Human Behaviour in Organisations - Essay Example

Human Behaviour in Organisations Question One Leadership can be defined as a process of social influence, wherein an individual procures the assistance and support of other people, for completing a common task (Chemers, 2014, p. 1). Transformational Leadership The transformational leaders employ behavioural strategies to systematise their behaviour and objectives. Some of these strategies are; setting high expectations and visionary goals, and granting their followers with autonomy and freedom to arrange their individual goals and behaviour (Hamstra, et al., 2014, p. 644). Such leaders readily undertake personal risk, and stress upon change, innovation, and progress. Transactional Leadership The emphasis in transactional or managerial leadership, is upon supervisory role, organisation, and group performance. In this form of leadership, the leader ensures compliance among his followers, by means of incentives and penalties. Transactional leaders differ from transformational leaders, in the fact that they do not seek to transform the future. The aim of the transactional leader is to preserve the extant state of affairs (Odumeru & Ogbonna, 2013, p. 358). Transactional leadership is of great value in addressing crisis and emergency situations, and in completing projects in some specific manner. Transformational Leadership is better Transformational leadership is superior to transactional leadership, as it improves the performance, motivation, and morale of the followers through several mechanisms. Question Two Trait Theory of Leadership The Trait Theory of Leadership presumes the presence of inherited traits among people, and that some of these traits are especially suited to leadership. Effective leaders possess specific characteristics, and great leaders have certain common personality traits. This theory attempts to identify the physical, mental, and personality features associated with successful leadership (Chartered Technofunctional Institute, 2013). For several years, the trait theory had been ignored and it had been assumed that situational and learned factors were of greater significance than inherited traits among individuals accomplishing leadership roles. Subsequently, behavioural genetics has emphasised that genes and inherited traits have a significant effect upon the individual (Warrilow, 2014). It is this writer’s opinion that leaders are made and not born. Upon assuming that leaders are born, most of their children would have become great leaders. This does not transpire. Hence, leaders are crafted by the situation and not hereditary. Question Three Important Attributes of a Leader It has been concluded by researchers that successful leadership emerges from the interaction between the situation and the characteristics of the leader. This interaction has been regarded as the key to understanding leadership, in conjunction with the crucial situational and trait variables (Fleenor, 2006, p. 832). In the contemporary business world, it is essential for a company to possess creative ability. A leader has to possess considerable creative ability, which he has to put to good use. It is necessary to realise that traditional management structures could compromise growth (Baldock, 2014). As such, it could become impossible to achieve major transformations, on the basis of obsolete ideas and techniques. This writer believes that Steve Jobs constituted an excellent leader of the contemporary market. Steve Jobs was a perfectionist who promoted a culture of excellence. He had sufficient courage to change his mind frequently, unlike other leaders who would take a decision and adhere to it stubbornly, despite realising its incorrect nature eventually. Moreover, Steve Jobs struggled tremendously in the face of adversity (Baldock, 2014). Subsequently, Apple achieved a level of innovation that was regarded as the zenith of innovative thinking of that era. Apple was regarded as one of the most profitable company in the world, and it exerted considerable influence upon the world market and the US economy. Question Four Associates with Similar Personality to the Leader A fundamental system for understanding leader perceptions is provided by follower identification of an individual as a leader. Individual perception underlies the leader models that determine evaluation of leaders and responses to them. The followers depict a more favourable reaction towards the leader, when there is a better correspondence to the prototype (Bray, et al., 2014, p. 393). As such, leader archetypes constitute dynamic perceptive structures that vary with time and context. Some of the benefits derived from building a team in the image of the leader are the following. There are no misgivings regarding the sharing of leadership and decision making with the employees. In addition, a participative atmosphere is created. Moreover, members of the team become compatible with each other and generate a collaborative environment (Clark, 2014). Furthermore, the manager has to rely on his employees to solve issues. At the same time, there are certain difficulties associated with creating teams in the image of the leader. An excess of members are selected by the leader in his own image. This leads to imbalance in the team, with overlapping in some areas and skill deficiencies in other areas. Moreover, members