Purpose of Assessment
Apply theories about leadership, structure, and culture to real-world scenarios that have occurred in various organizations. You will be measured on how you narrate various leadership styles to foster innovation and lead change in a dynamic environment. Use the chart you created in Week 3 as a quick reference as you work.
Review the following cases from Organizational Behavior:
- Ch. 12: Case Incident 1: Sharing is Performing
- Review questions: 12-13, 12-14, and 12-15.
- Ch. 15: Case Incident 2: Turbulence on United Airlines
- Review questions: 15-13, 15-14, and 15-15.
- Ch. 16: Case Incident 2: Active Cultures
- Review questions: 16-16, 16-17, and 16-18.
In 780- words, do the following:
- For each of the above cases:
- Describe, through a story, the leader’s use of the leadership style in response to the situation. Use various action verbs in your story.
- Explain what makes the selected leadership style effective for the particular situation.
- Compare and contrast the leadership styles leaders chose for each case.
- Explain why the leadership styles should differ for each case.
Case Incident 1: Sharing Is Performing
Replacing Nicholas Dirks as the chancellor of University of California at Berkeley, Carol T. Christ is taking on a strategy that her predecessors did not utilize: sharing leadership. Notably, the prior chancellor and provost would not consult other decision makers and stakeholders at the university when they proposed to dissolve completely the College of Chemistry. Christ, on the other hand, met with Frances McGinley, the student vice president of academic affairs, reaching out to “get a beat on what [student government] was doing and how [she] could help.” This move was unusual because McGinley would often have to track down the other administrators to even get a meeting (or would be merely delegated work). Another such arrangement between Jill Martin and David Barrs at a high school in Essex, England, designates special interest areas where each takes the lead, and they both share an educational philosophy, meet daily, have the authority to make decisions on the spot, and challenge one another.
As Declan Fitzsimons suggests in a Harvard Business Review article, the twenty-first century moves too quickly and is too dynamic to be handled by one person. By sharing leadership among multiple individuals, the organization can respond more adaptively to challenges, share disparate but complementary perspectives, and ease the burden experienced by the traditional charismatic leader figurehead. However, sharing leadership leads to its own issues and obstacles, which are apparent in the multiple relationships between team members, subordinates, and other employees. Not only do individual identities become involved, but so do collective identities shared as a group. It is also important to recognize that shared leadership is not about delegation but about putting in effort to coordinate and collaborate, along with balancing individual and collective goals.
Recent reviews of the research on shared leadership suggest that, overall, shared leadership is effective at improving team performance, attitudes, and behaviors, especially when the leadership is transformational or charismatic and when the team tasks are complex.
Questions
1. 12-13. What kind of obstacles can you foresee in taking a shared leadership approach? How might they (or can they) be solved?
2. 12-14. How would you implement a shared leadership initiative in a company where you were the CEO? What elements of job design and redesign might you draw on to increase the effectiveness of the shared leadership initiative?
3. 12-15. Can you think of any instances in which nonshared, traditional approaches to leadership would be preferable to a shared leadership approach? What are they, and how are they preferable? What sort of situational or individual factors lead to the traditional approach being more effective in these instances?
Case Incident 2: Turbulence on United Airlines
The beginning of 2017 was not good for United Airlines. Several incidents involving United Airlines personnel enforcing a variety of rules, regulations, and protocols in employees’ interactions with customers caused international outcry. The first incident involved two teenagers who were wearing leggings for their flight from Minneapolis to Denver. They were stopped by the gate agent and not allowed to board for violating the United Airlines travel perk program. These travel perk passes hinge on a requirement for users of the passes to dress themselves so that the airline is presented in a favorable light. United defended its decision via Twitter: “Leggings are not inappropriate attire except in the case of someone traveling as a pass rider.” Comedian Seth Rogan tweeted, “We here at @United are just trying to police the attire of the daughters of our employees! That’s all! Cool, right?”
A second, more severe incident occurred when David Dao, a doctor who needed to see his patients the following morning, was aboard a Louisville-bound flight from Chicago in April. Four United employees needed to get to Louisville at the last minute, and it was announced that four people needed to give up their seats or else the flight would be cancelled. Attendants called the police after no one complied. The police approached Dao and forcibly removed him from the plane. Dao suffered a broken nose and concussion after his head smashed into an armrest. United policy allowed for the involuntary removal of passengers from flights, although this time United was not as defensive. Dao later filed a lawsuit against United for its actions.
