowell (1998) argues that voice mail and e-mail cannot substitute for the human moment of FTF interaction to allay the anxieties caused by voice mail and e-mail which often can raise uncertainties to brood over. When possible, an FTF meeting should precede the initiation of an electronic network.
E-mail and teleconferencing both eliminate many of the nonverbal cues that help clarify the information transmitted and the support for continued interaction among senders and receivers.
Effects on Influence and Leadership. Siegel, Dubrovsky, Kiesler, et al. (1986) compared the efficiency of communication, participation, and interpersonal behavior of 144 undergraduates in trios who discussed their career choices in one of three ways: FTF, by computer mail, or mediated by computer. When the trio members were linked by computer, they made fewer remarks than they did face-to-face and took longer to make their group decisions. The amount of participation in the discussion was more evenly distributed, and the members’ behavior was more uninhibited (the members felt freer to use strong and inflammatory expressions). More overall influence appeared to occur in the computer-mediated condition. The group decisions shifted farther away from the members’ initial individual choices than did the decisions that followed FTF discussions.
As just noted, computer-supported collaboration can be provided for FTF or physically distant individuals. Rawlins (1983) found that with audio-only teleconferencing by 20 four-person groups, the assigned leaders did not retain as much of their leadership roles as they did in FTF meetings. Rather, the leadership roles were more widely shared if the groups had a teleconference with-out an FTF meeting. U.S. and German engineers could avoid numerous transatlantic trips using audio and video-conferencing, although FTF meetings were required for some technical exchanges (Hart & Kamath, 1996). Craig and Jull (1974) and Rawlins (1983) all reported that FTF problem solving took longer than did problem solving by means of audio telecommunications.
Teleconferencing can be organized into different kinds of more restricted or less restricted channels of communication. For example, Pagery and Chapanis (1983) compared problem solving by closed-circuit television when central switching made it possible for only one participant to talk at a time and participants at each station were freer to intervene. Although members in the groups under the central-switching arrangement took longer to solve problems and used fewer and longer messages than did those in the less controlled condition, there was little difference in the effects of the two arrangements on the leadership processes. Integrated Voice Response (IVR), telephone touch-tone keypad inputs, and replies with voice, fax, callback, e-mail and other media can still be frustrating when you can’t talk to humans except after a long delay.
Videoconferencing comes much closer to FTF communication in its ability to supply the nonverbal cues that Mehrabian (1968a) found important. Mehrabian concluded that facial expression ordinarily accounts for half of what is communicated. When eye contact is low or absent, individuals come across as less positive, warm, and friendly (Kleck & Nuessle, 1968). Short (1973), Craig and Jull (1974), and Rawlins (1983) all reported that FTF problem solving took longer than did problem solving by means of audio telecommunications.
Although videoconferencing makes more of the visual nonverbal cues possible, there are still differences between it and FTF meetings as media for linking members in problem-solving tasks. Teleconferencing is less likely to provide the same amount of opportunities for social feedback, the sociopsychological distance among members is likely to be greater, and the ability of individual members to control the flow of communication is limited. But the evidence of the differential effects of FTF meetings and teleconferencing is mixed. Strickland, Guild, Barefoot, and Paterson (1978) found that when members of a problem-solving group are linked by closed-circuit television networks, rather than by FTF meetings, they are less likely to agree on a leader. However, Nicol (1983) reported that a clearer task-leadership hierarchy emerged for 20 groups that held closed-circuit television conferences than for 13 groups who met FTF to solve a problem. No differences were seen in the extent to which socioemotional leaders clearly emerged in the two media. Teleconferencing comes still closer to an FTF meeting with the use of whiteboards and fax for the instantaneous exchange of documents.
Bass, Gaier, Farese, et al. (1957) constructed and ran experiments on a rudimentary group decision analog computer, made possible by the newly available transistor. We correlated the responses of five participants with their group decisions and the correct answers before and after discussion. The leadership of a member was assumed to be higher if others moved closer in agreement to the member from before to after the discussion and the group decision was closer to the members’. These correlations provided an index of leadership for each of the five participants. By 1990, a highly sophisticated group decision support system (GDSS) was commercially available from the Ventana Corporation, based on continuing research (Avolio, Kahai, & Dodge, 2001). Each participant had a keyboard and monitor linked to all other member stations and the central station for an administrator. The basic software toolbox of GDSS makes possible electronic brainstorming in which participants rapidly submit comments to a question or issue to a central file and to each other. They can reorganize, evaluate, and modify ideas, proposals, and policies. Meeting Manager is the control panel of the network, which allows the administrator to prepare agendas, save session information, and edit and generate reports. Advanced software can be used to examine and quantify the relations between two sets of ideas in a matrix. The software can provide a test of the praticality of a plan. Participants identify the plan’s assumptions and their importance to stakeholders, and consensus is graphed. Other software facilitates creation of outline structures, editorial processes by the group, and agreements about terminology. Groups up to 20 or more in size can be accommodated. (Basecamp is one of several similar, more current products available from 37 signals.)
Anonymity. In an experiment with 36 four-or five-person undergraduate student groups, GDSS responses either remained anonymous or were identified. The groups were treated to either transformational or transactional comments by an administrator. The transformational leadership comments were observed to encourage more fluency, flexibility, and elaboration. Inspirational leadership comments and perceptions of transactional goals contributed to creativity, but intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration comments correlated negatively with creativity. Anonymity amplified the effects of transformational leadership on group potency and group effectiveness (Sosik, Avolio, & Kahai, 1997). By itself, anonymity was less important, although in general, leadership effects were stronger under anonymity (Sosik, 1997; Sosik, Avolio, & Kahai, 1998). From a literature review, Kahai, Avolio, and Sosik (1998) concluded that the effects of anonymity on participation and satisfaction depended on the kind and degree of anonymity and whether the virtual team members initially differed in their opinions.
Style of Leadership. Kahai, Sosik, and Avolio (1997) reported that both directive and participative leadership improved group performance in the GDSS meeting environment. Consultative comments by the administrator fostered support. Directive leadership promoted more proposals for fairly structured problems; participative leadership promoted more proposals for structured problems.
