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Final Paper

Allen, ###84550

University of British Columbia

COMR 329 Section 102

December 5, 2020
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Reflection

Organizational behavior examines human behavior within the context of individuals,

groups, and the organization itself through a multidisciplinary approach. The implications of

organizational behavior can be applied to real-life situations beyond formal organizations and

teams. As a multifaceted approach, organizational behavior concepts can be discussed as having

linkages between one another​. ​I will discuss the linkages between motivation, leadership,

personality, power and politics, and organizational structure.

Although motivation is often discussed in the dichotomy between intrinsic motivation

and extrinsic motivation, I learned in class that recent studies have suggested a third category —

prosocial motivation. An in-class example of prosocial motivation is the increase in productivity

for lifeguards after having heard stories about the social impact that former lifeguards had on

others from saving lives. I note that my work experience at the volunteer centre indicates the

three levels of prosocial motivation and their effects​. ​In this centre, although we, as a group of 25

people, served 2500+ daily in 4 hours, we were able to intersperse lunch breaks for small

subgroups. During lunch breaks, I was able to interact with the staff, who were participants and

graduates of the addiction recovery program. In my discussion with these staff, I learned that

their reasons for entering the program were that after all the harm they inflicted on others, they

wanted to better the world to the same degree. Their past enforced their desire to help others at

the global level. Although the program provisionally served to represent their desire to benefit

others at the contextual level, the program graduates would find employment in the nonprofit

industry, which indicates prosocial motivation at the situational level. This implicates that the
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prosocial motivation framework could be used to facilitate work performance by finding the

most suitable employees.

The motivation and goals to impact others meaningfully can be furthered by

transformational leadership. An example of transformational leadership discussed in class is

Steve Jobs, who is often tied to Apple’s success due to his capacity to manifest goals and serve

as a vicarious role model. There are consequences to excessive levels of the idealized influence

component in leadership. A contemporary example of such consequences is the inexplicable

devotion from followers in the Bikram Yoga organization. Bikram Choudhury built a financial

enterprise by selling $10,000 instructor training for his fitness program Bikram Yoga (Horton,

2019). Follower productivity was inhibited due to excessive dependence on their leader and

instilled beliefs that their success was defined by leader approval. Where did the dependence and

beliefs arise from? The mutual feature of the people, who had signed up for Choudhury, the

leader of Bikram Yoga, and his organization was low self-esteem and lack of direction in life

(Horton, 2019; Turner, 2019). Furthermore, follower wellbeing suffered significantly due to the

leader manipulating their perceptions of self-worth. An example of the twisted perceptions of

self-worth is that despite common occurrences of “calling one woman a ‘bitch’ and ‘chicken

shit’” (Delaney, 2019, para. 15), there was an unwavering devotion from his followers (Delaney,

2019).

This highlights the degree of power that people can have over others. I learned that

people assert influence over others through reliance on power base(s). Legitimate power may

promote employee compliance, however, it neither fosters commitment nor task significance.

The conventional reasons for lack of both commitment and task significance are that tasks
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become monotonous and procedural, as opposed to being a positive collective action, and there is

a lack of autonomy, which mirrors workplace coercion. Choudhury held legitimate power, as he

was the founder of the Bikram Yoga organization. Choudhury’s legitimate power was only

fueled by his grandiose sense of self, or narcissism. This inflated sense of self-importance could

be identified by followers, who commented on him with devout veneration (Delaney, 2019;

Turner, 2019), and his claims about having “coached Elvis Presley and saved President Nixon”

(Horton, 2019, para. 4). This implicates that adverse effects can occur when personality

reinforces power bases within a cult-like organization. The organization covered shortcomings in

commitment and task significance by forming connections between self-worth and program

participation and correlating financial success to approval and program completion from

Choudhury. Low self-esteem and lack of direction in life led to the relationship between

self-worth and program participation (Horton, 2019; Turner, 2019). Regarding task significance,

followers could establish their own Bikram studio if they earned approval from Choudhury

(Delaney, 2019; Turner, 2019). Ultimately, commitment and task significance decreased, as

followers realized how misleading their beliefs about Bikram Yoga and Choudhury were.