A third incident, in Houston, involved a soon-to-be-married couple, Michael and Amber, headed to Costa Rica for their wedding. When they entered the plane, they noticed a man sleeping in the row where their seats were assigned. Instead of disturbing him, they found some seats three rows up and sat there instead. They were soon asked by an attendant to return to their seats and they complied. A U.S. marshall approached them soon after and ejected them from the plane. According to United statements, the couple “repeatedly” tried to sit in upgraded seats and would not follow the instructions of the attendants and crew members, and, as such, they were within their power to eject the passengers.
These incidents suggest that, starting with the structure as created by the CEO, United employees do not have much latitude or flexibility when dealing with day-to-day policy breaches. Taking cost-minimization and efficiency-boosting strategies to the extreme may also have had an effect given that the focus drifted from the customer and toward rule following. Many attribute this inflexibility to the strict, rule-following bureaucracy created by United managers. In this bureaucracy, their 85,000 employees may be reluctant to deviate from the rules—intracompany historical precedent suggests that many employees face termination if they break the rules.
Questions
1. 15-13. How do you think United Airlines should have handled the recent string of incidents? Do you think that United Airlines was within its power to have removed these people from the flights? Why or why not?
2. 15-14. What are the pros and cons of having a bureaucratic organizational structure for an airline? Do you think the pros and cons are justified for United Airlines and that they should keep the structure they have? Why or why not?
3. 15-15. What do you think United Airlines should do in the future? Do you have any suggestions for enhancements or improvements to the United Airlines organizational structure? Would you consider restructuring? Why or why not?
Case Incident 2: Active Cultures
Employees at many successful companies start the day by checking the economic forecast. Patagonia’s Ventura, California, employees start the day by checking the surf forecast. The outdoor clothing company encourages its workforce to take time from the workday to get outside and get active. For Patagonia, linking employees with the natural environment is a major part of the culture.
New hires are introduced to this mindset very quickly. Soon after starting at Patagonia, marketing executive Joy Howard was immediately encouraged to go fly fishing, surfing, and rock climbing all around the world. She notes that all this vacationing is not just playing around—it’s an important part of her job. “I needed to be familiar with the products we market,” she said. Other practices support this outdoors-oriented, healthy culture. The company has an on-site organic café featuring locally grown produce. Employees at all levels are encouraged through an employee discount program to try out activewear in the field. And highly flexible hours ensure that employees feel free to take the occasional afternoon off to catch the waves or get out of town for a weekend hiking trip.
Are there bottom-line benefits to this organizational culture? Some corporate leaders think so. As Neil Blumenthal, one of the founders of Warby Parker eyewear, observes, “[T]hey’ve shown that you can build a profitable business while thinking about the environment and thinking about your team and community.” As Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario says, “People recognize Patagonia as a company that’s … looking at business through a more holistic lens other than profit.” However, she is quick to add, “Profit is important; if it wasn’t you wouldn’t be talking to me.”
Patagonia’s culture obviously makes for an ideal workplace for some people—but not for others who don’t share its values. People who are just not outdoor types would likely feel excluded. While the unique mission and values of Patagonia may not be for everyone, for its specific niche in the product and employment market, the culture fits like a glove.
Questions
1. 16-16. What do you think are the key dimensions of culture that make Patagonia successful? How does the organization help to foster this culture?
2. 16-17. Does Patagonia use strategies to build its culture that you think could work for other companies? Is the company a useful model for others that aren’t so tied to a lifestyle? Why or why not?
3. 16-18. What are the drawbacks of Patagonia’s culture? Might it sometimes be a liability and, if so, in what situations?
Comparing Leadership Models
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LDR 531
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Dr. Leo Maganares
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Comparing Leadership Models
Shared leadership has emerged as a response to rapidly changing organizations and an increase in the complexity of tasks (de Cruz, 2019). Shared leadership can quickly and effectively solve problems, increase performance, and improve organizational productivity. With a team of experience, skills, and resources a strong leadership foundation can be formed to solve complex problems and initiate change to improve the overall productivity of organizations.
