Leadership Effectiveness
Organizational dynamics are impacted by a number of factors ranging from the internal ones, which include the job performance and working conditions, to internal ones, which involve globalization and business environment the company operates in. This paper specifically focuses on a few elements that might influence organizational dynamics, including the increase of leadership effectiveness.
Four Insights as to Organizational Dynamics
It should be admitted that an organizational dynamics parameter affects absenteeism, profitability, turnover, and loses of the company. It is closely related to the causes of productivity and unproductive development of the organization. The dynamics of the organization is defined as the type of interactions that occur among employee, employer and organization as a whole (Pandey, 2006). It should be stressed that organizational dynamics is not equaled to group dynamics, which refers to the understanding of group alienation, cohesion, development, obedience, non-conformity, etc. The concepts of role, power, organizational and inter-organizational dynamics are also worth attention. Role dynamics is relates to the analysis of the roles played by employees within the company, organizational burnout and stress (Pandey, 2006). Power dynamics includes such important concepts and techniques as power decentralization, empowerment, delegation, transformational leadership, etc. Intra-organizational dynamics refers to the social responsibilities, culture, ethics and values of the organization. Finally, inter-organizational dynamics involves the impact of the external factors, including globalization, business environment the company operates in, and the strategic alliances (Pandey, 2006). The understanding of these concepts allows the leader of the organization to examine the elements of the organizational dynamics in more detail and determine where the flows occur.
Additionally, it should be stressed that the level of productivity of the employees significantly impacts the dynamics of the organization. The most productive employees know the goal and use all the resources that are given to them wisely. The effective use of everyone’s time, skills and abilities is a key priority for them. Everyone gets is responsible for a certain part of work. At the same time, those activities which require team efforts are to be performed in groups the guidance of which is conducted by the leader. In addition, productive teams are committed to internal improvement. They are not prohibited to criticize the works of others and their ideas are born during hot-debated discussions in which virtually every member of the group actively participates. The atmosphere in which group operates is rather comfortable, informal and relaxed. Introducing all of the abovementioned tools might ensure that the employees work productively.
In addition, it was learned that organizational dynamics depends on a lot of factors, including personal characteristics and abilities of members. It is better when they possess knowledge in different fields of science or some communicative skills, since these members may propose different or alternative ways of solving the same problem. The tasks given to them must in the best way correspond to their abilities and at the same time promote the sense of individualism and freedom when it comes to goals attainment. In addition, without a doubt, the diversity of team members helps to look at things from different and even opposed points of view. Additionally, it is suggested that medium-sized teams are the best ones. On the one hand, there are enough people to perform certain tasks in comparison with small teams whose members usually are over-busy. On the other hand, each member has his own field to work at and be responsible for the result and performance so that in the future there will be no conflicts between members, and in the case of failure everybody will know who is to blame. Therefore, it is better to ensure the cultural, ethical and gender diversity of the staff in order to gain better rates of organizational development.
Finally, the overall dynamics of the organization depends on the cohesiveness of a team. Cohesive group of people have their features. First of all, the vision of the leader is shared by all group members. Secondly, it is an honor for the members to be part of a team. All of them respect each other, and the communication among them is open and limitless. Everyone is encouraged and willing to participate in discussions as well as joint projects. Cooperation among them is vivid and they truly enjoy it. It could be stated that they are more than co-members; they are rather friends or good advisors for each other. In order to ensure increased organizational dynamics and performance, a leader should ensure that the techniques aimed at making a group or team of employees cohesive enough are implemented.
How the Application of these Insights Can Enhance Leadership Effectiveness
The implementation of the insights discussed above could improve the overall performance of the company as well as increase the leadership effectiveness. It specifically concerns the consideration of the elements of organizational dynamics. In this regard, the leader has more competencies and opportunities, since, for example, having found out that some of the environmental factors might soon hurt the company’s position or that some roles are played by the employees who lack specific abilities or expertise. The leader might address such problems by introducing the necessary changes. Additionally, the cohesiveness of the team might facilitate communication between the leaders and staff. Additionally, it allows teams to present their concerns or wishes in a more clear and understandable way. Moreover, high productivity rates as well as cohesion of teams of employees might also lighten the cooperation between the leader and personnel during the periods of changes implementation. Finally, it is always easier to discover a basis for mutual understanding in the team that shares the same values and beliefs. Diversity in the workplace is a double-edged sword.
