The Importance and Significance of Understanding Organizational Psychology - Essay Example

?Organizational Psychology In every organization, management must create an environment where employees can do their best jobs. In most organizations, the manager will set the behavior that they expect from their employees. In the case of the organization I have chosen, the manager created an atmosphere of fear and worry in the employees. They created an environment where employees were pitted against each other and they were told to watch one employee in particular. The manager was not a leader but had been used to managing her employees in other situations. She came into our organization and decided that she would take all the perceived power from the manager in our department in favor of creating a situation in which she brought her own people into the workplace. Eventually this manager was relieved of her duties but the psychological impact for the employees was difficult. The situation created ethical dilemmas for staff that had worked together for over five years together. The organization was a community college and the department was the career department. The focus of this paper will be to show the ethical challenges that the individuals had to endure as they went through their daily routine. Creating a Positive Environment Silverstone (2005) suggests that “effective organizational leadership is critical to achieving organizational success” (p. 57). In the community college, the manager was not into continuing an effective organization. Instead, she was working towards her own end instead of helping to promote what had become before her. In our department, the most important aspect of the process was the students who were seeking careers. The department provided a variety of opportunities for students to research careers, change careers and find adequate employment. The manager had no background in career and she was responsible for our department and for advising. She presented herself as someone whom we had to listen to and who we were not to challenge. Groves & LaRocca (2011) state that ethical considerations are largely due to an individual leader’s style. In their study, a transformational leadership style provided a better environment for employees. They also suggest that upper management should examine the leadership values and ethics of those they place in leadership positions. This would have been a good idea for the manager that came to our department because the individual would have had a better understanding of how to work within our group. The group already had a dynamic that worked and they were working well together. When this individual entered the group, she upset the balance in the department and created challenges for all the employees. Difficulties in Working with Managers In this organization, it was difficult to work with this manager. The greatest challenge that employees faced was that this manager wanted to be informed of every step that everyone made. As an example, employees were to report to her each time someone talked to anyone else in other departments. This was micro-management and very difficult to work with when the department was organized with a different style. The department had worked autonomously with previous supervisors and they attended weekly staff meetings. These meetings were provided for each department to give an update of what was happening in their area and describe any challenges that they were having. The staff meetings worked well because each department was able to provide assistance to the other departments. When this new manager came, she stopped staff meetings and felt that all staff should report directly to her for whatever they needed. Avey, Palanski, & Walumbwa (2011) suggest that positive leadership promotes employees who work together rather than those who show deviant behavior in the workplace or who produce counterproductive behaviors. In this situation, the manager expected that employees would inform her when someone went outside of the department and talked to others. The manager felt that she should be the ultimate authority for anything that came through the department. She did not take into consideration that there was already a leader in the department who was trained and who was making progress. In their research, Avey, Palanski, & Walumbwa (2011) also found that the self-esteem of followers was enhanced when the leader was ethical but was damaged when they were treated poorly. As time progressed with this manager, the employees in the department grew more anxious and feared for their jobs. They were more prone to “tattle” on each other than they were to work together effectively. In essence, this manager created tension in the group and made it difficult for them to continue to work together as a team. The manager made decisions without talking to the leader in the department and refused to involve employees in these decisions. In research by Kacmar, Bachrach, Harris, & Zivnuska (2011), ethical leadership was examined as it related to gender. The authors found that both men and women responded better to ethical leadership than they did to abusive leadership, which would be expected. Employees must be treated fairly or they begin to feel that what they are contributing is not valued. When looking at the relationship between the new manager and the rest of the department, what was clearly shown was the psychological impact that this new leader had on the department. The women in the department went from a group of people who worked well together, to a group of people who were afraid for their jobs, experienced depression, anxiety and often-sleepless nights. The employees in this department were not used to working in a dictatorial environment and they did not have others to talk with about the situation for fear that they would have problems from the manager. Instead, several employees decided that they should keep track of the leader in their department (the one they had known for over five years) and report to the new manager about what she was doing. This of course caused more anxiety for the leader to the point where it was difficult