Chapter 12 Case Incident One: Sharing is Performing
Obstacles that can be encountered with shared leadership are social loafing, conflict with roles, differences in opinions, beliefs, values, negative mental models, task conflicts, and diversity issues (Robbins & Judge, 2019). Undefined roles can cause conflicts of ideas, opinions, leadership authority, and social loafing. All of these can have a negative effect on the team.
In this case, Christ looked to McGinley, as did Martin, to Barrs to form a shared leadership to solve two complex organizational problems (Robbins & Judge, 2019). The organization I work for formed a shared leadership quality team made up of leaders from the entire organization to determine clinical competencies for nursing. When the findings indicated that competencies were not standardized or based on evidence-based practices, they developed a program that would improve nursing competencies aligned with the vision and mission of the organization. This program was aligned with the mission of the organization to ensure that nurses were competent in their skills to provide high-quality care.
The leadership style that would best promote shared leadership in this case, would be Hersey and Blanchard’s situational leadership theory where the focus is on “directing, coaching, supporting, and delegating behavior” (Thompson & Glaso, 2018, p. 575). Leading a shared leadership team as CEO it would be important to define roles, assess team readiness, skills, knowledge, commitment, performance, and provide structure. Leadership styles would need to be adjusted based on the skills, knowledge, and readiness of the follower. Recruiting team members that are highly motivated, positive, conscientious, and have high abilities and intelligence can help improve the success of a team (Robbins & Judge, 2019). Provide an environment of trust, and openness allowing individuals the freedom to express opinions, views, and disagreements. Open communication can empower, encourage creativity, build trust, and promote confidence.
To reduce social loafing, goals, roles, and tasks need to be defined so team members know how they will collectively contribute to the team effort and success. Organizational support, adequate resources, building a climate of trust, and providing rewards to individuals based on team performance are all strategies that contribute to the success of a shared leadership team (Robbins & Judge, 2019).
Job design and redesign could be accomplished by defining roles and allowing for an increase in autonomy and decision making. Communicating effectively to each team member that individual efforts will contribute to the overall team effort, and tasks will be shared. Redesigning roles can allow for autonomy, empowerment, and confidence among followers to feel valued that they are contributing to the success of the organization. Tasks could be divided, and sub-divided as needed to accomplish the goals of the team. By utilizing a situational leadership style, each team member’s readiness to contribute will require a leader to adjust their leadership style. As CEO, the leadership style is redesigned in shared leadership. The focus becomes not on assessing information and making decisions, but managing teams by being aware of relationships, progress, and motivations (Fitzsimons, 2016).
A nonshared, traditional leadership approach is seen in the aircraft manufacturing industry like Spirit AeroSystems. In this industry CEO’s make all important decisions and delegate tasks to managers below. These tasks then get passed down to employees. In a traditional leadership model, individual roles and jobs are well defined to focus on a product, performance, and results. Employees have little decision-making opportunities or input. The CEO has the power to make decisions and execute orders in a top-down style (Robbins & Judge, 2019). Building airplanes is based on safety protocols and following procedures in a traditional hierarchy of leadership. This is a preferable leadership style for this type of industry because of following policies and procedures helps ensure that aircraft are being built safely while also meeting productivity.
Chapter 15 Case Incident Two: Turbulence on United Airlines
In this case, passengers were removed from United Airlines flights, I do not agree that these situations were handled appropriately. United does have the right and power to remove an individual if the concern is a violation that could jeopardize the safety of others. If United did not instill a bureaucratic leadership style but instead utilized a leadership style based on Fiedler’s contingency theory, relationship-oriented managers, rather than task-oriented, could respond to follower needs by adjusting their leadership style to match the situation and manage conflicts. Building strong relationships with followers can improve confidence, and empowerment so that followers feel safe in asking for decisions to be made that are exceptions to the rules and regulations of United. Followers could look to leaders for guidance based on trust that they would not be reprimanded or lose their jobs for requesting protocols and policies to be adjusted to meet customer needs.
Roles and job descriptions in this model would be still be well defined, but followers and managers would work together to make decisions that would meet customer needs rather than focus only on following the strict rules for United’s “efficiency-boosting strategies” (Robbins & Judge, 2019, p. 537). Leaders in this model provide direction, support, build confidence, and assess situations before making decisions and adjust their leadership style to build strong relationships with followers (da Cruz, Nunes, & Pinheiro, 2011).
