Leadership Lesson 2 - Three Styles of Leadership

Goals:

• Understand the three styles of leadership 
• Describe what types of situations best fit the three styes of leadership
• Understand how and why managers use situational leadership

 Leadership Style

Managers must understand their own style of leadership. Leadership style is the way a manager treats and supervises employees. It's important to know which style of leadership to employ based on a given situation.There are three styles of leadership. Here is an explanation of each.

Autocratic Leadership - The autocratic style of leadership is one where the leader gives direct and clear orders concerning what work is to be done and how it is to be carried out. Under this style of leadership, the manager does not seek the opinion or advice of employees. The advantage of this management style is that it allows a team to make quick decisions and move with speed. This style is often used in emergency situations such as when an order need to be expedited or when plans go wrong.

This is a clip from the 1989 movie Glory about the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. It was the first formal unit of the Union Army made up entirely of African-American men. After taking over command of the company, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw soon discovers that he needs help teaching the men to fight. He employs the services of Sgt. Major Mulcahy. Why do you think he uses this style of leadership?

 Democratic Leadership - In this style of leadership, the manager encourages workers to share in the decision making process. In stead of giving direct orders, the manager may ask a series of questions in order to provide creative thinking on the part of the team. By creating their own solutions, workers take ownership of the work and share in the rewards of having done a job well. The drawback to this style of leadership is that it takes time to bring a group to consensus. Managers use this style of leadership when they have time to work and when they need all members of the team to buy into the plan.

Watch this clip from the movie Apollo 13. In this clip, the flight director, Gene Kranz, has to come up with a plan to get the astronaut crew back home after an engine failure. Notice how he changes the objective of the mission from landing on the moon to just getting the crew back.  He employs a democratic style of leadership. Why do you think he uses this style?

Open Leadership - Under an open leadership style, the workers are not directly supervised and are given little or no direction. But that does not mean that leadership does not take place. People sometimes need more than information or instruction, reward or punishment. Sometimes they need something else.

The following is a scene from the movie Any Given Sunday. How does the coach give his players what they need? He gives little or no direction. What does he give them?

 Situational Leadership - Sometimes leaders have to know how to change their style of leadership when the situation changes. This is the essence of situational leadership.

Watch this clip from the movie Hoosiers. How does the coach change his leadership style?

Vocabulary - Study the following terms on Quizlet.

• Leadership Style
• Autocratic Leadership
• Democratic Leadership
• Open Leadership 
• Situational Leadership

Standards: 
11.1 Analyze the needs of employees.
11.2 Discuss leadership skills integral to groups.
11.3 Evaluate strong leadership skills.

Leadership Lesson 1 - The Four Powers of Leadership

 Goals:

1. Recognize the importance of leadership to organizational success.
2. Identify important leadership characteristics
3. Describe the four types of power leaders use to shape organizations
   

Leadership is defined as the ability to influence individuals and groups to cooperatively achieve organizational goals. Leaders must have a number of different qualities. Think of leaders that you have seen in action. List three characteristics that you think effective leaders must have. Share these with the class. 

Think: Are all managers leaders? Are there leaders who have no management position?

 Listen to what former Army General, White House Chief of Staff and Secretary of State Colin Powell says is the essence of leadership. 

Take a look at the list of characteristics given by your classmates. How does Colin Powell's concepts of leadership tie all of these together? 

Leadership Power

To achieve their goals, managers must use power to influence people.

• Position Power - comes from the power that the manager holds within the organization. The manager has the authority to give directions and expect the employee to complete the work.
• Reward Power - this power comes from the managers ability to control rewards and punishments.
• Expert Power - this type of power comes is power bestowed by employees based on a manager's expertise or skill in performing a task.
• Identity Power - when employees strive to become like the manager or seek his/her approval, this is known as identity power.

While the first two types of power come from the organization, the last two come from the employees themselves. A company may give a manager position or reward power, expert and identity power come from the employees.

Watch the following clip from the movie Glory. What types of power does the staff sergeant use to motivate an insubordinate soldier? What types of power demonstrate evidence of effective leadership?

Assignment:

Analyze the following scenarios. Explain which of the four types of power are being used and why. Write your answers on a sheet of paper and turn them in a the end of class for your daily grade. (10 points)

1. Amy has been supervising her shift at a local fast food restaurant for a month. When she first started, she had problems getting Jaylin to come in to work on time. He was a hard worked and knew a lot about how all of the equipment worked so he was a valuable member of her staff. But his being late to work caused the other employees to have to do his job until he came in. When asked about it, Jaylin always had excuses. Either he had been caught by a train crossing or his alarm didn't go off or he had misplaced his keys. Finally, Amy called Jaylin to her office after work one day. She insisted that he either start getting to work on time or he could start looking for other work. His work habits had caused a lot of resentment among the other employees and this needed to stop. Jaylin objected, saying that he wasn't motivated to get to work on time because he had not received a raise in over a year. Amy promised that she would see about getting him a raise but he would have to start getting to work on time first. The next morning, not only was Jaylin on time, he was early. For the next month, Jaylin was either on time or a little early to work. One day after work, Amy called him into her office to let him know that she has noticed his success at getting to work on time. She told Jaylin that he was now getting a raise. Jaylin was thrilled. He thanked Amy and said he appreciated the opportunity that she had given him.
What leadership power did Amy use to get Jaylin motivated to get to work on time?

2. Will always admired Tom's skill with wood-working tools. Tom owned a small cabinet shop in the town where they both lived. He was a middle aged man with strong hands, had worked in cabinetry all his life. Tom knew how to create cabinets that looked so solid that it appeared that they were carved out of a single piece of wood. Will had always admired his work. While he was in a high school wood working class, his teacher had introduced him to Tom. When Will graduated high school, he decided that he wanted to work in Tom's shop and asked for a job. Tom agreed to take him on as a paid  apprentice until he thought Will was ready to work as a full employee. Over a period of six months. Will not only learned wood-working skills from Tom, he learned how Tom approached projects and how he led his employees. Will began to not only work like Tom, he began to talk like Tom as well. Some of Will's fellow workers began to joke and call Will "Little Tom." That was okay with Will. He loved and admired Tom. After a year of working in the shop, Tom declared Will a craftsman and hired him on as a full-time worker. Will was grateful for the opportunity and thanked Tom for his trust in him.
What type of leadership power did Tom use in getting Will motivated to excellence?

3. Michelle was the floor manager for MetalTech, a automobile parts manufacturing business in a large mid-western city. She had been promoted to that position after working at the company just two years. Michelle had a way of working with employees and getting the best out of them. She had been promoted to shift supervisor after working there for just six months. Just one year later she was promoted to her current position of floor manager. It was a more stressful job but Michelle seemed to thrive on the day to day work of managing her department. One day, a worker reported to Michelle that one of the stamping machines had "frozen up." After inspecting the machine, Michelle could find nothing wrong. She inspected the power supply and everything seemed normal but the machine was not getting power from the building. She couldn't figure out why there was no power. Clearly, there was some information she was missing. She knew that the machine had been installed years earlier and that Jake, the VP of operations and previous floor manager had been there when it was installed. She decided to call Jake to see if he could shed any light on the problems they were having. When Jake arrived, he explained how the power supply for the machine had been set up. It was far more complicated than Michelle had understood. They both looked at the wiring diagram for the building and traced the problem back to a breaker in a remote part of the building. After some additional wiring work, they were able to get the machine back up and running.
What type of leadership power did Jake exercise in getting the machine fixed?

4. Sonya was the head nurse at a hospital in a mid-sized city. It was her job to supervise and schedule a team of 20 nurses to care for the patients on her floor. Kalvin was new to the job, so Sonya had scheduled Kalvin to work nights and weekends. This was standard practice for all new hires in the department since most of the veteran nurses already had the most favorable schedules. Kalvin as undeterred by the difficult hours. He worked hard and tried to do the job as efficiently as possible. He came to work on-time and often stayed late to make sure everything was in good shape for the following shift. Sonya began to notice Kalvin's hard work. After three months, one of the nurses on the first shift left to take another job in another city where her husband had found work. Kalvin requested a move to the first shift since it would allow him to spend more time with his family. Sonya agreed to the shift change and allowed Kalvin to work during the days and only one weekend a month. Kalvin was thrilled with the schedule change.
What type of leadership power did Sonya use?


Study: Be ready to take a quiz over the following terms at the beginning of our next class. You can study these items on Quizlet.

