Business Core
Study of the Specialization Core- Organizational Leadership, Citibank, and dealing with the Conflicts
Abstract
This assesses the effects of leadership style on organizational performance. In this regard, it investigates the impact of a leader’s effectiveness, charisma, inspiring motivation, and intellectual stimulus. It also takes into account personal contemplation, efficiency, additional effort, and satisfaction. The primary purpose is to determine the impact of leadership styles on performance in an organization. Transformational and transactional leadership styles are investigated in this study. The most regarded transformational leadership behaviors include charisma, inspiring motivation, and intellectual stimulus, personal contemplation; and effectiveness, additional effort, and satisfaction, correspondingly. In this competitive environment, a compelling leadership style is essential to reduce the level of attrition. It is only through the application of the appropriate leadership styles that an organization’s goals can be realized. Leadership styles affect employees’ performance and productivity in general. This paper recapitulates and analyzes the existing literature of leadership styles and the effect of diverse mechanisms on the value of work existence.
Keywords: Leadership styles, behaviors, work existence, Impact
Business Core
Majorly, the paper focuses on delineating leadership and its application in the 21st century. The project takes on the following questions as it relates to the leadership style, effectiveness, charisma, inspiring motivation, and intellectual stimulus, personal contemplation; and effectiveness, additional effort, and satisfaction. What is the meaning of leadership? How does leadership impact the different components of the organization? How has it changed over the years? How can we develop better leaders for today? As a strategy to conduct this research, information was retrieved from Northcentral Library and Google Scholars database using the phrase, “leadership,” and “societal works” from literature reviews on works done by scholars from years past to date.
Nowadays, there is an apparent deficiency of good leadership in many organizations. Since there is an association between ethical leadership and organizational performance, leadership strategy has garnered important research interests in the recent past. Having focused on these issues with leadership, the researcher has observed a lack of various elements as seen both at the operational and performance levels of organizations. The common element that is lacking is the connection to real leadership. There seems to be a lack of intelligent leaders who can create and sustain an inspiring vision and implement the vision together with their teams. Therefore, it is important to analyze the diverse leadership styles and further interrogate how employees feel about these leadership styles and capabilities.
Literature Review
Leadership Style to Performance
Leadership is considered to be an important subject in organizational behavior. The leadership style chosen by a leader has the most dynamic effect on employees during an organizational collaboration. In other words, the capability of management to implement “work in partnership effort” rests on leadership ability. The ability to foster teamwork and collaboration is vital because it ensures that things are executed at the organizational level. Managing change is also vital because leaders need to identify suitable plans to effectively manage any resistance to change by the employees.
Baily (2010), explains that an exceptional leader not only encourages employees’ potential to boost productivity but also meets their needs in the process of attaining any organizational goal. In his 2015 work, Baumeister properly defined leadership as the personal behavior that guides a group to accomplish predetermined targets. Berryman et al., (2017), defines leadership as the use of the critical approach to propose an inspirational motive and to increase the employees’ possibilities for progress and growth. Various reasons indicate the need for an association between leadership style and organizational performance.
In today’s rigorous and energetic markets, there exists vicissitude -based competition, price and performance competitiveness, declining returns, and the Schumpeter’s gale of prevailing proficiencies (Adams, 2016; Cox, 1991). Studies have proposed that active leadership behaviors can enable the enhancement of performance when organizations face these new challenges (Adams, 2016; Baumeister, 2015). On the other hand, organizational performance is more inclined to its ability for innovativeness, which regards to achieving purposes such as high profit, quality product, huge market segment, respectable financial outcomes, and subsistence at the pre-determined time using applicable tactic for achievement (Schumpeter, 2003). Schumpeter (2003) further suggests that an organization’s performance can also be determined by its level of profit, market segment and product quality relative to its competitor in the same industry. Subsequently, this replicates the productivity of followers in business whereas measurements are proven by their performance in terms of revenue, profit, evolution, expansion, and growth of the group.
Earlier studies have shown that leadership paradigms have a direct impact on employees’ satisfaction and economic performance of companies. Consequently, the impact of leadership on organizational performance was found to be significant in their studies. According to Youssef’s review (2012), leadership studies focused their concentration disproportionately on authority-subordinate associations rather than the leader’s performance. The inclusion of performance on the organizational and environmental variables is critical to facilitate the leadership-performance relationship. The existing studies also eliminate research on leadership as a significant factor on the level of analysis. Youssef (2012) distinguishes between micro-level studies that places emphasis on the leader in relation to the subordinates and immediate supervisors, and the macro-level research that focuses on the entire group and its setting. Other scholars have also posited that leaders and leadership styles influence have an impact both on their subordinates and on the results of the organization (Akins, 2013; Arvey, 2006; Bass, 1994; Bereby-Meyer, 2015; and Fielder, 1967).
Schneider and George (2011), in their study of the absent relationship between leadership and organizational performance, came up with a theorized leadership-performance relationship, which provides some inconclusive findings and has since proved to be difficult to understand.
From this review of related literature, it is evident that some scholars have confidence that leadership improves organizational performance. However, others challenge this notion, and have instead focused on distinct concepts of leadership making direct evaluations almost incredible. Gaps and unreciprocated questions persist in this area. Therefore, the current studyaims at re-interrogating the anticipated leadership-performance relationship and, consequently, contribute the growth in the body of knowledge in this area of study.
