Implications of Leadership and Ethics on Organizational Behaviour - Term Paper Example

Leadership Discuss your strengths and weaknesses related to your personal leadership effectiveness. As a leader, I have more strength compared to weaknesses: my personal leadership is effective. Generally, I am very persuasive because I have good communication skills. I can effectively speak in front of the public and I also have good skills in writing. In addition, I am persuasive and patient. Despite certain failures, I keep on trying and do not believe in giving up. Moreover, I am sensitive, honest and trustworthy; therefore, my leadership is based on truth, justice, and fairness. Am also progressive in nature, as a result my leadership ensures progress. However, unlike most leaders I do not have an outgoing style or a sense of humor. My personal leadership effectiveness is perfect; however, this trait somehow affects it. Discuss the elements of your development plan to leverage your strengths and develop your weaknesses. Examine the opportunities and barriers for implementation. What might get in the way of success? To ensure that I leverage my strengths, I plan to focus more on past successful leaders and try to determine how they made their achievements. Additionally, I plan to put my strengths in every bit of practice so as to enhance them. Changing my attitude and personality in relation to my weaknesses is the only way through which I can eliminate the weaknesses I have. The only barrier to implementing these plans may be my dedication and determination to implementing them. However, I believe I have all the space and time to implement these development plans. Discuss your values and how they shape your leadership behaviors. Loyalty and respect is a key value that shapes my leadership behavior. My loyalty and respect to the organization where I work has not only improved my leadership behavior but has also enhanced my social responsibility, and help my motivate employees working under me. In addition, as a value, I often base my decisions on values and not beliefs. I believe values surpass both experiences and contexts. Therefore, the decisions I make for the organization are determined by my values and not beliefs. Heroic Management vs. Engaged Leadership Reflecting on Beyond Selfishness by Henry Mintzberg, et al, discuss the idea of the heroic manager vs. the engaged manager. A reflection on Henry Mintzberg’s literary work “Beyond Selfishness” brings about the notion of a heroic manager and an engaged manager. For one to be a Heroic Manager they have to depict some form of perfection and excellence. For managers, the drive to being heroes simply involves differentiating themselves, to be who they can be. Managers who act as role models to certain individuals may still be considered heroic managers by those individuals. Being a heroic manager enables one to lead the people who admire them. In contrast, being more of a hero may become counterproductive, particularly if it dis-empowers your subjects. Generally, for mangers, occasional heroic acts may help their subjects feel they can imitate and depend on them. Currently, most definitions provided for leadership exhibits a post-heroic implication; the engaged manager. Ideas drawn from Mintzberg’s literary work depict the possibility of a leader working towards success without being a hero. This brings about the issue of engaged manager vs. heroic manager. Heroic managers may posses much power and make unrealistic promises. In addition, they may dis-empower employees thereby destroying their employees’ engagement. Normally, employees get motivated by role models to challenge themselves to do better. Therefore, they partly depend on their heroes are also inspired by them. However, the big question is whether the negative aspect is worth the positive aspect. In most instances, engaged manager are more engaging. They aim to draw solutions out of their employees rather than selling their own solutions. It is, however, debatable that being a facilitator implies a good manager, but not a leader. What is the dominant or prevailing leadership style in your organization? In my organization, the most dominant leadership style is the democratic. However, the coaching leadership style is also applied in certain situations. Leadership focuses much on the needs of the employees and the organization and not the needs of the leader. Leadership styles should not be techniques tried so as to determine which fits best. Rather, the styles should be modified to the particular situational demands, requirements of the employees involved and challenges the organization faces. The democratic leadership style draws on the knowledge and skills of the employees, and ensures group dedication to the ensuing goals. In most cases, it may be applied in situations when an organization is uncertain on which direction to take and the manager needs to draw the collective insights of their employees. Unfortunately, it may be disastrous during a crisis, when pressing events call for quick decisions. Coaching leadership style, in contrast, focuses much on developing employees, showing and teaching them how to enhance their performance, and assisting in connecting their goals to the organization’s goals. This style works best with employees who depict inventiveness and desire advanced professional development. It however can backfire, especially when it is considered an employee’s “micromanaging” thereby undermining the employee’s self-confidence. Discuss the impact on employee morale and performance. Often, the leadership style of a manager simply is the approach they take in their day-to-day interactions with their employees. The style they adopt influences every aspect of the organization, from customer service to retention and turnover. Through applying a leadership style, which matches the demands of the organization, a manager can maximize profits, ensure employee satisfaction and limit costs linked to turnover, employee errors, and job dissatisfaction. When employees’ morale is low, certain leadership styles may work better than others. For instance, in relation to my organization, democratic and coaching leadership styles have helped encourage my staff to identify with the organization and with each another. This has resulted to improved employee morale in the organization. In addition, coaching has been effective in improving