Team leadership, theories, tools and techniques

The book, Team leadership, theories, tools and techniques, offers a compendium of theories, tools and techniques for team leaders facing the challenge of optimising their teams’ performance. The author succeeds in differentiating between the utility of theories (i.e. overarching explanatory lenses for understanding phenomena), tools (e.g. assessment instruments) and techniques (i.e. practical behaviours and actions) in maximising team performance in modern organisational life. Anchored in sound theoretical and research-practice (evidence-based) foundations, the book serves as a novel example of ‘pracademic learning’ (Kriek, in press, p. 8). Academic stances on team development are made helpful and practical for team leaders by demonstrating the utility of a number of selected classical theories and assessment instruments in daily organisational life. Each chapter closes with a brief outline coined as ‘tips to team leaders’ on the usefulness of the theory, tools and/or techniques offered. Further reading options for deeper exploration of sources consulted are also provided. In this regard, the book offers the reader and team leader the choice of drawing from the book whatever they find most appropriate and useful for application in their unique team contextsCentre for Industrial and Organisational Psycholog

Social Collaboration Style Preferences and Cognitive Receptivity to Technological Change and Innovation in Open and Distance e-Learning

The proliferation of online courses in open and distance e-learning higher education contexts brought attention to the role of social collaboration activities in enhancing student learning. Constructive social collaboration in an e-learning environment is influenced by the interaction dynamics of the relevant virtual learning community. Social learning involves the acquisition of knowledge and skills relevant to the individual’s unique work or learning context through collaborative endeavours and interactions that often include the use of technological tools such as web-based platforms and social media technological applications. This chapter focuses on how the social collaboration style preferences of members of the virtual learning community relate to their cognitive receptivity to technological change and innovation. The practical implications for virtual learning in open and distance e-learning contexts are outlined

Emotional Intelligence as a Predictor of Postgraduate Students’ Psychosocial Employability Attributes

This study determined the influence of individuals’ emotional intelligence on their psychosocial employability attributes. A cross-sectional quantitative survey was conducted. A non-probability sample of 304 employed postgraduate students (predominantly early career black = 70 %; females = 64 % with a mean age of 26 – 40 years) participated in the study. Multiple regressions were used to analyse the data. Emotional intelligence was found to be a significant predictor of the participants’ psychosocial employability attributes. The findings provide valuable information that can be used in career development support and counselling practices in the contemporary work world.Industrial and Organisational Psycholog

Students’ career capital resource needs for employability in the technology-driven work world

The present study assessed the world of work awareness of a random sample of (N = 486) higher education undergraduate students from an emerging country. In addition, the study explored these students’ needs for information they need from their studies about the technology-driven world of work. The needs were evaluated in terms specific career capital resources that should be addressed in the higher education curriculum to foster the employability of graduates in a rapid evolving digital-era workplace. A mixed methods concurrent triangulation design was employed to analyse quantitative (numeric descriptive statistics and correlations) and qualitative (text) data from the same sample. The quantitative descriptive findings suggested an open-mindedness toward new technology, being responsive to changing work conditions and a need for continuous upskilling opportunities. The participants exhibited sound awareness of the impact of technology on their future employability and careers. Predominantly, the qualitative findings indicated a strong need for 'knowing how' career capital resource development in the form of career planning and job search guidance and gaining deeper knowledge and understanding of the impact of technology on the job market, job and occupation opportunities and employability requirements. Participants expressed a need to understand the relevance of the qualification curriculum and content to the digital-era world of work and shifting employer expectations. The findings also revealed a need for 'knowing what', 'knowing why' and 'knowing whom' career capital resource development for employability as part of university studies. Recommendations are made for incurriculating career and employability development in university courses

2020 Employer Survey Report: CEMS Graduate Employability

Industrial and Organisational Psycholog

Archetypal life themes, career orientations, and employability satisfaction of higher education students : a postmodern career counselling perspective.

