Organization Behavior and Human Decision Process

Answer

Abstract

This review focuses on the concept of Organizational Behavior and human decision process. This paper is structured into two sections: section one focuses on four antecedents of organizational behavior and human decision process, namely, the ideal team player, appreciation of diverse personality types, development of emotional intelligence, and attainment of self-leadership.  Section two is a an appendix focusing on my past job as a human resource manager to reflect on what learnt during the writing of the term paper in part one. Subsequent portions focus on what surprised me about what I learned and what do you now want to know more about.

Organization Behavior and Human Decision Process 

1.0 Introduction

Organizational behavior (OB) and human decision processes crystalizes scientific research data investigate organizational successes through the lens of individual and collective study of human behaviour in the context of decision making. It is an active research area which aims to find solutions to modern organizational maladies that manifest through challenges in creating unified teams from diverse workforce. In addition, it is intended to address failure to develop key organizational competencies and behaviors, poor communication and feedback. Fundamentally, development of acceptable organizational behavior is very much entrenched in human decision processes. Several studies place organizational behavior firmly in the province of “the impact of individuals, groups, and structures on human behaviour within the organizations” (Aithal & Kumar, 2016). In principle, modern scholarship identifies Organizational Behavior programs with occupational perspectives and productivity of staff in organisations. This paper discusses critical antecedents of organizational behavior and decision process. Specifically, this task delineates four components of sound organizational behavior and decision making processes, namely, the ideal team player, appreciation of diverse personality types, development of emotional intelligence, and attainment of self-leadership. Consequently, this paper draws from theoretical and empirical research to identify team work, diversity, emotional intelligence, and self-leadership as critical antecedents without which no institution can achieve the required organizational behavior and human decision process in the building of robust work places.

2.0 Term Paper on Critical Antecedents of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

2.1Team work

Several studies have venerated the “ideal team player” as the most important employee. For instance, Aithal and Kumar (2016) draw from theoretical and organizational attitude theories to delineate human resource as the most vital requirement for organizational success. This reiterates the fact that superior staff builds successful organizations. Accordingly, the authors argue that among the four seminal resources for commercial success, namely “man, machine, material and money”, human resource management is the most demanding. By the same token, Lencioni (2016) idealizes “the right people” for the right jobs as possessors of three virtues namely, humility, hunger and people smart. Humble team players are characterized by extreme deficiency of ego and concerns regarding personal status. Humble tend to share glory by giving prominence to teamwork over selfish achievements, and outline success in a group rather than independently (Lencioni, 2016). Broadly, psychology categorizes individuals lacking humility into two main groups: The explicitly egotistical types whose sole motivation in life is selfish gratification. Then there are the “classical ego driven varieties” who abhor team tasks and individuals deficient in self-confidence but are conceited enough to mask their lack of humility by discounting their own endowments and influences. Similarly, “hungry” people are idealized by unrestrained desire for more learning, activities, duties, and responsibilities (Lencioni, 2016; Rodgers, 2017). They are less dependent on external motivation and exhibit high levels of diligence. These varieties are relentlessly focused on the subsequent challenges and opportunities. Current literature venerates this kind of hunger as healthy, anchored on sustainable obligation towards excellence. Equally, in the context of ideal team work, Smarts denote persons who display extraordinary judgment about people. Inferentially, qualitative studies attribute enhanced knowledge of group dynamics, and the ability to decipher appropriate remedies for group problems effectively (Lencioni, 2016). They are further described as excellent interrogators, good listeners, and engaging communicators.

Penno (2017) vouches for all three qualities by recounting the flaws and inefficiencies of individuals lacking in at least one of the ideals of team work. A tinge of impatience with unwieldy “team members” is inferable from the preceding statement. In fact, Penno (2017) and Lencioni (2016) argue that effective leaders should qualify themselves by espousing the necessary courage to confront threats to team work. Specifically, it proposes disciplinary action for individuals deemed harmful to the success of the team, and must be consistent in propelling members to a desirable future state. Accordingly, both Lencioni (2016) and Penno (2017) are resolute in their assertion that deficiency of any one of the virtues can only breed three certainties. First, it affirms the fact that improvement is inevitable, and secondly, it envisages immense support for improvement. Finally, exit of noncompliant members may be the end game. In light of the foregoing statements, attainment of positive organizational behavior change can only be attained through the mediation of leaders who should be unrelenting demand that every team member should improve in virtues in which they are deficient. The eradication of unwieldy individuals, in this sense, effectively brings the three mentioned options into play. The desired organizational behavior infers a sense of accountability on the part of the individual, a feat attainable through focused pursuit of change. However, there is a caveat to all three cases: The group leader is expected to instigate the “separation process”. Scholars delineate four functional areas as suitable for application of the team building the model. The first area is the hiring process. According to Lencioni (2017), assessment of team building inclinations – and hence sound organizational behavior- should be initiated at the interview stage. The hiring panel is advised to orient the interview using questions that assess the level of consciousness and internalization of the three virtues. The second recommendation demand calls for evaluation of current employees for their level of internalization of the proposed ideals through managerial facilitation or through self-assessment.

