Task: General Project Deliverable Guidelines
As a management consultant you make a living by providing management advice to senior level managers with regard to management problems that they are experiencing within their organization. Your role is to analyze the situation and then apply your experience, general business knowledge, and sound management principles and theories, to produce a report or other deliverable on the subject for the senior manager.
Your recommendations are important, but equally important is your justification for those recommendations. The justification must convince the manager that your advice is worth the price he or she paid for it. The manager should feel confident that you have arrived at the correct conclusions and that your conclusions are well supported by good judgment and competent authority in the subject. Your goal is to produce results that will strengthen your reputation as a management consultant and encourage the manager to hire you in the future for other projects.
Leadership Challenge: Selecting Team Members
The leader of your client organization has observed a lack of flexibility and a slow decision-making process in many of the departments. He believes that he is not serving his customers well, and has decided to move to a team environment and to push many of the decisions to the lowest possible levels. In other words, he wants to create a team-based, empowered organization. Several of his best managers are resisting the idea strongly. They not only feel that many employees are not ready for the change, but they also believe that they personally could never change from a "command and control" style to allowing more participation (Nahavandi, 2006, p. 54).
Your client has asked you to prepare a report in which you address the following questions:
1. How should the leader deal with the situation?
2. How are leading and managing different?
3. Is the CEO trying to lead or manage this change initiative?
4. What arguments can he use to persuade his managers?
5. What can he do to help his managers change their style?
6. What are the implications of his actions and decisions?
7. What would you recommend to the CEO given your analysis of his approach thus far?
Objective:
Compare and contrast leadership and management, and understand their similarities and differences as well as the ethical challenges that managers face.
Discuss and explain when and why participation should be used to improve leadership effectiveness.
Apply critical thinking skills to analyze business situations.
Nahavandi, A. (2006). The art and science of leadership (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.