Corporate and Global Strategy - Essay Example

Such organizations bring out the best in people. Some people research on an organization’s culture before they job-hop, so that they know whether they will be able to gel in the organization. It would be very practical to perceive leaders as both architects and products of an organization. This is because a good organization develops the leader and a good leader develops the organization. Even individuals, who are effective in one team, might not be effective in another or fail to make a substantial contribution.

An organization is an artificial person and has an identity. This identity is given to the organization by its leaders and employees. Besides that, leaders also impact how the organization interprets its surroundings and what are its values, which relationships are important, which feedback matters and what information is available etc. The organization’s norms and boundaries shape leader’s behavior and view. Even after joining a new job, an employee observes the things that are important to his boss or CEO to determine the organization’s value system and expected employee behavior.

Organizations that have established an identity for themselves stand a better chance of experiencing cooperation. This in turn leads to goal alignment and overall performance tends to show an upward-moving trend. Collective identity is more important from an organization’s point of view because it creates a sense of commitment to the organization, enriches the organizational culture and augments cooperation. Leaders shape culture through modeling, teaching and coaching (Northern Leadership Academy, 2012).

Influential leaders also affect ethical behavior of the organization as a whole and this can be better understood through the A-B-C model (where A is the ethical lapse, B is the leader’s behavior as a response to this lapse and C is the result of the leader’s behavior). An organization’s ethical behavior and moral conduct is either weakened or strengthened by the conduct of its leaders. Take the case of an accounting clerk who manipulates results to conceal errors; if the leader does not take any effective action against number manipulation then the practice of manipulating figures to cover up errors is strengthened in the organization.

Similarly if one employee bullies another and the leader takes serious action against it, then the tendency to bully is greatly weakened in the organization. For instance, leaders who are morally correct will not bend the rules in any case and voice their resentment in case of an ethical lapse. However there are some leaders who are indifferent to an ethical lapse and let unethical things happen in front of them. The character of the leader builds the character of the organization. So a leader’s behavior shapes the organization’s future behavior.

Where it is true that a leader has the capacity to influence the organizational behavior, it is also important to note that a leader also has to come up with ways to shape organizational behavior favorably. If a leader wants to bring about a change, he has to mold himself for the change first and then expect the whole organization to follow his footprints. Changing one’s behavior for the organization is not easy as it requires a lot of loyalty and responsibility on the part of the leader. A good leader will always place the organization’s interest above his self-interest.

He is not reactive but instead proactive. He nibs the evil in the bud by clearly informing employees which unethical