The third area of the process recommends training of employees who are lacking in some or all of the virtues.  Literature on organizational behavior affirms that the proposed virtues are fundamentally:”not innate” and should subsequently be acquired through learning.

The foregoing statements tend to converge around sound discretion, awareness on the tacit dynamics of groups dynamics and erudite understanding of the verbalized and non-verbalized communication. The three ideals are regarded as potent when applied concurrently, across a broad spectrum of personalities: effective team players are not necessarily the outwardly focused types.

2.2 Personality Types

Contemporary society rates extroverts as “smarter, better-looking, more interesting, and more desirable,” (Cain, 2013). In contrast, introversion is berated as a “second-class personality trait”. However, extant reviews confirm that introverts are highly undervalued, and often bypassed for leadership positions. Cain (2013), a self-proclaimed introvert, highlights common misconceptions that applaud extroverted personalities with superior communication and leadership capabilities. This view is consistent with previous researches which have constantly designated extroversion as potential leadership trait (Grant et al., 2011; Cain, 2013). The prevailing “extrovert ideal,” that cements culturally constructed beliefs that “the ideal self is gregarious, alpha, and comfortable in the spotlight” is challenged as does the traditional “culture of personality” that clouds collective judgement of others. The findings are validated by credible research data as well. For instance, the renowned Harvard Business School has been berated for apparent attempts to turn “introverts into extroverts” through association of extroversion with high academic achievement. Turning from the controversies, numerous studies attribute positive characteristics with introverts. In this regard, Cain (2013) contends that, introverted personalities espouse creativity and inclusive leadership capabilities especially during crisis times. Thus, it is deemed necessary and apt for this section to conjure doubts as to the motivations for berating certain personalities. From the organizational behavior and human decision point of view, the ethical justifications for profiling individuals, should be investigated and their impact on organizational success ameliorated. Similar studies have also discussed intricate relationships between temperament and personality, and their impact on “innate, inborn temperament on personality type” (Cain, 2013). Through corroborations from scientific evidence, Cain (2013) further elucidates her “rubber band theory” of personality to explain the robustness of humanity to expand beyond innate traits. Thus, the study rejects the notion of “superior personality” and warns that any trade-off between the two could be potentially cataclysmic to the organizational deals. A handy example of this is Warren Buffett, who is credited for skillfully employing his introvert superlatives to establish a global business empire.

Similar studies by Blodgett (2017) acknowledge the existence of at least one of 16 personality types in the work place. The author argues on the basis of the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a contemplative self-report questionnaire which facilitates assessment of various psychological preferences in the way people interact with their world and make decisions. Blodgett (2017) demarcates four broad categories as Introversion-Extraversion, Sensing-Intuition, Thinking-Feeling, and Judging-Perception. Further, Blodgett (2017) definition designates the MBTI personality type using four letters. This new approach further categorizes the aforestated personalities into sixteen MBTI types, namely, ENFJ, ENFP, ENTJ, ENTP, ESFJ, ESFP, ENTJ, ENTP, INFJ, INFP, INTJ, INTP, ESFJ, ISFP, ISTJ, and ISTP. Further, Blodgett (2017) perceives denigration of any of the above personality types in the workplace, as an antithesis to sound organizational behavior and human decision making process. Likewise, the fact that no type is described as being entirely negative or positive confirms the necessity to positively harness the strengths of every personality to engender the desired organizational behavior (Blodgett, 2017). However, any limitations of the 16 personalities can be enhanced through emotional

