Intelligence shows the ability of an individual to adapt to a variety of situations. Furthermore intelligence shows persons levels of creativity and learns how to work on new applications. Hence intelligence is very important to managers as they can put right people in right departments.. According to Charles Spearman’s two factor theory, the general factor looks at individuals overall capabilities and the specific factors looks at a particular ability in an interested stream. Through this theory, managers can know whether a person is good overall or good at a particular ability. Mangers can also refer to Louis Thurston and his seven primary abilities. Louis’s seven primary common abilities are read and write, solving problems, numericals abilities, numbers and shape, memory, perception and reasoning. Managers can think about these abilities of individuals and . Also IQ test is a good indication of individual’s capabilities, job performance and productivity. IQ test shows the level of vocabulary, numbers, creativity, and skills. Therefore this becomes easy for mangers in recruitment process. Mangers can refer to Stanford- Binet intelligence scale which indicates that a score between 90 and 110 is considered to be normal, above 130 is considered to be very superior and an IQ below 70 means that individual is retarded. Hence by using this scale managers can judge level of intelligence and come to a conclusion.
Leaning is important to managers as it is concerned with knowledge attitudes, values, emotional responses and various skills. In psychology, the process by which a relatively lasting change in potential behavior occurs as a result of practice or experience. Learning is distinguished from behavioral changes arising from such processes as maturation and illness. Albert Bandura maintained (1977) that learning occurs through observation of others, or models. Different types of learning help managers to understand more about individuals learning ability and his behaviour to that. First managers can apply the concept of classical conditioning developed by Ivan Pavlov in their organization. Managers get out better performance from his employees by giving them unfavorable conditions as they commit a mistake. As the employees learn from their mistake then managers can give them rewards hence leading them to be motivated at their work. Employees strive for that reward and would highly motivated not make any mistakes. Through operant conditioning managers can learn that they should reward the desired behaviour after the employee has learned not to make mistakes. Like if an employee is late regularly then a manager should not take punitive action, but instead try to investigate about him coming late. Managers get to know from operant conditioning theory that employees should not be punished because they are at risk of either loosing employee or spoiling the relationship with them. Managers can also train people if they do not have any experience and employees are learning. Managers can use different training methods such as lectures, interactive computer programs, setting up conferences, using case studies to apply own knowledge to artificial situations, coaching etc. with these methods employee becomes confident in his approach to the task.
Attitude is a key element for the managers to understand the personality hence leading to their attitude. Through study of attitude managers can know that if his employee has authoritarian personality then he is likely to display attitude such as hostility to others, deference to superiors. Therefore managers can maintain peace and harmony within the organization by not selecting these kinds of individuals. Managers can also influence attitudes of the employees by letting them members of a group. During training professional people develop attitude towards their work that would affect their to reality situations. From the functions of the attitude identified by Katz (1960) is useful for the managers to understand attitudes. Instrumental function tells that individuals develop favorable attitudes towards work that satisfy their needs (rewards). Through this concept managers satisfy an employee needs such giving them extra bonus, giving them breaks, increasing their salaries etc. ego defense attitudes may arise due to internal and external threats, by frustrating experience etc. if an employee is frustrated because it hurted his ego then managers can sit talk with them and remove the threats to the attitudes. Also through study of attitudes managers get to know that individuals do not like changes in the work place. Changing time table, changing the system, breaking up the teams into smaller teams, cutting down the free time etc such changes in work place would result in individual to be moody, argumentative, irregular with work, etc. hence managers should think a better way of dealing with the changes in the organization where it does not affect individuals. Managers can use different methods measuere attitude, which is very useful to determine person’s attitude towards work. Managers can use Thurston scale or likert scale where individuals can select various options such as agree or disagree. Furthermore managers must look upon the attitudes towards work suggested by Sandra Dawson (1996). She says that a characteristic of the workplace affects attitude. For instance if the workplace is clean or is it noisy, friendly, cold etc. also managers should ask the employees whether the task is challenging, demanding, easy or difficult.
It is vital that managers are aware of their own perceived reality and perceptual differences between individuals that may cause organizational problems. All individuals have their own way of looking at and understanding of their environment and other people. One employee may feel that workplace is uncomfortable to work while other may feel easy to work. Managers have to be very careful with their action and approaches for instance, if senior manager comes out of the office and suddenly takes a tour of the place then one of the employee would not notice and do his work until another member of the staff draws his attention. Other might very happy that manager has taken time out to see the work in progress, while third person might scowl at the sight of the manager and might sense that something is wrong. This shows that first employee must have perceived the situation as normal and commonplace according to managers past visits. Second employee linked the tour with ideas of good management action and was keen to make contact to create an impression. Third employee must have had bad experience whereby visit of the manager one day resulted in extra work the following day. Through this pattern of behaviour managers know like the first employee was busy with his work shows that neutral second one was supportive and third one was suspicious. Hence managers get to know more about individuals reactions to unexpected situations and can also approach to them to discuss about their past experience which resulted in their behavior. They can clear out doubts of the employees and ask them to be confident at the work place like third employee. Individuals may differ in terms of their sensory limit such as touch, feel, see, smell etc. Like if managers place their employee where there is lot of sound he may feel uncomfortable to work in those conditions. Therefore managers can change the position of the worker. Furthermore needs of the individuals affects their perception for example if an worker being is deeply doing his work then he may screen out ringing phones, people talking, furniture moved in the next office but will respond readily to the smell of coffee brewing. Hence managers can keep their employees busy by giving them the most desirable and urgent needs and also affect their perception. Also managers have to be precise and make sure when they instruct their employee to work. For instance managers ask employee to write a report about the terminals of the state. This word perceived differently as it can be a hospital, a computer firm or an airport. This helps managers to decrease misunderstandings especially in tall- hierarchy firms that have long chain of managers. Stress could occur for those employees who are uncertain about their priorities and are unable to distinguish between the significant and less significant tasks. Hence managers need to familiarize employee’s priorities and remind them which task is important and unimportant. This helps individuals to cope up the stress and affects the work of the person and hence his job becomes easy to deal with. If employees feel bored or workplace to be monotonous then probably managers can use colors to induce certain atmosphere in buildings, design of wallpaper or texture of curtains may be used to create feelings of spaciousness or coziness. A mangers perception of the workforce will influence attitudes in dealing with people and the style of managerial behaviour adopted. The way in which managers approach the performance of their jobs and the behaviour they display towards their staff are likely to be conditioned by predispositions about people, human nature and work for example the management adopted on the basis of McGregor’s theory X and Y.
Managers, however, are responsible for more work and results than they can accomplish on their own; they are responsible for the performance of others.
