Table of Contents
Organizational behavior is defined as the influence that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations (Robbins & Judge, 2018). Having a definition of organizational behavior creates an opportunity to identify the role of a manager and the necessary skills to be an effective leader. The development of interpersonal skills not only increases leadership potential but to also improves organizational effectiveness by creating an ethically healthy climate with clear expectations about behaviors.
To be a leader, one should make a difference and facilitate positive changes and stimulate others to achieve worthwhile goals. This writer views leadership as a relationship with others involving a shared responsibility and requiring collaboration. Developing teamwork is such an important leadership role from this perspective. A team is a work group that must rely on collaboration if each member is to experience the optimum success and achievement. Teamwork is an understanding and commitment to group goals on the part of all team members.
Politics in some form is a part of all groups, teams, institutions, and organizations. Organizational politics are social influence attempts directed at people who can provide rewards that will help promote or protect the interests of an organization (Robbins & Judge, 2018). Effectively influencing other through persuasion, generating support, and inspiring trust are the core of effective politics. Organizational politics are the result of both individual employees and the culture of the organization.
127 our experts are availableright now
Organizational culture is an additional factor to consider when assessing organizational performance. Not only does it influence the decisions and behaviors of employees, but it also explains what is happening in an organization and why it is happening. Understanding and managing organizational culture is an important management role that can improve your own and your organization’s performance.
This paper addresses the shared role of Xciting and Amisha Gupta’s in development of an effective organization as well as the development of effective leaders. Xciting did a good job of providing in-depth training that included information, values, and culture. Although Amisha Gupta questioned herself this training produced a new-found enthusiasm, confidence, interest, and group identity, as well as, the importance of sticking to the values Xciting was built on. In addition, this training resulted in Amisha Gupta asking important questions of herself about self-identity and purpose. What was missing was the development of conflict and negotiation skills
Job Satisfaction, Motivation, and Emotions
Poorly motivated workers express themselves through detrimental behaviors such as time wasting, absenteeism, and high turnover (Robbins & Judge, 2018). Job performance depends on ability and environment as well as motivation. It is important that motivational theories are understood and applied in the workplace. Xciting, through their initial training, provided Amisha Gupta with enthusiasm and interest. However, this appeared to wane as this value was not present across settings within the organization.
An important theory to understand in relation to motivation is the equity theory. The equity theory of motivation focuses on people’s desire to be treated with what they perceive as equity and to avoid perceived inequity. The theory defines equity as the belief that we are being treated fairly in relation to others and inequity as the belief that we are being treated unfairly compared with others. As Amisha Gupta changes settings behavior demonstrated in those settings did not appear to coincide with the organization’s overall values with Gupta at times possibly feeling she was not being treated fairly.
A model this writer believes helps understanding of the impact of this is the affective events theory (AET). This model proposes that employees react emotionally to things that happen to them at work, and this reaction influences their job performance and satisfaction. Emotions are a response to an event with work triggering both positive and negative emotions. An employee’s personality can be a predisposing factor to a given intensity of a given emotional response.
Mignonac and Herrbach (2004) note that the understanding of AET is important for two major reasons. First, it highlights that affective events and responses in the workplace cannot be ignored. Second, it provides a framework of how emotions can be an essential link between workplace factors and employees behavior.
AET provides a framework to understanding the causes, consequences, and structure of emotional experiences in the workplace. According to AET work environment factors such as job roles and job designs influence attitudes directly through a cognitive route and indirectly through an affective route (Glaso, Vie, Holmdal, & Einarsen, 2011). This has important implications to organizational behavior because the occurrence of positive or negative affective reactions in turn lead to affect-driven behaviors and work-related attitudes (Glaso, Vie, Holmdal, & Einarsen, 2011). Weiss and Cropanzano (1996) argue that workplace events trigger affective responses and when accumulated over time will influence workplace attitudes such as job satisfaction, organizational trust, and commitment. These attitudes will in turn impact upon workplace behavior such as absenteeism, lateness, turnover, and productivity.
Ultimately, our behaviors are note solely guided by conscious, rational thought so having the ability to understand and manage both individual and organizational emotions can create effective organizations. We all experience emotions. Emotions play an important role in organizations. Attitudes result from emotions and work environment. An understanding of AET as a manager has implications for explaining why and how specific management strategies used influence important organizational attitudes and emotional well-being of employees.
