Take any one organisation with which you are familiar and consider the

behaviour of individuals and groups within that organisation.

Organisation Behaviour is a leading trend in the business world and the company

development since the 30’s of the 20th century. The decades of industrialisation that lead to

economic growth throughout the world altered the structure of the company and the market

system, thus leading to the organisation and managerial models used in small, mid and large-

scale firms to grow and become a constant process of reshaping and evolving. Therefore the

need for improvement in the established processes tends to be inevitable and the occurrence

of new ones often happens. The field of organisation behaviour bears a significant importance

for the company and has a couple of significant factors that it should monitor, examine and

consider their aspects through the methods of the study – some of which are the groups and

the individuals in the company. Individuals and the groups that they form are the most

important links in the formation of the firm. They act as the engine of the company that

moves it forward. Thus the managers should keep focused on them in order to keep the

organisation efficient, which is what the study of organisation behaviour is about.

In the following analysis an attempt of examination of the behaviour of groups and

individuals within the organization would be taken, the organization’s structure and culture,

the aspects of leadership, power, business performance, motivation and decision-making

would be investigated, as well.

Usually, it is not easy to differentiate between the different leadership styles and

approaches to management used by the different organizations, mainly because they do not

differentiate much for comparative companies of the same industry. The reasoning behind

that is the fact that the leaders and managers of those companies value the efficiency of their

work and in order for a leader or a manager to be efficient and successful he cannot only stick

to a given type of style, strategy or an approach and uses a mixture of them when completing

his tasks and this proves effective at most of the cases. As an example of leadership style we

can examine the approach of Google Inc. According to Harvard Business Review Magazine,

a good leader for Google must be a good coach, must empower the team and should not

micromanage, should express interest and concern for team members’ success and well-

being, should be productive and result-oriented, is a good communicator, helps the

employees with career development, must have a clear strategy for the team, has key

technical skills that help him and his team when solving problems. The demand of those

values in a leader suggests that Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google value

innovation, creativity and well-placed and set tasks a lot. In comparison we may examine the

leadership style of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, Inc. His leadership approach

can be defined as aggressive and encouraging. Moreover, he demands constant growth and

innovation, as well as, inspiring the other managers in the company to take the positions of

leaders of the company whilst assuring he has majority control of. As we could clearly see,

both the leaders of Google and Facebook demand innovation, creativity and productivity,

therefore they build their strategies around these core values.

There are diverse definitions for the organization’s structure and culture according to

the different authors. The majority of opinions imply that organizational structure is the

formal system of work roles and authority relationships that govern how associates and

managers interact with each other. In order for the organization to be efficient and keep its

market share or expand, organizations must alter their structures in accordance with the type

of environment it works in, the level of technology it uses, the size of the company, the

strategy of the company and other factors.

According to Schein (1990), organizational culture may be defined as a ‘common set

of values and beliefs that are shared by members of an organization which influences how

people perceive, think, and act’. Organizational culture is a set of expectations that guides an

organization’s social relationships and are moderated by an implicit socialization process,

which is often taken for granted by entrusted members. This significant system is used as a

reference by associates as they make decisions in the performance of their duties.

Furthermore, organizational performance has been directly linked to organizational culture.

In order to further examine the theories of motivation and leadership affecting the

organization we must take a look at the roles of the leaders and the managers in it. Different

authors have different definitions for leadership and leadership style. According to Yukl

(2010), the leadership process is ‘The process of influencing others to understand and agree

about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and

collective efforts to accomplishing shared objectives.’ On the other hand, the managerial

process is generally defined as a ‘process that involves planning, organizing, leading, and

controlling resources in order to achieve certain goals.’ Concluding those definitions we may

state that a main force for the organisation is its leader, his skills and the leadership strategy

he applies in order to progress. The leaders in a given organisation, unlike the managerial

staff, do not have the privilege to be taught the know-how of the profession and they need to

have the main ability and function of the leader - to inspire and target individual’s motivation

into collective one for the common benefit. Generally, the type of leadership style that exists

in the company and the personal motivation of the employee are the two major antecedents

that affect the individual’s performance in the workplace, in other words the system of

rewards and punishments that are present in the work environment. This is the key to

understanding why some people do their job well while others do not and why the different

employees show signs of different behaviour.

