Leadership and Organizational Behavior - Case Study Example

? Joe Salatino President of the Great Northern American Keith Tuttle Leadership and Organizational Behavior (520) October 30th, Dr. Lila Jordan Leadership and Organizational Behavior Discussion: Why Joe's employees need to understand the importance of how people form perceptions and make attributions Joe’s employees need to understand the way people form perceptions and make attributions because other employees in the company have been making large number of sales by fostering good relationships with the customers. The relationship between a salesperson and a customer plays a decisive role in whether or not the individual would make a returning customer in the future. “Every employee who is in contact with external customers affects customer satisfaction” (Hennig-Thurau and Hansen, 2000, p. 171). In order to foster good relationship with the customers, it is imperative that the employees know how the customers form perceptions, what factors play a role in affecting their perceptions about the salespersons or the company’s products for the better and worse, and what behaviors in the salespersons are appreciated by the customers. Since statistics are available that reflect that the employees who have had good terms with the customers have outperformed their coworkers in terms of sales, understanding the process of formation of perceptions and development of attributed by the customers becomes very important for Joe’s employees. Suitability of Leaning Theories Several learning theories are suitable for Joe to apply in this situation that include but are not limited to operant conditioning learning theory and social learning theory. While there are certain theories that apply more in the case under consideration as compared to others, none can be completely refuted as most learning theories apply at least to some extent. For example, the operant conditioning learning theory that emphasizes on the learning based on the consequences of people’s actions is suitable for Joe to apply since there are certain employees that are able to form good relationships with the customers and thus enhance their sales volumes whereas there are other employees that are not able to deal with the self-starting selling intensity and accordingly do not continue the job for more than a month usually. Employees come in the company and try their fortune by executing their individualistic behaviors; for some, it works whereas for others, it does not. Employees are only able to find out the impact of their behaviors on their ability to make sales after they have executed their behaviors as part of the company’s workforce. Likewise, since the employees are provided with the opportunity to earn certain commission on the list price, they are motivated to make more sales to make more commission which makes it obvious that the reward is tied to the performance, thus justifying the suitability of the operant conditioning theory for Joe in this case. On the other hand, the social learning theory is also suitable for application in this case because many behaviors are learnt by the employees in the workplace. For example, employees can witness that their coworkers who have fostered good relations with the customers are able to make more sales as compared to other employees who do not manage to develop as good relations with the customers. Having observed this, employees feel intrinsically motivated to take steps to develop good relations and association with the customers. However, certain end up achieving this successfully whereas others fail to develop good relations with the customers, and the social learning theory provides rationale for this difference. According to social learning theory, while people may observe what behaviors lead to success in a particular setting, it is not imperative that this learning brings a change in their behavior. Although the employees know the importance of fostering good relationships with the employees, yet they fail to enhance their sales because this learning did not cause them to change their behaviors in such a way that could help them foster good relationships with the customers. In the case under consideration, the operant conditioning theory only explains how the employees tend to enhance their sales because this is tied with rewards, the social learning theory goes a step ahead to explain why certain employees fail to make good sales despite learning the importance of fostering good relationships with the customers. Therefore, the social learning theory is more suitable for Joe to apply in this case in comparison to the operant conditioning theory. Use of Social Learning Theory There are numerous ways in which Joe can apply the social learning theory to improve the employees’ performance. Social learning theory demonstrates that people may learn through observation not only because it is the easiest way of learning but also because it provides people with a means to witness the consequences of behaviors demonstrated by others so that they can modify their own behaviors from their willingness to attain similar results; “Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if people had to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to inform them what to do” (Bandura cited in Dovidio, 2006, p. 110). This imparts the need for Joe to create awareness among the employees about the strategies of improving the sales volumes that have worked for the employees in the company in the past. A potential way to help the employees observe this is by displaying charts with the graphs showing the sales made by employees opposite their respective names and a table demonstrating the secrets of success as revealed by the respective successful