MGMT 8005M: Organizational Perspectives and Implications for Leaders | Week 8

Leadership is not magnetic personality, that can just be a glib tongue. It is not “making friends and influencing people,” that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.

-Peter F. Drucker (Drucker & Maciariello, p. 288)

How can organizations improve leadership practice? Can one critique organizations through a different lens to determine if change is needed? This week, you will explore the dysfunctional characteristics of organizations with the aim of improving leadership practice. You will also have the opportunity to examine an organization of your choice and explore possible ways of improving dysfunctional characteristics within the organization.

Learning Objectives

This week, you will:

• Evaluate dysfunctional characteristics of corporations
• Apply leadership approaches for change to these negative organizational characteristics

Skills

You will develop the following skills:

• Analyze problematic leadership in organizations
• Apply theoretical concepts to practical cases

Resources

Note: To access this week’s library resources, please click on the link to the Course Readings List, found in the Course Materials section of your Syllabus.

Readings

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership (6th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

• Chapter 17, “Reframing Leadership” (pp. 325–356)
• Chapter 18, “Reframing Change in Organizations” (pp. 359–381)
• Chapter 20, “Bringing It All Together: Change and Leadership in Action” (pp. 399–422)

Morgan, G. (2006). Images of organization. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

• Chapter 9, “The Ugly Face: Organizations as Instruments of Domination” (pp. 291–333)

Walden University Online Writing Center. (2014). Walden templates: Overview. Retrieved from https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/templates

World Health Organization. (1993). The ICD-10 classification of mental and behavioural disorders (Rep.). Retrieved from http://www.who.int/classifications/icd/en/GRNBOOK.pdf

Discussion: Improving Leadership Practice

The World Health Organization published a list of “Dissocial Personality Disorder” traits, which includes the following items:

• Lack of concern for the feelings of others
• Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships
• Disregard for the safety of others
• Repeated lying and conning others for profit
• Incapacity to experience guilt
• Failure to conform to social norms

(Adapted from: World Health Organization, 1993, p. 152)

For this Discussion, review this week’s resources and consider the connection between corporations, dysfunctionality, and leadership. Also, examine how dysfunctionality might impact a corporation’s social responsibility.

Day 3: Initial Post MGMT 8005M: Week 8 Assignment

Post by Day 3 an argument as to whether or not most large American corporations are dysfunctional and exploitive and have little regard for social responsibility.

Day 5: Response

Respond by Day 5 to at leat two of your colleagues’ postings. In your responses, be sure to address one of the following:

• Expand on your colleague’s posting.
• What insights did you gain from your colleague’s posting?
• Offer an alternative suggestion.

Note: Include proper APA citations to support all statements by referencing at least two sources from this week’s recommended readings as well as two additional sources from relevant peer-reviewed publications.

 

 

 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION 

Examine how dysfunctionality might impact a corporation’s social responsibility.

Introduction

Social responsibility is the idea that a corporation should consider its impact on society. In other words, a corporation not only has an obligation to be profitable but also to help improve the world around it. While there are many examples of corporations doing good things for their communities and consumers, there are many more who do not have such intentions. These companies may be considered “dysfunctional” in terms of their social responsibility: they have no intention of improving themselves or the world around them through positive changes or actions.

Corporate responsibility

Corporate responsibility is the ethical dimension of business activity. It is a broad and complex concept that can be defined as an obligation to consider groups other than shareholders, customers and employees when making decisions.

• The first step in understanding corporate social responsibility (CSR) is to define it as an ethical obligation to consider the interests of stakeholders, including shareholders, customers, employees and suppliers. The second step involves identifying what CSR entails for your organisation – do you have CSR? If not then why not? Thirdly you need to understand how CSR affects different types of organisations – e-commerce companies versus brick-and-mortar stores; profit driven versus non-profit organisations etc…

Dysfunctionality

Dysfunctionality is the inability of an organization to fulfill its obligations. Dysfunctionality can be caused by a number of factors, including:

• poor leadership

• poor management

• poor communication between employees and management

• low morale among employees

Social responsibility

Social responsibility is a company’s ethical stance toward its community. It is a corporate duty to do good in the world, and it can be measured by how well that company acts ethically.

A company’s social responsibility should be evaluated on a regular basis, as it should be assessed for its effectiveness in achieving goals and results.

Impact of dysfunctionality on social responsibility

You see, the term “corporate responsibility” is used to describe an organization’s efforts to be socially responsible. It can include everything from environmental and social issues, to employee benefits and community outreach programs. Corporate responsibility often includes a company’s values, mission statements and policies that outline how it relates its business practices with those values.

Corporate dysfunctionality refers to all of the ways in which an organization does not live up to its own stated values or principles. Dysfunctionality can be caused by poor leadership within an organization as well as by external factors such as bad weather conditions or changes in consumer tastes that impact sales figures for goods produced at factories overseas where workers may be paid less than what they deserve due to political unrest at home (e.,g., Venezuela).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the impact of dysfunctionality on a company’s social responsibility is significant. The two concepts are related, with one being an indication of the other. A company that is dysfunctional will not be able to perform well in its social responsibility efforts because it cannot effectively do so while having a negative impact on employees, customers and suppliers.