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

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. MGMT 8005M: Week 8 Leadership Practice Improvement

 

 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION 

Dysfunctional characteristics of corporations

Introduction

Why do corporations have so many dysfunctional characteristics? It’s because the system has been designed this way. Corporations are designed to maximize profits and minimize costs, but they can’t be successful in a world where people care about other things than making money. So what are some of these ways that corporations are designed to fail, or at least not succeed?

Profits are pursued at all costs

A corporation is a legal person and therefore has the same rights as humans. This means that it can be held accountable for its actions, even if the actions are illegal or immoral.

Corporations are driven by greed, which makes them sociopathic in nature. They will do whatever they can to make a profit at any cost; this includes cutting corners on safety measures or lying about their products’ effectiveness just so they can sell more of them!

The interests of shareholders prevail over those of employees and communities

The interests of shareholders prevail over those of employees and communities.

The owners are the only people who have a right to profit, which means they get paid even if their company goes out of business or loses money. Shareholders don’t care about things like quality, efficiency and morale—they just want to make money!

Employees are not investors in the corporation; they work for wages that enable them to buy shares in the company (or receive stock options). This means that when an employee loses his job due to downsizing or layoffs, he loses all his shares at once – no matter how much he was worth prior to being let go.*

Community members do not own shares; therefore their interests do not prevail over those of shareholders unless those shareholders agree otherwise.* If you think about it this way: You cannot sell your house because it belongs only to yourself but if someone buys your house from you then they can sell theirs too.* So basically when we talk about corporate consolidation we mean buying up smaller companies so as not only do we keep control over what happens within our own companies but also other companies owned by others whose purpose may vary depending on who owns them.*

Corporations have a fixation with continued growth

Corporations have a fixation with continued growth. They’re always looking for new markets and customers, which means they’ll do whatever it takes to expand their business model. This isn’t necessarily bad, but when the goal becomes more important than actual results, it’s time for a change in leadership.

The best way for corporations to grow is by creating value for the people who make up the company—and then using that value as an incentive for them to come back again next year (or maybe even tomorrow). But if your company doesn’t have any real products or services that make life better for people, then there’s no reason why anyone should keep coming back again and again!

Competition between corporations is seen as more important than collaboration

Competition is seen as more important than collaboration.

Corporations should collaborate to compete. Corporations have a shared interest in the economy, so they can work together to solve problems and make things better for everyone involved. For example, if one company builds a new factory that creates pollution and disrupts traffic flow in your city, it’s good for you—but bad for them! The best way for both parties to benefit from this arrangement would be if you (the consumer) could purchase products made by multiple companies using their factories instead of just one single company’s factories.

Employee loyalty is not a priority

The first and most obvious dysfunctional characteristic is employee loyalty. Employees are seen as replaceable, which means that they are not valued for their knowledge and experience. They’re not treated as individuals, but instead treated as cogs in the machine who can be replaced with another person who has been trained to do what you need done.

Employees are also discouraged from thinking creatively—they’re taught how to follow instructions rather than innovate on their own ideas or solve problems independently, and if an employee does try something new or different (even if it works), he could lose his job because she wasn’t following the rules correctly enough at work.

Management concentrates power in the hands of a few executives

One of the defining characteristics of corporations is that they concentrate power in the hands of a few executives. Executives are paid more than other employees and they have more responsibility, including making decisions that affect the lives of their subordinates. This means that if you work for a large corporation, you may be dealing with people who have been promoted to their positions because they’re good at making decisions and not necessarily because they have any particular kind of skill or knowledge.

Conclusion

There are many reasons why corporations are dysfunctional. The most important is that they have a fixation on continuing growth at all costs, which leads them to pursue profits even when it harms their employees and communities. They also do not value collaboration with other companies because they believe they can make more money in competition than through collaboration. Finally, management concentrates power in the hands of a few executives by giving them huge salaries and benefits while denying these same benefits to others within the organization who need it for survival: workers, shareholders or customers alike