Leadership Behavior - Essay Example

Leadership Behavior Introduction Everyday people face with various situations where either they act as leaders or they are lead by other people, directly, indirectly, or both. One of the environments where leadership behavior is applied, assessed, and often criticized is the workplace. Organizations are often rated and evaluated based on their leaders as these are the people whose leadership capabilities either lead company to success or to failure. Leadership behavior can vary among organizations based on the type of organization, corporate structure, corporate values and many other factors. Leadership style applicable in one organization might have absolutely controversial effects in another organization. Effectiveness of leadership behavior is closely related and interconnected with employee’s performance and attitude to work. While there are many people who admire their leaders and enjoy the environment where they work, there are also people who have negative experience of leadership behavior. In this particular case I am referred to the category of people who have had an experience of negative leadership behavior. The aim of this paper is to present the case of negative leadership behavior based on my personal experience, to analyze leadership behavior encountered with reference to the leadership theories and to provide recommendation of how this leadership behavior could have been improved. My experience of negative leadership behavior I worked as a pharmacy technician for a major drug chain in the city. Also, I had the second job in other company. In both organizations I worked part-time. However, when a full-time position for a pharmacy technician has been opened up at the major drug store, my manager has offered me full-time position in the drug store. As I thought that it was a good position and believed that full-time job offered me greater career opportunities, I have decided to accept this job offer. For this reason I quit my second part-time job and focused on this full-time employment opportunity. However, two weeks later district supervisor visited the store and informed my manager that he was going to send another employee for a full-time position in the drugstore. My manager has told him that the full-time position has already been offered to me and that I have already accepted this offer. District manager told my manager that he was not supposed to do anything without his approval, indicating thus that store manager hardly had any authority for making operational decisions. However, it is worth to mention that no other pharmacy manager has ever been told about this hierarchical structure before. As pharmacy managers run the pharmacy store they were supposed to manage all operational issues, including hiring. The district office has never had any objections to such management practice until today. Thus, it appears that either there have occurred some organizational changes, which have not been properly communicated to all parties involved in the process, or there are some problems with clarification of roles and responsibilities of both district managers and drugstore managers. Analysis of leadership behavior in the situation The above presented case should be analyzed in relation to leadership behavior of both my direct supervisor and the district manager. Even though it is only a fragment taken from the context there are some issues, which can be reviewed in more details. While analyzing the behavior of the district manager it is possible to relate this behavior to the category of “task-oriented behaviors”, where the primary goal of the leader is to ensure that the employees, equipment, and other relevant resources are used in efficient way. Effectively utilized corporate resources enable the company to accomplish its mission and to achieve set goals and objectives (Yukl 2012). The key elements of the task-oriented behaviors are: planning and organizing working activities, clarifying goals and objectives, monitoring work-unit operations, and resolving work-related problems (Yukl 2012, 69). Applying these elements to my situation, it is obvious that planning and organizing working activities, monitoring work-unit operations, and resolving work-related problems are integral parts of my manager and/or district manager. Thus, for example, planning component implies decisions regarding work organization, responsibilities assigning, and allocating resources, including human resources (Yukl 2012). In addition to task oriented behaviors there are recognized relations-oriented behaviors. This specific behavior can be applied to my manager who definitely has provided support and commitment to me as the employee by offering me full-time position. Relations-oriented behaviors are often applied by leaders in the form of support, development, recognition, and empowerment (Yukl 2012). The situation described above illustrated vertical leadership behavior on behalf of the district manager. District manager leadership behavior could be described as formally designated and hierarchical (Hoch & Morgeson 2014). As Hoch & Morgeson (2014) explain such type of vertical leaders are not typically involved in the team’s task work and they are not usually participating in the teams’ day-to-day work-flow. Applying the concepts discussed by Palanski, Avey, & Jiraporn (2014) my manager and district manager have illustrated two different types of leadership: supportive and abusive leadership. My supervisor has provided strong support to me, decreased my frustration, and encouraged me to stay working in the drug store. This made me feel very optimistic and positive about my full-time job as the level of my job satisfaction was very high (Palanski, Avey, & Jiraporn 2014). In contrast, district manager has demonstrated abusive supervision towards the store manager. Even though it was only a fragment, it was possible to note that the fact that the district manager arrived and without investigating the situation in the store and learning more about the current operations has informed the store manager that he was going to send a new employee for full-time position. Such a command tone and unwillingness to learn more about current situation in the store was quite abusive behavior on behalf of the district manager. Moreover, the fact that there was no practice of involvement of district office