Relation of autognosis of managers with their performances in governmental schools of tehran

 

Gholamhosein Hairdari, Ph.D.,

Faculty Member of Roude Hen Branch of Islamic Azad University,

Batoul Hamedi,

Post Gradaute Student Studying for Ph.D. Degree in Consultation.

 

The aim of present research was studying the relation of managers’ Autognosis (Self-Knowledge) with their performances. The statistical universe was consisted of all principals of the governmental high schools of Tehran. By using Estimation Table of Morgan for determining sample size, 216 managers were selected by random cluster sampling. The descriptive research was of exploratory type of research and for gathering needed information, the autognosis standard questionnaires of David, Ton, and Kim Cameron and self-established questionnaire of performance have been used and the data were analyzed by using Pearson coefficient of correlation, one-sided variance analysis test, and t-test of independent groups. The results showed that there are significant relation between the autognosis of the schools principals and their performances. Among other findings of the research were the effect of educational level on the autognosis level of the managers and the approximate equality of autognosis in male principals and female principals.

The growth and development of education systems is the obvious feature of the present-day societies. In recent decades, especially in developing countries this has turned into an important issue. The consequence of this ever-increasing growth is that the education system has changed into a giant and all-embracing organization which deals with great number of students, fulfills different and versatile duties, employs many teachers and staff members having different degrees and skills, spends big financial and material resources, and generally speaking, yields far-reaching effects and results. Undoubtedly, smooth running of such an organization deeply depends on rational and sophisticated planning and fixing the aims. Effectiveness of its sensitive and important activities and services demands effective leadership and management. Education system is general pattern of official institutions, entities, and organizations of the society and assumes responsibility of achieving multiple aims, transfer of cultural heritage, cultural flourish, all-embracing training of individuals and human force. The complex processes which lad to achievement of these aims are called with different titles such as training, education, teaching, and learning (Persuasion and Arabi, 1993).

In the meanwhile, educational management is more important than other branches of management which they too are valuable and important in their own place. Educational management is more important because fulfills the duty of creating educated and specialist human force, and this critical duty may not be fulfilled by other organizations and institutions (Parhizgar, 1998).

Considering the importance of management especially educational management, any individual manager must be cognitive of their organization and work environment as well as of their own talents and capabilities. It is beyond any doubt that if a principal knows himself and is aware of his own abilities, weaknesses, and strong points, he may have more desired performance in his educational organization and will move toward very perfection of desirables to a considerable degree because the dynamism, development, and progress of any organization depend on the policy and performance of the management of that organization. It seems that several factors affect the performance of the managers. Among these factors, autognosis (self-knowledge), self-confidence, perseverance, awareness, expertise, experience, and … may be named. Management creates an atmosphere which stimulates and encourages changes, adjustment, flourish of individual and organization. On the other side, the management may create an atmosphere which prevents changing and adjustment and acts as a dam against flourish of the individual and organization (Jafari, 1992).

The versatility and complexity of the duties and functions of educational managers are such that permit only the experienced, professional, trained, and self-disciplined persons to have high-quality performance. A manager who knows himself controls himself, his wishes, and his behaviour to a considerably high degree. He is able to establish suitable relations with environment and others. On the other side, how a manager who does not know himself and his unique features can introduce himself to others (Mirkamali, 2000).

In talking about management on oneself and self-command, the thinkers of management use titles such as internal management, self management, personal management, personal development management, and self-leadership and have assumed judgemental approaches. Some have focused on external aspects of “ego” such as “behaviour” and some others have focused on internal aspect of “ego” such as “thoughts” and “feelings”. Third group concentrate on internal and external aspects of individual such as physical, sensational, emotional, mental, and cognitive dimensions. Still some other have seen entire existence and living dimensions of individual as an integrated system and have put it in focus of their attention. Self-management is the best approach for enabling the managers and human force sources. Accepting responsibility demands the capability proportionate to that responsibility. On the other hand, the capability and merit of persons are function of their degree of success in self-management because self-management is a key to realization of internal power and optimum use of that power which results in promotion of efficiency of human force and using internal forces. Taking benefit from all physical, mental, and psychological forces of man will fruit success in beyond-the-self arena. Man has immense unknown forces in depth of his entity. The magnitude and strength of these unknown forces equals with, or even is greater than, the magnitude of the universe and its phenomena. However, only a very few number of people know the immense potential power of their inside and use it. N case of almost all individuals, in the course of time, their last day arrives while their internal sources have remained unknown and virgin, or in other words, their immense internal powers are destroyed and wasted. (Micheal et al, 2001).

