People and Organizational Management

Running head: PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONAL MANAGEMENT
People and Organizational Management
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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................2
Assessing the impact of leadership on employee behavior and performance:................................3
Critical discussion on the significance of organizational structure and culture on the operational
efficiency: .......................................................................................................................................6
Discussing the role of personality and value on the work and life outcome of General Motors:. 13
Role of motivation on employee behavior and performance:.......................................................19
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................25
References:....................................................................................................................................31

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Introduction:
Extreme uncertainty in the market is acting as a driving force behind the companies to
rethink about their business process. This, in turn is putting extreme pressure on the companies
to restructure their business process in the attainment of their predetermined goals and
objectives. Kitchin (2017) commented that as the employees are solely responsible for improving
organizational process, it is imperative to assess their attitude and behavior towards the
workplace. There lies the significance of studying organizational behavior (OB). Organizational
behavior can be considered as the study of values and perception of the individual and group of
employees towards workplace. Effective organizational structure plays a significant role in
running an organization in a consistent manner.
According to Moerdyk et al. (2015) it is the prime responsibility of the managers of
corporate entities to study organizational behavior as it supports them to understand the attitude
of human resources in a better way. One of the greatest advantages of studying OB is that it
helps in generating motivation among the human resources. Clay-Williams and Braithwaite
(2015) highlighted that as believe and perception of the employees are different from each other,
studying OB can help them to apply appropriate motivational technique as per the nature of the
human resources.
Present paper will put forth the discussion of the management of people and organization
in the context of General Motors. This is one of the largest American multinational vehicle
manufacturers. This is currently operating their business in more than 30 countries across the
world. The total number of staffs of the company is 180,000 and as per the official report, the net
income of the company during 2017 is US$ -3.864 billion (Gm.com. 2018). Agile organizational

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structure is being followed in General Motors, which is helping them to support the effort of the
staffs towards improving the organizational performance. Therefore, this organization has been
chosen in order to show how effective organizational behavior is supporting the company to be
the giant in the automobile industry.
Assessing the impact of leadership on employee behavior and performance:
Rapid development of globalization, technological advancement along with the inclusion
of free market process are playing a pivotal role in amplifying the competition in the global
level. This is also increasing the work stress on the companies. Renz (2016) stated that as they
the employees are the key factor in attaining success from business, effective leadership is
gaining extreme importance in terms of leading the employees towards proper direction.
Leadership can be defined as the process of guiding and leading individual as well as a certain
group of employees towards proper direction and thereby enable them to work with utmost
proficiency. As discussed by Bolden (2016) leadership is one of the most significant factors
towards amplifying the experience of the employees towards workplace.
Good leadership is highly imperative for introducing motivational factors for the
employees which is the key of strengthening work related commitment among them. There lies
the success factors of General Motor (GM) as the company is extremely committed to improve
motivation among the staffs by practicing proficient leadership. For instance, Mary T. Barra- the
CEO of GM is considered as one of the greatest leaders who has introduced zero crashes as well
as zero emission with the intention of making a healthier planet. Barra is highly focused on
improving the durability of the products. Under her democratic style of leadership, effective
training and development session has been introduced for the sake of enabling the staffs to adapt
high-end technology. In addition, Dan Ammann- the president of General Motors, is another

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greatest leader of the organization. He is responsible for controlling the core business operation
of General Motor across the global level. Multiple strategies have been implemented by him in
order to strengthen the inner capability of the company and thereby improve its financial stability
(Gm.com. 2018).
Proactive leadership acts as a confidence boosting factor in an organization which is
highly significant of accelerating productivity of the company. Goetsch and Davis (2014)
observed that leaders such as Mary T. Barra and Dan Ammann play a major role in improving
the level of confidence among the employees of GM by providing them with multiple working
options and supporting them to run a self-directed team. Therefore, the leaders of General
Motors is holding a great style in order to create mission and vision among the staffs. As per the
Fiedler's Contingency Model of leadership, the style of leaders must be aligned with the
situation. This model has been developed during 1960 with the intention of showing the fact that
the trait of the leaders is the crucial factor in determining a group effectiveness. Fiedler has
developed a scale of least preferred coworker in order to indicate the behavior among the staffs
(Balon 2014).
Figure 1: Fiedler’s LPC Scale
(Source: Balon 2014)
As per this scale, the leaders with higher score are extremely interested towards
maintaining healthy relationship with the subordinates while the leaders with lower scale are
highly task oriented. There are several situational factor which according to Fiedler are major

