Leadership and Organizational Behavior - Assignment Example

Page Defines stress in terms of both work stressors and life stressors. Please identify four common sources of stress at work Stress in general isa conflicting situation that an individual encounters and has less or no control on countering the source of stress, which presents him with physical, emotional or social challenges to deal with. Work Stressors can be defined as the harmful and unfriendly responses due to a conflict between the demands at work and the ability of an employee to deal with the situation at hand due to limited control on the cause of conflict.

On one hand, work stressors are confined and limited to the environment at work and on the other Life stressors have a wider scope and could put an individual in a demanding situation because of circumstances beyond his control, such as marital conflict, economical situation, work environment, or loss of a loved one. Four common sources of stress at work – 1. Job Insecurity 2. Delegation Problems 3. Lack of Rewards and recognition 4. Low Compensation There are six methods that teams use to make decisions.

Identify and define three of the five. Three most important methods that are crucial to a decision making process for a team can be specified as- Identifying and defining the problem: The first step to any solution process is to identify and define the exact problem at hand and know the boundaries, scope and the nature of it so that further steps involved in sorting out the remedial alternatives can be adjudged for their feasibility. Developing the Alternatives: Under any situation, a team working on coming up with the best alternative decision has several different options and alternatives.

So, it’s of prime importance to list out the traditional or innovative options to deal with the conflicting situation at hand. This method would go a long way in giving the right direction to the decision making process. Implementation of the mutually agreed solution: Utmost care needs to be given while executing the plans and alternatives agreed mutually by the team members. This seemingly is the most crucial step as it might involve careful observation of every single aspect discussed while trying to reach the solution of the problem at hand.

Please identify and give examples of four of the five indirect conflict management strategies. Four conflict management strategies out of the five are mentioned below with examples- 1. Avoidance – It occurs when people try to postpone or not address the conflict at all intentionally. A situation where a conflict arises at the workplace due to an employee smoking with in the work premises is a good example of a situation that can be best addressed through Avoidance. 2. Compromise – A technique that most managers are not willing to deal with as it most often involves convincing the two parties in conflict to compromise with their interests a little, so as to come to a consensus and mutual agreement.

The best example of this could be delaying the launch of a much hyped product because of entertaining a bureaucrat at the insistence of the Human Resource Department. 3. Competition – A strategy that sometimes is the only option for managerial effectiveness, especially in a situation with high work pressure and short deadlines. In such a scenario, chances of conflicts with in the production groups are high due to extra work pressure and might require intervention and power at play to win over the conflicting situation. 4. Collaboration – The most effective conflict management strategy, however, has been collaboration as experienced by the modern managers.

A conflicting situation that can be handled and dealt with amicable with cooperation and team-work would present the best chance of keeping all the parties and employees, while meeting the goals at the same time. An example of this strategy could be when marketing, production and manufacturing department departments come together to deal with a serious problem of reduced demand and public mistrust in order to find a solution that would ensure the achievement of organizational objectives. Define power from an organizational behavior perspective.

What is the difference between power and influence? Power can be defined as the capacity of one employee to force another employee to work in the way as he desires due to the level of his hierarchy or the position accorded to him by the organization. The major difference between the power and influence is the source from where the commanding individual gets the persuasion power on others; power comes with position, where as influence comes from respect for an individual. Influence usually makes a better leader and also is favorable from organizational output perspective as employees under the influence of a leader will perform to their best of abilities even in his absence, which mostly is not the case with a leader, forcing employees to work. Page 2 2. First and foremost, as a member of a reputed institute everyone is expected to maintain the dignity and not just that, but understand the importance of what way they and their actions are being perceived by others.

We need to understand that the impression needs to be managed in the sense that it’s you who is solely responsible for your actions and behaviors. Especially, considering the most famous form of social interaction that is social networking, one needs to understand and give a serious thought to the implications of appropriateness of representing oneself. The four stages of the perception process gives us a decent idea on what could happen if we fail to consciously manage our impression that others develop through our actions.