The leader’s strategy is based on a given leadership style and two of the main leader-

centric models are transactional leadership and transformational leadership (Bass, 1985;

Kuhnert and Lewis, 1987). The style of the transactional leader consists of two sides – a

leader and a follower. In order to induce the employee’s motivation to complete the work

task, the transactional leader puts a condition that has to be met. We could summarise that

this concept relies on exchange relationship between leaders/ managers and transactional

activities. The core of that type of style lies in motivating the followership through implicit

and explicit behaviour by both sides – leader and individual. The key aspects of the

transactional approach are supervision, group performance and efficient organising and

management. A transactional leader is more concerned with the efficiency of the work team

and the performance of the individual worker. That type of style follows certain rules and

protocols and keeps the current status, rather than changing the organisation of the company.

A leader with a transactional style uses conditional reward methods – promise of rewards for

good performance and effort, as well as recognizing employee’s accomplishments. Douglas

McGregor’s Theory X has laid the foundations for the transactional leadership approach.

Theory X states that employees need to be motivated by rules and incentives by the

managers.

On the other hand, the basic feature of the transformational leadership style is

motivation – it relies on the power of the leader to motivate the employee to pursue the

organisation’s tasks and achieve the shared objective. The process of motivating the

employee consists of transforming the individuals thought process, morale, values and

interests, as the name of the model suggests. That style is active and requires creative and

innovative approach to problem-solving. It is up to transformational leader to alter a non-

functioning links in the work process and the cut out any counter-productive behaviour by the

employees. According to Bernard Bass (1985), the followers of a transformational leader feel

trust, loyalty and admiration to him and therefore are willing to do more for him and the co-

operation in self-denial. The task of the leader is to imply the workers a common vision to

fulfil, inspire them through the influence of his charisma, attend to their needs and concerns

and stimulate intellectual creativity. In terms of McGregor’s modern humanistic theories,

transformational leadership can be compared to Theory Y - it assumes that the leaders should

stimulate their workers, who are expected to be willing to give their best in their work,

motivated and trustworthy.

Furthermore, other leadership styles include the Laissez-Faire – a laid-back

perspective by the leader, who accounts for well-experienced and highly-productive

employees that do not need supervision. However, this approach could lead to counter-

productive behaviour – lack of control, low production values and lower profit. The

autocratic leadership style is another example – it is designed for employees that require

supervision and allows for the leaders/ managers to take decisions alone without other

interruption – a totalitarian leadership style. The opposite of the autocratic style is the

participative style, often referred to as democratic style. The participative leader respects the

opinion and the feedback from its employees and takes the final decision, accordingly. It

values the creativity and the intellect of the individuals as does the transformational style and

lets them act in the decision-making process, however this could lead to delays in deadlines

when working in close time-periods. Although some leadership styles are considered more

effective than other, neither of them is completely outperforming the rest and thus a

combination of the different methods is required for the organization to function properly.

According to Dunette, Campbell, Lawler & Weick, motivation is ‘the extent to which

persistent effort is directed toward a goal’. This definition suggests that motivation has four

key aspects – effort, persistence, direction and goals. Effort refers to the amount of effort that

the employee invests in his/ her work on productive tasks that lead to the completion of the

common task. Persistence refers to the amount of will that the worker has on keeping focused

to complete the workload. The direction is tightly related to the two types of goals –

organizational and individual, as it is the amount of effort that is directed to either completing

the organizational goals or the individual’s goals. Different workers have different level of

skill levels and training and that could result in lack of completion of the company’s aims and

bad performance. In dependence of the nature of the work environment factors, people could

be motivated by external features such as pay, supervision and benefits - extrinsic motivation.

They could also be motivated by internal factors, as the relationship between the worker and

the task or the manager - intrinsic motivation.

