Communication plays a vital role in leadership, due to the fact that, without communication, any leadership efforts would be futile. Vision is the roadmap of leadership, for, without vision, leaders have no clue where they’re going, and followers fail to get on board. People respond to vision. The key to vision is communicating. Communication theories such as Goffman’s Presentation of Self, The Fundamental Attribution Error, the Actor-Observer Effect, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, and Benevolent prejudice all play essential roles in the leadership atmosphere. Containing critical information about the underlying habits of human behavior, these various theories influence leadership - and leaders - in a variety of ways. Erving Goffman, a Canadian born sociologist and writer, is considered to be "the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth century.” Best known for his work in dramaturgical analysis, Goffman not only had vital influences upon the research in social theories but also published his most widely known book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Originally published in 1956, this book portrays the importance of human interaction by using the imagery of the theatre. The influence sociologist developed the concept of dramaturgy, the idea that life is like a never-ending play in which people are actors. Goffman finds that, when attempting to give others a particular perception of their self, humans tend to change his or her appearance or manner.
In his book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Goffman (1959) focuses on the self as a staged production in which people actively present themselves to different audiences one encounters. To bolster his conceptualization, Goffman used an interesting metaphor of “all the world’s a stage” (1959, 254). This, he terms as a “dramaturgical approach” (Goffman 1959, 240) in which an actor puts on a show for others; drawing analogies between human behaviors and the theater. Goffman (1959) likens the individual to an actor on stage performing for and with other individuals involved in the situation. Three types of space exist for the actor to perform on, to enact the self, and to interact with others: the front stage, the backstage, the outer region. Goffman (1959) utilizes specific dramaturgical terms such as performance, teams, front and back regions, sign-vehicles, and highlights the process of dramatic realization. These terms will be discussed in the following sections.
Hi Doug. I agree that communication is a very good perspective to contemplate when considering leadership. Communication can be essential to successful leadership through identifying risks, issues, and other barriers on a project, or in an organization. Regardless of the skills, abilities, or traits that a leader may possess, being deficient in effective communication will cause failure in reaching the goals and objectives of a group (Solaja, Idowu, & James, 2016). This is due to the importance of information across all spectrums of an organization, including leaders and followers (Solaja et al., 2016). Understanding how people give and receive information will allow a leader to change the various methods of communication (e.g. newsletters,
In “Presentations of Self in Everyday Life,” Goffman is constantly explaining how everyday life is a dramaturgy. A dramaturgy is the art of dramatic composition and essentially the production of a theatrical play. A social situation is much like a play. Every play has a stage, actors, a script, a set, rehearsals, and practices. In a social situation, the stage is where the encounter takes place, the actors are the people involved in the encounter, the script is the social norms of the social encounter, and the set is the environment where the encounter takes place. It takes practices and
Functionalist Erving Goffman studies the sociological approach of Dramaturgy in his book ‘The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life’ (Goffman, 1959), he built his theory based on earlier work completed by Kenneth Burke. However there are distinct differences in features of the theory between Burke and Goffman as Burke believed that life was in fact a literal
In this essay, I am going to discuss how practices of leadership contribute to managing communication in the post bureaucratic era. This essay shall discuss the effectiveness of leadership approaches in the post bureaucratic era in managing communication in organizations. In section 1, I shall discuss leadership in terms of communication by drawing upon the article by Barry B. (2007). In addition, I shall also discuss the use of communication in running an organization in a leader’s desired way (Jack, G., 2004) and the need of contingency approach (Browning, 2007, pg 190) while communicating with employees. In section 2, I shall discuss how management stimulate loyalty in employees through embedding organizational identity (Gagne, J.F.,
Humans by nature, as suggested by Aronson, are a highly socialable species and care a lot about what others think of them. This has lead to the existence of a belief in public appearance or the sub-conscious development of self presentation. This is the foundation for Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis. “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts” (William Shakespeare). This essay
Erving Goffman was a sociologist known for developing the symbolic interaction and dramaturgical theory perspective. The dramaturgical theory is a social psychological perspective that studies human behavior and social interaction in terms of the analogy of the theater. This perspective is also related to symbolic interactionism. Symbolic interactionism is a theory based on interaction and communication, facilitated by many different words, gestures, and other symbols that have acquired various meanings. Dramaturgical theorist focus on how people manipulate various aspects of themselves and their settings to influence how others define and respond to them. In this perspective, “the self” is constructed of the various roles that one acquires, in order to present their various selves in ways that sustain particular impressions to their audiences. “The self” is a private possession established in and reflective of an individual’s personality, which includes ones values, beliefs, motives, traits, and dispositions. In addition, a person’s “self” is acquired through social relationships and is a structurally fundamental process that may change due to various situations. As humans interact with one another they are placed in social categories based on their attributes and actions. These assessments are primarily based on ones knowledge of roles.