The objective of the study was to explore the constructs archetypal life themes (measured by the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator), and career orientations (measured by the Career Orientations Inventory) from a postmodern career counselling perspective in facilitating students’ employability satisfaction (measured by a single item scale). A random sample of 270 predominantly black and female distance learning undergraduate students (mean age = 32) employed in the service industry participated in the survey. Correlational statistics revealed statistically significant relationships between the participants’ current active archetypal life themes, their dominant career orientations and employability satisfaction. The value of the findings lies in the explanatory utility of the identified empirical relationships between the three variables in postmodern constructivist and narrative career counselling approaches interested in combining facets of quantitative with qualitative assessments.Industrial and Organisational Psycholog

South African Journal of Industrial Psychology: Annual editorial overview 2018

No abstract available

Measuring and optimising employee engagement in Africanised multi-culturally diverse contexts

No abstract avaliable

Student Graduateness/Employability Pilot Survey 2018: Preliminary Report

Industrial and Organisational Psycholog

The relationship between personality preferences, self-esteem and emotional competence

The factors that hinder or help the development of emotionally competent behaviour in leaders appear to be varied and complex. The role of personality variables such as personality preferences and self-esteem in influencing the development and demonstration of emotional competent behaviour has not yet been well researched. The general aim of this research was to investigate whether a relationship exists between personality preferences, self-esteem and emotional competence, and to determine whether the variables personality preferences and self-esteem can predict the demonstration of emotional competence. Personality preferences were studied from the Analytical Psychology paradigm. Jung's Psychological Types and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator theory of Personality Types provided a theoretical understanding of individual differences in emotional response behaviour. Based on the Humanistic and Social Psychology paradigms, the construct self-esteem was explored from a multi-dimensional perspective with particular emphasis on individuals' self-evaluative views and feelings of self-worth, self-acceptance, sense of belonging and sense of psychological well-being within the particular socio-cultural domain in which these aspects manifest themselves. Emotional competence was studied from the paradigmatic perspectives of the Cognitive Social Learning theories. Emotional competence was viewed as the workplace application of emotional intelligence abilities, which are developable and can be learned. In this regard, emotional competence was described as the demonstration of self-efficacious behaviour in emotion-eliciting social transactions. Emotional competence implies a sense of psychological well-being (a positive inner state of being) and an ability to skillfully, creatively and confidently adapt in an uncertain, unstructured and changing socio-cultural environment. An empirical investigation was conducted to analyse the responses of a randomly selected sample of 107 South African leaders in the manufacturing industry to measures of these three constructs. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the Culture-free Self-esteem Inventories for Adults (CFSEI-AD), and the 360° Emotional Competency Profiler (ECP) were administered. The MBTI extraverted-thinking and extraverted-intuitive personality preferences were associated with the CFSEI-AD social, general and total self-esteem scales. In terms of the ECP emotional competence self-evaluations, self-motivation was associated with the MBTI extraverted-judging, extraverted-thinking and extraverted-intuitive preferences, while interpersonal relations was associated with the extraverted-intuitive and extraverted-feeling preferences. The MBTI introverted-sensing, introverted-judging and introverted-thinking preferences were associated with the ECP emotional literacy scale, and the introverted-judging, introverted-sensing and introverted-thinking preferences were associated with interpersonal relations in terms of the emotional competence other evaluations. The MBTI introverted-thinking preference was associated with the ECP self-esteem/self-regard other evaluations and the CFSEI-AD personal self-esteem scale. The ECP total emotional competence scale was associated with the MBTI extraverted-intuitive preference (in terms of the self-evaluations) and the introverted-judging and introverted-thinking preferences in terms of total emotional competence other evaluations. The CFSEI-AD general, personal and total self-esteem scales were associated with the ECP change resilience, self-motivation, self-esteem/self-regard, interpersonal relations and total emotional competence scales. Furthermore, the findings suggest that the ECP emotional competence construct is closely related to the affective component of the CFSEI-AD self-esteem construct, particularly one's sense of psychological well-being which is related to feelings of self-worth. The empirical results confirmed the effect of self-esteem on the self-evaluations of raters exposed to multi-rater assessments such as the 360° Emotional Competency Profiler, namely that self-raters with very high self-esteem may tend to over-inflate their self-evaluations. The CFSEI-AD total self-esteem scale also appears to be a more reliable predictor of emotional competence than the MBTI personality preferences. The results contributed new knowledge about the relationship between individuals' self-esteem, personality preferences and emotional competence and added perspective on the interpretation of individuals' self-ratings, particularly with regard to 360° emotional competence assessments. Recommendations for Industrial and Organisational Psychology practices regarding leader development are formulated, as well as recommendations for future research in the field.Industrial and Organisational PsychologyD.Litt. et Phil. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology