In my past workplace, the culture promoted by the managers was not optimal for improving the effectiveness of work, and the main reason for it was the lack of leadership in the organization, leading to inactivity. The resulting social system was characterized by the general unwillingness of employees to take responsibility for the outcomes of their actions and the desire to avoid discussing problems which created additional risks. This challenge is reported to be typical for companies in the absence of leaders and confirmed by scholars, who write that this issue decreases overall performance in the long run (Gonfa, 2019). Hence, the dysfunctional environment formed under the influence of the described deficiency was supported by the specified conduct of workers.
This example of an improper social system in the workplace corresponds to human behavior theories, one of which is classical conditioning. It means that “irrational fears as well as emotional reactions to certain situations” were developed by employees who wanted to avoid the punishment, which seemed inevitable in the context of the company (“Classical conditioning in behavior management,” n.d.). Thus, the patterns learned by all people within the organization were strong, and they could not be destroyed until leadership was developed. This situation was critical from the perspective of productivity, and recent research explains that work disengagement and a lack of accountability are directly connected (Aslam et al., 2018). In other words, the findings of scholars confirm that apathy among the people was conditional upon their attempts to avoid responsibility (Aslam et al., 2018). It means that weak leadership was the company’s main problem, and creating a favorable environment was impossible under the described circumstances.
References
Aslam, U., Muqadas, F., Imran, M. K., & Rahman, U. U. (2018). Investigating the antecedents of work disengagement in the workplace. Journal of Management Development, 37(2), 149-164.
Classical conditioning in behavior management. (n.d.). Employment Crossing. Web.
Gonfa, B. D. (2019). Review of effects of poor leadership skill in the organization: Evidences.Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review, 9(2), 381. Web.