Case Study on "New Team Leader"

Case Study 8 pages (2990 words) Sources: 12

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Raymond Cattell, a leading pioneer in the field of personality assessment, there are several traits which make up his Leadership Potential equation. He derived this equation based upon the study of military leaders, and it is still used today to determine an effective leader. Cattal's traits of an effective leader include the following attribubutes: (1) Emotional stability, (2) Dominance, (3) Enthusiasm, (4) Conscientiousness, (5) Social boldness, (6) Toughmindedness, (7) Self-assurance, and (8) Compulsiveness ("Traits of Successful Leaders," 2004). While the foregoing traits which comprise Cattell's Leadership Potential equation will undoubtedly help a manager in a position such as Bill Myers, recent research in the area of business leadership and management reveals that there are behaviors which one can practice regardless of the personality one possesses. Accordingly, recent research sets forth the notion that leadership is a process of guiding the behavior of others toward completing the organization's goals. The main goal of leadership is to see that things are completed and this task is done predominantly through communicating effectively with the staff (Business Encyclopedia).

In the case of Bill Myers, Bill has some of the characteristics noted as part of the Leadership Potential equation; however, he lacks others. Namely, he is certainly enthusiastic about his work. His enthusiasm as displayed toward his previous years of hard work and dedication is indeed, what led him to the leadership position in which he finds himself today. Likewise, Bill is certainly conscientious as he continually reflects over how he can do a better job and he has tried a variety of strategies in order to obtain hi

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s objective. Despite the difficulties he has faced, he has not given up. However, either on a situational or on a more permanent level, Bill is lacking many of the other qualities on Catrell's list such as emotional stability, dominance, social boldness, toughmindedness, and self-assurance. For instance, his emotional stability seems to have wavered while standing in the shoes of a middle manager and his ability to demonstrate dominance over others is further diminished by the fact that his crew consists of former friends. It is noted that he tried an authoritarian role; however, no one took him seriously and, in fact, they laughed him off. Perhaps, either they did not see him as genuinely dominant or perhaps, this personality trait needs to be coupled with another behavioral strategy. Bill has been put in an awkward position where he has gone from a peer to a position of authority and management. As such, he is not self-assured. He does not necessarily know how to best approach the new position; and, as a result of this wavering, he sends out mixed messages as one day he approaches his crew with empathy of understanding their roles from having done the job himself to berating them. In fact, when he berated his employees, he showed a lack of emotional stability which further undermined how the crew views him as a leader.

Does the fact that Bill lacks some of these traits either permanently or situationally mean that he lacks the competence as a leader? To some who ascribed solely to the personality theory of management, they would contend that he does not have what it takes intrinsically. However, fortunately for those born without the exact personality traits delineated above, recent research reveals that in leadership and management, there's more than just a personality-centered approach. In fact, successful leaders can be trained and they can develop the behaviors necessary to lead others into producing the behaviors that the leader and the organization would like to see.

Based upon the personality trait theory of leadership as noted by Cattell, one must have the disposition or the personality to lead; however, such an approach fails to take into consideration that an effective leader does not need to lead solely by personality, but by strategies to change and motivate the behavior of others. Presently, management theory asserts that leadership ability should not and cannot be solely explained by one's inherent personality traits; this is especially true because individuals, through training programs and education, can learn skills that foster effective leadership (Encyclopedia).

Modern research, indeed, expands effective leadership from possessing certain personality characteristics to possessing an understanding of how to behave in order to enlist a group to support your leadership requests. In order to do this, Morris and Upchurch developed certain behaviors which are critical to effective leadership practice: (1) understand and negotiate the right management contract, (2) be yourself, (3) listen, (4) refuse to gossip or speak negatively about others, (5)? be a role model, (6) rely on your ability to support, not on your ability to do, (7) give up the illusion of changing anyone except yourself, (8) blow your team's horn, not your own, (9) Focus on your team's strengths, (10) take charge of your own growth, (11) be patient, and (12) work on your emotional intelligence. As per Goldman, there are five parts to emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, motivation, social skills, self-development, and telling the truth (Morris & Upchurch, 2008).

Through a combination of these behaviors, a middle manager such as Bill Myers, can then use more than just personality traits to harness and lead his employees toward the accomplishment of the organization's overall goals. In Bill's case, he found out unfortunately while on the job, that his position truly was "middle" management as he did not have any authority to levy penalties or provide rewards for the employees; thus, all he had to rely upon was his own ability to motivate others. When the ability to motivate others is not working, oftentimes, the threat of or actual reprisal will work to provide change in employee behavior. Accordingly, Bill needs to renegotiate his role with management so that he has the ability to enforce his protocols or, at a minimum, so that there is some consequence to not following Bill's directions.

