Organizational Behavior and Leadership - Essay Example

Name Professor Subject Date Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 Executive Summary 2 1.0 Introduction 3 1.1 Background information 3 2.0 Power, Politics and organizational behavior 4 2.1 Power 4 2.2 Politics 5 3.0 Leadership and organizational behaviour 6 3.1 Theoretical orientation 6 3.2 Trait theory on organizational behaviour 7 4.0 Recommendation 8 5.0 Conclusion 9 Work Cited 10 Organizational Behavior Executive Summary Organizational behavior is the application and study of knowledge about actions of people groups and individuals in an organization. The study takes a system approach, interpreting people and organization relationship regarding the whole organization, person, group, or social system. The aim of organizational behavior is to build a better relationship through achievement of organizational objectives, social objectives, and social objectives. Organizational behavior entails a broad range of topics including leadership, team’s conflict negotiation, politics, and power. This paper covers majorly leadership, politics, and power. An organization relies on values, visions, philosophy, and goals that drive an organizational culture that comprises of formal organization, informal organization, and the social environment. Organization culture determines the type of leadership, power, and politics within an organization. The outcome of organizational behavior is personal satisfaction, personal growth and development the elements form an important aspect of the organizational framework. Power and politics play a crucial role in organizations from governing decision making to employee interaction. The impact of power depends on the positive or negative use of power to influence workforce. Politics influences those with power and determines productivity in an organization. Leadership is essential in decision-making a motivation operation in an organization. Leadership directs behavior towards achieving goals and improving performance in teamwork or work groups. Leadership in an organization facilitates success through accountability and responsibility in organization members. 1.0 Introduction Technological advancement, open market system, globalization, and the desire to excel at work led to an increase in competition and work related stress (Adler, Nancy & Allison 111). Management of human resource and leadership is now an important aspect in all organizations. In pursuit of creating a positive wok environment that will improve job satisfaction there is an increase in the application of art leadership, motivational theories, and skills in redesigning job to suit organizational structure. The advancement of technology has made human resource management a challenging aspect due to changing lifestyle goals (Cooper & Denise, 66). This change in lifestyle is accompanied by social change in terms of consumer buying power, financial institutions are going to great lengths in financing individuals. The dynamic nature of human behavior has resulted in situational models for managing human behavior in different environments. Although there is no specific model for managing human resource, standard models are easily modified depending on work situation to fit the organizational behaviour. The traditional methods of managing organizations are now obsolete new ways are taking center stage with work groups and teams accomplishing tasks. Delegation, empowerment, total quality management, participative decision-making, and other concepts are more appropriate in work environments. Employers are undergoing a challenging time due to redesigning of work and organizational structure, mergers and regrouping. 1.1 Background information The dynamic environment forces employees to learn more about human behavior in order to improve their interpersonal skills and effectively manage relationship in the workplace. Organizational behavior contributes a lot in employee effectiveness (Lashley, Conrad & Darren, 122). Organizational behavior is a scientific discipline that is under constant research and conceptual development to increase its knowledge base. Organizations behavior is also an applied science given the sharing of effective practices across organizations (Khoo, 55). According to LePine et al, (67) Cognitive behavioral and social learning approaches are the theoretical frameworks that form organizational behavior model. Cognitive approach by Edward Tolman is based on demand, expectancy and incentive concepts, behavioral framework pioneered by John B Watson and Ivan Pavlov focuses on observable behaviors the framework explains human behavior by connecting stimulus and response (Furnham, 37). Lastly, the social learning approach incorporates principals of behavioral and cognitive framework. The approach explains behavior as a continuous reciprocal interaction between behavioral, cognitive, and environmental determinants (Robins & Roman, 97). This paper analyses literature review on organization behavior by critically examining politics, power and leadership, the paper supports the two aspects by using a theoretical framework in addition to theories related to politics power and leadership. 2.0 Power, Politics and organizational behavior 2.1 Power Power stems from a position held by an individual in an organization or any leadership setting. According to Rosabeth power is the ability to make thing happen. An individual in power is in a position to marshal resources that will lead to goal achievement. Persons in power are effective and earn respect from their colleagues. Power as a resource enables one to gain information, support, supplies and everything needed for aid work productivity (Yousef, 24). Whereas power is, a tool and a resource politics are tactics that employees use to manipulate power in organizations. Leaders use power to attain their group goals and ensure that subordinates comply with task allocated. Additionally, power is crucial in controlling activities by groups and individuals. When a purchase manager is given a specific amount of money to buy materials, his actions are under control. Managers with the power of promoting individuals use the power to attain organizational goals. Power is an important aspect of an organization it should be utilized in to attain organizational growth and should carry with it a reward (Abernethy, Margaret & Emidia, 232). A threat of power is undesirable as it carries with it negative re-enforcement character. Power is associated with authority, which is acquired from the organizational hierarchy. 2.2 Politics Access to power is called politics. The way a corporate structure promotes access to opportunities and power is a major factor in organizational behavior. Politics in an organization entails activities in an organization that aims at acquiring, development and use of power and other resources to obtain an outcome in an uncertain situation. Power is a force that affects events while politics is process through which power is developed and used in an organizational setting. According to Buchanan (49), Politics is power in action, apart from politics being an exercise of authority to accomplish given activities it goes a long way to activities aimed at expanding power possessed. In an organization, departments depend on each other in many ways; the degree of dependency between departments brings out power relationships existing. The departmental relationship can be either conflicting or collaborative depending on variables. Mutual task dependence is key variable differentiating roles of departments and a common source of conflict and a bargain aspect of interdepartmental issues. The primary cause of departmental frictions is roles and their relationship between departments. Role ambiguity, blocked promotions, and faculty performance appraisal commonly lead to scapegoating. In the management of political influence, interpersonal skills play a vital role. Subunits act as control agencies for Ross functional roles and draw power from dependencies created. The role of a subunit is to cope with uncertainty and substitute where the possible alternative of operations exists. 