WEAA Case Study - Leadership Theory Analysis



WEAA Case Study - Leadership Theory Analysis Reginald Scott HawkinsArizona State UniversityWEAA Case Study - Leadership Theory Analysis Introduction It is undeniably true that every leader must face some challenges while performing their duties. Arguably, these issues come in a wide range; some result from internal forces like uncooperative followers, while others from external environments, including legal constraints and public relations. In such cases, the leader is accountable and must strive to keep these challenges under control. To put things into perspective, let us examine the case of Corin Fiske at the WEAA organization.WEAA is a radio station, which has been in the entertainment industry for quite some time. Situated in Baltimore, Maryland, and licensed under Morgan State University, the station has worked relentlessly hard to record a high turnover of listeners. As such, all of its recent developments have aimed at maximizing on this aspect, including the recent hiring of Corin Fiske as the director of News and Public Affairs at the station. Mostly, the issues have revolved around the permanent loss of listeners, untrained personnel, huge losses, reductions of qualified staff, and a lack of commitment amongst members of the organizations staff. While the situation is unwelcoming, applications of theories like Situational Leadership, Transformational Leadership, and Leader-Member Exchange Theory can address these issues, in addition to, restoring business sanity at the station. The issues Corin Fiske faces at WEAAUnder the old leadership, the station recorded a tremendous loss of listeners with an annual operational cost shooting to $207,000. As such, hiring Ms. Fiske aimed at reviving the station. As a new director in Public Affairs and News, Corin faced scores of challenges. She inherited 30 staff members, most of whom were volunteers with neither journalism nor broadcast experience. Also, the talk show programming and news for the station suffered a lack of public radio broadcast standards, in addition to, uncommitted hosts who miss their slots, or meetings, often. For instance, one of the stations best radio personalities resigned; leaving the organization with the name of the show and its concept. Also, lots of shows lacked qualified personnel. Action plan to address the issues facedTransformational Leadership is arguably one of the most liberal theories of leadership. In this style of leadership, as much as the leaders remain at the front, collaboration with their followers remains their major concern. In simple terms, followers, and their leader, work by way of raising each other to achieve the goals and objectives of their engagements. According to Bass (1985), the leader is expected to act as the role model, set clear objectives, be the mantle of integrity, encourage followers to broaden their view beyond personal interest, endorse, and support people, as well as stir people’s emotions (Roughton, & Mercurio, 2002).In the case of Corin, it is apparent that applying this theory of leadership will help address some of the challenges she faces while executing her directorial duties at her new place of work, and position in particular. It is evident that lacks of communication, cohesion, motivation, and skills face most of the employees in the company. For instance, the decision by one great host to quit her job could be a case of motivation loss. Additionally, the consistent tendency of most news hosts to miss meetings, and duties, is an indication of poor attitudes, having self-interest over corporate interests, and lack of proper communication. As such, through persistent encouragement of workers to value corporate interest can help address the issue of absenteeism; motivating staff by offering allowances will encourage the staff to attend meetings and complete duties; while freely intermingling with her staff through open discussion forums will boost communication and collaboration amongst staff members (Roughton, & Mercurio, 2002).Another useful leadership theory that Corin can use to help offset the challenges she faces in her new position is Situational Leadership. Since its inception, this theory has been in use for over 25 years. Unlike traditional leadership, where a leader would merely apply one leadership style across the entire organization, Hersey (1985) suggests, this style of leadership has flexibility. The leader utilizing this style believes in the fact, “not one size fits all”. As such, leaders tend to employ a wide range of styles of leadership across the organization, in which, every style is tailored to a particular issue so long as its application proves to be effective. In essence, this leadership form comprises four styles, namely: telling, selling, delegating, and participating. With telling, the leader gives his or her followers what to do, and how to do it. On the other hand, the selling style involves a leader coming up with an idea, and presents it to the followers, in an attempt to convince them to buy into it. As with delegation, the leader bestows his or her roles to the subordinates for execution, while loosely following it, and passing