Sociability and Solidarity - Essay Example

Sociability and Solidarity Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Sociability and Solidarity The focus on sociability and solidarity in analysing organisational cultures is useful to today’s manager. According to Goffee and Jones, (1996) culture is a powerful method of holding an organization together amidst pressures for breakdown such as down-sizing, decentralization, and de-layering. Moreover, traditional integration methods are becoming highly ineffective and inefficient. Today’s world is characterized by increased and rapid change and the concept of globalization. Leaders around the world are increasingly under pressure to ensure that their organizations or followers accept these changes in an effective and efficient manner. Today’s leaders have to battle with different situations that are always emerging. The need to understand organizational culture from a sociability and solidarity perspective may be influential in realizing their goals and objectives. To begin with, it is important to define the concept of organizational culture based on sociability and solidarity. Understanding these concepts will provide a basis on how leaders can find sociability and solidarity useful in today’s world. In brief terms, sociability is the measure of genuine friendliness amid members of a society or community. Again, sociability can be defined as the inclination of being friendly to each other. Solidarity can also be defined briefly as the measure of a community’s capability to seek shared goals, effectively and quickly irrespective of personal links (Goffee & Jones, 1996). Additionally, solidarity can be defined as the affinity to be like-minded. These two human behaviours are significant in defining organizational cultures. This is specifically when it comes to the four dimensions of a community including networked, communal, fragmented, and mercenary. According to Goffee & Jones (1996) these four dimensions can represent a company’s organizational culture, but none is the best as each is suitable for different environments. In focus, sociability is the emotional measure between individuals who regard each other as friends. This means that none of the individuals views their friends as a means to filling individual ends or wants. Such kind of friendship is true and has all the qualities of a good friendship. Friends tend to share similar ideas, qualities, attitudes, values, and interests as well as tend to engage on equal terms (Goffee & Jones, 1996). Friends meet these daily objectives the sake of the friendship as no one stands to gain but both from being good or true friends. In this case, friends tend to help, share, cry, and laugh together with no strings attached. This forms the basis of sociability even in business communities. Certain companies illustrate high levels of sociability with employees, management, and consumers being relatively good or true friends. Moreover, employees can illustrate a level of friendliness or share the same behaviours in terms of being friends with one another. The main importance of sociability to today leaders is based on the benefits of high sociability. Almost all employees can agree that working in an environment where people are friendly or share the same ideas, interests, and values is enjoyable and improves their morale. Another significance of sociability is that it tends to enhance creativity and innovation because it nurtures teamwork, a spirit of honesty, increased information and knowledge sharing, and the liberty to express (Abdul Rashid, Sambasivan & Abdul Rahman, 2004). Furthermore, sociability develops an environment where individuals are more probable to extend their formal or job requirements. In such cases, people or employees tend to work harder than required in order to ensure that their organization as a whole looks good or is successful in its endeavours. These significances or advantages of sociability are in line with what today’s leaders want from their followers. By creating a high-sociability within the organization, leaders can realize increased results from their efforts especially in the midst of pressures such as change. Effective leaders can be characterised by most of these benefits. An effective leader can be defined as one who instils inspiration and motivation in their followers or employees (Northouse, 2015). The same case applies to innovating, autonomy, and ability to think outside the box or challenge the status quo. Moreover, effective leaders respect and are supportive as well as appreciative of their follower’s efforts. Therefore, today’s leaders can rely on sociability to develop the culture of friendliness and friendship or behaviours that reflect the elements of friendship in their followers or the organization. From sociability, today’s leaders can eliminate the burden of doing all the hard work by themselves through nurturing sociability to ensure that the need to believe and work towards a common goals is not just their duty, but the duty of each and every person in the organization. When it comes to solidarity, it is not emotional, but rather a mind or thought dimension (Goffee & Jones, 1996). Nonetheless, the dimension of solidarity can come naturally especially in business settings. Solidarity involves the development of relationships that are based on mutual interests, common tasks, and collective goals that will profit all parties involved. According to Goffee & Jones (1996) one of the main examples of solidarity in a business setting is in labour unions. Such unions that are common in Australia have the ability to effectively mobilize and pursue different objectives without much hassle. Goffee & Jones (1996) also offer the example of a Canadian cloth manufacturing company that assigned different leaders from different departments to come up with an expansion strategy. The result of the strategic association was