of unbalanced teams tend to believe that their abilities and talents are not being employed optimally (Clark, 2014). Question Five Effective Leadership The capacity of an organisation to realise its objectives is termed organisational effectiveness (OE). Several researchers have stated that OE consists of enhanced innovativeness, better coordination of effort, and swift commercialisation of new products. In addition, overall economic growth, profitability and growth of the industry, the competition intensity and level, consumer preferences, cost structure, revenue, size of the company, and its efficiency have a major bearing upon the total success of the company (Chi, et al., 2012, p. 1018). The chief processes of organisational effectiveness have been identified as adaptability, efficiency, and innovativeness. Profile of a High Performance Team Teams tend to be far superior to a solitary manager, when it comes to achieving results and solving problems. Thus, teams generally tend to be self-directed. The better class of teams or the so called high performance teams are empowered. The major portion of the actual work of a team is usually accomplished in the last quarter of the allotted time. Team members learn as they work together, and quite frequently, the scope of the team’s work affects or involves entities that are external to the team (Bodwell, 2002). Question Six Women as Leaders Several negative archetypical concepts have been in existence, regarding women in managerial positions. Females have been regarded as being well suited for work as subordinates, such as secretaries, administrative assistants, and nurses. However, with regard to managerial positions, women have been deemed to be inexperienced and untrained. Some of the surveys conducted in the 1970s, in this context, had stated that women were not career oriented, lacked leadership capacity, were unreliable, and emotionally unstable (Chemers, 2014, p. 140). This situation changed to an appreciable extent, by the 2000s, and some women were seen to occupy the top administrative and political positions. Instances being Indra Nooyi, the chief executive officer (CEO) of PepsiCo, and the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel. However, such individuals, as of the year 2009, were around 3% of the Fortune 500 CEOs. The proportion of women on Fortune 500 company boards was 15.2% and women occupied 16.6% of the seats in the US Congress. With regard to the international scene, women representatives in the national legislatures were 19% (Hoyt , et al., 2011, p. 375). Despite the overall improvement in acceptance of women as leaders, females experience greater difficulty than men in reaching positions of influence, leadership, and respect. These impediments have been attributed to stereotyping of females, prejudice and discrimination. Men and women tend to be regarded as possessing different characteristics. A major difference that is frequently cited is that females take care, whereas men take charge. In other words, women tend to be correlated to communal traits that underline concern for others. On the other hand, men are cast as entities that are dominant, confident, and self-reliant (Hoyt , et al., 2011, p. 375). References Baldock, J., 2014. Apple Innovation. [online] Available at: [Accessed 24 November 2014]. Baldock, J., 2014. Creative Ability in Business. [online] Available at: [Accessed 24 November 2014]. Baldock, J., 2014. The Innovator Steve Jobs. [online] Available at: [Accessed 24 November 2014]. Bodwell, D. J., 2002. High Performance Team Concepts. [online] Available at: [Accessed 24 November 2014]. Bray, B. C., Foti, R. J., Thompson, N. J. & Wills , S. F., 2014. Disentangling the Effects of Self Leader Perceptions and Ideal Leader Prototypes on Leader Judgments Using Loglinear Modeling With Latent Variables. Human Performance, 27(5), pp. 393-415. Chartered Technofunctional Institute, 2013. Trait Theory of Leadership. [online] Available at: [Accessed 24 November 2014]. Chemers, M. M., 2014. An Integrative Theory of Leadership. New York, NY, USA: Psychology Press. Chi, H.-K., Lan, C.-H. & Dorjgotov, B., 2012. The Moderating Effect of Transformational Leadership on Knowledge Management and Organizational Effectiveness. Social Behavior & Personality, 40(6), pp. 1015-1024. Clark, D., 2014. Growing a Team. [online] Available at: [Accessed 24 November 2014]. Fleenor, J. W., 2006. Trait Approach to Leadership. In: S. G. Rogelberg, ed. Encyclopedia of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Thousand Oaks, California, USA: SAGE Publications Inc, pp. 830-832. Hamstra, M. R. W., Van Yperen, N. W., Wisse, B. & Sassenberg, K., 2014. On the perceived effectiveness of transformational–transactional leadership: The role of encouraged strategies and followers regulatory focus. European Journal of Social Psychology, 44(6), pp. 643-656. Hoyt , C. L., Simon, S. & Innella , A., 2011. Taking a Turn Toward the Masculine: The Impact of Mortality Salience on Implicit Leadership Theories. Basic & Applied Social Psychology, 33(4), pp. 374-381. Odumeru, J. A. & Ogbonna, I. G., 2013. Transformational vs. Transactional Leadership Theories: Evidence in Literature. International Review of Management and Business Research, 2(2), pp. 355-361. Warrilow, S., 2014. Trait theory of leadership. [online] Available at: [Accessed 24 November 2014]. Read More