ED7030 Development of Organizational Leadership

Introduction: 

The report provides an insight into the impacts of politics within an organisational setting. Politics within an organisational set-up represents self-serving behaviour which the employees can use for raising the probability of attaining positive results within an organisation. The report here describes various scenarios describing how politics play a crucial role within an organisational set-up.

Ways Decisions are Made in Context of Political Forces from Various Employees, Stakeholders and Interest Groups Particularly When Allocating Scarce Resources.

An organisation seems to comprise of identifiable groups of individuals like employees, stakeholders and interest groups with varying levels of motivation for involving in decisions (Landells & Albrecht, 2013). Political behaviour seems to be generated essentially through interdependence and differentiation amongst the individuals and the groups. Each individual seems to have specialised responsibilities and functions. However, they must connect with the other subunits and perform interdependently. They seem to compete for the scarce resources that result in conflict. Strategic decisions involve the allocation of these resources. The interplay of the conflict, interest and power amongst the employees, stakeholders and the interest group indicate that the process of strategic decision making is characterised to be political (Elbanna, Kapoutsis & Mellahi, 2017). Strategic decisions specifically stimulate political actions since they happen to be significant, complex and subjected to uncertainty. Their complexity legitimises multiple views towards appropriate solutions or outcomes along with providing a power base for the concerned group that seem to possess special skills or knowledge for dealing with complexity (Maitland  & Sammartino, 2015). It is however to be noted that all strategic decisions by their definitions happen to be comparatively significant since they happen to be critical for the survival of the organisation or happen to carry crucial implications for the distribution of the resources with the organisation. The importance of strategic decisions indicates more to the stake for those who seem to stand towards gaining or losing in terms of the reputational or the material consequences.

Therefore, employees, stakeholders and interest groups seem to practice political tactics to influence decisions that impact the interest and position within the organization. Besides, the top management also requires to balance their goals with expectations of the lower echelons for deriving support leads to different trade-offs that impact the organizational direction. Bailey & Peck (2013) argued that the decision-making process remains influenced by a particular set of executives or interest units known as the decision set. The decision set holding the interest seems to introduce the political tactics into the decision making to exert an influence over the decision for ensuring it's encompassing over the objectives.

Ways in Which Bargaining, Negotiating and Collaboration Remain Involved within Process of Decision-Making 

Bargaining can be considered as the communication process that seems to influence decision-making (Misyak et al., 2014). The employer's obligation to collectively bargain over a decision can cause the removal or closure or force a plant to move out of business. The Labour Management Act considered it an unfair practise for employers to refuse to bargain collectively with their representatives. Recent decisions by the National Labor Relations Board  (NLRB) and courts have drastically changed the obligation of the employer towards bargaining in good faith within the area of the plant removal as well as closing. It is the onset of the recent decisions that placed upon the employers and the union an impossible task in determining for themselves how and when they seem to satisfy the duty of bargaining over the basic decisions that involved the change of the operations.

On the other hand, negotiation focuses on working together towards achieving the best decision that parties seem to be capable of within a given circumstance (Caputo, 2013).Viewing negotiation as the process of decision-making influences how an individual formulates a  goal. When the goal revolves around making the best decision concerning sustainability and outcome, the key lies in digging deeper for the best available information regarding the concern of each side and the willingness to declare those at the suitable moments as clearly as possible. It is to be noted that the decision-making standpoint also impacts how the negotiators remain mandated by the principles. When negotiation involves improving the quality of the decision-making, those involved in the final decision-making must provide themselves with the luxury of not just understanding concerns that are at play but the options available for integration. This will aid in forming an informed and rational view that would be considered the ideal decision in prevailing circumstances.

Collaboration within the process of decision-making remains aimed towards combining the inputs from all the stakeholders and thus making the most suitable choice from an objective standpoint (Chakhar & Saad, 2014) Thus, decisions made by a group seem to differ from the ones undertaken by individuals. Collaborative decisions remain linked to the behaviour of the group, interactions between the members, role distribution and the psychological factors which might affect the thinking of the people. Decisions concerning the economic actions, policies and the assessment of alternatives for sustainable development require collaborative thinking due to the polarity and the complexity of interest and factors involved.

Thus, the design of the process of decision-making is thus a key issue for the policymakers, experts and managers to learn.  

Ways in Which Concepts of Organizational Power and Conflict Can be Controlled Amongst Organizational Employees, Stakeholders and Interest Group 

Power refers to an ability to influence difficult colleagues (Buchanan & Badham 2020). Power seems to change people and those rising at the topmost positions of an organisation tend to prioritise the goals and the desires in comparison to the others. This individual fails to consider other people's perspectives into account, tends to disregard the feelings of others and acts less polite. Whenever the positions of these individuals within the organisation get threatened, they tend to act for preserving their power aggressively. According to McClelland’s theory of need, organisational employees, stakeholders and interest groups seem to possess three needs within the workplace. First refers to the need for achievement, need for affiliation and need for power. Within a bigger workplace, the need for power is considered the priority, followed by achieving more and affiliation. A smaller organisation, on the other hand, holds achievement as the priority since employees,  stakeholders, and interest groups look forward to achieving more. This is followed by power and affiliations. Therefore, power can be controlled and distributed accordingly.

