Case Analysis

On
Leadership & Empowerment
Chapter 07 & 08
Course Title – Organizational Behavior
Course code – FNB 206

Prepared For
Rowshonara Akter Akhi
Lecturer
Department of Finance & Banking
Jahangirnagar University
Savar, Dhaka-1342

Prepared By

Team : Business Geeks

Date of Submission
3rd February, 2021
 Executive Summary on Leadership Case Study

The mentioned incident focuses on different leadership issues and styles. The suggested work
assignment referred Effie Pardini as a supervisor and as a leader.
There are 11 accounting clerks. Leadership is the process of influencing and supporting others to
work enthusiastically toward achieving objectives. The three important elements in leadership
are influence/support, voluntary effort and goal achievement. Different behaviors, roles and
skills that combine to form different leadership styles. Depending on above characteristics, a
leader can be positive or negative, autocratic or participative, employee oriented or task-
oriented. Different contingency approaches are also followed for different leadership styles.

The suggested incident refers Effie Pardini as a supervisor and leader. There are 11 accounting
clerks in the budget and planning department under Effie Pardini. Though none of all clerks had
accounting degrees , but all were skilled in handling records. pardini assigned projects to the
clerks on the basis of their interests and skills. Some projects were more desirable in term of
prestige, challenge, and contact required. As all the projects are not same, conflicts generally
arise when Pardini assigns one more desirable project over one employee to another.

Pardini follows an autocratic leadership style and she is a structured leader. She doed not care
any employee to their opinion about assigning project. Therefore, a conflict has been arised and
overall work situation is not acceptable. Since autocratic leadership is not good to follow as
different conflict arises for it, Pardini should follow another style. Considering the path-goal
model leadership and the contingency approaches, Pardini must follow different leadership style
on each employees. She has to increase the human skills to motivate her employees and take care
about employees need, phychological issues, specially Sonia Prosser. By maintaining a positive,
consultative and participative leadership styles, Pardini can overcome this situation.
Question 01: What leadership issues are raised by this incident?

Answer: Autocratic leadership issues are raised by this incident. Leader used structural
leadership style with employees. In this incident, Effie Pardini supervised 11 accounting clerks
in the budget and planning department of a large manufacturer company. though none of the
clerks had accounting degrees, but all were skilled in handling records and figures. Pardini
assigned projects to the clerks on the basis of their interests and skills. But all projects were not
equal, some projects were more desirable than others because of prestige, challenge, the contacts
required or other factors. Also, this leads to occasional conflicts among the clerks regarding the
allocation of projects. Prosser, one of the clerks used regularly complaint about this. On one
occasion Pardini assigned one such desirable project to a clerk named Joe Madden. Prosser get
distressed with this and she showed her resentment by putting her current assignment aside and
reading a book instead.
In the above incident, an important scenario expressed that Effie Pardini took her decision by
herself without taking any suggestion from employees.
In autocratic leadership, the power and decision making is centralized within the leader. The
leader structure the complete work situation for their employees and the employees were
expected to do what the leaders are told and not think of themselves. The leader take full
authority and assume full responsibilities.
In the above incident, Pardini also maintained this path that she structured the total work
situation for the employees. All power and decision making was centralized within herself. She
did not take any suggestion from employees on how to divide projects.
So we can say that Pardini was a negative task oriented leader and the leadership style was
autocratic.
Another issue arising from the scenario is that Pardini follows structural task oriented style rather
than concentration on her employee. Because structural task oriented leaders believe that they get
results by keeping people constantly busy, ignoring personal issues and emotions, and urging
them to produce. Pardini also order her employees to work rather than concentrate on their
expectation and needs.
Further issue arising from the scenario is that the leader, Pardini, does not effectively exert
influence on the employees using her power as a leader. One of the primary roles of leaders in a
business context is to give the employers enough motivation and exert influence to the extent
that the employees consistentlY follow their direction on different issues. In the presented case,
Pardini fails to inspire enough confidence in the team to the extent that they could entirely
depend on her decisions on who ought to handle what project. Here, it is cleared that Pardini
failed to motivate employee enough to obey her direction. Therefore, Pardini has a lack of
human skills as Pardini follows autocratic leadership style, lack of human skills or some other
problems relate to this are normal to arise.
Therefore, autocratic leadership style, structural leadership style, lack of influencing power and
lack of human skills issues raised by the above scenario. Basically, Pardini take the decision
without considering the employee’s participation and the decision of work assigned also has
taken by Pardini, which decisions her employee’s must follow and complete the assigned task.
Question 02: Discuss what action Pardini should take. Consider the path-goal
model of leadership and the contingency approaches to leadership before
making your decision.

