Good Organizational Behavior Essay Example

Organizational behavior encompasses the understanding of how individuals and groups within organizations behave, and examines how the behavior of individuals in the workplace influences the performance of the organization and the motivation level of employees. It is specifically related to the various concerns of employees like job satisfaction, work environment, absenteeism, employee performance, overall productivity and employment turnover (Robbins & Judge, 2015). Organizational behavior is primarily shaped by the environment in which an organization functions along with the choices of the leadership. In other words, the behavior of leaders and the top management shapes the culture and way of functioning of organizations. Therefore, the personal attributes, knowledge and way of thinking of leaders and other individuals significantly influence organizational behavior.
Ethics and workplace values of individuals and mangers in organizations are the basic guiding principles that motivate the employees to perform well. Ethics and values help everyone to decide between the appropriate and inappropriate ways of behaving with fellow employees at the workplace and with the clients. Ethics and personal values held by employees influence their own performance and that of their colleagues. To begin with, a professional conduct on the part of the employees establishes a favorable organizational environment that improves the job performance. For instance, punctuality, integrity and accountability are certain essential values that help employees to boost the image of the company and give their best to the organization and to the customers. Integrity calls for walking one’s talk, and always displaying impeccable personal commitment at the workplace. A leader can demonstrate integrity through informing his colleagues in advance about the forthcoming changes in the organization that would equip them to adjust to the future changes. Such a behavior would also increase the respect of the leader among the employees and motivate them to increase their work performance. Individuals who demonstrate effective leadership acumen never take the credit for the teamwork; instead, they attribute the success to all those who are directly and indirectly involved in the work. At the same time, accountable managers take the blame and responsibility themselves when a team work fails, which inspires the team members to put in their best efforts to succeed in future.
Critical thinking ability helps individuals to think differently with a creative mind to make best business decisions. Critical thinking facilitates managers to raise their reasoning power from the subconscious to the conscious level. In other words, it enables them to take control of their thinking ability by applying reasons to find creative solutions to business problems. Decision making requires business leaders to undergo a serious thought process and ultimately make a logical alternative from among the choices available in hand (Jarrard, 2011). Before taking a good decision acceptable to all stakeholders concerned, a business leader must weigh both the positive and negative aspects of each and every option. Effective decision making therefore warrants a person’s ability to predict the outcome of each alternative under discussion before settling upon a particular choice.
Critical thinkers, by nature, are skeptical, and they always challenge the usual beliefs by investigating other competing evidences. This helps them to think about alternate decisions rather than following traditional rules. Secondly, critical thinkers are active, and are interested in asking questions, through which they try to analyze and explore new possibilities. They are also open to new perspectives and ideas of fellow employees rather than viewing the workplace and the outside world through an egotistical approach. Critical thinking helps organizations in planning appropriate product promotion decisions. For instance, a traditional thinker may advertise his car brand with a special appeal to women customers by using certain stereotypical figures in the advertisement, which may fail to appeal other potential customers. However, a critical thinker may thoroughly question and analyze all alternatives and eliminate biased advertising decisions; instead, he would highlight a new feature, say the environment friendliness of the car, while advertizing which may appeal to all customer segments.
Smart managers promote good organizational values to promote good workplace ethics and improve job performance, apart from taking timely decisions by taking all the workforce into confidence. Always having a positive attitude, spreading it around, never letting himself feel victimized, and having fun was how Jack Welch took General Electric to great heights as the CEO of the company (Welch and Welch, 2005). Great managers like Welch apply the organizational behavior principles at the workplace to create incredible job performance and competitive advantage by facilitating an excellent workplace environment. Managers are the media through whom the procedures, policies and initiatives of the organization are presented to the employees. Therefore, they have the responsibility of maintaining a favorable workplace atmosphere; after all, when employees quit the work, they do not leave the company, rather they leave the managers. Jack Welch led General Electric for twenty years as CEO through his honest and informal style of leadership by relentlessly focusing on people, profit and teamwork. He promoted an organizational culture of valuing the ideas of everyone rather than controlling them, and created a vision among his team members that made them passionate about their jobs. He found leadership in every fellow worker who contributed, came up with good ideas and inspired others. Through mutual trust, Welch developed other leaders by letting them get involved and develop on their own rather than through micro-managing. Brainstorm sessions with other employees, informal meetings and occasional casual get-togethers were some special features of the organizational behavior of General Electric when Welch’s was at the helm of the organization.

References

Jarrard, B. (2011). Critical thinking, complexity and decision making. Mind Werx international. Retrieved from http://www.mindwerx.com/articles/critical-thinking-decision-making
Robbins, S.P. and Judge, T.A. (2015). Essentials of Organizational Behavior. New York: Pearson
Welch, J and Welch, S. (2005). Winning. New York: Harper Collins