3.0 Leadership and organizational behaviour According to Bass (76), leadership is an important aspect when it comes to the study of organizational behavior. A leader creates a working environment, and this translates to their efficiency. A leader is defined by their attributes, problems solving ability and positive approach. Leaders need to turn hopeless situations to their advantage. Leadership is crucial in an environment where tough competition exists, market facing financial recession, where employees are laid off regularly; poor demand for products and stagnant growth is persisting. Such situation calls for strong leaders who can turn around situations and lead their organizations towards success. Not all leaders are managers since some work in unorganized environments, unlike managers who work in related sectors. For managers to work, efficiently they need to be leaders. 3.1 Theoretical orientation Apart from influence, leadership is defined in terms of personality, group process, and compliance. Other attributes of leaders include achievement, goal, role differentiation, and interaction and initiation structure. Leaders are visionary and achieve objectives through authority more so in organizational settings. A good leaders archives willing obedience from subordinates, since they fulfill desires wants and needs of subordinates. Leaders influence people to willingly and enthusiastically achieve group goals. In an organization, employees need a motivation factor that will trigger total commitment and utmost zeal (Wang, et al, 420). Leaders act as captains who inspire workforce physically and bring out the energy and ability to face situations that face an organization. A leaders instills value such as honesty, takes calculated risks and show concern to customers and employees. 3.2 Trait theory on organizational behaviour The theory states that not all leaders are effective managers while all managers do not make effective leaders. According to this theory, identifying effective leaders or managers is complex. Early leadership studies defined leaders by their traits they expected them to portray. The attributes that defined leaders brought up trait theory also known as great man’s theory (Jones, 77). Attributes of leaders are bravery, loyalty, compassionate and honest. Since a leader cannot have all traits, some traits are desirable for some leaders (Rowden, 32). Many studies and research on traits of leaders are already done, According to Rowden, there are four categories of traits that define a real leader personality: adaptability, enthusiasm, self-confidence and aggressiveness. Physical traits: height, appearance, intelligence and energy, other characteristics associated with leaders include persistence and initiative, social drive, interpersonal skills and administrative skills (Johns, Gary & Alan, 145). The downside of the theory is that it does not state the quantity of a trait that amounts to one being a leader. Therefore, the theory is not conclusive; most of these traits are behavior p patterns. 4.0 Recommendation Organizational goals express organization mission that defines organizational behavior. The aims and objectives of an organization should be attained by a combination of resources that is a division of labor and formation of groups and teams. Organizational structure plays a crucial role towards attainment of goals (Paul Hersey and Kenneth 151). At the start organizations have small structures and take mega funds to develop, development should be vertical or horizontal. While vertical structure indicates reporting, channel and line of horizontal authority structure indicate specialization and division of work. Tiers in organizational structure indicate power structure, interrelationship, positions, and channels of reporting, roles, accountability, and delegation. For an organization structure to be effective, it needs continuous reviews modified depending on the current scenario of the organization for it to remain competitive. It is important to involve stakeholder sin formation of the organizational structure due to its influence on human resource (Mainiero, 122). A divergence existed between operating and planned organizational structure. Power blocks and social systems bring out the disparity between formal structure and operating structure of and organization (Knippenberg, Daan & Els Schie, 125). A formal structure needs to represent the technical aspect of an organization. For an interaction between departments and work groups to succeed it is important to incorporate value system, attitude, human behavior, and the technical part of the organization (Scott, 88). Organizational culture should promote Organizational behavior from top management to lower levels of management. 5.0 Conclusion In organizational behavior the aspect of leadership is an art, leaders are visionary personalities who achieve willing obedience from their subordinates. Leaders take calculated risks and display a sense of duty and care for their employees. A good leader will easily influence subordinates to work towards the achievement of organizational goals. Leadership comes with power that when effectively used will aid in the identification of needs and inspire workforce in hopeless situations. An organization under the stewardship of a good leader has a conducive work environment. They are many theories that explain leadership; one is trait theory also known as great man’s theory. The effectiveness of authority depends on perceived differences between parties, situations, and acceptance legitimacy. Power is also enjoyed by persons with a charismatic personality. In an organization, power is easily enhanced by use if knowledge and other resources, managers can improve their credibility through decision-making and creation of power centers. Resorting to the centrality of resources, creation of dependency creating uncertainty ad scarcity leads to an enhanced authority. Effective organizational behavior entails delegation of duties to subordinates, a division of work, modification of organizational structure and empowering employees to cultivate responsibility. On the other hand, politics related to access to power, while power is the property of systems politics is power in action. The dependency exists between departments and how they relate their power. Managers are in a position to exploit power to their advantage by creating a scarcity of resources, setting ambiguous goals, resorting to non-programed decisions, managing the external environment and introducing organizational changes. Thus, it’s my opinion that organizational behaviour should be managed carefully to avoid erosion of the main goals of the organization. Work Cited Abernethy, Margaret A., and Emidia Vagnoni. "Power, organization design and managerial behaviour." Accounting, Organizations and Society 29.3 2004: 207-225. Adler, Nancy J., and Allison Gundersen. International dimensions of organizational behavior. Cengage Learning, 2007. Bass, Bernard M. "From leaderless group discussions to the cross-national assessment of managers." Journal of Management 7.2 1981: 63-76. Buchanan, David, and Richard Badham. Power, politics, and organizational change: Winning the turf game. Sage, 2008. Cooper, Cary L., and Denise M. 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