| The effects that perception and attribution have on a business and its organizational behavior can be both positive and negative. The difference in outcome tends to rely on the people in the business and the responses towards their actions. There are also other additional factors-again, the industry, size, and location of the business-that may influence the effect of perception and attribution in the work environment. However, there is some degree of control that a business has over the effects and use them to their advantage. Show What happens when you have a negative perception about a course? As human beings, we tend to not give importance to the course and eventually perform poorly. The same is true when an individual has a negative perspective on his/her organization. According to Asgari, Mezginejad, and Taherpour (2020), negative perception about the organization makes one give less importance to the organization and reduces the sense of responsibility within the employee, making him/her less productive, which further leads to decreased organizational effectiveness (p. 90). Another study shows that negative perception leads to low employee satisfaction. It is seen that such organizations have a turnover of less than 50%, which further affects the financial performance of the organization (Harter, Schmidt, Asplund, Killham, & Agrawal, 2010, p. 387). Many employees have a negative perception about their organization. To develop a negative perception, it does not require the whole organization to do something bad to the individual; one can form negative perceptions with just one or a few bad experiences. We have all been students, and it is common that a student likes a subject more or less depending on the professor, if the professor of the course is rude to the student or shouts at the student, which makes them feel bad, rather than motivating and appreciating the student when they put in hard work, the student will tend to form a negative perception about the course. Similarly, if a manager or someone else that an employee thinks is responsible for the organization gave the employee a bad experience or is not supportive, the employee would form a negative perception about the whole organization, thereby affecting his/her work performance. A study shows that the employees who perceive that their leaders are not supportive show low work engagement. It states that only 31.5% of employees are really engaged, thereby decreasing the organization's overall performance (Kolodinsky, Ritchie, & Kuna, 2018, p. 407). It is also essential to understand that what the employees think about the leadership team, subordinates, company, and job forms negative or positive perception about the organization, which strongly influences their work (Asgari, Mezginejad, & Taherpour, 2020, p. 90). It is crucial to change the negative perception of employees into positive perceptions. If the employees have a positive perception, they will have better job performance, which will further improve the overall business performance. According to Maxham, Netemeyer, and Lichtenstein (2008), employees who have a positive perception about the organization tend to give their best work performance and want the organization to grow. This is because the individual's perception of the organization tends to make him/her identify with the organization; it is an overlap of the individual's perception with the organization's perception (p. 150,151). Therefore, it is essential to change all employee's negative perceptions about the company into positive perceptions. As the leadership team plays a crucial role in the organization, and most employees associate the organization with the leaders, the organization should focus on changing the negative perceptions about the leadership team into positive perceptions by changing the leadership style of the leaders and increasing perceived equity among the employees. The positive perception about leaders will improve employee performances and lead to organizational growth. Importance of the Leadership Team in an Organization Most of us have got an opportunity to be a leader, or at least had someone else as a leader in our team. Just by thinking about what the leader had to do for the team to work effectively, we can tell that a leader plays a particularly important role in the group's success. A good leader should be able to establish good coordination among the members, be approachable, and be someone who increases the team members' confidence. According to Koo and Park (2018), the leadership style and the leader's characteristics include openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, non-neurotic behavior, hubris, confidence, and humility play an important role in the follower's outcomes. It consists of a follower's perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors (p.704). It also affects the team level outcomes such as team conflict, team empowerment, team commitment, and team performance. Finally, it also impacts the firm-level outcomes. It is thus fair to say that leaders play an essential role in the organization's success. As told before, many employees associate the organization with their leaders. This can be said because the employees' impressions about the management influence their perception about the organization (Chen, & Fang, 2008, p. 264). Leaders such as managers frequently need to engage with the employees; in this process, the employees form an impression about the managers. Since they do not interact with all organization members, they start perceiving that the whole organization has the same characteristics as the manager. The employees perceive the