Case for Critical AnalysisEssay Preview: Case for Critical AnalysisReport this essayCase for Critical Analysis: Chapter 14Ms. Gustafsons leadership style was consistent with that of a relationship-oriented leader. Although the case study shows no reason to believe that she was not task oriented (in the whole), her descriptions are more related to creating a positive and well liked work environment. Ms. Gustafson probably commanded/leaded a group of workers (mainly females) that liked one another and had a relative amount of cohesion. There was never a powerful hierarchy that implemented rules, and peoples feelings seem to have been taken into account. Subordinates favored her style because her rules were less rigid, and allowed them to be in a non-stressful work environment. She was also older, and a fellow worker, so she could relate to the other employees of the health insurance company. Ms. Gustafson lacked the ability for innovation and growth. This style is poor at directing others to increase maximum efficiency. Because she was not necessarily a strong power figure, she may not have been the most effective task-oriented leader. This style would also be weaker at organizing change throughout the company. Lastly, the sources of her influence were her employees she managed, and had personal relationships with working. She also felt a desire to keep customers “happy” and “comfortable.” Again, more consideration was placed on peoples feelings and relationships.
Mr. Rasmussen was brought in as a younger, innovative leader. His style was more consistent with a task-oriented leader, and he placed the companys growth and productivity over the needs of the employees. His style, along with his age and recent college accomplishments, probably gave him a confidence boost to be a more power hungry leader. This is not intended to be a bad thing, but he was not concerned with employees schedules or lives outside of the job. His strengths and weaknesses seemed to be opposite of the previous leader. He would be more influenced by his bosses and the companys success. Creating new ideas to cut back costs and increase customer calls would be his main concerns.
I would start by recognizing the great improvements that the company has seen since his hiring. I would make sure that he knew that his work was valued, and that he was successfully increasing performance for the company. After all, the case study does indicate that he was brought in to improve the companys expenditures and create innovation. Upon completing this, I would alert him to the recent complaints and morale of the employees. I would encourage him at this point to make a point to the employees that their hard work has not gone unrecognized, and maybe now schedules could be a bit less stringent (in given circumstances). Mr. Rasmussen seems to be educated and capable of providing great leadership. I think that he could invoke change in the employees
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Mr. Rasmussen’s comments are a sign of the times that a business is more competitive. You get more bang for your buck from your competitors, especially in a global market that is saturated with so many small and medium enterprises. But as I already said, there is no such thing as your “business as usual”, and they are right to point out that there are two aspects to your competitors’ tactics that I have described in section 4, “What do you do and what do you expect to be done”?
I think that most people think that your “business as usual” is the same, but it is not. A lot of it does not change with the time that you spend, so for some things it may make sense to focus on what you have learned to do well. I am sure that you could tell the customers that their business is very competitive, and that your people have more confidence to run it.
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What I will offer you is an example that I think can be applied to the job of your manager, especially those of your company which were just recently acquired by IBM. In a single year, IBM has increased its staff. In many years it may have to cut some staff by hiring a new one. These executives often did not learn from their mistakes and had to learn from them. Their experience and confidence in themselves and those of their employees gave them a huge reward. But many did not learn from their mistakes, because they had learned the hard way and had learned quickly. To me, this example suggests that even though IBM has been doing extremely well but the people did not take advantage of it, you can now have a group of people who are very successful and who see this as a opportunity to improve. For this reason, I know Mr. Rasmussen’s company that has spent a lot of time over the last ten years trying to make a change before it becomes a huge problem. In this case, I think my point could be that we will get better at this if we focus on taking steps to make our company competitive. In fact, I think that this could be a key step in the way that these other companies can improve their business.
I think Mr. Rasmussen’s remarks are a very good point about what we could do better. We can start addressing what are the needs of our customers in terms of their current business and then create better programs and processes for them. We could start to use more software that supports the needs and capabilities of our customers, rather much like Google or Amazon. Those things are key to be able to provide high level of service and to deliver great value to our customers. It certainly doesn’t have to be a software or hardware solution, and that is already the case here. While many of you will already have some access to basic knowledge, many others may not. These need to be made available to every single customer. I think what it will take is some great work and great success and some great investment in our company but if we are truly looking to