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ABSTRACT
The intent of this paper is to convey to the reader how leadership evolved from the classical through the contemporary era. This paper explores leadership, leadership models and styles, and how they impact employee behavior, employee wellness, and performance in the workplace by either exacerbating or limiting conflict. This paper also examines the types of conflict that arise within organizations, and negotiation models used to resolve such conflict.
ORGANIZATIONS AND LEADERSHIP
INTRODUCTION
The word organization is derived from the Greek word organon, which means a tool or an instrument. Tools and instruments are mechanical devices invented and developed to aid in performing goal-oriented tasks. The term organization brings to mind a state of orderly relations between clearly defined parts that have some determinate order. Organizations are often referred to as if they were machines, and as a consequence there is a tendency to expect them to perform as if they were machines - in a routinized, efficient, reliable, and predictable way. In certain circumstances a mechanical mode of organization can provide the basis for effective operation. On the other hand, it can have many unfortunate consequences. Ideas about tasks, goals, aims, and objectives are fundamental organizational concepts. Concepts of organization became mechanized with the invention and proliferation of machines, along with the industrial revolution in Europe and North America. An examination of the changes accompanying the industrial revolution reveals a trend towards bureaucratization and routinization of life in general. Many self-employed family groups and skilled artisans gave up the autonomy of working in their homes and workshops to work on relatively unskilled jobs in factory settings. At about the same time, factory owners and their engineers realized that the efficient operation of their new machines required major changes in the design and control of work (Morgan, 1997).
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries work was viewed as a basic necessity and those who designed and managed organizations treated it as such. Classical management theorists viewed the design of organizations as a technical problem. The task of encouraging people to comply with the organization and the requirements of the organizational machine were reduced to "paying the right rate for the right job". Although esprit de corps (group devotion to a...