The chapters this week focus on thefollowersand thesituationsin the interactional framework.
Let me start by saying that these are both wonderful chapters with lots of information. There is no good way to write a few all-encompassing questions to get you to read and reflect on all of the ideas from both chapters in a 5-6 page full written reflections. I'm giving you some things to look at and make sense of in the reflection questions, but please also read through the rest of the chapters and apply the concepts to your workplaces and other organizations with which you are familiar. This is good stuff!
Also, we will be jumping into the leadership theory timeline starting next week for the middle three weeks of the term. We WILL come back to the ideas of followers and situations, and how the appropriate styles of leadership will depend on those elements, with the leadership contingency models. Chapters 11 and 13 give us a wider ranges of ideas to use when analyzing the influences of followers and situations. Some of the follower characteristics come up again in the organizational behavior class.
The directions for the Textbook Reflection assignment are the same as for last week Show the concepts from the book AND show application to your experiences and organizations. Your examples can be sales positions to show application to experiences Reference cites from the textbook in your text with quotation marks and a page number. Reference outside resources, if you need them, with formal APA reference citation methods. An informal, first-person style is totally fine. These are great concepts--have fun with them.
Chapter 11 - Focus on the Followers (answer all four questions--probably about one page each)
1. Let's start our reflections on Chapter 11 by revisiting an idea from Chapter 1. Read Highlight 1.4 (on page 19) and make sense ofKelley's Five Follower Behaviors(tip: Google "Kelley's Five Follower Behaviors" and look at it drawn out as a figure). Relate these concepts to organizations in which you've been a part. Can you think of times when you have been those different types of followers (aliented, conformist, pragmatist, passive, exemplary)?
2. Describe the concepts ofsocial loafingandsocial facilitationand give examples of times that you have experienced those concepts in real life.
3. Get to know theStages of Group Development(p. 429) and describe one or two examples of times when you clearly saw the developmental stages of a group.Adjourn, the final stage of an ad-hoc group, could also have been evident.
4. Describe "cohesion" and why it is necessary, but also how it might be abused. Give a personal example or two. For fun, you should Google"Abilene Paradox"and discover another way that groupthink can creep into group behavior.
Chapter 13 - Focus on the Situation (answer this one question--probably about two pages)
5. Look at and describe the meanings of Figure 13.3 on p. 529. What information is being presented in that figure and how do you see it relating to situations that you've encountered before? As a figure, everything is drawn in certain ways to relay ideas and concepts. Explain Figure 13.3 and give some personal examples. *Don't fluff--read the chapter and pull it apart.