Introduction
Creating conditions for the productive work of colleagues and subordinates is a responsible task for any leader involved in team activities. In my practice, I have faced examples of both good and mediocre leadership, and this experience is useful for me to compare individual approaches and draw conclusions about the necessary changes. Due to the fact that I am currently running my own organization, I should plan any steps responsibly by taking into account a wide range of factors and conventions. Assessing past experiences from my individual perspective can help identify useful tactics and strategies for enhancing organizational behavior and improving communication with subordinates.
Peer’s Positive Behavior
Although I myself hold a leadership position and have subordinates, I find it difficult to reason about the mistakes and successes of other leaders due to the lack of experience in this field. In retrospect, however, I can note that my former supervisor often resorted to empowerment practices, which had a positive impact on both operational outcomes and staff interactions. Rhee et al. (2017) confirm that empowerment, as a leadership practice, has a positive effect on organizational behavior by stimulating innovative thinking and giving employee autonomy in making decisions. In my previous workplace, everyone could count on the manifestation of personal and professional skills through participation in various projects related to both direct responsibilities and new functions designed to reveal new skills. Through empowerment, employees were able to assess the full range of operational tasks from an individual perspective and draw important conclusions about the conventions of the workflow at different stages.
The empowerment practice that my former supervisor promoted gave employees an opportunity to express their opinions freely, which, in turn, increased their engagement and had a positive impact on organizational commitment. As Wang et al. (2020) argue, this leadership approach improves the perception of individual capabilities and stimulates worker safety, thereby contributing to the achievement of high productivity. In addition, this practice helps avoid bias and stereotypes in the interaction process since employees have relative freedom in making decisions and can express personal ideas openly without fear of disapproval or punishment. My former supervisor adhered to the idea that each subordinate could contribute to the common cause due to individual experiences and unique professional skills. By following that organizational strategy, our team was close-knit, and despite occasional disagreements over operational nuances, conflicts were rare due to an effective strategy for sharing responsibilities through empowerment.
As a result, the interaction tools that were applied in my former team allowed us to provide one another with support as needed since each employee was aware of the conventions of the tasks and functions of others. The empowerment strategy, in addition, helped avoid challenges and barriers to productivity, particularly individual differences and distorted perceptions of immediate tasks. Our team was diverse, which, nevertheless, was not an obstacle to productive communication due to the active involvement of employees in different operating environments and the exchange of experience. Moreover, with regard to the perception of immediate responsibilities, the workers did not have distorted ideas about the operating principles and were guided by objective criteria for evaluating assigned tasks but not personal interpretation. By following these approaches, our team avoided the problems associated with poor performance. By following the empowerment tactic, our supervisor maintained the process of continuous communication and, therefore, learning that would enhance professional knowledge. I believe that our supervisor was able to do all of this due to his leadership experience. Thus, this positive behavior is an example for me to follow in my current organization.
Personal Negative Behavior
At the moment, I am a leader in my own organization, but this is difficult for me to call myself a comprehensively competent supervisor. One of the key problems that I have to overcome is poor communication with staff, which, in turn, influences the operating results negatively and affects my reputation. This is hard for me to create a regime of continuous interaction with subordinates. As a result, I find it difficult to maintain constant control and monitoring of the work process. This gap can have severe performance implications; moreover, as Yang et al. (2020) note, “poor communication increases the tendency to leave” (p. 162). If I do not address this problem effectively, I can lose valuable employees who are not having enough capacity to complete the assigned tasks due to poor communication, will have to put in much extra effort, and, subsequently, decide to leave for another organization. To avoid these prospects, this is crucial for me to maintain productive interaction with my colleagues, thereby creating a favorable background for effective collaboration.
The lack of professional leadership experience and poor communication with the team translates into another problem – the inability to establish a vision and direction for the team. Al Khajeh (2018) cites various performance aspects that leaders should adhere to and mentions setting operational objectives as one of the initial and fundamental tasks facing supervisors. In my case, there is no specific leverage on subordinates in terms of defining a clear development strategy. As a result, the team cannot work harmoniously due to such a constraint since the employees cannot understand the specific work algorithms and the tasks they face. Even with sufficient resources and financial assets, my organization cannot perform at its peak due to this gap. Therefore, I have much useful information to learn about how a vision and direction should be established to create a favorable interaction mode in the team.