2.3 Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is defined from an exploratory study by Serrat (2017) as the “social intelligence to describe the skill of understanding and managing other people”. Subsequently, it is contended that emotional intelligence empowers individuals to become more creative and effective in their endeavors with an added advantage of reproducing similar qualities to team members. Qualitative data on process and outcomes of emotional intelligence progression are similarly interspersed with several components with acknowledged benefits such as stress reduction (Serrat, 2017; Singh & Sachdev, 2020). The domino effect of emotional intelligence is that it could empower individuals and organizations, by extension, by tempering conflicts and encouraging an atmosphere of understanding and lasting relationships. Additionally, it nurtures organizational stability, robustness, and coherence. Finally, emotional intelligence dovetails with notions of love and spirituality to form a strong ethical framework for guiding future actions. Navigating increasingly diverse and unpredictable modern workplace further underscores the necessity of “tact and shrewdness” from emotional intelligence (Singh & Sachdev, 2020). A standard framework by Serrat (2017) proposes five domains of emotional intelligence, namely, self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-motivation, social awareness and social skills.

Self-Regulation requires individuals to attain self-control through mastery of disruptive emotions and impulses. As a result, apposite organizational behavioral tendencies and matching decision making will prove exclusive as long as the individual worker fails to embody emotional balance on the job. Another critical pillar of self-regulation is trustworthiness. Serrat (2017) reinforces this view by delineating moral principles of honesty and integrity as indispensable for corporate achievement. Similarly, conscientiousness, the ideal that calls for team members to take personal responsibility for job outcomes has been discussed.  In the same way, individual ability to be adaptable, through espousal of flexibility in handling change. Finally, self-regulation requires some degree of innovativeness. In this respect, innovativeness infers an ability to anticipate and accept change as an organizational norm.

However, self-regulation, in and of itself, is not regarded as a means to an end. Consequently, several authors propose the infusion of self-regulation with self-motivation, with the latter providing the critical piece of the emotional intelligence jig-saw. It encompasses the drive to achieve, and is idealized in extant works as individual exertion towards improvement of or meeting standards of excellence (Serrat, 2017; Singh & Sachdev, 2020).  Equally, the authors associate the self-regulated individual with undoubted commitment to the job. Delimitation of commitment from the emotional intelligence perspective demands alignment of individual interests with the goals of the organization. Further, the individual worker should show the initiative to pounce on opportunities for personal and corporate growth. Optimism: finally, self-regulated individuals should embody optimism, anchored on persistence in pursuit of organizational and individual goals notwithstanding impediments and challenges.

An emotionally intelligent worker should similarly possess social awareness. Several psychological literature demarcate social awareness in terms of five attributes, namely, empathy, service orientation, developing others, leveraging diversity, and political awareness (Serrat, 2017). Empathy, is defined as the tendency to decipher other team members’ “feelings and perspectives” with an undivided focus on their points of divergence. Service orientation is a critical organizational behavior as it enforces responsiveness, anticipation and realization of clients’ needs. On the other hand, developing others requires team members to map out the needs of others with a view of developing and improving their professional capabilities, while the need to leverage  diversity means engendering  opportunities by harnessing cumulative strengths of team members. Political awareness is essential for improving organizational behavior as it equips the team member with skillsets for “reading a group’s emotional currents” and power permutations.

Finally, social Skills are encapsulated in the exercise of group influence through the use of strategies for persuasion. Socially skilled team members are also effective communicators and are expected to be adept at initiating and conveying clear and persuasive messages. Acceptable social skillsets are also qualified by group leadership. Leadership in this regard is attainable through motivating and nurturing team members. It also includes a preset mindset suitable for accelerating change and should equally be strong at instigating and managing change. Socially skilled individuals could potentially be useful in conflict management through their superior negotiating skills for resolving conflict. The ensuing environment is also venerated for creating an atmosphere for group bonding. Again, healthy relationships are important predictors of collaborative and cooperative engagements from which members learn to work with others. Social skills also consist of team capabilities training which recognize the significance of instituting group synergy for pursuing collective goals.

In principle, the five domains are achieved when individuals go beyond acknowledging their emotions to managing their emotions. Additionally, emotionally intelligent individuals are expected to motivate themselves, be familiar with and appreciate other people’s emotions, as well as be able to manage interpersonal relationships. In the contemporary work stations, emotional intelligence has been used as a standard by which staff members are evaluated, and entails personal attributes such as determination, discipline, and skillfulness in interpersonal relationships.

