LEADERSHIP

Leadership & Case Study Analysis

Leadership & Case Study Analysis

Introduction

This paper has two objectives. One is to analyze the case study called 'A Novice Manager's Tale of Woe' and the other is to study core leadership concepts and theories. In the case study, a manager called Tricia Monet reflects on her journey, from the time she got promoted to Store manager to the time she decided to go back to college and how it impacted her work and the attitude of her subordinates. Tricia, the store manager, did not have much leadership experience. She was an advertisement in the paper and applied. After an initial training session, she was thrown into the deep end of the pool. Managers without much training on leadership usually rely on their own instincts to manage their teams. Some are successful whereas some are not. It depends on the traits of the person and the inherent leadership qualities of the person (as discussed further in the trait theory).

Personal Statement

In the case study, Tricia works for Personal Reflections, a well known and established store. When Tricia considered the possibility of going back to college and finishing her studies, her team got demotivated and started breaking apart. They did not really take the idea of working without her too well and on the other hand, the team also started getting discarded and inefficient. In such a case, the first thing that Tricia should have done (considering the dynamics of the team and how they reacted to her case) is to make them understand that her decision to leave was just a thought and on the other hand, she should have induced some form of motivation into the team by telling them that the best performer and the person who shows the most leadership would be promoted to her position. This would have made the team work harder and try their best to show their leadership skills and efficiency. Further in this paper, we discuss three theories that could apply best to Tricia's case and identify the proper leadership approach that a manager could have used.

Theoretical Approach

Trait theory

The main theory that can apply to this case is the theory that suggests that managers like Tricia depend upon their inherent traits to act as leaders. Trait theory of leadership emerged in the year 1930 and insists that the characteristics of individual personalities of leaders are different from those of non-leaders. This theory assumes that human beings are born with inherited traits and a person with a good combination of personality traits can become a leader. However, not all leaders are born. Although the possession of appropriate features gives a higher probability for an individual to become an effective leader, he or she must take further steps to boost his or her leadership skills. What is right in one situation may not be right in another situation. Different researchers of the 20th century have sought to discover what the salient traits for true leaders were. Each researcher lists different personality traits starting ...