According to the scenario discussed in the case study, boards of directors are not proficient and capable to make the verdict for the selection of appropriate vendors. They also do not have the knowledge about the specification of the software packages which would be used by the employees of the Restview Hospital.
Before taking the decision for the selection of vendor, the board of directors should attend the meeting and have to take the review from both the parties and later they should consider the remarks from their own employees such as Mary Carter. Board members should also not trust Jack, which shows the bad governance and one-man show that cause the huge loss of the company.
Mary Carter has legitimate power as she was working on the research of the best packages of software to use in the Restview hospital, which works smoothly and must have user-friendly. However, Jack Morelli used coercive power to deliberately destroy their research work of Mary and present in front of board members. Furthermore, the president of Standard-Software has the referent power, which had been used by Jack to pressure the vendor approval.
Marry Carter should stay motivated and take the initiative to attend the next board meetings and inform the board members about the possible negative outcomes if they choose Standard-software packages. Besides Jack, she should stay positive with jack as well to maintain the professional decorous and also present her research work about other software companies/vendors for a positive outcome.
Bill has numerous powers at this point in time, such as
- Legitimate Power
- Bill is a manager
- His employees have to follow him
- Reward Power
- Encouragement extent of annual merit increase
- Gift, motivational praise
- Coercive Power
- Have no power of attorney to punish/penalize employee
- All affected cases must justify by the boss
- Expert Power
- Bill lacks of expertise in current job rules/duties
- Referent Power
- Right now, Bill doesn’t build a good relationship with its employees and customers.
A number of different tactics can be used to influence sally, such as;
- Pro-active tactics
- Pressurize/compel tactics
- Inspirational & Stimulating appeals
- Legality tactics
- Ingratiating
- In pro-active strategies, Bill has to comply with the pro-strategies to focus on the customer and make a strategy; on how to deal a customer.
- In another democratic strategy, Bill can pressure the employees by giving their best instead of deducting wages and warning letters.
- Enhance Sally’s confidence and appealing them to other values.
- Power is associated with a rank that can be used in the hierarchy to achieve sales tasks.
- Create a friendly environment with employees and provide a happy mood so that they can deal with the customer happily.
There should be a number of techniques and strategies that Bill can apply to improve the store’s performance.
- Keep the subordinates/employees’ morale high
- Increase the customer preservation rate
- Enhance communication skills
- Get familiar with the situation of employees
- Reduce the employees’ cost
- Make an effective strategy to deal with customers so that they can’t wait long for the attendant.
Case # 3: Four Pro-active Core Tactics
Four pro-active tactics are given below;
Rational View/Persuasion
A manager can adopt proactive measures by following rational techniques. Giving guidelines and directive plans to their employees for the same goal to be achieved as a teamwork.
Apprising
Companies give appraisals to their employees as a reward or a motivational activity to perform the best for the benefit of the company’s profit.
Inspirational Appeal
A good manager can address the customers by appealing to the product features, which creates hope and fear as well for the solution of customers’ problems and ultimately achieve the company’s goals.
Collaborations
A manager can perform the task with the collaboration of other subordinates or other branch managers to achieve operational goals.
Tactics which is most favourable in the target commitment?
In the current situation, two types could be most likely in target commitment, given below.
- Legitimacy Tactics
- Rational Persuasive
These both tactics could able to achieve the desired goals.
Proactive tactics to counterattack or adjust inspiration challenges?
The outcome of the influence attempt may be target commitment, compliance, or resistance. Every proactive measure or tactic could not give the same results or positive outcome as some tactics give a positive outcome in some situation and meanwhile gives a negative outcome in other situations. Therefore, there are many other factors which affect the influence, such as job attitude, workplace behavior and many more.
Case # 4: Contingency-Theories (CT)
Fred-Fiedler’s (FF-LPC) Contingency-Model
This model is founded by the Fred-Fiedler (FF) in the mid-1960s. This model clearly states that there is no one finest model of leadership style as it depends upon the situation and workplace behaviour. He stated that this style is fixed and can be measured in “scale” LPC (Least-Preferred Co-Worker).
