Theme One is simply how do you empower people? The student should differentiate motivation from empowerment. It might also be useful to go back to week one and review the idea that motivating followers is really a better tool for the manager rather than the leader because it can be specific in nature and answer an intrinsic or extrinsic need of the follower. Empowerment is the tool of choice for the leader primarily because it must be insured through the organizational structure and culture. The leader is creating structural empowerment and building trust to keep the vision and future clear for forward motion.
Learning Activity (empowerment vs. motivation)
Part One:
Research the concept of structural empowerment starting with your reading and move to the Internet and answer these questions: What is meant by structural empowerment? Why is it an important tool for the leader? Is empowerment the tool of the manager too? How does empowerment differ from motivation? How can a leader empower their organization’s structure and culture?
Part Two:
Go back to your week two case study and reevaluate the structure created. Does the structure allow for empowerment? If so, please refer to the structure created in week 2 for Purvis.
Theme two is about learning the skills needed to create followers and the art of building trust so that change and movement can occur in the organization.
Learning Activity (addresses power and influence)
View Office Politics
This video uses the word manager and leader interchangeably. Keep in mind that the role of the leader is to make all employees followers.
Assignment:
Using the facts below explain how Reid can get around the office politics and make his decision to his satisfaction and for the best interests of the organization. Be careful to include in your discussion the types of power and the tools that help make leadership happen.
THE UNHEALTHY HOSPITAL:
When Bruce Reid was hired as Blake Memorial Hospital’s new CEO, the mandate had been clear: Improve the quality of care, and set the financial house in order.
As Reid struggled to finalize his budget for approval at next week’s board meeting, his attention kept returning to one issue—the future of six off-site clinics. The clinics had been set up six years earlier to provide primary health care to the community’s poorer neighborhoods. Although they provided a valuable service, they also diverted funds away from Blake’s in-house services, many of which were underfunded. Cutting hospital personnel and freezing salaries could affect Blake’s quality of care that was already slipping. Eliminating the clinics, on the other hand, would save $256,000 without compromising Blake’s internal operations.
However, there would be political consequences. Clara Bryant, the recently appointed commissioner of health services, repeatedly insisted that the clinics were an essential service for the poor. Closing the clinics could also jeopardize Blake’s access to city funds. Dr. Winston Lee, chief of surgery, argued forcefully for closing the off-site clinics and having shuttle buses bring patients to the hospital weekly. Dr. Susan Russell, the hospital’s director of clinics, was equally vocal about Blake’s responsibility to the community, and suggested an entirely new way of delivering health care: “A hospital is not a building,” she said, “It’s a service. And wherever the service is needed, that is where the hospital should be.” In Blake’s case, that meant funding more clinics. Russell wanted to create a network of neighborhood-based centers for all the surrounding neighborhoods, poor and middle income. Besides improving health care, the network would act as an inpatient referral system for hospital services. Reid considered the proposal: If a clinic network could tap the paying public and generate more inpatient business, it might be worth looking into. Blake’s rival hospital, located on the affluent side of town, certainly wasn’t doing anything that creative. Reid was concerned, however, that whichever way he decided, he was going to make enemies.
Source: Based on Anthony R. Kovner, “The Case of the Unhealthy Hospital,” Harvard Business Review (September–October 1991), pp. 12–25