Management must be aware of four elements of organizational behavior to create a productive and effective work environment. These elements are communication, motivation, leadership, and culture. Each one of these components is essential to the success of an organization. This blog post from Scott Tillery of Liberty Township, Ohio, will explore each element in detail and discuss how managers can use them to their advantage.
Organizational Behavior
Organizational Behavior is the study of human behavior in the workplace and how it affects professional and personal interactions. Organizational behavior aims to increase productivity and create a positive, safe, environment for employees and customers. This includes creating efficient workflows, establishing clear communication between management and workers, increasing employee morale, and promoting job satisfaction among staff members.
The Four Elements
Scott Tillery says to successfully manage an organization's human capital assets (i.e., employees), management must be aware of the four elements that make up Organizational Behavior: communication, motivation, leadership, and culture.
Communication
Excellent communication between employers and workers is vital to creating a positive work environment. If managers cannot properly communicate their expectations with staff members or if there is no clear line of communication from upper-level management through the rest of the organization. It can lead to confusion among employees who might feel they lack purpose within their respective roles at an organization.
It could also lead to dissatisfaction when tasks become difficult due to unclear instructions given by the company’s leaders (i.e., poor feedback). Furthermore, without proper knowledge transfer throughout an organization via strong internal business processes, an organization could fall behind the competition due to increased time and resources needed for solving issues that arise from a lack of knowledge and idea sharing.
Motivation
Employee motivation is essential to increase productivity through company-wide initiatives and individual worker engagements. Motivated employees tend to be more productive, efficient with their tasks, helpful towards co-workers and customers alike, and happy overall with their jobs (which often leads them to stay at one position/company longer, which can benefit both parties).
In addition, employees must feel they have some autonomy over what they do at work if management hopes for them to put forth extra effort without direct supervision daily. When employees are empowered, and balanced with accountability, workers will be more satisfied with their jobs and the company as a whole.
Leadership
The role of effective leadership is to create an environment where employees feel valued, respected, and safe for them to thrive on both personal and professional levels while doing their job well. Leadership should act as mentors towards newer staff members who might require additional training or guidance when adjusting to life within any organization (i.e., new hires).
Through strong leadership that sets clear goals accompanied by positive reinforcement throughout the management ranks and individual contributors, companies can expect increased productivity from existing team members while successfully integrating newcomers into productive roles without difficulty.
Why do Organizational Behavior Strategies Matter
There are many benefits to organizational behavior, including a safe work environment, idea sharing, increased employee engagement, higher productivity rates, improved customer service, reduced turnover rates, enhanced teamwork abilities, and more!
How to Deal with Different Types of People
Every person you work with will be different from one another and is the company’s competitive advantage, says Scott Tillery. Managers must understand their employees' differences to effectively communicate goals and expectations for each individual on a team. By learning about various personality traits such as generational behaviors and motivators, extroversion vs. introversion or sensing vs. intuition, Effective Manager™ can implement motivational strategies specific to each team member's needs to succeed at work.
How to Manage Yourself in the Workplace
To manage others effectively in an organization, it is important that individuals first learn how to manage themselves. This means taking time for self-reflection, understanding one's strengths and weaknesses, setting personal goals, and maintaining a healthy life balance. When managers have a clear understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, they can better understand how to delegate tasks based on the individual needs of team members under their supervision.
Furthermore, effective self-management leads to a sense of control and mastery over one's work life, reducing stress levels and promoting a healthier life balance, says Scott Tillery. This means setting personal goals, maintaining a positive attitude despite challenges faced on the job, being proactive instead of reactive when dealing with difficult situations, and taking care of oneself physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Tips for Managing Others at Your Company
Once you have mastered managing yourself in the workplace, you can still do a few things to improve your skills as an Effective Manager™ further. Start by providing feedback towards team members' work and follow up on any issues that might arise from time to time (i.e., lack of communication, missed deadlines, etc.).
By working together with other managers in the organization and joining a professional association such as PMI®, individuals will learn new strategies for motivating their teams while also being more successful at reaching individual goals within each department across the business itself.
You need to consider four elements when developing organizational behavior strategies for your company. These include the environment, people and their behaviors, leadership style, and tasks/roles. The environment is important because it impacts how employees feel about themselves and each other.
People's different personalities can make them react differently to various situations. This means understanding what type of person you're dealing with will help figure out a plan for managing them well or adapting if they don't respond well to certain things like feedback or change requests. Leadership style matters and should be alignment with the company’s culture and business goals and objectives.
This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes