Organization Behavior Case - Research Paper Example

?Executive Summary It is very important to keep the people working in your organization motivated and satisfied all the time. Having good relation with your labor is one very important thing if you want your business to enjoy a good financial situation. In this case the Southwest Airlines had to face a lot of problems and crisis as a result of its CEO being ignorant to developing good relations with the labor. The company was in big crisis and had lost its strong financial position. Moreover under the leadership of Kelleher the company gained back its financial success as the main focus of this CEO was to address the issues related to labor as early as possible and he knew the importance of these relations. Introduction to the issue The main issue with the Southwest Airlines was that it lacked an appropriate leadership style that would best fit the company. In the decade when the company was facing problems and crisis the main problem was that it lost a good relationship and a factor of trust between the employees, labor and the top management. A leader in true sense is someone who leads his followers along the way or path towards their goals and objectives (Blanchard & Hersey, 2008). Leadership is the characteristic that will enable a person to inspire group of people to realize common interest or goal (Judge and Robbins, 2010). The base of any organization rests on the philosophy, vision, goals and values of the management. As a result this drives the culture of the organization that is made up of the formal, informal and social environment of the organization. Basically it is the culture of the organization that determines the leadership type, group dynamics and communication within that organization (Gliddon, 2008). The culture, the leadership style, the communication, group dynamics are the things on which the perception of the worker is based and these are the things that direct the motivation degree of the worker. So at Southwest Airlines in the decade of crisis and low performance these factors were not being addressed according to the expectation of the workers and labor as in the previous and present times. The weakening bond between the management and the labor was one big reason for failure of Parkers’ leadership. Answer to the Questions Trust is an expectation that is positive that another does not and will not by words, decisions and actions act opportunistically. Trust is based on two things mainly that are familiarity and risk. Trust has a lot of dimensions mainly like integrity, competence, consistency, loyalty and openness etc. Integrity relates to things like truthfulness and honesty, competence means the interpersonal and technical knowledge and skills, consistency relates to predictability, good judgment and reliability under various situations, loyalty means the willingness to safeguard and protect face for any other person and openness relates to the reliance on someone else to provide you the truth in full (Scott, 2008). There are three types of trusts that employees in your company can experience with you. One is deterrence or fear of punishment based trust, the other is identification or trust based on mutual understanding, appreciation for other people’s desires and wants, and the knowledge based or behavioral predictability based trust that roots back to the interaction history. At Southwest Airlines under Parker’s leadership the basic issue was that the trust was deterrence based. It means that the trust was just there as he was the CEO of the company and the employees feared punishment and were forced to trust Parker whereas they dint not like his leadership style at all. As it is evident from the information provided that the previous CEOs and the current CEO of Southwest Airline are more people oriented. This type of approach develops trustworthy bond between the employees and its top management. As it is found out by various researches that mistrust eliminates the trust factor and leads to reduced productivity. So the failure to develop trust was one of the major factors for disappointment in Parkers’ leadership. In the world today effective managers should develop trusting relationship with the ones they seek to be leading. As with the increasing competition in the world the managers who lack this factor are not taken to be an effective. Organizations nowadays are strictly in search of transformational leaders (Hogan & Kaiser, 2009). The transformational leaders are the ones with vision and are charismatic to carry that vision. True leadership effectiveness is the product of exhibiting of right behaviors at the right time. Leader should be someone who has a personality, verbally adept, smart and likeable. Good leaders and managers know how to keep the environment of the organization competitive and cooperative at the same time (Hofstede, Gert, and Michael, 2010). Parker, the former CEO of Southwest Airline lacked this ability to develop and keep a balance between the two factors. The greatness of the organization is likely to root from the balanced state between cooperation and competition. At Southwest Airline there was a need to balance the two concepts according to the need of the organization and the employees. Through competition amongst different departments of the airlines the CEO could have pushed the employees to their maximum potential but for that Parker had to maintain an appropriate balance which he failed to do. So as a result of this dissatisfaction and lower productivity levels were observed. It is very important to keep the working environment challenging for the employees so that they are kept motivated. But again how challenging it should be so that it does not harm the productivity is again the leader’s responsibility. By the implication of the expectancy theory, the employees of Southwest Airlines could have been motivated. The theory relates to the determinants of the attitudes and behaviors at the workplace (Hughes et al. 2010). There are three things that this theory explains that are valence, instrumentality and expectancy. Valence is the measure of the attraction and the satisfaction associated with the predefined outcome for an individual. Instrumentality is the belief of the person regarding the relationship amongst performing the action and experiencing the outcome. Expectancy is the belief related to the link amongst the effort making and the good performance in true terms. So if Parker could have been able to use this theory then the results might not have got worse like in the decade of his leadership. Basically an organization depends upon three things while conducting the operations that are land labor and capital. Some companies like the big ones including Southwest Airlines have unionized labors. Labor unions represent interests of the labor management members and the relationships within the organization (Baron and Greenberg, 2008). Labor management and labor relations refer to the business activities amongst the employers and the labor unions. These activities include things like employee grievances, contract negotiation, mediation and arbitration etc. Labor relations and the labor unions have a strong impact on the organization and it differs on the basis of type and nature of relationship between the organization’s management and the union representative. This relationship is strongly affected by the ability of the union and the management team to work together (John, 2010). According to the employment relationship the business leaders generally have interest alignment reference frame. This assumes that the interests of the employers and the employees can be aligned by HRM practice that is well designed. A system of pay for performance can be used to serve the purpose of keeping the interest levels higher (Jones, 2008). At the Southwest Airlines as the CEO, Parker lost good relationships with the labor the situation and the financial state of the company was at its worst. The CEO required having good relationships with the labor and employees of the organization in order to keep them satisfied and engaged in the organization for them to remain as productive as always. As soon as Kelleher was called back the situation changed and the company started to enjoy the same financial success. The reason for this was the relationships he had developed and the bond he had created in the organization amongst the management and the labor. He had a philosophy of addressing the labor issue as soon as it rose in order to get hold of the situation before it got worse. Parker failed to do so and did not pay attention to his weak relationship with the labor and as a result he had to resign. So this is the power of labor relations, the leaders who fail to keep their labor satisfied ultimately have to payback. References Greenberg, Jerald, and Robert A. Baron. Behavior in Organizations. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008. Print. Hersey, Paul, Kenneth H. 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R., “Organizations and Organizing: Rational, Natural, and Open Systems Perspectives”, 2008, Pearson Prentice Hall. Read More