SYMLOG-Model Overview
Leadership styles and quadrant models
MBTI®: deals with preferences
and “personality types”. It is a descriptive, not a predictive model, that details
behavioral preferences. It describes your preferences, but not the impact your behavior
has on others because of your preferences. Available as a self-assessment only.
Adding a SYMLOG assessment to an understanding of your type could show you how effective
your behavior really is, and point to areas you might want to modify in order to
have more productive and satisfying interactions.
DiSC®: groups characteristics
of behavior into four major styles. Word associations are used to obtain a person’s
preferences. Each individual has all four styles, but differs in the extent to which
they use the behavior in any style. The goal of the feedback is to recognize yours
and others style, and adapt your behavior to another’s style to be more effective.
A SYMLOG personal profile would allow you to see the actual impact your behavior
has on others, with a prescriptive analysis of what to change in order to be more
effective. With access to a SYMLOG profile for co-workers as well, your DiSC results
would be greatly enhanced by learning the actual values and/or behavior of co-workers,
and predict with greater certainty how you could/should change your behavior.
Leadership Grid (Blake & Mouton):
analysis of leadership styles along two dimensions, concern for people, and concern
for production. Five initial leadership styles have been renamed, but characteristics
describing the style remain: accommodative (country club), indifferent (impoverished),
status quo (middle-of-the-road), sound (team), dictatorial (produce or perish).
Opportunistic and paternalistic leadership styles have been added but map within
the original quadrant. This model measures within the PF quadrant nicely, but has
no way of describing behaviors that need to adopted when dealing with individuals
whose profiles, as rated by others, do not fall within the PF quadrant.
Introducing a SYMLOG analysis to your situation would allow you to behave with more
certainty, and provide suggestions on how to deal with individuals whose behavior
falls outside of the two-dimensional grid.
Situational Leadership®
and Situational Leadership II®: originally theorized by Hersey
and Blanchard, and now modified by both after further research. Both models deal
with leadership styles, where determining your style helps determine the appropriate
behavior to show in any given situation. One relies on accurately determining the
level of individual or group maturation level. The other outlines level of competence
and commitment, with the levels of development, to determine the appropriate behavior.
Both theories map into the PF quadrant, but are inadequate in dealing with individuals
whose profile falls outside that area.
Introducing a SYMLOG analysis would allow you to more accurately understand your
“situation”, and how to proceed with leading subordinates. Making ratings on co-workers
would show the actual level of maturity or development you perceive them to have,
and also further strengthen your ability to behave effectively with their individual
needs.
Adding SYMLOG ratings from all members of the team would allow you as a group to
examine your perceptions of each other, how effectively you believe you are able
to work together, and what each of you needs to do, individually and collectively,
to become more productive and effective.
Adaption-Innovation Inventory (KAI):
measures thinking style (cognition) as it relates to problem-solving, decision-making,
and creativity. Results of the 32 question inventory plot on a normally distributed
continuum. The continuum moves from Adaption on the left, indicating more structure
and consensus in problem-solving is preferred, to Innovation on the right, where
less structure and consensus is needed. Your preferred cognitive style is likely
unchangeable. In order to maximize an individual or group’s problem-solving potential,
behavior needs to be flexible according to the complexity of the problem to be solved.
But does your style get in the way of making effective decisions and having a maximally
productive problem-solving process?
Adding a SYMLOG analysis to this measure of cognition would allow the group to better
know the values others’ perceive them to hold, if they are perceived to have the
best interests and goals of the group in mind, and if their problem-solving style
is, indeed, allowing the group to realize its potential or standing in the way of
reaching objectives. In this case, modifications would be suggested by the SYMLOG
analysis.
Personality measures
During a 1996 interview with the pre-eminent social psychologist, Robert F. Bales,
he was asked if SYMLOG was a theory of personality, or another kind of theory. His
answer will help in understanding the difference between SYMLOG and other personality
measurements.
Social motives (McClelland):
a theory of three needs that outline how an individual is motivated to behave. The
needs are more closely associated with measurements within the SYMLOG system than
many other models, with the need for achievement close to the F dimension; need
for affiliation close to the P dimension, and need for power associated with the
U dimension. These achievement needs, however, are not bi-polar, as with SYMLOG.
FIRO-B: taps the extent
to which you desire for yourself, or want to receive from others, inclusion, affiliation,
and control. The strength of each of these needs will clearly relate to how you
behave with others. How do these affect your perceived effectiveness when interacting
with others?
An assessment based on SYMLOG will help you see how you might be influencing your
interactions based on your intrinsic and extrinsic needs, and develop an action
plan allowing you to appropriately temper/moderate those needs to have more satisfying
and productive interactions.
NEO-PI: a personality inventory
with five domains (the five-factor model), measured originally with 240 items (now
60), used to describe human personality. Each global factor has a cluster of more
specific descriptive characteristics. Traits used to describe aspects of the factor
below the broad domain are separate but correlated. e.g., for the Extraversion factor,
outgoing/energetic vs. solitary/reserved is used. There is no indication these words
are actually opposite in meaning or part of the same continuum.
So, unlike SYMLOG with 3 bi-polar dimensions, the NEO appears to be missing a critical
factor. Where the P-N and F-B dimensions are adequately covered, the NEO does not
seem to take into consideration the importance of the U-D dimension of dominance/submissiveness,
which can manifest behaviorally in all the five factors.
Adding a SYMLOG analysis to this personality measure will tap the values others’
perceive you showing in behavior, or the actual behavior you are observed to show.
This analysis allows for behavior modification in order to be perceived as more
effective, and have your intentional behavior better understood by others.
Team inventories
Belbin: measures individual
behavior in a team environment, and classifies the behavior into nine team roles
(originally eight with Specialist added after initial studies). Individuals have
tendencies toward multiple roles, and Belbin states these are team roles, not personality
types. Groups need these roles, and the activities performed in each, in order to
maximize problem-solving. A balance should be present among members. The roles themselves,
however, have the potential not only for polarization, but also neglect the social-emotional
needs of a team in order to maximize its effectiveness.
A SYMLOG analysis would further provide feedback to individuals and the team on
how effective the behaviors shown actually are, and what changes or additions to
the team’s natural inclinations are required to be more effective.