An Impossible Dream ?

Questions:

1. How would you characterize Block's leadership approach (task vs people)? What approach do you
think is correct for this situation? Why?

2. What would you do now if you were Block? How might you awaken more enthusiasm in your team
for completing this project on time? Specify the steps you would take.

3. How would you suggest that Block modify his leadership style if he wants to succeed Mansell in
two years? Be specific.

Answers:

1: The leadership approach used by the Block is task centred. He cared more about the job and end
result and less about his team members. He is failed to handle the problems faced by his team
members related to work-life balance. He is mainly thinking about his own promotion and ignoring
the queries of his sub ordinates about their career opportunities. According to me the best suitable
leadership approach will be the team management approach as the team members are already said to
be committed but lacking passion, motivation and harmony. Block should take the responsibility of
the group performance as a leader and should communicate and involve with the members more in a
bid to solve their problems and develop trust and initiate motivation.

2: If I was Block, then I would have put more effort in developing an effective communication set up
in the team. In this way I would have been able to create smooth flow of information across the group
and problems faced by the members would have been handled in a much better way.

I would have taken following steps in this case:

Step1: Set Goals
Step2: Develop Action Plans
Step3: Review Progress
Step4: Appraise Overall Performance

The performance appraisal would have been done in following ways:

I would have awoken more enthusiasm in my team as a bid to initiate motivation in them to complete
the project in time. That was possible through rewarding the members in the form of appreciation of
their performance on workplace like member of the week award, more encouraging behaviour
towards them for doing tasks, guidance and support to manage their work life balance like baby care
facility for married members and choice for the members to work flexible hours, recognition of their
work like making them feel their work is an important part of the task and providing appropriate
extrinsic rewards like a couple of movie tickets or bonuses. I would have taken the responsibility of
the performance shown by my team and would have helped my team to achieve the desired results.

3: Block should take measures to know more about him as he is seriously lacking self awareness if he
wants to succeed Mansell. He should develop such an atmosphere in his surroundings which facilitate
his sub ordinates to criticise his wrongdoings. In addition to work on his self awareness Block should
use the Model for the development of individualized leadership to fully develop his skills to fulfil the
responsibilities given by both the leadership position and working in a team. Block must use the
Johris Window Model to work on his communication skills in a bid to develop effective relations
with his subordinates. Block can also use Management by Objective technique to manage sub
ordinates.
A Nice Manager
Questions

1. What does nice mean to you? Is being considered nice a good trait for managers to have or the kiss
of death?

2. Is nice related to any concepts in the chapter, such as one of the big five personality dimensions,
Myers-Briggs components, or left-right brain dominance? Discuss.

3. If Harry is passed over for promotion, what feedback and advice would you give him
about how to improve his management skills for possible future promotion?

Answers

1: To me, I think that nice means having respect for others and being conscientious of other peoples
thoughts or feelings. I think people that are nice are kind to others, even strangers, without asking for
something in return. They are genuine and sincere humans who care about others. I think being
considered nice for a manager is in the middle of a good trait to have and the kiss of death. On one
hand being a nice manager helps build a relationship between.

Small gestures and random acts of kindness can have an enormous impact on others
around. Being nice doesnt mean being s o f t a n d w e a k b u t i t i s b e i n g k i n d a n d
s h o w i n g e m p a t h y t o t h o s e i n n e e d . It is crucial for leaders to show concern and
care towards their subordinates and try to assist them in solving any work related issues.

I think being considered nice for a manager is in the middle of a good trait to have and the kiss of
death. On one hand being a nice manager helps build a relationship between you and your employees.
When youre genuine and kind to them, it helps build trust, which will then lead to them wanting to
put in more effort when working for you. On the other hand, if youre too nice, employees may start
to take advantage of you. They may slack off while working, knowing that youll cover for them or
help them out. Thats why I think there needs to be a happy medium. You can still be a nice manager
but not be a pushover. Being too nice will also arise more conflict and as a head the last thing you
want in your team is conflict. A person who is too nice to everyone will have a hard time of
being taken seriously. If your culture at work is too nice there could be some conflict that will
come up. Usually managers, from shift to CEOs, try to avoid any conflict in the work force.
Now there are down sides to being a too nice manager. A couple of them are not getting
promoted and not getting paid as much as the other managers, which were mentioned earlier.

2: I think that nice related to a few of the concepts in the book such as social awareness
which is a form of emotional intelligence a part of big 5 model. When youre socially aware,
you have the ability to understand others and practice empathy, which means being able to
put yourself in someone elses shoes and recognize what others are feeling without them
telling you. Also another concept that it relates to is relationship management, which is the
ability to connect to others and build positive relationships, respond to others emotions, and
influence others. In the book it says people with relationship management skills know how to
listen and communicate clearly, and treat others with compassion and respect. Which are
traits of a nice person.
In Myers-Briggs Type Indicator the pair of attributes including thinking and feeling is related
to being too nice because people with more feeling attribute tend to think more about the
impact on people caused by their any specific action. These people will be more nice
managers as compared to those with the thinking attribute more dominating.
Left-right brain dominance or the whole brain model also helps us to understand the
behaviours of people with the help of dividing our brain in four quadrants. According to this
model people with quadrant C more dominating will be more emotional and expressive and
supporting of others.

3: Harry is adopting Affiliate leadership style which says People come first and embraces empathy,
creating healthy bond and people harmony. This leadership can be unhealthy in certain situation.
Being nice could be Harrys attitude or personal trait which Harry does not realize it as a weakness or
problem. This is the blind spots characteristics or habits that people dont recognize as problems but
limit their effectiveness and hinder their career success. The issue of blind spot and self-awareness can
be resolved through providing feedback to Harry in order for him to overcome and improve his
leadership style. He should teach his sub ordinate to do the task instead of doing the task for them.
From reading the case it seems that Harry is a well liked guy and people trust him and rely on him,
but maybe a little too much, to the point of him being a pushover. So I would tell Harry to take a step
back. Its nice that hes always there to help out his employees, but he shouldnt be doing the work for
them. I would tell him to be more like a manager who is balanced in collaboration and authority. Im
not saying he needs to stop having good relationships with his employees, he just needs to draw the
line on how helpful he is. There should be a middle ground.