A Day in the life of Alex Sander Problem Statement: 1.

How can Sam Glass channelize and bring out Alex Sanders competencies so that he can contribute more effectively to the progress of his product team at Landon? 2. In what ways can Landon Care Products Inc restructure their performance appraisal methods such that it can help employees achieve their highest leadership potential? External Analysis PEST Analysis: Economical: European companies entering into the American skincare and beauty segment.

Cultural: The takeover by a European company brought in changes in the work culture.

Job requirements of a Product Manager 1. Synchronization and coordination of various departments. 2. Comprehensive overall knowledge. 3. Broad professional background and varied skill set. 4. Intuition is required to an extent. 5. Attention to detail. 6. Should be able to mentor and develop the team. 7. Ability to optimize the potential of all individuals in the team. 8. Should be respected by the team. 9. Should give the team members freedom to demonstrate their skills. SWOT analysis for Alex Sander Strengths 1. Intrinsically motivated person. 2. High intellectual ability and a sharp mind at work. 3. Highly creative and aggressive.

4. A Quick learner. 5. Ready to take up challenges and identify opportunities. 6. His tirelessness to take up work and his multi tasking ability. 7. A focussed, goal directed person. 8. His broad managerial perspective. Weakness 1. Not a peoples person. 2. Highly impatient with others. 3. A bad temper that is highly de-motivating for others to work under him. 4. Micromanages to a great extent. 5. A competitive nature that make team members feel insecure in his presence. 6. Inability to delegate work and trust others. 7. Doesnt appreciate others work. 8. Arrogant and very critical in his assessment. Opportunities 1. His knowledge and willingness to perform will attract more clients. 2. His technical expertise will let him rise up in the hierarchy. 3. His superiors and peers respect his expertise despite his hostility. 4. His past performance and competencies entrusts him and the company with substantial projects such as Nourish. 5. His entrepreneurial ability and foresight. Threats 1. Alexs micromanaging and high pressure on his team to constantly perform without any appreciation might lead to a drop in the motivation which might lead to attrition as well. 2. Alex might eventually burn out due to over exhaustion. His temper might lead to him being disliked by his subordinates and superiors. SWOT for 360 degree Performance Review 360 degree Performance Review Unlike a traditional performance review method this method of performance review entails evaluation of feedback about the subject (individual

being reviewed) from supervisors, laterals and subordinates and all others associated with him. Strengths 1. 2. 3. 4. Effectively brings out how the subject interacts with all hierarchies. Extremely transparent and unbiased process. Encourages employee participation from all levels of the firm The subject gets an idea how his surroundings view him. He can use this to rectify certain attribution error like optimistic bias or self-serving bias 5. To improve their ratings employee will become more empathetic towards his subordinates. Weakness 1. Faulty system Subject of evaluation is aware of the participants providing feedback 2. Lack of anonymity 3. Subjects can fabricate the result by conspiring with the participants 4. A very people oriented manager will always get overall better remarks even if he is not an achiever. Opportunities 1. Cost effective method of evaluation

Threats 1. The participants who provide feedbacks might form cartels and work against a particular individual for their shared benefits. This defeats the whole purpose of the system. 2. Lot of people are unclear how the evaluation will be used. 3. Time Consuming.

Detailed Analysis:

According to the Situational theory of leadership, Hersey and Blanchard mention that leadership styles are derived mainly from two types of behaviour, regulating and nurturing behaviour. We see from the above diagram what the four styles are. Here is a brief description of the same.

Style 1 - Directive: High Regulating and Low Nurturing behaviour. Here the leader defines the roles of group members and tells them what to do. He also closely supervises implementation.

Style 2 - Supportive: High Regulating and High Nurturing behaviour. Direction and freedom is given to the team. However decision making remains with the leader.

Style 3 - Consulting: High Nurturing and Low Regulating behaviour. The focus of control is vested with the team members. The leader is more a facilitator.

Style 4 - Delegating: Low nurturing and Low Regulating behaviour. The leader discusses the task to be achieved and the Group has control in determining how they are achieved.

We can see very clearly from the case that Alex Sander is a Directive leader, who very clearly defines his teams roles. Communication here is largely one way. He supervises the teams efforts very closely and sometimes is not able to delegate the work and takes it on himself to complete it.

