Provide a thoughtful reply to the thread of a classmate. Each reply must include an analysis of your classmates thread,based on any experience from your own professional career (if applicable) thatmight be relevant. All replies must be 200250 words. Also, be sure tointegrate the required reading in a logical and relevant manner.
You must cite:
- The textbook, Kinicki, A. (2021). Organizational Behavior: A Practical, Problem-Solving Approach (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.
- 1 passage of Scripture, and
- 1 peer-reviewed journal article
Cory Archie
Organizational Behavior
Dr. Woods
Define the problem in the case
There are two problems that I see for Jennifer. These issues relate to her expectations with her boss and then her expectations with her staff. The issue with the expectations with her boss is based on the completion of the Project work, and time spent. As a new leader, it is easy to spend the hours perfecting the craft of the assignment. The more hours spent; it looks good at the surface on time spent. But an experienced leader knows when to delegate, educate and hold staff accountable. In an article Leaders Behaviors Matters, it states When power and authority are delegated to employees they have more freedom to work autonomously and experience a range of positive outcomes such as higher job satisfaction, organizational commitment, innovative behavior and task performance. For Jennifer to effectively manage, she has to pullout of the work. So, another issue I see is that Jennifers leader is not mentoring her. She is a new leader, although she knows how to do the work, she is new to the leadership aspect. You must look at the role a tad different and on a larger scale as a leader versus being a front-line employee.
Identify the potential causes
I believe the potential cause of Jennifers situation is that her staff has the belief that Jennifer will do what work they dont do. Due to Jennifer being a newer leader, she will do the work because she does not want to turn in the garbage work to her boss. She is in the position where she wants to show and prove she is more than capable to do the job, but Jennifer does not know when or where to draw the line. When I was new to leadership, my leader told me to seek a mentor. She made the recommendation to find a mentor outside of our department, who knew little on our operations. I met with my mentor once a week to discuss what has occurred. Instead of my mentor telling me what to do since they were not experts in my department, they introduced me to different leadership methods, it was up to me to research and understand our discussion then make the best decision on how to handle it. That was the guidance from my leader and mentor that I needed to become comfortable in my role. But it all sums up to holding staff accountable if they are not meeting the needs of the role.
Recommend what you would do if you were Jennifer
I think the best thing for Jennifer to hold her staff accountable. Create metrics for the staff, possibly a scale of 1-5 with 3 being meeting expectations. If staff is not meeting at least a 3 on your metric scale for performance, it is time for Jennifer to hold them accountable until they make the decision whether the position is the best fit for them. This way Jennifer has a work/life balance and your staff is there to perform. 1 Thessalonians 5:11, NIV says “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” To build Jennifers team, accountability has to be the word, so that she can effectively manager her team and pull out of 15 hours of work and weekends.
References
- New International Bible
- Xiyang Zhang: Leaders Behaviors Matter
- Kinicki: Organizational Behavior