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Tagged with: Authentic Leadership, Positive Employee Relations
Staying union-free requires leadership skills that focus on employee engagement and positive employee relations, and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) are a set of dimensions that round out the skill set. Typically, employee engagement is viewed from the perspective of communication systems, leadership style, and communication skills, giving employees a voice, transparency in decision-making, and much more.
Organizational citizenship behaviors add new dimensions like conscientiousness and altruism to leadership skills. It adds a perspective based on the positive employee discretionary actions that are not part of the formal job description, but with the right balance, can increase morale, motivation, and job performance. In the following sections, we dive deeper into organizational citizenship behaviors of people willing to “go the extra mile.”
Organizational citizenship behavior is discretionary behavior that is not defined in the job description. Dennis Organ first introduced the OCB term in 1988 as “an individual behavior which is not rewarded by a formal reward system… but that, when combined with the same behavior in a group, results in effectiveness.” In Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Its Definitions and Dimensions, researchers name several essential elements of OCB.
When you say that someone is a “real go-getter” or “goes the extra mile” or “goes above and beyond the call of duty,” what you are really saying is the person is exhibiting organizational citizenship behavior.
The definition and forms of organizational citizenship behavior have developed since the first introduction of the term by Dennis Organ in 1988. In 1993, Organ expanded the initial two criteria to include behaviors reflecting contextual performance. Today, there are five basic behaviors defining OCB.
Organizational Citizenship Behavior contributes to organizational goals, but when many employees display OCB, it also helps the organization function effectively and thrive with a positive culture, delivering the added benefit of helping your business stay union-free. So, it’s individual behavior that is combined with organizational citizen behaviors that leads to the highest OCB effectiveness. This is “contextual performance.” Individuals exhibiting OCB direct the behaviors towards peers and coworkers. An OCB on the organizational level refers to behaviors intended to benefit the organization as a whole, like an employee making suggestions for innovations even when the ideas are outside the person’s job.
Your managers and supervisors can’t force employees to be good organizational citizens. It is voluntary, and how the workforce behaviors are exhibited in the group setting determines how the behaviors support the organization.
Organizational citizenship behaviors take many forms.
Your organizational leaders should be role models for organizational citizenship behavior. Their behaviors can shape employee behaviors and attitudes. “Do as I do” is the mantra.
Leadership OCB contributes to developing a positive culture. For example, a manager is considerate when developing work schedules, keeping the needs of employees in mind. The supervisor always speaks respectfully to employees and doesn’t embarrass or demean employees, even when they experience problems on the job. Perhaps the leader makes special accommodations for an employee having work difficulties, makes an effort to understand the life experiences of employees, or volunteers to represent the company at a weekend company-sponsored charity golf event.
Leaders are more accessible to team members. An open-door policy is a positive voluntary behavior because it makes the employee feel valued and welcomed. It makes the leader more relatable and open and demonstrates a willingness to take the time to listen to employees when they feel the need to talk, even if the topic is not directly related to the job description.
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Clearly, organizational citizenship behaviors can deliver many benefits to people individually and to the organization as a whole.
To develop organizational citizenship behaviors as role models, your leaders need to develop emotional intelligence and excellent communication skills.
The challenge of OCB is the risk of some employees going overboard and experiencing negative effects from the additional effort. For example, an employee voluntarily takes on too much additional work without pay, leading to burnout or difficulties maintaining a work-life balance. Leaders who recognize OCB in employees has gone too far can discuss the situation with the employee and help them find balance. A major reason for employee burnout is the employee voluntarily taking on more work than can be effectively handled. The intentions are good, but stress and burnout develop.
It’s easy for the manager to say “yes” when someone volunteers to work more, train new coworkers, or work business events in their personal time, but at what cost to the employee’s well-being? Great leadership means your leaders give employees the freedom to be organizational citizens while also ensuring employees maintain balance. Following are just a few of the things your leaders need to watch for.
In How Good Citizens Enable Bad Leaders, the authors discuss the human tendency to balance good behaviors with less virtuous behavior. For example, an employee completes a team project on personal time, so the team meets goals. The employee then spends an equivalent amount of time at work surfing the internet. At the leadership level, a leader may take credit for the good behaviors of employees and then feel free to act unethically. Leaders need skills like a servant leadership style to avoid this kind of behavior.
Measuring organizational citizenship behavior is not quite as simple as measuring work output that meets goals. Professor Paul Spector at the University of South Florida discusses the Organizational Citizenship Behavior Checklist scale. The scale has a list of items related to the frequency of citizenship behaviors, with each item rated from “1 for never” to “5 for every day.” There are two categories of items: acts benefiting the organization and acts directed towards coworkers.
You can see that OBC covers a wide range of positive behaviors.
Organizational citizenship behavior contributes to the qualities your organization needs to stay union-free. It improves employee engagement, a sense of belonging, employee voice, and job satisfaction. You leaders can develop organizational citizenship behaviors to model the behaviors for others and can assess employee citizenship behaviors through employee surveys as to how often they are expressed.
If the assessment results indicate employees only infrequently utilize these positive behaviors, it may be a signal that employees don’t feel collaborative, supportive, engaged or a sense of belonging. Employee engagement surveys combined with an OCB scale assessment can help your leaders determine areas of improvement needed, including leadership skills gaps.
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