based on solidarity thus its impressive success and results. Nonetheless, a key element in solidarity is the tendency of discontinuous relationships especially among diverse groups or leaders. Solidarity may not be a continuous feature or behaviour, but tends to come when necessary or when needed. Similar to sociability, solidarity also comes with its benefits to an organization. According to Goffee & Jones, (1996) solidarity has the capacity to generate a high level of strategic focus, intolerance to ineffective or poor performance, and immediate response to organizational threats such as competition or financial crisis. Furthermore, solidarity can bear a high degree of high performance. In this case, when the strategy of a company is well planned, its implementation and results can be highly effective (Goffee & Jones, 1996). This can enhance the feeling or culture of shared experiences as well as increased motivation for an organization as a whole when all goes well. Such cases of increased solidarity are characterized by high performing standards that all employees are required to meet. In addition, when all employees are required to meet the same performance and behavioural standards, solidarity can eventually instil a high sense of trust within the organisation (Niemann & Kotzé, 2007). When solidarity is demonstrated, an organization treats everyone equally and fairly where no one is treated special, thus a high degree of commitment and trust among employees. These characteristics and elements also help top build increased loyalty to a business as well as its goals, values, and objectives. These advantages that come with solidarity can also be of much use to today’s leaders. This is because the also express the same objectives and results of an effective leader. Effective leaders have a strong desire for their employees or the organization as a whole to achieve high performance (Northouse, 2015). This means getting results from strategies of ensuring that the vision and mission of the organization are accomplished. Leaders may be tasked with creating a vision, but if they do not inspire their employees to work towards achieving the vision, their efforts will be in vain. Therefore, incorporating the dimension of solidarity can effectively ensure that the vision of the company is achieved in an effective and efficient manner. Additionally, the main advantage of solidarity as indicated above is ensuring increased strategic focus (Niemann & Kotzé, 2007). Visions, values, missions, and goals are strategic elements of an organization that call for the same kind of attention, commitment, and dedication. This means that today’s leaders who can exploit solidarity have higher chances of ensuring that their vision is well understood and employees are committed and dedicated to achieving the vision. The same case applies to the advantage of ensuring fairness and equality within the organization. An effective leader should be able to illustrate equality and fairness towards their followers or employees (Niemann & Kotzé, 2007). Consequently, the ability to ensure that all employees are guided by the same standards creates a high level of trust within the organization and loyalty to the organization’s goals and objectives. This means that leaders can effectively ensure that their followers or employees work with increased dedication, motivation, and vigour towards achieving organizational goals and objectives. Goffee & Jones (1996) also analyse organizational culture in terms of sociability and solidarity through four dimensions that characterize organizational cultures including fragmented, communal, mercenary, and networked organizations. These organizational culture or character categories can also be useful to today’s leaders in terms of determining what type of an organization a leader wishes to develop. The networked organization is branded by high sociability and low solidarity (Kippenberger, 2002) This means that such an organization illustrates knowledge sharing and teamwork. However, for such an organization to function effectively, it requires a leader with outstanding emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills (Kippenberger, 2002). A leader who views each employee as an individual and engages them as such. This is the type of a leader who gathers soft data concerning people’s capabilities, motives, and values and is accustomed to what is going on in their environment. Such a leader should also use their internal networks and dedicate some time to talk or engage with people throughout the organization. This illustrates the leadership styles and qualities that a leader can use if they prefer to develop a high sociability cultures in their organizations (Kippenberger, 2002). When leaders focus on high solidarity, the type of organizational culture is known as mercenary. This is an environment that is defined by increased focus and toughness. This is aligned to leaders who are focused and constantly push for high results, profits, or performance. Such a leader with increased focus on solidarity understand goals clearly, puts measures or standards in place, and hold people accountable for their actions. Moreover, such leaders are straight forward and like to face issues head-on. When it comes to the fragmented organisation, both sociability and solidarity are low. Leaders in these kinds of organizations have tough responsibilities. For leaders in such organizations, their leadership styles require to remind employees about their roles in achieving the organizational goals and objectives (Wibbeke & McArthur, 2013). This means having to remind people either through words, standards, or actions on committing to shared goals and developing a friendly environment. This is where the tough role comes in since this is a constant responsibility of having to remind people of their responsibilities in achieving the overall organizational vision. Last