Moods and Emotions - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages Moods and emotions Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Name Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Course Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Lecture Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 16th August, 2012 Introduction For many years, job satisfaction and performance depended greatly on the education that one had. But in recent years there is more than the brains. In the recent job market, the human resource managers are taking into consideration ethical issues that can affect the organization one is working for. It goes without saying that one’s personality and the emotions and moods displayed by a particular employee determine how effective they will be productive in their performances. An individual’s behavior relates to how they are going to interact with other colleagues. By saying this we have to incorporate all people in the organization staring from the highest ranking to the lowest. This therefore leads us to the topic of discussion which tries to argue if there is any effect in the emotional behaviors displayed by people in an organization. Literature review Many are the times when people come to work with different moods and emotions and many are the time that individuals are not able to control their pressure hence cause a bad day to everyone that they encounter. In this literature review, we are going to discuss the factors attributed to moods and emotions, the effects and consequences if these attitudes are not controlled as we cite different authors and their arguments on this topic. Among many factors, moods and emotions are attached to other source such as family problems, marital problems and even working under a lot of pressure. In the organization, moods are attributed to frequent activities that one is not comfortable with or a lifestyle one is not comfortable living in (Burker & Miller, 1999). Moods differ from different individuals and the effect differs to in individuals in the degree of performance. Stressful events may bring about bad moods in the work place. These conditions are caused by physical setting one is in, harsh leaders who want jobs completed with unrealistic deadlines, the teams one is working with and any punishment gotten from failure to do some organizational tasks. As William et al (1991) states, people who have to do the same jobs at the same period are the ones mostly affected by bad moods. With a research done by William and Alliger (1994), it was observed that people in different organizations experienced bad emotions and moods caused by various factors. Taking the example of parents, they were stressed with the responsibilities of their homes and most of the times they brought the moods to the business hence making it uncomfortable for everyone. If nurses that had negative moods brought a bad image in the organization meaning that the social interaction with the patients was affected (Estrada, Islen &Young, 1997). Negative moods are also associated to time constraint thereby bringing in bad financial reports. Both positive and negative moods can affect the workforce and this depends on the leaders in an organization. Leaders who come when they are enthusiastic and offer a smile to all employees are likely to boost the morale of other employees’ thus positive emotions compared to a leader who comes to the workplace frowned and criticizing everyone which leads to bad moods. Supporting Conger and Kanungo (1998), it is evident that there is a role that leaders play in determination of the moods and emotions in the workplace. Characteristics in a certain group also determine the moods of an individual. In situations where a group is committed to working together and there is social interdependence, the mood is increased in a positive way as employees can rely on each other while sharing organizational problems hence production of good emotions (March, 2006). Moods and emotions vary as moods lasts longer and emotions for a shorter time. Emotions are more secret and they are triggered by a specific thing, person or situation. In combining mood and emotion the results are used to determine the decision one makes. Lerner and Tiedens (2006) say that people who are usually sad and feel negative all the time are likely to make rational decisions as they are emotional all the time as compared to people who are always happy and optimistic who are likely to make institutive decisions. In this literature review the key issues covered were moods, emotions and personality as they go hand in hand hence performance is largely affected by the moods and emotions one has. Reflection on self assessment In the self assessment workshop, I did an analysis and evaluation of the moods and emotions and how they would affect my behavior in business and also related my traits to the literature reviewed. Workshop 1: Am I a type A? In this assessment I scored a 90.This test tried to measure the behavior that one would have given the time constraint. In my assessment, I am a type B because I like taking one thing at a time and do not like rushing people in doing their tasks. In my assessment, I am moderate in delivery of my work and like involving other people in situations that may seem difficult hence I like interacting with other members. In this task I am not likely to be affected by moods and negative emotions because I can accommodate other people and I have limited occasions of making rational decisions. Workshop 2: What is my basic personality? In this test, my personality would be associated to the kind of emotions and moods that I portray. By assessing myself using the five–factor model, I found myself to be agreeable. This is because I possessed traits such as being cooperative with other team members whenever encountered by difficult situations. I am also consistent and concentrate more on quality rather that quantity. On the emotional side, I found myself to be calm and relaxed and always having a positive attitude towards everybody. In my analysis, I had a high score meaning that if it was in a job situation, I would be likely to give best results as I concentrated more on quality as compared to quantity. Workshop 3: What is my Jungian 16-Type