In ancient world, man applied all their attention to anthropology and studying the social problems of man. On those days, science and art had been in zenith of flourish, perfect, and life. The history of endeavour toward realization of oneself goes back to long long ago and may be seen in remarks of Socrates in saying like “know thyself” (Bahari, 1986).

In psychological literature of today, the word “ego” is repeated in different contents and shapes. In other words, one mat say that the concept of “ego” is one of the important and essential objects of the science of psychology. This concept is so important that the personality psychologists, social psychologists, and developmental psychologists have oriented their researches to that concept extensively (Shaarinezhad, 1992).

Joseph Billy (2003) defines autognosis as the mental perception of the person including his own image, personality, and being confident on his own capabilities. He quotes from psychologists that autognosis is the mental image of person and combination of feelings, wishes, and experiences of the individual. To a considerably high degree, autognosis is determiner of the behavioural route of individual. Autog­nosis is the judgement of an individual about grounds of success, values, capabilities, and the weight and importance of the person. Answer to questions such as “Am I a successful man in my life ?” and “Am I able to complete the task successfully?” are indicator of the type of self-conception of the individual. Judgment of an individual about himself also affects his behavior and his route of life.

Holland believes that those who enjoy higher degree of autognosis will have selections better than the selections of those being weaker in autognosis. In Holland’s view, autognosis is the ability of person in recognizing his own potentials in social environment. In other words, autognosis is the information and knowledge a individual has about himself.

Karl Rogers defines “ego” as follows: “The almost permanent image a man has about the value of himself and the relation of this value with his real self.” (Daryaye La’l, 2001).

For a person who has innate self-love, it is natural to pay attention to himself and intends to know his perfects and ways to achieve perfection. Commitment to oneself is base of all other commitments. Commitment to oneself does not originate from selfishness and hedonism but originates from feeling personal values and is based on potential usefulness and real and social successes. This sense of self-respect shall not be identified with macromania, narcissism or false pride because self-respect is not separating oneself from others but it is specified awareness of one’s real capabilities. This self-respect demands willingness to offer one’s real entity and is an attempt to minimize the difference between what is appeared in our behaviour and what we really believe in, and finally reaching to the belief that “I worth being”. Such commitment to oneself is obtained through experience and social and family opportunities. These experiences and opportunities enable the individual to recognize and test his abilities and disabilities and create real opportunities for himself.

Karl Rogers considers the concept of “ego” the most important main element of his theory. In Roger’s opinion, man feels the environmental factors and bestows meaning to them. The set of these perceptual and semantic systems make the “psychological stability field” of the person. Gradually, a part of perceptual field which is “self”, distinguishes and shows itself and takes the concept of “ego”. “Ego” is a perceptual thing in the ground of person’s experience and points out the awareness of individual of his own performance. The concept of “ego” has several dimensions and each dimension can be appraised. Therefore, the concept of “ego” may be based on weakness or strength, like or dislike, good luck or bad luck, applying each of these dimensions has special affect on the behaviour of the person. It must be noted that the existence is not merely accompanied and simultaneous with physical organism because no clear and precise boundary can be marked for that. Whether we consider an object and or an experience as part of our “self” or no, depends on our perception and the degree of our control on ourselves. Perhaps, this is the control and or self-determination factor which makes a baby be aware of him and makes him know that he can control part of his experiences. While some authorities have used “self” and “organism” interchangeably but in a limited level one may say that “self” is awareness of “being” and “acting”. (Shafiabadi and Nasseri, 1989).

Allport hoped to decrease the contradictions and ambiguities which are integral part of the explanations related to “ego” by deleting the word “ego” and substituting another word which can distinguish “ego” from other concepts. For this purpose, Allport selected the word “self” in whose definition traits such as special and suitable for a specified person can be considered. Self is a concept belonging exclusively to one person and embraces all individual’s issues. Allport considers “self” as “I, as I feel and know”.

In Sullivan’s view, one of the constituents of personality is the mental image one has from himself and others. This image is a complex mix of feelings, approaches and thoughts whose aim is meeting the needs and mitigating anxiety of the person.

The conducted researches have showed that one of the reasons of failure of students is their negative judgment on themselves. A pupil who considers himself feeble-minded has no incentive for studying, learning, and trying to learn and because of having no incentive, he will not try and so he will fail in exams. When a person considers himself a valuable and efficient person he will try to materialize his judgment. Successes, values, and capabilities are effective in creation of the type of life style (Amin Alzabayeh, 1988).

