1. Justin discusses how his small budget office fosters open communication and trust between its four members and larger finance office of 12. The manager promotes a culture of teamwork and risk-taking to achieve goals. Leaders allow flexibility but provide help when needed. 2. Giovanna discusses how her organization fosters open communication through an open-door policy and weekly meetings. It defines teamwork, power, and authority. Common goals are accurately processing veteran and third-party payments. The culture has hierarchical and team-oriented aspects. 3. Recommendations include continuing open communication and process improvement practices, and providing accountability and feedback to avoid mistakes. Both responses integrate readings to support views on leadership and organization.

1. Please Follow directions or I will dispute!
Please answer original forum with a minimum of 250 words and
respond to both students separately with a minimum of 100
words each
Page 1 Original Forum with References
page 2 Justin response with references
page 3 Giovanni response with references
Original Forum
Examine your organization and leadership through the following
questions:
1. How does your organization foster trust and open
communication?
2. How is teamwork, power, and authority defined? Look deep
at self interest vs. a common goal and empowerment.
3. What are the goals that people share in common?
Motivations?

2. 4. How would you describe the culture and leadership from the
top down?
5. What recommendations do you have for your organization to
enable others to act?
Your initial post should demonstrate and integration of readings
and lessons to support your views.
Support your work with references and intext citations.
Student response
Justin
I work in a small budget office that has four members
and is a part of a bigger finance office of 12. Between our small
office, communication from the top to the bottom is extremely
good and all trust each other very well. I believe our top
manager is a strong leader and he creates a culture that
embraces working together and encourages us to speak about
problems at work if one arises. At the same time, he allows us
to take risk and will allow us to work the way that works best
for us. Leadership does not care how we get to a point as long
as the end goal is achieved which does allow us to feel
empowered. If we have a question, they just want us to work
together to try and search for the solution but will help us once
we give our thoughts or if it is time sensitive.

3. I do think we share a common interest or vision to provide
strong budget advice to our commanders and resource advisors
so they can execute their budgets legally and efficiently. I do
see issues with personal goals getting in the way from time to
time though. I think we build such good relationships that
leadership hesitates to say anything when someone does focus
on their own self-interest over the goals of the office. I find it
interesting that some studies actually show leaders that promote
a little value in promoting self-interest usually increases the
follower's trust in the leader (Scherwin, 2009). I see this in our
office. Our leaders help us with promotion, take care of family,
and urgent personal tasks when time allots. I honestly think it
encourages us to work harder towards the shared goals of the
office when the work load is heavier and to have each other’s
backs.
No office is perfect and always can improve. Leaders should
always be pushing for improvement and looking for ways to
improve any part of the group. For the finance office I work in,
I would recommend that the leaders do try to make
accountability more of a factor. Many times, leaders in the
larger office will not discuss things they notice to the
individuals that are either creating bad habits or making a
mistake that they may not know they are making until it is too
late. We had one member leave early who was an unbelievable
worker but did not realize that a lot of things he was approving
in the finance system was creating debts for people. Some
noticed, but did not speak up until it was too late and he left
because he felt that it was never communicated to him until he
was in trouble with the actions. I feel if the mistakes were
brought up sooner and accountability occurred sooner the
situation could have been avoided.
Resource
Scherwin, V. M. (2009).

4. The overlooked dimension of leadership: Follower self -interest
(Order No. 3374973). Available from ProQuest Central;
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (304851943).
Retrieved from https://search-proquest-
com.ezproxy1.apus.edu/docview/304851943?accountid=8289
Giovanna
Good evening everyone,
This week we were asked to answer the following questions:
1. How does your organization foster trust and open
communication?
My organization fosters trust and open communication by
keeping an open-door policy. Keeping an open-door policy
ensures that employees feel comfortable enough to ask
supervisors for help or speak up about process improvements or
concerns. Another way my organization fosters trust and
communication is by holding “huddle” meetings once a week to
discuss any possible ideas or opportunities for improvement.
The supervisors also use this time to communicate any
information coming down from the pipeline. This gives
employees an opportunity to ask questions face-to-face rather
than read it in a memo.
2. How is teamwork, power, and authority defined? Look deep
at self-interest vs. a common goal and empowerment.
Teamwork is defined as everyone working together to
accomplish to vision. Power can be derived in various
categories. Power can be legitimate (given by virtue of title or

5. position), reward power (ability to reward followers for
obeying), coercive power (there will be consequences for not
obeying), expert power (knowledge or skills possessed), and
referent power (which comes from the natural attraction that
leaders present to their followers) (Reiley & Jacobs, 2016).
3. What are the goals that people share in common?
Motivations?
Some of the goals that people share are the common goal of
making sure that veterans’ payments and third-party insurance
payments are also applied accurately and efficiently. The main
motivator is that if veterans’ payments are applied correctly and
expeditiously, then they can clear their debts. If third-party
payments are applied correctly and efficiently, then it will
continue to generate more revenue for the VA and so therefore
can provide more services and care for veterans.
4. How would you describe the culture and leadership from the
top down?
My organization’s culture can be described as a hierarchy
culture combined with a clan culture. It can be described as a
hierarchy because there is a clear rank structure in place. There
are also rules and procedures to try to ensure everything is ran
smoothly. It blends in with a clan culture because we rely on
teamwork and see ourselves as a family (Ergün & Tasgit 2013).
5. What recommendations do you have for your organization to
enable others to act?
Some of the recommendations for my organization to enable
others to act is to keep doing what they are doing now. Leaders
at my organization encourage people to post their ideas for
process improvement and listen to all ideas for making
processes easier. They encourage email, and face-to-face

6. conversations by keeping their open-door policy. If an idea is
viable and feasible to execute, then it can give the employee
ownership.
Thanks!
Gio
Reference
Ergün, E., & Tasgit, Y. E. (2013). Cultures of adhocracy, clan,
hierarchy and market and innovation performance: A case of
hotels in turkey.
Journal of Travel and Tourism Research (Online), 13
(1), 132-142. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-
com.ezproxy1.apus.edu/docview/1508765561?accountid=8289
Reiley, P., & Jacobs, R. (2016). Ethics Matter: Moderating
Leaders’ Power Use and Followers’ Citizenship Behaviors.
Journal of Business Ethics
,
134
(1), 69–81. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-014-2416-0