Case: The Law Offices of Jeter, Jackson, Guidry and Boyer Essay

The issues that are presented in this case study are not uncommon problems that happen in the working environment. It was clear from the case that the partners in the law firm worked from a style of collaboration and meeting to understand the needs of their employees. However, their growth left them needing someone to take over the day to day, yet important operations of the organization like human resources, and marketing. The partners decided to create a General Operations Manager. The partners hired someone who had a background as a longtime administrator from the insurance industry seeking a final career change. This person’s leadership style was autocratic which means â€Å"the leader makes decisions on his or her own and then announces those decisions to the group† (Bateman and Snell). Hiring a person with this type of leadership style placed the firm in jeopardy of losing excellent employees and clients. As the case stated the law firm did lose clients. When the partners learned about the problems, the new General Operations Manager told them it was normal activity for what was taking place, and that they should just wait it out. This suggestion of sit back and wait given by the GM Brad Howser put a persona out to the partners that more clients would come and the employee morale would not remain low. The partners should not sit back and wait as Brad Howser has instructed them to do. Sitting back and waiting could destroy the company quicker then it took to build it up. This could cause more clients to leave the company and employees to leave the company. The partners needed to step in and develop a plan of how to address the issues that have developed since Brad Howser has taken the GM position. First, they needed to meet with Brad Howser and express their concern about losing clients and the sinking morale among their employees. This will require explaining to Brad Howser that their desired organizational culture, one that is caring, compassionate and respectful to everyone they serve. Another issue to bring up is that the autocratic leadership style Brad presents is not matching their mission and values of the company. They will need to give Brad a chance to change or leave, just as he presented the same information to the employees if they didn’t want to change. If he chooses to stay, he will need to overturn the rules he implemented. The partners must provide Brad with their vision for the company and the initial goal of hiring of a GM for Operations, which is to help manage the different offices and to continue to grow each year. They should also reinstate flex hours for employees and at the same time reinforce their importance to the firm. Having happy employees are far more productive then having unhappy employees. Brad will have to be educated on the different tasks of the jobs to know that they are not required to be done during specific hours. Finally, to finish cleaning up the disaster created, each client will need to be contacted that received one of Brad’s letters to pay up. This will cause the partners to apologize to and ensure to their customers that this will never hap pen again. They will also have to convince their clients into coming back to their company. The leadership style needed for a General Manager-Operations position is a style that can handle participation and collaboration. A style that incorporates these characteristics is called a transformational leader. â€Å"Transformational leaders get people to transcend their personal interests for sake of the larger community† (Bateman and Snell). The transformational leader will bring excitement to a company because they have the following qualities charisma, individualized attention, the ability to delegate challenging work to deserving people, keep lines of communication open and provide one-on-one mentoring to develop people. They will also bring the following skills to a vision of where they want to take the problem presented; the ablity to communicate their vision to the all the parties involved, build trust with employees and executives and hold a positive self-regard. A person in this job that is able to be dig into the weeds and find out way to lean out the company pr ocesses. They are also able to communicate about the changes being made and why they need to be made. Also the leader must be able to meet their employees where they are and figure out how to grow them as the company grows. A leader is not a stranger to hard work and putting their needs on the back burner. The leadership style I would pick for myself would be a mix of Transformational and Transactional and this person can â€Å"achieve set goals by acting within established procedures and standards. This leader assigns specific, well-defined tasks to subordinates and requires that they fulfill their responsibilities and meet standards precisely as prescribed or agreed upon† (Inc). Transactional leadership styles are good at improving processes, setting up rules and regulations and leaning out the resources used by the company. A person with this leadership style will be good at managing smaller operations and developing areas. In transformational I like to have a vision and mission for what I am currently trying to work towards. In my work place I want everyone around me to know what the vision is that we are working towards. I can be a mix of both of these depending on the situation I would be placed in. I would seek jobs in management in the technology field, military and logistics areas. Jobs that I would avoid are ones that put me in power over large groups of people like president of the country, CEO of a company and a person who is willing to make sacrifices in pursuit of the dreams they articulate in speeches. Being a public figure is not a good job for someone with these leadership styles. I believe all leadership styles can be used in various situations but you have to find a style or styles that best fit your life balance. Works Cited Bateman, Thomas S and Scott A Snell. Management Leading & Collaborating in a Competive World. New York: The McGraw-Hill Irwin , 2013. Inc, Human Metrics. Leadership Styles . 20 January 2013 .