Choudhury and the Bikram Yoga enterprise may be an extreme case of the negative

effects of leadership when compounded with socially undesirable traits and excessive reliance on

power bases. Nonetheless, it provides ample reason to mitigate the unrestrained influence of an

exclusive leader. A bureaucratic, tall organizational structure may provide such restraints

through​ ​high degrees of departmentalization and centralization. These aspects were apparent in

my work at an offshoot of an affordable housing organization in California. As a temporary hire

in this organization, I solved daily maintenance issues around the residence building. Whenever
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problems occurred outside of my expertise, middle management resolved my requests, while the

leader merely acted as a symbolic figurehead with voting rights. During the waiting process for

their decisions, I was granted access to the employee directory, which separated the company

based on functions and geographical neighborhoods. The company formed departments such as

property management, maintenance and repair, and community engagement. In a bureaucratic

structure, high departmentalization and compartmentalization improved operational efficiency by

enabling faster decision making. Decision making improved through decreasing ambiguity

surrounding authority in decision-making and narrowing the span of control.

Regarding organizational behavior linkages, I highlighted the possible incorporation of

prosocial motivation in finding suitable employees. I extended the notion of an impact on others

to transformational leadership. In the example of Steve Jobs, transformational leadership has

positive effects. However, I suggested that transformational leadership can have adverse effects

when it comes to high levels of the idealized influence component in leadership. I contextualized

these effects through the example of the Bikram Yoga organization, resembling a cult, and its

narcissistic leader, who was aggravated by a legitimate power base. I implied that a cult-like

organization, which enforces legitimate power, will eventually fail when it relies on weak

foundations for commitment and task significance: (1) low self-worth and (2) lack of guidance in

life. While limiting leader influence by enabling middle management to make decisions, a

bureaucratic, tall organizational structure can improve decision making by decreasing ambiguity

around company roles. These interpretations may serve to broaden the real-world application of

organizational behavioral concepts.

Word Count: 1098

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Research

In organizations, management and human resources have struggled to implement

successful strategies for fostering diversity. This lack of success has made management question

the supposed benefits in diversity in the workplace. Problems of discrimination and systemic

racism have lionized leaders for calling for reformative change (Melaku et al., 2020). However,

the prescribed changes were informal, short-term strategies that lack effective action (Melaku et

al., 2020). To genuinely initiate direct change, the societal majority group, which often consist of

leaders in organizations, is suggested to become allies to underrepresented minorities (Melaku et

al., 2020). In the case of the United States, white men are asked to partake in allyship actions,

which includes understanding and investigating further into the history of systemic bias,

intervening in daily situations that perpetuate workplace discrimination, and providing

workplace skills and networking opportunities, of which may be less available due to lack of

representation (Melaku et al., 2020).

An anecdotal example of the problems that minority groups face is my African-American

friend Lucy, who hopes to find employment in the finance industry. Lucy was a stellar applicant,

who had managed to land several investment banking internships, scored above a university 4.0,

and spearheaded several campaigns for financial literacy. Lucy informed me about her struggles

in the finance industry in terms of lack of acknowledgement, bystanders, and lack of opportunity.

As her upper executives never highlighted the history of systemic bias in discriminatory hiring

practices, this implicated permission for employees to engage in racist behavior and no intentions

to implement diversified hiring practices. There were many instances she was told by coworkers

that she was intelligent for someone of her race and she was not as rowdy and aggressive as
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some of the members in her community, i.e. African-Americans and women. Although other

workers saw such instances, they simply ignored what was occurring. She was often left out of

networking events, as company invites to major events such as “old boys’ clubs”, happened to

only extend to Caucasian men. Due to lack of both diversity and networking opportunities, her

financial success and upward mobility were restricted within her company.

This example raises several questions. Did the company miss out on the potential gains

from diversity? If there are benefits to diversity, how should companies implement strategies to

maximize such benefits? What are effective strategies that will overcome the predicted resistance

to diversity initiatives? Empirical findings suggest that the answers to these questions can be

found in diversity within leadership and the general organization, as well as diversity and its

long-term effects, of which resemble prosocial motivation.

Research on an increase of women directors in French corporations following the

Cop​é-Zimmermann Act, which required certain French companies to have 40% of women in

their board of directors, indicates that greater gender diversity improves firm performance, while

reducing firm inefficiencies ​(Sabatier, 2015). It also finds that diversity can provide further

benefits, as diverse boards invite more diversity through networks with the minority group and

knowledge of boards that are willing to hire more people from the minority group (Sabatier,

2015). This indicates the importance of how diversity in leadership leads to more diversity

through a feedback loop. It also highlights the significance of prosocial motivation, as desires to

improve the opportunities for minority groups leads to efforts such as the Copé-Zimmermann

Act and diversity hiring practices.

