The Function Of Organizational Psychology - Essay Example

The Function Of Organizational Psychology Introduction Organizational or industrial psychology refers to the scientific study of workplaces, employees, as well as organizations. It is also referred to as I/O psychology, personnel psychology or work psychology (Aamodt, 2001). Organizational and Industrial psychologists contribute to a company’s accomplishment by enhancing the well-being, as well as performance of its workers. An I/O psychologist studies and identifies how attitudes and behaviors of an organization can be enhanced by hiring practices, feedback systems and training programs. Organizational and industrial psychology is related to the ideas of organizational behavior, as well as human capital, (Bass, 1985). Leadership is a major issue in organizational psychology. In light of this, this paper will assess and analyze leadership issues in an organization that I am employed in and develop potential solutions. Problem I work in a law firm as a lawyer and the organizational problem that is dominant in the firm regards leadership. The various leaderships issues are: a typical lawyer’s psychometric profile is extremely diverse to that of a higher corporate executive. Also, lawyers are uncharacteristic leaders, for whom customary models require adaption. Lawyers hardly ever want to lead. Most law firm executives would be happy if they changed to client-facing work. The rewards for management in a law firm are not always noticeable. Finally, only few lawyers have working experience outside the legal field, so they have not experienced individuals who just want to lead. Analysis Leadership has been a key topic of research in organizational psychology for nearly a century and has generated thousands of conceptual as well as empirical researches. Despite this level of endeavor, the various parts of this literature still seem detached and directionless. In critics’ opinion, a key cause of this state is because numerous studies of management are context free (Lawrence, 2002). This means that studies have low consideration to organizational variables that persuade the impact as well as nature of leadership and management. Such research, mainly prominent in the organizational and social psychology literatures, tends to center on interpersonal developments between persons, technically leaders and their followers. Researches that openly examine leadership within organizational perspectives, mainly from the strategic management literature appear to be incomplete for various reasons. They ignore the interpersonal, cognitive as well as social richness of this phenomenon. They fail to come to grips with procedures that would account or explain various outcomes (Hall, 1991). One explanation for the lack of advancement in developing an incorporated understanding of organizational management and leadership is that theorists offer general leadership theories. They also offer models that use the same constructs to clarify leadership across diverse organizational stages (Aldrich, 1979). Such an approach presumes that leadership and management at the top of the organization replicates the same sociological and psychological dynamics as management at lower organizational stages. This lack of deliberation at the organizational level, along with other structural issues, has contributed to scarcity of reliable empirical study on organizational leadership, mainly at the top level. In this article, a situated advance that studies, the contextualized influences on organizational leadership is more likely to generate defensible, accurate, and eventually successful models and midrange assumptions of this phenomenon. If such an advance was to center on executive managers, then it would conclude a more comprehensive and generalizable model of organizational management and leadership than previous studies. This research will comprise a better understanding of how top leadership varies from lower-level management. This research will also ensure a more incorporated conceptual framework for the development and specification of leader selection, assessment, training, as well as development programs in the organization, in question. Levels of leadership are created to help organizational subunits attain the principles for which they exist within the bigger system (Aldrich, 1979). Leadership procedures are directed at establishing, defining, translating, or identifying this direction for their followers and enabling or facilitating the organizational procedures that should result in the achievement of this aim. Organizational direction and purpose is defined in several ways: through strategy, mission, vision, plans, goals as well as tasks. Leadership is inextricably limited to the continual attainment and development of these organizational aims stated above. This perception of leadership is a practical one, meaning that leadership or management is at the service of combined effectiveness (Aldrich, 1979). If a leader or manager manages to make sure that all functions critical to both job achievements, as well as group maintenance, are sufficiently dealt with, then the leader or manager has done his or her job well. These affirmations can be made whether leaders are managing groups, several groups joint into a division or a department, the organization as a whole, or a Corporation of several organizations. This crucial element of organizational leadership and management also means that the accomplishment of the collective as a whole is a key criterion for leader efficiency. It should also be noted that efficient leadership is not described by a set of attitudes, but rather by general responses that are set for and will differ by different problem circumstances. That is the importance switches from what managers ought to do to what should be employed for successful performance (Lord & Maher, 1993). Thus, leadership or management is described in terms of those actions that encourage team work, as well as organizational goal accomplishment by being approachable to contextual demands. Top organizational leaders carry the structure of organizational direction and purpose. For instance, the complexity of the top leader’s operating environment needs substantial cognitive resources to construct the frame of reference that offers the rationale for organizational approach. Similarly, organizational strategies and goals need to be open to the requirements of multiple constituencies and stakeholders, indicating the social imperatives dealing with top leaders (Bass, 1985). In law firms, leadership dwells on the habitual activities of organizational processes. Leadership is routine and ineffective. Leadership should not dwell on the habitual activities of organizational processes. Instead, leadership should takes place in response to, or in the hope of, non-routine organizational procedures. Non-routine actions can be described as any situation that causes an actual or potential obstruction to organizational goal advancement. Thus, organizational leadership or management can be interpreted as large or small-scale social problem solving. This is where leaders construct the nature of organizational issues, develop and estimate potential solutions (Aamodt, 2001). They also prepare and implement, as well as monitor chosen solutions in complex social domains. This is not to recommend that leadership should automatically be reactive. The management duties widely allocated to leaders and managers require that they adjust to environmental events, understand and define them for the workers. They should do this while anticipating the emergence of possible goal barriers, in order to plan wisely. Thus, winning organizational leadership is fairly practical in its problem solving (Lord & Maher, 1993). This is not the case in my law firm. This crucial element of management involving non-routine influence reveals two other points. First, vital organizational management is more likely to be revealed in response to ill-defined issues. In