for her to do her job. Toward the end of the relationship with this manager, the department became very stressed and more difficult. The department leader attempted to move the department to another manager through the president of the college, but the president used this against the leader. In the end, the leader of our department was fired from her full-time job and given the opportunity to go back into teaching in the college instead. Shortly after the leader was removed from her position, the new manager was fired and escorted off campus. It seemed that she had severe problems with other staff and this was brought to light. Solutions to the Problem In retrospect, there were several solutions that could have been brought to the attention of the president of the college or the supervisor of the manager if employees had not been as afraid. Aamondt (2010) suggests that there are two types of ethical dilemmas that people find on a daily basis: Type A and Type B. Aamondt defines a Type A dilemma as one that has no clear definition of what is right or wrong, there are no solution that can be considered the best solution and the dilemma can have both a positive or negative consequence. The situation described in this paper is a Type A dilemma. There was no clear definition of whether this was right or wrong because everyone is trained to listen to a supervisor. The manager placed herself at the head of our department and we found it difficult to thwart her authority. We knew that if we went against her we could lose our jobs. For some in the department the thought of losing a job was more difficult than sacrificing someone else in the process. We had no one to go to in order to explain the dilemma because the college was looking for a replacement for what would have been the supervisor of the manager. The president would have been the next person to go to, but he was pledged to work with management rather than those who were under the managers. This created a difficult situation. One of the solutions for this problem would have been to define what was needed in the hiring process. The supervisor that hired this manager was exhibiting alcoholic tendencies and was drinking on the job. This was a situation that clouded her judgment. The manager that was chosen was not the one that the hiring committee had suggested, but one that the supervisor chose. Had she listened to the hiring committee’s suggestions, there would have been a better choice made that would have worked with our department instead of against it. The manager should have had clear goals created when she first came into the job. She needed an orientation and a necessary process for developing her own goals. Instead, she was brought in without guidance by the supervisor and she was presenting herself in a way that did not work for our department. The president should have stepped in and created a better space but he did not. In situations like this, employees should have a grievance procedure or a process that provides them a safe space to work. Although this manager created a hostile environment, no space was created for employees to report the situation without fear of repercussions. Another solution would be to have a counseling center in the college where employees could go for stress release. Although they had off site counseling, it would have been more appropriate to have somewhere that employees could go immediately when they found themselves in situations with supervisors. Employees needed to have a way to deal with the situation without fear of repercussions from the manager. Aamondt (2010) also gives a variety of conflict resolution styles. Our department would have benefited from conflict resolution before the conflict was out of hand. Unfortunately, there was no opportunity for the conflict to be resolved in anyway. There was blaming and backbiting going on instead of bringing the group together and providing them with conflict resolution. Our department went from a Coaction environment to one that was riddled with anxiety. There were a variety of workers working together and many issues that had never been barriers before became barriers. We could have resolved this matter very easily if the manager had made an effort to work with us instead of pitting each of us against each other. Conclusion Working as a manager is not always an easy task but it is one that needs to take employees in to consideration when making decisions. We were under a manager that did not provide us with strong leadership and this created many challenges within our department. The manager in any group must be one that moves with caution into a group so that they are able to see the work that has already been done. In thinking about this experience, it may have been a better idea to look for another job before the situation became as volatile and as unethical as it became. When people are going through an experience like this, it is difficult to think because one always feels that they are in danger of losing their job. In the situation, more communication was needed in order to bring the group together instead of keeping them apart. References Aamondt, M. (2010). Industrial/organizational psychology: An applied approach. CA: Wadsworth. Avey, J., Palanski, M., & Walumbwa, F. (2011). When leadership goes unnoticed: The moderating role of follower self-esteem on the relationship between ethical leadership and follower behavior. Journal Of Business Ethics, 98(4), 573-582. doi:10.1007/s10551- 010-0610-2 Groves, K., & LaRocca, M. (2011). An empirical study of leader ethical values, transformational and transactional leadership, and follower attitudes toward corporate social responsibility. Journal Of Business Ethics, 103(4), 511-528. doi:10.1007/s10551- 011-0877-y Kacmar, K., Bachrach, D. G., Harris, K. J., & Zivnuska, S. (2011). Fostering good citizenship through ethical leadership: Exploring the moderating role of gender and organizational politics. Journal Of Applied Psychology, 96(3), 633-642. doi:10.1037/a0021872 Silverthorne, C. P. (2005). Organizational psychology in cross-cultural perspective. NY: NYU Press. 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