Q1
At the core of the author’s contention is the fact that people are more
likely to repay greed with greed relative to doing the same with generosity. This
contention may not fully capture the mixed ways in which people react to deeds.
It is a conclusion the authors arrives at after looking at five different
experiments involving either work or money (Nauert, 2012, p.1). Prior studies
had concentrated on how to engender good behavior from people by extending acts
of generosity towards them. It was, therefore, of much benefit to have a
different approach to the issue. Findings from such studies are very useful in
modeling behavior. Armed with such information, organizations are better
prepared to elicit the appropriate kind of behavior amongst their people.
Perhaps that knowledge may also help model the behavior of organizational
units.
The extent to which the position taken by the author can be useful for
organizational purposes, however, depends on the ability of the theory to apply
to group behavior. It is true that individuals will act towards safeguarding
their self-interest when acting as individuals. The whole theory of survival
for the fittest is grounded on this line of thinking. It explains why acts of
generosity are rarely rewarded or those who experience such acts rarely extend
them to their future interactions with others.
In another research that looked at whether people return favors extended
to them, the researcher actually found that people indeed reciprocate acts of kindness
(Burger, Sanchez, Imberi and Grande, 2009, p.13). Unlike the contention of the
author under discussion, this other study does not find any difference between
responses to good acts on the one hand and to good acts on the other. Instead,
the authors attribute the kind of reaction to the respondent’s need to be
viewed in a certain way as well as internalized norms.
Q2
The general understanding of a school is that it is a place where people
grow in a variety of ways (Jackson and Parry, 2008, pp.98-99). Students in a
school build up their level of understanding as they move from a lower to a
higher grade in the school system. Such developments are not limited to the
intellectual matters. Thus, people also grow in their social abilities through
the school system. Perceiving leadership as schooling, therefore, brings to
attention the fact that it is all about an ongoing process. Everybody in an organization begins to
realize that there could be a better end state to what they are currently
accustomed to. Seeing leadership as something that is continuously evolving
will provide the necessary motivation for everybody to keep on improving just
as people in a school system are always improving. Improvement may see a
student score better grade in a particular school term. The teacher may also
discover a better way of delivering instructions to students.
An aesthetic approach comes in to mitigate the potential negative
attitudes associated with schooling (Jackson and Parry, 2008, pp.98-99). Not
everybody in an organization had an interesting time at school. For those
fortunate to have had their time at school wholly interesting, it may suffice
to just apply leadership as schooling. It is, however, more beneficial to add
an aesthetic aspect to the metaphor to make it appeal to the widest number of
people. Thus, visualizing leadership as schooling in which learning is all fun
will endear follows even more towards improving in whatever areas in which they
may be inadequate.
References
Burger, J.M., Sanchez,J., Imberi,J.E.,and
Grande, L.R., 2009.The Norm of Reciprocity as an Internalized Social Norm: Returning Favor Even if No One Finds
Out. Social Influence, 4(1), 11-17.
Jackson, B. and Parry, K., 2008.A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and
Reasonably Cheap Book about Studying
Leadership.London: SAGE.
Nauert,R., 2012.Greed More Common than Generosity.
Retrieved http://psychcentral.com/news/2012/12/19/greed-more-common-than-generosity/49369.html
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