A630.1.4.RB – Board of Directors
What
entails an organization? Harry C. Carter, a municipal fire protection
consultant defines organization as “the pattern of ways in which people, too
numerous to have face-to-face contact at all times and engaged in a wide range
of tasks, relate to one another in a conscious systematic manner; for the
accomplishment of mutually acceptable goals” (2014, para. 2). Many times, it
seems as if organizations are set up to fail when in reality, the answer to fix
the problem is at anybody’s reach. In my experience, I have seen my
organization go through the phase of loosing what matters, vision, power, and
the crowd. When you are at that point, your crowd no longer feels the need to
follow the organization. Instead, the organization suffers a lost of morale and
that is when pessimism and pragmatism take place; they take over an entire
organization.
The medical
facility I work for underwent significant problems. It all started when the
office added a new practice manager for the medical assistants. Previously,
there was only one manager who was in charge of the human resources and the
personnel aspect of the organization but the owner of the practice noticed the
personnel was suffering because it was too much work for one person. When the
new practice manager started, as with any change, there was a lot of push back.
The practice manager was a person with leadership skills who care about her
employees compared to the other manager. She had a vision to where she wanted
to take the organization. She started by creating a training manual for
everyone as before training was done only when the time was available and
employees could only count on their on notes.
My practice
manager wanted to start an organization full of teamwork, where she did not
have to tell everyone what to do and what to help with. Nevertheless, employees
were very pessimistic about the entire change. And as it is expected, those who
were pessimistic started to recruit others into following same behaviors and
would do anything to make office practice manager look bad. Gary Yukl described
leadership as, “the process of influencing others to understand and agree about
what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating
individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives” (2013, p.
7). When the practice manager started to notice how the organization was
becoming apart, is when she started to be more pragmatic. A full staff meeting
was setup and all the issues were discussed. She requested for everyone to be
honest with her either with the group setting or in private in to make
improvements to the office and create a “happy medium.”
She was
definitely a “go-getter,” and had the power to make others listen to her
vision. After that meeting, more employees were able to understand where she
came from and where she wanted to direct the team. The crowd started to follow
her without hesitation and the changes started within the employees and
simultaneously reflected on the organization. Although, our leader did the
impossible to make others understand that “a better future is possible” (Kohn,
2007), there will always be a pessimistic crowd.
When it
comes to a healthy normally functioning company, some characters are needed. I
believe, pessimistic agents are not necessary because completely put the
organization’s morale down. On the other hand, a pragmatic agent is different.
Pragmatic agents tend to be realistic and more often than not, will take into
consideration all the possibilities and create a prognosis accordingly without
directly rejecting an idea. Moreover, visionaries are the key to the success of
an organization. Visionary agents are the bridge to the future as it is shown
on the video “ A tale of power and vision.” In order to move forward, we need
to know where are we heading and that is what a vision is good for. Power
encourages others into doing the impossible and motivates those who have
doubts. And lastly, the crowd is also important. A leader can be a leader to
him or her self but an organization needs the crowd to make anything happen.
The crowd is in charge of putting to work theories that leaders believe will
work. They are the testers.
References
Carter, H. R.
(2014). Do you know what an organization
is? Firehouse.Com, Retrieved
from
http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/1573068517?accountid=27203
Kohn, S. (2007). A tale of power and vision. [Video
file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZVIWZGheXY&feature=youtu.be
Yukl,
G. (2013). Leadership in organizations.
(8th ed.) Dorling Kindersley / Pearson Education, Inc.
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