Leadership, Attitude, Emotions and Issues Related to Employee Satisfaction - Assignment Example

Employee Satisfaction Executive Summary This report tries to evaluate concepts of job satisfaction, emotions, attitudes and leadership. This report focuses on a case study of Aziz who joins a new company and finds her new boss as non-supportive type. He then starts realizing that his previous job was better since his former boss was supportive and contributing towards his work. Aziz is now considering the option of “Exit” and is “neglecting” his job. According to the Job Characteristics Model (JCM), Aziz’s job lacks Feedback and Autonomy, which is making his job uninteresting. Suprana is an “Expert” and “Authoritative” kind of leader who only trusts herself. He has a little “concern for Employees”. At this stage, it becomes important for Suprana to sit back and rethink her approach. She needs to make herself as a diplomat and need to increase her concern for employees. Aziz however, needs to be consistent and keep on trying. He needs to find other ways to increase his motivational level and try to voice his opinion to the top management. Introduction According to the financial reports of 2008, Google has revenues of more than 21.796 billion US dollars. Without any doubts, Google stands amongst the top organizations, when it comes to growth, profitability, brand image, brand recall and brand equity (Honeyman, pp. 19-21, 1982). Experts of organizational behavioral studies suggest employee pleasure as the prime reason for this outstanding performance of Google. The efforts it has been doing for outclass employee satisfaction has raised the operating cost of Google like anything, but it seems that Google is not even bothered a bit by the increased costs. Uncountable amount of chef is prepared every day at the Google office. State of art Gym, volleyball court, lap polls, onsite car washes, saloons, dry cleaning shops, free on site medical checkups and free transportation facilities are just some of facilities that the employees enjoy at Google. Except for these, Google offers to its workers benefits like parental leaves, automatic life insurance, tuition reimbursements etc. Google management understands that by all these efforts they can shape the attitudes of their employees that in turn results in desired behaviors from them. On the other hand, this will create employee satisfaction and satisfied employees create satisfied customers (Robbins et al, pp. 259-299, 2009). For the past few decades, organizations have diverted their attention towards studying concepts of employee attitudes and emotions, employee satisfaction and leadership issues. All these have strong links with the organizational make up and operations. Attitude is “Evaluative statements or conclusions concerning objects, people or events” (Hitt et al, pp. 23-45, 2006). Job satisfaction can be defined as “A positive feeling that comes after evaluating the characteristics of one’s job” (Huczynski, & Buchanan, pp.12-13, 2007). Absenteeism, turnover and productivity are most important elements that are affected by satisfaction level. Moreover, satisfaction or dissatisfaction of employees can bring four important responses that are exit, voice loyalty and neglect can be either constructive or destructive and either passive or active (Johns & Saks, pp. 31-32, 2001). Since employees are all human beings, they have emotions. Organizational behavior defines emotions as “Intense feelings that are directed at any person or object” (Martin, pp. 256-258, 2001). Scientific research proves that emotions play an important role in determining one’s behavior. The best example can be of Terry Garnett. Garnett worked as the senior Vice president at Oracle for quite a few years and reported to the Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. Suddenly, Larry took the decision of firing Garnett for some reasons. Garnett felt broken but somehow he remained composed in himself and he must have said to himself that someday I will turn the tables. Today, along with David Helfrich, he owns a private equity of around 350 million dollars. Garnett has clearly said at many public platforms, “the simplest way to create a culture is to pick an enemy. We have an enemy. It’s Oracle” (Robbins, Judge, & Campbell, pp. 259-299, 2009). Garnett’s motivation and prime reason behind his attitude has been his emotion of revenge from Helfrich and Oracle. Finally, it is the leadership for a company that provides a sense of direction to the employees and the company. Leadership is regarded as “the ability to influence a group towards the accomplishment of a specific set of goals and objectives” (Sonnentag, pp.375-382, 2002). Good leadership in a company helps the company to actually cope with change and communicate the vision and mission of the company effectively to all the employees. This report focuses on discussion regarding all the above-mentioned OB concepts with the help of incorporating all these concepts in the given case study. The case is regarding Aziz khan, who was working as assistant programmer at Zentech Computers. Aziz worked under Suresh Reddy, who he regards as very good boss. Suresh was of a non-interfering type of a boss who believed that enough freedom should be given to the employees to do things in their own ways. He