Examining Types of Organization Culture and Leadership

Organization culture is the collection of traditional values, policies, beliefs and attitudes that the constitute a pervasive context for everything we do and think in an organization. The basic pattern of shared assumption, values and beliefs governing the way employees within an organization think about and act on problems and opportunities. The concept of culture has developed from anthropology. Although people may not be aware on purpose of culture, it still has a pervasive influence over their behavior and actions.

Simply we can say Organizational culture is more of larger picture, a more general term that refers to a large umbrella of smaller topics and issues within an organization. The structure refers to the infrastructure , and the various method and practices within that infrastructure, that helps an organizational culture run with the efficiency and consistency that should be the hallmark of any healthy organizational structure, whether it is in a corporation, sport team or any other setup that is large enough to create its own organizational culture.

A common perception held by the organization’s members; a system of shared meaning.

Types of organization culture

Culture

There are six types of characteristics in organizational culture:

These are the Characteristics:

‘ Innovation and risk taking Culture.

‘ Aggressive Culture.

‘ Outcome orientation.

‘ Stability Culture.

‘ People orientation.

‘ Team orientation.

‘ Innovative and risk Cultures

According to the Organizational Culture Profile structure, companies that have innovative cultures are flexible, adaptable, and testing with latest ideas. These companies are characterized by a flat hierarchy and titles and other status distinctions tend to be downplayed.

In this company, employees do not have bosses in the traditional sense, and danger taking is encouraged by celebrating failures as well as successes. Companies such as W. L. Gore, Genentech, and Google also encourage their employees to take risks by allowing engineers to devote 20% of their time to projects of their own choosing.

(Web-books.com,n.d)

Aggressive Cultures

Companies with aggressive cultures value competitiveness and outperforming competitors; by emphasize this, they often fall short in corporate social responsibility. For example, Microsoft is often recognized as a company with an aggressive culture.

(Web-books.com,n.d)

‘ Outcome-Oriented Cultures

Outcome-oriented cultures as those that underline achievement, results, and action as important values. Outcome-oriented cultures hold employees as well as managers responsible for achievement and use systems that reward employee and group output. In these companies, it is more common to see rewards tied to performance indicators as different to seniority or faithfulness.

The investigation indicates that organizations that have a performance-oriented culture tend to outperform companies that are lacking such a culture. At the same time, when performance pressures lead to a culture where bad behaviors become the norm, individuals see their peer as rival, and short-term results are rewarded, the resulting unhealthy work environment serves as a liability.

(Web-books.com,n.d)

‘ People-Oriented Cultures

People-oriented cultures value fairness, supportiveness, and respecting individual rights. In these organizations, there is a greater emphasis on and expectation of treating people with respect and dignity.

Starbucks is an example of a people-oriented culture. The company pays employees above minimum wage, offers health care and instruction repayment benefits to its part-time as well as full-time employees, and has creative perks such as weekly free coffee for all associates. As a result of these policies, the company benefits from a turnover rate lower than the industry average.

(Web-books.com,n.d)

‘ Team-Oriented Cultures

Companies with a team-oriented culture are joint and emphasize cooperation among employees.

For example, Southwest Airlines facilitates a team-oriented culture by cross-training its employees so that they are capable of helping one another when needed. The company also emphasizes training intact work teams. In Southwest’s selection process, applicants who are not viewed as team players are not hired as employees. In team-oriented organizations, members tend to have more positive relationships with their coworkers and particularly with their managers.

(Web-books.com,n.d)

Task 02

Task 03

According to John Ivancevich and Michael Mattson, the major factors that influence individual differences in behavioral patterns. There are four types of patterns they are -:

‘ Demographic factors.

‘ Abilities and skills.

‘ Perception.

‘ Attitudes and personality.

‘ Demographic Factors -: The demographic factors are socio economic background, education, nationality, race, age, sex, etc. Organizations prefer persons that belong to excellent socio-economic background, well educated, young etc as they are believed to be performing better than the others. The young and active professionals that have good academic background and effective communication skills are always in great demand. The study of demographic factors is important as it helps managers to pick the suitable candidate for a particular job.

