Focus on an organization of your choice whose functioning you are

familiar with. This may be a business organization, the university you

are attending, your former school, your hall of residence etc,

a. Identify its dominant legitimate and illegitimate political behavior.
b. Describe the causes of these types of behaviors.
c. Describe the consequences of those behaviors
d. Examine the merits and demerits of the political behaviors
e. Suggest ways of improving or consolidating the situation
Organization of my choice is Mt. St. Marys Namagunga
Background of Mt. St. MARYS NAMAGUNGA
Mt. St. Marys College is a girls boarding school for O and A levels. It was founded in 1942
by the Franciscan Missionary Sisters for Africa, a congregation of nuns originating in
Ireland. The school is located in Lugazi, Mukono district. The school is located on the
Kampala-Jinja Highway, approximately 44 kilometres (27 mi), by road, east of Kampala,
Uganda's capital and largest city.Its location is approximately 5 kilometres (3.1 mi), by
road, west of Lugazi, the nearest town and approximately 17 kilometres (11 mi), by road,
east of Mukono.
The idea to start the school was born out of a need to promote the then very much
neglected education for girls and women in this country. The group of Missionaries that
started the school had within their ministry the mission to uplift the standard and status of
women in African society.
At its inception in 1942 the school started with only 12 students. In 1946 it was officially
opened as the first secondary school for girls in Uganda and by then it had 65 students. In
1964 the Government took over the management and up to date the school is a National
school and Government aided.
The school motto is:
Per Scientiam ad Vertutem (Through Knowledge to Virtue) and indeed the school strives at
all times to instill integrity and virtue in all the students alongside the good academic
knowledge the system offers
Mission
To provide quality education to the girl child and inculcate moral values for sustainable
individual and societal development
Vision
To be an inclusive, vibrant, and competitive centre of excellence in teaching and learning.
The administration of Mt. St. Marys is headed by Sr. Seraphine Amulen LSOSF
Headteacher, Mrs. Immaculate A Epenu Deputy Headteacher (Academics), Mrs. Rachel
Kironde Laboke Deputy Headteacher (General Duties), Mrs. Byaruhanga Stella Careers
Mistress & Counselor and Mr. Ocan Milton Agwinyo Director of Studies and Examinations
& Head of Department Economics & Commerce
The school Chaplain is Fr. Safari Eugene
The dominant legitimate and illegitimate Political behavior in Mt. St. Marys
Namagunga
The dominant legitimate Political behaviors of the school besides the academic curriculum,
embedded in the college curriculum are the other values that include:
Going through a hierarchy of complaining to your supervisors, by passing the chain of
command where the administration takes care of the decision making for example on what
the students are to eat, wear, what the students are to do when and why and what is
expected of them
For example, the administrators of the school manage the students by inculcating the fear
of God and prayer: Students are taught the value of praying by attending mass on Sundays
in the College chapel. Roman Catholics and Anglicans are officially catered for to ensure
they develop in their spiritual well-being. All prayers take place in the School Chapel. Each
class also has a special day they attend morning mass in the College chapel on weekly days.
Leadership: Students are actively encouraged to participate in various leadership and
responsibility positions within the College. The Prefectorate is a structured student
leadership body comprising 21 members who are liable to change, in case of new
challenges faced by the school administration. The board is spearheaded by the patron,
Mrs. Immaculate A Epenu, who happens to be the deputy headmaster (Academics) and is
devoted to his work in this area. Leadership in the school is open to all. Therefore students
are enrolled into leadership through the following measures.

