Paper Example on Critical Issues in Organization

Introduction

This paper is a reflective journal on three topics learned in the classroom. In this report, I reflect on the emotional labor, organizational leadership, and aesthetics and creativity. The report will contain an examination of whether the theories on these topics explain or contradict my organizational experiences. Unfortunately, due to the lack of real-life experience in working for a company, I will use organizational contexts specifically, service and hospitality industry. The reflection will bring together the three selected topics showing how they are connected in the service and hospitality industry. Finally, as a conclusion, I will provide the learning outcomes from the reflection of the three topics and their connection.

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Emotional Labour

In most organizations, it is rare that all the workers have the luxury of being able to be entirely and utterly themselves all the time at work. Therefore, they are called upon to what is known as emotional labor. In definition, emotional labor is the effort of an employee to keep their professional game face on even when what is required of them to do is not concordant with what they feel (Cheng, & Liu, 2016). Emotional labor also happens outside the workplace. For example, one might be forced to maintain a polite chit-chat with friends despite feeling tired. However, in the workplace, emotional labor is more critical because employees' performance reviews, professional images, and careers might depend on it. From the classroom teachings, there are two types of emotional labor namely dep acting and surface acting. These two also apply in the service and hospitality industry where emotional labor can be replaced by being polite. In deep acting, a person reacts to a situation in a way that is connected with his or her beliefs at work and moral values. For instance, when a customer talks down about the poor service she has received but is being patronized, deep acting would mean empathizing with her and try solving her problem despite being patronizing. On the other hand, surface acting would be seen where the employee is nice to the customer but deep down is pitting nails.

One way that can be used to manage emotional labor as taught in the classroom understood that labor is necessary. As emphasized in the notes, emotional labor is required for any relationship to work whether it is with the colleagues or with the supervisors and managers. This proposal is in line with what people in the service industry are required to do. Deep acting is encouraged in service and hospitality because it makes the employees creative on how to improve the customer experience when they give genuine complaints (Gardner, Fischer, & Hunt, 2009). Surface acting can be harmful to the organization because it can potentially decrease job performance, cause anxiety and depression, and burnout. These effects are just some of the few examples of the negative impacts of surface acting explained in the classroom. Grandey, (2000), revealed that deep acting aims at ensuring that the employees feel the emotions they are expressing in the service interaction.

There are several dimensions of emotional labor. The frequency of appropriate emotional display was the most exploited in our lectures. Most research in this field has also focused on this dimension studying the frequency of interactions between the service providers and their clients (Hennig-Thurau et al. 2006). The idea here is that the customers are more likely to be attracted to a hotel when there is a sufficient bond of trust, respect, and liking which is usually established through employee behavior. To display the required employee behavior, emotional labor, specifically deep acting is essential in the hospitality industry. Another dimension of the labor is the display rules particularly the duration of display. While this may not have been mentioned in the classwork directly, it was suggested in the difference between short and long displays. According to Hochschild (2015), it is possible for the employees to script and limit the emotional intensity in short displays while long displays are hard to script hence reveals genuine emotions.

Organizational Leadership

Organizational leadership refers to business management explicitly relating to the ability to meet the challenges, goals, and objectives brought about by individual employees and the organization as a whole. In most organizations, the leaders rise slowly through the ranks because they display incredible abilities and skills in managing the resources of the firm including the staff while simultaneously looking for future expansion and growth prospects (Cheng, & Liu, 2016). To effectively do this, such leaders have a clear understanding of the strengths and weakness of the firm's workforce, daily operations, and plans. With this information in hand, organizational leaders can use their abilities, skills, and knowledge to manage and strengthen the elements of their companies by formulating and implementing changes, solving problems, and creating a positive working environment.

Because organizational leadership is such a broad topic, more focus was paid to distributed organizational leadership. This type refers to the mobilization of leadership expertise to almost levels in an organization with the aim of generating more opportunities for better change as well as improving the overall working conditions in the workplace. Emphasis was paid on the interdependent interactions of the components of the organization. This strategy is a shift from the traditional individual and independent actions that characterize the formal leadership roles. However, for this technique to work, it would require a high level of transparency, trust, and mutual respect.

