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1. Chapter 8. Building an Effective, Ethical Small Group
The Leader and the Small Group
 Leaders spend a great deal of their time in small groups,
either chairing or participating in meetings.
 Meeting expert John Tropman points out that high-
quality management is the product of high-quality
meetings that render high-quality decisions.
 Groups meet for many different purposes: to coordinate
activities, to pass along important information, to clarify
misunderstandings, and to build relationships.
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

2. Fostering Ethical Accountability
A group’s success or failure is highly dependent on
the behaviors of its individual members.
The job of the leader is to foster ethical
accountability, to encourage followers to live up to
their moral responsibilities to the rest of the group.
A critical moral duty of group members is to pursue
shared goals—to cooperate.
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

3. Fostering Ethical Accountability
Cooperative groups:
 Are more willing to take on difficult tasks and persist in the
face of difficulties
 Retain more information
 Engage in higher-level reasoning and more critical thinking
 Generate more creative ideas, tactics, and solutions
 Transfer more learning from the group to individual
members
 Are more positive about the task
 Spend more time working on tasks
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

4. Fostering Ethical Accountability
Creating a cooperative climate is also difficult when
group members fail to do their fair share of the work.
Social psychologists use the term social loafing to
describe the fact that individuals often reduce their
efforts when placed in groups.
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

5. Fostering Individual Ethical Accountability
Explanations for Social Loafing
 When people work in a group, they may feel that their
efforts will have little impact on the final result.
 Karau and Williams believe that “individuals will be
willing to exert effort on a collective task only to the
degree that they expect their efforts to be instrumental in
obtaining outcomes that they value personally.
 The motivation in this theory relies on expectancy,
instrumentality, and valence.
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

6. Resisting Groupthink and False Agreement
Groupthink
 Social psychologist Irving Janis developed the label
groupthink to describe groups that put unanimous
agreement ahead of reasoned problem solving.
 Groups that suffer from groupthink fail to:
 (a) consider all the alternatives,
 (b) gather additional information,
 (c) reexamine a course of action when it’s not working,
 (d) carefully weigh risks,
 (e) work out contingency plans, or
 (f) discuss important moral issues.
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

7. Promoting Ethical Group Interaction
Leaders need to encourage productive
communication patterns that enable members to
establish positive bonds and make wise ethical
choices.
Important communication skills and tactics include
comprehensive, critical listening; supportive
communication; emotional intelligence, productive
conflict management; argumentation, and
expression of minority opinion.
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

8. Comprehensive, Critical Listening
All listening involves receiving, paying attention to,
interpreting, and then remembering messages.
Type of listening:
 Discriminative listening
 Comprehensive listening
 Therapeutic or empathetic listening
 Critical listening
 Appreciative listening
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

9. Comprehensive, Critical Listening
Suggestions for improving listening performance in a group
setting:
 Avoid interruptions
 Seek areas of agreement
 Search for meanings and avoid arguing about specific words
 Ask questions and request clarification
 Be patient
 Compensate for attitudinal biases
 Listen for principles, concepts, and feelings
 Compensate for emotion-arousing words and ideas
 Be flexible
 Listen, even if the message is boring or tough to follow
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

10. Defensive Versus Supportive Communication
Defensiveness is a major threat to accurate listening.
On the other hand, supportive messages increase
accuracy because group members devote more
energy to interpreting the content and emotional
states of sources.
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

11. Defensive Versus Supportive Communication
6 pairs of behaviors that promote either a defensive
or a supportive group atmosphere.
 Evaluation Versus Description
 Control Versus Problem Orientation
 Strategy Versus Spontaneity
 Neutrality Versus Empathy
 Superiority Versus Equality
 Certainty Versus Provisionalism
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

12. Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence consists of:
 1. Awareness and management of personal emotions
 2. Recognizing and influencing the emotions of others
Teams with a high emotional intelligence (EI)
effectively address three levels of emotions:
 Individual
 Within the team
 Outside groups
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

13. Emotional Intelligence
Raising team EI is an important leadership
responsibility, which is accomplished largely through
role modeling and establishing norms.
 Demonstrate our EI as leaders before we can improve the
emotional climate of the group
 Display emotions that are appropriate to the situation
 Refrain from hostility
 Be sensitive to group moods
 Take the lead in confronting emotional issues
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

14. Norms That Help Regulate Emotions
Norms That Help Regulate Emotions
 Confronting
 Caring
 Creating resources for working with emotions
 Creating an affirmative environment
 Building external relationships
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

15. Productive Conflict
 Positive outcomes of substantive (constructive) conflict:
 Accurate understanding of the arguments and positions of others in
the group
 Higher-level moral reasoning
 Thorough problem analysis
 Improved self-understanding and self-improvement
 Stronger, deeper relationships
 Creativity and change
 Greater motivation to solve the problem
 Improved mastery and retention of information
 Deeper commitment to the outcome of the discussion
 Increased group cohesion and cooperation
 Improved ability to deal with future conflicts
 High-quality solutions that integrate the perspective of all members
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

