Citizenship and Leadership, Social Responsibility, Communication and Teamwork in Workplaces - Essay Example

Citizenship and leadership Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: Introduction Citizenship is the code of conduct that makes someone to fit in a certain group or society (Bentein et al 2002). It consists of all attributes that lead to effective sharing of ideas towards achieving a common goal or objective. Many organizations nowadays are contemplating on how to improve citizenship in the organizations so that they will achieve maximum cooperation from the employees to improve the output of the organization. A sense of citizenship promotes motivation to employees hence they will feel good and offer their best skills. Therefore, it is this desire to improve the performance of the organization that has forced organizations to apply citizenship (Leoine et al 2002). The purpose of this report on citizenship is to identify the importance of employing citizenship in the workplace and how it affects employees’ interaction. This paper will also discuss the three components of citizenship which are the social responsibility, communication in the workplaces and the teamwork among the employees. The importance of citizenship is given and how it helps organizations in the day to day management of people. Finally, the report will give a conclusion of the research findings about citizenship in the workplaces. Social responsibility Social responsibility is the behavior rooted in the relationships between employees in the workplaces. These are the principles that direct and guide an employee in accomplishing a task. Social responsibility is encouraged in many organizations because it promotes cohesiveness in the organizations and promote motivation hence citizenship is improved. Generally social responsibility is concerned with how people relate with one another in the organizations (Bishop et al 2000). Social responsibility can be guided by a value. In this case the principles of an individual are based on certain values such as attitude, beliefs and behaviors. Values help an individual to develop actions which are benevolent and promote friendship interaction within the organization. The social responsibility values develop good relationships among employees and also motivate the employees to work hard towards achieving the goals and objectives of the organization. Social responsibility also creates a good relationship with others apart from developing values. All employees need to socialize with others and in this case social responsibility is achieved. Employees need one another in order they will work together as a group to achieve the goals. Therefore social responsibility develops a good relationship with others because it brings people of same interests together to work as a synergy towards the goals of the organization (Bishop et al 2000). Good relationship is achieved through respect and trust among the employees. Social responsibility is developed in the following ways; Observing moral principles of different professions; the principles justice and care are the fundamentals of social responsibility. Every employee who observes the rules and regulations of the job even without being monitored develops social responsibility. Positive social behaviors among employees help to develop trust and all employees become responsible for the actions done. Social responsibility can be developed through learning. The employees learn from others and through educational programs and try to practice what they have learnt. In so doing they will uphold the element of social responsibility from friends and other learning institutions. For instance in schools, students are told to behave responsibly and thus they transfer the knowledge of being responsible to work places. Finally, through a sense of empathy, an employee can develop social responsibility (Coyne & Ong 2007). In workplaces where empathy is joined with moral principles, social responsibility can be developed. In this case employees try to behave emotionally to help others in a friendly environment thus develop social responsibility. Importance Social responsibility in workplaces improves the corporate social responsibility in the organization (Coyne & Ong 2007). The organization looks beyond within the organization to the whole society and sponsor development programs which are ethical for an organization and this improves its value in the society. It helps to improve the image of the Company to the public and among the employees. For instance cigarette manufacturers give a warning on the dangers of smoking thus the public feels that the organization is responsible hence they it will attract many customers and improve its performance. It helps to solve social problems among the employees by minimizing the misuse of factors of production and developing a culture of being responsible always. Finally, it helps to improve productivity of the organization because employees become responsible for their actions and the welfare of others and motivation is improved. Communication Communication is another element of citizenship which is how the employees exchange ideas in the organization. Communication is essential in building good moral values as well as motivating the employees (Feather & Reuter 2004). When the employees share business ideas and exchange skills they become more cooperative and develop a code of business ethics. In order to develop a good communication network in the organizations, the following factors are observed. The message communicated should be complete in terms of clarity. In order to develop a good communication network among employees, the message should be complete so that there will be no blame game which will lead to disputes (Feather & Reuter 2004). For the message to be complete, it should be able to show what is supposed to be done, where, when, who should do it and how it should be done. The purpose of completeness in message is to minimize conflicts that may arise as a result of poor communication among employees hence develops vices like hatred. Communication should be courteous to avoid bad language that may destruct the minds of the employees who are the recipients (Organ et al 2006). Courtesy attracts the attention of the employees to read the message and interpret it well. For instance if the managers use a harsh language to communicate a message to employees, they may ignore it develop a negative attitude towards management and this leads to poor relationship between the management and the employees. Communication