‘ Abilities and Skills: The physical capacity of an individual to do something can be termed as talent. Skill can be defined as the talent to act in a way that allows a person to perform well. The individual behavior and performance is highly influenced by capacity and skills. A person can perform well in the organization if his abilities and skills are matched with the job requirement. The managers plays very important role in matching the abilities and skills of the employees with the particular job requirement.

‘ Perception -: The cognitive process meant for interpreting the environmental stimuli in a meaningful way is referred to as perception. Every individual on the basis of his/her reference can organize and interpret environmental stimuli. There are many factors that influence the perception of an individual. The study of perception plays important role for the managers. It is important for mangers to create the encouraging work environment so that employees perceive them in most encouraging way. The employees are likely to perform better if they are going to perceive it in a positive way.

‘ Attitude -: According to psychologists, attitude can be defined as a tendency to respond favorably or unfavorably to certain objects, persons or situations. The factors such as family, society, culture, peers and organizational factors influence the formation of attitude. The managers in an organization need to study the variables related to job as to create the work environment in a favorable way that employees are tempted to form a positive attitude towards their respective jobs. The employees can perform better in the organization if they form a positive attitude.

‘ Personality -: Personality can be defined as the study of the characteristics and distinctive traits of an individual, the inter-relations between them and the way in which a person responds and adjusts to other people and situations. The several factors that influence the personality of an individual are heredity, family, society, culture and situation. It implies to the fact that individuals differ in their manner while responding to the organizational environment. Personality can be regarded as the most complex aspect of human beings that influences their behavior in big way. It can be concluded that the study of personality traits offers an opportunity to understand the individuals. It helps them properly in directing their effort and motivating them for the accomplishment of the organizational goal. It refers to the fact that different environmental factors may generate different responses. The study of these responses is very important for the organization. Every organization demands a particular type of behavior from their employees and such behaviors can be discovered through observation, learning, exposure, training, etc.

(Blurtit.com, n.d)

Task 6

Different Styles of leadership are:

‘ Autocratic

‘ Bureaucratic

‘ Democratic

‘ Laissez-faire

Autocratic Leadership Style

This is often considered the classical approach. It is one in which the manager retains as much power and decision-making authority as possible. The manager does not consult employees, nor are they allowed to give any input. Employees are expected to obey orders without receiving any explanations. The motivation environment is produced by creating a structured set of rewards and punishments.

‘ Do not trust employees

‘ Do not allow for employee input

‘ Effective supervision can be provided only through detailed orders and instructions

‘ Employees do not respond to any other leadership style

‘ There are high-volume production needs on a daily basis

‘ There is limited time in which to make a decision

‘ A manager’s power is challenged by an employee

(essortment.com,n.d)

Bureaucratic Leadership Style

Bureaucratic leadership is where the manager manages ‘by the book’ Everything must be done according to procedure or policy. If it isn’t covered by the book, the manager refers to the next level above him or her. This manager is really more of a police officer than a leader. He or she enforces the rules.

‘ This style can be effective when:

‘ Employees are performing routine tasks over and over.

‘ Employees need to understand certain standards or procedures.

‘ Employees are working with dangerous or delicate equipment that requires a definite set of procedures to operate.

‘ Safety or security training is being conducted.

‘ Employees are performing tasks that require handling cash.

(essortment.com,n.d)

Democratic Leadership Style

The democratic leadership style is also called the participative style as it encourages employees to be a part of the decision making. The democratic manager keeps his or her employees informed about everything that affects their work and shares decision making and problem solving responsibilities. This style requires the leader to be a coach who has the final say, but gathers information from staff members before making a decision. Democratic leadership can produce high quality and high quantity work for long periods of time. Many employees like the trust they receive and respond with cooperation, team spirit, and high morale. Typically the democratic leader:

‘ Develops plans to help employees evaluate their own performance.

‘ Allows employees to establish goals.

‘ Encourages employees to grow on the job and be promoted.

