Organizational Climate

Unit IV Essay

Nancy Maldonado

Columbia Southern University

Organizational Climate

It’s important to identify the organizational climate and motivation and/or commitment level of your employees. In an organizational climate the process of quantifying the “culture” of an organization (Kelley). As an example, a manager/supervisor may survey his/her employees to try to identify the aspects that lead the business/organization to be more productive to achieving its objectives. Through organizational climate it allows for the managers to understand the problems or challenges he/she may have in the department. Understand the business/organization goals, ethics, and mission is a must in the organizational climate. According to Peterson and White it is suggested that concept organizational behavior and the beliefs that employees have about the business/organization will determine if the business/organization reaches their goals. The need to establish organizational climate is critical to an employee’s productivity levels. If a business/organization cannot establish a positive organizational climate in a work place it can impact an employee and department lack of roles and responsibilities. There have been studies according Peterson and White that one-quarter of employees survey indicated that the teamwork between departments in their organization is inadequate (Peterson). How does organizational climate effect this? To keep an employee motivated and engaged there are six factors that must be considered (Bjugstad):

• Clarity-When goals and/or mission and understood then an employee’s knows what is expected out of them
• Standards-Goals have to be challenging and yet realistic to keep an employee motivated
• Responsibility-When an employee is given the trust and authority they are more likely to accomplish their tasks
• Flexibility-For a department to flourish and complete their task there must be no unnecessary rules, policies, and procedures.
• Rewards-When an employee’s hard worked is recognized and rewarded they motivated to continue to work hard.
• Team Commitment- When you have team members that are proud to belong to an organization you are more likely to have team members to commit and go over and beyond their job duties.

Kelley’s model of effective followership

Kelley’s effective followership refers to the role of certain individuals that have the capacity to follow a leader (Kelley). Understanding leadership is not only determine by how well a leader can lead, but also how well a followers can follow (Singh). Those individuals that are effective followers are enthusiastic, intelligent, ambitious, and self-reliant (Riggio). This concept has emerged from the Kelley’s model of effective followership, the most effective followers have the following characteristics: self-management, commitment, competence, and courage (Kelley). There are those individuals that do not want to be leaders and leaders that do not want to be followers but the skills of perspectives are very similar. A good follower will support the leader and stand up for their leader. This follower will also have the courage to let the leader know when he/she is doing something wrong (Riggio). Being a good follower will make an individual a good leader because they will have better understand the needs of other people. Being a good follower allows the individual to better understand what upsets and motivates an employee (Steinbauer). A good follower will learn how to get along with those individuals that have differences and ignoring them. This is an important leadership skills that a leader cannot be oblivious to the attitudes of employees in a department. Having the courage in being a good follower is very complicated and similar to a leader because both have to have the courage to speak up when something is not correct. It’s about being an advocate for your team members and being wise about doing things well. In many ways followers influence a leader in how goals are accomplished (Riggio). Much of the creativity is done by the followers even though the leader is the one that receives the most credit. A great leader who has been a good follower understands how these individuals work and brings out the best in them.