Throughout this transformation of roles, Bill has violated the "be yourself" rule to management. It is understandable since suddenly after years of being an employee, he is now promoted to the role of manager. It may, indeed, take some time for Bill to feel comfortable being himself in this role; however, since his crew truly knows him, they will sense when he is disingenuous and they will react negatively because he loses credibility. Furthermore, in his management, he totes his own horn of how good an employee he was and he has failed to focus on the merits of his team. While it is important to be competent, as a manager, it is more important to focus on team-building as opposed to focusing on how you, the manager, would do the job more effectively. Bill would be wise to shifting his angst into supportive behavior as opposed to behavior focused upon reprisal and hostility. Through reprisal in the form of negative outbursts, nothing positive will come of this because he cannot follow up with it through any type of enforcement. Thus, the employees just see him as emotionally unstable which negatively affects his credibility as well as demeaning to their sense of self-worth.

2. Bill encountered difficulties when first assuming the leadership role from the ranks of employees because as middle manager, he was placed in the proverbial situation of being stuck between a rock and a hard place. In terms of management theory, Paul Osterman conducted research into the role of the middle manager and concluded that for the most part, research on leadership pertains to upper level management. Thus, Osterman examined the middle manager's role and found that the job is very demanding because they are put in the position of implementing the organization's overall goals through actually working with the crews. His research revealed that much like Bill, middle managers care tremendously about their work, but despite their dedication, they encounter many struggles, especially when they obtain the middle management position from moving up the ranks of the organization and then must contend with stepping into a new role when everyone else sees them as an employee or a peer or a friend, not a manager (Osterman, 2009). Osterman points out that respect and recognition come to middle managers only grudgingly, if at all (2009). Indeed, this is the cornerstone of the issue faced by Bill Myers. He was simply not respected as a manager. His work crew respected him as a fellow employee; but, they did not see, accept or respect him when he assumed a new role.

According to Management Consultant Robert Tanner and author of Why Smart People Fail at Management, there are three critical things that a first level manager in a difficult position must do to achieve success in his new position: (1) the first level manager who is promoted to a middle manager must realize that the skills that brought him success in his former role are less critical at this higher level, (2) through education and mentorship, he must develop his interpersonal and conceptual skills which… READ MORE

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Quoted Instructions for "New Team Leader" Assignment:

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Case Study (2,500 words)

Present detailed answers, using academic references to support them, to the questions posed at the end of this case study in approximately 2200-2,500 words in total:

Read the following case study and answer all the questions.

THE NEW TEAM LEADER

Bill Myers had been working as a technician for a regional Internet service provider (ISP) for three years when he received a promotion to technical support team leader. Bill was quite excited to be leading the team. He had worked very hard to develop the technical skills for answering calls and the interpersonal skills for communicating technical solutions to customers. Also, he had demonstrated his desire for the promotion by volunteering for overtime and working all over holiday periods. Finally, he had been promoted. However, now he faced problems he had not anticipated. How would he be able to convince his friends to take him seriously in his new role as their boss? How was he going to maintain the discipline needed in this workplace with existing and new employees?

The ISP*****'s customers were generally satisfied with the level of dedication and care shown by the former team leader, who handled not only technical support for individual consumers but business and government accounts as well. However, a recent acquisition had increased the technical support team*****'s workload, and due to the reduced standard of technical support a number of the larger account customers were not renewing their contracts. This was an important issue, because reliable technical support was regarded as the core competency that had originally set the company apart from other regional ISPs.

Bill was one of the first technicians employed by the company, and the first technician promoted from within the ranks to be team leader. When he first started, he was lucky to train with the manager of the business, a very experienced and competent technical specialist. He modelled his own skills on those of his manager and worked diligently to handle most jobs with the fewest mistakes and even fewer complaints. Where the other technicians handled only forty to fifty technical support jobs, Bill routinely handled ninety or more jobs, including some of those with the most demanding technical problems. He not only cleared his own jobs but frequently assisted other technicians in clearing their backlog. When extremely difficult calls came in, such as calls from customers who had been disconnected for not paying their bills within the agreed terms, it was often Bill who was asked to handle them. He rapidly developed excellent relationships with all of his customers. During his first year he was named technician of the month on more than one occasion. In his second year he worked with the existing team leader to learn how to roster the workers and received advanced training in the company*****'s network operations and technical procedures beyond customer support jobs.

