Importance of Understanding How People Form Perceptions
In the case of Joe Salatino, he is the new president of Great Northern American and he bases the success of his company by the amount of money he pays the employees. The firm’s salespeople sell millions of products each year. The lead person of this telemarketing company believes that spending money on commissions and bonuses is necessary to keep his salespeople motivated. The company uses all kinds of motivational tactics in the salesroom to keep the employees engaged at work. Many of Joe’s top workers earn thousands of dollars a year plus commission, but usually it takes about a year for an employee to build up their clientele. With in the article it goes to discuss how the salespeople go above and beyond to build a strong relationship with the customers. Joe believes it increases sales when the employees for a memorable relationship with the customers. As a result, when Joe is looking to hire new people; he looks for them to have great communication skills, be highly motivated and considerate. Finally, Joe looks for workers that know their strengths and weakness and thrive to take the initiative without having to be direct all the time.
In the workplace, perceptions quickly become formed whether accurate or artificial. Perceptions and inaccurate assumptions of work habits, personal relationships are mostly form over company gossip. Joe Salatino needs to explain to his employees that perceptions in the workplace can impact careers, promotions, and retention. Deliberately or not, everyone has a personal perception of others in the workplace. Rather optimistic or pessimistic, perceptions are created by observation, including the opinions of others. People’s perceptions and attributions persuade how they behave in the workplace. Perception describes the way people filter, categorize and understand sensory information. Stereotyping is the belief that all members of a specific group share similar traits and behaviors (Hellriegel and Slocum 2011, pg. 149). Wrong perceptions lead to tribulations in the organization, such as stereotyping, that lead people to inaccurately make assumptions. Precise perception allows workers to understand what they observe and listen to in the workplace efficiently to make decisions, complete responsibilities and act in ethical manner.
Unfortunately, due to differences not all perceptions are correct, and a considerable amount is biased by personal views. Joe needs to explain to his employees what perceptions are and discuss ways to manage them. According to Russell (2001), managing perceptions requires asking questions and getting feedback from others. Most leaders or top management do not typically receive feedback very often. However Joe receiving feedback from his employees would foster effective advice to let him know how well he is managing the company. Feedback reinforces the changes that need to be made, and encourage you to maintain. Once you have received feedback, Russell (2001) states it is important to take time to reflect on your experiences and evaluate the content of what was share. According to Russell (2001), feedback forces us to move out of our comfort zone and help us acquire skills and abilities that may have seemed beyond our current reality. Accepting their own strengths and weakness will help from receiving feedback. Perception management is hard work; however, we can all grow and develop individually and as leaders as we work at giving and receiving feedback (Russell 2001).
Importance of How People Make Attributions About Others
Attributions process refers to the ways in which people come to understand the causes of their own and others’ behaviors (Hellriegel and Slocum 2011, pg. 119). Attributions also play a major role in perceptions. Just as perceptions can be faulty, attributions can be inaccurate as well. It is important for employees and employers to understand behavior and the importance behind behavior. Attributions are found to strongly affect various functions in an organization. For example, the process of employee performance evaluations, disposition of supervision or management or the general outlook towards the organization in general. Hellriegel and Slocum (2011), stated individuals make attributions in an attempt to understand why others behave as they do and make better sense of their situations. Joe can ensure people attribute actions more effectively by providing diversity training. This helps prevent a hostile work environment for people from different cultures. By training people to make more accurate attributions, daily operations run more smoothly. This helps reduce faulty attributions and perceptions. Stated by Russell (2001), this enlightenment will expand self-knowledge and enhance our self-confidence, which will enable us to work more effectively as leaders.
Social Learning Theory
Social learning theory refers to knowledge acquisitions through the mental processing of information by observing and imitating others (Hellriegel and Slocum 2011, pg. 149). Social learning would be the most appropriate theory for Joe to use as the new president of Great Northern American. This theory considers that people learn from one another in such concepts of observational learning, replication, and modeling. . Explained by Hellriegel and Slocum (2011, pg.149) the social part acknowledges that individuals learn by being apart of a society, and the learning part recognizes that individuals use thought processes to make decisions. The theory basically states that people learning faster when they examine a behavior and can avoid unnecessary mistakes from trial and error learning. Social learning theory is broken down into five dimensions which further explain why people react differently to the same situation.