From the organizational standpoint, managements should recognize the uniqueness in each worker as defined by permutations of “personalities, wants, needs, and ways of showing their emotions” (Serrat, 2017). This approach regards emotional intelligence as a crucial antecedent of sound organizational behavior. Specifically, emotional intelligence equips the worker with requisite discretion and discernment for professional success. A growing horde of scholars, notably, Serrat (2017) and Singh and Sachdev (2020) believe that this is where emotional intelligence model is most applicable.

2.4 Self-Leadership

Over the past three decades, extensive research has concentrated on the notion of self-leadership as an antecedent of organizational behavior and decision process. For instance, Knotts et al. (2019) adopts a multilevel approach to the research of self-leadership at both individual and team level review. From the individual perspective, research evidence reveal strong correlation of self-leadership with superior affective domain attributes and enhanced work performance. However, the findings are reportedly a weaker version of team level outcomes. Similar studies by Stewart, Courtright and Manz (2019) show that the connections between team-wide and self-leadership assessments as well as affective and cognitive outcomes seem to be weakened by circumstantial factors. Stewart, Courtright and Manz (2019) and Knotts (2019) identify firm-wide and market forces as important influencers of self-leadership. Scholarly scrutiny of these forces reveals that external leadership is on the whole essential, since self-leadership cannot stand as a comprehensive substitute for external leadership. In fact, self-leadership can only yield the desired organizational behavior and decision process when augmented with external leadership. On the modalities of obtaining value from the self-leadership-external-leadership confluence, many scholars credit external leadership with strengthening leadership and shared leadership and the resultant domino effect promotes self-leadership of individuals and teams.

Emotional intelligence-based yardsticks under the mediating variable of self-leadership have been proposed by a number of studies (Stewart, Courtright & Manz, 2019). In this regard, it is necessary to internalize the underlying requirement to acknowledge self-leadership as an important factor within the intricate social relationships of modern organizations. Granting self-leadership is essentially sanctioned within individual employees and teams, it is recommended that it should be anchored on external leadership that inspires individual members to “lead themselves” (Stewart, Courtright & Manz, 2019). Paradoxically, organizational behaviorists opine that shared leadership involving many individuals is obligatory for attainment of optimal degrees of self-leadership. However, the ideal organizational behavior and human decision making process calls for collective systems of leadership are largely incongruent with majority of corporate leaders. Self-leadership as a desired organizational behavior remains probable when organizations act to swap hierarchies and deep-rooted status and power configurations with malleable, evolving impactful team leaders within the organization.

Similarly, exploratory studies by Knotts et al. (2019) outline the role of new employees as dynamic drivers of socialization within their own spheres of engagement, through the mediating impact of self-leadership. Research data associate self-leadership with enhanced proactivity and positive organizational socialization outcomes. The preceding benefits also promote organizational commitment. Research data on 193 organizational newbies by Knotts et al (2019) obtained from a spectrum of organizations suggest that Self-leadership aids adaptation of organizational newcomers’ and subsequent commitment by assisting them in seeking organizational resources. The findings also reveal that internal stakeholders should instill self-leadership skills on new employees to ameliorate socialization problems and long term organizational behavior and decision processes.

3.0 Reflection from Previous job as a Human Resource Officer

3.1 Lessons Learnt During the Writing of this Term Paper

Writing this paper presented me with the opportunity to relate my work experience to the study organizational behavior and human decision process in to some appreciable detail. In particular, the task exposed me to various components of organizational behavior and human decision processes, namely, job performance, job satisfaction, innovation, and team leadership. I also had the opportunity to reflect on the translation of academically acquired skills and competencies into sound organizational behavior. Specifically, I learnt of the importance of team work, personality types, emotional intelligence, and self-leadership to sound organizational behavior patterns. I also learnt of the importance of restructuring groups, or changing methods of performance evaluation to include emotional intelligence metrics. By inference, I realized that alteration of various working conditions through technological moderation did not sufficiently motivate employees to increase output. In contrast, positive organizational behavior did supersede work station upgrades and machine use to motivate workers to increase output. The significance of social factors was proven by the fact that improvements to social capital at the work place, such as mutual understanding among workmates, appreciation by the superiors, and career support increased output. Thus, I have learnt that sound organizational behavior is attainable and should be implemented in the work place through wide ranging changes to the work place. These include, introduction of breaks between tasks, increasing opportunities to for junior staff to ventilate on issues with management, and team building activities. This opportunity brought many surprises but I will focus on emotional intelligence.