As a result of poor communication, I cannot convey the vision often, which becomes an obstacle to the organization’s sustainable and continuous development. Moreover, it affects the organizational behavior of personnel who are not satisfied with the mode of work, particularly inconsistency in actions. At the same time, Antony and Gupta (2019) emphasize that the quality of communication is usually more important than its frequency, which suggests the need to develop effective communication strategies not only to hold regular meetings and demand reports on the work done. When considering personal reasons, I can point to the lack of leadership experience as one of the constraints, and in the general context, an ineffective communication regime can be caused by weak collaboration strategies. Following the contingency model, which involves adapting leadership approaches to specific operational conditions and promoting flexible control mechanisms, could be a viable solution to rectify the current situation in the team. Thus, the search for more stable and varied practices of interaction with subordinates is my work task.
Changes to Make
To improve the situation in the team and address the aforementioned gaps, I intend to implement some changes in my leadership practice. First, I plan to create an environment to motivate my colleagues to enhance their organizational behavior and strengthen commitment. Specifically, I want to provide inspirational motivation that, as Schuckert et al. (2018) note, allows one to interest subordinates by personal example and promote the desired tasks jointly but not one by one. To achieve this goal, I see it as appropriate to establish an effective reward system designed to reward the productivity of colleagues. Performance is always regarded as a marker of organizational behavior. Therefore, in the case of real shifts for the better, I will encourage those employees who demonstrate their intention to make efforts to realize their professional potential. These perspectives apply to all the workers of the team, without exception, and are designed to optimize the working regime.
Addressing communication challenges in a team can be accomplished through a strategy to stimulate the exchange of ideas. Since our communication is poor, one of the first steps to fix this is to establish an environment in which each employee can share personal views of the workflow and make rational suggestions. This practice can help create a good climate in the team and give subordinates an opportunity to feel safe and comfortable. Such a strategy can be implemented through the empowerment approach that my former supervisor used. I want to train coaching behavior as a leadership practice that, according to Lee et al. (2017), “includes inspiring team members to solve problems together as a team, thus promoting knowledge sharing among them” (p. 312). My task, in this case, is to help my colleagues and support their ideas by encouraging collaboration and joint problem-solving processes. All of these solutions can be valuable both for me as convenient tools for increasing leadership credibility and for the team as a whole to optimize organizational behavior and improve operational results.
As the strengths of my plan, I can point to the real prospects for improving the communication regime in the team and increasing organizational behavior. However, I have to note that I need to learn much information about how the appropriate coaching behavior should be trained to implement the necessary changes confidently and efficiently. In addition, I consider the lack of leadership experience a limitation because, along with theoretical knowledge, practical skills are essential, which affect conflict management, decision-making, and other leadership aspects. My plan is directly dependent on the commitment of the staff to increase the level of interaction, and if I do not manage to provide the proper motivation, I risk failing. The reluctance of individual employees to reorganize the work process can be an obstacle to a successful change program. Nevertheless, I believe that by realizing the current difficulties, my colleagues will perceive my ideas positively and will be able to adapt to more flexible working conditions, despite the attendant difficulties, for instance, more time for discussing operational tasks and active involvement in knowledge sharing.
Conclusion
My communication with my colleagues is the key factor in addressing the planned changes. Given my past work experience and current challenges in the leadership position, I am convinced that empowerment and motivation are valuable concepts to implement to enhance organizational behavior. Giving the subordinates an opportunity to express their ideas freely can have a positive impact on their commitment, and despite potential barriers, such as the lack of practical leadership skills or some workers’ inflexibility, I hope I can encourage my colleagues to work together and maintain a positive microclimate in the team.
References
Al Khajeh, E. H. (2018). Impact of leadership styles on organizational performance. Journal of Human Resources Management Research, 2018, 1-10.
Antony, J., & Gupta, S. (2019). Top ten reasons for process improvement project failures. International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, 1-8.
Lee, A., Willis, S., & Tian, A. W. (2017). Empowering leadership: A meta‐analytic examination of incremental contribution, mediation, and moderation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 39(3), 306-325.
Rhee, J., Seog, S. D., Bozorov, F., & Dedahanov, A. T. (2017). Organizational structure and employees’ innovative behavior: The mediating role of empowerment. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 45(9), 1523-1536.
Schuckert, M., Kim, T. T., Paek, S., & Lee, G. (2018). Motivate to innovate: How authentic and transformational leaders influence employees’ psychological capital and service innovation behavior. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 30(2), 776-796.
Wang, S., De Pater, I. E., Yi, M., Zhang, Y., & Yang, T. P. (2020). Empowering leadership: Employee-related antecedents and consequences. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 1-25.
Yang, Y., Kuria, G. N., & Gu, D. X. (2020). Mediating role of trust between leader communication style and subordinate’s work outcomes in project teams. Engineering Management Journal, 32(3), 152-165.