Influences of GDSS on Effectiveness. Similar experiments established that compared to FTF meetings, GDSS produced better decisions (Steeb & Johnston, 1981; Lewis, 1981; Gallupe, DeSanctis, & Dickson, 1988). However, no differences in decision quality were found in favor of GDSS by others (e.g., Ruble, 1984). Hiltz, Johnson, and Turoff (1991) used GDSS with 24 groups of professionals and managers with and without an elected leader and with and without statistical feedback. Decisions were better with a leader but not with statistical feedback. George, Eastman, Nunamaker, et al. (1990) studied assigned leadership and anonymity in GDSS in comparison to manual discussion groups. Assigned leaders in GDSS groups resulted in unequal participation rates among members. Such leaders had strong influences on outcomes in a study in Singapore (Lim, Raman, & Wei, 1994). In another study in Singapore, Ho and Raman (1991) found with 240 undergraduates that in a preference task, GDSS groups with consensus before decisions exhibited more equality of influence but members were willing to let one member dominate the final solution.
In larger groups, GDSS was found to reduce the process losses in traditional brainstorming due to production blocking, evaluation apprehension, and free riding. However, when GDSS was used in 12-member brainstorming groups, more ideas were generated than in nominal groups. However, there were no differences in productivity in six-member brainstorming groups. Small nominal groups where individuals work by themselves were more productive than members trying to produce ideas together (Dennis & Valacich, 1993).
Computer and telecommunication technology make possible e-leaders who can exert influence on linked individuals. One or several leaders may be linked with one or several teleworkers at a distance to form virtual teams (Cascio & Shurygailo, 2002). Virtual teams make for flat organizational structures (Townsend, DeMarie, & Hendrickson, 1998). What does it take to be a successful and effective leader in the electronic environment? Much is the same as for leadership in nonelectronic circumstances. The focus is still on people (Avolio & Kahai, 2003), but particular aspects of e-networking must be considered.
In the electronic environment, real-time information is available. There is greater opportunity for sharing knowledge with organizational members and outsiders. Relationships can be customized. More pressure is put on leaders from inside and outside the organization (Avolio & Kahai, 2003). With e-technology, social and technical systems are more interdependent than postulated by Trist’s (1993) sociotechnical systems theory. The e-environment and the organization’s structure are built and changed in coordination with each other (Orlikowsi, 1992).
Temporal Coordination. Some types of e-communication are synchronous. Telephone conversations, desktop networks, real-time audio and videoconferencing, electronic meeting system, and electronic displays are synchronous between leaders and followers. Other types of e-communication—for example, telephone messaging, e-mail, group schedules and calendars, e–bulletin boards, workflow applications, and non-real-time database sharing—are asynchronous. Replies and answers to comments and questions are not immediately forthcoming (Duarte & Snyder, 1999). When communications are across many time zones, the problems are exacerbated. Nevertheless, temporal coordination for 35 experimental virtual teams was found to moderate the negative effects of such problems (Montoya-Weiss, Massey, & Song, 2001). As noted earlier, temporal coordination makes possible continuous teleworking as teams in time zones such as Britain, India, Japan, and the United States pass on the work near the end of their respective work spells (Kimball & Eunice, 1999).
E-communications are intermittent. Instant messaging comes closest to spontaneous conversation. Ordinarily, only a “snapshot” is sent between sender and receiver. Spontaneous interaction and nonverbals are missing (Thompson, 2000; Cooper & Kurland, 2002). The social status and diversity of senders and receivers are less apparent. Personality cues are absent (Bekson & Eveland, 2000). Without full video, there is behavioral invisibility. Traditional forms of control and monitoring are absent (Wilson, 2001). Collegial and subordinate efforts cannot be observed. Participants can cheat, neglect team interests, and fail to anticipate others’ actions (Sheppard & Sherman, 1998). Maynard (2003) suggests that ethicality may be helped by increasing trust, team tenure, and transformational leadership and by reducing team size.
Evaluation. Subordinates are evaluated less favorably in electronic than in FTF environments. Evaluations must depend on results rather than perceived effort (Perlow, 1997). Friendships formed FTF are weakened in computer-mediated environments, according to a Japanese study of a 25-person network (Fujishima & Murata, 1998).
Needs and Limitations. Leaders and their virtual teams need well-indexed, automated central data files accessible from remote locations, and a way to track tele-workers if they are mobile (Cascio, 1998). Some Internet companies, such as eBay, can be mainly online, with no particular physical identity. Brown and Gioia (2002) tracked and interviewed the top managements of a prototypical online division of a Fortune 500 firm over the first 22 months of the launch of a business venture. The investigators concluded that the online business environment was characterized by extraordinary speed, complexity, and ambiguity, requiring the leadership to become a learning organization and to deal with the tensions of image and identity with the offline parent organization. In their review of 10 kinds of e-communications, Duarte and Snyder (1999) concluded that no online was as effective as FTF communications for resolving interpersonal conflict, especially when issues were highly ambiguous and emotional. Knowledge networks, such as in research institutions, are sources of potential conflict among virtual workers. They may compete instead of cooperating if rewarded for knowledge generation, and identifying sources of ideas becomes murky (Jarvenpaa & Tanriverdi, 2002).
E-leaders need specific competencies to deal with the challenges of e-networks. Systematic differences in knowledge, skills, and attitudes emerged when 41 successful e-leaders were compared with 50 traditional leaders (Higgins, Jones, & Paddock, 2002). E-leaders must be role models for using e-communications. They must be comfortable in working with and through e-networking (Spreitzer, 2003). The telepresence of the leader needs to be felt by means of the vividness of a rich telecommunications environment and the influence effects of interactivity with team members (Steuer, 1993). E-leaders must understand what key stakeholders expect of their teams. They need to understand receivers’ agendas, priorities, and motives (Cohen & Gibson, 2000). E-leaders need to be able to diagnose what is happening quickly. They need to be particularly sensitive to differences as they network across cultures and organizations. They must be more directive in leading some individuals and groups and more participative in leading others. At times, they must sense whether more direction or participation is needed with the same individuals. They must have a clear vision of what needs to done (Thompsen, 2000). In global networks, they must consider time zones, national holidays, cultural differences, and the immediate local needs and pressures as opposed to world-wide global concerns (Kerber & Buono, 2003). E-leaders must know how to use e-technology, but they also need to know how to stimulate their networks into using it.
The use of Lotus Notes increased collaboration among office workers only if the workers had previously collaborated without the software (Vandenbosch & Ginzberg, 1997). Leadership was needed. E-leaders need to know how to avoid or resolve the conflicts that arise in knowledge networks about responsibilities and credit for knowledge creation (Jarvenpaa & Tanriverdi, 2002).
