Comparison of employee performance with Positive leadership and Psychological Capital

The most significant asset of any organisation are its employees and the contribution they make for their associated organisation. However, in order to guide them in a positive direction it is efficient that a leader figure is present within the organisation. Now, in recent times, a lot theory has evolved regarding leaders and the leadership skills. However, it is essential that the role of a leader should be such that it drives its followers towards a positive direction. Here comes the practice of positive leadership where the business strategies are adopted to channel high performance level throughout the organisation. The practice of positive leadership adopts strategies that focuses on building employees strengths instead of identifying their dysfunctions. This ideology even emerges from the psychological capital theory as well. The theory of psychological capital suggests that an individual’s psychological state can be developed into positive characteristics such as hope, self-efficacy, optimism and resiliency (Newman et al. 2014). In the subsequent discussion, we try to analyse the effectiveness of positive leadership and psychological capital in a workplace. The strategies adopted in positive leadership will enable a positive impact on employees’ performance that will ultimately enhance the reputation of the company. The main aim of any organisation is to reach the heights of success and gain profit. This can happen only when the employees would give their best to the organisation. In relation to that, the leader have to have a positive impact that will enhance the psychological level that would ultimately result in employees’ performance.

The performance of employees in the workplace can be determined by taking into account certain aspects that are related to it. The employee engagement is one of the key aspect in determining the employee performance of any organisation. The maximum level of employee engagement would result in achieving the goals and objectives set by an organisation. Now, it is extremely necessary that the goals and missions of an organisation can be achieved only when employees of that organisation are able to set clear goals for themselves. Here comes the role of positive leadership that facilitates individuals to have clear sense of their purpose for the organisation that aligns with the organisation’s goals and missions (Kelloway et al. 2013). However, in our workplace the employee engagement is maximum, as the authorities of the organisation has clearly set the missions and goals for the workplace. The leaders adopt strategies that continuously aims in increasing turnover rate, commitment level of employees and so on. Communication is one of the key factors that establishes a relationship with the employees’ and their leaders (Youssef-Morgan and Luthans 2013). In the workplace, it is essential that the leaders use positive and encouraging communication phrases that builds and develops the moral of the employees (Wang et al. 2014). The use of positive communication will impact on employees ‘positively that will ultimately motivate the employees. A motivated employee will have increased employee performance that can come only through the thorough practice of positive leadership within the workplace (Rego et al. 2014).

Considering different types of employees

Now taking into account the theory of psychological capital, the main focus of this theory is to develop positive capacities such as hope, self-efficacy, optimism, resilience and so on by the usage of certain establishment of psychology that are trainable and have a high chance of positive outcome (Paterson, Luthans and Jeung 2014). The organisation, with which I am attached, puts emphasis on employees’ well-being in order to ultimately reach the goal of making profit. The organisation believes in setting rational goals that are realistic and achievable (Abbas and Raja 2015). The employees within the workplace thus have a hopeful mind set since the goals set in the workplace are realistic in nature. In addition to this, the leaders of the organisation always motivates employee for the achieved examples and focus on their goals that they want to achieve. One of the positive capacity of psychological capital is optimism that suggests focusing on positive events and get inspired from it rather than focusing on negative circumstances that must be treated as a temporary situation (Luthans, Luthans and Avey 2014).

It is extremely essential that the leaders of the organisation take into consideration various actions for the purpose of achieving the set goals (Choi and Lee 2014). It is one of the key exercise that help an individual to build psychological capital. However, the organisation that I am associated with lacks in this scope. The leaders tend to lack in optimising the range of actions that must be taken to achieve the set goals. This difference makes the employees within the organisation bounded with the choices of action that are available to them in achieving the goals. It is significant for leaders who practice positive leadership to provide or at least consider the various options that are available to them or can be available in attaining the set goal (De Waal and Pienaar 2013). Taking a singular action may not acceptable to specific employees and this would create a sense of dissatisfaction among them and gradually building a negative impact upon their leader. Therefore, it is extremely important to consider this step in the exercise adopted to improve the psychological capital of the employees’ present in the organisation.