leaders to be ranked higher than their colleagues in the hierarchy and therefore give greater importance to what they think about their leaders than what they think about their colleagues (Humphrey, 1985, p. 250). This shows that the perception of the leaders plays a significant role in how the employees perceive the organization. Impact of Negative Perception about Leaders Negative perceptions about leaders can form in many ways. This paper will discuss only two of them. These are the factors that need to be changed in order to change the negative perceptions of leaders into positive perceptions. Bad leadership style Leadership styles play an essential role in motivating employees, increasing job satisfaction, commitment, performance, and a sense of duty (Asgari, Mezginejad, & Taherpour, 2020, p. 90). If a leader were to be dominating, overconfident, hard to approach, self-focused, and did not give feedback, the employees would find it challenging to work with the leader. They would not want to come for work, and even if they are dedicated, they would eventually stop trying to do their best at work and maybe even quit the job. This has happened to us at least once in our life; when we work hard, and no one appreciates us for it, we stop trying as we do not feel motivated anymore. Perceived Equity If we were to work under a leader about whom we have a negative perception because he/she is biased, we would tend to have a negative attitude, feelings, or emotions about our work environment. These are the indicators that the employee is having low job satisfaction. The employee would also be less cooperative and committed to his work. Low job satisfaction leads to low work performance, low productivity, and low employee turnover, which further costs the organization (Asgari, Mezginejad, & Taherpour, 2020, p. 90). If leaders differentiate between the employees, the employee will start feeling uncomfortable in their workplace and would eventually tend to show it in their work performance. As per Emery, Booth, Michaelides, and Swaab (2019), a perceived differentiation leads to a negative perception about supervisory perception, further leading to negative job satisfaction (p. 568). Changing Negative Perceptions into Positive Perceptions As mentioned above, we need to change the leadership style and perceived equity among the employees in order to change the negative perceptions about leaders into positive ones. Changing Leadership style It is vital that the leadership style that the organization adopts increases the motivation of the employees and gives them job satisfaction. According to Caulfield and Senger (2017), a transformational leadership style is one of the most beneficial leadership techniques. It inspires the followers to commit to the organization's shared goals and visions, increases innovative thinking among the followers, and increases motivation, job performance, and job satisfaction. This style of leadership challenges and supports its employees at the same time (p. 930). These are the ideal leaders as they make the employees committed to the organization's goals and push the employees beyond their performance expectations. These leaders inspire the employees to perform better than their limits by setting higher targets for the employees, giving feedback, and continuously supporting them to reach those targets. When an individual performs better than he/she thought they could, it increases their motivation and job satisfaction. It is also important for the leader to be supportive as the individuals who believe they have supportive leaders tend to show higher work engagement, leading to organizational effectiveness (Kolodinsky, Ritchie, & Kuna, 2018, p. 407). Since employees link their leaders with the organization, they believe that they receive organization support when they receive support from their leaders. High work engagement, high work commitment, and high job satisfaction lead to increased work performance. Therefore, it would be fair to say that this leadership style solves the problem of low job performance. Changing Perceived Equity (PoE) Most employees are not committed to their job, do not cooperate, or show negative attitudes and behaviors at workplaces because they perceive that there are not being treated equally or that the leader is biased. This is quite common in organizations, but it makes the employees lack interest in their work. According to Chen, Indartono (2011), employees want their leaders to show fairness in giving them opportunities for growth and increased compensations. The fairness builds trust and therefore keeps the employees committed to the organization. If the employees do not trust the organization, they tend to be less cooperative and show negative attitudes and behaviors (p. 533, 536). No matter the leadership style, the leaders should make sure that the employees do not feel like they are not being treated fairly. In order to increase the perceived equity and trust within the organization, the employees should be provided with communication channels through which they can put forward their concerns about their leaders. The organization should also be transparent in resource distribution and involve employees in the decision-making process. Finally, the organization should put forward policies to avoid biases within the organization (Chen, Indartono, 2011, p. 538). We can say that PoE increases employee commitment, cooperation, and reduces negative attitudes and behaviors towards the organization. Other Benefits from Positive Perception about Leaders Apart from increasing employee job performance, which leads to organizational growth, the positive