The pros for having a bureaucratic organizational structure for an aircraft manufacturing plant is that rules are set, policies are enforced, and job roles are well defined for safety. The downside to this type of structure is limited employee decision making, the focus is on productivity and not on meeting customer needs. Employees and managers may become unmotivated because they are not able to voice their ideas, concerns, and must follow strict rules and regulations or face possible termination.
If United keeps this structure, they need to allow managers the ability to make decisions that benefit meeting customer needs within the safety regulations of the airline. In the future, the airline should allow the opportunity for decisions to be made by leaders, and possibly in the future by qualified employees. Building positive leader and employee relationships would improve the productivity of the organization, and the work environment. I would consider restructuring the leadership style for United to allow leaders more opportunity to assess situations and make decisions based on customer needs so that customers are not forced to exit a plane for reasons of clothing, overbooking, and seat assignments. Each of these situations could have been handled differently without causing stress and harm to customers.
The policy at our clinic is that we do not draw lab for outside providers. This can cause problems for patients if they are elderly and require a great deal of assistance to ambulate. There are also insurance conflicts where the lab costs may not be covered if lab is drawn in our facility. Utilizing Fiedler’s contingency model, employees can assess each situation and decide based on what is best for the patient which may be outside the policy. With strong relationships, trust, and confidence with leaders, followers can feel safe to either reach out to their leader for guidance or make a decision that will benefit the patient without repercussion. Occasionally writing off the cost of a lab draw and having the specimens picked up, is more beneficial for meeting customer needs than strictly following a policy that no outside labs will be drawn.
Chapter 16 Case Incident Two: Active Cultures
The key dimension of the Patagonia culture is to meet the needs of the employee while providing a work environment that is conducive to productivity. This culture is fostered by providing flexible work schedules, having a café, and encouraging employees to be active in allowing them to become familiar with the Patagonia products. By promoting healthy lifestyles, and allowing flexible schedules, employee motivation, productivity, and retention will improve for the overall success of the organization. This type of leadership model follows the Burn’s transformational model where the organization strives to provide a positive work environment and meet the needs of its employees (White, 2018). This leadership style is also seen in companies such as GOOGLE, Apple, and Tesla. These three companies strive to provide a positive work environment to encourage creativity, productivity, and meet employee needs. As a leader these leadership qualities are important to me. I strive to provide a positive work environment, encourage, motivate, and coach employees to perform at their highest level to provide quality patient care.
The drawbacks of this type of culture may be too much flexibility causing lack of productivity and motivation. This culture is built on trust that the work will get done. Encouraging “playtime” could inhibit productivity and become a liability if the products are poorly designed. For example, a faulty designed surfboard could cause injury to customers resulting in large expenses for the organization. Expectations would need to be set for the quality and consistency of work in this type of organizational culture.
Conclusion
Each of these leadership models is designed to encourage, motivate, and improve follower productivity whether it be applied individually or to a group. Each scenario required a different leadership style to meet the needs of the followers and the given situation. Transformational models focus on providing a positive work environment, whereas the two transactional models focus on a task, role definition, and adjusting leadership style to encourage follower motivation. All three are leadership models to improve follower retention, satisfaction, motivation, build trust, empower, guide, and coach followers to improve productivity of organizations.
References
da Cruz, M. R. P., Nunes, A. J. S., & Pinheiro, P. G. (2011). Fiedler’s contingency theory: Practical application of the least preferred coworker (LPC) Scale. IUP Journal of Organizational Behavior, 10(4), 7–26. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=shib&db=bth&AN=71490543&site=eds-live&scope=site
de Cruz, N. P. (2019). A conceptual overview of attaining, maintaining, and regaining shared leadership in high performing teams. Journal of Leadership Education, 18(1), 213–226. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.12806/V18/I1/T3
Fitzsimons, D. (2016). How shared leadership changes our relationships at work. Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, 2–5. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=shib&db=bth&AN=118686162&site=eds-live&scope=site
Robbins, S. P. & Judge, T. A. (2019). Organizational behavior. (18th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.
Thompson, G., & Glaso, L. (2018). Situational leadership theory: A test from a leader-follower congruence approach. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 39(5), 574–591. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-01-2018-0050
White, S. K. (2018). What is transformational leadership? A model for motivating innovation. CIO. Retrieved from https://www.cio.com/article/3257184/what-is-transformational-leadership-a-model-for-motivating-innovation.html