‘ Recognizes and encourages achievement.0

Like the other styles, the democratic style is not always appropriate. It is most successful when used with highly skilled or experienced employees or when implementing operational changes or resolving individual or group problems.

(essortment.com,n.d)

Laissez-Faire Leadership Style

The laissez-faire leadership style is also known as the ‘hands-off’ style. It is one in which the manager provides little or no direction and gives employees as much freedom as possible. All authority or power is given to the employees and they must determine goals, make decisions, and resolve problems on their own.

‘ Employees are highly skilled, experienced, and educated.

‘ Employees have pride in their work and the drive to do it successfully on their own.

‘ Outside experts, such as staff specialists or consultants are being used

‘ Employees are trustworthy and experienced.

(essortment.com,n.d)

‘ In my opinion Democratic leadership style is effective in an organization because Democratic leadership style can produce high quality of work for long period of time. Many employees like the trust they receive and respond with cooperation, team spirit, and high ethical. Typically the democratic leader.

Task 8

Collection of individuals who have regular contact and frequent interaction, mutual influence, common feeling of company, and who work together to achieve a common set of goals.

(Businessdictonary.com, n.d)

Orientation (Forming)

This is simply the bringing together of a group of individuals. At this stage, members are:

‘ moderately eager

‘ have generally positive expectations

‘ have some anxiety about why they are there and what it all means

‘ have some anxiety about other members such as who they are and what they are like

During orientation, the work output is generally low as members are focused on defining the goals and task, how to approach it, and what skills are needed. The length of this stage will depend on how clearly the task is defined. Groups with simple tasks will move through orientation quickly, but groups with complex goals and tasks may spend much longer in this stage.

This is an important stage because it serves to clarify the team’s mission and bond team members. Teams that pay attention to building the relationships as well as focusing on the task tend to do better than those that skip over relationship building. Teams, after all, are made up of people who must work cooperatively for a successful outcome.

(teambuilding,n.d)

Dissatisfaction (Storming)

This stage is characterized by:

‘ argument

‘ conflict

‘ a dip in morale

It results from differences between initial expectations and the reality of the situation as perceived by the members. Members may have varying opinions of what the group was to do and how to accomplish it. Members are also beginning to confront the differences in their personalities and values, a condition that is present anytime strangers meet. Members may feel anger or frustration with the task or with other members or may even resent the presence of formal leadership.

Generally, the dissatisfaction stage is relatively short. Some groups, however, may become stuck in this stage and continue to be both demoralized and relatively unproductive. In the worst cases, some groups never emerge from this stage and, if possible, disband in frustration.

(teambuilding,n.d)

Resolution (Norming)

This stage in the group’s development involves the:

‘ resolving of issues

‘ setting up group processes

‘ setting of group policies, procedures, and values

‘ increasing production

Members are now resolving differences and clarifying the mission and roles. Members areless dissatisfied as in the previous stage because they are now learning more about each other and how they will work together. They are making progress toward their goals. They are developing tools to help them work well together such as a problem solving process, a code of conduct, a set of team values, and measurement indicators.

Member attitudes are characterized by decreasing animosities toward other members; feelings of cohesion, mutual respect, harmony, and trust; and a feeling of pleasure in accomplishing tasks. The work is characterized by slowly increasing production as skills develop. The group is developing into a team.

(teambuilding,n.d)

Production (Performing)

The team is accomplishing work effectively. Production is high and the climate is positive. Member attitudes are characterized by positive feelings and eagerness to be part of the team. Members are confident about the outcome, enjoy open communication, exhibit high energy, and disagreement is welcome and handled without emotional conflict.

Although work is being accomplished through all the stages, this stage reflects the work being accomplished most effectively.

(teambuilding,n.d)

Termination

In the case of temporary teams such as task forces, design teams, and problem solving teams, a fifth stage reflects the ending of the process.

Depending on the team’s success in accomplishing its task and how strongly the members have bonded, this stage may reflect either a sense of loss or relief. When a team ends, time should be spent addressing how it should be done to properly recognize the team’s accomplishments.

(teambuilding,n.d)