much responsibility. Finally, in the participation style, leaders have more focus on relationships than directing. Apparently, Ms. Fiske will have to utilize this theory to solve poor motivation, a lack of collaboration, and absenteeism amongst staff members. Through participation, the staff will develop the spirit of collaboration; as with selling style, the staff reserves the privilege of deciding what they want as far as their interests are concerned, thus solving the communication challenge, while delegation will ensure that Corin has enough time in reserve to follow the projects keenly, while identifying any conflicts, and more so, have enough time to listen to employees. Arguably, with proper application, this style of leadership will solve these challenges. It is wrong for a leader to have equal treatment of all members of his or her team. Arguably, some members of the team tend to be more trusted than others in the same group. Essentially, this disparity and grouping are based on confidence and competency elements. Leadership-Exchange Theory works to explain this situation. This theory proposes that the connections amid leaders and follower must transform through three major phases that include; taking of role, making roles, and routinization. In the first phase, role-taking, new members come into the group, and the leader examines their abilities. In the next step, role-making, the members take on projects as part of the team, and based on the trust and competency, leaders subconsciously group them into in-group, comprising of trustworthy, loyal, and skilled workers, or out-group, comprising of unmotivated and members devoted to betrayal. The final phase is routinization, where leaders and followers establish a routine between them. This style of leadership ensures that the leader identifies the out-group, and reestablishes the relationship while providing training and development chances to make sure that it grows to become productive.In Corin’s case, applying this theory will save her from many challenges. Specifically, the fact that some volunteers exited employment from the station, indicates an aspect of loss of loyalty to the organization. In other cases, many duties, and meeting absconding, reflect a lack of motivation amongst staff members. Finally, the fact that most of her personnel is comprised of untrained volunteers, indicates less competency. As such, applying this theory will ensure all employees are put into categories so as for the competent and trustworthy, more challenging tasks will be given to them and the less skilled and loyal trained to develop and become more productive (Tracy, 2014).Conflicts between the theoretical approachesEven with three theories mentioned above, Corin’s case will result in some conflicts. Essentially, the conflicts will mainly come as result of the point of focus for each particular theory about the other. For instance, while transformational leadership encourages maximum interaction between the leader and their followers, Leader-Exchange Theory selectively encourages interaction between leader and follower based on competence and loyalty. As such, applying these theories together will cause some friction, since one encores extensive interaction, and the other restricts the interest based on particular values. Another point of conflict amongst the three theories is that of Situational Leadership may result in poor performance, and cohesion amongst staff members since each group of personnel is governed by particular rules, thus limiting collaboration (Tracy, 2014).Key findings and likely outcomes from following my advice The key findings include:Lessened cohesion and collaboration amongst staff members at WEAA.Lack of motivation amongst staff members.Poor attitude towards work due to increased focus on personal interests amongst employees. Poor communication and interaction amongst the members of personnel.The unqualified staff is incompetent to perform tasks.My recommendations will help transform the station tremendously through several ways: Team-work will be enhanced, heightend communication, motivation boosted amongst employees, in addition to, enhanced skills through staff training and development. ConclusionThough challenges are inevitable in every organization, coming up with a sound action plan can significantly help forestall these challenges or get them under control. Apparently, since the pitfalls mainly affect the leader, applying proper leadership style is appropriate. By applying various styles of leadership, issues and challenges facing the organization, and manager, can be amicably solved.ReferencesBass, B. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. New York: Free Press ;. Hersey, P. (1985). The situational leader. New York, NY: Warner Books. Roughton, J., & Mercurio, J. (2002). Developing an effective safety culture a leadership approach. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann. Tracy, B. (2014). Leadership. New York: American Management Association.Northouse, Peter Guy. Leadership: Theory and Practice. 7th ed. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print. ................
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