Answer: Before reaching the final decision about what action Pardini should take, we have to
consider the path goal model of leadership and the contingency approaches to leadership.
The path-goal leadership states that the leader’s job is to use structure, support, and rewards to
create a work environment that helps employees reach the organization’s goals. The manager’s
job is viewed as guiding workers to choose the best path to reach both their goals as well as the
corporations goals. The goal is to increase an employee motivation, empowerment and
satisfaction so they become a productive member of the organization.
Pardini should follow the path goal model of leadership. Under this leadership model, Pardini
may perceive each employee’s expectations and establish a goal for each employee’s as well as
support with assistance on employee path toward goals. Pardini should create a goal orientation
and to improve the path toward the goals. She needs to provide a balance of both task and
psychological support for their employee’s.
The path-goal model identifes four major leadership styles to use with each employee. These are-
 Directive leadership: The leader focuses on clear task assignments, standard of successful
performance and work schedule.
 Supportive leadership: The leader demonstrates concerns for employee’s well-being and
needs while trying to create a pleasant work environment.
 Achievement-oriented leadership: The leader sets high expectations for employee’s
communicates confidence in their ability to achieve challenging goals and
enthusiastically models the desired behavior.
 Participative leadership: The leader invites employee’s to provide input to decision and
seriously seek to use their suggestions as final decision’s are made.
Before taking an appropriate leadership behavior, Pardini should consider contingency factors –
the general work environment and the specific characteristics of the employee’s. Again, Pardini
should also analyze Locus of Control which refers to alternatives beliefs about whether an
employee’s achievement are the product of his or her own effort (an internal locus, which is
more compatible with a participative style) or the result of outside forces (an external locus,
which is more receptive to directive approach). The second and third factors are the willingness
to accept the influence of others and self perceived ability.
Considering the situation facing Pardini that one employee namely Sonia Prosser was so
distressed, arising a conflict. Pardini should use the participative leadership style. Because each
subordinates of Pardini has an internal locus that influence to participative style. Second,
employee’s specially Sonia Prosser has a low willingness the influence of others so participative
leadership must follow by Pardini.
Therefore, we can say that from the path-goal model perspective, Pardini should follow
participative leadership.
A number of models have been developed that explain these expectations/need for leader to
identify when to use a different style and they are called contingency approaches. These model
states that the most appropriate style for leadership depends on an analysis of the nature of the
situation facing the leader. In the mentioned incident, Pardini is also facing such problem . Some
contingency model are –
Fiedler Contingency Model:
This model builds upon the distinction between task and employee orientation and suggest that
the most appropriate leadership style depends on whether the overall situation is favorable,
unfavorable or in an intermediate stage of favorability to the leader. Fiedler shows that a leader’s
effectiveness is determined by the interaction of employee orientation with three additional
variable that relate to the follower’s, the task and the organization. They are leader –member
relation’s, task structure and leader position power. When the overall situation is in an
intermediate favorable level, the considerate leader is most successful. But when the situation is
either quite favorable or quite unfavorable to the leader, the structured, task – oriented leaders
seen to be more effective. When leader member relations are positive and situation is favorable,
