Effects of Transformational Leader Behavior

Question: Discuss about the Effects of Transformational Leader Behavior. Answer: Introduction: Workplace bullying is a practice of persistently mistreating others at the place of work, and it causes emotional or physical harm. This practice can include tactics such as humiliation, physical, physical, verbal, and nonverbal abuse. Managers, human resource personnel, and other employees have a role to play to prevent workplace bullying. Human resource personnel are tasked with the duty of managing workplace bullying complaints. Studies have demonstrated that it is possible to manage this process by understanding its causes. The antecedents of workplace bullying are organizational and work-related factors (Oade 2009). While HRP plays the critical role of identifying, managing and preventing workplace bullying, very little has been known about how they interpret and respond to an actual complaint. Recent research has shown that when there are conflicting accounts to establish credibility, but there is no witness or evidence, HRPs are alone to sort out the issues. For this problem to be solved, trust between HRP, managers, and employees is essential. The major problem is that HRP distrusts the claims of employees regarding bullying and does not trust the ability of the management to deliver key HR practices, though they prioritize their relationship with managers. Additionally, HRP is prone to privileging senior and experienced managers accounts, but they trust employees who are considered to have performance issues less (Catley et al. 2017). Trust between HRP and witnesses are also critical. Most witnesses are reluctant to support bullying cases due to fear of being a target and pressure to conform. This is a major problem as well (Catley et al. 2017). A majority of bullying cases also involve superior-subordinate relationships. Sixty-percent of bullying cases fall under this category (Catley et al. 2017). HRP often find it difficult to solve these cases. However, there is need to investigate the pathways of bullying further to better understand the relationship between context, behaviors, severity, duration, and source (Crisis in the Workplace 2016). Implications of Advancing HR practice Bullying cases should be addressed early on. Otherwise, they manifest into multiple complaints. Some of these complaints are complex and require expertise and a lot of time. Besides, reaching a common ground becomes extremely difficult (Oade 2009). Failure to address bullying is commonly attributed to the behavior being considered acceptable; the organizations misunderstanding of bullying and believes that resolving disputes is not their responsibility (Catley et al. 2017). Another recent study has for the first time considered in detail the relationship between work environment and individuals. This study has developed a model that borrows some principles from other models to illustrate the significance of appreciating different factors can interact to explain workplace bullying. The study draws from victim precipitation theory and explains target characteristics, the responsibility of the work climate in simulating behavior, and dyadic interactions. It also includes a time, and through that, it suggests that many dispositional personalities and stressors are able to represent antecedents as well as the right outcomes (Samnani Singh 2016). In addition, the study shows that this type of bullying can have unconstructive impact on teams regarding group norms that normalize bullying and bring down overall team cohesion. Another study reinforces this concept by stating that moving forward viewing both the target and the perpetrator, and there is a need for a theory for explaining the interaction (Karadag 2015). An atmosphere of power imbalance at the workplace, as well as a bad social atmosphere, increases the probability that workers with the characteristics of a target will experience this type of bullying. Perpetrator characteristics like envy and narcissism can become moral emotions that fun bullying actions on targets. Besides, bullying actions have the capacity to influence team norms over some time. Many studies on workplace bullying norms center on cross-sectional research designs (Samnani Singh 2016; Recognizing 2016). Recent conceptual models provide that work climate and others can work together with target characteristics and consequently smooth the progress of the development of bullying behavior. The off-putting effects of workplace bullying reaffirm the necessity for executives to work against forces that can support bullying. Executives and human resource managers can solve this by flagging circumstances under which people with bullying characteristics can work together with other employees with conflicting characteristics. Besides, they should closely observe the work climate, and their policies that are related to power and discrimination to make certain bullying behavior is discouraged. This interaction model widens the scale of bullying and amalgamates several levels into a single theoretical model, which demonstrates the significance of the underlying phenomena within the expansive context of workplace bullying (Samnani Singh 2016). Longitudinal Effects of Organizational Change There is also longitudinal impact of change on some bullying behaviors. Research has established the impact of task-related change on some acts of bullying and relational changes on endorsed acts of bullying. After a detailed analysis, research has proved that there is no direct link between organizational change and the existence of workplace bullying. Nevertheless, it also suggests that differential impact can emerge from organizational change (Holten et al. 2017). The same research indicates that the longitudinal relation that exists between task-related change and experienced adverse acts of bullying points to the fact that changes in equipment, allocation of work tasks as well as work methods can result in experiences of being bullied by other employees (Bommer et al. 2005). These problems can be understood within the interpretative process perspective as either a course of action in which change is directly considered bullying or procedural, disruptive and interactional