Positive Organizational Behavior - Essay Example

Management Theory and Practice Author’s name Institutional affiliation Tutor date Introduction The direction that an organisation takes and its level of success relies on the quality of leaders that such an organisation has. Effective leadership can be seen from different perspective (Linstead, Fulop, & Lilley, 2009, p.38). To begin with, it is vital that the mode of decision-making in the organisation ensures that the best interests of the organisation are taken care of. Effective decision making is achieved by having a process which is consultative, inclusive and timely. In the modern world, the manner of conducting business has taken centre stage. It is therefore imperative that an organisation ensures that the decisions that are made meet the ethics threshold (Judge & Kammeyer, 2012, p.163). There are many successful organisations which have been brought down to their knees owing to change of guard at the leadership position and this serves to underline the critical role that leadership plays in determining that not only does that organisation rise but the level to which the organisation rises. It is against this background that this essay examines the link between effective leadership, decision making and ethical management both in theory and practice. The essay attempts to give an answer to the question regarding the number of leaders that are required so that an organisation can have its decisions made ethically. Discussion From the essay, it is going to become evident that leadership works through influencing the actions of those that one is in charge of. The goal of leadership is therefore to ensure that followers do what the leaders would want done in the organisation. Where ethical leadership exists then there exists respect for dignity and rights of the people affected by the decisions of an organisation (Linstead, Fulop, & Lilley, 2009, p.41). Leadership have social power and it is this power which becomes important when determining whether leaders have the required influence on the people. Ethical leaders must have high levels of integrity and this is seen in their ability to be trusted. Being trusted translates to more confidence in the leader from his or her subordinates. An ethical leader should necessarily have values, beliefs and make decisions which are consistent to a person of integrity (Bakker & Schaufeli, 2008, p.148). According to Luthans and Avolio (2009, p.293) ethical leaders tend to have their focus on the people. Ethical leaders are careful as to how the decisions they make affect other people. An ethical leader seeks to achieve the greater good rather than achieving their own self interests. A leader of integrity should influence his followers to have the group’s interest take priority above individual interests. An ethical leader should in essence be a motivator to his or her followers. An ethical leader is therefore expected to stimulate his followers to achieve a given goal which the organisation seeks to achieve. Ethical leadership should result in followers who are competent and who attain self sufficiency (Cole, 2004, p.41). Ethical leadership in very important when it comes to communication within the organisation. In a business, the leader should have as their guiding considerations how others are to be affected by their decisions and not merely how the decisions they make are going to be beneficial to them (Davidson & Griffin, 2006, p.28). For one to be considered a good leader, they should have values which distinguish them as ethical and this should be seen through their actions and their leadership style. When required to pass certain information, an ethical leader is required to give information which is accurate and should not hold back any piece of the information which they are required to communicate. Some of the behaviour which passes for unethical includes making personal use of office supplies. Other unethical behaviour includes telling deliberate lies either to colleagues or the businesses' clientele. It is common to find organisations developing ethical codes which guide what is acceptable or not acceptable of members of the given organisation (Luthans & Avolio, 2009, p.294). Enron Corporation serves as a perfect example of the negative effects of having leadership which lacks ethics. Enron was an American company which was based in Houston Texas. This company was a global leader in a number of areas such as electricity and natural gas and in fact had at one point boasted of not less than 20,000 staff members. The roots of the woes which led to the former giant filing for bankruptcy started with issuance of misleading statements as to the financial position of the company. Andrew Fastow was hired by the company in the year 1990 as the Chief Finance Officer and the path that he took did not augur well with the company in the long run. The decisions that Fastow took enabled Enron to hide its liabilities such that these were not reflected in its books of accounts. Having attractive accounts allowed Enron to experience rise in its stock prices as well as the company enjoyed good credit ratings. This was until it was realized that Enron was engaged in fraud and that the assets it has recorded in addition to its profits were highly inflated (Starkey, Hatchuel & Tempest, 2009, p.548). Philosophy is not only important but very relevant in analyzing organisations. Initially, philosophy looked down upon study of management. Philosophers viewed management as existing out of necessity since have to earn a living. Management has been disdained for a long time in part for being a messy