Leadership at Jacksons Enterprise: Lack of Human Resource Development

LEADERSHIP AT JACKSONS ENTERPRISE

THE CASE STUDY BRIEF
 Steve Jackson was the proprietor of Jackson Enterprises of a iron workshop which gained
momentum under his able leadership. The leadership style of Steve was largely autocratic
though it had traces of participative leadership as well. He put lot of pressure on his employees
to perform on one hand but dealt with their problems efficiently on the other. He provided them
with legitimate salary which motivated them. However, after nine years, the firm suffered from
financial problems which necessitated hiring of Stefan Gunther, his financial partner.
 Gunther did not pay attention to the employees and he was not concerned about their problem
unlike Jackson (Mansell 2015). Stefan’s management was only concerned about policies and he
did not take any initiative to improve their performances. This led to the employees developing a
fatalistic and conflicting attitude towards the management. The conflict worsened due to
decreased involvement of the Steve and increasing in the authority of Stefan Gunther.
 Ramage joined the organization as Workflow Planning Manager and his role was to fill the gap
created by the reduced attention of Jackson. He attempted to bring about changes in the
organizational operational structure without obtaining participation of the employees. Ramage
like Gunther had limited communication with the employees and tried to establish a formal
channel of communication with the firm without obtaining consent of employees (Harrison,
Freeman and Abreu 2015).
 The case study does not mention any training or mentoring of the employees to train them to
operate in the new communication system. This increasing conflict between employees and
management due to lack of human resource development led to approximately 30 percent of the
workers’ turnover.

THE MAIN ISSUE
 The analysis of the case study would point out to the following key
issue or problem:
 Lack of human resource development at Jackson Enterprise.

SUB-ISSUES OR PROBLEM 1: LACK OF
EMPLOYEE CENTRIC CULTURE-
 The leadership style of Jackson combined authoritative and
participative leadership style. Gunther on the contrary did not pay
attention towards employee welfare and only demanded productivity.
Ramage too did not take any initiative to train employees and was
only interested in bringing about changes in the modus operandi.