CASE STUDY 1

Johnson Inc.

Situation:

Johnsons Inc. is a leading company which manufactures wide range of electronic gadgets and high tech equipment. Marry has been working as a senior manager and is leading a research and development team at Johnsons Inc. Marry has scored 80^th percentile in her recent Inspiring and Motivating others to High Performance test. Larry is one of Marry’s direct reporter who has worked for Johnsons Inc. for more than nine years. Recently Larry’s been lagging in his performances as late assignments and late deliveries are being reported from his side. Marry, in order to motivate him, has stretched difficult projects to be carried on to show that she believes in him. She has a positive approach and is displaying confidence in him. However, the whole team is affected by the performance of Larry and the targets aren’t being achieved effectively on time. Larry has shown some positive responses due to Marry’s continuous support but still need to work out things.

Complication:

Marry has given Larry a lot of opportunities to improve his attitude towards work but there are some complications from his side. Marry has met Larry quite often to understand about what has gone wrong and what is holding him back. This has not improved the situation instead many of the team mates are frustrated due to getting in verbal conflict with Larry at workplace recently. Marry is intending to help Larry for correcting his unusual behavior and to help him get back on track. The complications identified are that Larry has been going through rough phase at his home due to some financial issues. Due to this he is always caught up at workstation and shows bad performance. Marry changed some roles on the team due to which Larry is further derailed and cannot do his work as it was previously listed. Marry wants Larry to work his way back and contribute more to the team despite of Larry’s continued lack of confidence and discouragement.

Resolution:

Marry has been showing a positive attitude and displays confidence in her team mates. The directive and supportive behavior shown by Marry can work its way for Larry. Marry is exhibiting the mixture of leadership styles as she is being supportive by providing nurturance, she is being directive as she provides guidelines and psychological structure and she is showing achievement oriented leadership behavior by providing challenging environment for her team mates (Apps, 1994). Larry has accepted Marry’s feedback and taken the responsibility for his actions. Marry’s continuous support and confidence in Larry has been working its charm. Further Marry needs to skillfully persuade Larry toward commitment to ideas or actions and stretched difficult assignments. Marry can make sure that the goals are realistic yet challenging by assigning the projects with stretched goals for Larry’s development. She can regularly communicate with her team mates for identifying progress in reaching their goals, and ask them what she can do to exceed his goals (Paul, Blanchard, & Dewey, 2001). She can do this by regularly following up with Larry on the projects given. Using path-goal theory, Marry needs to define goals, clarify paths, remove obstacles and provide support to Larry for his development and motivation (Lussier & Achua, 2015).

Implications/ Insight:

By the above case study, we can see that Marry, by being supportive and by showing nurturing behavior, has clearly motivated Larry for improving his performance. Based on path-goal theory the subordinates feel motivated if they believe that they are capable of performing their work, their efforts will result in a certain outcome and the payoffs for doing their work are worthwhile (Lussier & Achua, 2015). Marry has followed the first step of motivating Larry by making him believe that he is able to perform work by showing confidence in him although she can use rewards and payoffs for motivating him further (Lussier & Achua, 2015).

 

CASE STUDY 2

Casa Bakers

Situation:

Casa Bakers has been operating in uptown LA for more than ten years now. The customers are happily satisfied and love the freshly baked bread and cookies of Casa Bakers. The success lies in the hands of senior bakery manager Jason. The whole team of bakers, chefs and store operators work under him. He has been known for his democratic leadership style in which he allow the team to take responsibility for achieving the desired results and develop new skills. A newly hired baker named Allison has been working overtime due to her personal financial issues. She bakes breads and cookies until recently when one of old customer complaint about the bread being too hard and cookies being over sugared. On testing the samples baked by Allison, Jason understood that she had no experience in operating baking equipment. Jason doesn’t want to fire her because of her untired commitment and willingness to learn quickly.

Complication:

One of the key challenges for Jason is to ensure that his team produces the right products to meet demands at key times. The drawback of the democratic leadership style, that Jason is exhibiting here, is that in such situations instead of following laissez-faire approach Jason needs to “tell” Allison about how to operate the equipment (Kotter, 2008). In such situations, the complication lies in the leadership behavior to follow. In a democratic leadership behavior, Jason always sells the idea instead of telling but if the employee is not given proper instruction before operating the baking equipment, the bread might end up to be overcooked and/or employees may also injure themselves if they don’t use the equipment properly (Daft, 2014). In such a situation leadership behavior must be adopted to match the situation. Here Jason needs to think about using autocratic or tell behavior instead of democratic or sell behavior (Daft, 2014).

Resolution:

Managers need to understand the importance of using the appropriate leadership style in solving a particular situation. For the scenario above, it is clearly indicated that Jason is a string follower of democratic leadership style in which he loves to sell the idea instead of telling the ideas (Paul, Blanchard, & Dewey, 2001). Jason would not adapt a laissez-faire approach with a new member of the team and will train him/her with authoritative style (Northouse, 2011). According to Blanchard’s Situational Leadership approach coaching and directing can be mixed up to fit in each situation. For situations like above Jason needs more of directing approach in which directions are given with less supportive behavior (Paul, Blanchard, & Dewey, 2001). This is because Allison needs to understand the importance of baking with care so that customers can be retained. Secondly, through adapting a directing approach Allison will be able to learn new skills and will feel motivated (Paul, Blanchard, & Dewey, 2001).

