CLIMATE VS. PERFORMANCE

ACADEMIC RESEARCH

PCS supports the improvement of team performance based on a wealth of research undertaken by some of the foremost academics in psychology and organisational development.

The headline premise underpinning PCS is that:

Leaders (motivated by their own personal drivers and influenced by the organisation they work in) create climate in a team and the better the climate the greater the performance of that team

LINK KEY RESEARCH FINDINGS PRINCIPAL RESEARCH
1 Motive is a “recurrent concern for a goal state that drives, directs and selects a person's behaviour”. McClelland, D. C. and Burnham, D. H., Power is the Great Motivator, Harvard Business Review, 1976
McClelland identified 3-types of motive:
• Achievement – the need to outperform others together with high internal standards of excellence and a desire to innovate.
• Affiliation – having a strong desire to establish and maintain close relations with others.
• Power – the need to influence others.
None is in itself good or bad. We all possess each type but in different degrees; the relative levels of each type can be regarded as what defines our personality. In addition, each can have a positive impact on how we interact with others based on the situation and environment.
How we lead is to a large degree determined by our motives. McClelland and Winter, via studies in the public and private sectors, conclude that the most effect leaders (on average) possess a high need for power but only when it is directed toward the benefit of the organisation as a whole. McClelland, D. C. and Boyatzis, R. E., Leadership motive pattern and long-term success in management. Journal of Applied Psychology, 1982.
Winter, D. G. Navy leadership and management competencies: Convergence among tests, interviews, and performance ratings. Boston: McBer, 1978

CLIMATE VS. PERFORMANCE

ACADEMIC RESEARCH

LINK KEY RESEARCH FINDINGS PRINCIPAL RESEARCH
2 Litwin and Stringer were among the first to identify the notion of team climate. Furthermore, they found that certain climates tend to stimulate or suppress certain motives and that different leadership styles will create different climates. Over many years and numerous studies, they settled on 6-leadership behaviour styles have the greatest impact on climate and thus long-term organisation performance. Domineering, governing, placating, involving, soloing and coaching. Litwin, G.H., and Stringer, R.A., Jr. Motivation and Organizational Climate. Boston: Harvard University, Graduate School of Business Administration, Division Research, 1968.
Using these 6 styles, Kelner et al found that domineering and soloing styles of management tended to correlate with low achievement climates, while the use of governing, placating, involving and coaching styles tended to correlate with higher achievement climates. Furthermore, Kelner et al assert that over 50% of the variance between climates is due to a leader's style. Kelner, Stephen, P, Rivers, C. A., O'Connell, K. H., "Managerial Style as a Behavioral Predictor of Organizational Climate," 1994, McBer & Company
3 Daniel Denison confirmed the earlier findings of Litwin and Stringer. He found:

  1. That companies that have well organised work systems perform on average far better than those that do not

  2. A positive relationship between work systems and return on investment within an organisation

  3. A clear link between high involvement decision making practices (where a leader encourages collaboration and participation) and return on investment and return on sales

  4. A positive correlation between financial results and cross-team coordination, strong supervisory leadership, job rewards and job clarity. | Denison, Daniel R., Corporate Culture and Organizational Effectiveness. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1990. |

  5. That companies that have well organised work systems perform on average far better than those that do not

  6. A positive relationship between work systems and return on investment within an organisation

  7. A clear link between high involvement decision making practices (where a leader encourages collaboration and participation) and return on investment and return on sales

Additional reading list:

  • ‘Leadership and Organizational Climate’. Robert Stinger. Prentice Hall, 2002

  • ‘A climate of success – creating the right organizational climate for high performance’. Roderic Gray. Butterworth Heinmann

  • ‘Leadership Behavior and Organizational Climate: An Empirical Study in a Non-profit Organization’ Joseph B. Holloway, https://pdfs. semanticscholar.org/ed4a/ed89ed55bff8f4466eb948e3fcd830221a02.pdf

Discover how the Performance Climate System can help your business and book a demo, contact us:

info@perfomanceclimatesystem.com www.performanceclimatesystem.com