Sample MBA401 People, Culture and Contemporary Leadership Report 3

MBA401 People, Culture and Contemporary Leadership Report 3 Sample

The Assessment

Task Part A

Students will participate in workshop activities throughout the semester to help develop the depth of their knowledge and understanding. Student’s participation during Weeks 10 and 12 will be graded in relation to the quality and relevance of their contributions during those two subject workshops.

The Assessment

Task Part B

Students will write an individual report to demonstrate the depth of their learning and development of knowledge arising from their participation in the MBA401 subject. This report will require undertaking research that is relevant to the topic statement.

• Students must draw on key academic theories (minimum 3) relevant to the chosen topic.

• The topic proposition posed for the assessment cannot be answered definitively. The assessment requires students to discuss possible assumptions, make effective arguments, and with a logically detailed conclusion.

• Students will use a report structure for the writing of this assessment.

Trust and workplace relationships

Trust is an important influence for effective communication, co-operation, problem solving and performance in the workplace. Social conflicts in the workplace can hamper personal relationships and limit group cohesion and effectiveness. In an organisational context, trust can also be treated as an issue of behavioural competence, with people trusting those that they believe can solve problems and deliver desired outcomes. Is conflict always negative or can it also be constructive? Leaders, therefore, need to build a culture of trust in the workplace towards organisational effectiveness.

Assessment Description

This is the summative assessment for the subject. Students are to demonstrate the level of their overall subject understanding, drawn from a semester’s learning, subject engagement, and with considerations of theory, drawn from academic research, that might also be applied in a practical setting. The following should be explored and be included in the report:

1. Explore the critical nature of relationships between people in an organisation especially with regard to leaders and followers.

2. Identify how leaders may create, reinforce or even destroy organisational culture by their interactions with the organisation’s employees.

3. What role, if any, might trust between leaders and followers play in the decision making process?

Discuss with reference to at least three theories or concepts you have explored in MBA401. You may also provide practical examples drawn from contemporary business.

Report Structure (this is a guide to assist in how you can frame your report)

Introduction (150 words) – Present your response to the statement and outline the aim and structure of the report Discuss the critical nature of the relationships between leaders and followers (400 words)

– here you are responding to statement 1.

Analysis of how leaders may influence organisational culture (400 words) - here you are responding to statement 2.

Analyse the role of the leader and the importance of trust (400 words) here you are responding to question 3.

Conclusion (150 words) – a summary of the analysis and key theories discussed.

Reference List

Solution

Introduction

People and culture is the unseen way in an organization as it helps to take a progressive approach of managing job seekers. Finding the right culture is increasingly important for people to create a positive environment in the workplace and make them happy at work. For Assignment Help, as the present world is growing rapidly, there is a need for strong management and leadership within the organization to foster a knowledge- based economy. Modern leaders have the tenacity to challenge the current landscape and destroy the social conflicts that predominate within the workplace and hamper personal relationships between people. The aim of the study is to highlight the concepts of trust and human behavior to discuss the ways by which a leader can develop better workplace relationships. It has discussed the critical nature of relationships between leaders and followers, while exploring their effectiveness on organizational culture and underlying the importance of trust played by the leadership approaches.

Discussing the critical nature of the relationships between leaders and followers

Both leaders and followers influence their team either by positive or by negative collaboration. This helps to instill the leaders as well as the followers to trust, listen and solve problems by finding new solutions (Daft, 2019). Every organization has significant individuals such as followers who are responsible to monitor and manage the organizational processes by implementing them effectively. On the other hand, every leader has been once a follower within a team to accomplish the required tasks through their passion and dedication. According to contemporary thinking, there is a close relationship between followers and leaders as they are primarily participative and share all the responsibility with employees. Through a dominant personality, leaders can assure right people at right positions within the organization and hire competent employees instead of punishing the low-skilled ones. For instance, Mark Zuckerberg follows the transformational leadership style practically, which is known to inspire the followers with a clear vision of company's future. Developing effective working relationships between people in an organization with regard to their followers and leaders can induce a collaborative environment within the workplace and ensure team building by addressing the concerns of each team member. Application of the five-factor model of personality is effective to draw inference on the nature of relationships between people and leaders in an organization (Wren and Bedian, 2017). These factors include surgency, adjustment, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience. As the leaders have emotional stability traits, they maintain a focus on challenging things and inspire communication as well as confidence with employees in the workplace. Being open to experiences can allow the followers to be broad minded, imaginative and strategic thinkers, which can build strong connections with the people in an organization. Promising to support people through proper tools and techniques can allow the leaders to identify any problems within the organization in terms of policy changes or discontent among the people. With regard to followers and leaders, they should be open to receive news of glitches and maintain staff respect to build a positive relationship with people. For instance, Tesco follows the policy of diversity and inclusion to treat their employees due to which employee satisfaction increased from 3.6% to 3.7%, showcasing strong emotional traits of leaders (Moss, 2020). Granting autonomy is more effective in creating positive relationships between people and followers instead of micromanaging. Correspondingly, creating a mutual interaction between employees and leaders can develop better relationship quality and ensure greater performance within the business process.