16. Leadership Ethics at the Movies: The Avengers
Discussion Questions:
 What signs of competitive and individualistic attitudes
do you note in the Avenger team?
 What does it take to bring team members together?
 What parallels do you see between the Avengers and
real life teams?
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

17. Engaging in Effective Argument
An argument is an assertion or a claim that is
supported by evidence and reasons.
In the argumentation process, group members
interact with each other using claims, evidence, and
reasoning in hopes of reaching the best decision.
Argumentation in a small group is not very formal or
structured.
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

18. Engaging in Effective Argument
Basic tasks in leading an effective argument
 1. Identify just what the controversy is about.
 2. Assemble and present your arguments.
 3. Back up your claim with examples, personal experience,
testimonials from others, and statistics.
 4. Supply reasons or logic for your position.
 5. Identify and attack the weaknesses in the positions of other
participants.
 6. Members of successful groups catch their errors and get the
group back on track through corrective communication called
counteractive influence.
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

19. Minority Opinion
Leaders, then, need to both foster minority opinion
and protect dissenters. You can do so by:
 (1) forming groups made up of members who have significantly
different backgrounds and perspectives,
 (2) encouraging participation from all group members,
 (3) appointing individuals to argue for an alternative point of view,
 (4) developing two options for group members to evaluate based on
two different sets of assumptions,
 (5) reminding members of the importance of minority views,
 (6) creating a group learning orientation which is more focused on
finding better solutions than defending one position or another, and
 (7) offering their support for dissenters.
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

20. Avoiding Moral Pitfalls: Groupthink
Symptoms of Groupthink
 Signs of overconfidence
 Illusion of invulnerability.
 Belief in the inherent morality of the group.
 Signs of Closed-Mindedness
 Collective rationalization.
 Stereotypes of outside groups.
 Signs of Group Pressure
 Pressure on dissenters.
 Self-censorship.
 Illusion of unanimity.
 Self-appointed mind guards.
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

21. Follower Ethics
Self-Leadership in Self-Managed Teams
 Business experts Christopher Neck and Charles Manz
believe that self-leadership is key to living up to our duties
as followers.
 3 components of self-leadership:
 1. We need to lead ourselves to do unattractive but necessary
tasks.
 2. The second component is taking advantages of naturally
rewarding activities.
 3. We need to shape our psychological worlds or thought self
leadership.
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

22. Groupthink
Suggestions for reducing groupthink:
 If you’re appointed as the group’s leader, avoid expressing a
preference for a particular solution.
 Divide regularly into subgroups, then bring the whole group
back together.
 Bring in outsiders to challenge the group’s ideas.
 Avoid isolation.
 Role-play the reactions.
 Once the decision has been made, give group members one
last chance to express any remaining doubts about the
decision.
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

23. Teamthink
Charles Manz and his colleagues believe that self-
managing work teams should replace groupthink
with “teamthink.”
In teamthink, groups encourage divergent views,
combining the open expression of concerns and
doubts with a healthy respect for their limitations.
Teamthink, like thought self-leadership, is a
combination of mental imagery, self-dialogue, and
realistic thinking.
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

24. False Agreement
George Washington University management
professor Jerry Harvey offers an alternative to
groupthink based on false agreement.
Harvey believes that blaming group pressure is just
an excuse for our individual shortcomings.
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

25. Abilene Paradox
5 Psychological factors that account for the Abilene
Paradox
 1. Action anxiety
 2. Negative fantasies
 3. Real risk
 4. Fear of separation
 5. Psychological reversal of risk and certainty
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

26. Escalation of Commitment
One of the consequences of mismanaged agreement
is continuing to pursue a failed course of action.
Social psychologists refer to this tendency as
escalation of commitment.
Escalation of commitment is driven by a number of
factors.
 The first is self-enhancement or the need to look good.
 Sunk costs also drive escalation.
 Risk seeking is a third factor driving escalation.
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

27. Escalation of Commitment
Keil and Montealegre offer seven steps to help
leaders and groups navigate this process:
 1. Don’t ignore negative feedback or external pressure
 2. Hire an external auditor
 3. Don’t be afraid to withhold further funding
 4. Look for opportunities to redefine the problem
 5. Manage impressions
 6. Prepare your stakeholders
 7. Deinstitutionalize the project
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

28. Establishing Ethical Relationships with Other Groups
Intergroup leadership is the process of bringing
diverse groups to achieve common goals.
Competition and conflict are significant barriers to
intergroup leadership.
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.

29. Case Study: Weed and the Workplace
Discussion Questions:
 Would you have voted for the marijuana initiatives in
Colorado and Washington? Why or why not?
 Do you think that marijuana has a legitimate medical
use?
 What values are in conflict in this case?
 What ethical principles can be applied when deciding
whether or not to fire employees who test positive for
legal marijuana use?
 Is it ethical for employers to fire employees testing
positive for legal marijuana use? Why or why not?
© 2015 SAGE Publications, Inc.