employees’ performance; predominantly in situations where employees lack skills they require or are uncertain about the organizations goals. Moreover, democratic leadership styles have helped me get insights into reasons why performance suffers but must typically be merged with coaching to ensure the desired results. Generally, employee performance is determined by a managers independence, motivation, and competence, which are factors related to leadership styles applied. What does your organization need to do to be considered a leader in ethical business practices? First my organization needs to consider and face the difficulty implicated in making ethical decisions. The organization needs to openly discuss the ethically gray areas and recognize the intricacy of work life. The organization also must involve employees more in the ethical decisions. Moreover, as a leader I will consider talking more about the complex ethical choices, and assist the employees in learning how to take responsibility for carefully making ethical decisions. Secondly, as a leader I need to ensure that my organization does not separate ethics from everyday business. I will make it clear to my employees that the only way to operate is through ethics and not merely a reference manual or a training program. Every operation, be it a training program, a significant top management plan session, or a client meeting, should involve conversations regarding ethics. Further, the members of the organization need not to consider ethics as merely following and abiding by laws and regulations. The organization needs to take action and demonstrate to stakeholders and clients that they are enthusiastically occupied with ethical issues, which matter. They organization also needs to establish how ethics affects clients reasons deal with them, and show a commitment to surpass mere conformity with laws and regulations. The organization must demonstrate its commitment to ethical issues, inclusive of human rights, and social justice. Finally, the organization needs to celebrate positive ethical moments. As a leader, I need to be ethically proactive, emphasizing on prevention and championing high ethical conduct. Together with the employees, we need to talk about how positive ethics appears in practice as often we talk about the things we should to avoid. The organization needs to consider celebrating positive ethical choices. Organizational Ethics Examine your organizations Code of Ethics; compare and contrast them to daily operational behaviors. How is the code of ethics upheld or challenged? How do the stated ethics drive behaviors throughout the organization? What is common practice but violates the code of ethics and yet remains unchallenged? My organization has a written code of ethics, which serves as a guideline and expectation for employees’ conduct. In most instances, the codes of ethics are provided to new employees upon orientation together with an acknowledgment form that they must sign. All these help employees understand the significance of ethics and that their practice need adherence to the organization’s standards. The organization’s officials also ensure that the code of ethics comprises illustrations, scenarios and examples, which pertain to the organizations exact line of activity. Ethical challenges distinctive to the activities or situations that may have in reality occurred may assist employees in reasoning through challenges they can encounter. It also helps them to better understand what is expected of them by the organization. To ensure effectiveness, my organization’s a code of ethics is more than just a piece of paper. It has been adopted as a way of life in the culture of the organization. One way through which the organization has managed to uphold the code of ethics is through creating compulsory ethics trainings. When an individual actually removes the significance of the policy and elucidates its nuances, employees often gain ethics’ approval and a better understanding of the policy’s seriousness. Probably, they can also have opportunities operate through potential situations and obtain useful guidance. In addition, my organization strives to enforce the code of ethics so as to bring meaning to it. Unfortunately, for this to be ensured, it needs an example of an individual being terminated or disciplined for violating the code of ethics. For the company to uphold strong ethics, is never bends or give employees a free pass to the employees when they breach the ethics. This aims to ensure employees take the policy at heart. Moreover, my organization always makes sacrifices to uphold ethical standards. Such sacrifices include offering free merchandise or discounts because of the organization’s mistakes and ensuring the right thing is done even if it is not beneficial or profitable. The employees watch and learn from responses by management. What are the implications for your organization should it not behave in an ethical manner? Failure of the organization to tackle the incidences of unethical behaviors simply implies that the organization is not concerned about competitiveness, integrity, and survival uprightness. Unethical behavior in an organization simply deprives the employees the confidence of being on the lookout for unethical behaviors. It also deprives the employees the ability to understand whether what they are doing is right and will receive approval from the organization’s top management. What are the challenges to shift or enhance organizational social responsibility? The commitment by an organization to social responsibility is not only a component of the customer/client brand, but is also the employment brand. Normally, it may be embraced by Human Resource professionals and be used in the recruitment of new talent or retaining of the existing talent to the organization. However, a challenge that arises is that it is in most instances not embraced when the organization plans to exit employees. Changes in an organization’s business and economic climate necessitate organizational changes, which can result to termination of employees. Even though this may be unavoidable, providing outplacement services as a way of ensuring a robust exit strategy is one sector where the Human Resource professional may considerably improve. This can help depict the realism of an organization’s commitment to achieving good corporate citizenship. Read More