perception about leaders has other benefits too. One of the major benefits is that the transformational leadership style motivates the employees intrinsically. This is good because the employees become self-motivated without monetary compensations (Emery, Booth, Michaelides, & Swaab, 2019, p. 570). Intrinsic motivations reduce the expenses that usually incur to motivate the employees. Another benefit is that the positive perception about leaders builds a positive relationship between the employees and the leaders. They start to trust each other, increasing team cohesion, improving team coordination, and working more effectively (Chen, Indartono, 2011, p. 534). Conclusion In this paper, we spoke about how leaders play an important role in the organization and positively influence how the employees perceive the organization. We then saw the adverse effects of a bad leadership style and perceived inequity, which leads to negative perceptions about leaders, further reducing the work performance among employees. Therefore, we went ahead and talked about how to change the leadership styles and perceived equity among the employees in order to change the negative perceptions about leaders into positive perceptions. We discovered that leaders should adopt transformational leadership to increase commitment, work engagement, and job satisfaction. Overall, it improves employee job performance and leads to organizational growth. We further discussed how to increase the perceived equity among the employees as it induces positive attitude and behavior along with receiving increased commitment and cooperation from the employees. Finally, we spoke about the benefits that the organization receives when they change their leadership style and increase the perceived equity. It would, therefore, be fair to conclude that the thesis was proved right. Changing negative perceptions about the leaders into positive perceptions does benefit the organization as it increases job performances and organizational effectiveness. Organizational effectiveness further leads to organizational growth. I would suggest the organizations to train all its leaders to use the transformational leadership style as it makes the employees perform better and gives them opportunities to grow. Leaders should also involve the employees in the decision-making process as it gives them a sense of being heard. Along with changing the leadership styles, organizations should frame policies that discourage inequity among employees. References Asgari, A., Mezginejad, S., & Taherpour, F. (2020). The Role of Leadership Styles in Organizational Citizenship Behavior through the Mediation of Perceived organizational Support and Job satisfaction. Innovar: Revista De Ciencias Administrativas Y Sociales, 30(75), 87-98. doi:10.2307/26863971 Caulfield, J. L., & Senger, A. (2017). Perception is reality: change leadership and work engagement. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 38(7), 927-945. http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.rit.edu/10.1108/LODJ-07-2016-0166 Chen, C., & Indartono, S. (2011). Study of Commitment Antecedents: The Dynamic Point of View. Journal of Business Ethics, 103(4), 529-541. Retrieved October 2, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41476042 Chen, Y., & Fang, W. (2008). The Moderating Effect of Impression Management on the Organizational Politics: Performance Relationship. 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Meaningful engagement: Impacts of a 'calling' work orientation and perceived leadership support. Journal of Management and Organization, 24(3), 406-423. http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.rit.edu/10.1017/jmo.2017.19 Koo, H., Park, C. (2018). Foundation of leadership in Asia: Leader characteristics and leadership styles review and research agenda. Asia Pac J Manag, 35, 697–718. https://doi-org.ezproxy.rit.edu/10.1007/s10490-017-9548-6
Maxham, J., Netemeyer, R., & Lichtenstein, D. (2008). The Retail Value Chain: Linking Employee Perceptions to Employee Performance, Customer Evaluations, and Store Performance. Marketing Science, 27(2), 147-167. Retrieved October 2, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40057094 Uhl-Bien, M., Piccolo, R.F., & Schermerhorn, J.R. (2020). Organizational behavior, 2nd edition. Wiley. How personality and attitude affects the employees and the organization performance?Attitudes have a huge impact on every aspect of business ranging from staff, work culture to business of the organization itself. Negative attitudes within an organization can result in several problems viz. customer dissatisfaction, poor work environment, declining morale of employees leading to lack of productivity.
How does perception affect organizational performance?Perception in Organizational Behavior
In organizational behavior and business, perception often helps shape a person's personality and how they act in certain situations. These can affect how they respond to certain things-like stressful situations-their performance at tasks, and even their creativity.
How can perception affect an employee in the workplace?Perception can affect collaboration and communication between employees or teams, which can then affect engagement and productivity. Candidates often hear the advice to “dress for the job you want”.
How does perception affect performance?In terms of perceptions, research has shown that what employees perceive from their work situation influences their productivity most. Therefore, to influence productivity, it is necessary for employers to assess how workers perceive their jobs.
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