Theories of Leadership
Great Man Theory
In the Great Man Theory by Carlyle (1993), leaders are considered to have genetic traits that enhance their ability to performs their functions using superhuman powers. Stringham (2017) asserts that the correlation is created by leader’s effectiveness and the motivations are associated with the skills that were produced by the modern markets which were attributable to their descents. For example, the company Xerox was recognized as the most noteworthy leader because it empowers its workers. The company used a platform called Yammer to motivate its employees by permitting them to use voice reaction and contribute to the business’ discussion. Further, the leaders of Xerox was able to reinforce great initiatives and correct behaviors that were erratic with the organizational strategy or business culture embedded in the Yammer platform (Richard, and Rohail, 2010)
From the review of the Great Man theory, it seems to lack sufficient scientific data or empirical validity to support its hypothesis. Thus, the theory is set separately from the inconceivability of inherent traits (Strigham, 2017). The great man is constructed on the preposterous belief that some people develop great traits and become effectual leaders regardless of their environmental conditions (Spector, 2015). Most modern philosophers, like Bert Spector (2015) have since rejected the Great Man Theory.
Trait Theory
Ralph Stogdill, who is renowned as being the modern theorist on traits for leadership, came up with the Trait Theory in 1974. This theory was centered on findings and was a total disconnect from the personality traits and characteristics and focused on looking at leadership in diverse situations. In his approach, the theorist’s focus was based on physical, societal, and personal physiognomies that were the inheritance of the leaders (Arvey, 2006). According to Arvey (2006), the attributes of great leaders, tends to separate leaders from non-leaders. This is arguably one of the most problematic traits to comprehend.
In organizations, leaders often look at what they can do as individuals to develop leadership potentials within them and others (Akins, 2013). The trait theory delivers helpful material about a leadership style that can be valuable both at anindividual level or in groupswithin an organization (Akins, 2013). However, leaders can also apply the resources from the theory to evaluate and measure their position to see how they can be effective in their organizations. The traits theory can also be applied to managers to ensure that their understanding is congruent with their identity, so that poor behaviors do not impact others in the group (Homer, 1997). Not to mention, this theory allows the manager to become more cognizant of their strengths and weaknesses by helping them to understand how their progress impact their leadership capacities.
Behavioral Theory
Kurt Lewin and R.F White in 1939 developed the behavioral theory that focused on the behaviour of leaders that are often opposition to their original, societal or physical physiognomies. In the behavioral theory, three diverse styles of leadership which aid in the decision-making process have been identified:
- a) Autocratic leaders- where the leader makes the decisions fast without having to consult anyone.
- b) Democratic leaders- employees are allowed to contribute to the decision-making but, managers must deal with the different views or concepts emanating from the consultations.
- c) Laissez-faire leaders- the group is entrusted with making their own decisions without external interference from the leadership (Lewin, 1939).
Akins (2013) observes that any particular leadership style is demonstrated by the leader’s behavior. Most leaders have a habit of engrossing this theory because of their inability to modify their style based on the values, moralities, preferences and organizational culture of that business. Further, the theory is positioned around the employee’s traits of having some desire to lead. In this case, they must have honesty, be authentic, self-assuredand possess skills that relate to the specific leadership position.
The behavioral theory attempts to define leadership based on the behaviour of leaders or the activities that they execute (Homer, 1997). Conversely, the trait theory pursues a clarification of the useful leadership role in the behavior. However, the description of the practical role of behavior is demonstrated in the Michigan Research on traits substituted by the leadership behavior (Behavioral Theories of Leadership, 2015) which comprises the employee-centered paradigm against the task-centered approach. For example, the CEO of Costco, Jim, has influenced and encouraged all employees that work for him by creating value in work by him serving them. Jim pays his employees more than any other warehouse; in return, the employees stay for more extended hours and work extra hard from him. For example, Jim took a salary cut to three hundred and fifty- thousand dollars a year and decided to pass the benefits to his employees who now earn close to fifty percent more than the employees working in the competing stores (Mikkelson, 2012). Despite its usefulness, the behavior theory of leadership failed to show the impact between relational leadership and the trait of the organization (Mikkelson, 2012).
Transformational Theory and Style
In 1978, James McGregor Burn created the concept of transformational theory, which looked at the growth of followers as well as their desires. The transformational leadership focuses on the ability of the leadership and followers to encourage each other at an advanced level. Equally both the leadership and their followers are important as they focus on building collaborations, integrities, community, and inspiration; the greater human value (Choudhary, 2013). Executives with transformational leadership style insist on the development and progress of value structure for the workers and are also keen on monitoring their motivation levels, which when taken together can greatly impact on their capacities (Tebogo, 2017).
According to House (1993), the purpose of transformational leadership is to transform employees and have them embrace a change mindset. The result is to have employees having a broader vision, insight and thoughtful elucidate reasons to execute behaviors that correspond to values, ideas and implement changes which are interminable (Bass B. M., 2009), and impetus building. According to Bass (2009), transformational leadership occurs when the leader provides for the needs of the employees. This inspires the employees to consciously focus on fulfilling the agenda of the group and go beyond their self-interests for the betterment of the group. The author further holds that transformational leaders inspire followers to interpret problem. from new standpoints, deliver support and reassurance by communicating their vision, stimulates feeling and identification.
Choudhary (2016) claims leaders describe and articulate a vision for the organization and their leadership style can affect and transform the individual-level variables by increasing the enthusiasm and attributes such as facilitating conflict-solving among groups or teams. Adams (2016) explains transformational leadership as a way to impact a person and organizational consequences by meeting the employee satisfaction and performance. He asserts that higher levels of transformational leadership are related to higher levels of group effectiveness.
