Leadership Run Amok
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Justin M. Moore________________June 9, 2016__________________MGT 6720.011.]         The single most impactful behavior from the readings that I have witnessed was the discussion around the triggers that bring leaders and managers back to their “default leadership style”. It is relatively easy to identify a leader’s default leadership style when enough time has gone by with that person. What is a bit more difficult to know and take into relative context is the drivers for this behavior or leadership style. By understanding these underlying drivers, a modified approach can be used on both the follow as well as the leaders approach to achieve the best results. I was party to this in a recent meeting with my GM, two levels up from me, where I stopped in to discuss a contract via his “open door policy”. The timing of this was very poor though, he was battling a severe cold, I was also sick and there was a high level of stress around some tight deadlines for deliverables with ambiguous data. The conversation almost immediately left the contract and started in on my competency, situational “what if’s” and roller-coastered out of control to a point where I thanked him for his input and simply left the room. This taught me that identifying the situation in combination with the follower and leader aspects along with understanding the default leadership style of your audience is critical to success.
2.]         One point that was somewhat incomplete was the link evidence to support the long term vs. short term benefits of using each of the six styles of leadership as it pertains to short and long term goals. In “Leadership Run Amok”, it was noted that “pacesetting can drive short term growth, but at the expense of long term profitability”, however, it only anecdotally provides context for the other 5 leadership styles impact on goal setting. While it is a point made that great leaders adopt each of these styles, is there a style that tends to lend itself best to long term goals or business marathons vs. the impact of pacesetting to short term and long term goals? IBM’s transition represented a cultural change from pacesetting to a more collaborative style utilizing socialized power but the focus was primarily around pacesetting leadership’s impact on the organization.3.]         A major issue facing Stefan in The Unmanageable Star Performer is the challenge of correcting a culture while maintaining positive numbers. Vijay clearly has driven his team (or those that have remained) by way of power and achievement. This created a fearful, exhausted team that were left debating if working for Vijay was worth the expense incurred. Stefan was under no direction from the other partners to correct the issue in Mumbai but he knew he had an issue. To correct this, Stefan should offer an achievement based goal from the partners to all leadership centered around employee work/life balance or collaboration. By building this into the systematic goals of Leman Highlander, he can address Vijay’s ego issue and default leadership style while improving the culture of the Mumbai team. If Vijay sees these goals as challenging and it is a measurement of performance, he will likely attempt to achieve them. If however, Vijay thinks that the measurements are not important, he could reject them and continue on his standard way.