472 



MORALE AND LEADERSHIP 



and with reference to changes in various 

 classes of personnel. 



Conditions of Group Living 

 General Conditions Within the Group 



Among conditions recognized as important 

 to individual satisfaction and effective per- 

 formance in military as in other group sit- 

 uations are: financial incentives, housing, 

 clothing, sanitary and medical facilities, 

 food, sexual satisfaction, recreational facil- 

 ities, mail delivery, schedules of work and 

 rest, furloughs and passes, quality of equip- 

 ment for working and fighting, opportunities 

 for promotion, and so on. Unquestionably, 

 severe deprivation in any one of these re- 

 spects may have deleterious effects upon 

 group functioning and morale. As \^dth job 

 assignment, however, this is probably not 

 all of the story. On the one hand, com- 

 plaints about such conditions may be heard 

 in situations where impartial investigation 

 discloses no particular deficiency. Thus, the 

 Research Branch (48) found that WAC com- 

 panies with unfavorable opinions of their 

 officers had less favorable opinions of their 

 physical facilities than did companies that 

 thought well of their officers, even though 

 no differences in such facilities could be 

 detected upon investigation. Similar ex- 

 amples could be dra^vn from industrial re- 

 lations. Thus, complaints may indicate a 

 disease, but they do not necessarily diagnose 

 it. 



On the other hand, deprivations in any of 

 these respects can probably be tolerated 

 within rather broad limits depending on the 

 total context of conditions. Within these 

 limits threats to group effectiveness may 

 arise, apparently, through the cumulative 

 effect of a multitude of deprivations, or 

 when morale is already low, or when de- 

 privations are regarded as unnecessary, as 

 unfair discrimination, as a result of incom- 

 petence on the part of officers, as threats 

 to status or social relations, as products 

 of a system which has no concern for in- 



dividual welfare, and so on. These at least 

 are reasonable hypotheses, supported by a 

 variety of observations, such as those of 

 Roethlisberger and Dickson (83) and of the 

 Army Research Branch , and calling for more 

 systematic investigation. They point also 

 to the importance of the more obviously 

 social factors in the group situation. 

 Among these factors, suggested for the most 

 part by case studies in industrial relations 

 (83, 38, 70) are the following: a friendly 

 attitude on the part of superiors, a con- 

 sistent system of rewards and punishments, 

 adequate basis for laiowing what is expected 

 of one and what part one plays in the "big 

 picture," opportunities for adequate social 

 relations -with other members of the group, 

 opportunities for participation in planning 

 and for exercising initiative, and machinery 

 for the appeal of grievances. McGregor 

 (70) has suggested that the importance of 

 some of these factors may depend upon the 

 presence of others; thus, for example, men 

 are not likely to take advantage of oppor- 

 tunities to show initiative unless they feel 

 secure in their conditions of work and re- 

 lations to superiors, but if the latter con- 

 ditions exist, absence of the former may 

 produce discontent. These considerations 

 point in turn to the central significance of 

 leader-follower relationships. 



Relations to Other Groups 



Any particular group functions in a matrix 

 of other groups, both within and outside 

 of the organization, and its relationships 

 to them must inevitably influence its 

 effectiveness. We know very little about 

 such effects, but a number of obvious con- 

 jectures can be made which might deserve 

 investigation. 



It seems reasonable to suppose that a 

 large measure of an individual's satisfaction 

 with, and pride in, his own group may de- 

 rive from such relationships. For one thing, 

 features of one's own group — traditions, liv- 

 ing circumstances, successes, leadership — 

 tend to be judged relative to those believed 