such circumstances, leaders ought to construct the nature of the issue, as well as the limitations of possible solution approaches, before they can start to formulate resolutions to the issues. In well-defined issues, resolutions are grounded habitually in the experience of the managers, in prior similar circumstances. Such resolutions are also not expected to require significant large-scale transformations in organizational practices. The second point is that management involves choice and diplomacy in what solutions are suitable in a problem domain (Bass, 1985). Hence, leadership should be viewed as a procedure which takes place only in circumstances in which there is decision diplomacy. To the extent diplomacy exists, there is a chance for leadership to be practiced. If there is no diplomacy, there is no such chance. Organizational or team dealings that are totally specified by practice or procedure are entirely elicited by the condition. They, hence, do not need the intervention of leaders or managers. Such dealings are expected to be set as part of the normative structures and organizational rules. Leadership is, however, dictated by organizationally relevant dealings that present substitute interpretations. They are also dictated by problems in which numerous solution paths are necessary solutions. Individuals in leadership are then accountable for making the choices that describe successive group responses. In this logic, the performance imperatives are emphasized (Lawrence, 2002). They can be interpreted as representing a group of ill-defined diplomacy problems or responsibilities requiring combined action for organizational accomplishment. For instance, the rate and nature of technological modification can create a number of problems to organizational leaders. These challenges are: how information is to be collected and circulated and how to understand the consequential flow of data. Also, how to achieve competitive advantages from technical progresses in both human resource and production systems are other challenges. In the same way, monetary imperatives challenge leaders to make and incorporate a number of long and short-term tactical choices (Lawrence, 2002). Senior staffing imperatives track these challenges as leaders endeavor to produce the right and human resource combinations for their tactical choices. Thus, a social or functional problem solving perception of leadership is essentially based in a contextual framework that presents essential performance imperatives demanding organizational alternatives. Most descriptions of leadership stress interpersonal or social influence procedures as key essentials. Thus, arguments regarding the management of political and social processes and the use of social supremacy are ever-present factors in the leadership literature. Additionally, as recommended by the problem solving perception, the implementation of efficient cognitive procedures is equally critical to leader efficiency. To demonstrate, cognitive requirements consist of interpreting plus modeling environmental actions for organizational associates, determining the nature of issues to be resolved, and engaging in lasting strategic ideas. Models of leadership, mainly those in the psychological literature, pay attention to social processes directed to the execution of solutions to organizational issues. A full explanation of leadership should also consist of the cognitive processes leaders apply in planning collective actions (Aamodt, 2001). Solutions Various researchers in the organizational literatures have emphasized the role of leaders and managers in an organizational sense making, where collective events are given meaning by the leader’s understanding and cognitive modeling of environmental actions. Top leaders add worth to their organizations in large part through offering a sense of understanding as well as purpose to the overall actions of the organization. In outstanding organizations, there always is a sense that the executive knows what he or she is performing, that he or she have shared this information to the employees, that it is rational and that it is going to perform to the fullest. Such interpretations, known as frames of reference, happen to be critical mediators of leadership in organizations. An organizational frame of reference refers to a cognitive representation of the events and elements that consist of the leader’s operating environment. Such models include the pattern of relationships among these elements and events. These frames of reference are not the only responsibility and province of senior leaders. All executives need to understand their operating environment (Aamodt, 2001). Nevertheless, the complexity of the organizational fundamental map should correspond to the complexity of the working environment being planned. Hence, fundamental maps or the frames of reference that senior leaders develop ought to be more multifaceted than those of leaders at lower organizational stages (Lord & Maher, 1993). That is because executive leaders need to accommodate many fundamental elements, plus the connections among these elements are particularly more multifaceted at higher levels than at lower levels. The necessary development of increasingly multifaceted frames of reference at upper organizational levels requires the need for an enhanced organization, then, for higher-order cognitive procedures (Lord & Maher, 1993). This paper does not, however, mean to argue that the application of cognitive, as well as social leadership processes is totally independent. In several instances of effectual leadership, these procedures become inextricably entangled. For instance, functionally varied teams where workers have different specializations in the organization can assist leaders understand environmental uncertainty and ease ambiguity. This is true in top management groups, where environmental complexity is stronger than for lower-level managers. If the top executive, group is built with individuals of diverse functional proficiency, the group as a whole has significantly more resources to grow more multifaceted representations of the organization’s working environment. However, group members will often stay quiet and defer to the chief executive unless social procedures allow them to contribute to environmental understanding. The social exchange advancement to management is perhaps the most accepted and enveloping perception in the literature. The key unit of analysis in this advancement is the association between the leader and the employees. Leaders offer guidance, direction, as well as activity structuring to the workers. Employees, on the other hand, grant the leader authorization to control them, therefore, giving legitimacy, respect plus reverence. “Leader efficiency” is defined as a purpose of the dynamic that takes place between leaders and their followers (Aamodt, 2001). Conclusion In conclusion, the leadership is a major issue that faces organization, mainly law firms. Some of these issues are poor rewards to the law firm leaders and lawyers known to be poor in leadership skills. However, this can be resolved with the solutions stated above for proper leadership that will bring prosperity to the law firm. The solutions are: working to develop leaders and uniting to put efforts in leading the organization. They will most probably bring the success every organization hopes for. References Aamodt, M. G. (2001). Industrial/Organizational psychology (7th ed.). Stamford, Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Aldrich, H. E. (1979). Organizations and environments. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations (4th ed.). New York: Free Press. Hall, R. H. (1991). Organizations: Structures, processes, and outcomes (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Lawrence, P. (2002). Organization and environment. Boston: Harvard Business School Division of Research. Lord, R. G., & Maher, K. J. (1993). Leadership and information processing. New York: Routledge. Read More