Organizational politics: reconciling leaderships rational-emotional paradox
Article Type: Abstracts From: Human Resource Management International Digest, Volume 19, Issue 4
Sheard G., Kakabadse A.P. and Kakabadse N.K.Leadership & Organization Development Journal (UK), 2011, Vol. 32 No. 1, Start page: 78, No. of pages: 20
Aims to study and characterize the political nature of a manager’s behavior when taking leadership action. Design/methodology/approach – The methodological approach is qualitative and examines three organizations over a three-year period when these entities experienced a major product failure. The paper analyses the actual managerial behavior of managers and provides insight into the factors that most strongly influence the effectiveness of managers when taking leadership action. Findings – Political behavior when taking leadership action can be conceptualized in terms of rationality and emotionality. In so doing, it can be clarified how behavior must be modified to ensure that leadership action is consistently effective. Research limitations/implications – A case study of three multinational engineering companies engaged in the design, development and manufacturing of turbomachinery provides the platform for the research. The concepts presented in the paper will require validating in other organizations of different demographic profiles. Practical implications – The concepts presented and the implications discussed provide insight into the political nature of managerial behavior when taking leadership action. The paper highlights the practical steps individual managers can embrace to ensure that their behavior is appropriate to context,even under the most traumatic situations. Thus, the paper provides managers with a model that facilitates effective leadership action. Originality/value –This paper provides insight into how managers behaved in circumstances that mattered to them. Through immersion in events at the time they took place, the authors captured situations in which managers were under real pressure and, in so doing, avoided the bias inherent when interviewing a manager about past events. As such, the paper concludes that the political behavior in which managers engage when taking leadership action is rooted in the reality of the adversity that the most capable managers have both experienced and overcome. This detailed study reports behavior in a situation where managers’business and future prospects were in jeopardy. This paper identifies why some managers were able to use the experience positively, helping them to adopt politically intrinsic behavior to facilitate effective leadership action.ISSN: 0143-7739Reference: 40AE950
Keywords: Organizational politics, Management development,Leadership, Learning
