Perception of Leaders' Decision Making - Dissertation Example

PERCEPTION OF LEADERS’ DECISION MAKING Introduction Perception is increasingly crucial in the decision-making process because managers and leaders must completely understand that their decisions must align with the facts and component of their organizational culture. Leader’s decision-making perception is increasingly crucial in an organization because it determines and influences the productivity, reputation, behavior and organizational climate of an organization. Therefore, healthy decisions cause positive impacts for the organization, its workforce and clients. In a bid to have healthy decision making perception, leaders should analyze all crucial information engaged in healthy decision making and ensure that the process of decision making is slow and sure. Problems of the statement This discussions aims to investigate how of leader’s decision-making is perceived in various organizations and the role that leaders decisions play in the organizational culture. The organizational culture of an organization is increasingly crucial and so does leader’s decisions. The two are inseparable and function together for the effectiveness of the organization and aim to create an effective organizational climate. Thus, the discussion aims to investigate the responsibility leader’s decision in an organization. It similarly seeks to outline how leadership influences organizational culture. Purpose of the statement To investigate how leader’s decision making influence organizational climate To investigate the role of leadership in shaping the organizational culture of an organization To establish the role of an organizational culture in an organization Research questions What is perception? What is an organizational culture? What are the functions of an organizational culture? How does leader’s decision-making perception affect organizational culture? Literature review Organizational leader’s role In any institution, the making of the decision has ever since been entrusted to the power of the leaders. The hierarchy of an organization develops when an institution faces some challenges in organizing and motivating the workforce. As the company develops, workforce grows in number and start to specialize, doing exceptionally diverse operations, the differentiation level heightens and managing the workforce operations becomes extremely hard. With globalization and shift in technological techniques, various world sectors and business operations have changed to demand their managers to take choices quickly and attend to immediate matters. Consequently, this brings about the tendency to make unreasonable decisions because of the increased global pressures. Therefore, the perception of leaders’ decision-making has changed globally, (Ashkenas 1995). It is clear that effective companies characteristically find their benefit in allowing full participation in making of decisions and empowering required individuals irrespective of the organizational level to contribute to the decision-making quality. In addition, the organizational culture aspect is at the center of comprehending the environmental condition including making of decision, (Aldrich, 2009). Organizational culture entails the values that emerge in a team, the main norms emphasized by the institution, the philosophy that directs the team, organizational policies and workforce operations and behavior. As the organizational culture, affect the perception of leaders’ decisions, the leaders’ decisions similarly affects the company and shaping of the organizational structure. Therefore, the institution alters its mechanism; the main desire encompasses the evaluation of the compatibility of the choices perceptions with the culture of the institution, (Bass, 2005). The perception or option stands for the inherent course of action for leaders making the choices. Organizational leaders are entrusted with the organizational workforce, facilities, property and reputation that they should operate with ad through to attain the goals and purpose of the organization. They are also crucial in making organization’s decisions and implementing them for benefit of the organization. In various organizations, perception of decision-making process and decisions by leaders determine and influence the climate and the efficiency of the healthy working condition. Perception Experts define it as the way people interpret their experiences. The ability to acquire and maintain the right perception is a crucial skill that any effective manager’s decision-making requires. Similarly, experts agree that one’s perception is demonstrated through communication in both small and large companies and organizations. Thus, it is a crucial toll in leader’s decision-making. What differentiates crucial and effective leader’s decisions is the capacity to manage and maintain positive perception in their decision-making process and dealing with employees and other company issues, (Osland, Kolb & Rubin, 2001). In addition, what workforce observes or regard as one’s leadership ability and effectiveness is their perception of the leader’s decisions that as a result changes to be a reality. Organizational culture Organizational culture is the operating strategy that tells the team members how the group is consolidated and how it functions. More significantly, the organizational structure describes how leadership is organized, how group partners are accepted and how organizational decisions are made. In other words, an organizational culture is a series of guidelines designed to reach certain organizational goal. Without a coherent organizational structure and structure, an organizations lacks appropriate road map to guide them when pursuing business opportunities and carrying out routine operations. Therefore, incomprehensive organizational structure may mean inadequate organizational mission. The company employees, leaders and the anticipated projects of the company influence the organizational structure of that company, (Misumi, 2005). The organizational structure aids state the functions and duties of the team members, companies or work team. The organizational structure reflects a system of activities or roles and reporting policies in the right place to give members of a team or organization a direction when implementing programs. An effective organizational structure will enable individuals and groups to function efficiently together while implementing ethics of hard work and appropriate work attitudes. Every company or group must have a powerful organizational culture. Experts agree that a well organized and strategic, organizational structure aids support better communication process and justifies lines of power and relationships of reporting