Fred-Fiedler’s (FF-CRT) Cognitive-Resource Theory (CRT)
This archetypal is an extension of contingency theory. Fielder and Joe gave the concept of resource theory in 1987. This theory is based on leadership intellectuals and experience in tackling situations in a stressful environment. This theory is actually based on unfavourable factors of “Stress” that can express the speciality of leadership.
Hersey & Blanchard’s (H-B) Situational-Leadership Theory
This leadership style is knowns as the best leadership style so far, as many researchers reported it in their studies. The term “Situational” indicates that a leader will vary their strategies according to the situation. It is based on the variable leadership, depending on a variety of circumstances. In this type of leadership, maturity can be seen in the workplace. As this theory is related to maturity, if a one leader is more mature, then he/she can adopt good strategies according to the situation.
Module overview
Formal leadership aspects as a substitute for influence.
The primary aspect of this is that the workers clearly understand their duties and role to achieve the organizational goals so, they are highly motivated and satisfied with their jobs. Leaders’ behaviours influence, according to situational in some situations; it enhances, substitute, and neutralize factors in some conditions. Substitution is the different characteristics of employees/workers, tasks and organizations (Kerr & Jermier, 1978). It depends on the decisions of the employee’s quality of the task and organizational resources. It’s all about the alternatives in different situations, how leaders act, effective utilization of organizational resources, and task completion. The substitute is considered an intervening variable and discourages the leader from performing their task correctly (Allport & Ross, 1967)
Contingency theories and the conceptual weaknesses of each contingency effective leadership.
The contingency theory of leadership was presented by the FF (Fiedler, 1967). He was an Australian physiologist. He proposed six primary contingency theories.
Path goal theory
This theory represents the leader’s specific behavior toward the goal’s completion. According to this theory leader’s task is to motivate the followers to give them direction and satisfy their needs for the achievement of goals. This theory is based on four types of leadership behaviours. Participative leadership behavior, task-oriented, achievement-oriented, and supportive. Conceptual weakness: Too much related to expectancy theory. All kinds of leadership behavior consider separately; no interaction between situational variables and leadership behavior (Larson, Hunt, & Osborn, 1974)
Situational Leadership Theory:
This theory depends on the action of the leader according to the specific situation. How much is a leader capable of handling the case? According to this theory, a leader is responsible for working jobs. A leader must guide the follower and tell them how a job is done (Barrow, 1977). Conceptual weakness: there is no clear definition of leadership behavior. This theory does not fulfil the requirement of all types of cultural communication styles. It is also not focus on long term objectives; there is a huge gap in how leaders influence the performance of subordinates. (Graeff, 1983)
Leader substitutes theory:
Due to certain conditions and situational factors are considered as substitutes, for example, job design and different workgroups. Conceptual weakness: lack of research, leader understanding regarding action and situation. There is no information given about all substitutes. Theory can be enhanced through clear information about a specific substitute. It is based only on reward system role clarification (McIntosh, 1988)
The multiple-linkage model
This theory is worked as a bridge between organisational procedure and managerial influence. Conceptual weakness: deficiency of specific behavior in a certain condition and how different behaviours relate to each other. The interaction between variables is not clearly explained. (Stewart, 1976)
LPC contingency theory
This theory shows us the positive behavior of leaders, and their relation with subordinates, how leaders react according to the situation. Two essential pillars of this theory are style and situation. Conceptual weakness: Some leaders are useful only in some specific conditions, not in all conditions. The model of LPC does not entirely depend on theory because it is not elaborate on how it affects group performance. The LPC model does not provide the detail on how to train the leader (Chemers, 2000).
Cognitive resources theory
This theory relates to decision power, past experiences, and thinking. Conceptual weakness: this theory work with only one leadership behavior. In this theory level of stress is not properly defined. It includes only qualitative stress conditions, not quantitative ones. It can be improved by defining the impact of cognitive resources on a leader’s behavior (Vecchio, 2007).
Implications of situational theories and the limitations of the research on contingency theories.
