Achieving Success as a 21st Century Manager

CHAPTER 3

Situational Recognition Competence

What Is Competence in Recognizing Situational Differences?

Describing in your own words your current working group might be done in a number of ways, but if we look at group dynamics research, there are three common ways that an individual workgroup is distinguished (Shaw 1981). First, we might describe the group’s social atmosphere. Second, we might describe qualities of the workgroup’s tasks. And third, we might describe the power and status systems operating within the group. A fourth factor is a little bit larger than the individual workgroup—the organizational culture, which we will consider later (Frost et al. 1991).

First, workgroups differ in what is called group atmosphere (Mannix and Neale ...