Leadership: case study in Federated Industries

Table of Content

1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 3

2 Case 1 ................................................................................................................................... 3

Identify strengths and weaknesses in leadership development at Federated Industries............. 3

What types of changes are most likely to improve leadership development at Federated

Industries? ....................................................................................................................................... 5

3 Case 2 ................................................................................................................................... 6

Drawing from at least one trait, style, and contingency approach, develops your own

philosophy of effective leadership (i.e., a model of effective leadership). ..................................... 6

Putting your philosophy to a test, evaluate Charles Tang’s leadership ................................... 11

Informed by your leadership philosophy, if you had to coach Charles Tang to become a more

effective leader, what would you do? ........................................................................................... 12

4 Reference ........................................................................................................................... 13

Introduction

Leadership can be everything or nothing as well. Everything means that leadership exists in

everywhere of all firms and organizations, not only at the top management level. Everything

means that leadership exists in every single business activity. On the basic of actions, the

emergency of leadership is considered as one function of involvement as well as interaction

(Day, 2001). Besides, leadership can be nothing because sometimes it is hard to offer such a

complete definition about it, however, there is such an agreement that we know leadership when

we see it.

1 Case 1

Identify strengths and weaknesses in leadership development at Federated

Industries.

3 different firms apply different methods of making approaches to training situations.

Formal training:

The first firm is an engineering one which can provide technical training only since the staff

number is not enough for management training. It is a matter as efficient and effective formal

training programs depend much on how well these programs have been designed. According to

Feldmann et al. (2012), in order to attain great achievements, firm leadership should be

maintained in a manner that training program remains constant among different fields of

leadership. Traditionally, class training based on the lectures seems to be relatively useful;

nevertheless, there are some limitations, including the abilities of the leaders in the process of

transferring information from training environments to work setting. According to adult learning

theory, individual normally prefers various learning methods. Formal training as well as class

away from jobs can bring effectiveness in the provision of new information; however, it is

necessary for adults to practice new skills.

Developmental activities:

The second firm is the manufacturer of consumer products which can provide training

programs for the development of leadership skill among high-potential managers. Mentoring is

regarded as one effective method of fostering the growth as well as the development of

leadership skill among employees. Nevertheless, this method is effective only when those who

are mentored show their willingness in dealing with hard-hitting criticism. According to the

theory of the researchers, mentors play significant role in helping protégés use their experience

in such a concentrated way (Van Velsor et al., 2010). These mentors offered psychosocial

support and contributed to make leadership claim of their protégés become valid. Nevertheless,

during the working process, it is necessary for protégés to show their openness as well as

willingness of discussing and exploring the leadership spirit with their mentors. And that will

require high level of trust between the mentors and their protégés. Added to this, those protégés

who are likely to deal with both positive as well as negative feedback may gain more from the

mentorship, compared to those who accept the compliment on their performance only. It shows

that mentoring is not efficient and effective for the second group.

Self-help activities:

The third firm is one electronics company whose leadership management programs mainly

focus on the managers, because these people did demonstrate their high-level executive capacity

in the past. The coaches are top former executives or external consultants who can possibly

provide the advice on the solution to specific challenges, such as how to implement major

changes, how to deal with hard bosses, or how to work in multicultural environment. As stated in

Boyce et al. (2010), executive coaching will be effective in accordance with the techniques

which can provide development information but not improve the skills in a direct manner. This

method can bring many advantages in comparison with formal training such as convenience,

security, flexibility, as well as individual attention. However, it contains some disadvantages,

including high cost for one-on-one training, and the lack of competent coaches (Reichard and

Johnson, 2011).

What types of changes are most likely to improve leadership development

at Federated Industries?

All functions of talent management make contributions to such a comprehensive leadership

development program. And those functions may gain the support from the unified talent

management technology platform. There are such functions as below:

Recruitment process to seek the talented leaders.

Assessment process to make an evaluation about internal as well as external

leadership capability.

Performance management to inspect as well as take correct adjustment during the

leadership development process.

Succession planning to make evasion of leadership gaps which may exist in the

future.

Career planning to help the staff have comprehensive understanding about

leadership option and set the development objectives.

Development to identify a roadmap in filling the skills gaps.

The success of leadership development programs lies on the connection between leadership

development and firm strategy, associated with the understanding about leadership types which

are required for strategy execution. Effective leadership development contains:

The assessment of needs.

The choice of audience.

Infrastructure support in place.

Leadership development programs.

Effectiveness evaluation.

Rewards and deficiency improvement.

Figure 1 Building effective leadership development

2 Case 2

Drawing from at least one trait, style, and contingency approach, develops

your own philosophy of effective leadership (i.e., a model of effective

leadership).