Conflict within the workplace and the need for power within an organization go parallel. It is however better to avoid any kind of conflict within the workplace. Avoiding, concealing or ignorance can lead to the growth of conflict through resentment and results in withdrawal within organizations. The root cause for most of the conflict lies in the poor level of communication or the inability to control one’s emotions (Spaho, 2013). One of the ways of controlling conflict within the workplace is through effective communication (Rahim, 2017). Organizational Employees, Interest groups and Stakeholders can control it by avoiding miscommunication and misunderstanding. Conflict can also be controlled amongst them by keeping in mind each other’s objective and viewpoint.

Impact of Organizational Politics on Educational Setting of Interest and How one Could Minimize the Existing Negative Comments  

In the recent times, it is found that organisational politics has been considered vital in the eyes of the practitioners and scholars in an educational setting due to its complex nature. An educational setting comprises individuals having differences in ideas, attitudes and beliefs. The means through which an individual expresses the differences explain organisational events such as politics. Ferris(2018), mentioned that organisational politics represents behaviour that aims at influencing the groups or individuals within an organisation. Empirical evidence however proves that organisational politics represents the individual's action for the personal goals and interests without caring about the others’ well-being. It has also been discovered that the political environment results in an increased level of stress mentally, decline of morale and the imbalance in the relationships that affects productivity.

Contrary to the approach mentioned above, it has been proved by researchers that a certain degree of political behaviour is vital since it do not harm any individual. Politics has been described as the essential evil and any individual who do not seem to use the political behavior needed to fight hard for achieving the goals. There exist differences in the intensity of politics that affects the performance of the employees (Cable & Judge, 2003). According to George and Jones (2005), decent political behavior results in a positive impact on the work outcome and might aid the educational setting in achieving its goals. Atta and Jana (2016) provide an insight into how organisational politics has been one of the key phenomena within the workplace that indirectly or directly affects the attitude and the behaviour of the officers and academia. There however exist certain factors within the organisational politics that either aid or creates hindrances. These factors include blaming others, creation of conflict, power, power, favouritism and whistleblowing. Other factors include personal factors like job title, gender and tenure of the job; dispositional factors like autonomy, relatedness and competence; organisational factors like formalisation, centralisation and hierarchical and the job-related factors like job autonomy, skill variety and feedback. According to Samad and Amri (2011), organisational politics, along with its elements holds a negative correlation with the performance of the  job. On a similar note, a study portrayed that organisational politics negatively correlates with the organisational achievement and goals amongst the department and its workers.

To minimise the prevailing negative comments, the firm leader should ensure equal information access, modelling collaborative behaviour and demonstrating the non-tolerance of the political maneuvering. Besides, leaders must encourage the managers across an educational setting in providing feedback for the performance of their employees. Higher levels of feedback seem to reduce perception about organisational politics, thereby improving employee morale as well as performance. It is to be remembered that politics can be used more healthily in doing things within the organisation.

Conclusion:

On a concluding note, it can be said that 6rganizational politics represent unofficial, informal, and at times the behind-the-scenes efforts for selling the ideas for influencing an organisation, increase the power or achieving the targeted objectives. Effective politics does imply winning all the costs but involves maintaining relationships while attaining the results.

References: 

Atta & Khan (2016). perceived Organizational Politics, Organizational Citizenship Behaviorand Job Attitudes Among University Teachers: Journal of Behavioural Sciences, 26(2), 21-38

Bailey, B. C., & Peck, S. I. (2013). Boardroom strategic decision‐making style: Understanding the antecedents. Corporate Governance: An International Review, 21(2), 131-146.

Buchanan, D., & Badham, R. (2020). Power, politics, and organizational change. Sage.

Cable, D. M., & Judge, T. A. (2003). Managers' upward influence tactic strategies: The role of manager personality and supervisor leadership style. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 24 (2),197- 212.

Caputo, A. (2013). A literature review of cognitive biases in negotiation processes. International Journal of Conflict Management.

Chakhar, S., & Saad, I. (2014). Incorporating stakeholders’ knowledge in group decision-making. Journal of Decision Systems, 23(1), 113-126.

Elbanna, S., Kapoutsis, I., & Mellahi, K. (2017). Creativity and propitiousness in strategic decision making: The role of positive politics and macro-economic uncertainty. Management Decision.

Ferris, G. R., Bhawuk, D. P., Fedor, D. F., & Judge, T. A. (2018). Organizational politics and citizenship: Attributions of intentionality and construct definition. In Attribution Theory (pp. 231-252). Routledge.

George, J.M., &Jones, G. R. (2005). Understanding and Managing Organizational Behavior (4th ed.), New Jersey, USA: Pearson/ Prentice Hall.

Landells, E., & Albrecht, S. (2013). Organizational Political Climate: Shared Perceptions about the building and use of power bases. Human Resource Management Review , 23(4), 357-365

Maitland, E., & Sammartino, A. (2015). Decision making and uncertainty: The role of heuristics and experience in assessing a politically hazardous environment. Strategic management journal, 36(10), 1554-1578.

Misyak, J. B., Melkonyan, T., Zeitoun, H., & Chater, N. (2014). Unwritten rules: virtual bargaining underpins social interaction, culture, and society. Trends in cognitive sciences, 18(10), 512-519.

Rahim, M. A. (2017). Managing conflict in organizations. Routledge.

Samad, S.,&Amri, S. (2011). Examining the organizational politics on job performance. Australian, Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 5(12), 1353-1363

Spaho, K. (2013). Organizational communication and conflict management. Management-Journal of Contemporary Management Issues, 18(1), 103-118.

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