Organizational stress, leadership, and conflict management

Management

Future Applications of Organization, Stress, Leadership, and Conflict

With a future in business, possibly as a manufacturing plant owner, understanding key management concepts will be crucial to ensuring the success of my business. Let's consider each of these concepts in turn, to fully grasp how they will be of extreme importance in my future life in the business world.

The nature of the organization is an interesting area of management study. In particular, organizational culture is that shred set of beliefs and values that are pervasive throughout an organization. The organizational culture of any business or corporation affects employee behavior and the company's overall identity. A company can have a culture that creates a public image that it is unethical or socially responsible. An organizational culture might promote theft and greed, or it could encourage excellence and high ideals. Since organizational cultures are affected drastically by the actions and dictates of upper management, it falls upon the owners and those in positions of management power to set and maintain an organizational culture that is conducive to the long-term goals of the organization. As a planned business owner, this responsibility would fall, to a large degree, on my shoulders.

Second, stress can play a large role in any business. In a business context, stress is generally understood to mean too much work; but the reality is that too little, or monotonous work, can also be stressors. Actually, a moderate level of stress can be good because it can challenge employees to work harder and improve their performances. Stress may be the psychological state wherein individuals experience situations that tax or exceed their available personal resources; but this can be an opportunity for many employees to rise to the requisite challenge, improving themselves and the business's goals in the process. As a planned company manager, it will be important to regulate the general stress levels of the employees. This means monitoring stress levels, determining the root causes of that stress, and then acting to ensure that the stress experienced is at a level that actually improves the performance of the employees.

Third, we must consider leadership. A discussion on important management concepts and techniques wouldn't be complete without an examination of leadership. But, then, what is leadership? Unfortunately, the available literature on the subject is less than clear, with different researchers coming up with different criteria and different proofs. The three top theories are trait, behavioral, and contingency. The first argues that leaders simply possess inborn traits that make them so. The second presumes leadership can be learned, and the third takes a more holistic approach incorporating individual traits with specific action and individual circumstances. For my own purposes, the final conception of leadership is the most appropriate; it will permit me to, in the future, adapt my leadership style and actions to the varied situations that will arise during the course of running a business. Attempting such a task based on a limited number of personal traits or history of behaviors may not be wise; taking a contingency approach allows more flexibility.