Humor as a Strange Attractor in Organizations

In this paper we will explore the topic of complexity and leadership in relation with humor as a strange attractor in organizations. This topic can be interesting because of the strangeness of humor that can affect people’s performance and overall leadership success. At the same time, negative humor can make negative working environment. Nevertheless, we will examine different approaches to leadership, humor, types of humor and make suggestions for the given case of how to use humor as a stimulator for creativity and better working atmosphere.

We will examine how negative humor can make problems in communication and overall atmosphere in the company, and, therefore, can jeopardize market position of the company. The aim of this paper is to provide a solution to the given situation and by analysing the literature from this topic and the current situation presented. After the literature review we will discuss about possible solution for the given case study, which will be easy to implement and yet, not expensive. Nevertheless, according to literature presented, it will made effective change on overall company’s business.Bejestani(2011) said that leadership is the power of persuading people to do what they do not want to do, or do what they are too lazy to do, and like it. Likewise, Mehmood et al (2011) explained that leadership can be defined as the ability to persuade others willingly to behave differently, and continued that where there is a poor leadership, employees may be reluctant to change as they view change as a threat rather than an opportunity to their career.

We can see that there is a great importance of the leadership skills and that is inevitable for the team to have a strong leader to lead the employees towards company’s goals.Surprisingly to the matters of this topic there are self-organized teams that are functioning without a leader. In the comparison between ants and human self-organized teams Carl Anderson et al (2003) concluded that all self organized systems, an inherent order emerges without the need for managerial control. They found that self-organized human teams are very applicable and relevant to social insect teams, and that there are no leaders and everyone’s primary role is to carry out the task rather than organize it for others.This observation can be used as a tool to make semi self-organizing teams in which everybody would carry out their task and leaders would be there just to inspire and support their willingness to work and be creative, not to control and criticise people. In contrary to self-organized teams, Rashid Rehman et al(2011) said that efficiency of the organization depends on the leadership styles and decision making behaviour prevailing in the organization through proper communication and build effective work environment which encourage the employees in a positive way.

To analyse leadership quality there are certain characteristics and styles which needs to be mentioned. Likewise, in order to characterise the leadership skills we would have to analyse some different approaches to the leadership. In their work Christensen et al (2010) measured leadership through factors for analysis such as interpersonal skills, task specific skills, cognitive skills and communication skills. Nevertheless, there are three leadership stiles that we will examine. These styles are transactional, transformational and lassies-faire leadership.

Mehmood et al (2011) said that transitional leadership motivates followers by appealing to their self-interest, but not the interest of the leader itself. Transactional leader is the one who rewards and punish employees for their work, while lassies-faire is passive leadership style. Nevertheless, Arendt (2009) concluded that Transformational leadership will be positively associated with follower creative performance. Marilyn Gowing et al (2008) mentioned that many organizations are finally taking steps to identify and nurture leadership talent.

Bejestani (2011) said that managers who stand out as competent leaders share a certain set of characteristics, and these characteristics are consistency, observation, problem solving, training, friendly humor, communication and responsibility. We can observe that there are certain leadership characteristics that competent leaders have, and that one of those characteristics is humor. As their work has shown Petridou et al (2011) confirm the important role of humor in human resources management demonstrating that its use may increase employee’s empowerment feelings, which can be used for better performance.Likewise, Arendt (2009) said that the social environment has the power to nurture or negate individual creativity. From this we can see the great power of employee’s environment and leaders to influence their work. Included within the social environment would be an individual’s leader who has the opportunity to influence individual motivation through vicarious persuasion, role modelling, interpersonal communication, and other means, Arendt (2009).

He continued that this element of the model is essential to understanding how a leader’s use of humor might influence a follower’s creative performance.Likewise humor, (supposing that there is a positive relation between humor and strong EQ of the individual) Rashid Rehman et al (2011) said that emotional intelligence has an impact on the relationship between leadership styles and decision making styles. Leaders were always related to a positive change. Managers who have leadership characteristics can increase his/her abilities to manage team members to control change resistance effectively, Bejestani (2011).Nevertheless, Mason (2008), said that the main task is to create conditions that encourage individuals, teams and system to spontaneously respond to change.

Likewise, Bejestani (2011) said that managers who have leadership characteristics can increase his/her abilities to manage team members to control change resistance effectively. Finally, for the copping with change, we would have to understand the complexity. The word complexity comes from Latin word complexus which means totality, and that science of complexity explores totality of dynamics, Waltuck (2003).Likewise, Mason (2008) said that complexity theories are increasingly being adopted as ways of better understanding management in complex/turbulent environments, because businesses and their environments are complex adaptive systems, to which complexity theory can be applied.

He continued, complex behaviour is orderly, yet full of surprise apparently uncontrollable, yet not totally chaotic, Mason (2008). E-Scan Newsletter (2010) was mentioning that managing complexity involves simplifying operations and products, and increasing dexterity to change the way organizations work, access resources and enter markets.The science can provide a basis for methodologies that can be used for conceptualizing, designing, evaluating, and implementing social systems, and managing social system and changes of these systems, Simms (2003). With the mentioned procedure we can see that there are certain patterns of human unpredicted behaviour and related to that we can make a response to complexity. Likewise, Waltuck (2011) said that we do not know the specific changes that will occur in the future, but we can count on the constant dynamics of change, and we can assume that the world around us will be very different than it is today.