The most important implication of this theory is according to the ability of the leader; he can make a decision. The behavior of the leaders also influences the leadership style. The ultimate purpose of this theory is to change the method according to the employee’s ability. For example, employees with fewer abilities require more motivation. As a coach or mentor, he is responsible for the employee’s performance as much as support employees need leaders should provide them. The productivity of the organization also depends on the cooperative and motivating behavior of the leader. Such type of positive action helps the leader to retain skilled employees and helps to reduce turnover. The limitation of the contingency theory is it does not apply to all types of situations; every time manager cannot decide according to the situation some time; he uses cognitive theory. There is also a deficiency of literature, so the leader’s actin is not always according to the situation. Easily understandable, but when it is implemented, the difficulty level increases.
Leadership situation when studying leadership.
Due to the different styles of leadership, we must consider the different styles of leadership for each different situation. The most important factor of studying leadership theories is to follow it in a better way. The study of leadership is not only beneficial for the leaders, but it is also beneficial for the followers as well because it guides how to work with a leader. Leadership study is important for both followers and leaders; after getting a strong understanding of followers, employees’ subordinates can easily understand the leader’s situation, and the leader can interact, react and respond more effectively if an organization is not focused on leadership study so it will be difficult for them to apply the different leadership styles according to the situation. Maybe they adopt one style, and it will be useful only for some specific situation.
Enhance or diminish the effects of leader behavior.
One aspect is that awareness of all types of situations is very important; it shows the effective behavior of the leader. It is important to understand both internal and external factors and how to increase organizational performance. The second aspect is the complete understanding of people/ workers and regulatory processes. The third aspect considers the change in political conditions, customer demand, and work processes. (Field, 1982)
Understand how to manage disruptions and other crises.
Major and minor disruptions and crises are part of the business process. Being a good leader, it is the responsibility of a leader to manage all these disruptions and crises effectively that occur on routine bases. Crises are the result of weak decision-making. If the leader fails to manage the crisis, he will not consider an as good leader. Disruptions and crises can be managed through good leadership qualities. Through a quick analysis of the situation with strong communication, a leader can handle crises (Van Fleet & Yuki, 1986)
Source of power for leaders and the process by which power is acquired or lost in organizations
Behaviours and attitudes of the people to word goals achievement influence the capacity of power. In other words, power has the potential to influence different situations by the leaders. It is an important variable of effective leadership. There are two types of power which influence the leadership.
- Position
- Personal
Position power is based on the authority that is given by the organization to the leader. The capacity for power reflects through the job title. Personal power is based on the commitment among leaders and followers; it is about decision-making authority on behalf of followers, subordinates, and employees. Leaders make decisions, and other team members follow them.
Power is all about responsibility. A good leader always fulfils the expectation of the follower. He is a role model for the employees. Within the organization, the power acquired and lost depends on organizational performance. Putting all efforts into making the organization successful makes a leader more powerful.
Psychological processes explain how leaders influence people and the different types of influence tactics used in organizations.
Leadership is the name for influencing others through good performance, respect and fulfil the other’s expectations. The University of Nebraska currently publishes eleven tactics that influence the organization.
Pressure(threats)
2. Assertiveness/
3. Legitimating (influence on others)
4. Coalition (Agreement/aid of others)
5. Exchange (reward and compensation)
6. Upward Appeals (request from the upper level of management)
7. Ingratiating (positive attitude to words others)
8. Rational Persuasion (legal arguments)
9. Personal Appeals (favour from others)
10. Inspirational Appeals (emotional request)
11. Consultation (ideas from experts)
Understand how proactive tactics are used in influencing attempts with subordinates, peers, or superiors.
There are two different types of processes adoptive Inductive and deductive for proactive tactics (Wang, 2004).The inductive tactics are based on self-analysis questionnaire report strategies. It is suitable for upward relations.
Deductive tactics are based on scientific investigation and testing the hypothesis (Ferguson, Kim, & McCoy, 2011)
Effectiveness of different proactive tactics and how influence tactics are used in various sequences and combinations.
Sequencing tactics are those who are influenced by a specific period of time. Leaders define the sequences according to the priorities of tactics. The effectiveness of tactics as a combination has more importance and great influence. Similar tactics can easily use in combination and enhance the overall task effeteness (Posner & Brodsky, 1994).