believed that he is just an advisor to his team and she should not turn himself as a dictator or authoritarian (Bjerke, pp. 23-25, 1999). Aziz soon joined Alpha Computers because he believed that Alpha is a bigger and multinational company, which would offer him greater opportunities of growth and learning. Soon he found out that his new boss Suprana had just one thing in common with his old boss Suresh: that was the non-interfering nature. However, rest was opposite. Suprana had no trust on her team and believed that they should not be left with any task. Instead, they should be spoon feed. She also regarded internal discussions as a waste of time. Aziz now finds himself in a situation where he is regretting his decision of leaving Zentech and joining Alpha. Problem Identification This case presents a couple of very big problems. The first one is the job dissatisfaction expressed by Aziz. His negative attitude towards work, his emotions of stress, tension, upset ness, and depression are decreasing and ultimately leading towards a negative trend in organizational commitment and job involvement. On the other hand, the problem exists with the Leadership style of Suprana. She presents a picture of a dictating, non-trusting, “Expert” and Authoritative kind of leadership style. Due to her leadership style, her team feels going nowhere. Aziz felt that working under Suprana has put a full stop to her learning and growth experience and all her employees are feeling the same: numb and going nowhere. Problem Analysis It is evident that Aziz is not satisfied with his job. There are various ways to describe his dissatisfaction as described earlier in the report. Exit, Voice, Loyalty and Neglect are various outcomes from the satisfaction and dissatisfaction (Hartel et al, pp. 123-128, 2006). In addition, all these responses can be constructive or destructive and passive or active. Since Aziz is dissatisfied, therefore his response would be in a destructive way. He cannot voice his opinions since Suprana and others are least bothered about that. That is why, Aziz has decided to Exit, which means that he wants to leave the organization. If analyzed carefully one can also witness that due to his job satisfaction the option of “neglect” is also coming into action. He is least bothered now days about his work and other elements. Another way of looking at the problem of Aziz can be rooted with Job characteristics model. This model developed by Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham describes the JCM in terms of Skill variety, Task identity, Task significance, Autonomy and Feedback (Thomas, pp. 185-189, 2002). Clearly, the problem exists in the Autonomy and Feedback part. Suprana has not been able to provide enough degree of freedom and autonomy to her workers. In fact, she thinks that they do not deserve. Similarly, she also does not believe in discussions and groups meetings with her team members since it is a waste of time for her. That makes the job of Aziz without any feedback. Since two out of five parts of the job characteristics model are missing, that is what is leading towards a negative attitude and dissatisfied approach towards his job. Aziz’s negative attitude and job dissatisfaction can be also linked with the low motivational levels of Aziz. McClelland’s Theory of Needs (Langton, pp. 39-42, 2000) explains it in terms of need for achievement, need for power and need for affiliation (Dansereau & Yammarino, pp. 23-45, 2003) (Steers & Porter, pp. 25-27, 1991). According to McClelland, these three needs of any individual are detrimental in defining the motivation level (Pinder, pp. 57-63, 1998). The most important of all these needs is the need for achievement and undoubtedly, Aziz sees no opportunity for growth and achievement at Zentech. Leaders can be classified into three types: Democratic, Authoritative and laissez-faire style of leadership (Arnold, & Silvester, pp.12-74, 2005). Suprana is somewhat more inclined towards being an authoritative kind of a leader who imposes her decisions on her subordinates and avoids discussion and meetings as much as she can. In addition, on the managerial grid where leaders are classified as whether employee-orientated or production-orientated, Suprana is production orientated since she has very little to do with the emotions and feelings of her subordinates (Robbins, Judge, & Campbell, pp. 259-299, 2009). Her concern for people is low and concern for production is high. These types of leaders do stay in their positions for long since they are good at achieving results (George, pp. 45-73, 2003). Another very important issue with Suprana is of trust. Great leaders breed trust and create a culture of competence, consistency, loyalty and openness (Ashkanasy et al, pp. 35-84, 2000). However, the mistrust that Suprana has been showing on her subordinates has been a source of negative attitudes and job dissatisfaction. According to the study conducted by Harvard business Review of Seven transformations of leadership, Suprana can be classified as an “Expert” type of leader that are most common of all. Even 38 percent of the leaders in the sample used by Harvard Business review tested as Experts (Robbins, Judge, & Campbell, pp. 259-299, 2009). Experts are professionals, who have a great grip over there job tasks