Organizational Communication, Leadership, and Motivation

Posted on Feb 15, 2025 in Business Administration and Management (BAM)

Understanding Communication and Organizational Dynamics

Communication is generally defined as a process to manage meanings through the use of verbal and non-verbal signs and symbols within a context.

Individual vs. Organizational Needs

Individual Needs: Autonomy, Creativity, Sociability, Stability, Predictability
Organizational Needs: Control, Coordination

The more control, the less coordination. The more autonomy, the less institutionalization. Institutional Theory suggests that any organization has been institutionalized.

Types of Influence

Mimetic: Copying successful strategies.
Coercive: Following organizational rules.
Normative: Adhering to established norms.

Critical thinking is that mode of thinking about any subject, content, or problem in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully analyzing, assessing, and reconstructing it.

To homogenize a workplace is to hire, assign to units, or promote people with similar demographics, deep-seated cultural assumptions, values, and attitudes.

Forces Promoting Diversity

The rise of international human rights on equality.
The accountability of countries and organizations to abide by these international values.
Globalization.

Economic globalization refers to the increasing interdependence of world economies as a result of the growing scale of cross-border trade of commodities and services, flow of international capital, and wide and rapid spread of technologies. It reflects the continuing expansion and mutual integration of market frontiers and is an irreversible trend for the economic development in the whole world at the turn of the millennium.

Functions and Impact of ICT

Functions of ICT:
1. Facilitate communication.
2. Do the work.
3. Coordination and integration of work processes.
4. Knowledge management.
Impact of ICT:
1. Open up communication and increase accessibility.
2. Spatial dispersion of organizations.
3. Interorganizational linkages.
4. Privacy concerns.

Components of Organizational Structure

Complexity: Extent to which an organization has subparts.
Horizontal Differentiation: How tasks are subdivided (micro division of tasks and specialization).
Vertical or Hierarchical Differentiation: The number of levels in an organization.
Spatial Dispersion: Location of authority and management can be decentralized.
Centralization: Decision-making authority of members of an organization. When a few people make decisions at the top, the organization is centralized.
Formalization: Extent to which rules, policies, and procedures govern organizational members’ behavior.

Types of Organizational Structure

Traditional
Relational
Cultural
Network

Managers vs. Leaders

Manager: Managing work, counting value, circles of power.
Leader: Leading people, creating value, circle of influence.

Leadership

Willingness of less powerful members of organizations to accept the unequal distribution of power, change-oriented, time-oriented, getting, keeping, working with followers towards a shared goal. Leadership focuses on creativity, vision, and long-term organizational development, whereas management deals with routine operations.

Leadership Styles

Transformational-Charismatic: Decisive, performance-oriented, visionary, inspiration to subordinates, and is willing to sacrifice for the organization. Acts as a teacher, inspirational figure, motivates people to take risks.
Team-oriented: Integrator, diplomatic, benevolent, and has a collaborative attitude about the team.
Self-protective: Self-centered, status conscious, conflictual, procedural, and a face saver, concerned with appearance.
Participative: Delegator, encourages subordinate participation in decisions.
Humane: Modesty and compassionate orientation (servant leadership).
Autonomous: Individualistic, independent, autonomous, and unique (dictatorship).

Types of Leadership Legitimacy

Traditional Authority: Established belief of sanctity of traditions and the legitimacy of status of those exercising authority under them.
Rational Authority or Legal Authority: No uphold of long-established traditions and efficient administration that distills ethical and moral issues into rules and bureaucratic organization.
Charismatic Authority: Transformational leadership, based on devotion and heroism, conviction that the leader possesses special gifts, creates radical change in society.

Motivation

Amount of effort that an individual puts into doing something, or the willingness to exert high levels of effort toward organizational goals, conditioned by the effort’s ability to satisfy some individual need.

What Motivates People?

Need for Achievement
Need for Power
Need for Affiliation

How to Motivate People?

Reinforcement Theory: Environment determines behavior. Reward leads to repetition of the behavior. No acknowledgement leads to the end of the behavior. Punishment ends the behavior at the moment and prevents the repetition of the unwanted behavior.
Goal Setting Theory: Performance increases when specific goals are set. How? Individuals are committed to the goal that is set. Individuals believe they have the ability to do a particular task.
Expectancy Theory: Behavior is a result of both personal and environmental factors. Behavior is influenced by people’s decisions to belong in an organization and how much effort to put in performance. Because there are different needs, people expect different rewards. Behavior is based on what leads to the best outcome.

The Purpose of Reward Systems

Attracting and retaining “good” employees.
Reducing absenteeism.
Motivating enhanced performance.
- The reward should be attractive to the individual.
- The reward should be tied to the level of performance.
- The reward should be attainable.
Developing employee skills.
Facilitating organizational culture and strategic objective.
Defining and reinforcing organizational structure.

Navigating Blended Relationships in the Workplace

The blended relationship:

Employees should learn their supervisor’s and organization’s view of workplace relationships. This information may be available through informal channels, but once a relationship becomes serious, a frank conversation with one’s supervisors is warranted.
Decide when and how to go public. Advisors differ on this issue. Some say that it’s best to come clean about the relationship immediately after talking with your supervisor. Others say that keeping it private is the best strategy. Your goal should be to minimize hearsay and innuendo, and especially to make sure your relationship does not interfere with your work.
Be discreet. Always maintain a professional relationship at work. In fact, you might put your coworkers into some difficult situations.
Finally, have an exit plan. Discuss what the two of you will do if the relationship ends.

Communication Challenges and Restructuring