A circle, as its name implies, is a circle, a closed curve with a point as the center and a certain length as the radius. A difficult symbol in this mathematics seems simple, but in fact it is ever-changing and beyond words. Nowadays, all kinds of circles in life go hand in hand and change with each passing day, so it is difficult to find a positive solution. How deep the "water" hidden in the "circle" is, people can't find a ready-made authoritative answer, but can only understand it as a kind of interest entanglement relationship of "dividing land into prisons". Yours, mine and his, everyone made many circles, small circles, big circles and circles around the center of the circle, forming a unique cultural phenomenon in China.
Circles are "varied", but there are "circle rules", just like a ripple caused by a stone thrown into the water, which often causes a domino effect, extending outward one after another. In some circles, you pull me, I pull you, "holding a group" is one, water can't be poured in, and needles can't be inserted; In some circles, you try your best for me, and I try my best for you, whether public or private, all become loyalty and buddy loyalty; In some circles, one glory and one loss, the tree attracts the wind, and the wall is pushed down by everyone; There are circles, eating meat in chunks, drinking in big bowls and swearing loudly. But insiders are absolutely tacit, just like the "hidden rules" we often say. Who is the boss? Who is the messenger? You are not allowed to break the rules of the game. For example, many years ago, Li Changping wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, which destroyed the "hidden rules" of officialdom. No matter how popular you are, you should leave.
The circle pays attention to one mud and three gangs. People trapped in circles call each other brothers and flatter each other. If something goes wrong, they will try their best to cover it up. For people outside the circle, make things difficult in many ways, repel blows, and hit people when they are down. For example, often criticizing a "circle" into a "gang" is an example; For another example, if someone in the circle mixes some tricks, then the people in his original circle will also benefit tangibly and invisibly. The people who make up the "circle" have different mentality, but the purpose is clear, which is nothing more than to gain benefits from the "circle", and some are friendship, but more for "interests * * *".
The circle has a background. Most circles rely on the magic sword of power, but everyone around them, whether fish or shrimp, actively builds it, and finally forms a seemingly simple but unfathomable "black hand" in behind-the-scenes trading. Once the crime is committed, the whole circle will fall into the net. Insiders often divide and define by "you are my line". If your behavior ignores the interests of the circle, it will be considered betrayal and ingratitude. To say that the official career is on the wrong side is actually to define that so-and-so is one of our own and whether so-and-so is one of our own to "determine the front." At present, there is a common phenomenon that big officials are close to big money or big money is close to big officials, which is an abnormal cycle. In the past, a rich man named Zhou entered the circle of the Chief Executive. Another financial tycoon called that he entered Cheng's circle, which is the most convincing practical evidence. These corrupt officials and criminals who play "circle" games, one uses power to pave the way for their own business, and the other uses the banner as a tiger skin to seek illegitimate interests. They colluded with each other to get rich and made profits in Man Ku, but it was the country and the people who suffered.
Others are ensnared by the "circle". This circle "net" often refers to factions, "hills" or "small gangs" or "small groups" formed in some units, some organs and some leading bodies because of the struggle for power and profit. If a place, a unit and a team artificially draw several "circles" and set up several "hills", then the unit will inevitably suffer internal friction, division and contradiction. At present, there are people who do things, look at things, talk sarcastically and stumble. In-fighting, everyone is in danger, where can you work with peace of mind? We call this phenomenon "internal friction" or "throbbing" peculiar to China people. Internal friction caused by circles has become a social disease, organ disease, team disease and crowd syndrome. This kind of circle does not talk about morality and principles, and everything takes a "profit" as a "circle".
In the era of poverty, in the sinister environment, the circle has added a lot of warmth to people. He is touching and full of power. However, if there are too many human feelings and emotions in the circle, many bad habits will appear. Joining a party for selfish ends, cronyism, valuing hometown over talents, going through the back door, immoral, cheating by bending the law, and concealing the faults of relatives and friends. The result is a cigar.