affair. In management of organisations, theory or philosophy has an important role to play in that it creates concepts and brings them together. Philosophy, and by extension theorizing helps in bringing things into existence. Writings by Oliver Sheldon which tackle the issue of modern management have contributed to change of the view of management (Judge & Kammeyer, 2012, p.165). Initially, people had to rely on simple rationalism of economics but newer writings have tended to shift their focus on management in the modern industrial age. Business ethics is an area which has received a lot interest lately. This new found interest has led to people to focus on moral philosophy developed by Aristotle (Davidson & Griffin, 2006, p.31). There are a number of theories in place with regard to human motivation. Douglas McGregor developed Theory X and Theory Y which focus on human motivation. The theories have as their key concerns the perceptions of managers concerning the employees who work below them in an organization (Robbins, et al 2009, p.73). The first is theory X which does not find much support in modern times. According to this theory, employees are assumed to be lazy by the management. Therefore, the management assumes that their employees must be closely supervised since if such employees had the option, they would avoid working. This theory proposes that proper systems of control ought to be put in place to ensure that employees perform their duties to the expected standards. This theory states that employees would have very little ambition when there is nothing to entice to work hard and if an opportunity arises, and then the employees will take it and avoid working. Followers of this theory end up causing mistrust in the organisation and strict supervision of employees. A manager who believes in this theory thinks that there should be someone to blame whenever a mistake arises and that potential employee seek employment only to fulfil their own selfish ends. A manager who subscribes to this theory takes the first chance to blame a person for any mistake and they fail to consider whether the mistake arises out of a failure from the system as a whole (Robbins, et al 2009, p.73). Another theory on management is theory y. The assumption for this theory is that employees could be able to exercise self control and motivate themselves. This theory also assumes that employees are predisposed to take part in team work. Managers who subscribe to this theory believe that with if the proper conditions exist, and then a majority of the people would be interested in doing well at their places of work. It is believed that one can be motivated by having done their job properly. McGregor is seen as thinking managers who subscribe to theory y are likely to come up with a working environment which is full of trust and this would lead to development of human resources (Robbins, et al 2009, p.76). According to Easterby-Smith, Lyles and Tsang (2009, p.679) the operations of organizations take place through making of decisions. The method used by a manager to organize and control members of staff is through execution of decisions. The success of a manager is determined by how good and effective his decisions are. There are various stages which must be followed for a manager to come up with an effective decision. The first step involves definition of the problem (Bakker & Schaufeli, 2008, p.151). If the problem is accurately defined then the steps that follow are bound to be smooth. The identification of the problem can be achieved by conducting an analysis of the problem independently from the symptoms which are manifested. Symptoms of problems only serve as an indicator that things are not right in the organisation but they do not help in identifying the root causes. A good manager would be the one to look at the root causes of the problem instead of the symptoms alone. A number of the symptoms that things are not right in an organisation would include sales being lower than previously recorded. This could be a symptom of poor research of the market. Higher staff turnover could be having the underlying problem as inadequate remuneration or unsuitable job design (Robbins, et al 2009, p.79). Once the problem has been identified, a manager should come up with limiting factors (Cole, 2004, p.42). Ideal resources are critical in ensuring that managers make the best decisions. Personnel, time, equipment and information are all important in ensuring that a good decision emanates from a manager. It is important that a manager realizes what factor limits his or her capacity to arrive at the best possible decision. Since a manager might not get adequate time or information which is accurate, then it is important that managers learn to make do with the resources that they have available (Linstead, Fulop, & Lilley, 2009, p.44). The next step after identifying the limiting factor is to develop various alternatives. Due to pressure emanating from inadequate time, a manager might be forced to make a decision based on the first answer they get. For a successful solution to a problem, the challenge needs to be properly examined (Starkey, Hatchuel & Tempest, 2009, p.549). It therefore behoves a manager to look at the possible alternatives and make a firm decision once he or she is convinced that it is the right decision. Brainstorming is an excellent way of developing alternatives. Brainstorming helps in bringing ideas from different people and this gives more insights as to how the problem could be effectively tackled. It is important that during brainstorming sessions the groups limits itself t the problems