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In an attempt to have greater diversity in the workplace, companies facilitated mandatory

diversity training, which backfired as it led to overall hostility and resistance (Velasco &

Sansone, 2019). Velasco & Sansone (2019)​ find that transformational leaders are effective in

promoting diversity, as they are able to decrease resistance by discussing the individual and

collective benefits in their articulated vision, enabling followers to transcend their self-interest,

and bringing argumentative, yet stimulating conversations.​ ​To structurally resolve resistance,

conversation should revolve around fear-based resistance, as it often involves employees feeling

removed, or they anticipate loss in income or position when advocating for inclusion (Velasco &

Sansone, 2019).

Regarding dialogue and diversity, Bradley (2020) discusses that diversity can be

implemented through inclusive leadership, in which leaders acknowledge their shortcomings,

therefore inviting alternative perspectives to improve decisions. Several health studies have

shown that high-calibre hospitals are able to involve minority groups in discussions and

incorporate a diversified staff across the hierarchical distribution in the hospital itself (Bradley,

2020).

Kelemen et al. (2020) finds that gender diversity has a duality effect, as it can either

improve or worsen team performance. Under the criterion that leader vision communication and

team tenure are high, gender diversity serves to improve team performance, as leaders are able to

empower their followers and teams are able to overcome their differences (Kelemen et al., 2020).

High team tenure indicates that the team has been able to overcome gender biases or differences

(Kelemen et al., 2020).

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The pertinence of creating diversity can be seen in my anecdotal example of Lucy, in

which her financial success and upward mobility were limited due to ongoing systemic problems

of discrimination. Although diversity may be important in resolving inequalities, diversity needs

to be important in the operational context for companies to engage in diversity hirings and other

diversity practices. The research on women in board of directors in France sheds light on the

reduction in operational inefficiencies and improvement of operational performance that

companies can experience as a result of more hiring of minority groups, i.e. women (Sabatier,

2020). Velasco and Sansone (2019) further highlight the importance of the connections between

diversity and leadership, as transformational leaders are able to lower animosity towards

diversity practices. Alternatively, inclusive leadership serves to capitalize on the gains in

diversity through greater hiring of minority groups and utilizing the different perspectives and

experiences that diversity has to offer (Bradley, 2020). Kelemen et al. (2020) suggests that these

benefits are only offered with high leader vision communication and team tenure. These insights

enhance the relevance of diversity within organizational behavior. Further research incorporated

into this discussion could be used to promote diversity within organizations as a real-world

application.

Word Count: 1002

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References

Bradley, E. H. (2020). Diversity, Inclusive Leadership, and Health Outcomes. ​International

Journal of Health Policy & Management,​ 9(7), 266–268.

https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.15171/ijhpm.2020.12

Delaney, B. (2019, December 2). ​He made a fortune from his trademarked Bikram yoga, but

now his empire is in tatters. ​The Guardian​. Retrieved from

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/dec/03/he-made-a-fortune-from-his-trad

emarked-bikram-yoga-but-now-his-empire-is-in-tatters

Horton, A. (2019, November 20)​. 'He got away with it': how the founder of Bikram yoga built an

empire on abuse. ​The Guardian​. Retrieved from

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/nov/20/bikram-choudhury-yoga-founder-abuse-

netflix-documentary

Kelemen, T. K., Matthews, S. H., Zhang, X., Bradley, B. H., & Liu, H. (2020). When does

gender diversity enhance team performance? The dual need for visionary leadership and

team tenure. ​Journal of Applied Social Psychology,​ 50(9), 501–511.

https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.1111/jasp.12690

Melaku, T. M., Beeman, A., Smith, D. G., & Johnson, W. B. (2020). Be a Better Ally. ​Harvard

Business Review​, 98(6), 135–139.

https://hbr.org/2020/11/be-a-better-ally

Sabatier, M. (2015). A women’s boom in the boardroom: effects on performance? ​Applied

Economics​, 47(26), 2717–2727.

https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.1080/00036846.2015.1008774
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Turner, L. J. (2019, November 26). Netflix's Bikram documentary gets even more disturbing

with recent developments. ​Digital Spy.​ Retrieved from

https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a29868988/bikram-choudhury-now-netflix-document

ary/

Velasco, M., & Sansone, C. (2019). Resistance to Diversity and Inclusion Change Initiatives:

Strategies for Transformational Leaders.​ Organization Development Journal,​ 37(3),

9–20.