Interactive Behaviour at Work Essay Example

Interactive Behaviour at Work Essay Example Interactive Behaviour at Work Essay Interactive Behaviour at Work Essay Cheniere Energy was founded in 1983 and is a universe taking liquified natural gas ( LNG ) company. Through its subordinates the company engages in the development, building, ownership, and operation of onshore LNG receiving terminuss and natural gas grapevines in the Gulf Coast of the United States. It besides engages in oil and natural gas geographic expedition and development activities. Cheniere Energy is based in Houston, Texas with offices in Johnson Bayou, Louisiana, and London called Cheniere International UK Branch. The London office consists of six people who are responsible for sourcing and trading LNG ladings for Cheniere every bit good as pull offing the twenty-four hours to twenty-four hours operations and activities of the office. Purpose of the study The intent of this study is to analyze work issues at Cheniere International UK Branch ensuing from office torment and specifically the struggle between an office helper and the operations director. It focuses on the synergistic behavior subjects associating to communicating, work relationships and leading. Definition of Interactive Behaviour at work The term synergistic behavior at work refers to the mutual communicating behavior of two or more individuals. It covers both their overt behavior and the factors and processes underlying it. It besides extends to the usage of communicating for intents such as self-presentation, co-operation, act uponing others, working in groups and leading. ( Guirdham, 2002 ) Definition of the subjects Communication Harmonizing to Guirdham ( 2002 ) communicating is a procedure of reassigning information from one entity to another. Interpersonal communicating at work may be face-to-face or indirect, formal or informal, and transmitted verbally or nonverbally. Communication is affected by linguistic communication, communicator manner, the differences between one- and bipartisan communicating, power and position, civilization, gender and disablement. These effects on communicating give rise to barriers, which can be analyzed as intrinsic, single degree and inter-group. To be high in quality, communicating must get the better of these barriers. Work relationship Mutuality and societal orientations, functions, norms and conformance every bit good as co-operative, competitory and conflict behaviors are all constructs that help us to understand and be more effectual in work relationships. Other of import facets related to the issues discussed cover conflict declaration, cultural differences, get bying with bias, favoritism and torment. ( Guirdham, 2002 ) Harassment is defined as: behavior which is unreasonable, unwelcome and violative, and which creates an intimidating, hostile or mortifying working environment. ( Mullins, 2005 ) Harassment is a possible cause of emphasis. The Health and Safety Executive ( HSE ) defines emphasis as: The inauspicious reaction people have to extra force per unit area. It is non disease. But if emphasis is intense and goes on for some clip, it can take to a mental and physical ailment wellness . Leadership Leadership can be defined as the ability of an person to act upon, motivate and enable others to lend towards the effectivity and success of the administration of which they are members ( Guirdham, 2002 ) There is a close relationship between leading and direction, particularly in work administration, and an increasing inclination to see them as synonymous. However, arguably there are differences between the two and it does non follow that every leader is a director. Leadership might be viewed in more general footings, with accent on interpersonal behavior in a broader context. Harmonizing to Mullins ( 2005 ) due to its complex nature there are many alternate ways of analyzing leading. Leadership may be examined in footings of qualities or traits attack, in footings of the functional or group attack, as a behavioral class, in footings of manners of leading, through the situational attack and eventuality theoretical accounts, and in footings of differentiation between transactional and transformational leading. Problem designation The issue discussed in this study involves the deteriorating relationship between a director and an helper ( myself ) in a little office environment. In add-on the study looks at the behavior of a manager of the company involved to whom the employees were straight responsible to. Matters discussed include the designation of cardinal points of struggle between the two individuals involved, the manner of direction, the reaction of fellow employees, the interaction with the manager involved and stairss taken to decide the issue. Background and causes of jobs I joined the Cheniere International UK Branch in 2008 as an office helper. Working at their London office in Mayfair where there were three other employees at my degree, two were English and one was an American. I was the lone one holding English as a 2nd linguistic communication. The operations director was a mature English lady with a really strong personality and an accretive attitude. I noticed that I was being asked to make well more work than the other helpers and that the director was questioning my attempts every twenty-four hours. At first I thought this was because I was new to the occupation and that it was a manner of mensurating my capablenesss and ability to get by with the