Today's social circle culture is sometimes too huge and complicated, which can be described as "nowhere to be found in the vast circle of the sea." People seem to have an edge, but they can't touch the end. A circle is sometimes another name for a trap. People who are good at playing this game like to engage in friction and are used to the opposite of trees. Their motto in life is: "It's fun to fight with others." The characteristics of this kind of people are: narrow-minded and jealous of talents; Yang is obedient to Yin, but not obedient. Have bad intentions and cater to them; Whispering, blowing, patting. In-fighting, everyone is in danger, where can you work with peace of mind?
In this era of competing interests, the circle is fermenting and expanding, and people have started all kinds of "gaining movement". Everyone has made many circles for the garden heart, and everyone is in the circle, looking for their own answers. "Drilling" is many and tiring, but the circle may not cover all the needs after all, but people continue to drill. Your own circle, someone else's circle. It is the circle formed by these people that hinders the progress and development of this society.
Do you know that there is also a theory of "circle culture" in management?
That's it? LMX theory, LMX theory, LMX theory, read after me three times.
LMX theory: the theory of leader-member exchange (LMX theory for short) was first put forward by George Graeo and Uhl-Bien in 1976. In the process of studying VDL model, they got such a theory through pure theoretical deduction. The collection of organizational membership relationships often includes a small number of high-quality exchange relationships (between members in the circle) and most low-quality exchange relationships (between members outside the circle and members in the circle).
The leader-member exchange theory (LMX) points out that due to time pressure, leaders have established special relationships with a few subordinates. These individuals become insiders, they gain trust, get more attention from leaders, and enjoy privileges more easily.
1. contribution: in the relationship between the two parties, individuals perceive the quantity, quality and direction of the other party's investment in work-related activities.
2. Loyalty: openly support each other's goals and personal advantages in the relationship.
3. Emotion; In the relationship between the two sides, there are three aspects based on the feelings of interpersonal attraction to the other side (rather than work or professional value).
Glenn's LMX theory puts forward three possible relationships between leaders and subordinates? [ 1]? , these relationships include:
(1) The relationship between the leader and a single subordinate (two-dimensional vector relationship, the relationship between the leader and a single subordinate is one-to-one, which is different from multi-dimensional relationship).
(2) the relationship between leaders and subordinate groups (balanced leadership style, leaders treat every subordinate in the organization in the same way).
(3) the relationship between leaders and two different subordinate groups (leaders treat differently.
People in a group have different attitudes, but people in the same group have the same attitude.
For a long time, the research on leader-member exchange has mostly focused on the personal relationship between leaders and subordinates and the consequences of this relationship.
The formation of leader-member exchange relationship is a process of development and change with the evolution of time. Bauer company. Green (1996) mainly starts with the analysis of the exchange relationship model in the "duality" of a single leader and member, and thinks that the formation and development of the "vertical duality" exchange relationship between leader and member will go through three stages, namely, the contact and evaluation stage, the cognition and action stage and the emotion and trust stage.
In the contact and evaluation stage. Because leaders and members know little about each other's information, the demographic characteristics and individual similarity of both sides have great influence on the initial development of the relationship.
With the passage of time and the increase of contacts, leaders' evaluation and assessment of members no longer rely solely on prejudice and "halo" (Dienesch &; Li Deng, 1986).
The level of members' performance depends on their personal ability and the degree of acquisition of perceived resources and power, and power is often the result of leadership authorization. But for a leader, authorization itself means taking risks, so a leader must first trust his subordinates (Lewis &; Veigert, 1985). In the stage of understanding and action, members with high performance and strong ability in the early stage are easy to gain more trust and win more authorization than others.
Members who continuously achieve high performance will gain further trust and more authorization in the next workflow (Dieneseh &; Li Deng, 1986). In this way, through continuous emotional accumulation, continuous performance evaluation and authorization, leaders and members will establish high-quality communication relations in the emotional and trust stage (Bauer &; Green, 1996). On the contrary, in constant communication, leaders can only have low-quality communication relations with members who cannot get emotional support and trust authorization.