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factor in determining the durability of leadership. Buil et al. (2018) showed that Leader-
member relation is defined as the extent to which the group members of GM trust the leader
and follow his guidance. Position power is another vital factor, through which the leaders can
exercise their power in terms of guiding the staffs towards proper direction. One of the greatest
advantages of this framework is that it supports in exploring the best manager. As the
contemporary business environment is extremely volatile, flexibility in General Motors is very
much needed in adapting different situation. There lies the benefits of this model which highlight
leadership trait in accordance with different situation. However, Anitha (2014) argued by saying
that this model has been criticized due to the discussion of leaders with low LPC score. If any
company will find low LPC score within a leader, then it will immediate that leaders. Therefore,
there is no basis of discussion of the leaders. Contrarily, Buil et al. (2018) showed that this model
supports the managers along with the leaders to apply best tool, which can improve the group
performance.
According to the leader-member exchange theory, it is imperative to maintain healthy
relationship in between leaders and the members in order to lead them towards proper direction.
This theory focuses on maintaining vertical relationship in between the leaders and the group of
employees, which is the key of enabling the staffs to understand their roles and responsibilities.
In the context of General Motors, the staffs are being encouraged to run their self-directed team,
which acts as a greatest motivational factor for the staffs. This I the reason, for which the rate of
employee turnover is quite lower for the organization. In addition, the higher authority of GM is
highly committed towards providing reward among the employees based on the performance.
With the assistance of leader-member exchange theory, GM is becoming able to generate better

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job attitude among the staffs. The way, through which the leaders of General Motors behave with
the staffs is one of the most significant factors in influencing the performance of the employees.
Trait, behavior and activity of a leader is a major factor in motivating a workforce. There
lies the importance of Charismatic Leadership which shades light on the fact that charming and
persuading characteristic of the leaders is highly significant factor in inspiring the subordinates.
As per the discussion of Herrmann and Felfe (2014) it can be said that this is the way, through
which emotional responses of the followers can also be triggered. Charismatic leadership is the
ability to boost motivation among the staffs and enable them to perform their assigned task with
utmost proficiency. Charismatic leaders demonstrate the level of willingness among the staffs to
take responsibility which is the key of achieving organizational goal and objectives.
Effective leadership style of GM is one greatest strength, with the assistance of which
they are getting immense success throughout the world. The enigmatic personality of Mary
Barra- the CEO and chairman of the company is playing a pivotal role in the way of amplifying
their inner functionality. She is extremely intended towards maintaining transparency with the
staffs and providing them with necessary information to the staffs for the sake of helping them to
understand their roles and responsibility. Mary Barra beliefs that allowing employees the
decision making process acts as a motivational factor by stimulating a sense of empowerment
among them (Forbes.com. 2018). At the same time, Barra also beliefs that the leaders hold the
responsibility of creating strong corporate culture which can generate positive behavior among
the staffs.

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Critical discussion on the significance of organizational structure and culture
on the operational efficiency:
Organizational structure is one of the most important factors in running the internal
functionality of a company in a systematic manner. The structure of an organization is
responsible for setting the hierarchy of responsibility along with multiple communication level
within an organization. Therefore, organizational structure must be set up in such a manner
which can help in improving its productivity (Narman et al. 2016). The productivity of human
resources is largely dependent on the organizational structure. Therefore, incompetency within
the managerial structure can hamper the coordination between different departments which in
turn can affect the productivity. According to the observation of Horch (2018) effective
organizational structure can act as a significant tool, through which strong business related
decision can be initiated. In addition to that, proper organizational structure also results in
smooth flow of information throughout the organization. This is the way, through which an
effective channel of communication can be initiated which is very much needed to keep every
department informed about business process. Contrarily, negative organizational structure can
breakdown the level of communication in the organization (Alvesson 2016). Departmentalization
by product is one of the most significant strategy, followed by GM. This strategy supports the
individual department of the organization in accordance with their work, which is being
controlled by the senior management. Decentralized centralization strategy is being followed by
General Motors with the intention of buying a particular raw material from one particular
industry. This is the way, through which they are becoming able to handle their raw materials in
global level. Division of workers in accordance with their skill and ability is one of the greatest
strategies, followed in GM. The workers are being assembled in accordance with their