Discussion Leadership and Organizational Behavior

Discussion Leadership and Organizational Behavior

Discussion Leadership and Organizational Behavior

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Part 1: Post a Response

Organizational behavior is really the combination of four areas of study – psychology, social psychology, sociology, and anthropology. While each of these areas involves an examination of people and their interactions, the focuses are quite different:

Psychology – studies the mind and how people make decisions. Social Psychology – examines how people work in groups. Sociology – explores how systems work within the organization. Anthropology – examines how culture works within the organization.

Now, assume that you are an organizational consultant and have been asked by a new CEO to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the organization.

· Of the four areas of study listed above, which would you focus on first?

· Make sure to explain why you chose this area, and why it would take precedence over the other areas.

Part 2: Respond to a Peer

Read a post by one of your peers and respond, making sure to extend the conversation by asking questions, offering rich ideas, or sharing personal connections.

For you to response as below;

With organizational behavior it is very important to understand the relationship that exist amongst the four areas of study: psychology, social psychology, sociology, and anthropology.  As an organizational consultant the area of study I believe I would focus on is sociology.  By evaluating the sociology first, I am first determining how an organization’s systems works, as you stated.  It is very important to understand how an organization operates and the different work processes that exist.  How an organization’s sociology exist shows the functions and how an organization is structured.  This helps to understand the psychology, social psychology, and anthropology of employees.

For example, I work in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at a Children’s Hospital.  The way the PICU operates of course, is to provide effective quality patient care.  Each employee plays a role in providing care to patients.  I am a PICU Unit Coordinator and part of my job is to make sure the PICU is run properly while the health care professionals (nurses and doctors) provide direct patient care.  I do everything behind the scene and help navigate patient families, while being support for the health care professionals.  My work process is to make sure that all patients are admitted/transferred/discharged, make sure that nurses are taking care of (mostly supplies and paperwork), and make sure that doctors have immediate contact with other doctors or staff.   As a consultant understanding the sociology of my job will help to understand my mindset when it come to very critical situations (psychology), how I work cohesively or non-cohesively with the the different health care professionals (social psychology), and how to handle different cultural families (social anthropology).

By understanding the sociology of my job will help to bring a better understanding of the psychology, social psychology, and anthropology of my job.  With that as a consultant I be better to see the strengths and weaknesses that exist.  From the sociology of how my unit is ran one area of strength we have is attentiveness.  The are of weakness would be communication.  The work process that exist that helps with attentiveness is mandatory bedside patient care.  By the PICU being the main ICU for critical care all nurses and doctors are required to be bedside at all times.  This helps to be able to react quickly to alert notifications.  When it comes to communication, the work process can be changed because when language barriers exist, it takes to long to get a interpreter when a surgical consent needs to be signed for emergency surgeries.  Strengths and weaknesses as I mentioned are real life work functions that exist at my job that would be seen by conducting focusing on the sociology of an organization.  Once the sociology of an organization is evaluated it would make it easier to understand to understand the psychology, social psychology, and anthropology of an organization.  Just like the text book states, “Organizations are open and adaptive systems that change over time while interacting with their environments to obtain resource  and transform them into useful products and services” (Uhl-Bien, Schermerhorn, & Osborn, 2014, p. 22).  This goes to show how important systems and work processes are within an organization and helps defines the overall organizational behaviors.

Uhl-Bien, ., Schermerhorn, ., & Osborn, . (2014). Organizational Behavior: Experience Grow Contribute (13th ed.). : John Wiley & Sons.