3.2 Surprises from Lessons Learnt

I find the question relating to whether emotional intelligence is an innate trait or acquired through learning rather interesting. It is a known fact that degrees of emotional intelligence varies within the general population.  It is also given that some will be more innately talented than others. However, it is also expected that emotional intelligence skills will be acquired progressively as emotional quotient is expected to improve with advancing age. However, and perhaps more intriguing is the fact that the mediating impact of age will only kick in if people concerned are individually motivated  and they are accorded the privilege of extensive practice of lessons learnt, and generation of feedback to buttress learnt skills. It is also surprising that the manner in which management is conducted in most organizations has changed dramatically in the past three decades. One characteristic is that there are comparatively fewer tiers of management and management styles are less autocratic. Additionally, ongoing changes to the corporate landscape will lead to renewed focus on knowledge and team-based, client-oriented jobs so that individuals generally have more autonomy, even at the lower levels of organizations. Since the performance improvement motive remains an overriding objective, modern organizations will escalate their reliance on emotional intelligence. Another question I found rather fascinating regards how self-leadership can be developed. In contradiction, I realized that the responses propose, in varying degrees, that improvement of individual capacity to apply self-leadership skills is reliant on the implementation of self-leadership. One good example is on how team chartering as a method of team-wide planning both demonstrates and permits team self-leadership. Nevertheless, I also note that, typically, teams demonstrate intrinsic tendency to develop self-leadership. This is interesting because it is corporate entities that tend to show higher than average mean levels of conscientiousness. The latter also translates to high-quality team charters, though as it is expected, from theory, that they will need team charters the least. The astonishing proclivity of teams to seek extra capacity by utilizing existing capacity leads to the paradox in which self-leadership is employed to develop self-leadership. In effect, at least at personal level, there is sufficient recognition of the need to for self-leadership as a seminal means of developing self-leadership. The ensuing situation is still fascinating as illustrated by reexamining the strength model, which unequivocally recommends a short term determinate self-regulatory capability in addition to consistent engagement in the long term. This is important since involvement in self-regulatory functions is perceived to achieve long-term capability analogous to the impact of physical exertions on muscles. In light of self-leadership, self-regulatory capacity is perceived as an asset which can be employed in the execution of various tasks. For instance, building capacity has been singled out as one sphere from which organizations are expected to escalate capacity in other domains. A simple application of capacity building may be delineated from systematic exercise to expedite the attainment of an objective to efficiently oversee email correspondence. Other researches have proven the efficacy of self-regulation and how its instigation in an area can strengthen self-regulation in other areas. Yet, the scope of application of common self-regulatory resource in ordinary contexts across extended periods of time remains unclear.

3.3 What I want to know more about

Despite the many lessons learnt from this task, and the surprises realized, I still have some concerns for which I would gladly accept professional response. Principally, I would like to understand how organizational behavior and human decision making principles are applicable to the understanding of business culture. In addition, I would like to understand how that culture affects production and employee retention, assessment of candidates' skills and personality during the hiring process. Further, I would like to know how organizational behavior theories affect real-world appraisal and supervision of groups of people. Finally, I need clarifications on the impact of knowledge of a candidate's personality, either through tests or through conversation, help determine whether they are a good fit for an organization.

4.0 Conclusion

All things considered, the foregoing discussion suggests that apposite organizational behavior and decision processes cannot be achieved without instituting four factors. The four factors discussed are team work, diversity, emotional intelligence, and self-leadership. Team work as idealized by diverse literature through emphasis on the ideal team player deemed as essential for eradicating organizational bottlenecks and inefficiencies. As already discussed, team work is essential for optimizing the input of all members to creäte value for the organization. Diversity has been approached from the lens of accommodating the less expressive members of society, notably, the introverts. This paper has hailed the balanced and analytical capabilities as acceptable organizational behavior. Emotional intelligence has been venerated as crucial for attainment of social capital to help employees to cope with work-related and life challenges. Self-leadership has also been discussed as an imperative for attaining the required organizational behavior and human decision process.