Although the work was extremely fast-paced and required concentration, there was always time for joking and having fun with the other technicians. Strong friendships grew between the technicians, who frequently socialised after hours and on their days off. There was a strong feeling of family in the office. The high levels of training and pay led to extremely low turnover rates. There were always waiting lists of applicants for the positions. If a technician wished to leave, he or she had no problem finding work at government departments or for other ISPs. Morale was generally high due to the respect the technicians felt they received from *****'their*****' customers for the high-quality work they performed, the higher levels of pay and benefits they received in comparison with technicians at other organisations, and the high degree of friendship among the technicians.

Everyone at the ISP was happy for Bill and sincerely wished him well. They all knew now that they could be promoted if they worked hard enough. Bill was anxious to assume his new responsibilities and even to try some new procedures he had been devising. Within six months Bill wasn*****'t nearly as happy with his promotion as he had thought he would be. Some of his friends, who were now his subordinates as well, didn*****'t seem to pay attention to his suggestions concerning their job performance. They ignored his instructions and frequently treated them as a joke. This attitude was even worse among new technical staff, who would often switch shifts, leave early or arrive late and ignore both his authority and his carefully planned rosters.

Bill soon realised that his new position was missing one thing ***** the authority to go with his new responsibilities. He had no authority to sanction any of his subordinates: he couldn*****'t dock their pay, make them work overtime or cut back on their hours. He couldn*****'t shorten their lunch breaks or eliminate their coffee breaks. Any such sanctions could come only from the overall company manager. If he tried to insist that a new procedure be used or that rostered hours be worked and the technician balked, he had no recourse. If he complained to the manager, he would be viewed as unable to do his job. He couldn*****'t complain to his friends, because they were part of the problem. He tried acting in an authoritarian manner and harshly insisting on the new methods. He was met with hostility, and his friends stopped talking to him. One day he had had enough and he berated a group of his friends about how they gave him no respect, they were uncooperative, and they weren*****'t doing their jobs, and he was fed up with it. After all, he didn*****'t ask them to do anything he wasn*****'t willing or able to do himself. Morale was plummeting (his as well as the other technicians) and productivity was falling. Bill felt like a failure at the job he had worked so hard to get, and even beyond that he felt he was losing his friends.

Bill knew that something was going to have to change. He needed to try something new, to somehow regain the respect of his subordinates and find a new way to inspire improved performance and efficiency and restore morale. And he had to accomplish all this while maintaining his friendships with the other technicians.

Questions

1. Which traits, skills and behaviours associated with successful leaders does Bill possess? Cite specific examples in support of your answer.

2. Why did Bill have problems making changes and maintaining discipline when he was first promoted to a position that required leadership?

3. An***** Bill*****s leadership situation in terms of his sources of power. Are there types of power he couldn*****'t or shouldn*****'t use? What types of power could he draw on, and how could he use those types to greatest effect?

4. How could Bill become an effective leader in his new position? Apply relevant leadership theory/theories to answer the question.

[Case based on one by Michel de Percy, University of Canberra, Sourced from Hitt, M.A.; Black, J.S.; Porter, L.W. and Hanson, D. (2007) Management, Pearson: Australia]

The answers should be written in paragraph form using appropriate headings and sub-headings based on your reading of the case study and additional research. Please ensure that it is thoroughly and correctly referenced using the Harvard referencing system. It is expected that students would use a minimum of 10 different reference sources in the body of this assignment. Of the 10 reference sources, at least one should be an article from a scholarly journal. Where less than 10 references are used within the body of the assignment it would be difficult to achieve a grade higher than P2. Assignments that are not correctly referenced will incur heavy penalties.

Please conform to the following:

*****¢ use Font 12

*****¢ Times New Roman font only

*****¢ 1.5 line spacing

*****¢ reference list on a separate page after conclusion

*****¢ use Harvard Style of referencing ONLY

*****¢ do not use foot-notes

*****¢ print word count at the end of your assignment (before the *****˜References***** section).

Occasionally assignments go missing during submission and return. It is expected that students will make copies of all assignments and be able to provide these if required.

Assessment of your writting will take into account:

*****¢ relevance of your answer to the question or task set

*****¢ clarity of expression

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*****¢ proper acknowledgment of documentation and use of a bibliographic convention

*****¢ logical planning and sequence

*****¢ use of inclusive language

*****¢ overall presentation, including correct grammar, spelling and punctuation

*****¢ comprehensive coverage reflecting engagement with set readings, text(s) and other relevant materials

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