Leadership Studies: Organizational Issues (Essay Sample)

Leadership Studies: Organizational Issues
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Leadership Studies: Organizational Issues
Considerably, a number of organizational issues remain pertinent and significant in the running of organizations. Among these, organizational culture, the concept of team work, ethics, and the management of human resources stand out as some of the most common issues organizations have to encounter. As such, it is highly probable that Williams Oil and Gas Company will encounter these issues in its organizational ventures.
Organizational culture defines the norms, beliefs and values that drive activities within an organization. In other spheres, it outlays routinely means of performing various tasks in organizations which include treatment of employees by management, conflict resolution, and problem solution. The Issues likely to be faced by Williams Oil and Gas Company in terms of organizational culture may include issues of ambiguity and vagueness in policy and management, poor communication as well as inconsistency, contradiction and undependability in strategies and operational policies (Catlin-Legutko & Klingler, 2012). Cases of ambiguity and vagueness in policy and management arise in events when employees fail to understand management expectations, or further, when blue print policies appear to contradict actual organizational practices. In poor communication, when communiqués are distracted, unclear, late, delivered, to wrong targets or distorted and misinterpreted, they stand a chance of breaking the communicational link. As an issue that may extremely affect organizational culture in Williams Oil and Gas Company, inconsistency contradiction and undependability may result from policies not applied evenly within an organization. These may relate to work conditions where some individuals may have longer work hours than others, uneven rewards, and non-uniform application of penalty or punishment policies (Schein, 2004).
According to Bass and Avolio, (2007), the best leadership and management practices to ensure success in issues related to organizational culture is entrenched in transformational leadership. Other than identifying all the elements related to organizational culture. They outline the different cultural orientations of the organization, how to manage communication, consistency, and avoid vagueness in progressing organizational culture. For leadership to be suitable and successful, it must identify inevitable changes in organizational culture, and adapt to these changes by accommodating the relevant ones and rejecting the irrelevant ones.
Williams Oil and Gas Company may also be extremely affected by issues related to teams, including virtual teams. In working with teams, the first challenge that must be faced is trust. This is also applicable to virtual teams. More specifically, virtual teams work away from one another. It is therefore worth noting that sensitive organizational information must be delivered virtually; if there is no trust, the risk of having company secrets leaked could possibly increase. Again, individuals whose abilities may not have been tested have to be trusted with tasks, sometimes short deadlines. As indicated by (Catlin-Legutko & Klingler, 2012), building trust in organizations denotes the beginning of success in teams and virtual teams. Like any other organization, Williams Oil and Gas Company is also likely to face the challenge of making the most of process gains while minimizing the outcomes in process losses. Also, when specifically dealing with virtual teams, individuals work from separate and wide apart locations. These could result in cases of isolation and loneliness. In relation to these issues, Williams Oil and Gas Company may have to design strategies through which to overcome loneliness mental states and feelings of detachment in its workforce. Perhaps the most challenging issue in dealing with teams relates to the process of assessing and recognizing different performances and achievement levels of team members, including those in virtual teams. It is important that such considerations be made in very sensitive terms as employees within the teams may attach a lot of emotions to such. Again, recognition may increase positive attitude, enthusiasm, and individual commitment to teams (Catlin-Legutko & Klingler, 2012).
In their assessment of virtual and other organizational teams, Duarte and Snyder, (2013) point out that communication and collaboration feature among the most important elements to be considered for successful teams. As such, management of teams must build efficient communication structures that are up to date with modern technology and which must cater for all elements of the organization’s communication demand. Again, Williams Oil and Gas Company management has to ensure adequate and efficient collaboration among team members if any form of success is to be realized. Apart from these, they must apply group oriented approach in overcoming incidences of solitude and non-belongingness, crossing of geographical boundaries, as well as making critical decisions. In sum, these strategies relate to proper planning, management, consideration of various variables, intervention, and proper picking and implementing of leadership roles.
In day to day management of organizational matters, Williams Oil and Gas Company may also have to encounter ethics related issues in organizational operations and management. The first and most prime among ethical organizational issues is related to fair working conditions. To most companies, provision of fair working conditions simply implies higher payments, higher costs of labor, and increased comfort for employees. Many companies evade these provisions even when stated by law. In other circumstances, companies employ many workers on contract basis with periodical termination and renewal of employment to avoid the provisions stated by law for permanently employed personnel. Again, fair work conditions may imply non-discriminatory employment and work environment. Transparency in accounting, legal procedures and tax compliance is yet another ethical issue organizations have to face. Other issues include provision of occupational and health safety as well as technological surveillance and applications on employees. Specifically on technology, some companies may employ strategies that invade individual privacy which is ethically unacceptable (Catlin-Legutko & Klingler, 2012).
Ethical leadership and diversity considerations emerge as the best ways of managing ethical issues in organizations. As explained by Yuki (2002), providing fair working conditions, operating with transparency and provision of a non-discriminatory employment and work environment go a long way in ensuring organizational success. In his view, “The issue is not whether leaders will use power, but will they use it wisely and well” in running organizations (Yuki, 2002). To succeed, leaders mus...