Presented by: Daniela Medina Hidalgo S2924932 7891ENV Strategic Planning and Project Management Primary Convenor: Peter Davey Executive Summary The following essay is aimed to explore how the organizational behavior theories coupled with the leadership and strategic management styles affect the performance of organizations and the levels of satisfaction of employees. The essay relates the theories and concepts in the context of a real organization. The organization selected is the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) for which the author has worked for, since the year 2012. In the first section of the essay a brief overview of the organization is presented followed by a description on the concepts of organizational behavior, management and leadership styles and how these are used in different stages of the organization. In the discussion section it is argued that communication is also a fundamental generic skill aimed to improve performance. The essay concludes by acknowledging that IICA`s structure tend to favor a top-down type of management, nevertheless future challenges and demands coming from a younger generation of employees, might force the institution to shift towards more horizontal types of management to increase the levels of creativity, innovation and motivation of the staff. Overview of the organization The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) was stablished more than 70 years ago, with the purpose to promote agricultural development and rural well-being in the American Region. Throughout this time, it has evolved into an international cooperation organization that permanently responds to the knowledge and technical information demands of the agricultural sector across the Hemisphere. The Institute provides its cooperation through permanent collaboration with its 34 Member States (Country members of the Organization of the American States) and other International Cooperation Agencies. The headquarters of the Institute are located in San José, Costa Rica. In addition, there is a local office in each one of the Member State countries (for further details refer to the organizational chart in the annex section). IICA`s mission is to “encourage, promote and support our Member States in their efforts to achieve agricultural development and rural well-being through international technical cooperation of excellence”(Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, 2015). Facilitated by strong collaboration with partner organizations (most commonly the Ministry of Agriculture) form each Member State; the vision of the Institute is to “create a competitive, inclusive and sustainable inter-American agriculture that feeds the hemisphere and the world, while at the same time generating opportunities to reduce hunger and poverty among farmers and rural dwellers”(Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, 2015). IICA employs a total of 602 persons throughout the hemisphere, including local, international, and general services personnel. My personal experience with the organization has been as a local technical professional at the headquarters office. For two years I worked as a specialist in information and knowledge management for the agriculture, natural resources and climate change program. In the following essay I would use the insight gained on how the organization operates and my personal experiences, contrasted with the theories of strategic management, leadership and organizational behavior. The organizational behavior framework Organizations can be defined as social systems composed of 2 or more people that function towards the achievement of a common set of goals (Brief & Weiss, 2002). The ways in which organizations operate and are structured play a fundamental role in the levels of efficiency and relative success and satisfaction of both the organization as a whole and the individuals (Hackman & Oldham, 1976). As a result of that, the field of organizational behavior (OB) has been developed as a conceptual and theoretical framework aimed to study human behavior within organizations and the interactions between individuals and the organization itself (Moorehead & Griffin, 2010). The organizational behavior theories try to elucidate on why people behave on specific ways in an organizational environment and which factors affect the individual’s performance, the interaction between employers, the levels of commitment to the achievement of goals, and the influence of leadership and managerial styles in the overall performance of the organization (Robbins, Judge, Millett, & Boyle, 2013). The overarching aim of the study of organizational behavior is to apply a scientific approach to the management of individuals (Robbins et al., 2013). Hence, in a sense one of the main outcomes that organizations can achieve by applying organizational behavior theories is to maximize the productivity of individuals and their interaction amongst each other. In an organization with the size and scope of IICA there are two crucial elements in which improved understanding of OB theories might have a significant impact on the levels of efficiency and performance. These are planning and organizing. Planning includes defining the goals and the short or long term strategies, so that plans can be developed to coordinate activities (Robbins et al., 2013). IICA`s planning framework is based on a long term strategic plan that sets the goals for the next 10 years and a mid-term plan that is updated every four years. In addition, every employee has to present an individual yearly contribution plan towards the goals stablished in the mid-term plan. Even though that in theory this planning structure is aimed for each individual to align the work with the larger goals of the Institution, it is often common that the mid and long term planning frameworks are too generic and are often designed by the senior management structures of the organization, with little to no input from the technical specialists. This often results in a mismatch between what individuals can realistically achieve with their work and what the organization aims to accomplish. On the other hand the organization structure is a key determinant on how efficiently tasks are carried out, who is in charge of those tasks, how the tasks are done, to whom results should be reported and when decisions need to be made. Because IICA is an institution with a disperse structure, organizing becomes a major challenge. One of the most notable conflicts comes when coordinating