Skills approach
1. Dr. Wood’s leadership is not fully effective because despite his possessing of the competencies required for the research, he lacks the necessary social judgment skills to effectively communicate with his assistants and associates. His relationship with the other members is strained. The project will however be successful because of the objectivity of the members towards achieving the project’s goals despite the strain of the project.
2. Dr. Wood has the problem solving skills and knowledge required for leadership of the project. However, he lacks the social judgment skills required to effectively communicate and deal with the other members of the project.
3. I would address the social judgment skills with him. This is because he lacks the necessary social skills required to ensure effective communication between a leader and other members of a group. He should change the manner in which he communicates to the other members of the group and develop appropriate means of appreciating the role played by others towards success of the research project.
1. Lt. Col John Adams has all of the skills required for effective leadership under the skills approach. He has the problem solving skills, social judgment skills and the knowledge required to effectively lead in the position he occupies.
2. His ability to meet the additional tasks he faced regarding the conversion of the base will be reduced by the increasing social needs of the new tasks. His current social skills may not be adequate to currently deal with the social problems that have resulted from the conversion of the base.
3. If I were to coach Adams, I would emphasize that he improves his social skills to effectively deal with his increased social responsibilities that have resulted from the conversion of the base.
1. Andy’s success in the restaurant business can be attributed to his social judgment skills. His ability to effectively meet his clients’ social needs have made his pursuit of success in the business effectively.
2. Andy has the problem solving skills and the social judgment skills that are required for skills leadership approach. He however lacks the knowledge necessary to deal with the technical business aspects of the business. Andy’s leadership suggests that it is not necessary to have all the competencies for effective leadership because Andy clearly lacks the knowledge competency yet he still manages to lead the firm effectively.
Style approach
1. Mark’s leadership style was initially opportunism and then changed to team management style approach.
2. He initially concentrated his efforts and those of his subordinates towards ensuring that he achieves his personal goals while in the later stages, he changed and adopted team management style approach by working with his subordinates as a team towards the achievement of his goals.
3. Mark is more tasks oriented than relationship oriented. He focuses more on the tasks that need to be accomplished more than he does at nurturing good working relationships among his subordinates and between himself and his subordinates.
4. I would rate mark at 5, 5. He is both task oriented and relationship oriented and therefore employs both opportunism and team management styles of leadership.
1. According to the style approach, I would describe Susan’s leadership as opportunism. Her main goal in the leadership process is to achieve her own personal goals of growing the company’s sales and maintaining its reputation.
2. Her leader ship style creates a pronounced reaction from her employees because she does not identify personally with them at any point in her leadership process. She only seeks the store’s smooth operation without regard to the stores employees’ personal input towards this and seems not to appreciate their input towards this success.
3. I think she should change her style to be more interactive with her employees. She should seek to create ways of changing her employee’s perspective of her as a person who only cares about the success of her store.
4. Changing her leadership style will be effective since she will be able to have her employees share in her objective of continued growth of her store while at the same time not alienating them. She will thus be able to achieve her personal objective more effectively.
1. Douglas’s leadership style approach is team management.
2. The leadership approach seems appropriate in the context of a design department at a furniture company. This kind of department requires innovation and creativeness and this leadership approach is most appropriate to bring out these traits from the employees most effectively.
3. I would like to work for Douglas. His relationship with his employees is interactive and allows them to voice their concerns and opinions about work.
4. There is a downside to this leadership approach. It may lead to laxity among the employees which may negatively affect the performance expected of them. It may also lead to time wastage as employees engage in activities which are not part of their performance objectives.
Situational approach
1. Rick Nakano: Placed at D2. He is well versed in the operations of his department and also a highly action oriented manager. He should adopt the coaching situational leadership approach since he displays high directive and high supportive behavior.
Beth Edwards: Placed at D4. She is unknowledgeable of the company’s operations and its products. She therefore exhibits low supportive and low directive behavior.
Steve Lynch: Placed at D3. He is new to the management position despite his vast experience in working with the company. He is characterized by high supportive and low directive behavior.
2. I would not act the same towards the three managers because each of them is at a different level of development in the company and it may thus not be effective to act the same towards them.
3. The conference with Beth Edwards will be the hardest because she is newer to the company and her understanding of the company’s operations and products is not at its best. Her targets for the first quarter have not been met. The conference with Rick Nakano will be the easiest because he fully understands his responsibilities and is well versed with the company’s operations from his many years of experience working as an engineer.
1. According to the SLII model, Jim is using the highly supportive and low directive style approach to run the seminars.
2. The managers are at the high directive and low supportive level. They do not seem to support the initiatives of the seminar and seem to require more directions from Jim to participate in the seminar.
3. From a leadership perspective, Jim is wrong to allow the managers at the training to choose whether or not to attend the seminars. He should be the individual to make decisions and demand their attendance in the seminars as a leader since they may not appreciate the importance of the seminars while he does.
4. Jim should adopt a more directive approach in running the seminars to ensure their success. He should provide clear and concise directions to the managers regarding the importance and attendance to the seminar and should avoid giving the managers too much leeway to make their own decisions regarding whether or not they should attend. He should adopt the highly directive and highly supportive approach.
References
Northouse, P. G. (2009). Leadership: Theory and Practice. (5th ed.). London: Sage Publications.
