MN7401 Organizational Behavior Assignment Sample
Assignment Sample: MN7401 Organizational Behavior Assignment Sample
Introduction
The success of an organisation depends on leadership capabilities. In the last two years, businesses faced a lot of challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war. Economies throughout the world went to a declining stage and the market became increasingly volatile thereby making it quite difficult for firms to operate in a trouble-free manner.
Far-sightedness of leaders is an essential skill as it provides potentialities among leaders to negotiate periods of business disruption. The present study makes an investigation on the fact that whether or not firms should put their complete faith in leadership roles to reduce stressful or helpless feelings within the workplace to gain a competitive advantage. An in-depth analysis has been made of the chosen topic in an argumentative form.
An analysis of strong leadership during the disruption period
Far-sightedness is an effective skill that all leaders should have and this is the key ability to forecast and articulate a secure and successful future in an inclusive and compelling way. This is one of the essential qualities that employers in the present-day search for in candidates for leadership roles. Schoemaker et al. (2018) opined that leaders are the ones whose abilities are critical to the success of an organization.
They guide the entire organization and make employees follow their instructions and, in this way, leaders help their subordinates to achieve business goals. Hence, having some important traits is an absolute necessity for leaders of organizations across the world. According to Goleman (2018), leaders should be able to tell the possibilities that might have in the future and ways these can impact business, and also the things that employees can accomplish together.
Causes of business disruptions and its impact on companies
In the present day, the business environment has become extremely uncertain and various events have disrupted operational activities and hindered the smooth process of functioning. The sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down the business process to a significant extent (Wana, 2019). Business operations were temporarily paused during the peak period of the pandemic and organisations having effective leaders could only survive during that tough period.
As per the opinion of Teece (2018), leaders without far-sighted skills could not provide direction to the organization in the right manner which ultimately led to the failure of many businesses during the occurrence of such uncertain events. Russia’s war that took place in Ukraine is also another cause of the global business disruption. The war made a significant impact on the global economy.
As per the estimation of the World Bank, the war led to an increase in energy prices which reduced global output by almost 0.8% in about 2 years (Iisd.org, 2022). Companies belonging to the sector of food, construction, transport, and petrochemicals are the most-effected industries. Russia began to increase the prices of natural gases for the EU in 2021’s second half and the prices rise with the continuation of the war.
Price surges in essential materials disrupted the entire global economy and also businesses across the world. Countries that used imported goods from Russia also suffered a lot. Ngoc et al. (2022) mentioned that companies had to purchase raw materials and other goods at a significantly increased cost and during that period, the investments exceeded the estimated budget which impacted profitability to a greater extent.
Business production slowed down, especially in the defense and machinery sectors because of the ban on sanction-related issues on Russia’s access to some technologies and financial restrictions. The Russia-Ukraine war took place just after the slowing down of the pandemic and the war has further exposed all kinds of vulnerabilities in the global economy and international trading process that did not have adequate time for recovering from the pandemic. UNCTAD said that rising prices inflated global trade which accurately interpreted the current trends in international trade (Barua, 2020).
Both pandemic and the war soared the prices of commodities and energy prices which in turn gave rise to food insecurity and disruptions in the supply chain. Companies struggled to meet rising customer demands during this period due to supply chain disruptions. Moreover, the war became a barrier to smooth economic growth and inflation began to surge which became the ultimate cause of faltering economies in the world.
A weak economy negatively impacts businesses to a greater extent and this compels companies to cut their costs in different areas such as marketing and research and layoffs and cuts in spending of capital. Junior et al. (2021) argued that recessions also curb credit access, spur business bankruptcies, and slow collections. Smaller businesses have a higher risk to face risks related to recession compared to larger ones due to their lack of proper resources which makes SMEs and other smaller organisations more vulnerable and enhances failure risk in a downturn (Allen et al. 2019).
Large companies have more ways compared to the smaller ones to deal with the declines in revenue and business earnings in a recession. This is also because small businesses often fail to hire efficient leaders who have far-sightedness capabilities.
Wirtz and Zeithaml (2018) stated that large firms that realize cost savings of business operations without cutting staff while formulating long-term strategic investments, particularly, during a period of recession are more likely to perform better at the end of the downturn. During any economic contraction or faltering economies, a decline in aggregate demand takes place which drops the net sales for many businesses regardless of their size.
Need for far-sighted leaders
Far-sighted leaders tend to make good judgments regarding the things that will be required in the future of the business which helps them to make wise decisions on the basis of such judgments. These leaders need to also have some additional skills such as urgency, communication, collaboration, authenticity, and credibility to overcome uncertain business situations with greater effectiveness. Far-sighted leaders should have resilience so that they can help the organisation to recover promptly from difficulties which is one of the most crucial traits of any leader that they need to exercise during the disruption period.