Discipline:
Discipline is a strictly emphasized norm at the College. A set of rules and regulations are in
place to help all at St. Marys i.e. staff, parents and students to achieve the schools aim,
vision and mission as well as the national objectives in order to nurture proper future
leaders. Because the girls are not yet adults, they are still in the process of developing a
value system based on established morals and social codes of society. Students are
expected to be gentle towards staff, parents and fellow students at all times. Smartness and
cleanliness is emphasized at all levels including the some areas such as the school uniform,
classrooms, laboratories, the school compound among others. Students are taught other
values such as honesty, integrity and self-respect to persons among others.
The dominant illegitimate political behavior in St. Marys Namagunga is almost non-
existent because of the power exerted by the administration
Causes or Factors contributing to the political behavior in St. Marys Namagunga
There are a number of individual and organizational factors that contribute to political
behavior. However, the following are the causes of these types of behavior in St Marys
Namagunga
Since the power in St Marys Namagunga is controlled mostly by the administrators and the
school takes a pyramid that concentrates power at the top implying that there is much
power available to distribute among the many people who would like more of it but since it
is not the case with the school, then the competition for power becomes more intense.
The school has subjective standards of performance set for the staff as well as the students.
This sometimes makes the students often to resort to illegitimate political behavior
because they do not believe that the school has an objective and fair way of judging their
performance and suitability and therefore strike.
There are disagreements among staff and students that prevent rational decision making:
The administration tends to use rational criteria when making major decisions, but rational
decision making is constrained by major disagreements over what the school should be
doing. Unless strategy and goals are shared strongly among key school stakeholders,
political motivation is inevitable in organizational decision making.
The consequences of the political behavior at St. Marys College, Namagunga
The students from St. Marys college are gentle towards staff, parents and fellow students
at all times. They are role models in smartness and cleanliness whether they are in school
uniform, or when they are at their leisure actually the performance of the school can be
attributed to the political behavior in the school because the students are taught other
values such as honesty, integrity and self-respect to persons among others.
Merits of the political behaviors
Power can be used to benefit many students as a career building tool; the slow and steady
amassing of power is the surest road to success.
A display of dramatic results can help gain acceptance for one's efforts. Once a person has
impressed management with his or her ability to solve an important problem, that person
can look forward to working on problems that will bring greater power.
Political behavior creates sensitivity which in the due course leaders develop a network to
help them keep abreast, or ahead, of developments within the school. For this reason, a
politically astute individual befriends key staff members and executive administrative
assistants, for example.
Ability to Control Vital Information; Power accrues to those who control vital information.
For example, the vital information the school administrators control is knowledge of whom
to contact to shorten some of the complicated procedures in getting tasks done.
Controlling Lines of Communication; Related to controlling information is controlling lines
of communication, particularly access to key people. Administrative assistants and staff
assistants frequently control an administrator's calendar.
Demerits of the political behavior
Any technique of gaining power can be unethical if practiced in the extreme and with
negative intentions. For example, a person who supports a boss by feeding him or her
insider information that could affect the price of company stock is being unethical. Some
approaches are almost unequivocally unethical, such as those described next. In the long
run they can erode a leader's effectiveness by lowering his or her credibility.
There is Back Stabbing. The ubiquitous back stab requires that you pretend to be nice, but
all the while plan someone's demise. A frequent form of back stabbing is to initiate a
conversation with a rival about the weaknesses of the headmaster, encouraging negative
commentary and making careful mental notes of what the person says. When these
comments are passed along to the headmaster, the rival appears disloyal and foolish.
Setting a Person Up for Failure. The object of a setup is to place a person in a position where
he or she will either fail outright or look ineffective.
There is a danger when becoming sensitized to political behavior that one begins to see
everything as political, to develop an interpretation that suggests that everyone is trying to
outwit and outmaneuver everyone else. Students may begin to see politics everywhere, and
to look for hidden agendas even where there are none. Rather than use politics to generate
new insights and understandings that can help deal with divergent interests, there may be
a temptation to reduce the concept to a tool to be used to advance personal interests.
Ways of improving or consolidating the situation
Although necessary, organizational politics can hurt an organization and its members when
carried to excess. Too much politicking can result in lower morale, higher turnover, and
wasted time and effort, thereby lowering performance. To avoid these negative
consequences, leaders should combat political behavior when it is excessive and
dysfunctional. Some steps that can help accomplish this follow.
Administrators should develop Power Contacts and Relationships by identifying powerful
persons cultivating friendly, cooperative relationships with powerful school members and
outsiders to make the administrators cause much easier to advance. These contacts can
benefit students by supporting their ideas in the school meetings.
To control politics, Administrators must be aware of its causes and techniques.
Open communication also can constrain the impact of political behavior. For instance, open
communication can let everyone know the basis for allocating resources, thus reducing the
amount of political behavior. When communication is open, it also makes it more difficult
for some people to control information and pass along gossip as a political weapon for
example why there is a reduction in the time for recreation which if not communicated can
result in striking of the students.
Setting good examples at the top of the organization can help reduce the frequency and
intensity of politics in the school. When leaders are nonpolitical in their actions, they
demonstrate in subtle ways that political behavior is not welcome. It may be helpful for the
leader to announce during a staff meeting that devious political behavior is undesirable and
unprofessional.
Another way of reducing the extent of political behavior is for individuals and the
organization to have goal congruence, i.e., share the same goals, with thorough
understanding of what they mean. If political behavior will interfere with the company and
individuals achieving their goals, workers with goal congruence are less likely to play office
politics excessively.
Conclusion
Politics can sometimes be constrained by a threat to discuss questionable information in a
public forum. People who practice devious politics usually want to operate secretly and
privately. They are willing to drop hints and innuendoes and make direct derogatory
comments about someone else, provided they will not be identified as the source. An
effective way of stopping the discrediting of others is to offer to discuss the topic publicly.


References
Dr. E B Mugerwas class notes on organizational behavior
Dubrin, Andrew J. (2001). Leadership. (3
rd
ed) New York: Houghton Mifflin
Morgan, Gareth (1996). Images of organization (2
nd
ed). Newbury Park: Sage
Pfeffer, Jeffrey (1992). Managing with power: Politics and influence in organizations.
Boston: Harvard Business School Press.