Intelligence as an effective leadership trait:

In general, intelligence is referred to cognitive abilities of critical thinking, information

processing, problem solving, as well as decision-making. According to Harms and Credé (2010),

cognitive intelligence makes a contribution of 30% to successful leadership and emotional

intelligence makes a contribution of at least 70% to successful leadership. Emotional intelligence

capability may be designed for specific leadership traits directly. Take a look at the Table below

which represents this mapping as well as the corresponding response:

Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Related Leadership Traits

Competency Leadership Trait Behavior

Self-awareness Self-aware Know their weaknesses and strengths as well as how

their behavior affects others

Self-regulation Level-headed

Comfortable with

ambiguity

Stay calm in the midst of turmoil and confusion

Can operate in environments of uncertainty where

there are few guideposts

Motivation Persistent Maintain a positive, focused attitude in pursuing a

goal, despite obstacles

Empathy Caring Empathize with other people's needs, concerns, and

goals

Social skill Humorous

Politically astute

Know how to interject humor when the situation

warrants it

Have a strong sense of their organization's power

structure, and know where to turn for the support and

resources they need

Adair’s action-centred leadership model:

Figure 2 Leadership style

According to Adair’s model, jobs are performed on the basic of teamwork as well as the

relations among the action-centered leaders, fellow managers, and the staff. Adair explains that

action-centered leaders have to: give the direction to get the job done (task structure), offer the

support as well as the review about the performance of individuals, and motivate the

coordination as well as improve teamwork in general. One challenge that the leaders have to deal

with is represented through the following sectors in the diagram:

Action-Centred Leadership Model (Adair, 2011)

Task

• define the task

• make the plan

• allocate work and resources

• control quality and rate of work

• check performance against plan

• adjust the plan

Team

• maintain discipline

• build team spirit

• encourage, motivate, give a sense of purpose

• appoint sub-leaders

• ensure communication within group

• develop the group

Individual

• attend to personal problems

• praise individuals

• give status

• recognise and use individual abilities

• develop the individual

Fiedler’s contingency theory:

Bass and Bass (2008) states that three basic leadership types are as follows:

Transformational leadership has certain influences on the followers that the followers may

sacrifice and take priority over firm needs, rather than personal interests; the trust in the leaders

may be improved; the actions contributing to achieve the objectives of firms and organizations

may be well-performed; and the relations between leaders and members may be developed at a

high level.

Through the contingency theory of Fiedler, the relations among the leaders’ direction, style

and group performance are analyzed in the context of different situations or conditions. Fiedler

had the findings that task-oriented leaders showed high effectiveness in low and moderate

control conditions, and relation-oriented leaders showed high effectiveness in moderate control

conditions (Fiedler, 1964).

Putting your philosophy to a test, evaluate Charles Tang’s leadership

Intelligence as an effective leadership trait: With the role of such a top manager,

Charles Tang decided to do work reorganization on the basic of his review about the

profiles of the staff only. Project details are not collected in an adequate manner and the

communication with project partners is not performed well by Charles Tang. Even he did

not have a comprehensive understanding about the objective or the progress of the

project. Recently, just based on his own judgment and no communication with Li, Tang

decided to deny the entire project and Li’s efforts as well. In the West, Tang’s own

judgments as well as personality may be more accepted and popular. However, in China,

there is such obvious difference between the individualism and the collectivism, and the

latter is highly. What Charles Tang had to deal with seems to be matter of the cross-

cultural conflict.

Adair’s action-centred leadership model: With the roles as one project owner, it is

necessary for Yong Li to report the detailed information of the project to his managers, in

particular, Charles Tang and Qing Chen who have just been promoted for new positions.

Also, Yong Li should communicate with his managers to gain comprehensive

understanding about business situation because it may be helpful for clear understanding

about the decisions which have been made. It reveals the unprofessional activity of Tang

in approaching this change. Li was put down by Tang in an unintended way. And this

resulted in instant disengagement between Li and his managers due to Li’s feelings that

his hard work, his performance, as well as his efforts in such a long time had been

ignored without the deliberation of high-level managers. Tang is not well-aware of

Chinese culture where the relationship is considered as one main factor for any firms and

organizations and that the relationship plays an important role in the success of those

firms and organizations. Two essential factors of this relation are trust and loyalty. In

Chinese culture, circumstances and relationships are considered to be the most important

ones.

Fiedler’s contingency theory: This case study implies the underlying trouble in China-

Intel Corporation management types which exists between Western corporate functions

and Eastern philosophies. Charles Tang who had original native of China has just been

back from the US with new position of Intel’s marketing head. Nevertheless, all the staff

and the authority offices consider him as such a young and successful expatriate who is

not familiar with the traditions of this place. At first, there was even no determination

about the interactions between Tang and the officials in China because Tang’s direct

response had no weight with anybody.

Informed by your leadership philosophy, if you had to coach Charles Tang

to become a more effective leader, what would you do?

This case gets special interest since it is related to such an abnormality of the Chinese culture

where Yong Li (Account Manager) has the defying behaviours against Charles Tang (Manager

of Marketing programs and Yong Li’s boss). Organizational structure in China is more

vertically-oriented than that in the West. Therefore, there is less freedom as well as passive

obeisance for the employees in China. Nevertheless, it was not the case of Li who gave strong

denial of Tang’s authority when the decision of shutting down his project was made by Tang.

In order to become a successful and effective leader, Tang has been advised to make some

adjustment to current situation. Tang should have made performance in such a stronger position.

With the role as the manager, Tang’s main goal aims at accomplishing the objectives of this

department and in case it is necessary to reassign the work and the project among the staff, he

needs to stick with this decision. Nevertheless, he need have informed Li about the termination

of his project. Tang should have called a meeting with Li and explained that there was the

interference into the current project with more crucial objectives and that the termination of this

current project was necessary without regard to the time as well as the efforts Li had made and

spent on. The time which had been spent on any projects is considered as the “sunk costs” and it

is irrelevant. Accordingly, the decision to continue the projects will not depend on the time spent

and that the termination of the projects is essential when the managers realize that this project

cannot bring best benefits or interests. With the explanation like this, Li would have understood

in a correct manner. Maybe he would not raise any resistance and even offer strong support after

that.

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