Organizational toxicity

Review the ten sources of organizational toxicity described in Peter-O’Grady and Malloch and describe the ways in which these can be handled by leaders to make the organization healthy.

ANSWER

Porter O’Grady and Kathy Malloch in Quantum Leadership reveal a framework that can be used by nurses towards the examination of organisational toxicity. The sources describe are ten in number and include a vertical authority structure in health organisations which often prompts staff to think that there is lack of trust from their leadership. Poor recognition and reward practices to employees who do their work diligently. Abuse of power where items such as sexual harassment are not acted against and poor leadership is left to thrive. No respect towards employees where leadership thinks of them as tools that can be obtained and replaced at will without much effort to retain them. Poor motivation strategies where leaders do little to generally improve the working conditions for the employees towards inspiring them. Antisocial behaviour like gossiping and bullying are let to remain and continue impacting the organisation without leadership doing anything to mitigate. Poor mentorship and when mentored, young employees are also taught toxic work environment traits. Dishonestly and inconsistency where leaders cannot be trusted to keep their word. Poor promotion of work-life balance where employees work too many hours and are left with barely any time for their social lives. Lastly, poor advocacy in an organisation where the people tasked with presenting the people’s issues are not good at it. These ten are the foundation of a toxic work environment. This essay aims at addressing ways in which these can be handled by leaders to make the organization healthy.

Improvement of communication models between nurses and their leaders as well as themselves is the first vital approach to making an organisation healthy. Communication is a vital and integral instinct not only for human beings but for all living things. It involves an exchange of information between two or more entities. However, effective communication involves more than just an exchange of information; it involves comprehension, processing, and transferring information. It involves taking notes on one, gestures, body language, as well as a spoken language (Gudykunst 1988). The communication process has six major components attention, avoiding judgment, reflecting, clarifying, summarising, and sharing (James 1984). An improvement of these aspects of communication will avoid problems associated with poor advocacy, dishonesty and inconsistency, antisocial behaviour, poor respect for employees and a poor recognition and reward system.

Secondly, both employees and employers stand to gain a lot from a proper reward and incentive system in the workplace. Reward ensure employees feel valued at work and in turn improve their motivation and commitment to their jobs which eventually improves their efficiency in productivity. Tailored benefits strategy can improve an organisations’ means to keep the nurses motivated and satisfied. Organisations must understand the nature of their employees and respond effectively in terms of their benefits packages. For instance, young employees might not pay much attention to healthcare benefits or retirement benefits instead, they may be more interested in their holiday or study benefits. Overall, this can help attract talent to a company.

Thirdly, implementation of work-life balance is a key component in improving the working conditions for nurses. Older generations did not have this element in their careers and often spent too much time at work and too little time in their social lives (Rumpel 2006). The millennial generation has begun to take caution of the need for a balanced life and work. Researchers and economists have proven that overworking does not necessarily mean higher output. Therefore, nurses do need to be at work round the clock as a demonstration of their commitment to their work. ‘

Caution while training so as not to pass toxic behaviour is fundamental. Work training is very important for any organisation attempting to develop knowledge and skills to a level that would be beneficial to everyday activities. It is important for employees in a training program to understand the benefit a training has to them as individuals to keep them engaged, interested and involved. Any proper training involves four phases which include a needs assessment and objective establishment, designing of the training program, implementation of the training program and evaluation of the training to ensure it has a positive impact (Kirkpatrick 2016).

Implementation of a servant-leadership model to replace the vertical authority structure. Servant leadership is a model of leadership which involved the service to others with the goal of progress and development towards the achievement of common goals. This means that when a person, in this case, a nurse in charge of other nurses becomes a servant leader, he/she does not put him or herself or need before those whom he/she serves but rather focuses on the needs of his/her subordinates and seniors towards the recognition of the mission. The principles, behaviours and applicability of servant leadership could help a nurses recognise their own effort towards realising their own goals (Spears 2010).

In conclusion it is clear that for nurses to effectively perform in an organisation various issues such work-life balance, organisation structure, rewards and recognition, motivation of nurses and improvement of communication models have to be adhered to. These are the principles Porter O’Grady and Kathy Malloch addressed in their book Quantum Leadership.

References

Gudykunst, W. B., Ting-Toomey, S., & Chua, E. (1988). Culture and interpersonal communication. Sage Publications, Inc.

James, C. J. (1984). Are you listening? The practical components of listening comprehension. Foreign Language Annals, 17(2), 129-134

Kirkpatrick, J. D., & Kirkpatrick, W. K. (2016). Kirkpatrick’s four levels of training evaluation. Association for Talent Development.

Porter-O’Grady, T., & Malloch, K. (2010). Quantum leadership. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

Rumpel, S., & Medcof, J. W. (2006). Total rewards: Good fit for tech workers. Research-Technology Management, 49(5), 27-35.

Spears, L. C. (2010). Character and servant leadership: Ten characteristics of effective, caring leaders. The Journal of Virtues & Leadership, 1(1), 25-30. Retrieved from https://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/jvl/vol1_iss1/Spears_Final.pdf