emphasiss of the work. It became clear nevertheless that this was much more of a peculiar attitude toward me as compared to the other employees. Possibly write something about working in a multi-cultural environment or perchance highlight that there was predomination of white Anglo-saxon employees and as such no exposure to different civilizations or cultural diverseness. Inter-cultural jobs arise when members of an in-group perceive members of an out-group as inferior. This can advance in-group favoritism, increased inclination to pigeonhole members of out-groups and negative attitudes to existent or sensed cultural differences. It can ensue in exclusion of members of out-groups, negative ratings and torment. In a little office environment it would be unusual for person in a place of authorization to experience threatened by a individual junior employee. It is hard to give any clear cases of torment, as such, as this was a elusive but changeless undermining of my place on a day-to-day footing. This was evident in her changeless unfavorable judgment of my work and mentions to my Polish background and English non being my native linguistic communication. I made a point of inquiring the other helpers to look into my work and they ever said it was all right and that was merely her manner and non to worry. One happening that began to give me an penetration to her behavior was when she asked me, in forepart of all the other helpers, why I did non work as a nursemaid or cleansing agent as all other Polish misss did . This indicated to me that there was the possibility that her actions were non really based upon my public presentation but upon a much deeper bias and possible stereotyping of Polish people ( either jointly or by gender ) . In a unusual manner this was a alleviation as until so my assurance had been undermined and I felt under emphasis at work. It seemed nil I of all time did was right, I was frequently depressed, both at work and at place and it was hard to understand why she picked on me and what was doing the job. It besides made it hard for me to seek to see how I could decide the job. Bing cognizant of the personality clang between us I was seeking to understand what caused her hostile behavior and I blamed myself that it was I who caused the struggle, but on the other manus I knew I usually neer have any major jobs prosecuting with people, being an easygoing and friendly individual. The Thoms-Kilmann Conflict Mode Questionnaire can be utile in explicating my stance in the struggle. Scoring 9 in avoiding and 9 in suiting manners shows that I am non an self-asserting individual, do non wish to ache people s feelings, obey orders and I am by and large a altruistic type of individual. ( See Appendix x for a transcript of the Thoms-Kilmann Conflict Mode Questionnaire you took. ) It was really hard to delight and fulfill her likely because she developed irrational beliefs and prejudiced positions about me. If being from Poland meant to her that I should be a nanny or cleaner she possibly believed that people of other races or backgrounds are in some manner inferior and hence merit to be treated as 2nd category. Harmonizing to Tehrani ( 1996 ) the deficiency of ego consciousness in harassers increases their frights and bias. Harassers neer experience strong plenty to prove their positions objectively, preferring to populate in an irrational universe, where they need to continually back up their prejudiced positions with colored grounds. To explicate even deeper her behaviour I would state she portrayed the actions of a stigmatizer. Freidson ( 1983 ) stated that in Erving Goffman s theory of societal stigma a stigma is an property, behavior, or repute which is socially discrediting in a peculiar manner: it causes an single to be mentally classified by others in an unwanted, rejected stereotype instead than in an recognized, normal one . In this director s eyes I was different ; she may non desire to accept me because of my nationality, my different speech pattern, my beginning. Goffman divides the person s relation to a stigma into three classs: the stigmatized are those who bear the stigma ; the conventions are those who do non bear the stigma ; and the wise are those among the conventions who are accepted by the stigmatized as wise to their status. I so represent a stigmatized individual, the director is normal and remainder of our squad can be seen as wise. Strategic Deductions of the job My instance can be seen as a micro job because it describes a state of affairs in a little office and merely a few people are involved in the struggle. I am the lone individual who was harmed and it could be argued that it is hard to demo macro deductions from this issue. However, I would wish to emphasize that torment at the workplace occurs really frequently and causes a batch of jobs. Harmonizing to the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service ( ACAS ) torment in the workplace costs employers in the UK more than ?2bn per twelvemonth in ill wage, staff turnover and lower productiveness. 19 million on the job yearss are lost each twelvemonth as a direct consequence of workplace torment. 