to the operational activity of the drugstore (hiring in this specific case), it was quite abusive behavior. As Palanski, Avey, & Jiraporn (2014) have investigated, abusive leadership behavior is highly correlated with the employee’s desire to quit the job and seek for a new job. Thus, there was increased risk that authoritative and abusive behavior of the district manager would have negative impact on the employees’ voluntary turnover (Palanski, Avey, & Jiraporn 2014). As Bucur (2012) has explained, it is important to examine the relationship between work behaviors and leader’s personality, as well as managing ethical behavior. Thus, in addition to abusive behavior of the district manager and supportive behavior of the store manager might be analyzed in relation to their personalities. Individual’s personality is closely interrelated with the values – “socially and personally shared conceptions of the good, bad, desirable, and righteous (Suar & Khuntia 2010). Thus, behavior and actions of an individual depend on his/her values in addition to organizational values. Applying the concept of organizational values and personal values of an individual employee it seems to be quite challenging to identify in accordance with what values the store manager and the district manager were acting. Taking into consideration that there was not sound solution and the approaches to decision making and problem solving varied between the store manager and district manager, it is possible to assume that their behavior was mainly dictated by their personal values rather than organizational values (Suar & Khuntia 2010). However, as Suar & Khuntia (2010) explain, often organizational values and personal values match with each other thus indicating that the employee and organization have similar fundamental characteristics. Having no additional evidence of the leadership behavior and organizational values it is quite difficult to judge to what extent the district manager and store manager shared common organizational values. However, the case described at the beginning of the paper clearly indicates that there is no synergetic work culture with assertive and people-oriented management (Suar & Khuntia 2010, 445). In relation to my personal feelings as one of the employees of the company, this leadership behavior leads to decrease of my job satisfaction and therefore, my motivation to work for this company is very low. In case if it is the unique case, it should not be a problem at the corporate level of the organization. However, in case if it is common practice, this might result in increased job dissatisfaction among employees, negative reputation, and high voluntary turnover of employees. As Palanski, Avey, & Jiraporn (2014) explained, all this will incur additional costs related to high turnover of employees. There are obvious problems with leadership behavior, which should be addressed. Some of the recommendations to this specific case study are given below. Recommendations Based on the analysis of the situation described in this paper there could be given some recommendations for improvement of the leadership behavior of both district manager and store manager. As Yukl (2012, 70) stated, “effective leaders try to quickly identify the cause of the problem, and they provide firm, confident direction to their team or work unit as they cope with the problem”. Taking into consideration this formulation of effective leadership behavior it is possible to recommend to both leaders involved in the situation to focus on quick identification of the cause of the problem. The cause of the problem discussed above seems to lie on the corporate level as there is no consistency of leadership behavior (district office) and there is a necessity to raise the problem with the senior management of the drugstore chain. As it has been defined the district manager has practiced vertical leadership behavior. However, in addition to hierarchy, vertical leadership behavior implies that the external team leader is responsible for the development of team members’ capabilities to lead themselves, for increase of their motivation and self-direction capabilities (Hoch & Morgeson 2014). Thus, it is highly recommended for district office to introduce coaching-related activities and set effective communication processes to avoid misunderstanding and minimize abusive leadership behavior. Also, it is recommended to set clear organizational values on the corporate level as there are obvious differences of leadership behavior expectations among different parties (employees, store management, district office management). In relation to my personal situation it is quite difficult to give objective recommendations as I am directly involved in it. However, taking into consideration the fact that such abusive leadership behavior may lead to negative consequences to the whole organization (for example, high turnover of employees and increased costs related to high turnover, negative reputation, etc.) it is highly recommended to establish clear policies and procedures related to hiring processes, as well as reinforce ethical behavior throughout the whole organization. It is also important to establish effective communication channel among supervisors and their subordinates so that decisions made on the corporate level where not causing internal conflicts, confusion and frustration among the employees and their supervisors. District manager should develop supportive leadership behavior and be more cooperative in relation to his subordinates. References Bucur, I. (2012). The Effects of Personality on Managerial Behavior. Economics, Management & Financial Markets, 7(3), 133. Hoch, J. E., & Morgeson, F. P. (2014). Vertical and Shared Leadership Processes: Exploring Team Leadership Dynamics.Academy Of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings, 1607-1612. Palanski, M., Avey, J., & Jiraporn, N. (2014). The Effects of Ethical Leadership and Abusive Supervision on Job Search Behaviors in the Turnover Process. Journal of Business Ethics, 121(1), 135-146. Suar, D., & Khuntia, R. (2010). Influence of Personal Values and Value Congruence on Unethical Practices and Work Behavior. Journal of Business Ethics, 97(3), 443-460. Yukl, G. (2012). Effective Leadership Behavior: What We Know and What Questions Need More Attention. Academy Of Management Perspectives, 26(4), 66-85. Read More