Transactional Theory and Style
In 1947, Max Weber formed Transactional Theory to develop an exceedingly inspiring work setting through optimistic and reciprocally valuable connections between the leader and the follower (Mulder, 2016). However, Transactional theory stresses devious responsibilities and rewards and includes punishment as a structure based on the necessity of the actions. According to Mulder (2016), transactional leadership has a vital role in the organization because it allows managers and employees to exchange information. Transactional leadership style allows for rewards and targets amongst employees and management. Bass (2009) simplified the understanding by adding a definition of leaders who inspire employees with rewards, counteractive actions, and rule implementation. However, both Transactional and Transformational Theory accentuates on the joining between the leader and their followers, which are exposed in the framework.
Jim Senegal’s influential concept of a small business played a dynamic part in Costco’s continuous procedure to fruitful marketing. His focus was based on meeting the needs of the small business. He required the best from suppliers while generating a vigorous leadership model for spreading prodigious entrepreneurial creation. To yield a high level of efficiency and productivity, Sinegal emphasized that each of his vendors use the invention of technology from the sales, advertising to distribution, and register management (Levine-Weinberg, 2016). He was renowned for being a stricter on matters quality and could settle for nothing but most exceptional value, this earned him trustworthiness with employees, customers, and vendors (Levine-Weinberg, 2016).
Servant Theory
The pioneer of Servant Theory was Robert K. Green Leaf in 1970. His theory focuses on the strong role played by employees in an organization. This means that the organization places its people first, and decision-making is communal (Berryman& Company, 2017). According to Giorgio,servant leaders are identified by their commitment to listening, to empathize, look at an entire situation, communicate in plain language and grow with the organization. Schneider asserts that servant leaders believe in working closely with the entire community and this helps when actions are presented in a strategic plan. Nevertheless, it has been proven by Schneider (2011), that an employer focuses on meeting the needs of his or her employees and prioritizes their satisfaction can potentially lead to improved customer service and productivity. For example, Dr. Martin Luther King proposed in his speech a comprehensive vision to the people, he listened carefully to the people; encouraged reasoning; and reconciled factions by building community (Shank, 2012)
Nevertheless, this theory is criticized in that it does not inspire the development ofa business strategy that serves and inspires the organisation. If applied blindly this theory can cause the organization to weaken the accountability and responsibility of the organization. In short, when employees are not sufficiently inspired by the leader, they might fail to do their jobs and the responsibility and liability will rest on the leader.
Ethical Theory
In 1873, John Stuart Mills formed the Ethical Theory to focus on the questions related to the moral of good -normative ethics which, an individual must understand the difference amongst right and wrong -Practical ethics. However, Mills shaped the utilitarianism acceptance by the honorably right actions will make the most of desire; therefore, diminish the suggestion of pain (Brink, 2016). However, the ethical theory is founded on others happiness and job satisfaction by permitting the workers to contribute to the decision-making process. The decision-making should be accomplishing and followed by the organization’s mission statement that transpires in the Great Man, Trait, Behavioral theory, and Transactional framework. Not to mention, the theory inspires and empowers others to take the lead by example.
Ethical leaders take their positions as extremely imperative, and they want to thrive in their leadership roles. Further, they want to help empower others and ensure that business and workers they serve are succeeding. The leader’sfocusis set on ensuring that job is well done. For example, CEO Muhtar Kent succeeded in making an environment within Coca-Cola that tries to dodge many of the most shared moral inadequacies by forming a culture of equality by adding more women to its corporate board and top management (Feloni, 2016). He reorganized the business by breaking down hierarchies and replaced them with ethical principles aimed making theworkers more contented by encouraging diversity and talent development.
Methodology
The prior research followed a survey design, and the analysis is based on primary data generated through a previous scholar works on theirMultifactor Leadership Questionnaire(MLQ) respondents. The survey instrument used in data generation was the (MLQ) designed by Bass (1985) on Leadership and Performance beyond Expectations. The instrument measured leadership styles and outcomes or effects on the environment in several diverse types. Prior studies operationalize these variables to evaluate the effect of leadership style or behavior on the performance of small-scale initiatives in the survey area. In the MLQ, each independent variable has equal weighting with five possible replies, ranging from “not at all” to “all the times” and is scaled from 0 to 4.
Limitation
The author suggests the most mature between the individual or group could control the functioning style of leadership. Four styles of leadership have been established which entail contributing, entrusting, retailing and active.The author reinforced the meaning of some of those styles with the maturity level of the workers and the current task. Furthermore, the leader was asked to replicate the worker’s job maturity and psychosomatic maturity when defining the leadership approach. The ethical theory is founded on others happiness and job satisfaction by permitting the workers to contribute to the decision-making process. The decision-making should be guided by the organization’s mission statement that transpires in the Great Man, Trait, Behavioral theory, and Transactional framework. The theory inspires and empowers others to take the lead by example. Bass and Avolio (2009) proposed that there were three different types of leaders: autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire. He further held that all leaders fall within these three categories. The definition of leadership in both the theory and style appears to be a challenge when leadership roles change in regard to decision-making. Usually, the most active management by exception to leader should be able to define the expectations or standards in advance and monitors them accordingly (Adams, 2016). In view of the rewards, it is important to clarify the expectations. The relationship should be such that no assumptions are made. The limitations here is that the leader assumes to know the values of the followers and that the followers, which, can recognize the activities of the follower, and identifies the follower as an enthusiastic participant in this exchange.
Conclusion
In the theory of Leadership, the purpose of management in an organization should be made up of knowing the value and recognizing the position of ethical behavior in the company. At best, leaders should use demonstrated intellect, value, style, part of their accomplishment, and strategy of action that should be present on a day to day basis. Bass (1994) anticipated for entities to generate a goal and teamwork by achieving success in the organization from the succeeding. He adds that it would be a realization in their self-reflection, communiqué, empathetic cultures, specific values, inspiration in their capabilities, their truthful views to changes that are needed by the people, and willpower to be a great leader.
The current research has been looking into the first intellectual, physical and personality traits that distinguished non-leaders from leaders which, only reveals insignificant discrepancies exist between followers and leaders. The leadership styles are only concentrated on telling individuals what to do in the autocratic, integrating others in theorizing, development, and execution in the democratic, and giving absolute autonomy of action with little or no direction in the laissez-faire. The servant leader style emphasizes on the needs of the follower and assistance them to become more independent, ableand well-informed. For excellent work ethics, a decisive backing could be exchanged; merit pays for raises, amplified performance, and assistance for collegiality. Further research should be conducted using relationships to steer people in a direction rather than connecting to the task itself. Additional research should also be done to look into how leadership could set examples by not making demands but, requesting behaviors or actions to be demonstrated by suggesting it for others to follow the lead. However, the gaps consist of research behind the theory and style related to the impact on the organization. In conducting the research, the studies gave only general ideas based on the views of the creators as what was assumed to be relevant to the behaviors. The MLQ only responded to information from the workers as it relates to their working conditions (one-sided view) but, not related to the impact on the organization as the leaders-lead. A more in-depth study needs to be conducted and should be inclusive of the impact on the components related to the environment. These studies should not be looked upon for guidance on how a leader response to any impact on the organization. I find them to be incomplete!
Citibank -Study on Leadership
History
For the past 18 years, I have viewed Citibank from the position of afinancial floating manager. My position entailed moving from one area or country to another where executives required my expertise. In such a position, I got to review or monitor calls for quality, evaluate all employees for compliance to federal, company, and state laws, hire and terminate employees, and protect the company against lawsuits. During the monitoring, I would listen to the employee and review their actions on an existing account which, which the employee could access and follow the conversations. To my surprise, I discovered and encountered many problems with the company’s culture, diversity, and ethics. I was shocked to find out that most employees were not trained in line with the set federal and state laws or just ignored the laws in general.
What is Organizational Culture?
Organizational Culture is considered to be the shared values in an organization. It controls and shapes the organization members by fostering the behaviors of individuals within the organization, by controlling the standards of ethics within the organization, by influencing the response of individuals on the various situation, and controlling their behaviors related the interpretations of the environment (Dempsey, 2015). According to Goodman (2001), organizational culture is the mixture of vital expectations that are shared among the membership of an organization and comprises of beliefs and values. Beliefs in which, the experience is created by the assumptions of reality and values, related to the behavior’s consideration of ideals with the desires transformed by the current leadership. However, Janicijevic (2013) interprets organizational culture by the way a company interacts with people inside and outside of the business. Weech-Maldonado (2002) on the other hand, defines organizational culture as descriptive and useful in the development. However, the organization system could vary from one organization to another and could be either integrated or grouped within the system. On the other hand, I view organization culture from the standpoint of creating a thriving work environment (G., 1986). However, the organization must show the stakeholders why the organisation exists through a detailed corporate mission and vision statement, the practice of leading by exemplary ethical conduct, and by the company’s ability to release valuable information to the stakeholders on the output of the environment (Lewin, 1939). So, the question of organization relates to how the environment interprets the standards of ethics in terms of what is right or wrong.
What is Diversity?
Diversity in the workforce includes all characteristics and involvements that define each of us as people (Cox, 1991).
Who is Citibank?
Citibank was founded back in 1812 with a capital of $2,000,000 (Citi)as a financial service provider for consumers. It started as the City Bank of New York, then changed the name to First Nation City Bank of New York. Citibank offered its clients services that included facilities such as personal loans, commercial loans, credit cards, mortgages, sub-prime lending, and various lines of credit. In the area of employment, it was a source of reproducing money from all aspects, and it was up to the management staff to keep this momentum going to yield continuous growth.
Citibank Practices- Behaviors as relates to the Shareholders.
From 2000 to 2017, Citigroup has been known for having a high-risk culture with a series of high-profile scandals that includes the management not preventing the illegal violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (Mattera, 2017). Example of its high-risk culture include;
- Deceptive Business Practice- Citibank had failed to protect the rights of the customer by persuading borrowers to refinance their current debts to offer higher interest rates with the attachment of credit life insurance, and involved in business practices that linked to the captive of title reinsurance. Also, they kept borrowers in the dark about opportunities to avoid foreclosure and denied them access to information about the foreclosure relief program, inaccurate discriminated information to buyers when it sold off credit card debt and it also used law companies that altered court documents (Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, 2017).
- Created abuse through mortgages by; CitiMortgage failed to fully comply with all HUD-FHA requirements in regards to certain loans which, required endorsements from FHA mortgage insurance. Under the DEL Program certain loans underwriting requirements contained in HUD’s manuals and mortgagee literature, and therefore were not entitled to FHA mortgage insurance under the DEL Program. As a result, CitiMortgage sent HUD-FHA certifications stating that certain loans qualified for FHA mortgage insurance when that was not true. HUD, therefore, suffered losses when those CitiMortgage-endorsed loans defaulted (Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, 2017).
- Created abuse through toxic securities by; contributing to the creation of the 2008 financial crisis (Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, 2017).
- With the creation of interest rate benchmark manipulation using relative values of different currencies, which duplicate the rates at which one currency is traded for another currency. Also, Citibank revealed confidential customer order data and trading positions, changed trading positions to accommodate the interests of the communal group, and agreed on trading plans to manipulate specific FX benchmark rates (Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, 2017).
- Created banking violation by failing to detect or prevent employee misconduct related to FX sales, trading, and quality control (Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, 2017).
- Created accounting fraud or deficiencies by helping Enron to mislead its investors by portraying necessary loan proceeds as cash from operating activities (Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, 2017).
- Created anti-money-laundering deficiencies by intentionally failing to preserve an effective anti-money laundering compliance program with suitable policies, measures, and controls to guard against money laundering and willfully failing to file Suspicious Activity Reports (Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, 2017).
- Violating the wage and hour act by a misemploying exemption to workers stating each was a salaried employee and overtime compensation was also refused, Citibank failed to maintain the records for the forty-hour week period as required by federal wage laws (Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, 2017).
However, Citibank favorable position is related to the excellent benefits package of paying twenty dollars a month for health, five-dollar dental and free life insurance. Nevertheless, Citibank paid a thirty-five percent commission rate for all collections and sales to employees with twenty percent given to all management that meet or exceeds the group or unit budget.
Results from the Survey
The Organizational Culture Assessment with a six dimension of the organizational culture and a four-point dimension in the diversity was given to three Citibank Employees. Participants were a convenience sample of employees from Citibank, with 3 participants (male N = 2, female N = 1) in total. However, the result revealed that the three employees shared the same vision about the organization being concentrated on doing things first by distinguishing itself externally with a high level of experimentation and individuality. The dominant characteristics are high score-on just getting the job done and contain a low score- being family orientated. The organizational leadership was high in a result-oriented focus, and the low scored on nurturing employees. The management of employees was high scored on risk-taking, and low scored on the security of employment. The organization glue was high scored on aggressiveness, and low scored on smooth-running. The strategic emphases were high scored on hitting stretch targets, and low scored on valued opportunities. The criteria for success were high scored on winning the marketplace and low scored on the development or training of employees. The total result indicated that the organization is more externally centered which is a market culture and the diversity remains to be the focus in the environment.
Areas in Need of Improvement
Citibank needs to improve by communicating value to employees, becoming authentic informal leaders, need to the ongoing cultural situation.
Recommendation for Improvement
Citibank should work with people who are already there by training the employee on the various laws that pertain to their positions. According to Cox (1991), values drive behaviors, and consequently, they also need to be affirmed by actions. It integrates into the attitude that makes an individual respond to the situation differently as regulated by the effectiveness of the leadership style. However, I think a compelling leader should; inspire and motivate others to the highest level of energy and eagerness to work. In this case, Citibank focal point consists of a revenue base plan that money is all that matter. The fact that agencies like the Federal trade commission, U.S Customer Protection has been involved with Citibank from 2000 to 2017 suggest that some actions must have prompted such an attention (Mattera, 2017). According to Lewin (1939), the hallmark of quality leadership is based on results that are vital to the behaviors needed to achieve success. Meanwhile, Citibank interpreted (Lewin, 1939) as a push to the max to drive the results (employees get a commission check) and a drop in performance leads to employee termination. It is the numbers (dollars coming into the company) that inspire and produces results, therefore; a blind eye is related to no eyes (keep the momentum going). Citibank would overlook monitored calls of agents violating the Fair Debt Collection Act by allowing them to threaten or harass customers by phone. Citibank chose to ignore this malpractice and only acted when either the Attorney General or Federal Government got a complaint from a customer which, Citibank assumed they were uneducated with the laws of the collection. This resulted in many lawsuits between 2000 and 2017 (Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, 2017).
Citibank indeed has lots of problems, and they establish high standards of excellence for the workers. According to Bass (1994), leaders who provide their team with a clear sense of course and purpose tend to have more fulfilled and devoted employees. Although, Fielder (1976) implies that it is those types of leaders that should paint a clear viewpoint between the overall picture and the details of day-to-day actions (Fiedler, 1967). However, the situational theory of leadership suggests that no leadership style is the greatest (Hersey, 1969). Therefore, the situation or task dictates the type of leadership or what strategy could work best for the situation at hand.
In this case, Citibank leadership should invest more attention to their mission statement which would impact on itsoperations. It is the leader’s responsibility to lead the change by altering the behaviour of the team. It is imperative for leaders to support the change in the organization consistently. Since culture change depends on behavior change, this relationship should be clearly understood. Therefore, employees must be trained on both communicating and the expectations of the new behaviors.
The company should create value and belief statements using employee focus groups by section, to place the mission, vision, and values into words that state their impact on each employee’s profession. Additionally, Citibank should also change the reward system to inspire the behaviors relevant to the anticipated or predetermined organizational culture. According to (Schein, 2004), the employer must engage workers to create a motivated environment that allows innovation and collaboration in the workplace.
Summary
Organizational Culture relates to the shared values in an organization. It controls and shapes the members of the organisation by fostering the behaviors of individuals inside the organization, controlling the standards of ethics within the organization,influencing the response of individuals on the various situations, and controlling the behaviors related to the interpretations of the environment (Dempsey, 2015). However, the organization system could vary from one organization to another and could be either integrated or grouped within the system. On the other hand, I view organization culture from the standpoint of creating a thriving work environment.
However, the organization must show the stakeholders the opportunity of existence by their valued inputs that relate to the corporate mission and statement, the practice of leading by exemplary ethical conduct, and by the company’s ability to release valuable information to the stakeholders on the output of the environment.
In my course of leadership, I have viewed Citibank from the position of afinancial floating manager. My position entailed moving from one area or country to another where the executives required my expertise. In such a position, I got to review or monitor calls for quality, evaluate all employees for compliance for federal, company, and state laws, hire and terminate employees, and protected the firm against lawsuits. During the monitoring process, I would listen to the employees and review their actions on an existing account and the employees would access the conversation and respond.
To my dismay, I discovered and encountered many problems with the company’s culture, diversity, and ethics. I was shocked to find out that most employees were not trained in line with the set federal and state laws or just ignored the laws in general. I believe that Citibank ought to create value and belief statements using employee focus groups by section, to put the mission, vision, and values into confrontations that state their influence on each employee’s profession. The firm should also change its reward system to inspire the behaviors relevant to the expected organizational culture (Bass, 1994). Citi should also work on improving its track records in matters regarding regulation and adhering to the law (Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, 2017).
Citi should change its ways or risk being folded or filing for bankruptcy. Too many lawsuits are eating into its margin and if this is left unchecked, the resulting legal problems will only lead to more money being used to settle fines and compensations. Citibank practices are guided by the leadership theory of See no evil, hear no evil which, money is the only thing that matters.
Dealing with Conflict in the workplace
Conflict in the workplace is the inevitable disagreement between involved parties. Most employees prefer to avoid it, in the hope the that situation will go away on its own. According to Ford (2002), the organization should look at the underlying cost of ailing managed or dysfunctional conflicts because, it hinders productivity, increase risk, escalates out of pocket cost, hinders the company from attaining the strategic goals. Ayoko et al. (2003) argue that conflict is not limited to one person, but it can affect the entire workplace environment. It can arise from any number of causes including:
1) Management communication information inaccurately.
2) Diversity and Inclusiveness- exclusion of value in the company
3) Ego- is based off one assumption of a person thinking versus who the individual person is.
4) Lack of collaboration- not working in the same directions to finish a task or a goal.
5) Organizational changes
6) Shifting of tasks- A manager passes off their work to another employee who has a different job description.
7) A person who has displayed a lack of accountability at the job.
8) No rewards system in place-Employees are told about the incentive but, no one is paying out the reward
9) Lack of feedback- from the customer service survey pertaining to their experiences with employees.
10) Failure to address a work-related performance issue
11) Management not revealing the situation of the firm’s standing
12) Particular interest- have a personal investment in the matter at hand.
13) Personality clashes-beliefs, and values are not in agreement.
14) Disagreement about the appropriate approach to take to take to a problem.
Regardless of the source of the conflict, if issues are left unresolved then, it could lead to low productivity and morale for all involved. According to Robert Half INC (2017), senior managers are sidetracking with trying to negotiate peace amongst the employees. The survey report that consisted of 2,200 corporate executive officers (from Robert Half in the United States-Accountemps) spend an average of six hours a week which is, fifteen percent of their time managing conflict (Robert Half, 2017). The report indicated that most managers spend more time addressing workplace conflicts between employees instead of taking care of the core business functions.
This paper provides a critical analysis of two different conflict situation which, resulted in two different outcomes of win-win results in collaborate, and loss-loss results in avoiding. The two organizational (leadership and work style) conflicts will be described from the two outcomes, and a comparison will be made based on the communication tools, and mediation strategies utilized. A decision will be rendered on the importance of the mediation strategies and planning by exploring the definition, communication, and tools used. Lastly, an analysis will be made on the second conflict to hypothetically determine a resolution to move it from a negative to a positive result.
Leadership Conflict Win-Win
Ms. Wanda Cargal is the Director of Resurgent Capital Service. The staff directly reporting to her consists of five managers: Tammy Bright, Nathan Jenkins, Laura Krupp, Etha Richards, and Marcus Holmes, each of whom have ten agents reporting to them. On the first day of each month, the client sends over a new budget and a goal for the company to hit. On this particular month, the client had given Wanda Cargal’s group a budget of $625,000 gross, equivalent to $25,000 in fees to be divided between the managers. Ms. Cargal had distributed the budget as listed below:
1.Tammy Bright’s group budget: $2500 in fees to be divided between 10 agents.
- Nathan Jenkins’ group budget: $2500 in fees to be divided between 10 agents.
- Laura Krupp’s group budget: $2500 in fees to be divided between 10 agents.
- Etha Richards’ group budget: $15000 in fees to be divided between 11 agents and one manager.
- Marcus Holmes’ group budget: $2500 in fees to be divided between 10 agents.
I was very upset to discover that my budget was more than my group was able to achieve. I asked Ms. Cargal why my budget was higher than that of the other managers, and she replied that she really needed my team and I to hit our budget as the rest of the managers never reached their goals. However, Ms. Cargal had failed to realize that a higher budget reduces the chances of my group receiving a bonus check. In addition, the bonus structure changes from 25 percent commission to 45 percent commission once the budget is reached. When the agents in my team found out about the low group budget, they called for a meeting with Ms. Cargal. I called her to schedule this meeting, and I was told to attend in two hours, which gave me time to prepare statements from my group about the impact this would have on them all. During the meeting, I expressed my concerns to Ms. Cargal that my group members would want to leave to a competitive company because the budget was unfair, making it impossible for them to earn a bonus. Ms. Cargal looked at the responses from the employees and quickly called the rest of the managers to join us in the meeting. She upheld my group’s concerns of unfairness and changed the budgets for all the managers to $5000.00 in fees for the month, effective immediately. She then announced the changes over the loudspeaker, and my group started thanking her and jumping up and down for joy.
Poor Conflict Resolution
Marcy and Steve are a married couple who both work in the collection department. Marcy was hired five years before Steve. Steve is a collection manager, Marcy is a collection agent, and they work for different directors. They had been married for five years prior to Steve’s employment. Steve had lost his job at another collection agency, and Marcy had asked Ms. Patterson, the Director of Auto Collection and Marcy’s best friend, to hire him. Two weeks after he was hired, Steve was given a group, and the ability to hire and terminate employees. After a careful review of his current employees, he decided to make some transformations to secure the success of his group. He fired two male employees, who had never hit their project goals, and hired two female employees. One of the new hires had no experience in collection but had worked in served customers and collected money as a private dancer in the past. Both the new employees went through two weeks’ collection training with the corporate attorney.
When it was time for them to go out onto the collection floor, the two employees were assigned to a lead assistant manager. During their side-by-side training with the assistant manager, Steve kept interrupting them by bringing water and lunch for the ex-dancer. News started to spread around the company that Steve was having an affair with her. Ms. Patterson approached Marcy with this news, who went over to the ex-dancer and threatened her, telling her to leave her husband alone or face a fight. Steve heard that Marcy had been behaving inappropriately towards the agent and making threats of violence. He called his wife to his office for a meeting. The two could be seen arguing through the window, and Marcy was throwing pens and papers at Steve. All the employees on the collection floor could hear the argument and stopped what they were doing to look. Ms. Patterson also heard the argument and walked in on their conversation. Both parties left the office, and Marcy walked back to the ex-dancer, punching her in the face. She then walked back to her desk and continued with her work. The ex-dancer went to Steve, her boss, and got the day off. All three parties returned the following day, but the situation has since been escalating on a daily basis, and the senior management team and human resources are avoiding the issue by ignoring them all. The ex-dancer is now trying to sue the company. All the employees want to know what went wrong and how to correct the issues.
Communication-Comparison of the Two Conflicts
In any organization, good communication is vital for workplace success. According to Nosek and Duran (2017), without communication skills, we are not able to let others understand how we feel, think, or want to achieve from the conversation. In the conflict, the communication styles are: 1) Passive (win-lose communication)-when people are willing to express their concerns, and desire in an authentic way. The passive communicator always leaves the other person feeling annoyed, disordered, and wary. 2) Assertive (win-win communication)- when communication is expressed in a healthy, non-insistent, and non-defensive way.
This form of communication helps to encourage a positive response while creating a positive relationship.3) Passive-Aggressive (lose-lose communication)- face people in passive way but, tend to display aggression when no one is around and, often seek revenge later. 4)Aggressive (win/lose communication)- aggressive communicator often blame and make accusations about others. This style is utilized when people feel the threatened and the focus is centered on the negative characteristics of the person than the situation at hand.
The Communication Error in Leadership Conflict #1
In the first conflict of communication style, Ms. Wanda Cargal had expected Etha Richards to know what she was thinking without making clear the reason for the unfair distribution of the budget between the managers. Until the meeting, she had no idea how the entire group felt about this and the consequences that had arisen from her actions. She had been confident that the manager would go along with her plan because she was a team player. However, Ms. Cargal had forgotten two of the golden rules of being a leader: leading by example and being fair at all times. It took the meeting with the managers to make her realize that her actions should have been adequately communicated to all groups to see if they were happy with the situation. This type of assertive communication is known as win-win communication.
The Communication Error in Inappropriately Handled Conflict #2
In the second conflict of communication style, Steve had not taken any action when the employees started spreading rumors about his non-existent relationship with the new employee. The talks had reached Marcy, causing her embarrassment and humiliation because it appeared that her husband was cheating on her with his employee. Marcy and Steve had failed to validate the rumors as either true or false, leading Marcy to believe that the ex-dancer was the problem. The problems between Steve, Marcy, and the ex-dancer reached boiling point and then continued to escalate on a daily basis. Even the senior management was avoiding the conflict by refusing to discuss the disruptive behaviors on the collection floor. This style of communication is known as passive-aggressive, in which everyone loses.
Interpersonal-Effective Communication
The effective interpersonal communication must begin with:
- Awareness by gathering feedback.
- Always think about how the others person feels before acting or speaking.
- Determine the desire of the win-win outcome.
- Collect facts to avoid biases.
- Practice a peaceful approach in the tone.
- Listen as much as possible to the speaker.
- Do not expect anything in return.
Interpersonal communication is essential to the relationships in the organisation because a lack of communication can hinderprocess innovation and high-performance work within an organization. According to Nosek and Duran (2017), providing effective communication skills are the responsibility of all parties involved. Rahim and Magner (1995) concurs by positing thatsufficient cause for peer-to-peer (interpersonal relationship) form of communication would create equally respectful relationships that can improve employee satisfaction and boost productivity. Effective communication involves three fundamentals:
- a) A Sender
- b) A receiver
- c) A message of understanding.
Communication is complete when the receiver understands the message sent by the sender and acts or responds in the way expected by the sender.
Accessing the Tools- different views of conflicts
Conflicts in an organization are now learned by how it is managed but, the roles of conflict in organizations are viewed by 1. Traditional View -leads to failure and considered to be dysfunctional and destructive (Khaiyat, 2016). The understanding is focused on win-lose outcomes. The conflict comes from the failure of a manager and views are dominating.
- Human Relations View or Managed View- recognizes and manages as having characterizes as:
- a) A member of the team b) contributes to the output to the physical capacity of willingness to work.
- c) Ability to not have an economic reward in the willingness to work.
- d) ability to conduct social work without a formal rule of principle by encouraging the formation of groups, strengthen formal groups, build channels for communication, develop a relation-oriented style leadership, and the participation in decision making resulting in more workers output (Khaiyat, 2016).
- Interactionist View- see conflict as a positive and required:
According to (Khaiyat, 2016), traditional views are bad for the company and leads to failures. This causes a negative effect on the performances. Traditional views are not allowed in the company, and a manager must suppress these using an authoritative approach to get rid of the negativity (Khaiyat, 2016). The human relations view is also called the manager view which recognizes the reality of conflict. The manager in this process tries to manage it efficiently instead of conquering or totally eradicating it. The Interactionist view- encourages conflict as a rational and holds the lowest level of conflict. The benefits are made through the effectiveness of the group or individual through, adaptability, responsiveness, and flexibility to organizational changes.
View of Conflict 1 and 2-Tool
The first (leadership) conflict was an interactionist view because it inspired the Etha Richards group to speak up against the unfairness to perform effectively. While the human relations view recognized conflict, the interactionist view inspires conflicts on the notation that a peaceful, calm, and cooperative group is desired for a change in modernization.
The second (Inappropriately handled) conflict was a traditional view because employees rumored that conflict was bad and had to be avoided at all cost. It was treated negatively and discoursed with such rumored terms as savagery, elimination, and illogicality to reinforce its negative allegation. The conflict had a dysfunctional result because of the lack of transparency, poor communication, and trust between employees due to the behaviors that created the conflict.
Mediation
Mediation is a process to bring a disagreement to a close. The process with leadership conflict (#1) started with communications of the company’s expectations of what is allowed and not allowed with the procedures to resolve the dispute? The employee is told what will happen and how they will be protected. A step process for dispute resolution is given to ensure the following goals (Coleman, 2014):
Step1- earliest Intervention- empowers and train workers to identify disputes in the workplace to help intervene early.
Step 2- Informal Complaint and Negotiations-identifying the sources of the conflict to obtain a possible solution before making any decision. An informal negotiation should take place to calm the employees involved in the conflict.
In the Inappropriately handled conflict (#2), the issue was totally ignored and escalated without mediation or a resolution to the problem.
Conflict #2 of Inappropriately Handled-Transformation (if conducted differently)
Steve should have refrained from making personal suggestions (harassment) to his new employee who was already under supervision of his assistant manager. He should have also handled his problems with his wife at home in a manner that it would not interfere with the work environment. Marcy and Steve shouldget counseling for their marriage. If the conflict persisted then either of the two should leave the company for a peaceful.
Examples of Studies conducted
According to Prowse (2017), the average costfor legal defense that a company pays is $100,000 plus an additional $4.5 million in lost production time. According to Blazejak (2017), CFOs spend 15% or six hours a week in conflict mediation. The measurement of a conflict depends on mediation strategies, conflict style and conflict resolution skills utilized to address the issue (Coleman, 2014). Conflict is measured on the degree of the disagreement.
The range of the behaviors signifies this seriousness as it relates to the company’s code of conduct, federal, and state compliance- regulation laws.
Legal Cost
According to Prowse (2017), the average price a company pays on legal defense is $100,000 which equates to 73 percent of production cost. The challenge comes when comparing the relationship between the employee and the conflict in general. Computing the Company’s conflict-related cost must be from a quantitative and qualitative data to build on the related employee conflict, and cost as it applies to the fair indication. This information would be a key to resolving issues before it comes to a legal, turnover, absenteeism, grievance filing, and any other workplace conflicts but, most company’s do not have this source of data.
Time Spent on Conflict Issues
According to Blazejak (2017), CFOs spend 15% or six hours a week engaging in conflict resolution. The break-down of conflict issues on time includes:
25% of participants spend 10% to 14% of their time on conflict resolution,
22% spend 15% to 24%, -on conflict resolution
15% spend 5% to 9%, -on conflict resolution
13% spend 25% to 49%- on conflict resolution
9% spend less than 5%, and 4% spend over 50% of their time managing conflicts.
Turnover Cost
According to Davis (2018), the average turnover in a business is 16% off a two-year period. The question is how does that affect the firm’s bottom line? In the research, the average skilled and expertise required a person with knowledge in that position stood at 42%. Training a non-experienced person for the same task required about 200 hours. The U.S. enterprise-size business cost in productivity loss averaged $4.5 million (Davis, 2018).
Recommendations
Understanding the actual cost of conflict resolutions on a business is critical. This can be done by connecting the influence of conflict management to employee engagement, time spent, money, performance, productivity, reputation, with the business effectiveness.
Transform the traditional view of the grievance policy to a resolution that delivers significant benefits by taking on a values and personal base approach for managing conflict. The resolution should be centered on building communication skills, trust, and inspiring collaborative problem-solving.
This can also be done by aligning the business core value with leadership capabilities, management behaviors, strategies, and employee practice. This will help to manage the behaviors to support the company’s mission and values.
Engage with the employees by communication to make sure there is no misunderstanding the implementation of managing conflict policy.
Conclusion
The company should reflect on its mission statement and commit to negotiations aimed at handling and resolving conflicts effectively and by so doing adopt a conflict resolution process that provides substance in our social order of well-being and contributes to the growth and development. It should reinforce its core values by:
1) Showing the importance of great relationships being vital to the success of a company and its impact on the creativity, productivity, and adaptableness, as well as the quality of a natural workplace life.
2) Communication is important to the relationships because a lack of communication can hinder process innovation and high-performance work within organization. Providing effective communication skills are the responsibility of all parties involved. Effective communication calls for peer-to-peer (interpersonal relationship) form of communication which would create equally respectful relationships that will not only improve employee satisfaction but boost productivity as well.
Effective communication involves three fundamentals:
- a) A Sender
- b) A Receiver
- c) A Message of Understanding.
Communication is complete when the receiver understands, feels the message was interrupted correctly, or the behavior is aligned with the message of the sender.
The company’s core mission should consist of mediating and enabling the resolution of workplace disputes and problems in total impartiality, discretion, and to the satisfaction of all the involved parties. It is essential for senior managers and human resource practitioners to receivetraining on the use of bargaining power because competitive (distributive) can be a win-lose situation which can hinder the success for the company. The idea is to create a win-win by using the cooperative conflict (integrative) (Coleman, 2014) power in situation which can be used as a dependent or independent need and create value.
