Theories of Personality

A theory is a simple model of reality that helps us understand, explain, predict and deal with reality. We have some theories that explain an individual’s personality.

Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
This theory is based on the belief that man is encouraged more by unforeseen forces than the conscious and logical thought. Freud believed that most of the things in life are not present at the conscious level but they are present at an unconscious level.

Theories of Leadership

Behavioral Theory
This theory explains the effectiveness of leadership. According to this theory, leadership has two qualities i.e., initiating structure and consideration. These qualities are tested with higher and lower levels with proper intersection of each other.

Initiating Structure
It is the level up to which a leader is task oriented and directs the employee towards achieving a goal. In this case, the leader gives instruction, makes plan and schedules work activities.

Trait Theory
Trait theory tries to describe the types of behavior and personality tendencies associated with effective leadership. This is probably the first academic theory of leadership. Ronald Heifetz (1994) traces the trait theory approach back to the nineteenth-century tradition of associating the history of society to the history of great men.

Short Question and Answers - I

Q-1: What are the key biographical characteristics?
Answer: The key biographical characteristics are age, gender, marital status, length of service, etc.

Q-2: What is tenure?
Answer: Tenure is the length of time that an official person serves for an organization.

Q-3: What do you mean by turnover?
Answer: In a human resources context refers to the characteristic of a given company or industry, relative to rate at which an employer gains and loses staff.

Q-4: What is ability?
Answer: Ability is defined as mental and physical capabilities to perform various tasks.

Group Behaviour

In an organizational context, groupthink and group behavior are important concepts as they determine the cohesiveness and coherence of the organizational culture and organizational communication.

Types of Groups
There are two types of groups an individual forms. They are formal groups and informal groups. Let us know about these two groups.

Formal Groups
These are the type of work groups created by the organization and have designated work assignments and rooted tasks. The behavior of such groups is directed toward achieving organizational goals.

These can be further classified into two sub-groups −

• Command group − It is a group consisting of individuals who report directly to the manager.
• Interest group − It is a group formed by individuals working together to achieve a specific objective. Example − A group of workers working on a project and reporting to the same manager is considered as a command group. A group of friends chilling out together is considered as interest group or say members of a club.

Informal Groups
These groups are formed with friendships and common interests. These can be further classified into two sub-groups −

• Task group − Those working together to finish a job or task is known as task group.
• Friendship group − Those brought together because of their shared interests or common characteristics is known as friendship group.

For instance, unless the HRD function communicates the policies clearly and cogently, the employees would not participate and comply with them wholeheartedly. Hence, molding group behavior is important for organizations. However, this cannot be construed to mean that all employees must think and act alike. On the contrary, innovation cannot happen when group behavior is the same across all levels. The point here is that while organizations must strive for cohesiveness and coherence, they must not sacrifice the principles of individual creativity and brilliance that are at the heart of organizational change and innovation. In these turbulent times, there is a need for individuals to take a stand and be firm on the direction that the organization seeks to take.

Why Do People Join Groups
There is no particular reason answering why individuals join groups. Group helps individual to feel stronger, have fewer self-doubts, and be more contrary to threats.

The following points help us understand the need of joining a group by individuals −

• Security mirrors strength in numbers. Status pinpoints a prestige that comes from belonging to a specific group. Inclusion in a group is considered as important because it provides recognition and status.
• Self-esteem transmits people's feelings of self-worth. Membership can sometimes raise feelings of self-esteem like being accepted into a highly valued group.
• Affiliation with groups can meet one's social needs. Work groups significantly contribute to meet the need for friendships and social relations.
• Groups represent power. What mostly cannot be achieved individually becomes possible with group effort. Power might be aimed to protect themselves from unreasonable demands. Informal groups provide options for individuals to practice power.
• People may join a group for goal achievement. Sometimes it takes more than one person to accomplish a particular task.

Of course, group behavior needs to be inculcated in organizations for the simple reason that employees must conform to the rules and regulations that govern organizations. Hence, there is a need for uniformity and consistency in the way organizational group behavior has to be molded. Towards this end, groupthink and group behavior must be encouraged by the HRD function as a means to ensure cohesiveness in the organization.

In the technology sector, we often find employees straight out of campuses behaving as though they are still in college. While some of this freethinking and freewheeling spirit is good for innovation, the HRD function must guard against the tendency to be flippant with the organizational rules and procedures. Further, competitiveness can be encouraged but it should not come at the expense of collaboration and cooperation that are at the heart of organizational success.

Well-Functioning Groups
We know what a group is, why it is important to form a group, and what the group-oriented roles are. Now we need to know how to mark a group as a well-functioning group, what features are necessary for a group to mark it as efficient.

A group is considered effective when it has the following characteristics.

• Relaxed, comfortable, friendly atmosphere.
• Task to be executed are well understood and accepted.
• Members listen well and actively participate in given assignments.
• Assignments are made clear and are accepted.
• Group is acquainted of its operation and function.
• People express their feelings and ideas openly.
• Consensus decision-making process is followed.
• Conflict and disagreement center regarding ideas or method.

