Self-Reflection: Organizational Climate and Building Community
James Brown
LIB 125 Contemporary Issues in Organizational Leadership
Daniel Mudge
March 16, 2015

To develop an understanding of how leadership affects others and to help me understand my strengths and weaknesses in establishing the right climate for a group or an organization, I was asked to complete an organizational climate questionnaire. The questionnaire is designed to measure four factors related to establishing a constructive climate within my organization. It helps measure my ability to provide structure, clarify norms, build cohesiveness, and promote a standard of excellence. I was also asked to complete a questionnaire that helps identify my attitude toward out-group members, and to explore how I, as a leader, respond to members of that out-group. The questionnaire is designed to measure my response to out-group members.
The organizational climate questionnaire scored me in four categories: providing structure, clarifying norms, building cohesiveness, and lastly promoting a standard of excellence. Based on score results, I scored highest in providing structure. Providing structure involves giving clear assignments to group members, making the goals of the group clear to everyone, emphasizing the overall purpose of the group assignment to group members, helping group members understand their purpose for being in the group, and finally, helping group members understand their roles in the group.
The category in which I scored lowest was clarifying the norms. This category consist of putting an emphasis on starting and ending group meetings on time, modeling group norms for all group members, demonstrating effective communication to group members, encouraging group members to agree on the rules of the group, and expecting group members to listen when another group member is talking. I scored evenly in building cohesiveness and promoting standards of excellence. Although these categories scored lower than providing structure, they were all within the same range. As I began to reflect on clarifying norms, I began to think of how integrity plays into this category. Concepts such as hardworking, courageous, and loyal have characteristics that are considered good by most people (Tullberg, 2012). Establishing norms and effectively communicating these norms and holding individuals within the group accountable to these norms are important to the success of the group, as well as the individual.
The second questionnaire, building community measured my response to out-group members. Based on my score, I am most likely to have little interest helping out-group members become a part of the larger group. I may become irritated and bothered when out-group members’ behaviors hinder the majority or progress of the larger group. Because I see helping the out-group members as an ineffective use of my time, I am likely to ignore them and make decisions to move the group forward