PPB6014

ORGANIZATIONAL
BEAHAVIOUR
INDIVIDUAL ASSIGMENT
CASE STUDY CAPTER 4 : CRY AT WORK?

As this chapter has shown, emotions are an inevitable part of peoples behavior at work. At the
same time, its not entirely clear that weve reached a point where people feel comfortable
expressing all emotions at work. The reason might be that business culture and etiquette remain
poorly suited to handling overt emotional displays. The question is, can organizations become

more intelligent about emotional management? Is it ever appropriate to yell, laugh, or cry at
work?
Some people are skeptical about the virtues of more emotional displays at the workplace. As the
chapter notes, emotions are automatic physiological responses to the environment, and as such,
they can be difficult to control appropriately. One 22-year-old customer service representative
named Laura, who was the subject of a case study, noted that fear and anger were routinely used
as methods to control employees, and employees deeply resented this use of emotions to
manipulate them. In another case, the chairman of a major television network made a practice of
screaming at employees whenever anything went wrong, leading to badly hurt feelings and a
lack of loyalty to the organization. Like Laura, workers at this organization were hesitant to show
their true reactions to these emotional outbursts for fear of being branded as weak or
ineffectual. It might seem like these individuals worked in heavily emotional workplaces, but
in fact, only a narrow range of emotions was deemed acceptable. Anger appears to be more
acceptable than sadness in many organizations, and anger can have serious maladaptive
consequences. Many people find their negative reaction to hearing an angry outburst. Lasts,
making it difficult for them to concentrate at work , while those who yell can seem to indicate a
lack of emotional intelligence.
Others believe organizations that recognize and work with emotions effectively are more
creative, satisfying, and productive. For example, Laura noted that if she could express her hurt
feelings without fear, she would be much more satisfied with her work. In other words, the
problem with Lauras organization is not that emotions are displayed, but that emotional displays
are handled poorly. Others note that use of emotional knowledge, like being able to read and
understand the reactions of others, is crucial for workers ranging from salespeople and customer
service agents all the way to managers and executives. One survey even found that 88% of
workers feel being sensitive to the emotions of others is an asset. Management consultant Erika
Anderson notes, Crying at work is transformative and can open the door to change. The
question then is, Can organizations take specific steps to become better at allowing emotional
displays without opening a Pandoras box of outbursts?
Questions

1. Do summary of the paragraph

From the article above, I can summarize that, in work place, emotional is part of people
behavior. However, because of poor business culture and etiquettes not all people feel
comfortable to express their feeling and does organization ready to handle it? Expert says,
emotions are automatic physiological responses towards environment and was not easy to
control. For examples, a Customers Services Representative Laura noted to control the
employee, her organization routinely use fear and anger. Same situation occurs in the television
network company when the chairman likes to scream at the employee. The truth was, workers
hates that kind of manipulation because it courses hurt feeling and loss of loyalty towards
organization. Also, hesitate to show their true reaction to the explosion of emotions for fear of
being labeled as "weak" or "ineffective. That method of controlled, absolutely can give negative
impact like maladaptive consequences, react negatively when an angry outburst and difficult to
concentrate at work, while those who scream seems to indicate a lack of emotional intelligence.
As a conclusion, organizations that handle emotional intelligence precisely were creative,
satisfying and productive because, workers can express their feeling freely. So, the issues now
were not the emotional display but how to handle the emotional display without opening their
Pandora's Box?
2. Describe with the partners how many emotions you can identify in the case study?
From the case study, there many emotion can we identify such as, comfortable, yell, laugh,
crying, skeptical, fear, anger, screaming, hurt feeling, weak, ineffectual, sadness and satisfied.
3. Do you think the strategic use and display of emotions serve to protect employees, or
does covering your true emotions at work lead to more problems than it solves?
Yes, strategic use and display of emotions serve to protect employee. The truth was, Managers
dont like their employees show their emotions in work environment especially sadness and
anger. Even it was hard to hide emotions sometime, employee cannot afford to do that because
its their job and they need money. Displayed emotions may require acting to keep employment.
So they have to act like nothing happen in their life and move on with the work. Therefore, they
should perform a professional manner when there are at work to make them more comfortable
and easier to communicate and focus on their job. Leader absolutely have to implement this

method because when leaders themselves are in good moods, group member are more positive,
as a result, they cooperate better (Robbin2013).
4. Have you ever worked where emotions were used as part of a management style?
Describe the advantages and disadvantages of this approach in your experience.
Yes I do. The advantage of using emotions as part of a management styles is to avoid
misunderstanding between employers or between employers and employees. For examples,
facial expressions that displayed by the employees can indicate their emotions and moods. Harsh
criticisms can be avoided before it triggers anger or sadness of another party. Furthermore,
employees can understand everyone personalities well. Because, Expectations, attitudes, habits
and practices of an employer can clearly showed by emotions. Besides that, if positive emotions
are being brought to work, the working environment will become livelier and employees were be
satisfied and happy to keep working. Especially, when greeting their customers, the satisfaction
of the customers will indirectly bring loyalty and profit to the company. As the impact, When the
employers happy with the performance of the employees, incentives might be given to all the
employees.
However, if employers display their emotions at the workplace like bad mood and sadness, it
may bring disadvantages. When they display the negative emotion, it will cause conflict in the
organization. They also will hurt the other partys pride or feelings whenever burst out their
emotions and feelings to their peers. As emotions can be easily express and influence to other
factors, such as the process of decision making might be affected too. Rumors that bring negative
emotions will cause the working environment tense yet uncomfortable. As a result, employees
might suffer trauma and fear. Then, problems start to appear and this will lead to the highest
occurrence mistake done by the employees. Finally bring to the bad performance and low
productivity of an organization. In addition, this will result high job turnover or absenteeism in
the organization.
5. Research shows that acts of co-workers (37 percent) and management (22 percent)
cause more negative emotions for employees than do acts of customers (7 percent).
What can Lauras company do to change its emotional climate?

Lauras company can set up a training program for managers and others about how to become
emotional display. Since Lauras company recognizes displayed emotions, the initial difficulty in
training personnel is overcome. From there, the company can focus on improving
communication, training employees for development of Emotional Intelligence, and providing
opportunities for open discussion of emotions with prepared and concerned manager.
Lauras company also should increases Social activities in the company to show it was
friendly workplace to work. Managers should not ignore co-workers and employees emotions
and assign other behavior as if it were completely rational. Managers who understand the role of
emotions and moods will significantly improve their ability to explain and predict there coworkers and employees behavior.