to ensure that processes of workflow in a clear process. A group without an organizational structure is dysfunctional and dead. When the group organizational structure fails communication worsen, disruptions in job product result and bottom-line benefits are impacted. The group must frequently check its organizational structure to ensure it is achieving the needs of the organization as it grows and transforms. Companies utilize organizational culture to enhance its operational process of decision-making. Organizational decisions always relate to the nature of information group owners, executives, or leaders gather over time. Similarly, organizational cultures foster information flow from internal operations to leaders responsible for organizational decision-making. Executive management levels can employ channels of the organizational culture for communicating information to leaders or workers responsible for taking certain group functions, (Osland, Kolb & Rubin, 2001). A group’s organizational culture can facilitate a highly efficient process of making decisions. For example, with a defined hierarchy, the group is intensively equipped to take crucial decisions and adjust its operations and practices to satisfy competition demands. Therefore, without organizational structure, company’s decision-making processes are paralyzed and the company loses focus. Leaders’ decision-making affects an organization culture of company Leaders are responsible for making decisions and rules that govern the organizational climate of an organization. For instance, they make agendas and set of priority actions that relate with the overall condition of the organization, and the operational context in which the process of implementation must follow. The managerial strategy and leadership decision-making process adopted instigates the required organizational changes depending on the skills and experience of the managers involved. Leadership and management is a significant competitive benefit of an organization, not technology, strategies, finance, relation policies or operation. In fact, all these depend of efficient leadership decision-making achievement, (Dyer, 2007). An effective leadership decision formulates the workplace relations strategies and police and creates its resources, such as workers, finances and functions. Effective and talented management group is a crucial asset of the organization and may be an organizational detrimental liability too. A failed organizational operation is the product of incongruent leadership decisions. This is because dysfunctional management lacks the competent and skills to develop, plan, restructure and enact organizational policies and strategies for the success of the business. The organizational leadership decisions aids state the functions and duties of the team members, companies or work team. It influences the organization culture of an organization in that it reflects a system of activities or roles and reporting policies in the right place to give members of a team or organization a direction when implementing programs, (Burton, Obel & DeSanctis, 2011). An effective organizational leadership decisions will enable individuals and groups to function efficiently together while implementing ethics of hard work and appropriate work attitudes and policies. Workers as a crucial component of the organizational culture, depend on their leaders decisions, to inform their daily roles and production, develop polices and strategies to guide their activities. When workers are not informed of the changes and fail to meet deadlines because of inaccurate and inadequate information and decisions, organizational departments are affected. A right command chain, appropriate systems of information are communicated through the group and effective mechanisms for obtaining and transferring information are crucial to sustain the flow of operations to realize goals of the company. Leader’s decisions are mainly paramount. A leader influences his team to attain and organization certain goals and guide the institution in a manner that makes the organizational culture and climate logical, effective and consistent, (Finkelstein, Hambrick & Cannella, 2009). Leaders, through their decisions, play a crucial role in the system and are subject to some forces that influence the system. Similarly, they perform or order some tasks to be performed or functions that are crucial for the accomplishment of crucial objectives. Therefore, it follows that failure by leaders’ decisions or leadership unit implies failure of the whole unit and its followers. Managers externalize their proposals and integrate them into organizations, structures, objectives and process. To some extent, leaders take decisions and set regulations and rules. Similarly, they organizational culture involves various structures, procedures and beliefs that direct and regulate behavior. Therefore, organizational management decisions alter company structure via organizational ruling. Experts agree that managers try to tailor organizational culture as a way of managing and regulation administrative conduct and establishing organizational competence (the expertise and ability to achieve crucial tasks). Organizational culture is a mechanism of enhancing process to facilitate goal attainment. This is evident when managers feel comfortable concerning a necessary innovation in a company. To promote chance, managers have to provide a strong basis for implementing change, this act as a systematic actions and processes, (Dyer, 1995). Literature reviews that managers can modify normal organization, process and practices of human resource through their decisions. Therefore, manages initiate transformations and validates organizational orientations; they ought to change proceeds for achieving productivity. In other words, transforming processes is viewed as altering the culture. When managers and their officials take active responsibilities in enacting strategies, it acts as commitment to make sure that their strategies became an element of the institution. Decisive leaders acknowledge that these strategies need to align, match, package and sell the strategy to their company to be successfully embedded in the organization, (Bass, 1990). Therefore, leaders decisions, acts as means to interpret strategy into the process, role and norm of the organization. Such action establishes a culture – as form of behavior and processes, which are considered as strategy. In so doing, a manager’s decisions serves to inject a strategy into the organizational body. A manager increases the feasibility and modifies the culture. The operation of a firm is a crucial factor via which a manager’s decisions influence the organizational structure. Performance is the unity of