Leadership styles, decision-making and team effectiveness: Management fundamentals - Case Study

Case Study: Jim was well liked by his subordinates and was considered to be a great manager. His staff knew from the moment he announced that he was being promoted to Head Office that they would miss him: they soon found out just how much. Jim was the type of manager who made everything looked easy. He was organised and coped with even the worst emergencies with a confident smile. Probably his greatest skill was that he could explain anything to anybody; from the most highly skilled down to the newest recruit or part-timer. He had the ability of linking things together in a way that made his requests always seem sensible and his style always personal. Everybody loved Jim, and because they did they would do anything for him. The new manager Brian was a nice guy, but the change in style could not have been greater. He began his first day with a short meeting where he seemed to be saying he would make a lot of changes and to “get ready for a shake-up”. Brian decision-making process appeared to be opposite to what Jim used to do. For instance he never consulted his work group preferring simply to dictate what should happen without allowing any discussion. He said that he used his “gut-feelings” when making decisions and that he didn’t need to consult or even to do any analysis. “You have either got the capacity to make decisions inside you or you haven’t,” he used to say, “and I have it – that’s why I’m the manager.” Often Brian would instruct things be done in particular way, his way, and then within a few hours change his mind, and set other tasks, or tell them to do the job another way. Most people got very frustrated, some got very mad. Brian also had the habit of asking for things to be done, and then saying that what was done was not what he wanted, and he would usually blame some poor staff member for the problem. His staff were beginning to avoid Brian, and some were considering requesting a transfer to another department. Case Study2: Senior management were aware that problems were developing in Brian's department and called him in for a meeting. Brian was told by the senior managers that the staff should be allowed a greater level of responsibility and input to decision making. Brian complained loudly that his staff were not interested in responsibility or hard work, that most of them were “losers” and that all this “team building nonsense” would prove to be a waste of time. But as required Brian gathered the staff at the regular team meeting, but this time instead of telling them all the information he had to pass on, as he usually did, he sat back and told them: “You are to become a team, that means you have to make more decisions for yourselves and you are to be given some freedom to change how we operate.” He explained word for word what he had been instructed to tell the staff by his managers, allowed no questions, and gave no further examples or explanation of what was required of them.