Selection, which is the first stage of the perception process, makes people filter the trash and things that are not of self-interest. Social-networking, however, attracts the friends and acquaintances of our own friends and relatives due to the fondness of exploring and observing our immediate society. This enables people to take interest in you and make yourself a part of their world followed by creating an impression that is bound to stay with your identification forever. The images that you put up on your social networking pages is a virtual reflection of your personality, which is what helps people get attracted or become repulsive of you as they make a careful interpretation of your image.

The entire process leaves an impression that decides the length of time your perceived images is retained by the ones who have viewed you through that media. Three common examples of perceptual distortions are Claude Glass, Photographic and Color perceptions. A case scenario comes to mind that would adeptly help understand the importance of the perceptual distortion and impression management. An employee who joined the organization recently and was out looking for associations to mark his presence was mistakenly perceived as being a part of the notorious set of employees known for creating ruckus and unprofessional behavior.

IT happened just because the post party photographs showed him in the wrong light and despite him being innocent, it took years to take that first bad impression off of the minds of his colleagues. 3. According to the Hersey Blanchard Situational Leadership Model, the two senior most employees Ron and Dave are M4 in maturity and S4 in leadership style to be followed. Both have shown exemplary performance both in terms of output and the quality of their performance. The remaining three employees Kirk, LaMont and Sue all fall in the M3 category of the situational leadership model.

Mike’s overall leadership style on the Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership continuum is of S3 category as he rarely gets into any of the employee’s ways or style of working after delegating the task unless his support and advice are sought for technical help. Mike makes sure that all his employees participate in any decision before coming to a conclusion, which has earned him respect and trust of his employees. 4. In a situation as this, I would take Debbie in confidence at first and expose her to the importance of understanding the human behavior and the leading consequences towards the organizational benefits.

As a field of study, organizational behavior has been in existence for long but the importance has recently been recognized, thanks to the studies and researches done off late. Hawthorne studies laid the foundation of the importance of understanding the human behavior and its relationship with productivity and output at work. The foundation of organizational behavior lies in the differences that lie not only in how an individual behaves in a given situation but also how the work settings affect the individual and group perception of the whole situation.

Being an expert at a trade or a technical field does not necessarily result in getting the maximum output at an expected quality level unless a manager understands what the employees think of the management and the level of their motivation at work. The major implication that helps a manager is while making decisions that might attract resistance from employees. Understanding and analyzing the behavior of team members helps a manager in foreseeing the consequences of a decision made, before its implementation.

The best example of a firm running its operations successfully across the World is the Starbucks, which can give an ideal case study for any student going through the Organizational Behavior course. 5. The first four major points that need to be focused upon for the case under consideration are – The communication process: For any organization, it is of top importance to make sure that there is a clear communication among all levels of employees. The biggest lapse in this case was the zeal of one of the employees to surprise everyone one off day by coming up with a solution for the problem that the director of the company highlighted.

It could all have been avoided if everyone in the firm was aware that Tommy is working on the billing problem at hand. However, the shortfall was also at the end of Billy, who should have informed the IT department as soon as he had outsourced the project to a service provider. Whereas, the situation is yet not beyond the control and the negotiation process could sit in, so as to reach to a solution and make sure that the organizational objectives are achieved most effectively. Meeting with the third party and all parties involved with in the organization would help reach a solution amicably. 6. Discuss the diversity-consensus dilemma, including when it is most likely to occur and one possible strategy that a group leader can take to work through the dilemma.

Diversity at the work place has proven to be advantageous for employees as well as the organizations competing in today’s strenuous market place. However, working in groups diverse in age, culture, religion, ethnicity, gender etc can at the same time have negative aspects that need some serious focus from the management in order to keep the workforce motivated and focused. Reaching a consensus while working in a diverse group is often a difficult situation that the management finds itself in; resulting in conflicts and dilemma.

The emotional quotient between employees from diverse backgrounds does not match often, resulting in emotional conflicts, which keeps a consensus far from reach and the workforce along with the management gets confronted with a dilemma. The best possible strategy for the managers dealing with a diversified workforce is to not stereotype his leadership style and rather be flexible to adopt to any situation and make people happy through a collaborative style of leadership.