Impact of Leadership Styles on Team Performance: A Shell Case Study

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments. This report analyzes organizational behavior at Shell.

Organizational behaviour

Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
LO1..............................................................................................................................................................4
LO2..............................................................................................................................................................8
LO3............................................................................................................................................................13
LO4............................................................................................................................................................19
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................23
Reference list.............................................................................................................................................24

Introduction
Organizational behaviour is considered as the academic study of the methods people act within a
group. Maintaining appropriate organizational behaviour within the organization premises is
always mandatory for all the business ventures those are conducting different business operations
to generate higher amounts of profits. Disciplined and appropriate balance in organizational
culture and behaviour can such bring positive changes within the firms. Apart from that,
attractive organizational behaviour allows better employee engagement and gathering attention
of more numbers of potential customers. Most of the successful business organizations such as
“Shell” always concentrate upon implementing and maintaining an appropriate organizational
culture within their organizations so that they can better manage and conduct their business
operations and maintain the brand image in the market as well.
This paper will shed light on the influence of politics, culture and power over others’ behaviours
across the company boundaries of “Shell”. Effective methods of motivating individuals as well
as team for achieving business goals will be evaluated in this portion of the study. The
significance of co-operation and the processes of influencing co-operation within the firm along
with several philosophies will be displayed in the paper as well.

LO1
Analyze the influence of culture, politics and power on the behavior of others in an
organizational context.
Organizational culture influencing behaviour
The organizational culture plays a very important role in developing the employee engagement
and imparting cohesiveness within the team behaviour (Elsmore, 2017). Shell is one of the
leading institutions that demonstrate the impact of an exemplary organizational culture and how
it influences the efficacies of teamwork in their business operations. The maintenance of positive
employee interrelations is of paramount importance when it comes to the rigors of oil rigging
operations. The aspects of the organisational culture at Shell are described through the Handy’s
Typology:
Task Culture
It is defined through the prospect that underlines the proficiency of coordinated team effort to
accomplish the organizational objective (do Carmo Silva et al., 2014). This kind of culture is
prevalent within the organizations that have the employee bases which share common interests
and able to correlate with the aims of the business. The managers of Shell has been adorning this
culture through their associations with the Team Building and Events (TBEA) to facilitate their
team work where the participants are encouraged to work together in developing new
innovations of the prevalent business operations (Tbae.co, 2019). This experience has played a
main role in the modification of the oil extraction process.
Role culture
The aspect of the culture is to impart optimal productivity within the organization by making
scientific assessment about the potential of the employee base. This helps the organization to
achieve several milestones as the employees are optimistic about taking up challenges and
actuate on them. The distribution of the power is associated with the extent of responsibility
shared by a particular employee. The leaders of Shell has been observed to take out a leaf of the
books of role culture as the company has instantiated on MBTI assessment tools to identify the
potential candidates who would adorn the potential leadership role.

Power culture
There are few institutes where the power vestiges in the hands of few individuals. They are
authorized to instantiate on major decisions (do Carmo Silva et al., 2014). They enjoy special
dispensation at the workplace. These individuals play most important role at the workplace and
serve as the major decision maker’s .Shell has been discouraging the use of power culture as it
could bring down the organizational structure and undermine the company’s virtues of
maintaining the Ethical Code of Conduct.
Person culture
It gives valuation to the individual entities as compared to the organization’s purposes. These
kind of attributes have been observed to demean the productivity of the organization as they are
self engrossed with themselves and overlook the company’ s well being. The employees are
found to be de-motivated as the employees work for the sake of salary. Shell ash been known to
demean these type of culture as the organizational motive is to maintain the well being of the
employees and improve the productivity.
Nature of power and politics influencing organizational behavior at Shell
The use of power is essential to maintain a hold on the employee base as the company would
falter if they fail to adhere to certain stipulations. Power is laid through the administrative
structure that is followed by the workers in order to keep the organizational cause above the
personal gains. The French and raven power base is going to be implemented when it comes to
the assessment of the power within the Shell.
Legitimate power
The power is associated with formal means of assertions and is distributed among the
individuals, in accordance to the positions that is designated to them (Meng et al., 2016). The
origination of the power is based on the prowess of the influencer and the capacity of the
influenced party. Shell has been avoiding the implementation of such means of power as it is
very unstable and predicable in holding onto the employee base. The oil industry has been
observant to some incremental changes in the refining processes and requires utmost contribution
of its existing human capital. Thus it cannot run the risk of losing the employee base with such