As per the views of O’Grady and O’Grady (2017), leaders should envision the future possibility of businesses and the interpretation of such visualization needs to resonate with the business. This is a critical quality in a leader and hence, leadership roles should be chosen wisely and with effective consideration. Businesses always need leaders who have the ability to see a successful future and lead the organisation accordingly in the right manner. For example, Steve Jobs is a proper example of a far-sighted leader and he is responsible for the evolution of Apple.
Northouse (2021) argued that Apple has a leading position in the consumer electronics industry, and it could tactfully overcome the negative consequences of faltering economies because of the guidance of its efficient leader. Following the footsteps of Steve Jobs can help other companies of all sizes to gain considerable success by effectively functioning in the most uncertain market environment. Leaders with the features and qualities of far-sightedness can better discuss the consequences and possible strategies that are useful for combating business uncertainty.
Van Zyl et al. (2017) mentioned that they are responsible for setting the strategic vision as per the situation of the market to ensure the progress of organizational employees and ways they can accomplish the vision by developing and articulating clear messaging to easily understand the vision. Business success lies in leadership ability as they use strategic techniques to engage the team who work under them and other major stakeholders. This becomes critically essential at different points throughout the process of planning and execution.
Investigation on whether organisations need far-sighted leaders
The sudden hit of the pandemic disrupted the entire world and resulted in business uncertainties. Companies faced challenges staying in touch with consumers, and a reduction in organisation spending took place along with a decrease in overall productivity because of remote work. Stuart et al. (2021) opined that employee turnover rates increased because organisations were cutting down salaries and holding their jobs for an uncertain period.
The existing employees were losing their interest in the work because of low salaries. The number of absenteeism within organizations was also increasing because of the widespread of the disease. Debata et al. (2020) argued that the manufacturing of essential products slowed down because of continuous lockdowns with the spread of the disease. All these had a major impact on business sales and overall profitability.
It took a great deal of time to recover from the financial damage. In the meantime, the Russia-Ukraine war even worsened the situation thereby making it difficult for firms to keep up with the business revenue at an increased rate of investment. This led to poor cash flow which in turn slowed down the growth of revenue in the economy. According to Ferreira et al. (2021), the GDP of several economies was also got impacted as a result of disruptive production.
In a nutshell, capital markets, foreign trades, labour markets along with consumption and production sectors got impacted to a significant extent. This kind of volatile market environment poses serious challenges for organisations to operate in a smooth and hassle-free manner. Employees working within the firms often feel extremely stressed and helpless while carrying out their functions in such a challenging situation (Kleiner et al. 2019). This kind of stressful work environment often makes it difficult for companies to gain competitive advantages while operating in the dynamic marketplace.
Hence, it is recommended that organisations should rely on strong leaders by having complete faith to reduce the impact of stressful and helpless environments in the workplace. Wu and Parker (2017) made a statement that leaders are the ones who are highly responsible for motivating and encouraging their subordinates to help them perform better in their individual job roles.
Far-sighted leaders can make other employees aware of the future possibilities in the business environment as a result of the disruptions caused in the market and can prepare them likewise thereby enabling them to overcome the stressful situation and work with enhanced productivity. Making employees alert in advance is a necessary step for every efficient leader to ensure that their subordinates are rightly prepared to overcome the uncertainties associated with the business operation.
Leaders need to communicate effectively with others regarding the causes and the risks that events such as the pandemic, Russia-Ukraine war, or any other economic faltering can create in the business process and ways these can hinder business operations. According to the viewpoint of Wardman (2020), leaders are required to advise some possible measures that can be adopted to manage the risk beforehand. Leaders are the foundation of business success and employees are the backbone of organisations.
Leaders guide employees on the basis on which they perform their tasks. In case of wrong guidance, the entire organisation may face significant financial loss because of operational inefficiencies as a result of their faulty guidance. Hence, leaders should be chosen by strictly considering all essential qualities and skills that are required for the effective operation of any business as they are answerable to the upper hierarchy in case anything goes wrong. Teece (2018) argued that leaders who lack the capability of being far-sighted fail to guide the organisation in the appropriate way which ultimately makes such organisation lag behind in terms of competition.
It is the responsibility of any efficient leader to recognise the hard work of employees and giving proper motivation can help them deal with any kind of stressful situation and they tend to put their best efforts to accomplish the vision set by the leaders. The pandemic outbreak made it mandatory for employees to carry out their tasks by working from home which made it stressful for some staff to work in that manner because of having difficulty adapting to such work procedures.
Rodriguez and Walters (2017) stated that leaders who provided proper support and assistance during that time could help organisations reach established goals as employees were capable enough to work in accordance with the leader’s guidance. Far-sighted leaders are capable of seeing things in a clear manner that is far away and therefore, organisations can deal with the situation of helplessness by giving the entire responsibility to the organisational leaders.