Most e-leaders continue to have FTF relations with some of their nearby associates as well as from mutual visiting with distant ones. They need to know how to balance their concerns and time between close and distant followers. Those depending on e-communications need to be made to feel they can carry as much weight as those engaged in FTF. E-leaders need to remain alert for mis-communications and misinterpretations. They need to communicate their intentions (Avolio & Kahai, 2003a). Until they receive reassuring replies, they have to live with uncertainties created by their initiations, suggestions, and advice. Cascio (2000) summed up five requirements for e-leaders: (1) an open, positive attitude focused on solutions to issues; (2) the ability to lead in the absence of structure and control; (3) a results-oriented management style; (4) effective formal and informal communication skills; and (5) the ability to delegate and follow up effectively.
To expedite teleconferencing, Solomon (1998) suggested that for conference effectiveness, a rotating leader be chosen by the group and written agendas be distributed before the meeting, including the length of time allotted to it. The leader should recap the discussion goals at the beginning of the meeting and encourage everyone to participate. Notes on the main points of the conference should be distributed afterward.
Although interpersonal trust among managers and employees in 631 groups was found to be even more important in FTF groups than virtual teams, cognitive trust (as distinct from affective trust) in the e-leader was of particular consequence. E-leaders promote cognitive trust by demonstrating their competence, responsibility, and professionalism to their virtual team members (Staples, 1999). Nevertheless, affective trust is also important. Jarvenpaa, Knoll, and Leidner (1998) compared the trust in 29 global virtual teams that communicated solely by e-mail. Compared to the low-trust teams, the higher-trust teams began by introducing themselves and providing information about their personal backgrounds. They were led to set clear roles for one another.
E-leaders need to establish norms that emphasize the appropriateness of sharing perspectives and the acceptance of task-based conflict. Personality conflict is to be avoided. E-leaders need to help deal with adversity and provide substitutes for the social support available in FTF teams (Zaccaro & Bader, 2002). They also need to make sure that communications are secure. They need to provide training time for their subordinates to learn e-networking (Thompsen, 2000). They need to confirm what they understand in communications they receive (Cooper & Kurland, 2002). Meetings of all connected members and leaders are important and should begin with a roll call of all members announcing themselves. Senders always need to identify themselves and know how to ensure needed follow-up communications (Cascio, 2002).
As with initially FTF leaderless groups, in a longitudinal study of six virtual project teams, there were early struggles for leadership (Furst, Rosen, & Blackburn, 2003). Appointed or elected e-leaders need to begin a virtual team by learning more about its purpose and its individual members. E-leaders need to try to select internally motivated self-starters for the virtual team. If possible, they should first meet FTF (Cascio, 2000; McDonough, Barczak, et al., 2000). Early on, E-leaders need to clarify whether decisions will be by consensus or otherwise and whether all will share responsibility for implementing the final decision (Cascio, 2000). They especially need to work with virtual teams to reduce the members’ feelings of isolation by creating a shared mental model (Kurland & Bailey, 1999) and shared expectations (Maznevski & Chudoba, 2000). They need to ensure that the team members jointly define and commit to the team’s identity, goals, and routines. Both familiar and new technologies need to be implemented (Kerber & Buono, 2003). E-leaders need to cope with the self-limiting behaviors of some members that inhibit their participation due to pressures to conform or lack of self-confidence. They should do less supervising of work content and more supervising of overall performance (Cascio, 2000). E-leaders need to monitor progress toward the fulfillment of each expectation and to publicly recognize success. They also need to negotiate with partner groups and organizations for resources and support for their team (Cohen & Gibson, 2000). (For additional detailed suggestions on effectively managing virtual teams, see Cascio, 2002; Zigurs, 2003.)
Hart and McLeod (2003) studied seven virtual teams of professionals, national and global. The investigators examined e-mails, diaries, interviews, audioconference transcripts, and rated strength of relations with others. They inferred that in virtual teams, close personal relations were developed one message at a time. But most messaging was task-related and not about relationships. Personal content had little to do with developing strong personal relations. This suggested that virtual team-building activities should follow, not precede, work on tasks. Those linked with strong rather than weak relationships communicated frequently, with short messages. Those in weaker relations used longer messages, as they needed to add opinions, reasons, and explanations. Leaders needed to encourage communications among the members to work together on tasks and problem solving. Relations were strengthened by working together to solve problems. Leaders assumed fewer roles in teleconferences than in FTF meetings (Rawlins, 1989). E-leaders of projects in six high-tech firms had to change from their FTF roles. They had to give up some of their technical work and take on more negotiating to help different virtual teams work together.
Shared Leadership. The rated potency, social integration, problem solving, and effectiveness of elected leadership in approximately seven-member virtual teams were compared with informally shared leadership. The participants were 206 social workers developing community revitalization plans. The social workers were linked by e-mail, groupware, fax, and telephone for 10 weeks. The informally shared leadership had a positive effect. According to hierarchical regression analyses, the shared leadership of the virtual team members did add significantly to the four outcomes (ΔR2 = .43, .46, .36, .15) (Pearce, Yoo, & Alavi, 2004). Avolio and Maritz (2000) concluded that the models of e-leadership to deal with virtual interactions need to be based on the fundamental principles of effective leadership. With e-leadership, command and control leadership will need to give way to more sharing of leadership and shared mental models by leaders and followers of how they can collaborate and what they need to accomplish.
Organizational Actions. At the organizational level, many e-leader actions are needed. E-leaders of global networks have to provide strategic direction and focus. They need to set organizational goals and align them with strategies. They need to provide virtual teams with organizational support. They need to ensure early experiences with new technologies. Transformational leadership is an effective style for e-leaders. Passive, laissez-faire leadership is contraindicated (Davis & Bryant, 2003).
Communication networks circumscribe who can communicate with whom, thereby affecting interactions, the group’s performance, and the potential leadership process. The control of the channels of communication among members of a group has been used widely to examine systematically the effects on performance and leadership of the network of arrangements provided. Bavelas (1950) originated a laboratory experiment to study the effects of systematic changes in who among five participants could communicate directly with each of the other participants. Bavelas dealt poker hands to the five members of a group. The members could communicate with each other only by written messages. The object was to select the one best poker hand from the combined cards of all the members. The groups differed in communication channels, as shown in Figure 29.4. In the circle arrangement, the members had an equal opportunity to send messages to and receive messages from the member in the position to their left and the member in the position to their right. In the chain, members in peripheral positions could send messages through intermediaries toward the position in the center. In the wheel, four of the members had equal opportunities to send messages to the person in the center and could also communicate with adjacent members. In the Y, three members could send messages to a fourth person in the central position, but the fifth member was required to communicate with the member in the center through another member. In the star, all communications had to flow through the central position. The kite added an open channel between two of the peripheral positions. These networks contrasted with the all-channel network, in which any member could send messages to any other member.
