Organizational Development

Organizational development

Introduction

            According to Huffington et al organizational development is concerned with: the organizations as a whole in their wider setting; the people in organizations and how they work together; what organizations expect of people and how they respond; the philosophy of management and how it affects organizational behaviour; and the overall culture and climate of the organization.

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            Organizational development affects the strategies adopted by the managers, the direction of the organization, priorities established by the management team and the culture of the organization. The management influence the activities of the organization through the manner in which they plan and make decisions of the organization, communicate with subordinates, perform team work activities, delegate duties and solve problems. Managers become more accountable in their daily activities when they have skills and knowledge about the proper goals and objectives of the organization. Changes within the organization are implemented through the strategies of organizational development.

Management is the process of planning controlling, organizing, directing and staffing the various activities of the organization to achieve the pre-determined goals of the organization. It is the role of the managers to ensure the subordinates contribute to the goals of the organization. Managers should understand the organizational processes and have skills in solving problems. Management deals with centralizing all the activities into a central system where all the activities of the organization are controlled by a few people. The decisions about the management of the various resources of the organization are drawn from all the departments of the organization to ensure a holistic approach. All the stakeholders of the organization should be involved in the decision making process to ensure acceptance of decisions by all interested parties. Managers should integrate the culture of the organization into the decisions of the organization. Culture refers to the shared believes, values, attitudes and concepts by the people working in an organization. Organizational culture determines the success of the organization since the employees inherit the culture of the preceding employees and will work to achieve success of the organization according to the existing culture of the organization.

Application of leadership in management

To achieve success in the management of all resources in the organization, managers need to apply various leadership strategies. The modern approach to management of resources within an organization is the use of leadership. Leadership has been identified as a strategy which provides managers with an insight about proper allocation of resources by the use of formal and informal structures of an organization. Hersey defines leadership as the ability to influence others to contribute willingly to the goals of an organization. Leaders have followers whom they work with to attain the goals that have been created. They provide a guideline about how things should happen in the organization. Leaders aim at working with and through people to achieve the desired objectives. Risk taking is a characteristic of leaders since they always adapt new things without the certainty.

Situational leadership theory requires the leader to apply different leadership skills depending on the situation within the organization. The leader should have the ability to learn the changes in the environment to apply the best skills. Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard suggest that situational leaders are able to match the leadership style with the group they are leading. Leadership requires creating followers within the group. The leader acts like the manager of the group and the subjects are the followers. Leaders work with the followers to achieve the desired goals. The situation of the organization will dictate the approach the leaders will use to guide the followers towards achieving the goals.

Management is transactional meaning that the subordinates do things told by the manager because they have been promised a reward. The rewards take the form of salaries or wages offered to the employees. Managers are delegated the duties by the owners of the business and they get paid for their work. They delegate the duties to the subordinates. Managers are usually constrained by time and money in their fulfillment of the duties delegated to them.

            Voluntary conduct of activities is encouraged by the leaders and they avoid authoritarian control. Leaders inspire others to do things willingly according what they desire is good for them and the organization. They appeal to their followers to do things which are risky and which they could not have done under normal circumstances. Charisma is required of the leaders to encourage people contribute positively towards the achievement of the goals that have been set. Transformational benefits are obtained by the followers who choose to do things according to their leaders. The transformational benefits make the followers better people in the society since the leaders are not only focused on extrinsic benefits of the organization. Leaders create loyalty among people and they are mot focused on loud personality. Leadership requires the manager to pay attention to tasks. They should be focused on a particular vision that the followers should achieve. Risk taking is major aspect of leaders and they believe that to succeed, you must encounter some problems. However, the leaders are not blind when taking risks and they will calculate all the possible outcomes of the activities selected. The routes that normal people avoid provide opportunities to leaders and they are ready to break rules to achieve their goals.

Conclusion

Organizational development focuses on the management aspects of the organization and defines the various strategies of the company in terms of fulfilling the interests of all stakeholders. Leadership provides a person with the skills to work with people to achieve the pre-determined goals and objectives. Situational leadership provides the leader an opportunity to adjust the leadership styles depending on the prevailing conditions. Leadership enables individuals to take risks and to achieve abnormal things. Management involves the use of laid down policies to promote the welfare of the organization. Managers should combine both skills in management and leadership for the success of the organization. Risk taking is a major aspect of leadership and enables people to exploit things which seem not achievable by the ordinary people. For success in business to be achieved, both leadership and management skills should be applied. Modern business is based on competition and leaders are required to create innovative products. The management of various activities of the company has been done through the use of the online management software. The online management system has enhanced more effective decision making.

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