A fundamental theory that classifies the factors that motivate people according to their

needs is the one created by Abraham Maslow in 1943, called Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

It suggests that humans have five sets of needs and try to satisfy them starting from the most

basic ones to the most complex ones. The first set of needs in the hierarchy is the

physiological needs – the need for food, water, shelter, clothing and money – extrinsic needs.

Without these the individual cannot continue his development. The second set of needs is the

safety needs – (job) security, stability and structured environment. The third set of needs is

the relationship needs – friendship, affection, companionship, and socialization – intrinsic

needs. The fourth set of needs is the esteem needs - the need for competence, adequacy,

independence and recognition by others. The final set of needs is the need for self-

actualization, which cannot be pursued without the satisfaction of the esteem needs and they

are the main driver of the need for self-actualization.

A following motivational theory, developed through the 1960s to explain basic human

behaviours, is Douglass McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y. As it was mentioned in the

examination of the transactional and transformational leadership styles, Theory X assumes

that the average worker is not prone to work and will avoid it. Moreover, the average worker

should be directed, controlled, supervised and punished in order to make effort towards

completion of company goals. The average employee prefers to avoid responsibility and be

directed, is not ambitious, and cherishes security above all. On the other hand, Theory Y in

opposition suggests that the average worker does not dislike work and is prone to spend

physical and mental efforts in completing tasks, people can exercise self-direction and

external control and punishment could be counter-productive, commitment to the job depends

on the rewards as self-actualisation associated with its completion. The people tend to have

ambitions and be responsible as part of their nature and applying creativity and ingenuity

while completing organizational tasks is normal and usual. The Theory Y suggests that the

modern industry does not fully utilise people’s intellectual potential.

As we have examined different leadership styles and motivational theories we could

conclude that the application of the different motivational theories by the managers in the

organization is useful and important in order to direct the employees toward completing

organizational goals rather than their personal objectives.

Taking into consideration the fact that every organization is a system of interrelated

linkages, we must analyze the very basic linkage of this system in order to broaden our

understanding of this system as a whole. This element of the firm is the individual, the single

employee and with it comes the larger link of the system – the work groups that it forms.

The definition of ‘group’ includes more than one right approach to state the meaning

of the term, but all imply that in a group there is more than one person involved, interaction

between them must be existing fact, they should have clear purpose or intention, common

awareness of each other as well as of the external factors and aspects of their work and last

but not least – working together to achieve a common set of tasks.

A definition according to John Martin & Martin Fellenz (2010) is: ‘Groups are social

entities of two or more people who interact with each other, are psychologically aware of

each other, and think of themselves as a group. Formal groups are typically set up and

sanctioned by the organization, and thus have specific objectives that contribute to achieving

organizational goals. Informal groups are groups that form through interactions among

organizational members.’

The more interdependent become the members of the group in achieving the common

goal, the more it is necessary to transform the group into teams. The team needs to be created,

it occurs as a group over time going through various stages of development. They are created

to solve specific problems or perform specific functions or projects. The team brings together

people with diverse knowledge and skills. It generally can be characterized with clear

objectives, collective work products and specific purpose by itself as the group has individual

work products and follow the purpose of the organization (Karzenbach and Smith, 1993). The

main difference between group and team is the performance factor and team effectiveness,

according to Katzenbach and Smith (1993). They describe the following types of groups:

working group – loosely grouped set of individuals, they have low team effectiveness and

usually low impact on business, share information and no mutual accountability; pseudo-

teams – a group with developed dynamics and higher team effectiveness, potential for gain

but lack of common business focus; potential teams – a group with higher business impact,

hard-workers, clear purpose, mutual accountability and yet not high enough team

effectiveness and coordination of efforts, potential to become ‘real team’ or ‘high-

performance team’; real teams – increased team effectiveness and business impact, the

members have complementary skills, work through problems and achieve common goals and

high performance teams – high level of business impact and team effectiveness, deep

commitment to each other and the development of business, their output is higher as a team

than it could be achieved by the individuals on their own.