Bauer company. Green (1996) believes that the formation and development of the leader-member exchange relationship will go through four stages: in the first stage, leaders develop different relationships with different members, forming the distinction between "inside" and "outside". In the second stage, in the actual team work, leaders and members respectively take actions to improve the exchange relationship. Members in the "circle" try to keep their positions, and members outside the circle try to enter the "circle". In the process of mutual efforts, work performance and team performance have also improved. In the third stage, leaders and members * * * work and life scenes based on feelings and trust. In the fourth stage, the "binary" relationship of leading a member is sublimated to the team level and developed into the exchange relationship of team members. ? [3]
Green & Uhi-Bien( 1995) tries to adopt the path of expanding from individual level to group level, revealing the effect that leaders influence members' behavior and then their work performance. It seems to be more in line with the development characteristics of this field to study the model of leader-member exchange relationship at the group level or even the organization level (that is, the third and fourth stages). However, the domestic and foreign scholars in the third and fourth stages are less involved in this research, and the existing theoretical analysis and empirical research are not enough to explain it. Because in the actual organizational situation, the specific exchange relationship between a leader and members is not unaffected by other "duality", just as the fairness comparison between members in the "circle" will reverse the views of members on the leader; The feedback degree of members when using authorization will also affect the leaders' understanding of different members, thus changing the further evolution of exchange relations.
At the same time, this specific "binary" relationship is bound to be influenced by organizational culture and structure. Different organizational cultures reflect the values and ideologies observed by employees, including leaders. In a strong organizational culture, leaders and most members have similarities in organizational development goals and behavior orientations, so members may consciously establish high-quality leader-member exchange relationships with leaders based on feelings and trust. In today's flat development pattern of organizational structure, leaders can establish direct information exchange with multi-level members by means of science and technology at the same time, and the task execution under the conditions of knowledge creation and management also needs more full authorization. The flexible situation requires members to gradually strengthen their awareness and practice of self-management. The model of leader-member exchange relationship under this trend should be obviously different from the model at the individual level.
Although there are still some problems in the study of LMX theory that have not been solved systematically, we also see its application prospect. Looking forward to the theoretical research and application of LMX in the future, we need to pay special attention to the following aspects.
The formation of LMX relationship is a process of longitudinal development, and the research on LMX mostly stays in the first and second stages. Although the latter two stages reflect the characteristics of LMX development, there is still a lack of corresponding theoretical and empirical research. From the perspective of the development process of the superior-subordinate relationship in an organization, it will be an important trend to explore the structural characteristics of LMX relationship in different exchange stages and the corresponding leadership model. Especially in organizations based on team structure and network structure, what will happen to the characteristics of LMX and how it will affect the performance of the team or organization remains to be explored. Under the complex organizational background, understanding LMX relationship from the perspective of team management and expanding the pairing relationship between superiors and subordinates into the network interpersonal relationship in the organization are also effective extensions to the connotation of LMX theory. When LMX developed to TMX, its research object went beyond the pairing relationship between superiors and subordinates in the original organization and expanded into the interactive communication relationship among individuals, teams and organizations. This trend is in line with the new characteristics of organizational management that the organizational structure tends to be flat and the self-management of employees is paid more and more attention.
Consistency is an interesting and potentially valuable outcome variable. More and more people pay attention to the importance of studying L-M consistency, and begin to take it as an index to reflect the quality of LMX relations. Therefore, as a factor affecting the quality of LMX relationship, the complexity of consistency should be further recognized. In fact, the degree of consistency is the result of mutual experience between superiors and subordinates in their work, so the study of consistency needs to adopt the idea of longitudinal design as the corresponding variable (independent variable or dependent variable). In addition, the evaluation of LMX is more reliable than that of the superior, but LMX is a paired relationship after all, so both sides should always be measured, and more effective tools can be further explored to minimize the systematic error of consistency. To solve this problem, in order to improve the reliability of measurement, we can try to use social comparison terms instead of absolute numbers to evaluate the exchange quality of both parties from a relative perspective.