Figure 29.4 Communication Networks and Other Networks
SOURCE: R. Dubin, Stability of human organizations. In M. Haire (ed.), Modern Organizational Theory. (New York: Wiley, 1959, 1962)
Subsequently, Leavitt (1951) developed a standardized task that was free of the potential bias that could occur from differences among members who knew how to play poker. At the beginning of each trial, each of five participants was given a card on which five of six symbols were printed; one symbol was missing from each card, and each card lacked a different symbol. The problem each time was to have the group discover and record the one symbol that everyone had in common. The participants were seated around a circular table and were separated from one another by five vertical partitions. They passed messages to one another through open interconnecting slots—the only way of communicating. Leavitt analyzed the pattern of messages that developed and the speed with which the problem was solved when a particular network of channels was open for use.12
Centrality. Organizational centrality was greatest in the wheel and decreased in the following order: Y, chain, and circle. The star network was more centralized than the kite network. The greater the inequalities in the opportunities for different members of the network to communicate, the more the members differed in centrality. The star and Y networks are most centralized because one member has a central position and all the others occupy peripheral positions. The circle and all-channel networks are least centralized, since all members have equal opportunities to communicate. Individual member centrality exists in three ways: a person in a network is more spatially central, more central in the exchange of information in the network, or more central in the decisions of the network. Ordinarily, central positions and those who occupy them have greater position power because of their greater access to information and the control of its distribution. This power makes those in central positions more influential with those who occupy peripheral positions in the Bavelas-Leavitt networks—a finding that was confirmed in numerous studies.13 The network member who occupies a position of centrality is most likely to emerge as the network leader. However, Abrahamson (1969) removed the partitions that prevented group members from seeing one another. In the FTF situation, central members emerged as leaders only when no dominance owing to personality was present. Abrahamson concluded that an individual’s centrality contributes to his or her emergence as a leader only when physical isolation prevents personality factors from having an impact.
Effects of Network Centralization. Centralization of a network has important effects on the network’s performance. Bales (1953) observed that since the group member who was able to control the communication network was most likely to emerge as the leader, the emergence of leadership was more frequent in the star network, with its one central position, than in other networks (see also Shaw & Rothschild, 1956).
Leavitt (1951) found that speed in solving problems, agreement on who is the leader, satisfaction with the group, and development of an organization were highly correlated with the organization centrality of the network. That is, it took the least time to solve problems and to agree on leadership when there was one clear central position, such as in the Y network. It took more time in the chain and the most time in the circle, in which there was no central position. The circle network experienced difficulty in developing a stable structure for problem solving. However, Burgess (1969) showed that differences in the performance of the various networks tended to disappear once groups had worked under a given arrangement for a time and had attained a steady state—particularly if contingent reinforcement was used to influence member performance.
Development of Centralization. Consistent informal roles emerged within the restrictions of the formal networks, more in some networks, less in others. Little informality was possible in the wheel network. The highly restricted wheel network rapidly developed a stable hierarchy that conformed to the formal demands of the system. In that network, the central person sent out information to all participants once he or she had received information from all. In contrast, all-channel groups could display much more variety in the informal organizations they built, particularly in distributing answers. Some evolved a system in which each person sent answers to every other member, while others developed patterns identical to the wheel or to the chain. The groups that were formally restricted to the circle network had the greatest difficulty developing and maintaining a single formal pattern of communications. Over many trials, they tended to fluctuate in the particular patterns of communication they used, especially in exchanging answers (Guetzkow & Simon, 1955).
Usually, a network that began with a central position or informally developed a centralizing procedure was able to complete the task faster, with fewer errors (Mulder, 1960). Thus, Cohen, Robinson, and Edwards (1969), who studied groups that were required to solve experimental problems of organization, found that centralized problem-solving systems were developed by 211 subgroups in both the wheel and the all-channel networks. However, such centralization was likely to give rise to less satisfying peripheral jobs. There was less opportunity for members as a whole to modify their own organization, to learn about how the organization operated, to be flexible, and to be creative when new challenges were imposed on the group (Bass & Ryterband, 1979). More will be said about this later.
Roles and Role Structures. Participants who occupy peripheral positions carry out different tasks from those who occupy central positions. For example, those in peripheral positions spend more of their time receiving information (Guetzkow & Simon, 1955). Only the participant in the central position spends a great deal of time compiling data, forming solutions, and transmitting answers.
Using 76 five-member groups with Leavitt designs, Guetzkow (1960, 1961) found that three types of roles and role structures tended to emerge. The central participant tended to receive information, formulate answers, and send answers. The peripheral participant sent his or her own missing information and received answers. The relayer passed on his or her and other information and relayed answers. The wheel and all-channel networks tended to develop two-level structures consisting of a central person and four peripheral members. One-third of the circle groups developed three-level structures consisting of a central person and four peripheral participants. One-third of the circle groups developed three-level structures consisting of a central participant, two relayers, and two peripheral participants. Two-thirds of the circle groups did not develop organized structures of mutually supporting roles. Groups with differentiated role structures solved the problem faster than did those that remained undifferentiated. The central participants and the relayers perceived the structure more accurately than did the peripheral participants in all except the all-channel groups. The central participants also sent more messages containing proposals for the organization and nominated themselves more often as leaders.
Stability of Leadership. A. M. Cohen (1962) observed greater continuity of leadership in communication networks when members could elect their leaders. Cohen and Bennis (1961) studied groups with changing structures. They found that groups that had changed from a wheel to a circle network tended to organize themselves into a more efficient chain system, but with different leaders than had been present in the wheel network. Also, networks with elected leaders retained the same leaders longer than did those that were not permitted to elect leaders.
Central versus Peripheral Involvement. Zander and Forward (1968) found that participants who were in central positions developed a stronger desire for their groups’ success than did participants in peripheral positions. Participants whose need to avoid personal failure exceeded their need for personal success tended to become more concerned about their group’s performance than participants whose need for personal success was greater than their need to avoid failure.