activities between country offices and the headquarters. This division often has generated duplication of efforts and conflicts of power between technical middle management from the headquarters office and the office representatives. In addition, because each office has a representative that has a management and political role in the country as direct link with the ministry of agriculture, every activity that is carried out by the technical specialists from the headquarters office needs to be carefully designed and implemented with the approval of the office representative. This often generates delays and bureaucracy and failures of communication that have sometimes compromised the achievement of goals. The following sections of the essay will focus on leadership and strategic management styles that coupled by the OB study of IICA could potentially solve the above mentioned issues regarding planning and organizing challenges. Applied leadership theory and styles Leadership is a generic skill that is involved in a wide range of functions within a team, aiming to enhance the productiveness and support the achievement of superior collective results in a group (Tracy, 2014). These functions can be categorized into two main phases, according to the stage of development of a group: the transition phase in which a group is starting to form and the action phase that is achieved when a group is already established and starts to collectively undertake specific tasks (Lexa, 2010). The functions of leadership that correspond to the transition phase are to compose the team, define the mission, establish expectations and goals, structure and plan, train and develop the team, sense making and provide feedback; while in the active phase, the functions evolve into monitoring the team, managing team boundaries, challenging the team, performing the team tasks, solving problems, providing resources, encouraging the team self-management and supporting the social climate (Morgeson, DeRue, & Karam, 2009). The many functions of leadership and its relevance with regards to the different stages of development in a team reflect on how this generic skill is involved in practically all aspects of team management and influences the overall success of a team. The manner and effectiveness in which leadership contributes to successful team work is highly dependent on the type of leadership that is practiced in a group. For example, transformational leadership contributes to increase the performance in a group in the sense that this type of leadership enhances coordination between the members of a group, which at the same time influences the way conflicts are managed within the group (Zhang, Cao, & Tjosvold, 2011). Another example is that transformational leadership, in comparison to laissez-faire leadership, provides increased enabling conditions to facilitate learning amongst the members of a group, because it promotes “social cohesion and team psychological safety” (Raes et al., 2013). Additionally, when leadership in self-directed groups is shared between the members of the team, it helps to increase the performance of the group, because leaders are constantly emerging to solve the diverse challenges, according to the competences and personal qualities of each member (McIntyre & Foti, 2013). Therefore, the specific manner in which leadership operates and influences the efficiency of a group, tends to favor the horizontal types of leadership that allow members to express their personal strengths in benefit of the achievement of common goals and mutual rewards. Because IICA is a large organization with different divisions, it is likely that along the organization different managers express different types of leadership. With that regards, the senior management structure of the organization functions more under an authoritarian type of leadership in which decisions are made by a small group or single leader. This means that orders for action are delivered from on high and then implemented below by the underlings. Nevertheless, in my experience when my direct supervisor who is in a position of middle management translates those orders, he often applies a more democratic type of leadership in which he often forms a smaller group of leaders or committees to investigate issues and design proposals, the most important decisions are usually discussed and made in consensus between team members, and in many cases, all of the members of the team have the possibility to give opinions and determine the ways in which a task should be approached. These differences in leadership styles in the organization sometimes tend to cause conflict because they could be perceived as threats to the organizational structure and some managers could feel threatened by proactive individuals who make their own decisions. Overall from my experience, the teams in which managers allow individuals to take part in the decision making process and apply a transformational type of leadership tend to be more effective when dealing with high loads of work and pressure and solving unexpected situations. Management Approaches Management styles can be categorized into two main contrasting styles, autocratic and permissive (Stamp, 1989). The difference between those two is the degree in which managers intervene in the way individuals conduct their tasks (Stamp, 1989). The autocratic style of management tries to have more control over the individuals and the ways in which they accomplish their tasks and the permissive styles tend to be oriented to allow more freedom for the individuals to act (Yuan & Lee, 2011). Within those two main styles there a wide number of variations in the levels and types of interventions of managers. It is important to note that there is probably not a right or wrong management style as it is likely that managers have to adapt their styles depending on the circumstances and types of personalities they have to deal with. The following section presents a summary of the different types of management styles that are common in an organization like IICA: 1. Democratic or participative management The manager consults with the team before making decisions. Team leaders decide how tasks will be addressed, and who will perform them, while giving certain degree of freedom for the team members to suggest ideas and approaches (Queensland Government, 2015). 