A number of factors that promote and inhibit effective teamwork in organisations

exist. Motivation is a key factor in building good teamwork. A motivated employee performs

better in a team than a non-motivated one. Nowadays, motivation, especially for young

people, is associated with a sense of achievement and success in the workplace. Job

satisfaction is another key element that influences the efficiency of groups and teams. It is

described as “a positive feeling about a job, resulting from evaluation of its characteristics”

(Harper &Row, 1954). Another important factor is the effective leadership of the group. A

successful and efficient leader has many tasks in a team - to motivate and inspire the workers,

to keep track of progress and distribute work evenly, to intellectually stimulate the

employees, etc. Diversity in a team is important in order to have multiple viewpoints when

solving a problem. Clear and open communication is essential for the efficient teamwork in

order to help the people coordinate and share ideas and know-how to tackle the workload.

Creative freedom is important in order to quicken the generation of good ideas and

adaptability and flexibility are important for the team to endure changes and challenges.

Contemporary technical, information and communication technology and the

workforce enhancements accompanying it can motivate and support new work practices and

develop work teams efficiency and productivity. However, that includes the incurred cost of

staff retraining and having to face new changes and challenges. One of the present-day

technologies that have already turned into work practice is the use of email – it allows for

asynchronous communication between team members. A different modern technology is the

mobile phone and with the emerging of 3G networks – the smartphone. It has also turned into

a work practice to use one and it greatly improves team communications. Finally, the

development of the personal computer and the laptop with it allows the members of the

workgroup to prepare different tasks and be mobile, while doing it.

Many believe that the true leaders are born, not created. Leadership and Management

and their interconnection are two of the greatest concerns for the modern organisation, though

they are still underexplored topics and as a future step for success of the business should be

their thorough investigation, as well as an investigation of their linkages and consequences.

As a final point to add, Lance Secretan explains that ‘Authenticity is the alignment of head,

mouth, heart, and feet - thinking, saying, feeling, and doing the same thing - consistently.

This builds trust, and followers love leaders they can trust.’

Bibliography

Text Books:

Martin, J. & Fellenz, M. (2010). Organizational Behaviour and Management (4th ed.). Stamford: Cengage.

Maslow, A. (1954). Motivation and Personality (3rd ed.). New York: Harper &Row

Robbins, S.P. & Judge, T.A. (2013). Organizational Behaviour (15th ed.). London: Pearson.

Journal Articles:

Alvesson, M., Sveningsson, S. (2003). ‘The great disappearing act: difficulties in doing “leadership”. ‘ The Leadership Quarterly 14 (2003) 359-381

Alimo-Metcalfe, B. and Alban-Metcalfe, J. (2005). ‘Leadership: Time for a new direction?’ Leadership. 1(1): 51-71.

Andersen, J.A. (2006). ‘Leadership, personality and effectiveness’ The Journal of Socio-Economics, Vol. 35, Issue 6 (December 2006) 1078–1091

Katzenbach, Jon R. and Smith, Douglas K., 1993, The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organisation (McKinsey & Company)

Kirkman, B.L. & Shapiro, D.L. (2001) The Impact of Cultural Values on job satisfaction and organizational commitment in self-managing work teams: The Mediating Role of Employee Resistance. Academy of Management Journal, 44(3), 557-569

Martin, John & Martin Fellenz, 2010, Organizational Behaviour and Management (Cengage Learning)

Podsakoff, P.M., MacKenzie, S.B., Paine, J.B. and Bachrach, D.G. (2000). ‘Organizational Citizenship Behaviours: a critical review of the theoretical and empirical literature and suggestions for future research.’ Journal of Management 26(3): 513-563.

Rousseau, D.M., Robinson, S.L. (1994). ‘Violating the psychological contract: not the exception but the norm. ’ Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 15 (1994), 245 – 259

"International Journal of Management Reviews;" Critical Success Factors for Cross-Functional Teamwork; Sarah Holland, Kevin Gaston, Jorge Gomes; May 2003

Schein, E. H. (1990). Organizational Culture. American Psychologist, 45(2),

109-119.