The Value and Importance of the Theories and Concepts for Leadership Effectiveness
Basically, there are four theories of leadership. Their application depends on the particularities of the company involved. The trait theory of leadership, for example, provides that specific traits of character are of crucial importance for the leader. It asserts that such characteristics could be either in-born or developed through the set of various situations and tasks. This theory is important as it addresses the features that are to be inherent for the true leader that can manage the organization. The scope of these characteristics is, of course, shaped by the circumstances of certain cases.
The supporters of contingency theory oppose to the concept of trait theory and state that leadership effectiveness is impacted by the environment the leader has to deal with (Marturano, Dennison, & Gosling, 2003). Thus, whereas some leaders are effective in one company, they are not necessarily influential in another one. The behavioral theory of leadership is a modification of the traits theory which focuses specifically on the deeds of the leader (Marturano et al., 2003). Supporters of this idea claim that the effectiveness of the leader depends largely on his activities in regard to the subordinates. Finally, the full-range theory refers in part to the transformational leadership. It aims to increase the employees’ motivation by the leader tying the personality of the employee with the project he or she works on as well as to the corporate culture of the company.
Reflecting on all of these theories, one should notice that they endeavor to explain the reasons behind the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of leadership. Therefore, it is necessary for the company to evaluate all of them and to identify the determining factor of the leadership within the structure. Each theory points out that the reason for ineffectiveness could be found in the traits of the leader, in his inappropriate decisions or activities, in his environment or in the improper motivational techniques he or she uses. Once understood and identified, this reason could be removed by the introduction of new and better performance that encourages practices by changing the atmosphere in the workplace. Therefore, keeping in mind all these theories, it is possible to remove the barriers preventing the leader from effective and fruitful work.
Action Plan
The insights that could be implemented within the organization include the increase of cohesiveness, productivity and diversity of employed staff and assessment of the organizational dynamics in detail. An effective leader should make his team cohesive, as it will help to beat the competitors without any additional resources or efforts. Therefore, team cohesion must be prioritized accordingly.
First of all, the leader should create a vision for the group that will be shared and realized by each member. Secondly, he should put people together. It could be achieved through effective team building exercises or through ongoing practices of teamwork (Huhman, 2013). Thirdly, a strong feedback for both actions of individuals and the work of the team is to be provided in order to explain what worked well and what did not. Finally, a good leader should organize proper celebration of the success of the team where everyone can get closer to each other in the atmosphere of informal communication.
In order to make a team productive and to prove its effectiveness, a good leader should introduce the following steps. First of all, he must establish the goal, e.g. the task that is to be reached through the joint efforts of the team. Secondly, he must introduce the rules of the game, or, in other words, explain how the process of achieving of the goal will be implemented (Angove, 2011). He is to determine what tasks are to be performed separately and what areas of work need joint activities. In addition, he should determine the strengths and weaknesses of his team members at first sight and divide the duties accordingly in order to ensure high productivity of the team. Deadlines also need to be set beforehand in order to stimulate and discipline the members.
Needless to say, the personnel of each company consists of the employees that do differ in certain ways. In order to benefit from the diversity of the employees, the leader should first find out the particularities of the employees. For this purpose, the employer might carry out a few interview or questionnaire sessions with the employees. The results of these tests will help the company to identify the skills, preferences, hobbies, etc. of their employees that then might be used as a competitive advantage of the company.
Once the findings are obtained, the leader might consider how to accommodate them in the way that would be beneficial for the organization. Such practices are of crucial importance for the companies that service their clients, as they aim to satisfy the customer to the maximum extent possible. Finally, in case the organization experiences a decline in performance, the leader might reexamine the organizational dynamics elements that have been mentioned above in order to determine the weaknesses in the operation cycle.