Organizational Behavior and Leaders’ Communicative Skills Essay

 

Abstract

The paper focuses on the importance of communicative skills of managers who should be able to perform the role of leaders to maintain a positive organizational behavior. The paper reveals the high risk of conflicts between managers, as formal leaders of organizations, and informal leaders, which may not have a formal authority in the organization, but influence employees. In such a situation, managers should be able to be leaders and communicate with employees to maintain a positive organizational behavior.

 

The development of a positive organizational behavior is highly dependent on the leadership skills of managers, which should possess effective communication skills in order to be able to control and coordinate the development of the organization. Today, it is practically impossible to imagine an organization that functions properly if its managers do not possess basic communicative skills and abilities. Obviously, the relationships within organizations grow more and more complicated and it is getting to be more and more difficult to effectively communicate with employees that may be a serious problem for a manager because it is extremely important to develop strong links with his/her employees. The latter is practically impossible without essential communicative skills and abilities.

In fact, a professional and successful manager should have a profound knowledge in psychology and be able to communicate effectively with each employee. This may be done only the basis of the knowledge of human s\psychology and communicative skills that can help a manager establish positive relationship with employees, improve the atmosphere within an organization and become a true leader of the team.

It is an undeniable fact that if a manager fails to establish proper communication channels between him/her and his/her workers, the main function of management ”“ to manage people – will not be fulfilled. However, communication is more effective when a manager is a leader at the same time. In fact, leadership contributes to the higher effectiveness of the manager communication since he/she acquires essential authority and respect from the part of employees if they recognize him/her as a leader. Unfortunately, it is not always so, and managers face situations when an informal leader in the group they work with appears.

Unquestionably, the combination of managerial and leadership qualities are of a paramount importance for the general success of a manager’s work. However, there are situations when the manager’s leadership may be argued or challenged by an subordinated employee who possesses certain qualities and characteristics of a leader. In fact, such an employee can gain a substantial degree of authority to the extent that his/her opinion and point of view will be as significant and important for other employees as that of the manager. Potentially, it creates conditions for the development of conflicts within the organization because the manager, being nominally a leader, can face the opposition of the actual leader which, being formally subordinated to the manager, can play the role of the leader for other employees. This may result in the conflict of interest in the case of the views of the manager and the actual leader do not coincide.

Obviously, if the interests of both the informal and formal leaders of the groups coincide there are no contradictions and, naturally, there is no opposition within the group. As soon as the views of the formal and informal leaders of the group differ the conflicts begin. In this respect, the role of communication is getting to be particularly important because it is due to the communicative skills the formal or informal leader of the group can gain the support of other employees. It is noteworthy that even the formal authority and higher position in the organizational hierarchy of the manager can be of little help to him/her because he/she will be unable to overcome the ”˜silent’ resistance of employees to changes or innovations if they are influenced by the informal leader while the manager fails to persuade the group in his/her righteousness, or effectiveness of the suggested changes.

It is necessary to underline that the communicative skills of the manager are of a paramount importance because he has to be able to make employees his/her allies and the only way he/she can do it is negotiations.

Before taking any steps, it is necessary to analyze the situation more carefully, and maybe more options will appear in future. Efficiency of a manager is usually estimated by means of his/her ability to influence productivity of the work force, which results from his/her education and work experience. For this reason, the scientists stated a distinct difference between management and leadership that means that management is not always leadership.

According to John Kotter, who devoted several major studies to exploring differences between leadership and management, leaders’ main tasks are “to create vision of the company, to inspire and control, to direct the action of the workforce by using personal qualities, such as the ability to influence people, charisma, enthusiasm and others” (Hart, 2004, p.114).

In contrast to leaders, managers are to plan and organize, in other words, to do what they are taught to using their experience, while leaders’ actions may involve certain creativity. The ideal situation is when a manager is a leader. In this case, person who has the ability to influence people (a leader), also has the formal power or is authorized to influence people and to control their work (a manager). The combination of the two elements gives 100 percent success.

However, in actuality such an ideal combination is not always achievable. This is why managers have to carefully build up their relationship with their employees in order to gain their support and, what is more important, it is necessary to pay particular attention to employees that possess characteristics and qualities typical for leaders.

Managers should primarily focus on such potential leaders who should become their assistance and who could be really helpful in realization of plans of managers. On the other hand, managers should constantly work on their own leadership qualities in order to make the employees feel their authority and power along with respect and partnership that should be a kind of stimuli for recognition of the manager’s leadership.

The majority of companies are looking for “talented and energetic individuals who possess excellent communication and teamwork skills” (Brief and Weiss, 2000, p.76), who will demonstrate their potential to be not only managers, but also effective leaders. Obviously, such a combination of managerial and leadership qualities is particularly important nowadays when the organizational structure is getting to be more and more complicated and it is not enough simply to have experience and skills to manage a group of employees but it is necessary to be able to unite them in a team headed by the manager-leader.

Thus, in conclusion, it should be said that one of the major goals of managers is to maintain a positive organizational behavior. The latter is impossible without leadership qualities and communicative skills managers should possess in order to achieve success in their work. Managers should be able to communicate with their employees, perceive their problems and react respectively to establish a two-side communication between the administration of the organization and employees. This is an essential condition of the development of a positive organizational behavior.



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