team activity (either group, individual, sector or departmental) of an institution designed attain some anticipated outcomes. Experts confirm that there exist a crucial linkage between leadership decision-making, organizational structure and operation, (Lord, Klimoski & Kanfer, 2002. In reality, the three are inseparable (climate and leadership are constantly affected by organizational performance). Therefore, leadership decisions may affect organizational culture either through performance improvement or through diffusing information concerning performance, a factor that results to a better, encouraging and increasingly evolutionary condition. If regulation and polices applied by managers resulted to improved performance, it triggers a condition of hardworking, cooperation, accountability and competition but in a delicate condition and ineffective performance ruins the culture, (Misumi, 2005). Organizational culture is a crucial decisive element; therefore, managers have to apply right means of leading that operates in such climate. Therefore, leader’s decision-making reflects a series of actors, which result to a culture. Design appropriateness The data will be gathered from various employees, leaders and supervisions from various organizations. The research project is tailored to reduce potential common bias method because of gathering data from one source. The responses will be collected from various employees working in construction companies in various parts as well as from their leaders, colleagues and supervisor, (Cavanaugh, 2007). The research will be conducted using a survey method whereby various surveys will be collected electronically by sending mails guiding the workforce and their coworkers to different website that contain the surveys. The research will also employ correlation collection design to gather information from workforce with the aim of determining the relationship between perception of leader’s decisions making and organizational culture, (McFarland, Senen & Childress, 1993). This design enables the identification of connection among variables. It is an effective and accurate information gathering method. The design allows generalization from a selected sample to the main study population therefore; inferences are easier done with fast turnaround and reduced costs. The employees will be required to first work on individual basis and second as team to answer various questions in the survey. The respondents will be requested to offer the organizational structure views, to rate their leader’s decision-making perception, the effectiveness of their company culture and leadership. Unit of analysis This will be the age and the job status of the participants. The research aims to investigate participants starting from age 26. The respondents should be eight workers, leaders or supervisors in a construction company. Population under investigation The research aims to collect data from about two hundred employees, 40 supervisors and 20 leaders in 4 different construction companies nationwide. The participants will be picked randomly from these companies. The target age of study subject is 25-32 years for employees, 28-35 for supervisors, and 39 and more for leaders. Sample criteria Random sampling method will be utilized in respondent’s selection. For instance, 260 participants – which include fifty employees, ten supervisors and five leaders from each company-, will be randomly selected from to represent the entire company population. Data collection method This is a means of gathering information from the selected respondents. The collected information will represent of the entire area, (Rant, 2004). The investigation will use various main techniques to gather data. For instance, questionnaires – a list of open-headed questions will be provided and the respondents are required to fill in the questions as based on the research requirements. Secondly, the researchers will conduct separate focused group discussions for employees, leaders and supervisors. The groups will discuss various themes and their response the research will compile and analyze. Data analysis Qualitative means of analyzing data will be used for analysis of data. Similarly, quantitative mean will also apply. For instance, analysis of data will start with descriptive statistics like mean and multiple regressions. Other methods such as SPSS (statistical package for social science will be applied in data analysis. Conclusion A leader’s decision-making is a pertinent in an institution who guides procedures, organizations and processes. Experts agree that by performing these tasks, a leader’s decisions act to manipulate culture or altering its aspects. Therefore, leader’s choices act to alter procedures and formal administrative process of an organization. Leaders’ decision-making play a critical task in altering organizational performance and the nature of results of the organizations influence the structure directly. References Aldrich, H. E. (2009). Organizations and environments. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Ashkenas, R. N. (1995). The boundaryless organization: Breaking the chains of organizational structure. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Bass, B. M. (2005). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. New York: Free Press. Bass, B. M. (1990). Bass & Stogdill’s handbook of leadership: Theory, research, and managerial applications (3rd ed.). New York: Free Press Burton, R. M., Obel, B., & DeSanctis, G. (2011). Organizational design: A step-by-step approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cavanaugh, J. (2007). Organizational structure. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University. Dyer, W. G. (1995). Team building: Current issues and new alternatives. Reading, Mass: Addison- Wesley. Finkelstein, S., Hambrick, D. C., & Cannella, A. A. (2009). Strategic leadership: Theory and research on executives, top management teams, and boards. New York: Oxford University Press. Lord, R. G., Klimoski, R. J., & Kanfer, R. (2002). Emotions in the workplace: Understanding the structure and role of emotions in organizational behavior. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. McFarland, L. J., Senen, S., & Childress, J. R. (1993). Twenty-first-century leadership. New York: Leadership Press. Misumi, J. (2005). The behavioral science of leadership: An interdisciplinary Japanese research program. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Osland, J., Kolb, D. A., & Rubin, I. M. (2001). Organizational behavior: An experiential approach. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice Hall. Rant, M. (2004). Role of organizational structure and organizational learning process. (Program & proceedings, 14-18.) Read More