Essay on The Management of Organizational Behavior.

Submitted By arnoldal
Words: 1436
Pages: 6

Bruce Cannon is the owner of a small plastics company that was established five years ago. Bruce has three managers that head up various departments of his company. In the case study of Jim Day, Beth Edwards and Steve Lynch there is a wide array of readiness levels, motivators and leadership styles. One of the first items to address in situational leadership is the readiness level of each employee. Each employee has a different readiness level as well as motivators and need to be led individually to meet their full potential. Jim heads up the engineering crew. Jim is an R4 in the continuum of performance readiness. He is not only confident in his ability to complete the job well; he also is very willing to work hard. He has twenty years of previous engineering background and was hired due to his ability and experience. Jim is committed to his work as he has spent his career building his skills. Jim is motivated because of the time he has invested in his skills. He is truly interested and motivated about making the company successful. He is developing a creative model for making decisions about future expenditures for materials, equipment plant development and personnel. He is truly invested in the company. McClelland’s concept of achievement motivation stated in (Hersey, 2007) fits perfectly with Jim’s determination. The job itself is what motivates Jim. Beth leads the sales force of Bruce’s plastics company. She is the most recent hire in the company so she is very willing to work hard and accomplish tasks to the best of her ability. While Beth has fifteen years of sales experience, her downfall is her knowledge of the plastics business. These factors make Beth an R2 in her performance readiness. She truly wants to use her skills of sales experience and has demonstrated this motivation by setting goals she wants to accomplish of increasing sales for the company, but she is unable to meet those goals at this time. Steve is the manager of production within the company and has been with the company since its inception. Steve is without a doubt an R3 on the performance readiness scale. Steve has worked his way up through the ranks of the company starting from the bottom doing line work right out of high school. Steve knows all the ins and outs of production like the back of his hand. Steve is certainly able to complete his job well, but is insecure about his management ability as he has always relied on others and has never had others rely on him before. Steve’s motivation comes from the pride that he has been with the company since its inception. He fears failing so much because he has always been so task centered around himself and now needs to branch out and consider his team’s needs. He cares so much for the company that he wants it to prosper as this has been his career for his entire life. Each of these employees requires a different leadership style for them to be successful in their careers. Bruce uses a few styles when interacting with his three managers. Bruce uses Theory X leadership when working with Jim. This is an appropriate style with Jim due to his readiness level, experience and confidence. Jim is able to make company goals and suggestions and Bruce is not only willing to listen, but willing to adopt his ideas for the company. Bruce is allowing Jim to share in the leadership role within the company which gives Jim even more motivation to continue his success within the company and expand his ideas. Bruce shows a leadership style of S4 with Jim of low relationship and low task. Bruce gives Jim the opportunity to grab the ball and run with it. Bruce encourages autonomy and risk taking because of Jim’s knowledge and confidence, entrusting him with company development. Bruce portrays some traits of the democratic or relationship orientated behaviors as described by Robert Tannenbaum and Warren H. Schmidt in (Hersey, 2007) with Steve. Steve knows his job well and