employees. This would not only help the employees observe and learn, but the charts would also serve as a reward for the successful employees since they would feel acknowledged by the leader in a good way. Social learning theory emphasizes on the role of intrinsic reinforcement in the development of tendency in people to learn through observation. According to the social learning theory, learning and behavior are not only influenced by the environmental and external reinforcement, but also the intrinsic reinforcement plays a great role in providing people with such internal rewards as satisfaction, pride, and a sense of achievement. This relates the learning theories to the theories of cognitive development which is why social learning theory is often referred to as the social cognitive theory. Owing to the importance of mental states of the employees in their tendency to learn through observations, Joe can improve the employees’ performance by implementing such strategies that would help the employees stay in the right state of mind at the workplace. This can be achieved by bringing certain changes in the organizational culture so that the employees feel more relaxed, comfortable, and satisfied in the work and thus enhance their tendency to learn through observing others. One way Joe can achieve this is by personally introducing the new employees to the way things happen in the company. For example, after recruiting an employee, Joe may hold a personal meeting with the employee and tell him/her the importance of fostering good relationships with the customers and how this behavior has helped other employees in the company enhance their sales volumes. Joe may give examples of particular employees along with their sales volumes to make the new employees learn. Along with telling these things verbally to the employees, it is equally important that Joe maintains such an attitude with the new employees that they feel comfortable under his leadership and feel free to bring up any queries or misconceptions that they might have in their minds. The style of leadership and a leader’s interaction with the employees plays a great role in the development of comfort of the employees with the leader, and accordingly, it controls the employees’ intrinsic reinforcement. Social learning theory emphasizes on the role of certain factors in helping the employees bring positive changes in their behaviors according to the successful behaviors that they have observed. These factors include attention, retention, and motivation. By displaying charts on the walls as suggested above, Joe would enable the employees to remember the information as they look at the charts everyday so that they can actually learn the good behaviors and inculcate them in their own personalities. Joe should also demonstrate on the charts how much commission has been granted to the successful employees with respect to their respective sales volumes so that other employees feel motivated to learn the behaviors and become eligible for the same rewards. How Joe can leverage an understanding of the value of self-efficacy to ensure he hires the most successful salesperson Self-efficacy is one’s confidence in one’s abilities to take informed decisions and adopt the appropriate courses of action to be able to deal with the prospective challenging situations successfully. In order to enhance the sales of the company, Joe needs to recruit the salespersons who are capable of fostering good relations with the customers. To achieve this, it is imperative that Joe understands what behaviors help an individual be social and project good image of self as well as of the company to the customers. Joe requires self-efficacy in order to rightly determine the set of personality traits and behaviors that he would like to see in the prospective employees and to judge which, he would conduct the interviews or other recruitment tools. As the president of the Great Northern American Company, Joe assumes a lot of power and has been supervising the employees’ performance for a considerable time. It is only through experience that he has found out that employees who are capable of developing good relations with the customers happen to make more sales than others who are not as good at retaining good relations with the customers. To select the right set of personality traits to see in the prospective candidates, Joe needs to go in depth and see what exactly causes certain employees to foster good relationship with the employees. “By exerting influence in spheres over which they can command some control, [leaders] are better able to realize desired futures and to forestall undesired ones” (Bandura, 1995, p. 1). As the case study suggests, Joe rightly thinks that he should hire employees who are able to listen to others, take the criticism, and yet be respectable towards the customers. The fundamental principle of successful business is that customers are always considered right. Self-motivation is another personality trait to look for in the interested candidates because Joe does not want to be busy all the time telling the new employees what to do to enhance the sales. He needs such employees who are intelligent and understand the fundamentals of successful business. To leverage an understanding of the value of self-efficacy, Joe needs to have confidence in his abilities, perceptions, and critical analysis skills. References: Bandura, A. (1995). Self-Efficacy in Changing Societies. Cambridge University Press. Dovidio, J. F. (2006). The Social Psychology of Prosocial Behavior. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Hennig-Thurau, T., and Hansen, U. (2000). Relationship Marketing: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention. Springer. Read More