drastic changes and hence has to disregard the associations with the instability in the employee
base, reflected by legitimate power
Referent power
It is derived through the admiration that is reflected by the followers on the ideals, shared by a
leading personality. The use of the referent power in workplace asserts on making good relations
with the employees and the leaders at shell has been reflecting on it by attending to the
employees in the times of economic recession. Thus it has helped in asserting their influence.
The positivity shared by the referent power is based on the lines of sharing common ideology
between the influencer and the target. Shell has been transcending on it as the employees and the
leaders share the common goal of innovating the business operations and gain a competitive edge
in the energy department.
Expert power
The dominance of this power base is reflected through the notions that the people acquiring
hogher positions in the organisational hierarchy are based on their extent of skill and knowledge
(Meng et al., 2016). It is very beneficial for the organization as productivity is one of the main
aspects of an institution. In order to achieve that the leader has to set an example with their
achievements, demonstrating their expertise and has been taken by health and safety team at
Shell. The leaders in the department have responded with exemplary response in time of fire
breakouts in the drilling process and thus ahs gained on expert power.
The organizational politics play a key role in influencing the organizational behaviour
(Cacciattolo, 2017). One of the major prospects that is shared by the employees at Shell is the
prowess in their motivational work. The times of recession has been observant to some
hardships within the employee base but the leaders made the use of the transparency in the
organizational politics to alleviate the motivation of the employees by providing them with the
means of monetary incentives. This has been one of the strategies of organizational politics at
Shell to maintain optimal productivity through the means of motivation.

Figure 1: Organizational Iceberg
(Source: Slideshare.net, 2019)

LO2
Evaluate how to motivate individuals and teams to achieve a goal.
Motivation is another important consideration that has such the ability of influencing the entire
workforce of organizations such as towards accomplishing the organizational goals and targets in
a more effective manner. However, there are basically there are two types of motivation; one is
intrinsic and other one is extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation refers to behaviours, which is
driven through external rewards. External rewards refer to grades, money, frame and praise. On
the other hand, intrinsic motivation refers to behaviour that is actually driven through internal
rewards. In simple language, the motivation of engaging in behaviour arises from within the
individual as this is intrinsically rewarding. Companies like “Shell” have always concentrated
upon adopting adequate and effective theories and philosophies for keeping their employees
motivated and satisfied with their job all the while.
In order to increases the motivation standard, “Shell” has the opportunity of using both theories
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Herzberg’s two factor motivation theory to better motivate
their employees.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a motivation theory and it has five-tier model of basic human
needs, often depicts as hierarchical standards across a pyramid. For the first time, Maslow stated
that meeting the basic needs of human beings is mandatory for increasing their performance. He
also stated that most basic needs for physical survival are the first thing, which motivated our
behaviour. According to Maslow, there are mainly five stages of needs; psychological needs,
safety needs, love and belonging needs, eastern needs and self-actualization needs that play the
most vital role in motivating individuals or teams (Datta, 2014).

