Essay: Leadership skills, organisational politics & generational differences

NMIMS Global Access
School for Continuing Education (NGA-SCE)
Internal Assignment for December 2017-Examination
Course: Organisational Behaviour
Answer 1.
To achieve a goal or a target of an organization an individual who influence other persons by motivating, communicating, encouraging and assuring their involvement through the exchange of ideas is known as leadership. Below are three skills that a leader should have.
1) Assertive Skills: Knowing person behaviors in a situation helps in building a positive professional relationship with others. This quality of skill present in a leader is called as an assertive leader. Eg: If an employee is late to work leader or manager should find the reason behind his getting late rather than being rude and passing statements like YOU ARE ALWAYS LATE.
2) Communication Skills: This skill helps in exchange of ideas which lead to figuring out problems and taking mutual decisions.
3) Motivation Skills: In this skill, a leader should have ideas to motivate co-workers by offering them incentives after meeting the target.
4) Adaptive Skills: Leaders should have the quality to judge his co-members and know their nature as no person is born with the same quality. So in this case leaders have to develop different ideas to motivate team member according to their nature by knowing their actual needs.
Clear vision, Effective planning, Inspire and motivate, Build morale, Encourage new ideas, Improvement of employee and organization relationship, help management  in crisis are the significance of Leadership.
Leadership Provides Clear Vision: Leader is basically a network of organization and employee. Employees concentrate on the directions and do not lose their focus from their duty. Eg: Before a start-up of new project Managers give a briefing about the project to his teammates.
Leadership Leads to Effective Planning: A plan is set up by leaders to attain organizational goals which help co-members to understand their part in accomplishing the goal. Eg: each member should be allotted to work taking into consideration their capability and line of interest.
Leaders Inspire and Motivate: A behavior of leader inspires his or her teammates. The leader should be responsible and committed towards their work. They should set an example for their team workers. As team members look forward towards their leader and follow them as their role models.
Leaders Build Employee Morale: Employee should always feel safe with their leaders. They should sense that at any point of a problem their leaders would support them. The could built employee morale which would help them to perform at work and achieve targets.
Leaders Encourage New Ideas: Experience is much valued in any organization. Leaders should have good interaction with co-mates by exchange of innovative ideas and share experience and try to implement which could definitely improve the business. This would also create the positive climate.
Leaders Improve Employee-organisation Relationship: Appreciation is a key to success. If employees are encouraged by giving them credits of the work they have done this could make them feel more enthusiastic and they would perform more better in future. This could also build good ratio between leader and employee.
Leaders Help in Management of Crisis: Difficult situation arises in any organization and with employees. During this phase, leaders should motivate employees to be calm and do their best possible to achieve their goals. They should phrase them about their past achievements.
If leadership is not right in an organization the organization has to suffer in several ways.
Low Morale: Employee feels risky about their jobs and goals of an organisation. This main reason could be poor communication. The leader could discourage employees from their mistakes but want the allocated target to be finished this non-motivational act of Leader could result in poor performance and low morale of his co-worker. Gaps between strategy and execution – gaps between different departments can be caused due to poor leadership because the leaders would only communicate with those people with whom their mentalities would match. This could cause cognitive gaps in making the strategy for an organization as well as causes capability gaps in the execution of strategy.
Reduced Productivity: If the standards or directions are not specified to an employee by a leader employees are working aimlessly without knowing any goals of an organisation they will just achieve the results like machines. This could lead the employees frustrated and dissatisfied. Other reason for low productivity could be no appreciation by offering employees appraisals this could let them believe that their performance is not appreciated which could lead to low productivity.
Poor Financial Results: If proper inspiration is not given to employee they do not deliver their best work and tend to look for training opportunities. This could affect the sales, production efficiency.
High Turnover: When an employee feels deprived and are not motivated they start to feel unwanted and hunt for new jobs. This affects the profitability of an organization as they lose experienced and leading performers which leads to new recruitment. Company funds are mismanaged and the cost is overextended in comparison to the returns funds.
Answer 2.
Politics in any organizations need to be cope and cannot be avoided. Politics can be simply specified as power when used within limitations can be accepted but when exceeded that won’t be tolerated by any organizations. For gaining desirable goals the actions of individual results in organizational politics. For eg team leader underestimates his team member in front of manager in order to gain praise and to attention. The powerful contacts within and outside organization represent the political system.. Eg. For an event to take place that needs a government approval and the manager has a relative in that specific department he can apply his contact in getting the approval easily. But every action has its reaction to wise politics has its positive and negative impacts on an organisation. By determining the factors we can eliminate the negative factors as well. Factors classified as individual and organizational.
Need for Power: Personal power can be defined as controlling others through motivating influencing and dominating other subordinates whereas in Institutional power overall development of subordinates it was taken care by the leader.
Machiavellianism: Individual who exploits other subordinates for their own personal profits are termed as Machiavellianism. They influence the organization environment.
Locus of control: These include once who are self-obsessed. They think anything happening in an organization is due to their efforts and that they have great influence on s others live.
Risk seeking tendency: There are 2 types of people one who can take risks by taking new ideas they are known as risk seekers, on the other hand, the one who avoids risk and are out of politics they are known as risk avoiders.
The culture of any organization directly affects its working environment. One can apply positive politics in strategy and decision making, improve organizational culture. Whereas negative politics give rise to ego generation, instability, noncooperation among employees which in turn can affect the performance of an employee.