that needs a solution and not veer off to other areas such as discussion the events which culminated in such a circumstances. Imperative, all ideas are must be considered (Linstead, Fulop, & Lilley, 2009, p.49). This encourages all members from the group to make their contributions without feeling that their ideas might not count. Thirdly, it is important not to discuss the suggestions which have been put forward immediately since judgment should await all the ideas. Starkey, Hatchuel and Tempest (2009, p.550) further note that despite brainstorming being a good technique in coming up with alternatives to solving a problem, there are other ways which can be utilized in trying to develop solutions to problems. One example is the Delphi technique. This technique employs use of questionnaires by the group leader. The unique feature of this method is that participants in the problem solving process do not meet. There is also the nominal group technique. In this method, a meeting properly constituted is organized and discussion is severely restricted to cover only the agenda that has been set for discussion. After developing the alternatives the management needs to carry out an analysis of the alternatives that they have. This is done by looking at the merits and demerits of every idea presented. Managers should determine what advantages and disadvantages each alternative has (Luthans & Avolio, 2009, p.293). A cost benefit analysis is important to determine the alternative likely to utilize the least amount of resources. The alternative should be feasible, effective and all the possible consequences should be listed. This analysis should be followed by determining what the best alternative is. The best alternative is considered as the alternative which has the least disadvantages and provides the most advantages (Janssens & Steyaert, 2009, p.147). It is not always easy to determine which the best alternative is and these calls for wisdom from the manager (Linstead, Fulop, & Lilley, 2009, p.56) After the best alternative has been determined then the decision ought to be implemented. Managers have the duty to make decisions but those decisions should be sound and positive results ought to emanate from the decisions by the managers (Cole, 2004, p.48). A good outcome would be guaranteed if the right decision is made and people participating in the implementation completely understand their specific roles (Davidson & Griffin, 2006, p.62). The implementation of a decision should be decision as just the beginning since there should be a system to evaluate the effectiveness of such decisions. This helps in determining the results and find out if they were the intended results. If the decisions need to be fixed, then this can be done. Conclusion It is evident from the essay that the ultimate decision maker in any organisation is the manager. A manager makes use of various people and various pieces of information to arrive at a decision which he believes would produce the best results for the organization. In making decisions, managers should warrant that ethical values are met as well as maintained. Theory and management are interlinked and it is difficult to imagine management being conducted without management theory. Management theory acts as the guide since that is how ideas are spawned. On the other hand, management entails the implementation of the theory. Theory ensures that managers implement sound ideas which might have been tried and tested elsewhere. Such a manager would only find the unique circumstances in his or her organisation and tailor the theory to suit his organisation. Management has the goal of ensuring that people and resources are organized so that they are productive and so that an organisation's goals are met. Ethics are very important for the success of an organization. Lack of ethics has devastating consequences and it is significant to put controls in place so that those in leadership make decisions which are favourable to every stakeholder in the organisation and not merely to serve selfish interests. References Bakker, A. & Schaufeli, W. (2008). Positive organizational behavior: engaged employees in flourishing organizations. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 29(2): 147-154. Cole, G. A. (2004). Management theory and practice. London: Thomson Learning. Davidson, P., & Griffin, R. (2006). Management: An Australasian perspective (3rd Ed.). Milton, Qld, Australia: John Wiley & Sons. Easterby-Smith, M., Lyles, M. & Tsang, E. (2009). Inter-Organizational Knowledge Transfer: Current Themes and Future Prospects. Journal of Management Studies, 45(4): 677- 690. Janssens, M. & Steyaert, C. (2009). HRM and Performance: A Plea for Reflexivity in HRM Studies. Journal of Management Studies, 46(1): 143-155. Judge, T. & Kammeyer, J. (2012). General and specific measures in organizational behavior research: Considerations, examples, and recommendations for researchers. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 33(2): 161-174. Linstead, S., Fulop, L., & Lilley, S. (2009).Management and organization: A critical text (2nd Ed.). Hampshire, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Luthans, F. & Avolio, B. (2009). The “point” of positive organizational behavior. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 30(2): 291-307. Robbins, S., Bergmen, R., Stagg, I., & Coulter, M. (2009). Foundations of Management. (3rd Ed.). French Forest, NSW, Australia: Pearson Education. Starkey, K., Hatchuel, A. & Tempest, S. (2009). Management Research and the New Logics of Discovery and Engagement. Journal of Management Studies, 46(3): 547-558. Read More