In a research titled “Effect of Autognosis (Self-Knowledge) and Self-Sufficiency on Decision Makings of Managers”, Ding Sing Si, Wang Younfang, and Zehzehou (2007) reached to conclusion that autognosis has significant positive relation with decision making of managers. This relation is such that as autognosis of the managers strengthens they make better decisions.

In another research performed in Philadelphia under title “Personal and Cognitive Ability in Predicting the Highest Limit of Managers’ Performances”, Bernd Marcus, Richard Hofen, Norman Justin, and Michael Dotestin concluded that the personal capabilities have close relation with the performance of managers and cognitive abilities may predict their highest limit of their performance.

In a research titled “Relation of Autognosis of Managers with Degree of Their Stress in Guidance Schools of Districts 2, 3, and 4 of Karaj City”, Mazaher Mahboui (2002) reached to conclusion that there was significant relation between the educational level of school principal and their autognosis and the degree of autognosis of women principals is lower than the degree of autognosis of male principals.

Jazayeri (1995) in a research on the relation of self-concept with the performance of the high school principals of Esfahan City reached to conclusion that there was significant relation between self-concept and the performance of the principals and the type of university degree that the managers hold did not affect principals’ performances. He expresses that the performance of the male principals is higher than the performance of female principals but self-concept of male and female principals is almost same.

In another research titled “Relation of Self-Concept of Principals and Their Performances in High Schools of Chahar va Mahal Bakhtiari Province, Tirgar and Salimi (1999) too reached conclusion that there was significant relation between self-concept of principals and their performances in supervision dimension, in planning and coordination dimension, and in motivation dimension.

In talking about performance, Powell Heresy and Marshal state that not only the individual must know what he shall do but also shall know continuously how well he fulfill the task. Further, he needs to have legal ground for his decisions. In other word, he need legal credit. The thinkers of management science consider performance as the fruit of attempt, capability, and supporting factors of the individual in performing the assigned missions (Mirsepassi, 1995).

Performance appraisal is a process by which the performance of staff in organization s appraised. In this respect, several definitions have been given. For instance, Randel et al (1974) define Performance appraisal as “any act for promoting the efficiency of employees through gathering, participation in, supervision on, and using existing information”.

Performance appraisal is a process by which the performance of the employee is measured and if done properly, its benefits will go to employees, staff, supervisors, managers, and finally the organization. The performance appraisal is defined as systematic review and description of individual’s performance in the given job. In structural official manner, performance appraisal is a system for measuring, appraising, and affecting the features, behaviours, and occupational achievements of the individual and hides absences. This will lead to recognition of efficiency of individual and continuance of his effectiveness (even at higher level) in future and this ultimately will lead to a situation in which the organization and society will benefit more (Tousi and Saebi, 2002).

The general and essential aim of this research is studying the relation of autognosis (self-knowledge) of the principals with their performances in high schools of Tehran. In addition to above-mentioned general aim, following special aims too have been followed:

1. Studying the effect of educational level of principals on degree of their autognosis

2. Studying the effect of sex on degree of autognosis of managers.

3. Studying the effect of sex on performance of principals

4. Studying the effect of sex on degree of self- receptiveness and the feedback of principals

5. Studying the effect of educational level on degree of self-receptiveness and the feedback of principals.

6. Studying the effect of sex on degree of awareness of principals of value, orientation, and stylistics.

7. Studying the effect of educational level on degree of awareness of principals of value, orientation, and stylistics.

In this research two questionnaires were used for gathering information. For studying the degree of autognosis. The autognosis questionnaire of David, Ton, and Kim Cameron has been used. This questionnaire, which consists of 11 questions y has been designed by David, Ton, and Kim Cameron, has been presented in “Management Organization and Research Approach” book, the book authored by Moghimi (1998). The questions have been scaled based on Likert Scale and are measured in spectrum of “I disagree completely, I disagree, I disagree a little, I agree a little, I agree, and I agree completely. This questionnaire is standard. However, it has been reviewed by different researchers and its content’s relevance has been confirmed. Furthermore, by using Cronbach Alpha Reliability Method the degree of its reliability was reported to be 0.88.

 

Table 1.

Sub-scales of the Autognosis Questionnaire of Principals.

 

For determining the degree of principals’ performances, self-report question­naire with 30 questions was used. For judging about the performance of the principal, the designed questionnaire was made available to three teachers of each high school so that the teachers evaluate the performance of the principals.

