Leadership Behavior of Ben and Phil

Questions: 1. Describe and compare the leadership behavior of Ben and Phil. Describe each managers use of specific task and relations behaviors? 2. If you were the manager of this plant, what would you do to achieve both high employee satisfaction and high performance? Answers: 1. Ben Samuels is a plant manager for 10 years in Consolidated Products and is replaced by Phil Jones. Ben has adopted democratic or participative leadership style in which employees are engaged in the decision making process which results in the adoption of new changes in the organization in an easy manner. This plant manager communicates on one to one basis with the employees in order to provide solutions to their problems in an effective manner. Besides this, the manager has also planned to organize different fun activities such as picnics, holiday parties in order to keep friendly environment in the organization. Besides this, the manager also knows each employee by their name due to which employees feel valued by the manager (Hood, 2007). This has resulted in increased retention rate of the employees in the organization. However, there is an increased costs and decline in the production level of the plant as the objectives and standards are not set by the manager as well as department heads which results in decline in the overall productivity of the organization. In addition to this, employees work in an efficient manner in the company as they are highly motivated to work for achieving the goals of the company. The plant has running in the loss as optimum level of production is not met by the company. Under the leadership of Ben, employees are ready to work overtime to achieve the target as they have a trust in their leader (Slack and Parent, 2006). Under such type of leadership, there is an existence of high level of employee satisfaction in the company as the leader consider the opinions and views of the employees to bring changes in the organization. Along with this, employees also provide full support to their leaders in overcoming the challenges faced by the company. Under this leadership, the manager tried to avoid the occurrence of employee layoff in the organization as the manager believed that it is difficult to find the replacement of skilled employees in the organization. Along with this, Ben also shifts the employees to other department or provide other task if they are disable to perform the earlier task due to occurrence of injury. Ben treat its employees in a fair and proper manner which results in the increase in the motivation, commitment and loyalty of employees towards the organization (Murari, 2015). In contrast to this, Phil Jones has practiced transformational leadership in order to bring changes in the plant to increase the productivity and reduce the overall cost of production. Phil has communicated to the supervisors to establish different standards in order to increase the production level of the company. Phil has reduced the costs by decreasing different activities that are provided to employees such as fitness center, reduction in company picnics and parties and the training programs provided to supervisors (Schppel, 2014). This manager considers provision of training to supervisors is a waste of time and cost. In addition to this, Phil also believes in replacing the employees with new employees if employees do not want to work. This has resulted in increased employee turnover in the company. The manager asked the supervisors to set high performance standard for their department and encourage employees to achieve these goals. Along with this, the performance of the employees is verified and monitored by the computer monitoring system adopted by the company under the leadership of Phil Jones. Phil has established a policy that the supervisors should provide one warning to the employees who have not met the standard and fire the employee if it does not achieve the target within the two weeks of provision of the warning (Uzonwanne, 2007). The leader also supervises the performance of supervisors in a close manner and weekly meetings are organized for the purpose of reviewing the performance of the departments. Phil Jones also fire employees if they saw an employee making mistake as it is considered as a waste of time and resources by the leader. Under this leadership, there is a reduction in the cost incurred in the maintenance of the equipments in the plant by the way of reducing the frequency of equipment maintenance (Marques, 2007). The main reason behind it is that it has an adverse impact on the production carried out in the organization. Such activities results in an increase in the production output by 10% and reduction in the production costs by 20%. However, the company also found difficulty in finding the replacements for the workers who left the organization either voluntary or through terminated by the leader. These activities results in formation of the worker union in the organization under the leadership of Phil Jones (Jackson and Smith, 2011). 2. It is recommended that I would adopt of transactional leadership style in which there is a need to set goals by engaging the supervisors and consider their views and opinions. Besides this, it is also essential to establish a communication platform that help employees to share their experiences, knowledge with other employees and supervisors which results in solving their problems. It is also requisite to establish a system which helps in monitoring the performance of the employees and provide compensation to the employees on the basis of their performance (Bonnici and Cooper, 2011). I would also provide rewards to high performers which helps in motivating the employees to increase their performance in the organization. Besides this, it is also essential for the employees to discuss the problems faced by them with other employees in order to gain the solution for the problem. Besides this, training programs are organized for the purpose of enhancing their existing and new skills which are required to perform different tasks in the organization. Along with this, the goals and objectives are clearly communicated to the employees so that they have knowledge of what has to be done to achieve the goal or objective of their team (Iqbal, 2011). References Jackson, J. and Smith, L.B. 2011. Leveraging Your Leadership Style. Abingdon Press. Marques, J. 2007. The Awakened Leader: One Simple Leadership Style That Works Every Time, Everywhere. Personhood Press. Murari, K. 2015. Impact of Leadership Styles on Employee Empowerment. Partridge Publishing. Schppel, F. 2014. Differences and Similarities between Charismatic and Transformational Leadership. GRIN Verlag. Uzonwanne, F.C. 2007. Leadership Style and Decision-making Models Among Corporate Leaders in Non-profit Organizations. ProQuest. Hood, J.D. 2007. Transformational and Transactional Leadership Styles: An Exploratory Investigation of Traditional and Nontraditional Student Perceptions. ProQuest. Slack, T. and Parent, M.M. 2006. Understanding Sport Organizations: The Application of Organization Theory. Human Kinetics. Bonnici, C.A. and Cooper, B.S. 2011. Creating a Successful Leadership Style: Principles of Personal Strategic Planning. RL Education. Iqbal, T. 2011. The Impact of Leadership Styles on Organizational Effectiveness. GRIN Verlag.