Implication/ Insight:

Blanchard’s Situational Leadership approach recognize that effective leaders are those who can change their style based on task requirements and subordinate needs (Paul, Blanchard, & Dewey, 2001). Jason in this situation has effectively used Blanchard’s situational leadership directing and coaching approach. For most of the situations Jason has been exhibiting coaching approach in which he has been giving direction and supporting the team members in almost all situations (Paul, Blanchard, & Dewey, 2001). Whereas for new team members, like Allison, Jason has exhibited directing approach with high directive and low supportive behavior. This situation has reflected the movement from telling to selling by Jason in training newly hired baker Allison. This way customers can stay happy and satisfied while injuries can be avoided as well.

 

CASE STUDY 3

Hogwarts University

Situation:

Hogwarts University is the leading university in the United States which have been chaired by Dr. Martin. He has been identified as autocratic leader due to which the faculty members were left with little scope of experimentation, freedom in teaching and handling the students. This leadership behavior let the individual faculty members to be passive, ambivalent, dependent and subservient (Lussier & Achua, 2015). Dr. Martin recently died and Dr. Karl joined the university while exhibiting extremely opposite leadership behavior. Dr. Karl showed a democratic leadership style by delegating the tasks to his subordinates (Northouse, 2011). However, due to delegating behavior of Dr. Karl the whole public management department was lost somewhere in understanding the key responsibilities since he didn’t assign the faculty with any non-instructional duties by assuming that they can advise students and meet parents without any interference from him (Daft, 2014). Now the dean of the university thinks Dr. Karl isn’t a right choice for leading the educational team.

Complications:

The main complication in the case study is that how a change in leadership has caused the public management department to be deemed as unsatisfactory by the dean of Hogwarts University. This problem arose due to contrasting leadership styles of Dr. Martin and Dr. Karl and a quick shift between two. Dr. Martin is on the Blake and Mouton’s Leadership Grid in the block of “having great concern for production and little concern for people” (Blake, Mouton, & Bidwell, 1962). Dr. Karl shows lack of research in understanding the culture of Public Management Department before leading as a country club manager (Blake and Mouton’s Leadership Grid) (Blake, Mouton, & Bidwell, 1962). The faculty showed a little resistance in adapting to the environment provided by Dr. Karl so quickly. Dr. Martin had run the Public Management Department with autocratic style and the faculty was accustom to that style of leadership. He clearly didn’t understand that the faculty was not ready to adapt his style of leadership.

Resolution:

I believe that Dr. Karl can be retained as a chairperson of the Public Management Department by the dean because of his empowerment and vision of being noble. He might have lacking skills or abilities but the democratic style he is exhibiting is to get the faculty involved in the decision making process (Kotter, 2008). This will motivate the faculty in understanding the psyche of students on their own. A country club manager exhibits more concern for people and less concern for production. His way of doing things is to pay careful attention for satisfying the needs of the human relationships and leading to a comfortable and friendly atmosphere in the university (Blake, Mouton, & Bidwell, 1962). To solve the major issues, mutual trust and interest needs to be considered by Dr. Karl so that he can lead the faculty with high concern for production as well as high concern for human relationships. Integration of tasks and human requirements can make the atmosphere more effective in which the tasks can be handed over to the staff and participation in decision making is encouraged (Blake, Mouton, & Bidwell, 1962). Dr. Karl can use democratic, delegated and team leader approaches for managing the culture well.

Implication/ Insight:

The Mouton and Blake leadership grid’s usefulness can be seen in the discussed case study. It can be understood that the democratic administration of “produce or perish” by Dr. Martin explains the spoon fed culture in which Dr. Karl’s attempt to delegate budgeting, scheduling and allocation of supplies to the faculty has failed due to resistance (Blake, Mouton, & Bidwell, 1962). However, by utilizing the team leader approach in which both human relationships and tasks delivery is integrated, Mr. Karl can prove out to produce the environment that has mutual trust and growth. Mr. Karl can make use of contingency theory which holds that there are no perfectly right or wrong leadership behavior instead, the success or failure must be gauged in the reflection of situation, the circumstance, or the other factors (Donaldson, 2001).

 

References

Apps, J. W. (1994). Leadership for the emerging age. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Blake, R. R., Mouton, J. S., & Bidwell, A. C. (1962). Managerial grid. Advanced Management-Office Executive .

Daft, R. (2014). The leadership experience. Cengage Learning.

Donaldson, L. (2001). The contingency theory of organizations. Sage Publications.

Kotter, J. P. (2008). Force for change: How leadership differs from management. Simon and Schuster.

Lussier, R., & Achua, C. (2015). Leadership: Theory, application, & skill development. Cengage Learning.

Northouse, P. G. (2011). Introduction to leadership: Concepts and practice. Sage Publications.

Paul, H., Blanchard, K. H., & Dewey, E. J. (2001). Management of Organizational Behavior: Leading Human Resources. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hill.