Management: Case study
The main problem of the French Company, a subsidiary of Media AG, is the transition of the leadership styles, which has resulted in the conflict in the decision-making process. Through the former production director (PD), Mr. Monsieur Abel, the leadership in the company has been characterized by the French ‘patron' leadership behaviors. However, subsequent to the Abel's replacement with Dr. Bernard, the company’s leadership had shifted to a participative leadership style. Consequently, there has been conflicting in the decision-making process because the current PD relies on the workers to make the effective decisions, which is contrary to the former PD.
Determining the possible reasons
One of the fundamental causes of the problem is the utilization of participative approach in an organizational environment that has utilized and gained experience in a style that resembles French ‘patron' leadership style. In this leadership style, that the followers or the employees are given too many responsibilities without proper management guidance and hence affecting the management process. As a result, this people-oriented management produces a work environment where the employees are dissatisfied, confuses, and make ineffective decisions. According to Ricketts and Ricketts (2010, p.30), the problem of participative leadership style is assuming followers have the required skills to make decisions, which is the case of Dr. Bernard’s leadership.
Another problem that has caused the conflict in the leadership style within the French company is that some employees feel manipulated by the participative leadership approach. One of the main disadvantages of using a participative approach is that organization members might view this approach as an attempt to manipulate them (Ricketts and Ricketts, 2010, p.30). This is illustrated by the Maillot's letter; Dr. Bernard was delegating too many roles to the employees, which produced frustration, and even quitting the job. For instance, Fleur, a print technician resigned after feeling that he would not solve the problem he had been asked to solve for a span of three months.
Solutions
One of the effective solutions would be the utilization of the shared leadership in the organization to ensure that all groups or individuals in the organization are fully engaged. According to (Kocolowski, 2010, p.24), shared leadership promotes an interactive influence process that ensures all individuals in groups achieve organizational goals.
Another solution would involve training the employees on the decision-making skills to ensure they can make a decision on their own.
Dr. Bernard should be a sensitive and extroverted leader who can share authority and decision with his subordinates. According to Griner (1973), this is the foundation of the participative leadership.
The management team should also develop group decision-making process to help individuals develop and implement decisions within the organization. In this case, the leaders should be assigning a task to the group rather than the individuals.
Effective solutions
One of the effective solutions includes implementing the shared leadership style. This style ensures that the leader, Dr. Bernard can provide an appropriate channel to make a decision and consequently help the employees to be effective decision makers. Another solution is the implementing the group decision making. Nelson et al. (2013, p.368) argue that groups are more effective compared individuals because of the wide scope of experience each individual contributes to the group. Therefore, this would help the individual to mitigate the problem of feeling manipulated by their leaders. Bass et al. also argues that groups in the participative leadership achieve a better solution to problem compared to the individuals.
References
Bass, B.M. and Stogdill, R.M., 1990. Bass & Stogdill's handbook of leadership: Theory, research, and managerial applications. Simon and Schuster.
Greiner, L. E. 1973, March. What Managers Think of Participative Leadership. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/1973/03/what-managers-think-of-participative-leadership
Kocolowski, M.D., 2010. Shared leadership: Is it time for a change. Emerging Leadership Journeys, 3(1), pp.22-32.
Nelson, D. and Quick, J., 2012. Organizational behavior: Science, the real world, and you. Cengage Learning.
Ricketts, C. and Ricketts, J., 2010. Leadership: Personal development and career success. Nelson Education.
