Developing Managerial Skills Through Coaching: Efficacy of a Cognitive-Behavioral Coaching Program

Managerial coaching is currently seen as an effective leadership practice facilitating learning process of the employees for performing better and being more effective in organizations. This article builds on recent research on the importance of the managerial coaching by empirically investigating the effects of a cognitive-behavioral coaching programme over mid-level managers. Due to the similarities between managerial coaching behaviors and transformational leadership behaviors, we have adopted the transformational leadership model as theoretical framework for evaluating management behaviors. The study used a pre-posttest approach to test the effects of the coaching program especially designed for 23 mid-level managers having as responsibility the supervision of production teams in a multinational organization. The major aims of the program consisted of: developing managerial coaching skills, assertive communication skills, motivation of subordinates. Overall, the analysis of results elicited an increase of scores in the leadership behavior dimensions measured by multifactor leadership questionnaire that are part of the managerial coaching skills. Besides, the effectiveness perceived as an indicator of performance was significantly higher upon completion of the coaching program. Findings suggest that coaching, as a professional development method, has great potential to contribute to the managerial behaviors that facilitate development at subordinate level, as they are captured by some transformational and transactional scales. Such knowledge can be informative for practitioners as well in developing effective managers and leaders and understanding and managing employee attitudes and behaviors in organizations.     

Transformational Leadership and Sports Performance: The Mediating Role of Intrinsic Motivation1

We developed and tested a model in which transformational leadership affects sports performance indirectly, through the mediating effects of intrinsic motivation. During the season, 168 university athletes provided data on their perceptions of their coach's transformational leadership and their own intrinsic motivation. At the end of the season, their coaches assessed the performance of the athletes. Using LISREL VIII, three models were estimated following the sequence of mediator tests outlined by Kelloway (1996, 1998). The proposed model received considerable support. The results isolate intrinsic motivation as a mediator of the relationship between transformational leadership and sports performance, suggesting that transformational leadership may enhance intrinsic interest in the task.     

Motivation by ideal

Moral ideals should not be seen as simple and purely personal, but as complex values with a social dimension that transcend attempts to formulate or realize them. Orientation towards ideals needs a realistic component: people should identify with the quest for an ideal, not with the ideal itself, and consider the possibility of negative consequences of their pursuit. Such realism about ideals includes acknowledging that ideals are not the only, nor the most important, motivating force of morality.     

Motivation by Ideal

Abstract

I offer an account of how ideals motivate us. My account suggests that although emulating an ideal is often rational, it can lead us to do irrational things.     

Incentives and Seat Belts: Changing a Resistant Behavior Through Extrinsic Motivation

Because previously-attempted methods of increasing automobile seat belt usage have proven to be either ineffective or unworkable, a series of field experiments was carried out to test a technique of behavior influence utilizing a modest, positive incentive. In three separate studies, seat belt use of 4,745 drivers was observed as they drove out of a parking lot, after receiving one of several safety reminder leaflets. Some versions of the leaflet offered a gift certificate to a certain proportion of drivers who wore seat belts; other versions offered no incentive. The results showed that an incentive, regardless of the probability of payoff, raised belt use from about 15% to nearly 40%. Implications for future research and applications are discussed.     

Moral Disengagement Through Displacement of Responsibility: The Role of Leadership Beliefs

The present study examined the relationship between a person's leadership beliefs and the propensity to justify his or her unethical behavior by shifting responsibility to those people in leadership positions who ordered or condoned the behavior. Theoretical support for this relationship comes from the moral disengagement branch of social cognitive theory, which proposes that one cognitive mechanism people employ to justify unethical behavior involves displacing responsibility for their action onto someone else ( Bandura, 1999b ). The study's results revealed that leadership self‐efficacy, affective and noncalculative motivation to lead, and shared orientation toward leadership were related to moral disengagement through the displacement of responsibility.     

Expressing Intrinsic Motivation Through Acts of Exploration and Facial Displays of Interest

Intrinsically-motivated behavior has been defined through participants' task persistence, during a free-choice interval. While fruitful, this operational definition assesses only the person's postperformance reaction to an activity. Presumably, people experience and express intrinsic motivation during task engagement as well. The need therefore exists for a supplemental in-performance behavioral measure of intrinsic motivation. To test the viability of constructing such a measure, we recorded the extent to which five acts of exploration and four facial displays of interest corresponded to self-reports of interest, self-determination, and competence for 60 undergraduates as they solved SOMA puzzles. Correlational and LISREL analyses confirmed the validity of three acts of exploration and two facial displays of interest We concluded that just as task persistence is a valid postperformance indicator of intrinsic motivation, acts of exploration and facial displays of interest are valid in-performance indicators.     

