Individual Report Case Study Analysis – Leadership
Individual Report Case Study Analysis Assessment Answer
Executive Summary
Leadership style could be referred to the manner or approach that provides direction, implement plans or used to motivate people for achieving the common goal. Thus this report would further describe about certain leadership style by correlating it with the individuals in the provided case study. Further, the report would describe the different leadership approaches, styles, and strategies that are followed by the four key leaders described in the case study. The report would also describe the relevance of power, influence, culture, and politics for shaping up the specific behaviors. Additionally, this would also describe any contradictory perspective in the intentions, behaviors, and actions of the leaders in this case.
Introduction
An effective leader is responsible for influencing the followers for achieving the desired goals. Distinct leadership styles affect the growth, effectiveness, and the performance of the organisation. Moreover, organisational culture is greatly influenced by the leadership style which also directly affects the performance of the organisation (Yahaya, 2016). According to the case study, Remington Engineering Technologies, successfully headed by Richard Harris, who acted as both Company President and Chairman of the company. The unique transformation leadership style followed by Richard resulted in the great success of the company. Additionally, a leader is delegated to the person who mainly influences others to achieve the primary goals established for the company. On the other hand, the leadership style followed by Silverman, Sinclair, and Zacchary was quite contradictory in nature. Thus, this report would further describe the various contexts of leadership approaches, styles, and strategies described in the case study followed by relevant conclusion and recommendations.
Leadership styles, approaches, and strategies
The effectiveness of the applied leadership style greatly influences the role of the performance, effectiveness behaviour, and attitudes. Moreover, highly structured task and establishing of a good relationship among the employees the effectiveness of the task performance and target achievements significantly improves (Groysberg, 2018).
Vision and Approaches of Harris
In this case study, Harris headed the company and established a single-product enterprise. His approach of manufacturing of uniquely designed Jet Fighter engines resulted in profitable business for the company. Few years later, Chris Palmer approached with the innovative idea related to the design of the efficient engine. At the same point of the time, Harris’ company developed a lightweight Gyro-Copter which was suitable for the military purpose. Harris and Palmer discussed their idea and decided to incorporate which resulted in the representation of new technological development. This incidence leads to the restructuring of Remington Engineering Technology for the cooperation of the new design. Thus the collaboration between Harris and Palmer lead to transformation within the organisation.
Further, the development of the company occurred thorough distributive approach. This concept is an effective leadership style which provides a potential solution in case of in-cooperating of different ideas for the growth of the organisation. This leadership style has become quite popular which allows shifting the focus from individual leader to a more systematic perspective of the organisational growth (Storey, 2016). According to the idea of the case study, Harris clearly approached for this leadership style as the next step. The organisation was sub-divided into the specific department which had a significant role in the growth increasing the profit of the organisation. Harris envisaged that the newly formed three division in the company to be completely functional soon. Thus he recruited highly proficient senior executive David Silverman as head of the Central Service. David Silverman worked on the various approach of the company’s development and along with this he also involved Diana Sinclair who moved towards the unofficial head of the financial department of the company. Further, Silverman and Sinclair established a strong bond with Malcolm Zacchary.
Both the transformation and distributive leadership have their own significance. Transformational leadership approach is conceptualized by the transformation of an individual’s idea and the organisation culture according to the need of the organizational development. This type of leadership style brings valuable positive change for achieving the organisation. This type also includes connecting of follower’s identity for the development of the organisation. Moreover, the employees in the organisition grow along with the growth of the organisation. Moreover, transformation leadership introduces four major elements (Malik, 2017). This includes consideration of individuals, intellectual stimulation, involving of inspirational motivation, and idealized influence. The individualized consideration involves the degree to which the leaders or the mentor value the perspective of the employees. Secondly, the leaders following this style stimulate and encourage the idea of the employees and provide the opportunity to the employees to think interdependently. Thirdly, the leaders provide an inspirational challenge to the followers and also sets high standards, openly communicate optimism about the up[coming goals, and represent meaning to the task. Lastly, this leadership style intact as a role model for the ethical behaviour, gaining respect from the fellow, and trust (Adserias, 2017).
Despite numerous advantage of the transformation leadership style, it also upholds certain disadvantages. This type of leadership can lead to taking of the wrong decision. Moreover, the leader following this leadership style often believes that their employees also share the common vision as them. The think that or creates the assumption that the people always agree to their ideas and value their beliefs. This many times sets drawback for such type of the leader as the employees work for their own selfish motive which remains overlooked (Kesting, 2016). This case study clearly showed that the actual motive of Silverman, Sinclair, and Zacchary remained covered for Harris. Moreover, the prioritization issue is also caused. This occurred when Harris required taking the decision regarding Palmer’s Turbo Drive Engine Division, he wrongly got influenced and decided to terminate that division.
Vision of Silverman
Silverman was quite ambitious in nature and had agenda of money making within the organisation. Silverman established his three separate divisions with the Central Services; i.e. the marketing and Sales departments, the Human Resources department and the administrative department. He rapidly moved to set new accounting procedure with the help of Diana Sinclair. Later, both of them showed compulsive leadership approach. The manager or leader following this approach is known to have the one-track or rigid mindset. Such type of approach tunnel and narrow their vision to a few controllable variables which become their primary focus of the actions (Sendjaya, 2016).