Effective managers know how to positively influence not only their own emotions but the emotions of others. This could be an area of growth for Amisha Gupta. Understanding of one’s emotions can in turn influence the motivation of employees to engage in positive behaviors by improving job-related attitudes. Mediating workplace events that result in negative emotions can influence turnover, decision making, and overall commitment to an organization. Finally, managers can have influence the affective experiences of employees having the ability to elicit positive emotions by being supportive of their employees, by recognizing their accomplishments, and by communicating clear organizational goals.
Organizational Politics and Culture
Eldor (2017) points out that organizational politics can have positive aspects influencing employee engagement and behaviors. However, this author further points out the whether politics are viewed as positive or negative depends on the employees’ point of view. This highlights the importance of awareness of the politics within an organization so that managers can mitigate the negative influences of organizational politics. Identifying and implementing strategies to diminish the negative influence of organizational politics can help to improve productivity, improve job satisfaction, and reduce overall job-related stress. Amisha Gupta’s initial training focused on professional work culture and behaviors, however, as mentioned previously this was not carried across settings within the organization.
Political skill involves having interpersonal influence. Identifying the best management style to effectively address the negative influence of organizational politics is not an easy question to answer as no one model or style fits best with every situation. Mirela (2016) found that the managerial style of the immediate supervisor has considerable effect on the culture a group. This author further states that managers can and should determine the culture they wish to work within and strive to have this culture develop. This can be an additional area of growth for Amisha Gupta.
Part of being an effective manager is assessing both the best way and style for addressing organizational politics and actively creating a culture to reduce the negative influences of organizational politics. This writer views management from a relational perspective. That is, we interact and influence each other, working with in collaboration to accomplish shared goals. Mirela (2016) supports this perspective by pointing out that most attempts to address the negative influence of organizational politics have been directed towards creating a more open and participative culture within an organization.
Leadership
An area of growth for both Xciting and Amisha Gupta is the role of leadership. Leadership is called upon to address problems. Tracy (2014) identifies leaders as having a vision and a sense of mission that lifts and inspires men and women to help achieve that mission. This author further notes that leaders can tap into that root of motivation, drive, and enthusiasm that allows us to commit ourselves to achieving that vision. The goal of leadership is to improved teamwork, communication, and collaboration as this is essential to addressing problems. For professionals from a variety of disciplines to effectively collaborate and provide change, open communication and true collaboration are essential.
A leadership team with three leadership styles were affective in addressing problems. First, transformational leadership addressed relationship building to motivate and empower. The primary focus is to focus on the vision and mission. Second, expressive leadership focused on keeping relationships harmonious and moral high. Third, instrumental leader actively proposes tasks and plans to guide the group toward achieving goals. The focus is on the task rather than relationship simply the vision or relationship building.
Leadership helps to create positive change. Employees involvement is critical to the change process. Organizations change when the people in them change. Employee involvement seeks to increase members’ input into decisions that affect organization performance and employee well-being. Cummings (2011) describes four key elements that promote constituent involvement.
- Power – Power includes providing people with enough authority to make work-related decisions covering various issues such as work methods, task assignments, performance outcomes, customer service, and employee selection.
- Information – Timely access to relevant information is vital to making effective decisions.
- Knowledge and skills – Employee involvement contribute to organizational effectiveness only to the extent that employees have the requisite skills and knowledge to make good decisions.
- Rewards – Both external and internal rewards can help get people involved in the organization. External rewards might include pay and promotion while internal rewards affect feelings of self-worth and accomplishment.
Cummings (2010) notes that a set of behaviors at any moment in time is the result of two groups of forces: those striving to maintain the status quo and those pushing for change. To change, one could increase the force pushing for change or decrease the force maintaining the current state.
Groups and Teams
Understanding and working with groups is critical to both forces pushing and for change or decreasing the force maintain the current state. The initial training for Amisha Gupta focused on team building and working within groups. However, as Gupta changes setting group dynamics also changed.
A great deal of our work involves interacting with others, both directly and indirectly. This week we learned about organizations and the importance of interactions among people as critical to achieving important outcomes for organizations. As managers it is important to understand how people work together in groups and how to create effective teams.
Robbins and Judge (2018) describe a group as two or more individuals, interacting and interdependent, coming together to achieve shared objectives. These can be formal groups or informal groups. Formal groups are defined by the organizations structure with specific work assignments. These groups consist of acceptable behaviors specified by and directed toward organizational goals. Informal groups are defined as alliances that are neither formally structures nor organizationally defined. However, these groups can deeply affect behavior and performance.
Implications for the need to understand group processes are clear. Groups can dramatically affect individual behavior in organizations, to either positive or negative effect. The is a clear need to pay close attention to roles, norms, and cohesion and to understand how these are operating within a group is to understand how the group is likely to behave.