Shaping EU Attitudes Through Identity Leadership: Investigating Pro-EU and EU-Skeptic Identity Narratives

The European Union (EU) faces many challenges. Chief among them are (1) the growing electoral appeal of EU-skeptic parties, (2) the prevalence of negative narratives about the EU, and (3) frequent marginalization of government leaders openly advocating EU membership. It is hence unsurprising that the EU attitude literature focuses heavily on ways in which leaders undermine (rather than bolster) confidence in the EU. The aim of this conceptual article is to fill this void and to shine a spotlight on how leaders seek to restore confidence in the EU. Rather than to merely describe what pro-EU leaders say in public, we propose a conceptual model that combines older EU attitude research (into “nested” social identities and perceived identity compatibility), with more recent social psychology research (into “identity mobilization” and “identity leadership”). By combining insights from both fields, our framework enables us to gain a deeper understanding of why certain pro-EU narratives can be expected to “take hold” and instill faith in the EU among the public at large. The discussion focuses on the implications for EU leadership.     

The Unintended Effect of Perceived Transformational Leadership Style on Workaholism: The Mediating Role of Work Motivation

Abstract

Given the apparent magnitude of the problems related to workaholism, the current research was designed to provide evidence about the impact of both personal and organizational variables on determining health-damaging work habits of the employees. This paper presents a study aimed at clarifying the mediating role that work motivation plays in the relationship between the perceived transformational leadership style and workaholism. Based on the Self-Determination Theory and the Job Demands–Resources model, we hypothesized that transformational leadership should be directly related to the lower levels of workaholism, whereas the indirect effect of transformational leadership was expected to increase the levels of workaholism through work motivation of the employees. Two hundred and fifty Lithuanian employees participated in the empirical study. The results confirmed the expected relationship between transformational leadership and workaholism via work motivation showing that the negative role of transformational leadership in workaholism is explained by its positive influence on intrinsic motivation, as well as introjected, integrated, identified regulations, which, in turn, enhance the employees’ workaholism.     

Examining Family Communication Patterns and Seeking Social Support Direct and Indirect Effects Through Ability and Motivation

Seeking social support remains a relatively understudied aspect of supportive communication. By integrating the literatures on family communication patterns (FCPs) and supportive communication, this study examines dispositional factors that influence support seeking in particular situations. Specifically, communicative ability and motivation to seek support were theorized to mediate the relationship between FCPs and recalled strategies of support seeking. Results from a sample (N = 352) of undergraduate students not only demonstrate that people's FCPs impart different levels of communicative ability and motivation to seek support, but also indirectly influence people's strategies of support seeking. Ability and motivation also directly influence support seeking, and several of these effects are moderated by participants' sex.     

Empowering Mimicry: Female Leader Role Models Empower Women in Leadership Tasks Through Body Posture Mimicry

Sex Roles - In two studies we investigated the behavioral process through which visible female leader role models empower women in leadership tasks. We proposed that women tend to mimic the...     

Why Managerial Women are Less Happy Than Managerial Men

Women with managerial careers are significantly less satisfied with their life than their male counterparts. Why? In a representative German panel dataset (GSOEP) we find biological constraints and substitutive mechanisms determining the subjective well-being of female managers. Women’s terminated fertility has a negative impact on women’s life satisfaction between the ages of 35 and 45, when managerial careers usually take off. Money and spare time can compensate for this biological difference. But to maintain an equivalent level of happiness, women need to be compensated by much more income for each hour of spare time given up than men do. So, in order to reach better gender equality in leadership positions, women must be either paid higher incomes (on average around 10%) or must be incentivized with more spare time than men. In the conclusion, we speculate on a new mix of carrots and sticks for advanced careers in order to boost female representation in leadership positions.     

Authoritarian–benevolent Leadership and its Effect on Graduate Student Creativity: The Mediating Role of Intrinsic Motivation

Despite numerous studies demonstrating that authoritarian leadership and benevolent leadership exert incompatible influence on an individual’s creativity, the combined effects of authoritarian leadership and benevolent leadership on an individual’s creativity and the related mechanisms have yet to be explained. This study tests a model that considers the combined effects of authoritarian and benevolent leadership on graduate student creativity in the universities in China, while also examining the mediating role of the intrinsic motivation of graduate students. Multisource data were collected from 297 graduate students in 60 university scientific research teams in China. The results show that when authoritarian leadership and benevolent leadership are in congruence, the intrinsic motivation of graduate students and their creativity increase as supervisor authoritarianism and benevolence increases. When authoritarian leadership and benevolent leadership are in discrepancy, the intrinsic motivation of graduate students is higher when low supervisor authoritarianism is combined with high benevolence; however, the findings also show that low authoritarian leadership combined with high benevolent leadership would not increase graduate student creativity. The relationship between authoritarian–benevolent leadership and graduate student creativity is partially mediated by intrinsic motivation. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.     

论管理权威

传统的权力观认为,有权就有威,以权树威,从这种观点出发,必然会导致权力的异化。因此,为了克服权力的异化现象,提高管理效率,最终实现管理价值,现代管理者必须彻底转变传统的用权方式,真正树立起被管理客体认同的管理权威。管理权威的实质是指管理者拥有的岗位权力和个人威望的有机整合,是以精神感召力、影响力、凝聚力等使人信服的威望为基础,通过社会组织赋予的权力来影响和改变他人思想、行动的一种支配力量。