Theory X and Theory Y

In his 1960 book, The Human Side of Enterprise, Douglas McGregor proposed two theories by which to view employee motivation. He avoided descriptive labels and simply called the theories Theory X and Theory Y. Both of these theories begin with the premise that management's role is to assemble the factors of production, including people, for the economic benefit of the firm. Beyond this point, the two theories of management diverge.

Work Motivation

Definition of motivation

Motivation originally comes from the Latin root word movers, which means "to move". It is derived from the word 'motive'. Motive may be defined as an inner state of our mind that activates and directs our behaviour. It makes us move to act. It is always internal to us and is externalized via behaviour. Motive is an inner state that energizes, activates, or moves and directs or channels behaviour goals. It is the stimulation of any emotion or desire operating upon one's will and promoting or driving it to action.

Motivating

It is an act of stimulating emotion or desire and promoting it to action. It may be positive motivation (i.e., incentive motivation based on reward) or negative motivation or fear motivation (based on force). Positive motivation is achieved by the co-operation of employees and they have a feeling of happiness. Negative motivation is commonly used to achieve desired results.

Meaning of motivation

Motivation is one's willingness to exert efforts towards the accomplishment of his/ her goal. Let us consider a few important definitions on motivation that will help us understand the meaning of motivation in more clear sense.

Group Decision Making Techniques

Good decision making is an essential skill for career success generally and effective leadership particularly. If you can learn to make timely and well-considered decisions, then you can often lead your team to spectacular and well-deserved success. However, if you make poor decisions, your team risks failure and your time as a leader will, most likely, be brutally short.

The techniques in this section help you to make the best decisions possible with the information you have available. These tools help you map out the likely consequences of decisions, work out the importance of individual factors and choose the best course of action to take.

These techniques build on the tools discussed in the section on Problem Solving Tools, in that Decision Making follows on from an understanding of the situation. The section on Creativity Tools will help you to explore what alternatives that are open to you.

Measuring process, practices, behaviour and culture

Some aspects of supplier performance cannot be ascertained by asking them, as they may not be aware. Gordon (2008) states that a lot of insight is needed into not only supplier performance using quantifiable performance metrics but also the means by which this performance is achieved. This includes the supplier's processes, practices, behaviour and culture. However, if we accept that by forging the right relationship with certain important suppliers we can add value, then it follows that we must also measure processes, practices, behaviour and culture; theirs and those that are joint between us.

There are measures we can develop for aspects of process efficiency and effectiveness, but practices, behaviour and culture are much more subjective. In a close personal relationship norms around practices, behaviour and even culture develop. There may not be a specific discussion around this but in a healthy relationship practices get agreed based on what works for both, behaviour gets shaped through parties agreeing what is mutually acceptable and where boundaries lie and if all these things happen the relationship takes on its own positive culture over time. Split up and meet someone new and the process begins over. The same happens with a supplier relationship, except companies rarely seek to agree what practices and behaviours are appropriate or expected, yet if we do this we then create the basis to measure it or at least check it feels right. In Chapter 11 we will explore the Relationship Charter, a means to define expected practices and behaviours and thus a basis to them measure the degree to which parties emulate this.

Collecting and analysing data

KPIs typically demand different data types, from different sources. Collecting data to create KPIs could be an automatic process in real time, perhaps using a corporate system or well-designed app, or perhaps it requires a regular or even irregular activity to produce the latest set of KPIs. We could do this or we could get the supplier to do this, or a combination of both.

Process of Organizational Development

(OD) Organization development process is a complex and long process. Sometimes it takes a year or more than a year to design, executes and gets end fruits. In some cases it can continue indefinitely.

Organization development process eaters to move the organization from present position to better future position. The process consists of five steps.

The model has been excerpted from Newstrom and Davis’s book Organization Behavior. The model is shown in the following figure and elements are discussed briefly in the points beneath the figure.

Organization development process

The Theory of Planned Behavior

The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) started as the Theory of Reasoned Action in 1980 to predict an individual's intention to engage in a behavior at a specific time and place. The theory was intended to explain all behaviors over which people have the ability to exert self-control. The key component to this model is behavioral intent; behavioral intentions are influenced by the attitude about the likelihood that the behavior will have the expected outcome and the subjective evaluation of the risks and benefits of that outcome.  

The TPB has been used successfully to predict and explain a wide range of health behaviors and intentions including smoking, drinking, health services utilization, breastfeeding, and substance use, among others. The TPB states that behavioral achievement depends on both motivation (intention) and ability (behavioral control). It distinguishes between three types of beliefs - behavioral, normative, and control. The TPB is comprised of six constructs that collectively represent a person's actual control over the behavior.

1. Attitudes - This refers to the degree to which a person has a favorable or unfavorable evaluation of the behavior of interest. It entails a consideration of the outcomes of performing the behavior.

