Summary of Case Article
Leaders have significant influence over organizational culture. They have the power to change or shape organization culture by modeling desired behavior through their actions (Whitehurst, 2016) .
Changing Workforce
There have been numerous changes in organizations’ demographics over the last twenty years. Many companies today boast of a diverse workforce comprising of employees from different genders, cultural backgrounds, age, and religion (Shaban, 2016). Diversity encompasses the observable and non-observable features that distinguish employees from one another. Management of workforce diversity is challenging because differences among employees affect the nature of their working relationship. Problems associated with diversity include discrimination, racism, and lack of inclusiveness.
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Relationship to Organizational Behavior
The article is directly related to organizational culture, which is a major concept of organizational behavior. Culture is the learned behavior of employees that evolves through their constant interactions with each other. For example, United Airline’s culture is safety and timelines ( Whitehurst, 2016) . The article is an excellent source of guidance for managers seeking to mold the organizational culture in their respective companies.
Additionally, the article is linked to the social learning theory. According to the social learning theory, employees learn through observation and following directions from the managers. Therefore, managers can focus on instilling the specific type of behavior among employees and become successful.
Challenges
The article presents two challenges in the workplace. First, there is the adoption of an open-minded mindset to allow for behavioral changes to take place in the organization. This includes allowing employees to make mistakes with the aim of obtaining positive results at the end of the process ( Whitehurst, 2016) . Another challenge is carrying out effective behavior change in organizations. Since culture develops over many years, changing peoples’ behavior equally takes a long time before the actual results can be realized.
Opportunities
However, organizations can take advantage of opportunities presented in the article to create better organizational cultures. One is using managers as change agents to influence behavior. Other than this, there is also enumerating the change stories in the article to make a difference.
References
Shaban, A. (2016). Managing and Leading a Diverse Workforce: One of the Main Challenges in Management. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences , 230 , 76-84.
Whitehurst, J. (2016). Leaders can shape company culture through their behaviors. Harvard Business Review .
