Leadership by House, Hearth and Home (Essay Sample)

LEADERSHIP
House, Hearth and Home
Name
Professor
Institution
Date
Introduction.
The general manager of House, Hearth and Home s face with a possibility of a likely management crisis. To his long term and loyal employee, who is no longer competitive enough for tasks, he has an option to maintain. He also has an option of promoting a longtime friend, hardworking assistant. The choice of action that he will take is bound to have a great impact on his personal relations with Wesley Simpson, Dan Boyd and the employees. A dismissal of Wesley would be of great negative value since it would be seen as favoritism and he would appear to reward performance ahead of loyalty. Issues of such kind create a bottle neck to deal with organizational changes and often affect proper appraisal of employees
Question 1: Describe what House, Hearth and Home's needs to do to be successful in the marketplace. What are the competencies that are needed by leaders within the organization to be successful in the marketplace? Provide examples from the case to support your conclusions.
House, Hearth and Home has established itself as a worthy business entity and capable of servicing the demands of its clients. Albeit with challenges. Success of House at this point is as a result of efforts of the current yard manager. The management should look into ways of developing organizational strategies that will be viable; these will define how the firm will undergo changes over time to have the capacity to offer their strategy, as well as executable plans that will be applied to ensure desired transformations are executed (Hill, 2012). House, hearth and home needs to find ways of improving customer experience by quickening delivery of demands. Other than improve on the experience of current clients, House should also find ways to promote their services and products to attract new clients. Product promotion enables awareness and is the first step to the success of a business (Haffman, Novak & Chatterjee, 2001).
A business leader needs to have a number of skills and leadership qualities that will cut him out as a better performer and makes him able to organize employees and use resources adequately to achieve organizational goals. Some of these competencies include: being visionary, inspirational, strategic manager, tactical and focused, persuasive and likeable and decisive. Being visionary enables a leader to focus organizational resources and activities to attain the mission, this will be aimed at achieving the vision of the company. Being inspirational, helps to instill a spirit of commitment and desire to achieve the set goals. These qualities would enable a leader to both focus his strengths on achieving the goals of an organization and personal career goals while also provides an opportunity to be loved and have a positive influence on the employees (Holmes, 1991). The quality to be tactical enables a leader to come up with ingenious and innovative solutions to problems. This helps an organization to be both economical in its resource exploitation and to achieve set goals.
In the case for House, Dan Boyd has demonstrated exceptional leadership qualitied. By positively influencing the attitude of employees to make each task important, he enables them to focus on the organizational strategies and vision, hence makes it possible to attain the goals of the organization. His ability to confront workers gives makes him the authoritative and decisive leader who can be relied on during implementation of new concepts or reinforcement of discipline and organizational traditions. Wesley, on the other hand, has demonstrated reluctance to confront employees and to instill organizational discipline, thus make him likeable but not decisive.
Question 2: Contrast the different approaches Boyd and Simpson take with low performing employees. What leadership theory best describes each manager's approach. Which do you think is more effective and why?
Leadership theories give an explanation to the different techniques that are employed by leaders in their execution of duties. Leadership theories are deeply embedded on the mode and leadership styles. According to a research by Kurt Lewin (1939), leadership styles can be put into three major categories, depending on the leaders' approach to solution of problems and achievement of goals that are preset. The leadership styles include authoritarian, who is bureaucratic, democratic and laissez-fair leader. The major leadership theories include; great man theory, trait theory, behavioral theory, contingency theory and transactional theory. These theories showcase different approaches on how to deal with issues and implement concepts.
Boyd and Simpson have shown a great variation in dealing with arising issues at work. While Boyd has a preference to tackle the issues head on and solve them directly, Simpson's approach has been more character reserved and aims at creating a rather peaceful coexistence , at the expense of correctional conflicts. To avoid arising mistakes and possible work errors, Boyd has involved the concerned employees to correct their flaws- at times causing conflicts. Simpson on the other hand, has involved a different employee to correct the problems with an aim of avoiding conflicts. While Boyd portrayed the "go getter" attitude, and achieved results he desired form employees, even though conflicts, Simpson avoided conflicts at all costs, unless pushed by Coglin. In cases, where conflict occurred, Boyd provided an ear to the employees at fault and got to know their reasons for using a different course from the prescribed one (Latham, 2003). At times, a position of compromise could be reached. Simpson, in contrast to this, let issues causing conflicts to lie low and avoided conflicts, but instead sent other employees silently to make up corrections.
Boyd can best be described by Behavioral trait leadership theory. His approach to solution of problems offers new perspectives and gives strong precautions against overlooking particular tasks to avoid possible mistakes. From his previous experience of a job loss, Boyd's reaction and actions seem to be aimed at preventing a possible mistake in the future. It also appears that his commitment and actions are built on a sense of gratitude to his friend Coglin who helped him in his time of need. Boyd's actions concentrate on accomplishment of tasks set by the organization and developing a team of responsible employees, thus creating a relationship with them. From this perspective, according to behavioral trait theory, Boyd is a leader that is made by experience and plans.
Simpson can best be described using trait theory. Trait theory analyses the mental, physical and social characteristics of leaders. Through this analysis, Simpson is noted to perceive confronting employees as a genesis to conflicts, he thus prefers to preserve good social relations and uses techniques that preserve relations and maintain employees.
Question 3: Identify two options for addressing this issue. Analyze the benefits and risks of each option. Be sure to consider how each option affects Simpson, Boyd and yourself (individually and in your relationships), as well as how other employees at the store may react. Be sure to consider the models and theories that have been discussed in the readings or in class.
Performance appraisal is regarded as very vital part of organizational management. The management of any organization is often tasked with the responsibility to evaluate the performance of employees and reward them based on the degree of their success. These rewards, of course should be in line with the organizational objectives and strategic plans. Like all organizational issues and plans, appraisals should be done to be in line with the organization's goals and strategies. One of the best ways to do this, according to Kurt Lewin (1939) is to ensure that all the reward and appreciations are geared towards motivating employees and increasing their commitment to service delivery. He notes that while appraisal is key towards motivating employees, it is also one thing employees use to measure their worth, thus can be used as a tool to search for greener pastures and better opportunities. House should thus ensure that while these efforts are geared to make employees feel appreciated, they should be aimed at maintaining the quality employees and focus on ways of achieving the organizational strategic plans.
According to Henri (2004), the strategic plans of an organization are always the key determinants in all forms of relations that are built in and around an organization. The manner through which the organizations deal with all issues concerning employee relations, tasks and organizational issues should thus be in line with these strategies. House, hearth and Home has a plan to deliver materials to clients at a good time and to increase the number of customers. In this light, Coglin has had to invest in a good customer service to edge out competitors in the business.
To deal effectively with the issues at hand, there is need for performance management at House. This is the endless process of prioritizing jobs, performance expectations, as well as job responsibilities. These issues are made clear to employees and a mutual understanding is reached at with the managem