task-oriented leader is best. Again, when leader-member relations is poor, leader position power
is weak and low task structure, also task-oriented leadership is fruitful.
In the incident, Pardini’s position power is weak as a leader, the leader-member relation is poor
as Pardini didn’t care her employee’s and the task is also unstructured. So, Pardini should follow
the structured or task-oriented leadership.
Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Model:
This model suggests that the most important factor affecting the selection of a leader’s style is
the development level of a subordinate. Development level is the task-specific combination of an
employee’s task competence and motivation to perform (commitment). Manager’s assess
development level by examining an employee’s level of job knowledge, skill, and ability, as well
as willingness to take responsibility and capacity to act independently.
Hersey and Blanchard’s use a combination of guidance and supportive orientations to create four
major styles – Directing , Selling (Coaching), Participating, and Delegating. These are matched
with the progressive development levels of the employee’s, suggesting that a manager’s
leadership style should not only vary with the situation but also evolve over time toward the
delegating style. The model is simple and intuitively appealing and accents as important
contingency factor (the individual employee’s capabilities on a specific task) that is sometimes
overlooked.
In the above incident, Pardini can increase the development level of her subordinates. After
examining Sonia Prosser, Pardini can assign Prosser into participative part as she has high
supportive behaviour and low task. In these situation, Pardini provide assistance to Sonia
Prosser and closely supervise the job performance of Sonia Prosser. In this situation, Prosser will
improve the ability of work and build strong satisfaction over Pardini.
Vroom’s Decision-Making Model:
Vroom was developed a useful decision-making model for selecting among various degrees of
leadership style (autocratic to participative). They recognized that problem-solving situations
differ, so they developed a structured approach for managers to examine the nature of those
differences and to respond appropriately. In this model, manager’s assess a current decision
situation along five point scales according to its problem attributes. These five scales are –
 Autocratic 1 – leader individually solves the problem using the information already
available.
 Autocratic 2 – Leader obtains data from subordinates and the decides.
 Consultative 1 – Leader explains problem to individual subordinates and obtains
ideas from each before deciding.
 Consultative 2- Leader meets with group of subordinates to share the problem and
obtain inputs and the decides.
  Group 2 – Leader shares problem with group and facilitates a discussion of
alternatives and a reaching of group agreement on a solution.
The usefulness of Vroom’s model rests on several key assumptions. First, it assumes that
managers can accurately classify problems according to the criteria offered. Second, it assumes
that managers are able and willing to adapt their leadership style to fit the contingency conditions
they face for each major decision. Third, it assumes that managers are willing to use a rather
complex model. Finally, it assumes that employees will accept the legitimacy of different styles
being used for different problems, as well as the validity of the leader’s classification of the
situation at hand.
In the above incident, Pardini can classify Prosser’s problems and then she can come to conclude
with a useful solution for her. Since Prosser face the problem that she wants to have the desirable
projects but Pardini are not willing to assign the projects to her because Pardini follows
autocratic leadership style. So examining the problem which Prosser is facing, Pardini can follow
consultative 1 from above five point scales to meet the expectations of Prosser.
Therefore, Pardini should take these types of leadership style discussed above to fit the best for
her employee’s and satisfy her employee’s with their expectations.
 Executive Summary on Joe Adams Case Study