Figure 2: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
(Source: Cherry, 2014)
Psychological needs
This includes biological needs for human survival such as food, drink, air, warmth, clothing,
sleep, sex and others. Human body cannot function optimally if these needs are not satisfied. As
per the consideration of Maslow, compared to other needs, psychological needs are the most
important as the entire needs become secondary until or unless these needs are fulfilled.
Safety needs
Safety needs are also important that has included protection from different elements, order,
security, laws, and freedom from any kind of fear.
Esteem needs
Maslow classified esteem needs into two different segments; one is esteem for oneself that
includes accomplishment, gravity, self-determination, mastery and others. On the other hand, the

respect from others or the desire for the reputation such as status, position and others is also
included (Ozguner and Ozguner, 2014).
Love and belonging needs
Human beings also have social needs and feelings of belongingness. After the psychological and
safety needs, this love and belongingness needs are considered as the most important needs in
human lives. This is fact that, need of interpersonal relationship motivates behaviour of
individuals. Friendship, love, trust, acceptance and others are the example of esteem needs.
Self actualization needs
Seeking personal growth as well as peak experience and understanding personal potential, self-
fulfilment are included in this category.
In summary, Maslow stated human beings are motivated through a hierarchy of needs.
Companies such as “Shell” can use this motivation theory of Maslow for keeping their employee
motivated all the while within their organizational premises.
Herzberg’s two factor motivation theory
Apart from that, Herzberg’s two factor motivation theory is also important. This theory argues
that there are only two factors, which a company can adjust for influencing motivation across the
workplace (Alshmemri et al., 2017). These two factors are; hygiene factors and motivators.
Motivators refer to those who can encourage employees for working harder. Hygiene factors
would not encourage staffs for working harder; nevertheless they will cause them for becoming
unmotivated in case they are not present.

Figure 3: Herzberg’s two factor theory
(Source: Sanjeev and Surya, 2016)
In the above image the impact of motivating as well as hygiene factors has been summarised.
Hygiene factors are considered as factors for dissatisfaction as well as motivators referred to as
factors for satisfaction. Companies like “Shell” also has the opportunity of using this effective
theory in their organizational premises to better motivate their employees and enhancing their
performance level successfully.
In 1964, Victor Vroom who was the professor of Canadian Psychology College developed this
Expectancy theory. Both Maslow and Herzberg focused at relation between internal
requirements as well as resulting efforts expended for fulfilling them, where the theory of Vroom
concentrates upon separating efforts, performance and outcomes. Expectancy theory of Vroom
determines that conscious choices among different alternatives results in behaviour. Their main
purpose is reducing the pain to minimum and enhancing the pleasure to maximum. Vroom
realised that performance of a staff is relied upon individual factors like skills, personality,

knowledge, abilities and experience. He also described that motivation and performance are
interlinked in motivation of a person. “Shell” can use this theory as well to increase their staff
motivational level.
Emotional intelligence refers to the capability of individuals of recognising their own emotions
as well as those of others, utilise emotional information for guiding thinking and behaviour,
discern between various feelings and label them properly and manage of adjust emotions for
adapting to environments or accomplish one’s target.
Managers and teams always have some soft skills such as communication, teamwork,
empowerment, decision-making, empathy, problem solving and so on those are beneficial for
them (Lippman et al., 2015). These soft skills are extremely important for both managers and
team. Managers can better manage and influence their workforce to accomplish the business
objectives more effectively through just making use of their soft skills like perfect verbal
communication, decision-making skills, team work, co-operation skill and others.
On the other hand, team work, co-operation, empathy are the factors that team needs for
extending their performance to their maximum level. For an instance, employees can better
connect with employees and enhance the sales revenue through making proper communication
with them.
Task oriented leadership theory highlights a leader, who is motivated through achieving tasks as
well as concerned along with the important roles as well as particular tasks for staffs. It makes
policies and processes, informs juniors of these processes along with improves criteria to
evaluate staff performance, where leadership oriented theory outlines a primarily motivated
leader (McCleskey, 2014). This often acts as mentor to their juniors. “Shell” “Shell” being one
of the leading gas and oil service proving companies across the globe, “Shell” needs to adopt
these theories in their firm to gain better business outcomes.