1 in 4 people report that they have experienced torment in the last 5 old ages. 70 % of HR professionals have witnessed or have been cognizant of torment in their administration. Administrations that fail to turn to the job of unacceptable behavior at workplace wage a heavy cost in footings of loss of staff, reduced invention, morale and sickness absence. This is in add-on to the cost of judicial proceeding and bad public dealingss ( Tehrani, 1996 ) . My issue did non impact the administration in a important manner, except high staff keeping within 1 twelvemonth two office helpers left the company because of Jane s hard character. As mentioned before 25 % of the population suffer from torment. By depicting my personal experience I raise an issue that affects a batch of people and something that organisations have to cover with. Harassment is related with work relationship one of the chief subjects which are described in this paper. Harmonizing to Tehrani ( 1996 ) torment has a figure of common elements ; it involves a hurtful behavior, this behavior is repeated over a period of clip and the individual being harassed discoveries it hard to support themselves. Peoples being harassed will besides hold trouble in being rational in their thought, believing the Acts of the Apostless or positions of a harasser are the positions of everyone else. When I was working for Cheniere I was droping sad, negative and worthless. In add-on my feelings were heightened with effusions of choler, shouting, solitariness and injury. Lack of pleasance in about everything that I was making was important and hard to get by with. Bing h umiliated resulted in the deficiency of ego assurance to asseverate myself and dispute the unacceptable behavior of operations director. It needs to be added that torment is linked with emphasis. Guirdham ( 2002 ) stated: Some of the major effects of emphasis include slumber problem, fatigue, being unable to get by good in struggle state of affairss, desiring to be left entirely, smoke, imbibing and eating excessively much, being unable to act upon or carry people and happening it hard to acquire up in the forenoons . I recall that I was frequently really tired, could non kip, and did non desire to see my friends or household. Some people were inquiring me why I let her be opprobrious and ill-mannered towards me. The reply is because she had power over me. As I mentioned I held the lowest place in the office and I was supposed to listen to everyone and making whatever they needed at work. Among Gallic and Raven s ( 1959 ) power beginnings there is one which can be implemented in this state of affairs coercive power. ( Podsakoff and Schriesheim, 1985 ) Threats and penalty are common tools of coercion. I was frequently given unwanted undertakings by Jane. There is one in peculiar where she spilled tea on her desk and asked me to clean it. My illustration demonstrates that this beginning of power can frequently take to jobs and in many fortunes it involves abuse. Coercive power can do unhealthy behavior and dissatisfaction in the workplace. ( mindtools.com ) From my above rating it can be stated that the operations director was decidedly my important other at that clip. She had really strong influence on my self-esteem and my behavior. Many administrations and their directors and executives are guilty of ignoring, digesting or prolonging struggles and torment ( Guirdham, 2002 ) . This statement confirms the behavior of my manager who was seeking to explicate me that I should accept the fact that Jane is by and large a hard individual and hence should non take it personally what she says and how she behaves. Lack of leading qualities can be seen in my foreman s attitude. A big part of the bing literature on leading focuses merely on the positive traits of leaders. However, the alleged dark side of leading , or negative personal traits of leaders, has received comparatively less attending. Besides, in pattern, leading is largely evaluated in footings of the positive traits and strengths of leaders, even though certain organisational factors and followings features significantly contribute to the effectivity or ineffectualness of leaders ( Toor and Ogunlana, 2009 ) . The manager was non an effectual leader. A leade rA who lacks character or unity will non be seen as a competent one. Even though he was intelligent, amiable, persuasive, or understanding, he was besides prone to apologizing unethical behavior. Office torment is a really unethical issue and should be resolved by a company s leader, but it was non in my instance. Furthermore leaders non attuned to the demands of the employees are non effectual either. Successful leaders focus on workers satisfaction and trueness. They should happen ways to systematically prosecute them and integrate them into company s policies and do certain they know and obey their codification of behavior. If they ignore, mistreat, or otherwise do non value their employees, they will non be valued for competencies. Furthermore good leaders should pass on efficaciously across mediums, constituencies, environments of class employees. My foreman was cognizant that Jane s behaviour was harmful but did non respond and did non desire to be involved in the struggle. Th is observation can take to a statement that the manager represented a laissez faire leading manner. Harmonizing to Flynn ( 2009 ) this type of a leader describes inactive leaders who are loath to act upon subsidiaries or give way. They by and large refrain from take parting in group or single determination devising and to a big extent, abdicate their leading function. Subordinates are given considerable freedom of action and, hence, seem likely to maximise their power and influence. Although laissez- faire leading can be really successful in some environments where followings are responsible for