but not least is the communal organization with high solidarity and high sociability. According to Wibbeke & McArthur, (2013) this is also a tough organization to lead because the two dimensions can clash. This is because no one wants to confront or have to retrench what one would consider his/her friend. However, leaders in communal organizations take an inspirational leadership style by motivating and winning the intense devotion of employees to their goals, vision, and objectives for the organization. This means that such leaders have to win the minds and hearts of employees for the sake of the organization. According to Schein, (2010) a leader’s character can reflect the culture of an organisation. This means that leaders cannot lead certain types of companies without their influence. For instance, an organization can only be considered networked if its leader had the characteristics of high sociability or displays increased sociability in their own culture. This extends to a leader’s style of leadership (Schein, 2010). Each organizational culture category is different from the other, and thus the use of differentiated leadership styles (Penney, Kelloway & O’Keefe, 2015). This whole idea and link is useful to today’s leader based on the increased need to be effective in the ever-changing world of business. Leaders can use the idea of sociability and solidarity to evaluate their business environments, values, shared interests, and visions to understand the best type of leadership styles to use and the expected organizational culture or category. Without a proper understanding of how an organizational culture is developed or what it actually entails, leaders can face increased challenges (Sheard & Kakabadse, 2002). For instance, when a leader has to constantly remind employees on their roles in achieving the vision of a company, then this should demonstrate a fragmented culture. Moreover, the ability to identify such cultures can be effective in instilling change by working on the basis of sociability or solidarity. Moreover, the concept of solidarity and sociability are ultimately linked to leadership and leadership styles. Leaders of today should work around understanding these concepts to ensure they develop and adopt effective leadership styles that can result in the best organizational culture. Even though no single leadership style is best for each situation, the use of sociability and solidarity goes a long way to help in developing custom or tailor-made leadership styles that are just right for each organizational need. Nonetheless, the dimensions of sociability and solidarity are not perfect, and do have numerous flaws. In terms of leadership, sociability can lead to compromise and indulgence (Goffee & Jones, 2006). This can also lead to the procedure of clique formation. People may find it had to keep friend or maintain friendly relationships especially with new employees (Goffee & Jones, 2006). People may tend to be defensive and lack the trust to help each other through each difficult time. Additionally, just as in the real world, when friendships break up, they tend to be highly emotional and hurting. Therefore, if the idea of friendliness or sociability is not implemented or nurtured effectively, the repercussions may be fatal. This may lead to increased rivalry, poor performance, and mistrust among employees. In all these kinds of possible negative situations, no leader can have an easy time. Additionally, it would be less effective for organizations with high sociability to make critical decision such as retrenching or confronting non-performers based on the high level of friendship among employees. Moreover, solidarity may also be damaging for today’s leader. When solidarity is applied or used with the negative aspects, it can lead to an effective failure. This often occurs when an organization mobilizes its leaders or managers or employees to come together and achieve a strategic goal without considering the ramifications (Goffee & Jones, 2006). If an organization brings people from all departments to work on a new product and one quality check is missed, the new product may be a disaster for the company. Therefore, each dimension has a positive and negative implication, but they are all interrelated to external or internal issues with an organization or the leader as an individual. In conclusion, sociability and solidarity are clearly useful dimensions to today’s leaders. Organisational culture can be viewed as part of the leader’s character. Therefore, today’s leaders should aspire to have effective characters that align with the different organizational cultures as analysed by Goffee & Jones. References Abdul Rashid, Z., Sambasivan, M., & Abdul Rahman, A. (2004). The influence of organizational culture on attitudes toward organizational change. Leadership & organization development Journal, 25(2), 161-179. Goffee, R., & Jones, G. (1996). What holds the modern company together?.Harvard Business Review, 74(6), 133. Goffee, R., & Jones, G. (2006). Why should anyone be led by you?: What it takes to be an authentic leader. Harvard Business Press. Kippenberger, T. (2002). Leadership Styles: Leading 08.04 (Vol. 8). John Wiley & Sons. Niemann, R., & Kotzé, T. (2007). The relationship between leadership practices and organisational culture: An education management perspective. South African Journal of Education, 26(4), 609-624. Northouse, P. G. (2015). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications. Penney, S. A., Kelloway, E. K., & O’Keefe, D. (2015). Trait theories of leadership. Leadership in Sport, 19. Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership (Vol. 2). John Wiley & Sons. Sheard, A. G., & Kakabadse, A. P. (2002). Key roles of the leadership landscape. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 17(2), 129-144. Wibbeke, E. S., & McArthur, S. (2013). Global business leadership. Routledge. Read More