Command Style and Team Performance in Dynamic Decision-Making Tasks

Title
Command Style and Team Performance in Dynamic Decision-Making Tasks
Publication Date
2003
Author(s)
Clancy, JM
Elliot, GC
Ley, T
Omodei, MM
Wearing, AJ
McLennan, J
Thorsteinsson, EB
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2065-1989
Email: ethorste@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:ethorste
Editor
Editor(s): Schneider, SL & Shanteau, J
Type of document
Book Chapter
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Place of publication
Cambridge, United Kingdom
Edition
1
Series
Cambridge Series on Judgment and Decision Making
UNE publication id
une:419
Abstract
Real-world tasks involving dynamic decision making are commonly distributed among a number of people, the organizational structure being typically hierarchical in nature. However, the optimal way to divide the responsibility for decision making among team members is not obvious. Should leaders make all decisions and communicate specific actions for subordinates to carry out? Or should decision-making responsibility be shared, with leaders communicating their intentions to subordinates, who then decide upon appropriate actions and carry these out? This is fundamentally an issue of the relative effectiveness of contrasting command styles. This chapter addresses this issue by reporting a study using teams of three persons (a leader and two subordinates) in a computer-simulated forestfirefighting task. The results indicate a marked performance advantage for teams in which the leader is required to command by the communication of intentions rather than by the communication of orders for specific actions. An intention-based command style, which creates a more even distribution of decision-making responsibility across ranks, was found to result in a more equal distribution of the cognitive workload, to take greater advantage of subordinates' local knowledge, and to allow for greater overall team productivity.
Link
Citation
Emerging Perspectives on Judgement and Decision Research, p. 586-619
ISBN
052152718X
Start page
586
End page
619

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