and posses all the possible skills required for the job (Northouse, pp. 44-47, 2007). Therefore, they exercise their control over others by presenting hard data and logic. These are great individual contributors but when given managerial positions, they create problematic situations because they are “so sure that I am right”. Suprana and other Experts are always “my way or the highway” type of bosses. They proudly tell the world “I don’t do feelings”. Conclusion The case and the analysis help us to conclude that it is important for firms to study and make that their employees are satisfied at all times. It is also important for mangers to put in some kind of effort to assure positive attitude of employees as well since positive attitude towards job leads to positive results as well. In addition, leaders have an important role to play in the overall make up of the organization. If the leaders were doing the right things at the right time then many problems would not even arise. Recommendations If were a close friend of Suprana, then I would have made her realize the drawbacks in her leadership style. She needs to increase her concern for employees and try to get along with them. She also needs to understand that trusting people is very important and her dictatorship style is not valid under all circumstances. If I were Aziz and I had no choice but to work at Alpha then I would have tried to voice my opinions and feelings to the top management of the company. In addition, I would try tom keep on working with all the enthusiasm and energy and would keep on presenting my suggestions to Suprana in hope that one day or the other she will realize her mistakes. Moreover, it would be important to get the support of the employees in this process as well. References Arnold, John, & Silvester, Joanne. (2005). Work psychology: Understanding human behavior in the workplace. Prentice Hall/Financial Times. Ashkanasy, Neal M., Härtel, E. J., Charmine, & Zerbe, W. J. (2000). Emotions in the workplace: research, theory, and practice. Greenwood Publishing Group. Bjerke, Bjorn. (1999).Business leadership and culture: national management styles in the global economy. Edward Elgar. Blanchard, Kenneth H., Zigarmi, Patricia, & Zigarmi, Drea. (1985). Leadership and the one-minute manager: Increasing effectiveness through situational leadership. Morrow Block, Peter. (1996). Stewardship: Choosing service over self-interest. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Bratton, John, & Gold, Jeffrey. (2001). Human Resource Management: Theory and Practice. Routledge. Brief, Arthur P. (1998). Attitudes in and around organizations. Sage Publications Brown, Donald R., & Harvey, Donald F. (2001). An Experiential Approach to Organization Development. Pearson Education India. Dansereau, Fred, Yammarino, Francis J. (2003). Multi-level issues in organizational behavior and strategy. Emerald Group Publishing. Emerson. Eric. (2001). Challenging behavior: Analysis and intervention in people with severe learning disabilities. Cambridge University Press. Gardner, John William. (1993). On Leadership. Free Press. George, William W. (2003). Authentic leadership: rediscovering the secrets to creating lasting value. John Wiley and Sons. Hartel, Charmine, Zerbe, Wilfred, & Ashkanasy, Neal M. (2006). Emotions in Organizational Behavior. Routledge. Hitt, Michael A., Miller, C. Chet., & Colella, Adrienne. (2006). Organizational behavior a strategic approach. Wiley India Pvt. Ltd. Honeyman, Katrina. (1982). Origins of enterprise: business leadership in the industrial revolution. Manchester University Press ND Huczynski, Andrzej, & Buchanan, David A. (2007). Organizational behavior: an introductory text. Pearson Education. Johns, Gary, & Saks, Alan M. (2001). Organizational behavior: Understanding and managing life at work. Addison Wesley Longman. Knowles, Michael Cosby. (1990). Organizational behavior: Changing concepts and applications. Harper & Row. Kouzes, James M., & Posner, Barry Z. (1990). The leadership challenge: how to get extraordinary things done in organizations. Jossey-Bass Langton, Nancy. (2000). Organizational Behavior: Concepts, Controversies, Applications. Pearson Education Canada. Martin, John (2001). Organizational Behavior. Thomson Learning. Northouse, Peter Guy. (2007). Leadership: theory and practice. SAGE Publications. Pinder, Craig C. (1998). Work motivation in organizational behavior. Prentice Hall Robbins, Stephen P., Judge, Timothy A., & Campbell, Timothy (2009). Organizational Behavior. Pearson Education, Limited. Rothwell, William J., Stavros, Jacqueline M., Sullivan, Roland L., & Sullivan, Arielle. (2009). Practicing Organization Development: A Guide for Leading Change. John Wiley and Sons. Sonnentag, Sabine. (2002). Psychological management of individual performance. Wiley. Steers, Richard M., & Porter, Lyman W. (1991). Motivation and work behavior. McGraw-Hill. Thomas, Kenneth Wayne. (2002). Intrinsic motivation at work: Building energy & commitment. Intrinsic motivation at work: building energy & commitment. Sage Publications. Wilson, Fiona Margaret. (1999). Organizational behavior: A critical introduction. Oxford University. Yeatts, Dale E., & Hyten, Cloyd. (1998). High-performing self-managed work teams: a comparison of theory to practice. Sage Publications. Read More