Vision of Sinclair
Sinclair shared common money making goal agenda that was similar to Silverman. She was the manager of Financial and Accounting Division in Section B. Sinclair and Silverman shared common Alma meter and both of them conveyed common ambitious in respect of cooperate finance and restructuring of organisation. She later helped Silverman to adapt new financial formula for the company which greatly affected the profitability index of Palmer’s division.
Vision of Zacchary
Malcolm Zacchary, on the other hand, had an abrasive leadership style, which was quite different from the Harris’ leadership approaches or strategies. However, a common style adapted by both of them was great confidence that motivated them to achieve the common goal of the organisation. The abrasive leadership style is one of the management styles where the leader shows superiority or emasculating behaviour. At the same time, their orientation towards others remains unsatisfactory and there is always the better expectation for the work output from the employees. Moreover, often the abrasive managers view themselves as the highest achiever respect of knowledge, competency or analytical skills. They dominate their ideas on others and treat others as less appropriate. The studies have shown that such type of leaders more often tend to do all work themselves or check everything in minute details as they believe that the employees won’t be able to meet their standards (Kesting, 2016). In case of any mistake, such type of leader easily criticise others. Moreover, their intense tendency to lead creates an evaluative environment in the workplace.
The abrasive aspiration in combination with competitive needs provides them necessary justification for their behaviour or attitude towards others (Henisz, 2018). Such type of leadership style has its own advantage as the leader have the tendency of good is not enough; it can always be better. However, in such a situation, the employees may experience a lower level of self-efficacy or self-confidence. Moreover, this also tends to withhold the rewards from the employees. They also have the tendency to justify their mistreatment to be the deserved action against the respective person (Furnham, 2016).
he successes and failure of the identified leadership styles, approaches, and strategies:
The leader in the organisation requires a great understanding of the organisational culture so that they could communicate new vision and ensure the employee’s commitment towards achieving it. Thus the organisational culture and the adapted leadership style are both interrelated with each other. In cooperate culture the leader mobilises the employees’ attention towards achieving the ultimate goal for the organisation (Yao, 2018). Thus both of these terms are intertwined and share a symbolic relationship. Basically, organisation culture can be described as the shared values, beliefs or the perspective that ultimately held the employees together in an organisation and direct them towards achieving common goals (Henisz, 2018). However, in this case, study the leaders did not work for achieving a common goal. As Harris had the ultimate vision for the growth of the company, but on the other hand Silverman, Sinclair, and Zacchary carried their selfish motive. These ultimately lead to disputes within the organisation. The similar attitude of Silverman, Sinclair and Zacchary lead to the formation of strong bonding among them. Finally, every other leader probably conspired against Harris. This led to change in the power status among the leaders.
In this case study, a year after the establishment of the new division by Harris, Palmer’s division received a serious question regarding its retention. Both Silverman and Sinclair repeatedly questioned the probability status of the Turbo Drive Engine Division. Despite the fact, they were the fault in the core management system of this unit, Zacchary also supported the non-profitability point of Silverman and Sinclair. Later, Harris was also misleading which made him accept that Turbo Drive Engine was non-profit and non-performing division affecting the entire cooperation. He also felt that due to the global economic tight climate, the cooperate structure needs restructuring. Thus he decided to close down the respective division of Palmer. Further, the case studies clearly showed that Harris was misleading regarding the profitability of Palmer division. The conspiracy for the desire and ambition of Silverman, Sinclair, and Zacchary costed the life of Harris. Later, Silverman declared himself to be the logical successor for the company and the idea was support by independent memos by Sinclair and Zacchary.
The Relevance of power, influence, politics and culture in shaping or rewarding specific leader behaviours
The power plays significant role for the leaders in both administrative and political perspective of the organisation. Moreover, power is an effective tool that is vital in adequate organisation functioning. Initially in this case study, Harris holds the core power for functioning of the company. The leadership style and strategies followed by Harris showed significant growth of the company and wide range of profitability. However, the politics used in negative manner lead to interchanging in the power status in the organisation. Silverman, Sinclair, and Zacchary worked for their selfish motive within the organisation which leads to change in power at the end.
In the intentions, action or behaviour of the leaders in the case
The leadership style followed by Harris and others were contradictory in nature. The transformation and distributive leadership style is the positive approach which helps the employees to grow with the growth of the organisation. On the other hand, Silverman, Sinclair, and Zacchary followed abrasive and compulsive leadership which is a quite negative approach. Moreover, these leadership style results in demotivating the employees and lowers their self-esteem.
Conclusion
This report emphasized on various aspect of the organisational culture and the leadership style. The case study used in this report clearly showed different leadership style followed by different types of the leader in an organisation. The transformation and distributive leadership style provided the organisation a strong vision and also resulted in the success of the company in various aspect. In contrast to this, the compulsive and the abrasive leadership style showed the superiority attitude of the leaders which later lead to discrepancy and conspiracy within the organisation. Thus, the study clearly showed that the success of the organisation is intertwined with the attitude or the leadership style followed by the leader. Moreover, the contradiction in the attitudes of the leader showed a significant difference in the ultimate consequences. Thus this study showed that leaders holding the positive attitude should always review for the negative consequences. Moreover, the leader must fairly evaluate and identify the ultimate motive of the other employees. In case, if Harris had identified the ultimate motive of Silverman, Sinclair, and Zacchary the organisation would have not faced its end consequences.
References
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