should be done at the appropriate time to avoid dissonance (Organ 2006). For instance if the organization does not encourage formal gathering, the employees may not have time to socialize and develop a sense of belonging. Appropriate communication can be done during group meetings for the information which is meant for that group. This promotes a good relationship between the management and employees so there is practice of moral laws. Also communication should be done in social forums. Effective can be done when there is free interaction between the employees and the management. This interaction is achieved by organizing social events like indoor games where the employees and the management interact and become familiar with each other. In this sense all employees learn to appreciate the efforts of the management and therefore uphold the moral standards of the professional ethics. Importance of communication Communication helps to eliminate barriers which could have been caused cultural differences and the organization can enjoy the benefits of good communication which includes improved productivity. It improves the business globally by managers communicating with their counterparts globally. It promotes team building by reducing unnecessary competitions among the employees and promotes healthy competition which improves performance of the team towards achieving the firm’s objectives. It motivates the employees through social responsibility to work together and achieve the objectives of the organization better. Teamwork Teamwork in an organization is essential in building citizenship among the employees in the workplace. Teams help team members to work together as a group and develop moral principles that govern their behaviors. There are two types of teams in an organization which are the formal and informal teams (Yoon & Suh 2003). Formal teams are formed to work on a certain task while informal teams are the teams which are formed voluntarily without a formal agenda to tackle. Teams promote good relationship among employees thus they can share ideas and improve the productivity of the organization. In order to build a spirit of teamwork in the organization each employee’s opinions should be considered (Yoon & Suh 2003). For instance if some team members are valued better than others then the team will not work well because the other team members will feel less valued which may lead to boycotting of the team operations. This leads to lack of cooperation among employees and there will be no good citizenship. The team members should be encouraged to work together towards achieving the set target. Each team member should be encouraged to participate in team operations by recognizing his or her opinions and evaluating them instead of ignoring them. In this regard each member feels part of the team and develops moral principles which will improve the effectiveness of the team thus building citizenship. Communication should be enhanced among the team members. This means that communication and suggestions remain open to any one to offer an opinion before making a decision. By welcoming various suggestions the team members will feel free to give their opinions which show some kind of recognition which motivates them to give more ideas. Use consensus in coming into conclusion. Consensus encourages team members to give many opinions as possible because all suggestions will be heard and then make a conclusion on agreement. This does not bar anybody from giving a suggestion and no one will feel that his or her suggestion was in superior to others. This motivates the team members and creates good relationship. Importance of teamwork in workplaces Teamwork improves the performance of the organization through distribution of workloads to each team member. If for instance an employee had a difficult in doing a certain task and now has been distributed, the employee will be less stressed and hence can concentrate and improve his performance. Teams help to build strong relationships among the employees (Seokhwa et al 2007). Due to frequent interactions among the team members they share the joy and sorrows together which develops social responsibility which improves the performance of each employee. Also teamwork promotes faster learning of the members because the members share ideas on how best they can grasp concepts. Healthy competition is also enhanced through teamwork as the members compete with each other to see who will come up with a great idea. They promote creativity among the members as they exchange new ideas amongst them through suggestions on how they can improve a product. Finally, teamwork creates job satisfaction because the team members enjoy their work when they are in a group hence an employee can be satisfied with the job as well as uphold the moral principles. Conclusion Citizenship is important for the organization because it creates a sense of being responsible in the workplaces. It takes three elements which are the social responsibility, teamwork and communication. Citizenship builds communication and friendship among the employees towards achieving the organizational goals. Motivation of employees is high with citizenship according to the research conducted (Seokhwa et al 2007). Therefore, according to this research citizenship is a core factor in developing moral principles and ethics with which employees are guided. References Bentein, K. Stinghlamber, F & Vandenberghe, C. (2002). Organization-, supervisor-, and Workgroup-directed commitments and citizenship behaviors: A comparison of models. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 341-362. Bishop, J. Scott, K & Burroughs, S. (2000). Support, Commitment, and Employee Outcomes in a Team Environment. Journal of Management, Vol. 26, No. 6, pp. 1113-1132. Coyne, I & Ong, T. (2007). Organizational citizenship behavior and turnover intention: A cross-cultural study. International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 18, No. 6, pp. 1085-1097. Feather, N. T., & Rauter, K. (2004). Organizational citizenship behaviors in relation to job status, Job insecurity, organizational commitment, and identification, job satisfaction and Work values. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 77, No. 1, pp. 81-94. LePine, J. Erez, A. & Johnson, D. (2002). The Nature and Dimensionality of Organizational Citizenship Behavior: A Critical Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 87, No. 1, pp. 52-65. Organ, D. W. Podsakoff, P. M. & MacKensie, S. B. (2006). 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