Features of Organizational Behaviour

Organizational behaviour has emerged as a separate field of study. The nature it has acquired is identified as follows :

1. A Separate Field of Study and not a Discipline Only

By definition, a discipline is an accepted science that is based on a theoretical foundation. But, O.B. has a multi-interdisciplinary orientation and is, thus, not based on a specific theoretical background. Therefore, it is better reasonable to call O.B. a separate field of study rather than a discipline only.

2. An Interdisciplinary Approach

Organizational behaviour is essentially an interdisciplinary approach to study human behaviour at work. It tries to integrate the relevant knowledge drawn from related disciplines like psychology, sociology and anthropology to make them applicable for studying and analysing organizational behaviour.

3. An Applied Science

The very nature of O.B. is applied. What O.B. basically does is the application of various researches to solve the organizational problems related to human behaviour. The basic line of difference between pure science and O.B. is that while the former concentrates of fundamental researches, the latter concentrates on applied researches. O.B. involves both applied research and its application in organizational analysis. Hence, O.B. can be called both science as well as art.

Personality traits and organizational behaviour

Those personality traits which affect the organizational behaviour of a person are :

1. Authoritarianism : It was developed by the psychologist Adorno to measure susceptibility to autocratic, fascistic, or anti-democratic appeals. It was later extended to human personality. Authoritarians are oriented towards conformity of rules and regulation. They prefer stable and structured work environment. They believe obedience and respect for authority and blind acceptance of authority. They are conservatives. They are concerned with toughness and power, close minded and less educated. They make good followers, work better under directive supervision and are more productive within authoritarian organizational structure.

2. Bureaucratic Personality : It is based upon respect for organizational rules and regulations. Unlike authoritarian person, bureaucratic person's acceptance of authority is not total and blind. A bureaucratic person values subordination, conformity to rules, impersonal and formal relationships. These people are not innovative. They do not like taking risks. They are better supervisors when the type of work is routine, repetitive and proceduralized.

3. Machiavellianism (Mach) : Niccolo Machiavelli wrote in the 16th century on how to gain and use power. This personality trait named after Machiavelli are :

(i) A Mach man is pragmatic, maintain emotional distance and believes that ends can justify means.

(ii) High Mach people flourish when they interact face to face with others.

(iii) They have high self-confidence and high self esteem.

(iv) They are specially successful in exploiting structured situations and vulnerable people. We cannot conclude whether high Machs make good employees or not. The answer will depend upon the type of the job and whether moral and ethical values are considered in evaluating the performance of a person.

Process of Behaviour

We assume that behaviour is caused and this assumption is true. Behaviour takes place in the form of a process. It is based on the analysis of behaviour process over the period of time. Three models of behaviour process have been developed. These are S-R model, S-O-R model, S-O-B-A model and S-O-B-C model.

S-R Model

S-R model of human behavior suggests that the behaviour is caused by certain reasons. The reasons may be internal feeling (motivation) and external environment (stimulus). A stimulus is an agent, such as, heat, light, piece of information, etc., that directly influences the activity of an organism (person). Without the stimulus there is no information to be handled by the internal processes prior to action taken by the person. It implies that his behaviour is determined by the situation. Inherent in the situation are the environmental forces that shape and determine his behaviour at any given moment. The entire situation has been traditionally described as stimulus response (S-R) process.

Models of Organisational Behaviour

Autocratic model

Autocratic model is the model that depends upon strength, power and formal authority.

In an autocratic organisation, the people (management/owners) who manage the tasks in an organisation have formal authority for controlling the employees who work under them. These lower-level employees have little control over the work function. Their ideas and innovations are not generally welcomed, as the key decisions are made at the top management level.

The guiding principle behind this model is that management/owners have enormous business expertise, and the average employee has relatively low levels of skill and needs to be fully directed and guided. This type of autocratic management system was common in factories in the industrial revolution era.

One of the more significant problems associated with the autocratic model is that the management team is required to micromanage the staff – where they have to watch all the details and make every single decision. Clearly, in a more modern-day organisation, where highly paid specialists are employed an autocratic system becomes impractical and highly inefficient.

Importance of Organizational Behaviour

Organizational behavior is defined as actions and attitudes of individuals and groups toward one another and toward the organization as a whole, and its effect on the organization's functioning and performance.

Organizational behavior is defined as the study which deals with all aspects of human behavior that occur within the context of an organization. It entails the study of how individuals behave as individuals and in groups within an organization. Organizational behavior is the study of human behavior, attitudes and performance in organizations.

Organizations are social inventions for accomplishing common goals through group effort. Organizational behavior is concerned with the attitudes and behaviours of individuals and groups in organizations and can be understood in terms of three levels of analysis: the individual, the group, and the organization.

A field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and structure have on behavior within organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organization's effectiveness.

Elements of Organizational Behaviour

The key elements in the organizational behaviour are people, structure, technology and the environment in which the organization operates.