«Leadership and Organizational Dynamics» - Free Essay Paper

This paper analyses different authors’ ideas in identifying and resolving existing and emerging workplace issues as covered in the last three chapters. Most of the problems experienced by employees in the workplace were related to psychosocial issues. Unlike other cruxes that are easily planned for even before an organization starts its operation, such as physical concerns, psychosocial problems usually emerge after an organization began conducting its activities. It is, therefore, not easy to identify and curb them before a company has started its operations. Failure of a CEO to effectively communicate with the workers is a critical workplace issue. Other aspects influencing the emergence of problems include the entire organizational culture, work, values, attitudes as well as practices demonstrated on a daily basis in the company. In one way or the other, such factors tend to affect the mental and physical wellbeing of workers, which ultimately interferes with their performance in the organization. As a result, company authorities should solve them using the most effective models such as Gibb’s model.

Stacey (2010) recognizes action study as an activity that involves the entire range of actions related to research about how people act in order to come up with effective solutions in the future for the issues affecting them. The author’s report uses Gibbs’ reflection model in order to come up with the necessary steps in identifying the work place problems, evaluating them and finally creating solutions through action research. Barton, Stephens and Haslett (2009) also recognize this model as appropriate in solving workplace problems because it describes all the procedures followed. Apart from showing the impact that the problem had on the organization, this model also creates sense of experience at the workplace of the adopted solution along with providing other preferences that would have been applied to resolve the crux (Barton et.al, 2009). Gibb’s process uses the structure and culture of the workplace, identifies the problem through expression of thoughts and feelings in the workplace, analyzes the issue and, finally, offers precise conclusions that develop an action plan that can be employed in the future to address similar issues (Stacey, 2010).

Deborah Gordon states in her video that organizational behavior can be complex due to emerging complexities in interactions (Gordon, 2003). In this case, the first problem was poor communication by the CEO through his command and management style. The CEO used to make assumptions that workers understood every aspect of work procedures and details. Even when there was a change in instructions and procedures of work, he could sometimes ignore to inform employees about such critical information (Gordon, 2003). Poor communication from the CEO resulted into some services getting to clients late, incomplete or even being delivered to a wrong client. This issue was mostly a reverse of communication from the CEO to subordinates. However, the CEO complained several times concerning his subordinates’ inability to listen well to the communicated instructions. It involved lack of consultation, effective response and respectful appraisal management. These were serious cases because they resulted into loss of customers or diminished customer loyalty since the clash and misunderstanding between supervisors and subordinate workers would finally be felt by customers (Stacey, 2011).

By discussing the general systems theory, Boulding (1956) appropriately illustrated that using Gibb’s model, the top management will be able to correctly remove incompetent supervisors as well as retain supervisors with good communication and leadership skills. For example, the top management will inquire on the problem from the subordinate workers about the complaint on their supervisors (Boulding, 1956). They will seek to get the feelings and thoughts of the supervisors that were the reason they made a mistake. Thereafter, an evaluation will be carried out to determine whether what the supervisor did was right or wrong according to the organization’s rules and regulations. Moreover, Stacey (2011) claims that the management should carry out an analysis to determine if the actions of the supervisor actually make sense or not after which they will come up with a conclusion. Finally, they will adopt an action plan that will help deal with problems related to poor communication as well as command and control management style in the future (Stacey, 2011).

Another serious issue brought up by Stacey (2011) was job insecurity related to acquisitions, labor market and economy, mergers as well as reorganizations of the company. Most workers fear that the economic situation will affect the market for the products and services produced by their company (New England Complex Systems Institute, 2010). Boulding (1956) noted that the state of economy can, in turn, compel the company proprietors to either merge or be acquired by another company, which implies that some of the staff would lose their jobs. Moreover, the company’s own reorganization would lead to employees being fired as well (Boulding, 1956).

This is a serious workplace problem that may affect staff performance in various ways. However, the company top management can successfully apply Gibb’s model to resolve the issue (Santa Fe Institute, 2012). The organization’s authorities may use the same process but at a different angle in order to address other workplace problems. For example, the model can help describe the feelings and thoughts of the entire problem, i.e. job insecurity by employees due to the decline in the economic condition (Barton et.al, 2009). In addition, the company top management can conduct an evaluation and analysis of the employees’ experience and to get the sense of the situation (Stacey, 2011).

In conclusion, dynamics and complexities are part of many organizations’ activities. Gibb’s cycle is essential in solving problems in the workplaces since it makes one think through several phases of experience and create rational conclusions and solutions. The model can also enable organizations and individuals to control cruxes that they encounter. In this case, the workplace issue caused by dynamics and complexities in people’s perceptions can easily be handled through research and involving concerned parties in an organization.