page 2
daily nebraskan
Wednesday, november4, 1981
Professor uses observation to measure leaders
By Tom Shelton
A UNL professor in the College of Bus
iness Administration said traditional
"paper and pencil" methods of measuring
leadership are not adequate.
Fred Luthans is using direct observation
of leadership as the major method of a
three-year study which began in June
1980. The study is financed by a $250,000
grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Re
search. Researchers studying leadership have
been going about it in the wrong way,
Luthans said.
"We all agree leadership makes a differ
ence in successes and failures, that leader
ship often tips the balance," he said. "But
questionnaires and other such methods
have proven to be unreliable to measure
it."
As part of his direct observation
measurement technique, 120 managers
from five diverse organizations in Lincoln,
in both the public and private sectors, were
observed at work by their secretaries or
close subordinates and outside observers.
Organizations anonymous
Luthans said he could not mention the
names of the five organizations, saying that
anonymity was part of the agreement to
get them to participate.
Luthans calls his method a leadership
observation system. He said its purpose is
to directly measure leadership behavior,
which includes assessing behavior in
planning, coordinating, staffing, training,
developing, motivating, reinforcing and
several other areas.
Luthans said too often U.S. businesses
emphasize " bigger and better computers"
but neglect looking toward more effective
human resource management techniques.
He said his direct observation method
seems to be working. "The preliminary
results indicate it is reliable," he said.
Luthans said the United States is in a
perilous state of low productivity.
"Productivity in this country is in
trouble," he said. "From World War II to
the 1960s, America was in good shape, but
the mid-1960s saw a declining productivity
rate."
The blame for decreased productivity
has been misplaced, Luthans said.
Same problems
"We can blame OPEC oil prices, double
digit inflation, the increasing cost of
government," he said, "but the fact is that
other countries face the same problems,
sometimes in worse doses, but their pro
ductivity rate isn't going to pot the way
ours is."
Luthans said Western European countr
ies and Japan have higher productivity
rates than the United States and better
methods of leadership.
Luthans said he is optimistic about his
project and his method of measuring
leadership.
"It is clear that direct measures can in
deed provide a reliable alternative measure
ment technique to questionnaires," he said.
"We have also found there is considerable
disagreement between how leaders view
themselves and how subordinates, peers
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and supervisors view them."
The remaining two years of Luthans' re
search will be spent testing the validity of
his research method and establishing a
measurement scheme with "predictive
validity."
"In other words, leaders who have
certain measured behaviors will be predict
ed to have certain performance outcomes,"
he said. "This goal of predictive validity
will not be easy to attain, but if
accomplished, there are tremendously
important implications for selection, train
ing, development and appraisal."
lie said he hopes the result of this
measurement system will help business,
government, hospitals, schools and the
military better select and appraise their
managerial personnel and improve the pro
ductivity of their people.
Issues become more simple
as election day draws near
If you have ever thought that president
ial candidates seem to state the issues much
more simply before an election than after,
a new psychological study says you are
right.
Reporting recently in the Journal of Per
sonality and Social Psychology, University
of California (Berkeley) psychologist Dr.
Philip E. Tetlock studies the pre- and post
election policy statements of 20th-century
American presidents to determine whether
they were more clear or complex near
election day, and why. The study used a
psychological scale to measure the
complexity of statements made by new
presidents, those seeking re-election and
vice presidents who won the presidential
seat.
Two theories were tested. The first,
called "impression management," says that
presidents deliberately present issues as
"rigid, black-and-white generalizations"
during election campaigns to win popular
support. Once in power, however, they
quickly learn the constraints and demands
of office. Though presidents may not
blatantly abandon past commitments, they
rapidly adopt more flexible and complex
policy positions when faced with the need
to make difficult value trade-offs and to
justify sometimes unpopular decisions to
skeptical audiences.
The second theory, known as "cognitive
adjustment," implies that new presidents
need time, sometimes several months or
even years, to learn to see issues in more
practical ways, and so develop a more
genuine and gradual change in policy per
spective. The result found that presidents' state
ments became sharply more simplified as
re-election time approached, were rapidly
more complex during a president's first
month in office, but did not increase in
complexity with the length of time in
office. Even the policy statements of re
elected presidents were more simplified be
tween their next-to-last and last years of
terms in office.
According to Tetlock, the findings
suggest that the increased complexity of
new presidents' statements is part of a self
conscious, political strategy.
The study warns, though, that there
may be times when a president's more
simplified election rhetoric fhay be caused
by reasons that are not so strategic. For ex
ample, presidents possibly may think about
issues in more complex ways than they
choose to reveal to the public. A presi
dent's tendency for more complex state
ments may also be related partly to an in
creased appreciation of the complexities of
government, discovered quickly between
election and inauguration days as the president-elect
makes cabinet appointments and
outlines the new administration's policies.
Workshops in human services set
Omaha will be the site of
a new series of workshops
for persons employed in hu
man services.
Six workshops are
scheduled in the series
which is sponsored by the
UNL Division of Continuing
Studies and the UNO
School of Social Work.
The first workshop will
be Nov. 13 at the Peter
Kiewit Conference Center in
Omaha. This morning work
ship will focus on conflict
management in the group
setting. Group process
theory will be briefly re
viewed and conflict manage
ment concepts will be
emphasized. Experiential
exercises will provide ex
amples of practice skills for
dealing with conflict.
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