justice. Change efforts that fail to solve organizational change justice in most cases result into angry, frustrated, and cynical employees (Bommer et al. 2005). Within interpretative frameworks of the study, experienced and enacted bullying can be roles that different people can have at different times and which different circumstances and conditions can trigger. These types of workplace bullying reflect a process and not a fixed position. This finding shows multiple organizational conditions impulse sensitivity that involves enacting or experiencing bullying in distinctive ways (Holten et al. 2017). Leadership quality and negative affectivity, instead of working as moderators, influence the extent to which employees practice and act out bullying directly at the place of work. It also links unenthusiastic affectivity positively with co-worker abuse and concerning experienced negative acts; it shows that when people report high levels of negativity affectivity, they are at a high risk of perceiving social interactions as negative, which can also be an indicator of intentional bullying (Holten et al. 2017). The relationship between negative acts and leadership quality indicates that the advanced the leadership quality that individuals interact with, the less they are able to experience and endorse bullying acts. Earlier leadership studies have centered on deficiencies in leadership behavior, leadership styles, and leadership enacting bullying towards people under them (Bommer et al. 2005). However, recent research shows concentrated on the effect of general leadership quality (Holten et al. 2017). The Impact of Workplace Bullying On Individual Being Other studies have also investigated the impact of workplace bullying on individual being and found that bullying impairs peoples psychological well-being, has a deleterious organizational effect and erodes self-esteem. Individuals who have access to psychological help experience improved well-being, irrespective of whether they experience stress from bullying or not (Berstein Trimm 2016). This bullying literature also supports assertiveness as a moderator between well-being and bullying. Assertiveness enables people to be able to take control of situations, and it helps in the development of resilience within individuals if used successfully. Avoidance moderates between well-being and bullying and bullying and self-esteem. At the same time, doing nothing moderates between well-being and bullying. However, the direction of these effects is counterintuitive. Both of these factors have a harmful impact on both well-being and self-esteem. For that reason, when seeking help, assertiveness is a useful coping strategy, while avoidance and doing nothing are not (Berstein Trimm 2016). Concerning organizational structure and power differentials, these factors can limit the degree at which people feel capacitated to seek help or be assertive. Due to power differentials, seeking help and assertiveness sometimes do not work and may compel and count for people taking part in avoidance and doing nothing. Power differentials play a significant role in that how the target will react heavily depends on whether they are being bullying horizontally or vertically (Berstein Trimm 2016). With regard to human resource policies and procedures as well as human resource responsiveness, the extent to which human resource is perceived to be responsive to and efficient in handling bullying grievances can also determine the degree at which targets seek help from this resource. If employees consider that HR cannot be responsive to dealing with complaints, it is highly unlikely that they use make use of the resource. Most of them report their significant others instead (Shaw 2006). Workplace Bullying Among Academics The occurrence and manifestation of workplace bullying among academics is also a significant aspect to explore. Research shows that academic leadership in Pakistan use workplace bullying to advance their selfish interests. They do this by discrediting people who question them. The common bullying tactic among these professionals, however, has been work-related contribution ignored, being subjected to unnecessary criticism, unnecessary work monitoring others, and other leaders delaying action on critical matters. Other research has indicated that if one intends to harm his colleague in this field, they design a behavior to undermine their authority, competence, and professional standing. They may also impede access to resources that are key to their success (Ahmad 2017; D'cruz, P., Noronha 2013). Regarding the demographic risk factors, there are indicators that female professionals are at a high risk of being bullied. However, this aspect is not supported with empirical evidence in the case of Pakistan Academics (Ahmad 2017). Studies that indicate that women are at a higher risk were conducted in male-dominated occupations. Since females have a significant representation in Pakistan universities, the trend could not be the same. However, the finding indicated that individuals between the age bracket of 40 and 50 had a higher risk of being bullied than the general population. This revelation suggests that middle age academics have lower thresholds of tolerance for this particular behavior, which makes it easy for them to respond to bullying behavior. While the research also found some slight difference in the occurrence of workplace bullying between private and public universities in the country, the differences were no significant. This finding contradicts past studies that suggest greater risk of being bullying in public universities (Hoel et al. 2010). In conclusion, this paper provides a comprehensive insight into occurrences and characteristics of workplace bullying that has never been explored. It also explores new causes of workplace bullying and suggests the best solutions and presents a holistic view of the complaint management process. Since research is a continuous exercise, it presents findings that can form the basis for further research. Researchers can consider better approaches to preventing and managing workplace bullying so as to create a healthy academic culture and health workplace culture in general. 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