self-monitoring, job resolution in my instance it was non what I needed. I was looking for a go-between in my struggle with Jane, person who can direct and take stairss to decide the job. From Blake Mouton Managerial Grid position, it could be argued that the manager represented Impoverished Leadership which is known for making a work environment that is non fulfilling and non actuating. The consequence is a topographic point of disorganisation, dissatisfaction and inharmoniousness. ( Rollinson, 2005 ) My foreman had low concern for employee satisfaction because cognizing I was depressed and was in a struggle he was non concerned about it. A major danger of stereotyping is that it can barricade out accurate perceptual experience of an person and lead to possible state of affairs of bias or favoritism. This in effect can construct communicating barriers. Jane s inclination to impute negative features to me on the footing of a general classification was a simplified procedure of her perceptual experience. Her pigeonholing procedure based on my nationality and instruction had a important deduction to the ambiance in our office and my well-being. Her bias caused communicating job between us. Harmonizing to Erven ( 2008 ) stereotyping is a barrier to communicating when it causes people to move as if they already know the message that is coming from the transmitter or worse, as if no message is necessary because everybody already knows. Peoples stereotype genders, races, faiths, and civilizations. They combine them to state things but frequently falsely making premises. Stereotypes develop from world. Poles steal British occupations became a stereotype because a batch of Poles are hapless and had to larn how to last and came here to look for a occupation but they do non merit to be stereotyped. It might be true that most of Polish adult females work as nursemaids or cleaners but, it does non place me, my demands, and my failings. So if Jane used the stereotyped position of Polish adult females towards me, she missed who I really am, as an person. I wanted to pass on, talk to her and did non desire to be lost in the stereotyped construct. Peoples are complex and need to be understood as persons, non stereotypes. Singularity is what gets lost in the stereotypes and deficiency of proper communicating. Peoples should listen, understand, see the whole individual, and that requires rejecting the preconceived premises, b ased on the stereotypes that are created and used. Communication is at the bosom of many interpersonal jobs faced by employers. Understanding the communicating procedure and so working at betterment provide a formula for going more effectual communicators. Knowing the common barriers to communicating is the first measure to minimising their impact. Stereotyping is a barrier to proper communicating, it can non merely interrupt communicating, it can destruct it. The significance of non-verbal communicating and organic structure linguistic communication demand to be evaluated in this study as in my instance it was more of import than verbal communicating. Harmonizing to Mullins ( 2005 ) non-verbal communicating includes illations drawn from position, gesture, touch, invasion of personal infinite, extent of oculus contact, tone of voice or facial look. Very frequently the operations trough was utilizing proper linguistic communication and if was non obvious for others to see the struggle between us and her aversion. Her tone of voice and facial look were directing messages that I was non accepted and were unwelcomed. Mullins ( 2005 ) adds besides that in our face-to face communicating with other people the messages about our feelings and attitudes come merely 7 per cent from the words we use, 38 per cent from our voice and 55 per cent from organic structure linguistic communication, including facial look. Significantly, when organic structure linguistic communication such as gestures and tone of voice struggles with the words, greater accent is likely to be placed on the non-verbal message. He besides suggests that when verbal and non-verbal messages are in struggle ( like in my instance sing communicating with the operations director ) accepted wisdom is that the non-verbal signals should be the 1s to trust on, and that what is non said is often louder than what is said, uncovering attitudes and feelings in a manner words can non show. Alternate options for deciding job Leave the occupation or stay. Peoples have bad yearss at work. But if that bad twenty-four hours is every twenty-four hours, it might be clip to see go forthing the occupation. Some causes of occupation dissatisfaction are impossible to change, and in this instance employees may good be better off doing an issue. Leaving the occupation is normally a really hard determination and can frequently do assorted emotions: joy because of traveling on to something better, unhappiness at losing people we enjoyed work with, alleviation we do nt hold to get by with the job and struggles any longer. Uncertainty about the hereafter and new occupation has normally a large impact on people s determinations. I was besides concerned about my hereafter. Staying with Cheniere was an alternate, but I was concerned how I can alter the ambiance and Jane s behavior. Talking to her or to my foreman were the options to do my work conditions better. Alternatively I could remain with the company and attempt to accept the environment and atmosphere, and seek to cut down sensitiveness to ill will or shows of bias. Mullins ( 2005 ) evaluated hard people: Possibly our reluctance to place, and so straight address, struggle within administrations is based upon the widely held belief that struggle is inevitable, negative and unwieldy . There is a inclination to see struggle as a consequence one individual s personality. Conflict may be inevitable, but how dramatically state of affairss could be changed if we could besides see it as positive and manageable. What if we think of these state of affairss as raising inquiries of difference? What if we were to do a displacement off from faulting persons and their personalities, acknowledging alternative ly that it is through normal human interaction that outward looks of difference are produced? Unfortunately get bying with hard people is non one of my strong points. Another option was to crush her at her ain game. Act like her, be unsympathetic, stating co-workers how unjust she is. This option would be really hard because she held higher place and therefore had power and because I respect people it wound be something against my values and beliefs. Choice of option I was seeking to decide the job. I talked to the manager but was ignored and was told that I should accept the state of affairs as it is and accept Jane s behavior because she is hard and she is non traveling to alter her attitude. Another advice was that I should be less emotional and seek to be mentally stronger. He did non wish to talk to Jane to inquire to alter her attitude and assist her to get by with her hostile behavior. Tehrani ( 1996 ) argue that the function of leader in developing the accomplishments which enable people to pass on in an unfastened and self-asserting mode is possibly one of the most effectual tools in turn toing struggles. The support of an self-asserting and caring director is an of import facet of rehabilitating a harasser. Harassers need support when they are developing the new accomplishments and behaviours in communicating which will replace the harassing behavior. I besides talked to Jane but I was told that I read her purposes severely. She was see king to state me that there was no issue between us and I should non blow her clip for such conversations. Rationale for pick Because I had an interesting occupation, was satisfied with my compensation I did non desire to go forth therefore I was seeking to happen a declaration. I was non accepted by one of the colleagues but I did non desire to be a victim of torment. I was seeking to be a subsister. Harmonizing to Tehrani ( 1996 ) victims of torment often express the position that there is small they can make to forestall the torment taking topographic point. They have no pick but to set up with what is being done to them. This perceptual experience of deficiency of personal control or power must be changed if the harassee is of all time to do sense of what has happened to them. Survivors, on the other manus, are able to get down to do picks and determinations about what they want to make to halt or decide the torment. Survivors of torment take an active portion in make up ones minding how they would wish things to be handled when deciding their jobs. They are acute to take duty for doing things go on, in stead than acting passively, leting others, nevertheless good intending, to take over control. One of the chief accomplishments subsisters of torment learn is to be self-asserting in showing what they want and do non desire to go on during the harassment probe ; to be able to state yes or no regardless of the wants of others. Assertiveness is besides one of the most of import accomplishments needed to forestall harassees going victims of torment in the hereafter. Finally the subsisters of torment are able to look frontward to the hereafter, a hereafter without torment, while the victims concentrate on the torment itself, instead than on how they can alter things to forestall the torment happening once more. Although I was seeking to assist myself, was looking for aid from the managers and besides arranged a meeting with Jane, nil changed. Execution of Option I finally decided to go forth. It took me 2 hebdomads to happen another occupation. The difference in the on the job environment was huge. New colleagues were pleasant and friendly. I am glad that I took control over the state of affairs and left the company. I will neer to the full bury this experience but sometimes we should see and accept the extremes, because if the contrast is lost, we lose grasp. Time for Implementation I was working for this company for 5 months before passing in my surrender. Decision In recent old ages at that place has been an increasing acknowledgment of the injury that could be done to persons who become the victims of torment or intimidation. Although there have been important moves to present statute law and guidelines that deal with the debut of organisational policy and processs on torment and intimidation, the happening of torment is still common in many British organisations. My instance in this paper can be perceived as a representation of this job for many organisations. This is non an easy issue to cover with for troughs, people who cause torment and most of all for people who suffer from hostile behaviour. Background and causes of such struggles are frequently inexplicit and non easy to decide. Understanding the communicating procedure and communicating barriers is of import to efficaciously command the job. Leadership accomplishments and appropriate usage of power can be important.