2 discussion questions

DISCUSSION #1 ------ Each discussion must have at least 1 reference

Take the leadership style quizzes below.

What's Your Leadership Style

What Kind of Leader Are You?

Discuss the results and how leadership style can affect employee commitment and organizational effectiveness.   Be sure to define in your own words, employee commitment and organizational effectiveness before showing how the leadership style relates to the two concepts.  Also, discuss how style affects communication, employee input, morale and goals with respect to commitment and organizational effectiveness.

For example, a person with an authoritarian style might communicate only those ideas they he is she deems important for an employee to know. This can lead to inaccurate execution of tasks or morale issues. 

Use these as reference links for discussion # 1

http://www.mcser.org/journal/index.php/mjss/article/viewFile/2201/2187

http://www.leadershipiq.com/blogs/leadershipiq/36533569-quiz-whats-your-leadership-style

https://www.asaecenter.org/resources/articles/an_magazine/2013/january/8-common-leadership-styles

http://www.clevelandconsultinggroup.com/articles/leadership-style-emotional-intelligence-organizational-effectiveness.php

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/organizational-effectiveness.html

DISCUSSION #2

You are the Package Distribution Manager for GDD.  It has come to your attention that five drivers in your region have serious errors in their delivery report logs.  The delivery report is key to controlling package flow and must be accurate.  If not, GDD will not be paid by their clients and would quickly lose their business to Fed Ex or UPS.  One of the drivers accounts for 60% of the errors.  She is a nice person, reliable but occasionally late to work because of conflicts with getting her kids to school on time. She is a single mother. A second driver accounts for 30% of the errors. This driver is new to the company and while his error numbers are high they have declined from last month.  The other driver’s errors hover around 10 to 15%.

After taking the quizzes below and using the course readings to delve deeper into your leadership style, answer the following questions using the style that is indicated in the test results.

• How will you go about correcting the problem?  Will you meet with the workers individually? in a group?  What will you say and how will you get the workers to listen?
• After your conversation, what would you do if the next set of reports show some improvement in the 60% employee but none in the 10-15% employees? What would you do then?
• What leadership style did you use?  Was it easy to use the leadership style? Or Hard? Did you find that the leadership style might not really be helpful in your approach to each situation?  Do you believe another style might be better in one or the other of the situations? If so which one and why? If not, why not?

A reference that can be used along w/ the above references links for discussion #2:

It cannot be emphasize enough that leadership style is not a one size fits all type of cloak.  It must fit you, the company and the job.  The following story about leadership style illustrates theme two.

Alan Robbins started Plastic Lumber Company because he saw a way to help the planet, by converting plastic milk and soda bottles into fake lumber and still make money from doing so.  Robbins had strong opinions on how to run his company.  He expected that decisions be made in teams with participation from everyone. Sound familiar?  To accomplish this goal, Robbins spent a long time on the factory floor chatting with employees, sounding them out on how best to get the job done.  Robbins soon learned that this was not working.  Most of his low-skilled employees simply wanted clear direction and a set of standards and expectations for doing the work.  The freedom that Robbins laissez-faire leadership style encouraged led to frequent confusion, employee absences, tardiness, and fights on the factory floor.  Employees came to work under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol.  Robbins style undermined his authority in the eyes of many workers.

While Robbins believed in his laissez faire leadership style, he had to force himself to adapt a direct style with factory workers to save the business and instill order.

Would Robbins style fit better at Google than on the factory floor?  In the reading and preparation for this week consider the aspects of style that relate to a leader’s ability to build relationships and keep the organization competitive.

Source:  Aeppel, T. (1998, Jan 14).  Personnel Disorders Sap a Factory Owner of His Early Idealism.  The Wall Street Journal, A1-A14.