personality? In this assessment, I tried to identify the type of career I would be likely to engage in given my personality and affect. In all my assessment, I possessed traits such as being an introvert, intuitive, I have a feeling for other people’s passion and I like perceiving in my career, I would fall to be a journalist. In the above analysis relating to the literature review, negotiating is key in my career hence with more interaction, it will reduce any conflict created among team members and cooperation while performing tasks. Having less discrete negative emotions towards people will help attain more organizational interests and increase positive outcomes. As Staw and Basade (1993) say, the general performance is greatly attributed to the emotions that one has and the urge to positive interpersonal performance. By having a positive mood and emotion, it will boost helping others and avoid difficult situations to fellow employees. By having a positive mood, I will find it easy to solve problems easily and also solve them in a creative manner with the help of other employees. Having a pleasurable emotional state will contribute to job satisfaction and having positive moods are considered to determine the type of affect one has in the business place. As argued by Organ (1988), job satisfaction is due to the affect that one portrays and it determines the success one is going to achieve. Answer to case study questions The case study question relates to the relationship of leaders and their employees in their work place. In this question, it is seen that there is some fear experienced by the employees as they interact with the supervisors hence the employees find themselves acting in a pretending way. As stated in the study the employees have had to adapt to the negative emotions and moods carried by these leaders. This therefore makes the employees work under intense pressure from their managers and they rarely find time to interact with the high level management. This puts the organization at risk because the moods and emotions if negative will yield to negative results in the organizations performance. To apply the literature review on this question, there are various issues that need to be addressed in order to attain positive yet productive goals for the company. Fear and anger are attributed to negative emotions hence employees will not find it comfortable interacting with the management hence any decision that is going to be made will be rational as supported by Tiedens and Lintons (2001).Rational decisions are often made in stressful circumstances and this comes with a cost because the decision reached is sometimes made out of anger and negative emotions and the organization at large may suffer as they do their task with fear of what is going to follow. In this case study we are dealing with two kinds of powers-the low power workers and the high power workers. All of them may encounter negative moods in different situations. An example where low power workers may have negative moods is when they receive unfair treatment from their leaders as in the case of Laura. On the other hand high power workers experience negative moods when they are humiliated by low level workers. To solve this problem, there has to be an organizational culture that the firm needs to adopt on management of emotions in the workplace. To have positive moods and emotions in the workplace, all employees must have in them a good personality as this is the only way to reduce job stress. Negative moods reduce the productivity of an individual making them a liability rather than an asset. By embracing positive emotions in the workplace, it will yield to personal productivity and achieving of organizational goals. Conclusion To conclude on the above literature review, it is wise to know that organizational behavior will continue to be practiced for many years to come and for any person who aspires to work in any organization must possess positive moods and emotions. This is so because many are the times that an individual will be interacting with other people about business ideas and the way forward to achieve the goals set. With the above situations it will ensure that there is positive productivity in the business environment by incorporating positive interaction, moods and emotions among all levels of workers. Appendices Am I a type A? What is my basic personality? What is my Jungian 16-type personality? 1 5 3 a 2 6 2 b 3 3 4 b 4 8 5 b 5 4 3 b 6 5 4 a 7 4 4 b 8 5 a 9 4 a 10 4 a 11 1 b 12 4 a 13 4 a 14 3 a 15 4 b 16 b 17 b 18 a 19 b 20 a 21 a 22 a 23 b 24 b 25 a 26 a 27 a 28 b 29 a 30 b 31 b 32 a Total score 99 conscientiousness INFP 3.4 References Burke, L., & Miller, M. (1999). Taking the mystery out of intuitive decision making. Academy of Management Executive, 13(4), 91–99. Conger, J.A. & Kanungo, R.N. (1998).Charismatic Leadership in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Estrada, C. A., Isen, A. M., & Young, M. J. (1997). Positive affect facilitates integration of information and decreases anchoring in reasoning among physicians. Organic Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 72(1), 117–135. Lerner, J. S., & Tiedens, L. Z. (2006). Portrait of the angry decision maker: How appraisal tendencies shape angers influence on cognition. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 19(2), 115–137. March, J. G. (2006). Rationality, foolishness, and adaptive intelli-gence.Strategic Management Journal, 27(3), 201–214. Organ, D.W. (1988). A restatement of the satisfaction performance hypothesis. Journal of Management.14 (4):547–57. Staw, B. M., & Barsade, S. G. (1993). Affect and managerial performance: A test of the sadder-but-wiser vs. happier-and-smarter hypotheses. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38(2), 304–331. Tiedens, L. Z., & Linton, S. (2001). Judgment under emotional certainty and uncertainty: The effects of specific emotions on information processing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(6), 973–988. Williams, K.J., Suls, J., Alliger, G.M., Learner, S.M. & Wan, C.K. (1991). Multiple role juggling and daily mood states in working mothers: an experience sampling study. Journal of Applied. Psychology.76 (5):664–74 ...Download file to see next pages Read More