INTRODUCTION:
Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an organized group towards goals achievement (Raunch & Behling, 1984).
James Morris (an executive stationed at corporate headquarters in Celestial) was deployed to investigate the strained relationship between Celestial Corporation and Viola (an outlet among Celestial’s largest retail customers) who had threatened to suspend purchasing of Celestial’s goods.
EFFECTIVENESS OF MORRIS IN LEADING CELESTRIAL GLOBAL TEAM AND HIS LEADERSHIP STYLE:
Morris excelled in leading Celestial global team. He was a successful leader of his team, the Celestial customer team for North American firm, Americart. When Americart was faced bankruptcy in the mid 1990s, he and his team salvaged the situation by implementing a new merchandising technique the Product Family Management (PFM) which saw business results in both Celestial and Americart improve considerably.
In 1998 he recommended PFM as the way forward to improving the relationship between Viola and Celestial Corporation then went ahead to organize a global team who worked in an effort to transform the way Viola related to Celestial. Although coupled with confusion and resistance from Violas top executives, James Morris through his team tried to find a long term solution and eventually stopped imposing American ways on their European counterparts.
James Morris can be described as a democratic leader because although he was responsible for making major decisions such as to implement PFM in Celestial’s retail customers he allowed his teams incorporate their own ideas in implementation process.
RECOMMEDATION:
Celestial Corporation should adopt unique inbuilt strategies of improving profits for each retail outlet as well as ways of fostering the relationship between Celestial and the retail customers.