• Leadership
• Position Power
• Reward Power
• Expert Power
• Identity Power

Management Lesson 2 - Effective Supervision

Goals

• Understand what makes a supervisor effective
• Identify the responsibilities of supervisors
• Describe the day-to-day activities of supervisors
• understand the role of a Work Coach

The Effective Supervisor

 Great workers are often chosen by the companies they work for to be supervisors. The hope is that these workers will be able to replicate and multiply their effectiveness by teaching and motivating subordinates who work for them. A supervisor's effectiveness is judged based on three factors:

• Quality
• Efficiency
• Worker Satisfaction

Responsibilities

To achieve these goals, supervisors take on certain responsibilities

1. Bridge - Supervisors serve as a bridge between management and the employees. The supervisor must communicate the goals and objectives of management to the employees. At the same time, the supervisor can take concerns and ideas to management.

2. Coach - Supervisors use their expertise and experience to teach and motivate employees to improve workplace performance. Supervisors often use performance reviews to evaluate the work and accomplishments of employees. Supervisors also encourage their subordinates though verbal encouragement and recognition.

3. Guard - Supervisors also serve as a guard of the company's resources. by using resources efficiently, supervisors keep costs low and directly contribute to the company's bottom line.


Tools

A supervisor uses tools to maintain an efficient workplace.

A work schedule is often used to schedule jobs to be completed and assists in assigning responsibilities to employees for getting specific tasks done. Much of supervisors' time is consumed in scheduling work to keep tasks completed on-time.

Another critical component of a supervisor's job is to communicate effectively with employees and management. Company's often use e-mail, text messaging and phone calls to communicate critical aspects of a company's operation. Supervisors also use job tickets and order forms to communicate specific job plans with employees and management.

The final task that supervisors must oversee is quality control. If errors or defects are detected, a supervisor must find out the cause and have it corrected. This may involve additional training for an employee or repairing or replacing a piece of mechanical equipment.

Supervisors are not left alone to complete all these tasks. Companies often provide work coaches to assist in training supervisors in becoming more effective in their work. Work coaches can provide training, advice, and supervision when necessary.

Management Lesson 1 - The Four Management Functions

Goals

• Understand the four functions of all managers: planning, organizing, implementing, controlling

• Differentiate the roles of Supervisor, Mid Management, and Executive Management 

Systems Thinking

To get started in thinking about how supervisors, managers and executives function, we're going to perform a short exercise. We're going to make toast, or at least plan the toast-making process.

1. Take a clean sheet of paper and a marker and without using words draw an explanation of how to make toast. Simple right? Do not talk or share your drawings. Do it in 5 minutes. Go!
2. Now, test out the effectiveness of your communication. See if a novice learner can understand your instructions. (10 minutes)
3. Examine the drawings. Is there anything common? Notice that all instructional drawings have nodes which define tasks and links which define order. The combination of both creates a systems model.
4. We can now measure the complexity of the task by counting the number of nodes. What is the class average? What level seems like too few and what level is too many? Select an optimal amount of nodes.
5.  Now, using a marker and post-it notes. Make a note for each node. Arrange them on the white board in a way that makes sense. 
6. Refine the process by adding nodes or combining them to make a simple model.
7. Define which critical processes would need to be monitored to achieve a perfect piece of toast. 

Think: Where do the following processes occur in the sequence we just illustrated?

• Planning
• Organizing
• Implementing
• Controlling

Study to chart on page 273 of your textbook. Notice the different levels of management and what roles each play in the work of managing a company.

Discuss: Which systems do you think were more effective, the individual drawings or the group drawings?
This is a process that many companies use to solve real world problems. What are some other inefficient systems you've experienced at a local business or school that could be refined using this method?

Assignment: Think of a common task that you regularly encounter at school such as studying for a test or writing a research paper,  Work with a classmate to create a visual representation of that system using a step-by-step drawing. Think about how you could improve the system to produce a more consistent result. What are the critical elements of the process? Turn in your plan for your daily grade. (5 points)

Watch this video to see how real companies are using this method to create systems that work.

Study the following vocabulary words for the next quiz:

• Planning 
• Organizing
• Implementing
• Controlling
• Supervisor
• Mid-Manager
• Executive

Standards:
9.1 Compare and contrast the types of organizational structures used in businesses.
14.1 Examine the basic steps in the process of controlling.
14.2 Analyze ways standards are used in a business.

Business Communication Exam

Here is your Business Communication Exam. Each question is worth 5 points. Good luck!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1lOFuo9yu_HqP0j6w9EX9FrDeB6hlryYC6fvxbOtSNwE/viewform

What do managers DO?

Have you ever worked for a manager? Maybe you've actually worked as a manager. What is a managers job anyway? Watch this video from Gold Rush.