Centrality and Satisfaction. Centralized groups typically have one member at their hub, who is likely to be the most satisfied. In routine tasks, the more centralized the structure, the more efficiently members solve problems, but those in the more numerous peripheral positions may remain less satisfied (Cohen, 1964). Shaw and Rothschild (1956) found that the occupant of the central position in a star design was more satisfied; otherwise, the other participants’ dissatisfaction did not differ in the various network structures. Using the same designs, Shaw, Rothschild, and Strickland (1957) determined that the satisfaction of participants was a joint function of centrality and the amount of support the participants received. Central members, more than peripheral members, tried to change the opinion of those who disagreed. However, if the central members failed, their satisfaction changed more than did that of the peripheral members. Cohen, Robinson, and Edwards (1969), like many others, found that the satisfaction of members differed with their position in the system. Also, it was somewhat higher in decentralized networks. Vannoy and Morrissette (1969) obtained results suggesting that although satisfaction with a role in the network was related to its centrality, satisfaction with one’s group was related to the effectiveness of the group’s network operations.
In an experimental effort to detect the underlying elements that were of consequence, Trow (1957) studied groups of participants who were matched according to their scores on the need for autonomy. Some members were led to believe that they occupied positions of centrality, and others were led to believe that they occupied positions of dependence. The autonomous situation provided greater satisfaction than the dependent situation. The effect of centrality on satisfaction was positive but not significant.
Access to Information and Its Distribution. Trow (1957) analyzed the interacting effects of providing the occupant of a position in a communications network with access to information and with access to communication channels with others. Perceived status was more a matter of access to the communication channels than to knowledge. On the other hand, Guetzkow (1954) found that persons in central positions had better knowledge and understanding of the network than did persons in peripheral positions. Changing the information available to members had an effect similar to that of changing the centrality of their position or the channels available to their position (M. E. Shaw, 1954a). In a follow-up of this earlier finding, M. E. Shaw (1963a) studied the influence of the availability of information in various networks. Compared to group members with no previous information about the problem, members with an informational advantage were found to enter the discussion earlier, to initiate more task-oriented communications, to find their suggestions accepted more frequently, and to be rated by others as contributing more to the group’s task. Likewise, Gilchrist, Shaw, and Walker (1954) varied the information available to the four members of a wheel network. They found that the centrality of a position rather than available knowledge of the problem generated the emergence of the leadership and the satisfaction.
Other Contingent Factors. Planning opportunities made a difference. Members were more likely to learn how to use their own position to the best advantage of the group when the group was given the opportunity to plan between trials, particularly if members were connected with each other by open channels (Guetzkow & Dill, 1957). The members were also likely to develop different patterns of communication, depending on the amount and type of previous experience they had with alternative networks (A. R. Cohen, 1964).
The placement of persons of lower or higher status or esteem in key positions could alter the outcomes of communication networks. For G. B. Cohen (1969), the presence of high-status members in positions of centrality facilitated the networks’ performance. Nevertheless, low-status members became more effective in positions of centrality. Cohen concluded that in a pluricentral social system, the various centers of influence should have easy access to communication with all parts of the organization. Consistent with this conclusion, Mohanna and Argyle (1960) assigned sociometrically popular and unpopular participants to wheel and circle networks. They found that wheel groups with esteemed central members learned faster than did the other groups and required less time and fewer messages to solve the problem.14
M. E. Shaw (1955) compared democratic and authoritarian (order-giving) leaders of the different communication networks and found that the type of network made less of a difference than did leadership style. Speed and accuracy of performance were greater under authoritarian than under democratic leadership, but the members’ satisfaction with and nominations for leadership were greater under a democratic style of leadership. Nevertheless, the type of communication network imposed on the group also determined which kind of leadership would be most effective. The central member of the wheel or yoke network and a designated member in the all-channel network were instructed to be coercive (to use the power of their position to require compliance) or to be persuasive by convincing with logic and information. Fewer errors in information were made in all three types of networks. However, the relative superiority of coercion over persuasion was greatest in the wheel network, was less great in the yoke network, and was least apparent in the all-channel network. But under all three conditions, as might be expected, members were less satisfied with coercion than with persuasion. In the all-channel and yoke networks, the same or similar amounts of decision-making errors occurred with persuasive and coercive leadership. Only in the wheel network were there fewer decision-making errors under coercive than under persuasive leadership (Shaw & Blum, 1966; Shepard, 1956).
The placement of individuals with particular personal attributes in central positions or the use of participants who have some strong personal characteristics may systematically affect the outcomes of a communication network. However, M. E. Shaw (1960) failed to find that the homogeneity of members of a network in such attributes as intelligence, acceptance of authority, and individual prominence changed depending on whether centralized or decentralized structures resulted in more satisfaction and efficiency. But Trow (1957) observed that the stronger the participants’ desire for autonomy, the higher was the correlation between the participants’ satisfaction and the extent to which they believed they occupied positions of centrality.
Cohen and Foerst (1968) studied groups composed of repressors (members who repress or deny anxiety) and sensitizers (members who react to anxiety and worry). They found that leadership was significantly more continuous in the groups of repressors than in the groups of sensitizers. The groups of repressors developed centralized systems earlier than did the groups of sensitizers. Nevertheless, when given the opportunity, both types of groups rejected the all-channel network in favor of the centralized structure.
The centralized networks produced the fastest solutions with the fewest errors in the simplest kind of problem-solving situation, such as finding the common symbol. But the superiority of the centralized star, wheel, or yoke disappeared when the problem was made more complex by adding “noise” to the communications. For instance, when participants had to solve anagram problems for which they might or might not need information from one another, noise and irrelevant information in the communication system resulted in differences in the efficiency of the various networks. The effectiveness of a communication network depended on the characteristics of the task. No one type of network was always best (Glanzer & Glaser, 1961).
Organizations are composed of networks that contain one or more of the types above. Moreover, the networks in a particular organization are interrelated and may vary from well-structured networks carrying regular task-related messages to loose, informal networks (Guetzkow & Simon, 1955).