Erving Goffman is one of the most important American sociological theorist in the second half of the century and was also influenced by Durkheim, Freud, and Simmel in his work. He is well known for his analysis of human interaction which is now called “dramaturgical analysis”. Dramaturgical Analysis is the study of social interaction in terms of theatrical performance. For example, Goffman uses terms like “front”, “setting”, and “performance” when explaining his theory. The front is also known as the expressive equipment, intentional or unintentional kind employed by the performer. The setting is also part of the front and involves the physical layout like
What is communication? What is leadership communication? These are two definitions that will be answered in this paper. You will take an extensive look at how communication from the top of the food chain to the bottom impacts workforce and insight on different communicating qualities utilized by leaders and their effects. Explain why a leader must communicate effectively. Describe positive image and its relationship with effective leadership communication. Describe ethics and its relationship with effective leadership communication, importance of emotional intelligence, and importance of mindfulness
In his first book, The Presentation of Self In Everyday Life, author Erving Goffman presents the metaphor of theater to explain the natural and manufactured pattern of human behavior. According to Goffman, in order to properly live and operate within society, every individual’s primary objective is to modify their actions and performance in a way that leaves a notably striking and favorable impression on those around him. The best way to understand human behavior and action is to view individuals as actors preforming on a social stage who are actively creating a positive impression of themselves for the benefit of an audience. Goffman is getting at the idea that people consciously present society with a “front” to provide a certain image of
Erving Goffman is considered the most influential American Socialist of the twentieth century. His ability to observe individuals and make sense of those observations is what he became most recognised for. His research focuses primarily on the sociology of everyday life, social interaction, the social construction of self, framing of experience and social stigmas. He is best sighted for his study of symbolic interaction. Published in 1956, ‘The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life’ focuses on the subject of the self not so much as a singular and fixed entity but as a contingent response to a social context. It was the first book published which identifies face to face interaction as a concept of social studies. Through his writings Goffman uses theatrical imagery in order to depict the fundamentals of human and social interaction. The core principles derived from this are referred to as ‘The Dramaturgical Model of Social Life. This was a term developed by Goffman, which uses the metaphor of the theatre to better our understanding of social interaction. It illustrates how we as individuals in our everyday lives are referred to as actors
Leadership, like communications, is an exceptionally multifaceted concept that is studied via a plethora of academic disciplines. Researchers have looked at these concepts from different angles. Such disciplines include Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Social Psychology, Business, and Sociology are all among the fields that are consistently adding to the body of work compiled. There is much scientific literature as well as from professional practitioners who all seem to have different theories of leadership and communication Given the range of different viewpoints as well
Goffman was the first to introduce the topic of dramaturgy in his work. Dramaturgy is his idea that life is a play. The people are actors and the every day world around us is our stage. (1959, p.13) He uses the image of a theatre performance to express the behaviour of people in everyday social interactions. Although not always aware of it, every individual in a social situation is assigned a role in the performance. Every individual obtains a role in social interaction and the audience observes and reacts to the performance. Goffman discussed the three different regions of performance as the front stage, the back stage and off stage. Each region has a particular impact on one’s performance.
Dramaturgy is a concept developed by Erving Goffman who uses the metaphor of a theatrical production in order to understand social interactions in everyday life; also known as dramaturgical theory. This metaphor demonstrates dramaturgy as a real life play in which people are the actors/actresses. There are three logics to this concept: the indivudial shows us what they want us to know, impression management and particular features of face-to-face encounters bring order to interactions (Allan, 62). The dramaturgic analysis of Goffman presents the idea that social interaction can be viewed as a chain of staged performances in order to understand and predict the behavior of others and how we present ourselves while cooperating to maintain
Erving Goffman sees self-presentation in six aspects, which are all related to the idea of life as a drama; persona, performance, staging, teams, role, personal style. According to Goffman, a persona is when someone wears various personality ‘masks’ depending on which roles they are undertaking, for example, when someone is with their friends the mask they wear defines them as a kind, friendly person whereas when they are with the family the mask will come off and their personality will change. I wear a mask when I’m with my friends and this portrays me as a friendly, outgoing character, whereas the mask I wear at home is loud, moody and unproductive.