Jarrahi (2018) commented that decision-making is one of the most important aspects of any capable leader and those who can see the future and possible outcomes of disruptions can make wiser decisions that the ones who cannot. is of the opinion that better decisions give rise to better results and this can leave the company with more alternatives and flexibility. Good decisions have the potential to shut off other alternatives thereby opening up a completely new opportunity.
Far-sighted business leaders can help the entire organisation to perform better (Orlik, 2018). Organizational leaders who could do so have made it possible to overcome the distressing situation caused as a result of the disruption. Skinner et al. (2018) opined that far-sighted traits of leaders along with other soft skills such as resilience, adaptability, decision-making, communication, and so on make leaders efficient in properly negotiating periods of disruption and also performing other responsibilities in the most effective manner.
Justification of the investigation with theoretical concepts
“The trait theory of leadership” rightly explains the fact that influential leaders should possess certain behavioral traits and characteristics to effectively deal with any kind of complex situation. Northouse (2021) mentioned that the theory also focuses on the area that the natural abilities of leaders make them more efficient than others as they have interests and traits that highly differ from individuals who are not leaders.
The primary traits of behavior of any good leader include emotional stability, competence, acceptance of responsibility, understanding of challenges, motivation skills, action-oriented thinking, and so on. Far-sighted leaders are characterized by these traits because far-sightedness requires a leader to be e emotionally stable and he should understand the challenges that the business might face as a result of the disruption caused by COVID-19 which is followed by the Russia-Ukraine war and the economy faltering.
Fernandez and Shaw (2020) argued that any organisation can put faith in its leader during the disruption period and he must accept the responsibility given to him by the company and should motivate their followers to perform in the appropriate way during this time and with action-oriented thinking, he needs to formulate impactful strategies. Hence, it is evident that far-sighted leaders can only perform with full efficacy and can guide the entire firm on the right track with the abilities mentioned in the trait theory.
Anderson and Sun (2017) have presented another viewpoint and stated that behavioral theory is another significant leadership theory, and it explains that leadership qualities can develop with the environment in which a person is working. Effective leadership is a result of different learned skills which is in contrast to the great man theory. As per this theory, leaders are not born, however, they are made.
As per El Toufaili (2018), natural attributes cannot drive leaders toward their success because behaviour is one of the aspects that drive the qualities of a leader. Hence, proper training is required to make leaders overcome their weaknesses. Behavioral theory highlights the fact that leaders should be task-oriented, people-oriented, and indifferent and should possess dictatorial and sound qualities.
It can be suggested that organisations can provide training to leaders to develop their existing capabilities thereby helping them to better perform their roles in the most enhanced manner. In this context, Al Muzzamil (2018) argued that proper training can help them to focus on their task which can provide additional support to their far-sightedness quality. They are responsible for leading effectively through disruptions which can be done by best using the market opportunities even during the riskiest environment.
Leaders with the help of their far-sightedness capabilities can sense and actively listen to their workforce thereby understanding their needs and varying opinions. Leaders who can sense the future occurrences of business as a result of the disruption caused by economic decline due to the pandemic and the war generally formulate strategies to implement changes for the betterment of the operation (Kaushik and Guleria, 2020).
Often they implement organisational changes to ensure the capability of the organisation to deal with any kind of future complexities as a result of any further disruptions. In such a situation, business leaders need to make other employees prepared and adaptable to such changes to avoid employee resistance. Leaders also need the training to learn the ways to tactfully manage employees and capable leaders know the exact ways to encourage teams to become disruptive.
Conclusion
Leaders should be capable enough to perform their individual job roles. The entire organisation depends upon them and other employees tend to follow the instruction and guidance of leaders for great effectiveness in performing their individual job roles. The hit of the pandemic and the Ukraine-Russia war disrupted the business world and a major decline in the economy took place. Many organisations were forced to shut down their operations permanently due to a lack of resources and capabilities.
Other firms that managed to stay in the competitive marketplace formulated compelling strategies to outperform the key rivals in the market. Moreover, firms that could sustain themselves in the market during such circumstances were only possible because of capable leaders who had quality far-sightedness. Every company regardless of their sector had to operate virtually during the lockdown period and even after the lockdown.
The Russia-Ukraine war made it quite difficult for companies to smoothy acquire raw materials obtained from other countries and also struggled because of the price hile kin fuels and natural gas. Leaders who could see the future effectively managed their employees and motivated them to perform well and this made the least negative impact on the business operation and such firms could operate smoothly even in stressed environments thereby making a stable existence. Hence, organisations should put their faith in leadership roles which can help reduce stressful and helpless feelings within the workplace.
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