Scenario (fictional):
Measures and Weights Inc. (MW) is a manufacturing company that produces all types of weighing and measuring instruments for a host of different industries worldwide. One hundred employees are divided between manufacturing and sales representatives, with about 20 staff assigned to managerial/administrative positions in the various departments. About 2 months ago, the head of production, Tom (in his job for the last 3 years), was in a meeting with several members of his staff when the following conversation occurred:
Production manager Tom says at the end of a half-hour meeting to review the last months production schedule results: Does anyone have anything to add concerning operations today?
Production employee Helena: Well, we are starting to have some real problems in production because some of our vendors are late in supplying us with essential materials, and as a result, many of our orders have been late in getting to clients. Someone needs to speak with our vendors right away!
Production manager Tom: Anyone else have that problem? (He waits for 3 seconds for any response and then continues.) Thanks everyone, I guess that wraps up this meeting. Now back to work!
After a week, the production manager began to receive reports from the database system. Many final products were being held off the assembly line due to late vendor materials delivery. Customer complaints now had gotten to the critical point, and executive management had been alerted.
The production manager had a special meeting of his department that same day and admonished the production team, saying: It is your responsibility to see that these products are produced based on order due dates. If there is a problem, you are to contact me. I hold you all responsible for this lapse in reporting this problem. Soon, I will decide who is responsible and who will be working with me to resolve this issue.
Production employee Helena just looked at her colleagues and said: But boss, I did bring this up at the last meeting.
Production manager Tom responded: Well if there was a problem as important as this one, you should have sent a follow-up memo to everyone. Someone will have a report submitted to their personnel file and a bad quarterly performance review as well for this oversight! Then he adjourned the meeting.
Production employee Helena speaking to another employee, Zara, after the meeting: I absolutely should not be blamed for this; I told him there was a problem. I am going to lodge a complaint with the human resources department right away and consider whether I will stay with the company.
Quality control specialist Zara responded: I might be joining you. Who can work for a boss like this?
Checklist: Respond to the following items regarding the scenario:
Analyze the problems at this company as portrayed in the scenario.
Describe the leadership style demonstrated by the manager.
Name the leadership style.
Define the leadership style.
Explain why you chose this leadership style.
Explain the aspects of the leadership process that the manager neglected.
Describe the steps in the communication process.
Describe the steps of the communication process that were not addressed or completed.
Explain how the communication steps were not completed or addressed.
Examine and explain how the manager could have used the communication and leadership process to (1) build a better relationship with the employees in his department and (2) make employees more effective on the job.