Here the presented incident focuses on employee empowerment and participation. Empowerment
is only process that provides greater autonomy to employees through the sharing of relevant
information and the position of central over factors affecting job performance. Empowerment
helps the conditions that cause powerlessness while embracing employee feelings of self –
efficacy. So, employees lead to participation. Participation is the mental and emotional
involvement of people in group situations that encourage them to contribute to
group goals and share responsibility for them. Participation has three important ideas,
involvement, contribution, and responsibility.

Joe Adams is a supervisor in the final assembly department of an automobile body plant. The
work isn’t dependable with temporary layoffs or short weeks. The required skill for this job is
minimal and employees have a lower degree. Adams wishes to establish a participation in his
department. But the situation is not favorable for Joe Adams to establish it. Therefore, Adams
has to take empowerment policy and encourages employees to participate. Joe Adams should
take research on empowerment with reward system. He needs to prerequisites such as adequate
time, potential benefits greater than costs, employee interests, abilities, restriction to the area of
job freedom. Adams can also follow the philosophy of some scholar McGregor, Herzberg,
Fiedler model to establish participation.

Joe Adams can take the above mission regarding participation of their employees.
Question 01: Recommend a course of action for Adams.

Answer: Joe Adams is supervisor in the final assembly department of an automobile body
plant. Work in this department is not dependable, with temporary layoffs or short weeks
occurring three or four times a year. The work is physically difficult, and since the skill required
is minimal, most employees are high school graduates only. The work procedure and pace of
work are tightly controlled by industrial engineers and other staff groups. Adams attended in a
one day conference of supervisor assembly and learned about the benefit of participation and he
wishes to establish it in his assembly department. Management feels that the final assembly
department line is not suitable for participation and also suggests that the production schedule
will not allow time off for participation during the workday and Adams also feels that the
employees wont take part in the session after the workday by which Adams can give his
employees a better idea about participation.
Adams can follow the following action to give his employees a better idea about the benefit of
participation. These are given below-
1. Joe Adams could research an empowerment plan along with the reward system. An
empowerment plan includes-
 Helping employees achieve job mastery which includes proper training, coaching, and
guided experience.
 Allowing them to control over job performance.
 Using social reinforcement and persuasion (rewards).
 Giving emotional support by giving task assistance, and honest caring and reduction of
stress.
2. He could then formalize the plans for submission of management review.
3. Joe could involve management in the empowerment plan obtaining their critique and fine
tuning.
4. Once Joe Adams receive management “buy in”, he could implement the same in his
department.
These course of action build effectiveness among employees and they would feel satisfy and
fully involves by the participation.
 Question 02: Would any ideas from the following be helpful in this case:
McGregor, Herzberg, McClelland, Fiedler, models of organizational
behavior, prerequisites for participation, area of job freedom, and
programs for participation?

Answer: Joe Adams can follow the various models to engage his employees in participation.
These models is given below:
McGregor’s Theory:
McGregor’s theory ‘Y’ would be instrumental for Joe Adams. Because theory ‘Y’ rely on –
 Supportive approaches.
 Assumes that people have potentials.
 If provided with the right environment by management people would be able to
release other potential.
Joe Adams implement the theory ‘Y’ among their employee’s to ensure participation and these
will lead to –
 Willingness to take responsibilities.
 Employees follow work setting to build initiative.
 Exercise self direction and self control.
Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory:
Herzberg’s theory can also be used. Because in the theory, Herzberg explains that after fulfilling
the hygiene factors, employee seeks motivating factors. If Adams can establish hygiene factors
by implementing security, build relations with others, physical working condition, quality of
supervision, then Adams can assure the participation among employees and they would be able
to seek responsibility as well as personal growth will also improve.
Fiedler’s Contingency Theory:
Fiedler’s theory can also be used as a prerequisites for participation. By following the theory,
Adams can improve task structure, leader-member relations and also leader position power. If
there is no participation, the task would be unstructured, unsatisfaction depicts among employees
and the relations between Adams and his employees would not improve as well as Adams fails to
hold the leader position power in the organization. Therefore, the theory also drives to employee
orientation.
McClelland theory of motivation :
McClelland theory would not be beneficial. Because –
 It has no direct connection to participation.
 If focus directly on motivational drives (which is the product of the cultural environment
in which people live, and these drives affect the way people view their job and approach
their lives).
Organizational Model:
Collegial model of organizational behavior is beneficial for Adams, because it solely depends on
team concept and which model can assure employee participation.
Area of Job Freedom:
Participation for deciding a course of action in an organization can take place only within the
group’s area of job freedom. Some degree of restriction is required with regard to the parts of an
organization in order to maintain unity for the whole. Each separate subunits cannot make
decisions that violate policy, collective – bargaining agreements, legal requirements, and similar
restraints. Similarly, the physical environment ( a flood that results in the closing of a plant is an
extreme example) and personal limitations ( such as an employee’s not understanding
electronics) impose restraints. The area of Job Freedom for any department is its area of
discretion after all restraints have been applied.
In the above case, Adams also create an area of job freedom so that his employees feel that they
have no complete freedom by which they can make decision all the decisions. They must rely on
top supervisors for granting permission after overviewing their examining criteria.
Programs for Participation:
Programs for participation includes –
 Suggestion Programs.
 Quality Emphasis.
 Self – Managing Teams.
 Employee Ownership Plan.
 Total Quality Management.
In the above case, Joe Adams can arrange some programs to improve the work quality of his
employees. It leads Adams to examining his employees performance.
Therefore, These models will helpful for Joe Adams to create a participative environment for his
department and increase the ability of his employees.