A complete LMX model should include two aspects, one is the structure of LMX itself, and the other is the cause and effect factors of LMX. Especially in the antecedent factors, the research involved is not only relatively few, but also mostly limited to individual analysis, such as demographic indicators such as age, gender, education level, race, hobbies and so on. The results of most studies show that the relationship between these indicators and the quality of LMX relationship is not close or significant, so further research is needed from the perspective of group or organizational background. For example, in addition to considering the personality characteristics between superiors and subordinates, the mechanism of some group or organizational variables in the formation of LMX relationship should be the focus of our further attention. In addition, in the future research, we should also pay attention to the interference of organizational situational variables in LMX model, consider the vertical development of organizational and situational variables, and build a dynamically integrated LMX model on this basis. At the same time, due to the uniqueness of LMX, it is possible to integrate it with other leadership theories. For example, the integration of LMX with charm theory, exchange leadership theory and transformational theory is of new significance for us to understand the key qualities that leaders must possess.
For the leaders in the organization, targeted LMX training is also one of the important means to improve the quality of LMX relations in the process of forming LMX relations. LMX training will be especially helpful to transform "outside" members into "inside" members. A complete LMX training plan should include two aspects: first, understand the formation process and efficacy of LMX, let leaders know the importance of LMX, and what behaviors can promote the establishment of high-quality superior-subordinate relationship; Secondly, LMX communication training, which is a long-term process, is based on improving leaders' information feedback, task analysis and authorization ability, and can be improved through seminars, role-playing and scenario simulation. Of course, this kind of training should also aim at the characteristics of different development stages of LMX relations. Generally speaking, it should start when subordinates just enter the organization. In the initial stage, the main focus is to promote the communication between superiors and subordinates in terms of "job expectations", so that subordinates can be clear and enter the job role as soon as possible. In the medium term, we should actively guide new members to undertake tasks other than certain roles. By guiding and encouraging new members to undertake more tasks, especially through certain incentives, we will improve our willingness to complete tasks and bring subordinates from "outside the circle" into the "circle" as much as possible. In the later period, we should pay attention to the dynamic development of LMX, constantly examine the relationship between the organizational scene and the established LMX, and make timely adjustments according to the changed environment to make it rise to the team level as soon as possible.
LMX has attracted great attention from psychologists and management scholars with its unique theoretical perspective, and people have gradually begun to pay attention to its application research while studying at a higher level. The theoretical progress of LMX provides an application framework for our practice and a very effective tool for leaders to maintain high-quality superior-subordinate relationship and greatly improve employee performance. The application of LMX theory in organizations has also transformed the traditional top-down one-way management into a interaction management between superiors and subordinates, even between employees and teams or organizations. This kind of interaction management puts more emphasis on communication, learning and shaping. In addition, LMX can also play an active role in the following aspects:
1)LMX can be organically combined with leaders' training and development plans to promote the improvement of leadership skills. Only when people respect and care for each other can they better reflect their own values and achievements. Especially in the era of diversified values, it is not enough to mobilize the enthusiasm of subordinates only by material means such as salary increase. Leaders need to master more "emotional" motivation skills, adopt different methods for different subordinates, need more emotional input, and constantly improve the effectiveness of organizational leadership.
2)LMX can be combined with employees' career development to enhance their ability to grasp the working environment and control the work difficulties, so as to realize the continuous improvement and transcendence of self-worth. Effective career design and development is an expectation for the future of individuals and organizations and an interdependent commitment. If employees want to win in their work, it is very important to make a career plan that knows ourselves, the environment is good and bad, and strengths and weaknesses are avoided. Effective career design and development emphasize the cooperation between subordinates and superiors. Especially as a leader, we must help every subordinate, provide them with the necessary ways and opportunities, develop and cultivate the necessary ability of these employees to achieve their career goals, and share the responsibility for the subordinates. LMX relationship can play an important role in determining career development goals and achieving these goals. At the same time, every progress in career development of both superiors and subordinates is a powerful impetus to the development of LMX relations.
3)LMX also helps to establish a good information communication network within the organization and achieve the purpose of improving the organizational atmosphere. More and more organizations regard internal communication as a strategic tool for organizational management, and it has been widely used. An important function of the application of LMX theory in organizations is to promote effective communication between superiors and subordinates, with more emphasis on interactive communication. Interactive communication can integrate reason, matter and emotion, endow information with greater universality and equality, and show the characteristics of short distance, fast feedback and more timely, so that both upper and lower levels can obtain richer, more comprehensive and more vivid information, which is conducive to comprehensive thinking and research, and also helps to establish a friendly image of leaders. Effective communication can promote the improvement of LMX relations at a higher level.