The individual has personality traits and values since birth. Qualities such as ambitious and courageous that differ one individual from another are known as personality traits likewise values such as honesty and dignity that are inherited as known as personal values.  This Personality development of an individual can be seen in a political attitude. One can change its attitude by focusing on the model.
Answer 3A.
Values in an individual are inherent and generic which are built on basis of culture, past experience, and ethics. Values can be classified into two types:
1) Terminal Value – Terminal value tells about end state of an individual. The goals that one has set in their life which might change accordingly.
2) Instrumental Values – Instrumental values works as a mode to get terminal values. These are permanent values.
Eg: If a terminal value is to have a comfortable life than instrumental values used as mode will be ambition, intellect, and capability.
There are different types of generation surviving in this world. Generally, generation is explained as a disciple of people born within a span of 15–25 years the, however, a number of years are less important than the changes in values, habits thought processes and behavior that divides one group from another. A generation is the division of values and viewpoints of the world, the new generation comes along with the changes in values and viewpoints. Every generation looks at the world differently. Generation experiences are shaped by different values. Each individual has their own opinion, ideas towards looking things.
The Strengths and Weaknesses Between Gen-X and Gen-Y
o Work Ethic
Gen Y is self-managing and values balance. They are adaptable and flexible to deal with the ever-increasing rate of change.
o Cost Efficiency
Gen-Xers are revenue generators, on the other hand, Gen-Y exceeds the cost efficiency than Gen-X.
o Management
Gen-X bridge the gap between the older and younger generations. They delegate work to both elders and juniors without raising ire and don’t need much supervision. Whereas Gen-Y faces difficulty in management roles due to their age or social skills that are noticeably different than their older counterparts.
o Tech Savvy Proficiency
Both generations have technical knowledge but Gen-Y takes technology proficiency up the mark. Gen-Y vision technology as an extension of themselves, technology is a lifestyle for them.
o Adaptability
Gen-X is dominion over adaptability. They are not in-built tech users, though many who were born late in the generation have been applying technology for a majority of their life.
Gen-Y is adaptable, but are less likely to be team players. They respond to advisors who help them grow, but not necessarily team building environments.
The main reason for Sanjay and Sam dissonance is their Generation.
Sanjay belongs to GenX. He is born in between1965 and 1980. Individual born in this period have experienced tough economic phase and they trust their team coordination and are very efficient in balancing their working life. GenX lacks family support hence they form their own family shapes in the small group of friends. They like to think of themselves as highly individualistic, but the actual fact is that they are highly dependent on their peer groups for validation and support. They are raised in a diverse culture and more dependent on peer groups than family units for support, they accept the differences in race, ethnicity, national origin, family structures, and lifestyles.
Whereas on contradictory  Sam belongs to GenY where he must be born during 1981-2000.  GenY is an interesting blend of the three generations before them. They are self-reliant as the Gen Xers, as are very confident that the world is their territory with full of civic pride, kindness, and sense of duty. Many topographers believe that the GenY will be the most productive group in many decades. technology occupies a central space in their lives and in the forefront of their thought processes they look for the ‘latest and greatest’ in technology.
The excellent project manager is already well positioned to achieve great results. Understanding the particular interest and needs of their group of employees will allow more potency and benefit in employee retention and loyalty.
Answer 3B.
Different conditions faced by each generation built different viewpoint of the world for them, likewise, it has also shaped the values of each generation. The people grew up during world war would have a different set of values compared to the people in the digital age.These values make each generation unique.
As I am born in the year 1989 I fall in Gen Y i.e. people born during 1981-2000 fall into this section. I have seen the growth of technology in telecommunication i.e from pagers till iphone8. There has been a tremendous amount of changes in the field of education as well due to technology normal blackboard has been replaced by a smart board. Our generation is not dependent on anyone. We have Google Maps, M indicator etc applications in our mobile phone which is one of the technologies that guides us in our day to day life.  Our generation knows to reach the goals that we have targeted in our life by better planning and investment of finances. We know how to get the things done by working in a group as a team allocating each individual according to their ability. Motivate employees for getting the outcome which could raise the organization outcomes and help it grow. Below are the different types of generation values.
The Builder: In this generation, people are born before 1945. The builder is the results of blending the Greatest Generation (1901 – 1924) and the Silent Generation (1925 – 1945). They have experienced the tail end of the Great Depression and seen destruction in the World War 2. So they know the real importance of money. They believe in hard work have more sensitivity towards family as many must have lost their ones once during War. They have long and loyal commitments towards personal and professional life. They have experienced hard times when younger but began to see some prosperity towards the end of the period.
• The Baby Boomers: These are people born in 1946 – 1964. Baby Boomers were born during the period of increased birth rates following World War II. Baby boomers are those who survived the World War 2 and started their life from scratch. Their experiences of how these individuals think and view the world helped to shape the country issues such as the sexual revolution, the Vietnam War, and the emergence and development of civil rights. These people value to success and are more ambitious towards their goals and achievements.
The X generation: X generation was born between 1965 till 1980.This generation faced challenging economic and as the economy was going under development during this phase. These individuals experienced tumultuous time, with the issues of the day being things such as Watergate. They balance their working life with a meaningful relationship. They work more towards team orientation.
The Z generation: These generations are always on social media. They are born after 2000. In this generation, there have been drastic achievements in technology and science. They believe in getting networked with each other through social media like Facebook, Instagram etc. They give more of importance to their lifestyle eg. By sharing their leisure time locations on social networks. They are more confident about their achievements. They have the ability to do multitasking. They are flexible to work or life in any type of condition.