Analysis of how leaders may influence organizational culture

Leaders reinforce organizational values by allowing employees to maintain organizational effectiveness through goal setting, recognition and opportunities. While interacting with the organization's employees, the leaders have open and ongoing dialogue that can strengthen their relationship as well as develop trust. This can be elevated through regular communication, two-way feedback and frequent one-on-ones meeting. As the leaders have a tremendous impact on an organization, they are allowed to prioritize work as per the demands of the employees in relation to accomplish organization's objectives. For instance, Mahatma Gandhi's strong leadership attributes were the success criteria of establishing a successful post-Independence India nation and challenging the British government with the help of the nation's party and general people (Acharya, 2019). In relation to business intervention, the role played by the leaders in terms of driving organizational culture is through the successive pathways of Herzberg two factor theory, which allows the leaders to identify the motivation and job satisfaction rate of the employees in terms of improving the organizational effectiveness. By maintaining an adaptive culture, the leaders provide a sense of purpose and mentorship to their employees, which build on a diverse workforce within the organization. While interacting with the employees, the leaders are responsible to actively monitor the internal and external environment for creating a better organizational culture. Moreover, working mutually towards reinforcing exchanges and linkages are the stepping stones of leaders in reinforcing a positive culture within the workplace and maintaining good relations between employees as well as departments. By fostering open communication with the employees through a feedback session or participation in seminars, the leaders can create a better organizational culture and reinforce the company's values and goals. Integration of A model of organizational behavior is utmost effective to understand the three levels of organizational boundaries such as organizational system level, group level and individual level (Brauer and Proyer, 2021). This is important in creating and reinforcing a strong organizational culture as it helps to empower employees with greater innovation and more problem solving redundancies. Poor communication of leaders with the employees and focusing on hyper-competition, micromanagement and bullying behavior can affect the company culture. The leaders can also destroy the organizational culture by insulting the employees publicly and taking the credit of their work, which results in low morale, and high turnover of employees.

Analyze the role of the leader and the importance of trust

Trust is the primary attribute associated with followers and leaders in the decision making process as it helps to increase their power over the employees with regards to raising productivity. Successful leaders can maintain employee trust through practices that create intrinsic motivation and work engagement with the people in an organization. Application of OODA model relates to observation, orientation, decision-making and action, which allows the leaders to make up a composite of data and knowledge as imparted by their followers. For instance, people having obesity rush into judgments of doctors without addressing their causative factors such as individual psychology, societal influence and food consumption. People trusting their immediate leaders develop high job satisfaction rates and induce more commitment to the organization. For instance, Martin Luther King followed transformational leadership to induce decision making ability in the economy and allowed American people to fight for their civil and equality rights through his rhetorical speech and universal message (Campbell, 2021). It is due to the trust between leaders and followers that helps to create a collaborative environment, where people are treated equally and resources are allocated in an equitable way. In the decision making process, the role of leaders is to communicate the impact of organizational changes through day-to-day activities and allowing employees to adapt the changes. On the other hand, the followers are responsible to meet the overall goals of the team and organization, making the employees feel valuable through potential trust. Trust is the positive expectation of the people within the organization that creates a stable foundation for employees and allows the leaders to maintain a tone of commitment, compassion and capabilities. Application of The Rational Economic Model is effective to draw inference on the rational approaches of decision-makers to trust between leaders and followers in the decision making process (Robbins and Judge, 2017). This encourages both followers and leaders to identify a problem situation and generate alternatives that can increase the trust between them as well as ensure strong organizational operation. Implementing such alternatives as a part of the decision making model, the followers trust the leader to feel positively about the alternative and exert extra effort to accomplish the tasks effectively. Trust acts as a mediator between leaders and followers, while inducing respect as well as fairness for the employees and maintaining organizational credibility. For instance, Nelson Mandela's strategic decision of turning down Botha's offer of conditional amnesty in 1985 by living in a cold, dark prison cell elevated the face of ANC's opposition in regard to his personal sacrifice (Schoemaker, 2022). This reflects the fact that building trust is most effective in the decision making process as it embarks a positive change on organizational culture as well as smoothen the relationship between leaders and followers.

Conclusion

It can be concluded from the above that trust is a crucial intervention in an organization as it ensures strong communication, commitment and problem solving capacities within the workplace. The human behavior reflected by the leaders and followers can develop better workplace relationships that can treat the issues of behavioral competence and improve group cohesion in a positive way. They are the only ones to destroy organizational culture if their personal attitude towards the employees is irrational or unexpected, which can further affect the decision making process. Implementation of the five factor model of personality and rational economic model were some of the important theories to understand trust and human behavior to enforce a stronger and better workplace relationship. Immediate attainment of constructive leaders through contemporary leadership approaches can build trust in the workplace and also improve the organization's context.  

Reference list