In real-world organizations, communications are involved in the exercise of authority, the exchange of information, the completion of specific tasks, friendship, and status. In communication networks based on authority and those based on information, the information typically flows in opposite directions. That is, information in networks that are based on authority flows from the persons who are in positions of authority down to subordinates. In contrast, in many networks that are based on information, the information flows primarily upward from those who provide information to those who collect that information for use in decision making; as a consequence, the potential for conflict is great.15
Uses. Network experiments can be used to simulate some particular organizational problem. In one such simulation by Hesseling and Kormen (1969), five participants represented each of five separate departments of a manufacturing company: sales, R & D, planning and production, organizational methods, and purchasing and subcontracting. All participants received complete information about the procedures of the company and a functional description of their respective departments. They were also given the necessary information to contribute to the decision-making process in their respective departmental roles. The purpose of the simulation was to discover, within a time limit of five 15-minute periods, the best working combination of the product’s design, delivery time, and price so they would be able to accept or reject a customer’s order. The participants were given sufficient time to discuss as a team how to organize the different departments’ roles. Only written communication could be passed among the five department heads. The participants were left to form their own network. The analysis focused on what kinds of networks emerged in such circumstances to yield the best combination of outputs. Centralization might promote speed of decision, but quality of decision depended on other factors.
It may be impossible to translate laboratory and simulation findings directly to large organizations. Yet these experimental networks are analogous to real organizational ones. The chain is seen in the vertical and horizontal serial communication linkages in an organization shown in Figure 29.5. The meeting of the board of directors is an all-channel network. The typical line organization is a yoke. For many specific operations in an organization, persons find themselves at the hub of the wheel (Dubin, 1958).
Figure 29.5 Examples of Operational Networks
SOURCE: R. Dubin, Stability of human organizations. In M. Haire (ed.), Modern Organizational Theory. (New York: Wiley, 1959, 1962)
Kerr (1977) and Kerr and Jermier (1978) reasoned that social, organizational, and physical arrangements can be organized to improve the performance of individuals, teams, and organizations when the demands of a task are known. Also, ways can be found to provide mechanisms and alternatives for the various functions of the formal leader.
Howell, Dorfman, and Kerr (1986) classified moderators of leadership performance and its effects as neutralizers, enhancers, supplements, and substitutes for leadership.16 Neutralizers do not directly correlate with the outcomes but cancel the leader-outcome relationship. Enhancers augment the leader-outcome relationship. Supplements contribute to effects on the subordinates’ performance but do not cancel out or augment the leader’s direct effects. Of most interest to subsequent research were substitutes for leadership, variables that make the leadership impossible or unnecessary.
Neutralizers. Neutralizers make it impossible for leaders to influence the outcomes of subordinates’ performance (Howard & Joyce, 1982). For instance, a leader who is supportive and considerate may have little or no impact on highly authoritarian subordinates. The subordinates’ authoritarianism neutralizes the leader’s support. Supportive leadership would ordinarily promote better performance outcomes (Weed, Mitchell, & Moffitt, 1976). In examining data from 558 staff members of 25 nursing homes, Sheridan, Hogstel, and Fairchild (1985) expected and found that the effects of the supervisors’ leadership activities were neutralized. They were significantly weaker in nursing homes with policies and practices that resulted in uncertain work goals and the lack of sufficient rewards for the subordinates’ good performance. Another potential neutralizer was the location of the nursing home. The responses of staff members to poor leadership behavior, such as quitting, were expected to be neutralized in small-town locations because there were few alternative jobs available to staff members. Other neutralization of supportive leadership might occur when: (1) cohesive work groups had antimanagement norms; (2) subordinates failed to respect the leader’s competence; (3) subordinates were antiauthoritarian with an internal locus of control and a strong need for independence; (4) subordinates did not share the leader’s or the organization’s goals and objectives; (5) subordinates did not depend on the leader for resources; (6) subordinates worked at a physical distance from the leader; (7) the supportive leader lacked upward influence; and (8) union, civil service, or other institutional constraints prevented the leader from influencing the distribution of organizational rewards (Howell, Bowen, Dorfman, Kerr & Podsakoff, 1990).
Enhancers. A supportive leader who also has influence with a higher authority will have more of an impact on the outcomes of subordinates’ performance than one who does not have such influence. Influence with higherups will enhance the effect of supportive leadership on the subordinates’ performance.
The same variables, such as the norms of a cohesive work group, may neutralize or enhance the leader’s effect. If the cohesive group’s norms are counter to the leader’s and the organization’s objectives, the cohesion will offset the effect of the leader on the member’s performance. If the cohesive group’s norms are in alignment with the leader’s and the organization’s objectives, the cohesive norms should enhance the leader’s effects on the members. Summarizing research through 1988, Howell, Bowen, Kerr, et al. (undated) concluded that the following enhancers should increase the impact of supportive leaders: (1) cohesive work groups with promanagement norms; (2) the leader with important, highly visible organizational responsibility; (3) leaders with a great deal of upward and lateral influence; (4) leaders with a strong resource base; (5) subordinates who are highly dependent on the leaders for resources; and (6) an organizational culture that is supportive of management. The effects on outcomes of the leaders’ task-oriented guidance should be enhanced by (7) the subordinates’ respect for the leaders’ competence; (8) the leaders’ reward power; (9) visible, influential champions of the leaders within or outside the organization;17 (10) a crisis atmosphere; and (11) superordinate goals. Dorfman, Howell, Cotton, et al. (1992) found that the higher rank and expertise of company-grade commissioned officers supervising NCOs in the air defense artillery could enhance the impact of the COs’ supportive leadership.
Supplements. Computerized decision support systems exemplify designed supplements to leadership. These are preplanned approaches to solving designated kinds of problems that attempt to parallel systematically the behavior and thought processes of decision makers and can be used to supplement leaders’ judgments. They do not substitute completely for the leaders. Rather, they are used by leaders to make a final integrated decision (Wedley & Field, 1984). Howell and Dorfman (1981) demonstrated that for 220 hospital workers, such supplements could be seen in the extent to which their intrinsic task satisfaction, routinization, and task feedback contributed directly to the employees’ commitment or satisfaction or both without inhibiting or augmenting the leaders’ more direct influence on the same outcomes. Again, in a study of university counselors, Howard and Joyce (1982) demonstrated that good peer relationships supplemented the leaders’ consideration and initiation.
Substitutes. When substitutes for leadership are present, they replace supportive leadership. Leadership by itself will be expected to be of little or no consequence to the satisfaction and performance of subordinates. Logically and empirically, substitutes directly affect the performance of subordinates, while the leadership does not. The substitutes act like neutralizers to cancel the leader’s effect on the outcomes of subordinates’ performance (Howell, Dorfman, & Kerr, 1986). Interviews with those who were responsible for supervisory professionals, such as research directors and nursing supervisors, talked repeatedly about substitutes for leadership in professional settings. The work itself emerged and directed the professional worker without the need for the leaders to intervene (Wall, 1986). A highly predictable work flow, as a consequence of bureaucratization and centralization, could substitute for control by supervisors (Comstock & Scott, 1977).