There is also, the path goal theory, which says that the leader uses all the styles, depending on the situation. The situation is characterised by two factors: Subordinates Characteristics this talks about how much the subordinates accept the leaders behaviour and how the environmental pressure affects them. The second is Subordinates motivation - this is how the subordinates abilities and competencies are moulded by the leader, either by motivation, support or guidance. The leader must use an appropriate method to smoothen the path to the goals of the team and each of the team members. The theory says that the path must be smoothened by stimulating the subordinates need for achievements, increasing pay offs for goal achievement, coaching and guiding. Here Alex does not really help the team members by appreciating their efforts or praising them. He is instead very blunt and critical in his assessment. He does provide appropriate remuneration and contributes a little towards sense of achievement. But if there is no approval and support from the leader, the team members will lose their need for achievement and growth. We can also look at this from the perspective of Herzbergs two factor theory, Alex Sander accounts for almost all of the context factors such as Salary, supervision, etc., but does not satisfy the content factors of motivation which involves recognition of achievement, responsibility and advancement. The absence of these, cause de-motivation amongst the team members.

There are two contrasting styles defined by Emphasis on the task to be done (task oriented style) or the persons doing the task (people oriented style). Alex has a high task orientation style and a low people orientation.

As per the Equity theory, we can see that all the subordinates of Alex Sander are satisfied with the ways and remuneration provided that serves as motivation. He accords for people when they accomplish work by means of dinners, tickets to sport events, theatre and so on. The employees know that their efforts such as working overtime will be addressed through such means and hence there is no dissonance amongst the team with regard to the benefits that Alex Sander offers as incentive or remuneration. He takes care of the hygiene factors of motivation.

Alex Sander is a very inquisitive, curious and a hard working person. He leads by example. His want for achieving his self esteem needs are extremely contagious but sometimes is difficult to keep up with. We can attribute Alexs undying want to perform to the Drive Theory and see how he always wants to outperform himself. This gives him a sense of satisfaction. But again, he always expects the same from the rest of the team. When this happens, there might be a feeling of misfit to the specific team member. This quality of Alex is both a good and bad thing.

His need for achievement is very high. He enjoys the responsibility given to him and wants to perform work that offers him more space to operate, more opportunities. This sometimes might be treated as being self obsessed and not being a team player which again affects the working and efficiency of the team.

Options available Problem 1 1. Assign a mentor to Alex Sander in order to guide him through this process of transformation. 2. Transfer Alex to broader planning areas Problem 2 1. Fix the loopholes in the 360 review process 2. Switch over to traditional performance review system

Analysis of Options -

Assign a mentor to Alex Sander in order to guide him and support his progress. The mentor would be responsible in supporting and guiding Alex and closely observing the changes in his style of leadership. The mentor should also be able to make Alex aware of various other perspectives and should make him realise that work can be achieved through means other than control.

There are three modes that a manager performs in administrator, management and leadership. These are differentiated by a set of characteristics as shown below Administration Main concern Follow procedures Emphasis on Focus on Conformity Status quo Interaction Stability Creativity Trendsetting Conformity(A) Trendsetting (L) Norms Quantity Quality Pushing Pushing Management Get results Leadership Excel Alex Excel (L)

Benchmarks

Benchmarks (L)

Assessment criterion Driven by

Efficiency

Effectiveness

Boundary Management

Efficiency (A)

Past ( tradition)

Present (competition)

Future ( vision)

Future ( vision) (L)

Concept of Power

Limited / unshareable

Shareable

Multiplying

Limited / unshareable (A)

HRD approach

Supervision

Coaching

Mentoring

Supervision (A)

Dominant Need

Control dependency

Achievement of autonomy and power

Power extension

Achievement of autonomy and power (M)

From the swot analysis of Alex and the traits described in the table it can be seen that Alexs management trait consists of a mix of characteristics . So while Alex exhibits certain leadership qualities like excelling at what he sets out for , is driven by vision , he also exhibits some characteristics of an administrator . So using the following table Sam can isolate the areas where Alex requires a change in his management style. Thereafter mentoring Alex in his day-to-day activities for a few months might result in transformation of Alex into a complete leader.

Fix the loopholes in the 360 review process so that Alex and other employees take it seriously instead of writing off the usefulness and authenticity of such a process. This can be done by ensuring anonymity while requesting feedback and by directly linking the results so obtained to the developmental process of an individual in the organization by means of offering adequate training programs, mentorship, coaching and guidance. However active care should be taken to ensure that there is absence of any type of cartel formation and fabrication. Secondly to ensure that managers who only have good people-oriented skills and lack of task oriented skills does not get over rated , weightage should be assigned to the components of the feedback process.

Recommendations

Alex needs to give more importance to the feedback received and should try and develop his people skills. Training and mentorship are of utmost importance in this case to help Alex contribute to the company in a more effective manner. Switching to the traditional review system would be a pre matured decision. The first step should be to fix the loop holes of the 360 degree appraisal system as explained above. The above mentioned solutions would help us achieve the desired outcomes.