Theoretical Review of Leadership and Organizational Performance (Essay Sample)

Theoretical review of organizational performance
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Theoretical review of organizational performance
Leadership has a significant impact on an organization's performance. The business world is always changing, and it is the responsibility of organizational leaders to keep their companies competitive and thriving, as this is many organizations' main vision. There is a lot of conflicting literature out there about the relationship between leadership and organizational success. Some literature supports the idea that leadership does have an impact on organizational performance, while others argue that organizational growth is independent of leadership. However, these are just contradicting opinions without any scientific evidence. Existing scientific theories have been therefore devised to clearly explain the factors that contribute to the success of an organization. These theories include; transformational leadership, employee behavior, and organizational citizenship behavior. (Berkus, 2010)
Are these theoretical assumptions valid though? First, transformational leadership theory focuses on the ability of organizational leaders to be able to “transform” their team or followers to be able to support each other and the organization as a whole. This involves taking charge of the employee’s assigned tasks by empowering them, motivating them, and encouraging their continual development which leads to a solid corporate culture within the organization. By doing so, the employees will respond by building trust, admiration, loyalty, and respect for their leaders thus they become more willing to work even harder than before. The main aim of transformational leadership is to gain the employees’ trust and respect and promote their abilities. After achieving this, the leaders are able to take charge of their teams by making senior management decisions and then assigning tasks to their employees that they will be more than willing to execute. The application of transformational leadership has led to the success of many companies like Tesla, and Space X through their transformational leader, Ellon Musk. (Berkus, 2010)
Another theoretical assumption is employee behavior. How does this lead to organizational success? According to this theory, leaders must understand each of their employee’s behaviors at the workplace. For example, they must understand that some employees perform better in groups, some perform better alone, and others perform better when motivated. All of these adjustments are aimed at creating everyone a conducive working environment where they can deliver their best efforts towards achieving their targets. When an understanding of the conditions that affect the employee’s behaviors has been established, the leaders are able to make necessary adjustments for their teams to perform better. For example, motivating the employees, and assigning them group work among other methods have been known to improve their productivity. (Commons et al., 2018).
Finally, another theoretical assumption is organizational citizenship behavior. According to this theory, organizational leaders must ensure that all of their team or followers have a feeling of belonging within the organization. This may be done through the creation of working teams that allow the employees to interact with each other, encouraging their abilities and developments, motivating them, and empowering them. Encouraging organizational citizenship behavior encourages the employee’s morale and performance thus improving their productivity. (Yaakobi &