Jimmy’s Leadership Characteristics

Discuss about the Leadership Case Studies for Greenwood Publishing Group.

Leadership could simply be defined as the ability to inspire others and be prepared to do so. This entails creating a clear vision, sharing the vision with others for them to follow willingly, providing knowledge and information to achieve the vision through coordination and balance of conflict interest of all members and stakeholders in the organization. Most countries, businesses enterprises, companies and even families come to stand tall because of good leaders and leadership qualities. Therefore, leadership is a crucial aspect for the growth of an individual, business, state or nation. (Gallos, 2008, p. 22). This paper utilizes several studies to explore how effective leadership can contribute to the organization success.

Jimmy has been able to portray various leadership styles as exhibited in the case study. To start with, Jimmy is a responsible leader. He enjoyed being a leader and taking responsibility for his actions as well as those of his team. He has control of his work as the submarine officer Ensign Badger, and he is aware that mistakes in the submarine could lead to destructive consequences for hundreds of people. In his service as a store manager at a medium sized store in the chain, Jimmy also assures his juniors of his support and his willingness to listen to their problems and his work was also recommended highly by his superiors. Ideally, a leader should be supportive to his team as well as providing it with the right and reliable direction for the achievement of the organizational set goals and objectives (Rost, 2013, p. 36).

Badger is also democratic. He respects the opinions of his juniors in the home –improvement stores and even seeks to know their opinions and suggestions on how to make the store one of the highest performing units in the company. He also promises to inform them of any troubles that he will observe, and this is evidence that he respects the opinions of his subordinates. A good leader should involve his team in the decision making process. This helps in arriving at decisions that all the members feel they are part of them.

It is crucial for Jimmy to modify his leadership approach because even though he is a good leader, there are still complaints from the people he leads and this is not good for a leader. He has to learn that people have different abilities and everyone can do things differently. Therefore, he should lower his high expatiations on his workers, and he has to reduce his expectations of perfection. Even one of his workers, a senior officer once told him to be a little more patient with the young sailors. Based on the observation of the Jimmy’s reactions towards the less experienced employees in the organization it is evident that he is a bit impatient and therefore, he should learn patience skills.

1. a) The home- improvement store is hiring ex-military officers for management because these people understand the concept of responsibility, are experienced and therefore, they are likely to perform better than others. They have gone through difficulties and trials that most people have not. The exposures that ex-military officers go through prepares them on how to become responsible individuals who can carry out duties successfully. The former ex-military officers are also people who will make sure the work done. For example, they have in-built leadership talents, and they come from previous cultures that equips them with mission accomplishment in their mind. Therefore, organization relying on the ex-military officers are assured of success.
2. b) Former military officers are attributed to traits such as being hardworking, responsible, intellect, go-getters and people who can thrive under any conditions. These attributes are important in the management of any business opportunity, and with the ex-military being in management, there are higher chances of gaining success. Based on these attributes, the organization is justified to rely on the services of the ex-military officers.
3. c) The hardware chain risks some factors in employing ex-military officers. Military people are used to achieving perfection and getting missions done. Therefore, there are possibilities that they will put a lot of pressure to workers and this will not work well for especially for the less experienced or newly employed workers. Ex-militaries are also extremely independent people, and they could go to different directions randomly when they lack adequate guidance. This military approach like could work negatively for the hardware chain team since they can make important decisions without consultations.

Case Study 2

Julia had chosen the right style to lead the individual managers in her team by holding weekly meetings to conduct her annual performance reviews. She had also allowed Laura, the regional general manager to visit the government bond group and hold a few casual conversations with the managers. Julia leadership style was largely embedded in the effective communication.  

For Julia to be an effective leader, she needs to create a good rapport with the supervisors who are under her and create good contact with them. The first manager states that Julia was a micro-manager as opposed to being a micromanager. She had minimal contact with the supervisors and cared less about what was happening. Julia herself tells Laura that she believes in management by exception and shuns from getting involved in the managers’ work conduct. Julia’s strategy is not effective since good leadership calls for the good relations between leaders and subordinates for the work to be productive.

Good communication in any organization is also crucial for effective leadership. If Julia had established good communication mechanisms between her and the supervisors, it would be have been easier for her to hear their opinions and complaints which could even be solved without having to involving Laura, the regional general manager. The fourth manager says he does not even remember much about Julia and goes ahead to point out that he does not care about his comments concerning her. All the misunderstandings could have been solved if Julia had embraced the culture of effective communication between her and her subordinates.

Julia also has to create time for her managers. The third manager acknowledges her as being a great manager and a talented person that they could learn from. However,  the supervisor goes on to highlight that she is more involved in higher level management than she is with the managers yet her coaching styles could be of great use to other new managers. Julia Thompson should, therefore, create time for her managers to guide them on different aspects and also get to understand their opinions, challenges and other problems they face in their lines of work. With adaption of these suggestions Julia will be a great manager who can be looked upon as the role model by all employees in the organization.

For Laura to support Julia to be a more effective leader, she has to advise Julia to change her leadership tactics. She has to create a good communication base between her and her employees since the key to success in any organization. Julia also has to be advised about being responsive to the group’s needs. She has to be perspective about the encounters of the group. It is easier to build a strong team when the values and goals of each are known. She also has to motivate her team of managers by issuing guidance and not commands so that they can be inspired to greater heights in their lines of duty.

Laura is the regional general manager who was warranted to ask Julia for the direct information about her approaches to leadership. It is important to ask the managers serving under Julia’s management because they are they are likely to provide convincing results than Julia can do herself. It is a bit hard to evaluate someone performance based on his or opinions because they is a probability that he or she will lay emphasis on her strengths and avoid the weaknesses. Therefore, it is doubtful that Julia’s report could have covered all the issues affecting the managers. This calls for Laura to get down to the managers working and Julia’s management because they were ones directly affected by the Julia’s leadership approaches. Therefore, Laura was justified to ask reports from both Julia and the managers under her management. This could have helped to resolve the bias that the two reports are likely to portray.

Conclusion

Following the above case studies, it is important for leaders, especially in companies and organizations to put several factors such as communication, being responsible, motivation to their workers and reducing their high expectations towards the workers. This will be able to create a conducive working environment for the workers and the output produced will be very high.

References

Gallos, J., 2008. Business Leadership. 2,illustrated,reprint ed. s.l.:John Wiley and Sons,2008.

Rost, J. C., 2013. Leadership For The Twenty-First Century. reprint,revised ed. California: Greenwood Publishing Group,2013.