In predicting subordinates’ commitment to an organization, both Kerr and Jermier (1978) and Howell and Dorfman (1982) found that the formalization of an organization is a strong substitute for the leader’s assigning of work. Dorfman, Howell, Cotton et al. (1992) showed that organizational formalization could substitute for directive, participative, and representative leadership of previously mentioned air defense artillery commissioned officers. Formalization is less of a substitute for the leader’s specification of the rules. It is also less of a substitute for role clarification by the leader in the prediction of employees’ satisfaction. Howell and Dorfman (1986) ascertained that organizational formalization was a weak substitute for the leader’s specification of procedures in the prediction of the satisfaction of professionals. Further indirect support showing that organizational formalization could moderate and substitute for leadership in affecting outcomes for subordinates was obtained by Freeston (1987) and Podsakoff, Todor, Grover, and Huber (1984). Kerr and Jermier (1978) and Kerr and Slocum (1981) found that the subordinates’ ability, professional orientation, and desire for autonomy made the addition of task direction from the leader counterproductive. In the same way, Sheridan, Vredenburgh, and Abelson (1984) reported that for 98 supervisors and head nurses and their 670 nurses in four hospitals, the nurses’ education, group cohesion, and available work technology substituted for the head nurses’ leadership in directly and indirectly affecting the nurses’ job performance. The administrative climate of the hospitals acted as a neutralizer.
Other Substitutes. Much of what are considered conscious acts of leadership today were attributable in static traditional societies to highly internalized norms, rules, and values. Compliance was a matter of habit, as was the avoidance of guilt or shame. Except for outlaws, one did what one was expected to do, without explicit direction, monitoring, and reinforcement by a leader (Gardner, 1986a).
Group processes could substitute for leadership. P. B. Smith (1984) found that the manager’s role in area management teams of British social workers was relatively unimportant in predicting the effectiveness of the team compared to group process variables such as the personal involvement of members and the low denial of conflict. Substitutes for leadership were also seen as possible when reward systems could operate independently of the leader based on commissions, piecework, incentives, and profit sharing for work done. Also, expert staff personnel could serve as substitutes directly to subordinates without the leader’s intervention (Howell, Bowen, Kerr, et al., un-dated).
Pitner (1988) validated 11 of 13 hypotheses concerning possible substitutes for leadership in the educational context. Staff contributions, differences in teaching, and the structure of the organization could serve as substitutes for leadership in affecting subordinates’ performance and attitudes, according to 450 surveyed teachers from 47 schools.
The features of sociotechnological jobs and organizational designs like those advanced by Cherns (1976) are a particularly important source of substitutes for leadership. The computer display itself can give immediate, direct feedback to the employee who is working at a computer terminal about the employee’s absolute speed and errors as well as the employee’s performance. The display can be contrasted with previous work, standards, and norms. Organizational feedback about performance, which is ordinarily transmitted through supervision, can be sent directly to the employee to promote self-monitoring and self-evaluation. Team operations in which members share responsibility for achieving team objectives can be rewarded on the basis of the team’s productivity without supervisory intervention. The team as a whole and its individual members, instead of a supervisor, become the substitute sources for planning, directing, and controlling.
Jones (1983) showed that workflow could be controlled as much by the task structure of the role formalization as by the leader’s use of reinforcement. In a study of 220 hospital personnel, Howell and Dorfman (1981) dealt with role ambiguity and conflict. They used the subordinates’ ability and experience and the formal organization to substitute for specific supportive leadership behaviors that ordinarily boost the subordinate’s job satisfaction and organizational commitment.
Other Analyses of Proxies for Leadership. Proxies for leadership were analyzed as moderators of leader-outcome relationships. Podsakoff, Todor, Grover, and Huber (1982) used moderated regression analysis to test for the effects of substitutes for leadership on the relationship between leaders’ contingent reward behavior and subordinates’ satisfaction. Change in the variance explained by the addition of the interaction term (leadership behavior multi substitute) to the regression equation was an indicator of the effect of substitution. In line with suggestions of Howard and Joyce (1982) Sheridan, Vredenburgh, and Abelson (1984) used path analysis to detect substitutes for leadership. To obtain path coefficients, they treated leadership as a function of expected substitutes and outcomes, as a function of leadership, of substitutes, and of substitutes combined with leadership. Thus, they used substitutes as a predictor of both the leadership behavior itself and of the outcomes. Posdsakoff, MacKenzie, and Bommer (1996) showed, in a hierarchical regression analysis for 1,539 employees of the statistical proxies for transformational leadership, that a few substitutes had unique effects on follower job attitudes, role perceptions, and citizenship behaviors. The employees came of various industries, levels, and organizational settings.
Neutralizers, enhancers, supplements, and substitutes can be designed into systems as needed. Jacobs and Jaques (1987) pointed to the extent to which supervision can be more effective if, independent of supervision, the structure in the situation is designed to exert demands on the individual employee that are relevant to accomplishing the work to be done. Howell, Dorfman, and Kerr (1986) suggested that coercive, autocratic leadership can be neutralized by removing the control of rewards and penalties from the leader. Inadequate leadership can be enhanced by team building to increase supportive norms. Selecting mature subordinates may provide a substitute for stable leadership. Assigning an assistant to a manager may supplement the manager’s leadership.
A study by Tyagi (1985) of 168 life insurance salespersons showed that variations in jobs, such as in the opportunities they provided for using a variety of skills, enhancing the significance of the task, and allowing for autonomy, combined to account for 47% of the variance in the intrinsic motivation of the salespersons. But these variations in jobs had far less effect on the salespersons’ extrinsic motivation, accounting for only 18% of it. In contrast, the leaders’ trust and support, interaction facilitation, and psychological and hierarchical influence combined to account for 38% of the salespersons’ extrinsic motivation but only 16% of their intrinsic motivation. The variety of skills, significance of the task, and autonomy that were built into the job could substitute more for the leadership in intrinsically motivating the salespersons and less in extrinsically motivating them. Both types of motivation contributed to improvements in the salespersons’ work performance.
Self-managing teams were discussed in Chapter 12 as illustrative of redistributing power, and again in Chapter 26 for converting the leader to becoming an external consultant and advisor to the self-managing team. Substitution for formal supervision and leadership occurs when autonomous work groups are created and self-management is introduced. Autonomous work groups and self-management by individual members of an organization are two ways in which group processes and individual dynamics are structured to eliminate formal supervision, yet achieve or better the results obtained with formally assigned leaders.
