MGHC02H3 Lecture 2: Educating the Modern Manager, Doing an Alexander & Managing Oneself
Leadership Skills and Self-Awareness
Educating the Modern Manager - Hogan and Warrenfeltz
• In business, technology changes
• Human nature does not change - is infinitely flexible and reflects the changing cultural,
economic, and historical conditions that surrounds it
• “It isn’t what you don’t know that will hurt you, it’s what you do know that isn’t true” →
self-awareness and human nature, little attention to this
• What is learning?
o Learning is defined in 2 ways:
▪ Gestalt psychology - people construct mental models of the world to
interpret reality and guide behaviour
• Process of deeper understanding (knowing that)
▪ Behaviourism - defines learning as a change in behaviour after an
experience
• Process of acquiring skills (knowing how)
• 2 Important lessons executives to learn:
o Evaluating the mental models that they hold regarding their capabilities and
others’ expectations of their performance
o How these mental models are expressed in behavioural terms (social skill)
• What drives learning?
o Behaviourists - learning is driven by efforts to meet psychological needs (hunger,
thirst, avoidance of pain)
▪ Behaviours rewarded are learned, behaviours not rewarded not retained
▪ Acquisition of skills depends on absence or presence of rewards, and not
punishments
o Gestalt tradition - learning is driven by “epistemic hunger” by a desire to
understand or master the world (even at expense of physiological needs)
▪ Learning shaped by errors and mistakes, failures are what challenges our
understanding and drives us to reconceptualize the world
• Learning and development
o Behaviourist tradition - learning new skills based on if prior skills are available
and developing self by steady layering of skills
o Classic developmental tradition (Piaget) - development has a clear start and end
point with stages, lessons (mental models) can only be learned in specified stage
• Learning and motivation
o Motive has 2 meanings:
▪ Intentions - being committed and intend to follow action are motivated
▪ Biological needs - people motivated by certain needs
o 3 meta motives in life that people need:
▪ Acceptance and approval
▪ Status, power, and control of resources
▪ Predictability and order
• Competency - performance capability that distinguished effective or ineffective
managers
• Competency model can be organized in terms of 4 competency domains:
o Intrapersonal skills
▪ 3 components:
