Building The Bridge As You Walk On It : A Guide For Leading Change

“Political Activity is alive and well in organisations. Critically discuss this statement. What factors result in Organisational Politics and what is the role of such behaviour on other people at work?”

Employees who are not politically savvy or choose to avoid highly political organizations may elect to work in a minimally or moderately politically environment. Personnel who thrive in the political realm may prefer a highly political organization. In either case, it is advantageous to have a little political know-how in one’s professional toolbox. A step to gain knowledge is researching office politics and how to traverse through the political landscape (Reardon, 2015).

Harold Dwight Lasswell, leading American political scientist or communication theorist, defined politics as “Politics is who gets what, when, and how.” Although Lasswell definition is broad, I completely agree with him on his thoughts about politics based on the lessons I’ve learned throughout, my major, Political Science. Politics is defined as the “activities associated with governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties trying to achieve power. The task of political science is composed of four parts: a concern for what is right or wrong in politics, research that leads to the task of empirical understanding, the combination of empirical studies, and prudential concerns.

Drawing on theory and practice from the programme on leading effective change, critically review your style of working with others, and consider how your approach to thinking and acting has affected your impact in your work. What have you learned about leading effective change?

To reward the employees, they would calculate who has most success in the organization, such as, who was acquired the highest customer service rating, and there will also be recognition for employee of the

Politics is power. It ranges from who has the power to who can do what with power to how can they use power and even further. The TV show,

Reward is a vital part of Performance Management. Two of the purposes of Rewards are:

McShane and Von Glinow, 2010:360 argued that leadership is influencing, motivating, and enabling others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members. It is the dual focused management approach that works towards what is best for individuals and what is best for the group as a whole simultaneously. According to Kotter he suggested that leaders establish directions develop strategies influence others to follow energize people. Effective leadership builds on important underlying competencies such as the Self Awareness it sees things clearly and strengthen Analysis and problem Evaluation beyond the immediate and short term .Interpersonal Effectiveness based on listening and communication skills to increase understanding , motivation and commitment .Personal Conviction concerning possibilities and objectives with the resilience to overcome setbacks ( Galvas et al 1998). In addition to setting clear direction, effective leaders develop employee competence by building self-belief and capability; support autonomy encourages employees to take control, build a culture based on positive relationships .The steps are anchored in meaningful activity and a sense of shared purpose, managers need to identify the steps that move employees from satisfied to motivated and then help people become fully engaged.

“A process for establishing a shared understanding about what is to be achieved and how it is to be achieved, and an approach to managing people that increases the probability of achieving success”- Weiss and Hartle (1997).

An effective reward system should honor the needs of the employees in order to accelerate the organization growth. Some of the basic needs include:-

Leadership, according to Bryman (1992), is “purpose-driven action that brings about change or transformation based on values, ideals, vision, symbols, and emotional exchanges”.

“Effective reward management is critical to organizational performance.” Effective reward management, as a system, is the most powerful tool available to reinforce organizational values and translate them into employee actions (read behavior). Here, the ‘organization’ does not only refer to a business structure, but any institution (or activity) that involves people working together, and requires their voluntary contributions in order to operate successfully. Whether it is a school, a hospital, an NGO, a government agency, a political party, or a religious foundation, all require a matrix through which the performance of its individual members can

Although these terms are often used interchangeably, reward and recognition systems should be considered separately. Employee reward systems refer to programs set up by a company to reward performance and motivate employees on individual and/or group levels. They are normally considered separate from salary but may be monetary in nature or otherwise have a cost to the company. While previously considered the domain of large companies, small businesses have also begun employing them as a tool to lure top employees in a competitive job market as well as to increase employee performance.

The business world is full of all sizes of businesses that compete with each other, from the industry giants, all the way to the small mom and pop shops. All types of companies need to have leaders to help lead their company on the cutting edge to remain competitive. Throughout history leadership styles have changed to help keep companies strong in competitive markets. In the textbook titled Leadership, author Richard L. Daft discussed what leadership is, “Leadership involves influence; it occurs among people; those people intentionally desire significant change; and the changes reflect purposes shared by leaders and followers” (Daft 2015, p. 5). What Daft is saying is that people who can lead other people to success in a changing environment is leadership. Each company would most likely have total different leadership styles depending on what that company does and the size of the organization. In this research paper, I look deeper into the leadership styles of a small business that I currently work for, The Barrier Reef aquarium store located in Boca Raton Florida. The Barrier Reef has been in business for over 40 years and have upgraded along the way to a larger storefront. Although a lot has changed regarding the leadership style of the store over the years, The Barrier reef small business has a strong leader base that has

It is apparent that different parts of the organization have and require different types of resources. The company takes active steps towards aligning these resources with the set company objectives. The second step involves empowering the employees through refined objectives that align with the work force and the performance expectations (Martocchio, 2013). The third step involves developing a performance-based reward system. This is followed by the development of a real-time information system that monitors employee performance and compares the performance against the organization’s objectives (Martocchio, 2013). Moreover, the organization optimizes its link by employing analytics to identify areas that can be improved upon.