Autonomous work groups can operate without direct supervision. For the omitted supervisor’s contribution, they substitute collective control by the work group members of the pace of work, distribution of tasks, and training of new members (Gulowsen, 1972). The supervisor is made redundant if the members of the work group have functionally interrelated tasks and are collectively responsible for the end products. Roles may still be differentiated. One member may still be central, others peripheral. The members must have a variety of skills so they can handle many or most of the groups’ tasks. Feedback, along with evaluation of the work group as a whole, is also necessary. Wall, Kemp, Jackson, and Clegg (1986) completed a study of the long-term effects of using such autonomous work groups in manufacturing in Britain. They found that supervisory routines could be eliminated with no noticeable effects on subordinates’ motivation or performance. They also found enhanced intrinsic job satisfaction among the members but only temporary increases in extrinsic job satisfaction.
Building on Bandura’s (1977) social learning theory, Manz (1986) argued for fostering self-planning, self-direction, self-monitoring, and self-control, which could replace otherwise needed supervision. For both the individual and the group, self-management calls for self-observation, specification of goals, cuing strategies, rehearsal, self-evaluation, and self-reinforcement (Manz & Sims, 1980). After difficult or unappealing but necessary tasks are identified, each of these processes can be incorporated into an individual’s everyday job performance. Self-observation can be promoted by keeping a daily log of what one has discussed with others by e-mail or telephone. Goal specification occurs when one sets schedules and priorities for oneself. Cuing is illustrated by the example of a checkout board that was placed at the exit of a manager’s office to remind her to leave word for her secretary where she was going and when she would be back. Rehearsal occurs when one records a sales presentation on a tape recorder and then listens to one’s performance, correcting it as necessary. Self-evaluation is aided by keeping charts of one’s progress in improving the quality or quantity of one’s performance. Self-reinforcement is accomplished by building natural rewards for the performance of tasks. It may be done by searching for features of the task activities that give one a feeling of purpose, competence, and self-control (Manz, 1983). Contrary to what might have been expected, Manz and Angle (1985) noted from what was seen in an insurance firm that such self-management resulted in increased compliance by sales personnel with the company’s procedures and goals.
To a considerable degree, self-management by groups and individuals requires considerable delegation by a higher authority. Furthermore, higher-ups provide examples, guidance, encouragement, and support. Manz and Sims (1986b) note that self-managed autonomous groups require a superleader who is external to the groups. Such an external leader helps the groups become self-monitoring, set their own goals, criticize and reinforce themselves, and plan and assign tasks by themselves instead of depending on the superleader.
Helping others to shift to self-control from external control requires dealing with a variety of problems. There is a self-serving bias in attributing one’s poor performance to situational rather than personal factors. Coordination may suffer. Individuals differ in their need for autonomy. Whether the concern is about the employee’s developing proficiencies or the employee’s current results makes a difference. Self-control with guidance from an external leader is likely to be more directly relevant to the individual’s development and internalization of the desired and required job behavior. External control may be sufficient for monitoring results (Manz, Mossholder, & Luthans, 1983). With no formally appointed leader in each group, members have to be willing and able to take on the leadership task and maintenance functions as needed by the group.
Physical, organizational, and spatial factors have direct and indirect influence on leader-member relationships. Advances in electronic communication have made virtual leadership common. Studies of interpersonal space indicate that individuals interact more frequently with those who are located close to them than with those who are farther away. The member who occupies the head position at the table tends to assume leadership. Leaders tend to gravitate toward head positions and are expected to do so. Members who occupy head positions tend to be more influential than do those who occupy side or peripheral positions. Members tend to maintain greater physical distance between themselves and members who are of a higher or lower status than between themselves and their peers in status. Differences in status and social distance tend to be valued when the consequences of social interaction may be unpleasant and when effective group performance is desired by group members. Socio-metric preferences for contact, communication, and work map the actual patterns of influence in an organization. They may be quite independent of the authority structure and are more likely to correspond with friendship, familiarity, and mutual esteem. Sociometric descriptions of actual contacts, communicants, and work partners do the same.
Individuals who live or work in close proximity to one another also exhibit a higher rate of mutual sociometric choice than do those who are situated at a greater distance from one another. At the same time, the quality of personal interaction in and achievement by the group may be facilitated by some degree of psychosocial distance between the leader and the followers. Individuals prefer greater social distance between themselves and their competitors than between themselves and those with whom they cooperate.
Virtual leadership and virtual teams are replacing face-to-face arrangements on a global scale. Electronic networking between e-leaders and their virtual teams has increased rapidly with the advent of the Internet and the personal computer. Experiments pointed to advantages and disadvantages of e-networking and e-leadership compared to face-to-face (FTF) meetings and leadership. Compared to FTF leaders, e-leaders need to have particular capabilities and to carry out particular actions. Efficient computerized group decision support systems (GDSS) have become available.
Networks are replacing hierarchical communications in importance to organizations. Research on networks in organizations and in experimental communication networks has indicated that the member who occupies a position of centrality tends to emerge as the leader. That member has greater access to communication than do other members and is thus better able to coordinate and direct the group’s activities. Groups with positions of centrality within them are more efficient than those with un-differentiated role structures. The openness of network channels is directly related to the information available to a leader and therefore to the leader’s ability to exert influence. Regular meetings usually (but not always) provide more continuing communications and promote the group’s performance. The member who occupies a position of centrality is better satisfied with the group than are members in peripheral positions. Personal factors, such as the need for autonomy and ascendancy, moderate these effects. The experimental results tend to confirm parallel real-world organizational networks.
Experimental groups with a member in a position of centrality are more efficient than groups without differentiated role structures. Members who occupy positions of centrality that enable them to exercise control over the flow of information are most likely to emerge as leaders. They are also better satisfied with their groups than are the peripheral members. Several studies have suggested that personality factors might be influenced by the relationship between centrality and leadership. A highly submissive member was likely to become a more active participant in the group’s activities when placed in a position of centrality.
Social, organizational, and physical rearrangements of how work is accomplished can be used to neutralize, enhance, supplement, or substitute for leadership. Such rearrangements may include setting up autonomous work groups and encouraging self-management. These rearrangements can benefit organizations by reducing the costs of supervision and increasing the employees’ commitment and contribute to the persistence and transfer of leadership.