2. Bureaucratic management Bureaucratic managers try to make sure team members follow rules and procedures. They expect a formal, business-like attitude and are often common in organizations with a top-down structure (Queensland Government, 2015). This type of management is very common in organizations involved in high political context or when high safety and quality control standards might be required. In the case of IICA this is the type of management style that is applied between the country offices representatives. Advantages • The consultation among teams can help identify problems early and design a wider range of solutions •Good communication helps team member to feel empowered and taken into consideration Disadvantages •Too much consultation can be time-consuming and reduce business productivity. •Some types of employees want a manager to make decisions for them to feel comfortable and guided . 3. Autocratic management In this style of management a person in charge has total authority and control over decision-making (Queensland Government, 2015). They control the work of the team, and monitor the completion of each task often on a tight schedule and detailed plan. This style of management is most common for the general services personnel (secretaries, accountants, etc) in IICA as the loads of paperwork and administrative work can be high and the effective completion of projects depends on these types of employees to complete their tasks in a timely and concrete manner. 4. Laissez-faire management This is the approach that requires the less intervention from the manager (Queensland Government, 2015). The manager leaves the team to execute tasks on their own time and manner. The leader delegates most decisions. This is the type of Advantages • This approach can maintain high quality standards in situations that require great attention to detail. Disadvantages •It discourages independence and creativity among employees, sometimes leading to loss of interest in the job. •It can reduce longer-term productivity as employees become bored with their work. Advantages • Some people like to be told exactly what to do and have clearly defined taks to feel comfortable. •It is a way to secure that crucial tasks are met on time. Disadvantages •It can frustrate employees who prefer to have some control over their own work. management that is most commonly applied by my direct supervisor at IICA. Discussion As it has been presented previously IICA is a complex organization in which depending on the level of the organizational structure the different styles of leadership and management styles are shown. This sometimes creates an unpredictable organizational culture, because what might seem appropriate for some managers might be considered a breach in the management structure for others. One additional key aspect that is fundamental in the performance of an institution like IICA is communication. In conjunction with leadership, management, planning and organizing approaches, communication serves as a key element in the achievement of goals. Communication for an institution like IICA covers a wide range of functions and goes beyond the obvious purpose of interchanging information and ideas. The communication channels that the institution has put in place have the role of allowing collaboration between team members, facilitating the exchange of information related to the accomplishment of tasks and permitting coordination between members; which at the same time supports the adaptive management of the team, enabling the team members to respond with agility to sudden or unexpected situations that could compromise the attainment of goals. Furthermore communication is vital for the integration of team members, fostering the coordination of individual tasks with collective tasks within a group, which avoids duplication of efforts or breaches of productivity in team processes (Paris, Salas, & Cannon-Bowers, 2000). Overall while IICA is an institution that has been constantly evolving for over more than 70 years, the fact that the senior managers still Advantages • It gives employees a sense of empowerment and fulfilment. •It can foster creativity and innovation. Disadvantages •It requires staff to be responsible and committed to their work. •Problems may go undetected for some time until they become serious. tend to favor the more autocratic top-down approaches compromises the possibilities of the institution to attract and maintain young self-motivated professionals that might prefer more freedom in the workplace in order to improve creativity and innovation. In addition, the diversity of management and leadership styles coupled with the complex organizational structure requires additional efforts to improve communication among individuals and between the offices and the headquarters. Conclusions and Recommendations As it has been discussed in this essay the theories surrounding organizational behavior and strategic management styles provide valuable insights on how an institution like IICA could potentially improve its performance, the overall satisfaction and sense of accomplishment of the employees. From my experience, IICA is an institution that often has the potential to achieve significant impacts through policymaking, but sometimes these achievements are not properly communicated to individuals and that makes it more difficult for them to maintain a sense of direction in their work. In addition, the institute could benefit significantly from better communication strategies in order to reduce the duplication of actions and to improve the efficiency of the processes across all the offices. Furthermore, while the application of different management and leadership styles across the institution allows some degrees of flexibility it also increases the complexity of the workplace dynamics and leads to confusion on what might be or nor be acceptable for the organizational culture. Overall the more flexible and open management styles seem to resonate better within the technical staff while the political side of the organization tends to follow a more autocratic approach. While the years of existence of the institution and its organizational structure tend to favor a top-down type of management, the future challenges and demands coming from a younger generation of employees, might force the institution to shift towards more horizontal types of management to increase the levels of creativity, innovation and motivation of the staff. Annex 1. Organization Chart Reference List Brief, A. P., & Weiss, H. M. (2002). Organizational behavior: Affect in the workplace. 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