Classics of Organizational Behavior 4th edition Walter E.Natemeyer and Paul Hersey
Topic Section V: Power and Influence page 393
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Is it better to loved or feared? Nicco Machiavelli
The Bases of Social Power? John R.P.French Jr. and Bertram Raven
Position Power and Personal Power All. Amitai Etzioni
Who Gets Power- and How They Hold on to do It. Gerald R.Salancik and Jeffrey Pfeffer
The Power of Leadership. James Gregor Burns
Situational Leadership and Power. Paul Hersey and Walter E.Natemeyer
Read and refection
Don’t sumerize everything
Kind of examples and experiences related topic.
No more than 2 pages and at least 1page
Sample here:
From this week’s reading, I learned many strategies and insights on the subjects of goal setting
and reward systems. By analyzing the various examples from each article, it was interesting to
see how organizations routinely establish reward systems that end up working
counterproductively against their stated goals. From a managerial standpoint, this has opened my
eyes to the idea of ensuring that any reward systems that I use be productive in nature. It is a
tragedy that so many organizations use reward systems that severely handicap the attainment
prospects of their goals. As a result of this reading, I will make sure that my reward systems
contribute to the achievement of my organization’s goals. Likewise, I will be sure to set
challenging, yet attainable goals for my work staff. Much of the issue in Goal Setting centered on
the fact that the goals were not well defined, or they were largely unreachable. As a manager, I
need to make certain that the goals are both specific and challenging in order to keep my
workforce engaged. I also feel that this strategy can be applied to my personal life, and I should
set goals for myself that fit this model in order to achieve the best possible results.
Expectancy Theory
Reading this article reminded me of a current situation at work. I like to try and tie in personal
experiences with these articles for a better understanding. I currently work for XTO Energy as an
intern in the accounts payable department. I am constantly trying to gain new responsibilities at
work hoping to get recognition and eventually, offered a full time accounting position. However,
the lady that sits in the cubical next to me has a completely different outlook when it comes to
work. She has a set of responsibilities that she takes care of but she won’t do more than she’s
expected to. She has even told me she doesn’t do more than she supposed to because she
doesn’t get rewarded or recognized. We don’t have the same job title, but my co-worker and I
have very similar roles. It amazes me that we do practically the same job but have different
expectations for the output. I like to try harder tasks at work, I even attempt tasks that I may not
be able to complete. But if I get to that point, I’ll go ask for help. How else am I going to learn? I
feel that I often approach a task at work with the expectation of a little acknowledgment. My
co-worker however, never expects recognition so why would she try a new task?
On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B
I really enjoyed reading this article. In particular, I liked the section that discussed wars and then
the section that discussed orphanages. This article definitely made me think in a different way
about both of these subjects. It is obvious that each individual soldier’s goal would be to come
home. However, I never thought that the amount of time an individual soldier has left to stay
and fight in the war, would determine how they approach their job every day. In World War II a
soldier didn’t get to go home until the war was over. In the Vietnam War, soldier’s only had to
stay until their tour was over. Therefore, soldiers in World War II were motivated to go out on
the front line to fight in order to achieve their goal. In the Vietnam War, soldiers didn’t have that
same urgency.
The section over the orphanages really shocked me! It seems like one reward system isn’t
necessarily better than the other. I would think the ultimate goal of an orphanage is to find
homes for as many children as possible. However, the more children and orphanage has, the
more benefits they receive. As a result, apparently, people think this is one of the reasons
adopting a child from an orphanage is so difficult. The orphanage wants more benefits so they
want to keep the children. The article states, “Who wants to be the director of the smallest
orphanage in the state?” After reading that question I thought, who wouldn’t want to be the
director of the smallest orphanage in the state? That means you were able to find more homes
for children, which is a good thing. But then the article made a very, very good point. If
orphanages were rewarded based on how many children they were able to find homes for,
orphanages may start putting kids in homes that are not actually suitable. This would be a bad
thing. At this point, I honestly don’t know what kind of reward system would work best for an
orphanage. It will be interesting to see what the rest of the class thinks during our discussion.
Goal Setting – A Motivational Technique That Works
When I was 16 years old, I started working at Sonic Drive-In. Unfortunately, I stayed until I was
21 and experienced 3 different store managers during that time. Each of them having a different
management style that is actually very similar to the 3 logging supervisors in this article.
The first store manager I had didn’t assign individual employees certain jobs, although he would
actually stay and work with all the other employees. The second store manager was exactly the
opposite, he would assign individual employees certain responsibilities for the day. For example
he would assign one employee to the soda fountain machine, there would be a few employees
assigned to take orders, and then there would be several employees assigned to take orders out
to the customers. However, this supervisor never stuck around. He’d come in, assign jobs, do
some office work on his computer, then he’d leave for the day. The third store manager, in my
opinion, was the best. She would assign employees jobs but then she would also stay around
and work with us. Sometimes she felt more like a co-worker than my store manager. I personally
saw better work performance from the third store manager.