4)LMX also helps to enhance team spirit and organizational cohesion. Strengthening the establishment of LMX relationship will greatly promote the formation of cultural values oriented to trust, respect and support in the organization, create a sincere, open and equal team atmosphere, and encourage subordinates to actively show the expected behavior of the team. When LMX rises to TMX, the quality of team relationship will have a significant incremental effect. In addition, the empirical study shows that the relationship conflict in the organization is negatively related to the productivity of the team and the satisfaction of the team members. Relationship conflicts often destroy goodwill and mutual understanding between people and hinder the completion of team tasks. The advocacy of TMX in the organization will be very helpful to alleviate the conflict of team relations and maintain the lasting unity and cooperation of the team.
In a word, LMX theory has a broader application prospect. It is a very effective technology and method to improve leadership effectiveness and organizational performance by constructing and developing high-quality LMX relationships.
Generally speaking, there are two theoretical methods in traditional leadership scientific research. The first is the general leadership style theory, which tries to explore the characteristics of leaders compared with non-leaders; The second is the mixed leadership model theory, which tries to understand the leadership process through the individual behavior in the team. Different from the traditional leadership theory, the leader-member exchange theory does not only start from the leader or individual member, but takes the binary interaction between the leader and the member as the research object. ? [2]
The general leadership style theory mainly takes leaders as the research object, asking about their characteristics, styles and general leadership behaviors (for example, Fa Yueer, Drucker, ghiselli and Fidler describe the quality characteristics of leaders, who think that leaders have certain characteristics, such as healthy body, noble quality and expertise). The assumption of general leadership style theory is that leaders will treat everyone in the team in the same way, members of the team will have the same feelings and reactions, and they will exchange relations with leaders in almost the same behavior.
The theory of mixed leadership model partially adheres to the assumption of general leadership style theory, that is, it agrees that leaders will treat all members in the same way. At the same time, the theory also makes some amendments to the hypothesis that team members have different reactions to leadership behavior. Therefore, the research object of mixed leadership model theory is the individuals in the team, and the characteristics, behaviors and responses of individuals become the main variables to measure leadership behavior and leadership effectiveness (the representatives of this theoretical model include McGregor's X-Y theory, Tannenbaum's and Schmidt's continuum theory, Blake's and Merton's management grid theory, etc. ).
On the contrary, the leader-member exchange theory is based on role commitment and social exchange, and insists that the relationship between leaders and members is a heterogeneous "vertical binary" structural relationship. The so-called "heterogeneity" means that leaders form different exchange relationships with each member of the same team, and different members exchange different resources and information with leaders. After several exchanges or role negotiations, the same leader and different members will form different communication relationships. For example, a team consists of a leader and ten subordinates, and the leader will form ten different exchange relationships with these ten members. Leaders are unlikely to give all members the same attention, but only pay more attention to the close members of the "group", and the members of the "group" will also give the leaders sufficient information feedback. Therefore, when sharing information, both parties are prone to trust, which will promote the improvement of job satisfaction. Therefore, the exchange relationship between leaders and members of the "inner circle" is based on trust, gratitude and obligation. However, there are limited opportunities for communication between leaders and "out-of-group" members, and the support and encouragement received by members from leaders are also reduced. The relationship between leaders and members is of low quality, and the basis of their exchange relationship is "task" and "contract".
Comparatively speaking, the leader-member exchange theory is more empirical and instructive than the traditional leadership theory. In the real situation, there are indeed differences in the way leaders treat their subordinates, and the leader-member exchange theory provides theoretical basis and practical guidance for analyzing the ways to improve the effectiveness of leaders and team performance by analyzing the different exchange relationships between leaders and members. However, it seems that the general leadership style theory can only summarize the characteristics of successful leaders from the perspective of post-experience, and it is ineffective in guiding leaders' self-improvement. Even though the mixed leadership model theory discusses the relationship between leaders and members, the concept is still quite vague, which makes the research unable to go deep and weakens the empirical significance.
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