The first dimension in social learning theory is symbolizing. Symbolizing is the process of creating a mental image to guide an individual’s behavior (Hellriegel and Slocum 2011, pg. 149). For example, people imitate others like a parent or role model. People identify with the person they are imitating and react the way they think that person would react. Secondly, there is the forethought dimension which refers to the individual planning his or her actions based on the level of performance he or she desires (Hellriegel and Slocum 2011, pg. 149). Forethought is taking mental notes of what a person may have seen in a video or watched someone else do an try to implement that actions is the same way from memory. Next we have vicarious learning which refers to the individual observing the behavior of others and the consequences of that behavior (Hellriegel and Slocum 2011, pg. 150). This learning is trial and error learning; people learn what works for them and what does not by watching what happens to others and what happens to them. Hellriegel and Slocum (2011) states that in order for vicarious learning to work, there are several conditions that must be met: The learner must observe the other person-the model-when the behavior is being performed. The learner must accurately perceive the model’s behavior. The learner must remember the behavior. The learner must have the competencies necessary to perform the behavior. The leaner must observe that the model receives rewards of the behavior.
Another dimension of social learning theory is self-control refers to the individual selecting his or her own goals and ways of reaching them to learn new behaviors (Hellriegel and Slocum 2011, pg. 150). For example Hellriegel and Slocum (2001) explains that most people never apply for certain job because what they see is not consistent with their own ideas of what type of job they want. With self-control leaders do not have to direct their employees on what to do. Employees will take responsibility to learn the tasks that needed in the workplace. Lastly, self-efficacy is the individual’s estimate of his or her own ability to perform a specific task in a particular situation (Hellriegel and Slocum 2011, pg. 151). Employees with high self-efficacy believe that (1) they have the ability needed, (2) they are capable of the effort required, and (3) no outside event will keep them from performing at a high level (Hellriegel and Slocum 2011, pg. 152). Bandura (1994) and others have found that an individual’s self-efficacy plays a major role in how goals, tasks, and challenges are approached.
How Can Joe Apply the Social Learning Theory?
Through using this theory, Joe will be able to efficiently lead employees’ behaviors and promote the business building behaviors that must adapt to make his business thrive. The first step to apply the social learning theory in the workplace is to teach the modeling behavior. Not only tell the employees what he wants them to do, he should also give the examples of the behaviors he wants them to model. Seeing the behaviors modeled for them can develop a more precise understanding of what behavior is needed. Secondly, Joe should verbally encourage his employees to imitate positive behaviors. He can reward them publicly for imitating good behaviors, which allows other workers to see the behaviors that he wants them to implement. Also he can do this by directly telling his workers what behaviors he wants them to follow. Lastly, he must set consequences for incorrect behaviors. Joe must make sure that his employees are follow procedures on the standards for correct behaviors. If they are not they being met, he must step in and correct the behavior and encourage them to perform the modeling behavior. These corrections can be applied verbally or more severe if necessary.
How Can Joe Leverage an Understanding of the Value of Self-Efficacy?
Self-efficacy beliefs function as an important set of proximal determinants of human motivation, affect, and action; which operate on action through motivational, cognitive, and affective intervening processes (Bandura, 1989). Identification allows the observer to feel a one-to-one connection with the individual being imitated and will be more likely to achieve those imitations if the observer feels that they have the ability to follow through with the imitated action (Bandura, 1988). Bandura and others have found that an individual’s self-efficacy plays a major role in how goals, tasks, and challenges are approached. People with a strong sense of self-efficacy: View challenging problems as tasks to be mastered. Develop deeper interest in the activities in which they participate. Form a stronger sense of commitment to their interests and activities. Recover quickly from setbacks and disappointments. People with a weak sense of self-efficacy: Avoid challenging tasks. Believe that difficult tasks and situations are beyond their capabilities. Focus on personal failings and negative outcomes. Quickly lose confidence in personal abilities (Bandura, 1994)
Self-efficacy does not refer to the tangible skills you have, but what you think you can accomplish with those skills. It is about believing you have the ability to pull together your social, physical, thinking and behavioral skills to accomplish goals. People with a strong logic of self-efficacy usually execute at much higher levels partly because they see setbacks and obstacles as challenges to be overcome. A person with high self-efficacy tends to set very high goals and remains motivated regardless of the threat of failure. A person with low self-efficacy will set much smaller goals, and at the first sign of setback will give up on the goal.

References
Alexander D. Stajkovic and Fred Luthans, “Social Cognitive Theory and Self-Efficacy: Going beyond Traditional Motivational and Behavioral Approaches,” Organizational Dynamics, Spring 1998, p.65.
Bandura, A. (1988). Organizational Application of Social Cognitive Theory. Australian Journal of Management, 13(2), 275-302.
Bandura, A. (1989). Human Agency in Social Cognitive Theory. American Psychologist, 44, 1175-1184.
Hellriegel, D. and Slocum, J.W., (2011). Principles of Organizational Behavior. South- Western Cengage Learning.
Russell, J.S. (2001). Are You Managing Perception? [Editorial]. Leadership and Management in Engineering. Retrieved from http://www.engr.wisc.edu/cee/faculty/ russell_jeffrey/036.pdf