It is essential to take a note that the approach to positive leadership could affect differently on distinctive employees traits. There are various types of employees and they show various psychological traits in them. Therefore, the leaders have to identify these traits in them and make the approach accordingly. This is one of the key strategy that is adopted in practicing positive leadership. The administrative employees are more routinely maintained workers who have set of ideologies for progressing towards their goal. Therefore, in administrative employees it is observed that high psychological capital since they are accustomed with the various challenges and are experienced in handling them. Whereas for professional employees the psychological capital is comparatively low since the assigned job to them may have certain challenges that could be new to them. Hence, the reaction towards this new challenge may not be always hopeful or even optimistic. They lack in these employees. Therefore, a positive leadership must adopt strategies that would enhance the professional employees into developing skills that would help them to face the challenges in distinctive circumstances (Goldsmith, Darity and Veum 2018). Coming back to the comparisons of various types of employees, another comparison can be drawn from blue collar and white-collar employees. The blue-collar employees are generally engaged in manual labour and go through physical exhaustion. Whereas white-collar workers are those employees who are engaged in office administration job and so on. It is observed from various research that the job satisfaction level in blue-collar employees are comparatively lower than white-collar employees related to distinctive aspects of their related job such as pay, promotion, acknowledgement and so on (Anjum and Parvez 2013). It is also evident that the two distinctive employee categories have two distinctive ideas of success in their career. Therefore, these traits are extremely necessary to be detected by the specific leaders of the organisation for encouraging their employees in achieving the preferred goal set by them. The leaders who are assigned to handle the blue-collared employees must adopt strategies that discard their feeling of job dissatisfaction. Even if the pay of the blue-collared employees cannot be increased, there are other strategies with the help of which a positive leader could have an impact on such employees. Acknowledgement and appreciation is extremely necessary if one aims to motivate and create a positive impact on employees especially in the case of blue-collared employees (Loi, Chan and Lam 2014). Consider listening to the feedback of the employees so that the cause of their dissatisfaction could be detected. However, in white-collared employees as well the signs of job dissatisfaction can be observed since their job have an increased amount of mental pressure and exhaustion. Another aspect that should be considered in case of white collared employees is that the challenges that they have to suffer in their job role could result in increased stress level (Ganster and Rosen 2013). This would directly impact on the productivity of the employees and could hamper the reputation of the organisation. The traits that are evident in distinctive employees must be analysed and evaluated by a positive leader in order to motivate and drive them towards achieving profit for the organisation that is one of the key bottom line of any organisation. The employees in different job role also have to deal with emotional labour that could further degrade the moral and spirit of workers. Whether it is blue collared employee or white collared, the employees are bound to deal with challenging clients, and these could increase the emotional labour of such employees. An increased emotional labour could result in dissatisfaction among employees and could ultimately give rise to challenges in organisation as increased employee turnover and so on.

From the above discussion, we can enumerate certain areas where the organisation is lagging behind and to improve the workplace into a more effective place the positive leadership principles will help immensely. One of the fundamental principles of positive leadership states that the willingness to commit oneself towards the assigned job hence, in order to increase employee commitment in the workplace, the leader should provide the employees with career growth opportunities and determine the benefit of moving forward in their specific career (MacKie 2014). Another principle of positive leadership is that it is essential for an organisation to have values and integrities with which the organisation abides. These values help shape the functioning of the workplace and discard any unethical activity in the workplace (Jackson, Meyer and Wang 2013). Thirdly, the positive leadership principle states that it is essential to develop the character and potential capabilities of the employees for achieving success in any field (Carter and Greer 2013). Therefore, in the workplace as well it is necessary to adopt strategies that would detect the individual potential of the employees by regulating an in-depth analysis of an employee’s skill. In addition to this, the necessary programmes must be set for the employees in order to improve their skills and potential that would contribute in achieving the goal set up by the organisation. Adding to this, the positive leadership culture facilitates clear ideology of an individual’s purpose for himself or herself along with the organisation he or she is attached with. This will enhance an individual’s capability to set required goals that would align with the purpose of the organisation (Meyers, van Woerkom and Bakker 2013). The idea of positive leadership always influence others and set up realistic goals and visions. Therefore, the workplace must always set up realistic visions so that employees could approach towards it without any hesitation (Zbierowski 2016). The leader must always influence its followers with his or her actions. Hence, it is necessary for the authoritative figure in the workplace to abide by the rules and values that are embedded in the organisation. This will have a positive impact upon the employees of the organisation. Another principle of positive leadership states that it is important to be self-aware for the purpose of growing in any field of work. This would even have a positive impact on others. Therefore, the leader of the workplace must be aware of his or her own actions and ideologies. Correcting and improving oneself by being self-aware will definitely help the organisation move forward towards achieving its goal. Lastly, the final fundamental principle of positive leadership states that the maximum impact of an organisation could only be achieved when the employees of a particular organisation have a goal to give out quality service to the clients and customers. Therefore, making the employees aware of this fact is extremely significant for making sure that the organisation is effectively moving forward towards the road to success or achieving its set goal.

Conclusion:

Hence, in conclusion it can be said that the impact of positive leadership in maintaining the success of the organisation is extremely essential. It is observed from the above discussions that the culture of positive leadership analyses every distinct types of employees that are existent in the field of work and recognises their distinctive traits. The core idea of positive leadership is to impact or generate a positive feeling or influence an individual in a positive way. The psychological emotions that workers face during their time in an organisation could be turned into a positive by applying the strategies that are involved in the culture of positive leadership. It is extremely essential that the culture of positive leadership must be applied in the organisation if the said organisation wants to achieve the set goals. One of the key goal of any organisation is to attain profit and this can be possible only when the employees of the organisation have high employee engagement and performance towards the organisation (Carasco-Saul, Kim and Kim 2015). It is even observed from the above discussion that positive behaviour helps in building employee’s skills and develop their existing potential. This would ultimately result in providing success for the organisation. The fundamental principles of positive behaviour must also be taken into account for effective functioning of an organisation. Leadership is essential in guiding and constructing individuals that would take the organisation forward towards the road to success. However, positive leadership is more essential in attaining results that are desired by an organisation for the long run. The role of positive leadership in taking the organisation towards a successful position is significant. Positive leadership along with psychological capital works hand in hand in providing an organisation and its employees in attaining success and profit. Therefore, it can be said that positive leadership is one of the key factor in any organisation with the help of which an individual could achieve the desired or set up mission. It has all the fundamental principles that inflict its follower with positive feeling and discard any negative emotions. Therefore, taking the organisation towards the position of respect and success.

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