Why distributed leadership in hospitality? There is a vast evidential base on how this approach impacts and affects the overall working morale of the workers. It is particularly crucial in the service industry where the staff plays an essential role in representing the companies. For instance, Gardner, Fischer, & Hunt (2009) wrote that in restaurants, the food is only as tasty as the person serving it. In line with the class teachings, evidence points to the positive impact of distributed leadership. For example, there is a direct relationship between this method and organizational improvement and employee performance. Many studies that have been conducted on this area have identified distributed leadership as a potential contributor to positive organizational change.

I was interested in finding out whether the criticisms of this approach can be identified in the chosen industry. Unfortunately, some of the ideas seem to apply even in hospitality. For instance, the hospitality industry is characterized by franchisees where one will find that the differences between the high performing franchisees and the low performing outlets can be attributed to the evident differences in the degree of leadership distribution (Grandey, 2000). The outlets that show high levels of performance indicate effective use of distributed leadership. Another critic was the ability of fitting distributed leadership in the already existing structures and systems. However, according to me, this is the wrong question to ask here. Instead of trying to fit distributed leadership in other structures and systems, it would be much better to evaluate which leadership to apply to the organization, given its pre-existing characteristics. I agree that this method may not be appropriate for all firms in the service and hospitality industry. Therefore, it is the work of the leaders to determine which approach best meets their needs.

Aesthetics and Creativity

In business, aesthetics and creativity have a different meaning from the common dictionary definition. While the two are used to mean appreciation of natural beauty and generation of novel ideas, novelty is not good enough in the business world. The ideas also need to be practical so that they are brought in the marketplace in the form of business innovation. Technological and non-technological knowledge and skills are necessary for business innovation and affect all the activities and components of the firm including the labor force as well as the physical resources. Therefore, innovation is creativity in the business world. Economic growth and productivity are achieved when businesses can leverage creativity. A study regarding business innovation found out that more than 80 percent of productivity gains in organizations are related to investments in innovation.

In the hospitality industry, I found that unlike other businesses, innovation here entails both aesthetics and innovation. In planning a hotel layout, one must balance aesthetic issue so that the property developed meets the needs of the owners, the staff, and the guests. Overall profitability of an establishment could be affected by the design layout because deficiencies in the design could adversely affect the operations and ultimately have an impact on the bottom line. When the interior designs are cleverly planned from a commercial viewpoint, the environment created is persuasive to the customers as they can spend their money with a smile. The whole building should be presented in a way that its every key element serves to transform the guests' experience into an adventure potentially. Accordingly, the focus is not only paid to the dining areas but also the arrivals and check-ins, the corridors, and the public areas as well as the accommodation.

Sustainability of the business ideas generated through innovation was one of the key areas taught under aesthetics and creativity. By being innovative, companies try to find new ways of doing things that minimize their operating costs to improve their profitability. However, as pointed out by Lee, & Ok (2015), organizations have their long-term costs in mind when investing in innovation. In contradiction with other industries, the service and hospitality businesses are usually concerned with their short-term costs. Consequently, their investment in innovation more frequently because their ideas are generally short-lived. But, they also try to have a long-term view of their innovative efforts. This is particularly so when it comes to the services such as accommodation and foods they serve.

Conclusion

As discussed above emotional labor can affect the employees as well as business operations. In the hospitality industry, it is common that the workers are always required to show their happy faces to their customers even when the customers could be wrong. To ease the work stress in this industry, it is necessary for organizational leaders to identify and train their staff on how to handle the customers, particularly when they are wrong in their complaints. Additionally, leaders such as managers and supervisors should recognize how they deal with emotional labor on their part. Managers who are usually described to surface act are more demanding and could easily affect the job satisfaction of the employees. Deep acting by both the leaders and workforce isdefinitely the best way to approach emotional labor in any business organization. When the customers feel that they are understood by the staff whether they are making complaints or giving their concerns, they believe that their issues will be addressed and hence are likely to become loyal customers. this also applies to the workers who will have more job satisfaction.

Aesthetics and creativity are an essential part of the service and hospitality industry. While I have mentionedabout the importance of creativity when designing the layout of a hotel, there are other aspects which carry equal weight. For instance, with growing concern about healthy foods offered in hotels, it is important that the staf...