For designing the questionnaire related to performance of the principal, at first a questionnaire consisting of 40 questions was designed based on the aims of the research, completed studies, consulting with experts and principals. The preliminarily designed questionnaire was distributed among 30 randomly-selected teachers. The teachers were asked to give opinion about the reliability of questions. The researcher made further studies and collected the opinions of teachers and then proceeded with amending the questionnaire and finally prepared a questionnaire having 30 questions. Further, for determining the reliability of performance questionnaire, the designed questionnaire was distributed between 35 persons and the answers were collected. Then, for determining the reliability degree, SPSS software was used and using Cranach Alpha Reliability Coefficient, reliability was determined to be 0.876.

Based on above data, there is significant difference between average autognosis of principals having high school diploma and associate degree and between the average autognosis of principals having high school diploma and bachelor’s degree (or higher degrees).

According to Equality of Variances Test (Lon Test) and its related significance level (0.081) which is bigger than 0.05, the variances are equal with each other. Therefore, the value of t in the equality level of variances is accepted. It is 1.707 and its significance level is 0.089. Since the significance level is bigger than 0.05 the test is not significant. In other words, there is no significant difference between the average value of auognosis of male principals and that of female principals. This means that the autognosis of male and female principals is almost equal.

Fourth Hypothesis: The performance of male principals is more than the performance of female principals.

 

Table 2.

t-Test of Independent Groups.

	Lon Test		Independent t-Test
	F	Significance Level	t	Degree of Freedom	Significance Level	Difference of Averages	Difference with Standard Deviation	Reliability Gap in 0.95 Level
								Down	Up
Equality Level of Variances	0.505	0.478	0.436	214	0.663	0.037	0.084	-0.130	0.204
Inequality Level of Variances			0.428	185.08	0.669	0.037	0.086	-0.133	0.207

 

According to Equality of Variances Test (Lon Test) and its related significance level (0.478) which is bigger than 0.05, the variances are equal with each other. Therefore, the value of t in the equality level of variances is accepted. It is 0.436 and its significance level is 0.663. Since the significance level is bigger than 0.05 the test is not significant. In other words, there is no significant difference between the average value of performance of male principals and that of female principals. This means that the performance of male and female principals is almost equal and sex of the principals does not affect their performances.

The first finding of the research proves significant relation between degree of autognosis (self-knowledge) of principals and their performance. This finding agrees with the results reached in researches made by Mr. Heshmatollah Tirgir and Mr. Salimi (1999), Ding Sing Si, Wang Younfang, and Zehzehou (2007), and Bernd Marcus, et al (2007) . This means that there is significant relation between autognosus of principals and their performances. So, answer to main question of the research is positive.

The other findings of research show that the educational level of the principals may affect degree of their autognosus and as the education level goes higher that effectiveness grows too. This part of the research agrees with the results obtained in the researches conducted by Mazaher Mahboubi (2002) and Amin Alzabayeh (1998).

Among other findings of the research, equality of autognosis of female principals and male principals many be pointed out. In other words, the male and female principals enjoy almost equal autognosis. This part of the research agrees with the result obtained by Jazayeri in his research (1995) but disagree with what Mazaher Mahboubi concluded in his research (2002).

One of the other findings of the research was existence of significant difference between the performance of male principals and that of female principals. In other words, the performance of male and female principals is almost equal and sex of the principals may not affect the degree of performance. This part of research too disagrees with the findings of Jazayeri (1995).

One other finding of the research was the effect of educational level of principals on their receptiveness and being receptive to feedbacks and the fact that sex of the principal has no effect on the principal’s receptiveness and being receptive to feedbacks. This part of research agrees with the results of Tirgar and Salimi’s research (1999) and Amin Alzabayeh (1998).

The last finding of the research relates to the effect of educational level of the principals and their sex on degree of their awareness of value, orientation, and stylistics.This part of research agrees with the results of the research conducted by Tirgar and Salimi (1999).

 

Sources

 

1.       Bernd Marcus, Richard D. Goffin, Norman G. Johnson, Mitvhell G. Rothstein (2007). Human Performance. Philadelphia.

2.       Ding Ming Lei; Wang Yung; Zhao Zhao (2007). Gery Systems and Intelligent Services. IEEE International Conference on Volume, Issue, 18-20 Nov.

3.       Joseph A. Bailey (2003). Self-Image, Self-Concept and Self-Identity, Revised. Journal of Moo Assoc, Vol. 95, No.1.

4.       Michael D. Ensley and Creig L (Mar.,2001). Pearce Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 22, No.1.

 

Поступила в редакцию 24.11.2010 г.