In my current workplace, the supervisor often displays excellent leadership skills and practices which help her to motivate employees and manage current problems. One day, a repeat customer complained that the customer support did not perform well and neglected their duties and responsibilities before customers. In order to manage this situation, the supervisor followed path-goal leadership style: the aim was to achieve work outcomes and change traditional communication practices.
Describe exactly (what was actually done and said) what the leader did in a “typical” leadership situation. (How he/she behaved)
The leader followed supportive behavior patterns: she was friendly and tried to understand needs of employees; she was confident and approachable in communication; she balanced equal treatment with position of each employee. The leader said that employees should be more attentive in their work and ask for advice if they are unsure about actions and communication. Path-goal theory shows that the supervisor has good leadership skills but she did not apply them in all situations. This strategy helps managers to create positive culture and organizational environment. This method emphasizes their ability to make decisions and solve marketing problems in a way that enhances the objectives of the whole corporation.
From step A., you conclude that the leader has what style of leadership – what behaviors to they typically use? Explain why’
Essentially, the path-goal leadership philosophy was a way of thinking about corporate activity; a frame of mind; an attitude. It recognizes the primacy of consumers and customers as they influence all business operations. Usually, it starts with the company’s chief executive, who must recognize that, lacking markets for the company’s products and lacking customer wants and needs, no business can exist. Modern management and leadership cover the application of management techniques in the utilization of marketing resources. It is concerned with the responsibility for planning, organizing, actuating, and controlling marketing activities. It achieves its aims by establishing marketing objectives, policies, plans, programs, and standards, allocating marketing resources, and evaluating the effectiveness of marketing activities (Daft 79).
Establish the relevant situational characteristics: Subordinate Characteristics Task Characteristics Organizational Characteristics
Subordinate Characteristics involved low skills of employees employed three months ago. It is one thing to argue that organizations need to reinvent themselves and develop new, more effective approaches to organizing, and quite another to accomplish it. Large-scale organizational transformation is, at best, a developing art that has yet to produce any clear formulas for success, but more and more attention is being turned to executives as the principle agents of change and adaptation. It is increasingly common to assume that leadership plays the crucial role in an organization’s successful adaptation to a changing world (Daft 93).
Task Characteristics were excellent communication with customers and satisfaction of their needs and wants online and by phone. The analysis shows that when outcomes and results become an end in themselves, the supervisor has overstepped the bounds of human dignity and maintained effective communication and control. These three trends have made obsolete many of the traditional sources of competitive advantage, leaving organizational design and management as one of the few available sources of significant, sustained competitive advantage.
Organizational Characteristics involved good environment, friendly culture and open communication between employees. It is recognized that the supervisor is a specialist in managing markets and marketing resources; production, finance, and personnel executives are his corporate counterparts. An extreme emphasis on performance as a criterion of success may foster an atmosphere of raw striving that results in brutality, be it profit, competition, status, money, or whatever.
Based upon what you identified in step C, logically what leader behaviors should the leader have used?
It would be logically, that the supervisor has made decision-making and problem-solving skills a part of her routine work. As a manager, she has ready-made solutions. Indeed, top managers should gain authority in the first place because they take responsibility and solve problems with such aplomb. Managers rarely receive promotions for providing the leadership required to do adaptive work. Management gains commitment to performance through contractual arrangements, leadership through empowerment. As the corporate world has become better aware of these essential distinctions, more and more resources have gone into training and educating about leadership competencies. Companies are paying record compensation to attract the best and brightest executive talent to lead them safely through today’s turbulent business environment. Many boards and executive recruiters assume that there exists an elite corps of individuals who possess leadership skills that have almost universal application. With the realization that organizations once considered paragons of management effectiveness were faltering in the face of dramatic competitive challenges, many began to suspect that the two roles involved different skill sets. It was conceivable that a company could be well managed but poorly led. In good times, a well-managed company might enjoy great success. Adopting a marketing (diversity-based) approach, it again seems unfruitful to argue that research should be structured to yield analytic knowledge or that research should be structured so as to produce intuitive knowledge. Motivation is often considered one of the oldest concepts in management, thus, it is still one of the most difficult processes for leader-managers. The challenge is that it is extremely difficult for modern leader-managers to motivate and inspire employees, analyze their needs and meet these needs. Lack of leadership and management skills may lead to a failure, low productivity and poor organizational performance. In modern environment, the main challenge is that leader-manager deals with culturally and economically diverse workforce, so he/she should be well aware of motivational theories and their practical application (Daft 89).
Works Cited
Daft, R. The Leadership Experience, Thompson South-Western; 3 edition, 2005.