Leadership in Contemporary Organization Case Study 2022

Running head: LEADERSHIP IN CONTEMPORARY ORGANIZATION
Leadership in Contemporary Organization
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Executive Summary
Every company or organization requires a leader in team that act as a bridge between
the higher authority and employees. The leader motivates the members of a team and makes
strategies for achieving a common goal incorporating efficiency in the workplace. There is a
need of leader in every team to build better communication and workflow. The management
of a team looks after the workflow but the leaders are the ones who make the work done.
There are various sort of leadership skills present in significant styles that can be used
according to the needs. This paper aims to discuss the types of leadership and how it can be
incorporated in a sales team according to the needs via a case study “When the bell no longer
tolls.” The theory of cross culture will also be discussed with application into the case study.

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary...................................................................................................................1
Introduction............................................................................................................................4
1. Acting out of leadership style and approaches...................................................................4
 Autocratic Leadership:................................................................................................4
 Democratic Leadership:...............................................................................................4
 Laissez-faire Leadership:.............................................................................................4
2. Success and Failures identified in the leadership approaches................................................5
 Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Model:.............................................5
 John Adair’s Leadership Model:.................................................................................5
 Fielder’s Contingency Model of Leadership:..............................................................5
 Indecisiveness:.............................................................................................................6
 Disorganization:..........................................................................................................6
 Ethical Slips:................................................................................................................6
 Experience:..................................................................................................................7
 Leads by example:.......................................................................................................7
 Integrity:......................................................................................................................7
 Motivation:..................................................................................................................7
 Communication gap:...................................................................................................8
3. Relevant features for shaping the behavior of leader.............................................................8
4. Characteristics of a leader......................................................................................................9

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5. Contradiction in leadership behavior.....................................................................................9
6. Other additional insights........................................................................................................9
7. Recommendation..................................................................................................................10
Conclusion............................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................12
Appendix..................................................................................................................................14
Fig 1: Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Model........................................14
Fig 2: John Adair’s Leadership Model.............................................................................14
Fig 3: Fielder’s Contingency Model of Leadership.........................................................15

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Introduction
An individual who provides instructions, guidance and direction to some group of
people also known as team with a common purpose of achieving a goal is known as a team
leader. There are several other roles of a team leader that includes getting the job done by the
designated time, developing strategy for the team that can be utilized in the journey of
reaching their goal, proving training to the members, communicating properly by giving clear
instructions, managing flow of the daily operations and creating reports to provide updates to
the company (Zacher & Rosing, 2015.) In this report, the importance of leadership will be
discussed considering a case study.
1. Acting out of leadership style and approaches
Different individual have different styles of leadership and moreover, different
organization need different leadership styles to be inculcated according the need. There are
broad approaches for every leadership style. The types of leadership are:
 Autocratic Leadership: The autocratic style of leadership emphasizes on controlling
the behaviors of the team and its members (De Hoogh, Greer & Den Hartog, 2015.)
 Democratic Leadership: The democratic style of leadership emphasizes only on the
inclusive behaviors of the team and its members (Fiaz, Su & Saqib, 2017.)
 Laissez-faire Leadership: The laissez-faire type of leadership emphasizes on the
disengaged and disinterested behavior of the team and its members (Wong &Gissener,
2018.)
In the case study, the Democratic style of leadership have been applied by the team
leader. The leader focused on the team member’s individual preferences and allowed them to
do things according to them. That is where a lack of common goal was missing and the leader
failed to control the team with a common proposed goal.

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2. Success and Failures identified in the leadership approaches
There are various types of contingency leadership models that is followed by
organizations. They are discussed below:
 Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Model: The model suggests that
instead of focusing on factors of workplace the leaders shall focus on follower’s
ability and adjust their style accordingly. A successful leader under this model is both
relationship relevant and task relevant (Thompson & Glaso, 2015.)
 John Adair’s Leadership Model: This leadership model gives a great blueprint for
the organization, management and team. It is mostly action-centered leadership where
the leaders and managers have command over main three areas. They are:
a. Achieving a task.
b. Managing a group or team.
c. Managing individuals (Storey, 2016.)
 Fielder’s Contingency Model of Leadership: This model of leadership is similar to
other contingency model theory stating there in not any one way that is best for
leading a team. It is of very fixed nature. The style cannot be changed to fit the
situation. Rather, leaders should be put into situation that matches with the style
(Kundu & Mondal, 2019.)
The most suitable leadership style for COMNET would have been the situational style
of leadership. The situational theory of leadership lets the leader to switch to different
styles of leadership according to the situation and level of development of team members.
It would have been effective for COMNET because this style of leadership adapts the
needs of team members and situations.

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A team without a designated leader has no direction and tends to be more chaotic than
ever (Lisak & Erez, 2015.) A team without a designated leader faces some difficulties that
are discussed below:
 Indecisiveness: The great leaders are the ones who listen and resects the voices of
other team members but ultimately at the end make the final call with their confident
decision ( D’Innocenzo et al. 2016.)
 Disorganization: It is both the responsibility and quality of the designated leader to
communicate efficiently and clearly within the team (Herath, Costello & Homberg,
2017.)
 Ethical Slips: The behaviors and values of a team is built by the leader. There is no
presence of standards in a team that can be followed for maintaining integrity.
The leadership in a normal team is different from that of a sales team. The sales
department runs on a different attribute from that of the other. According to Kotter’s
perspective, the difference between leadership in a sales team and management in a sales
team are as follows:
Leadership in a Sales Team Management in a Sales Team
1. The leader in a sales team establishes a
direction. They create a vision that helps the
entire team to work on a common desired
goal.
1. The management on the other hand does
the budgeting and planning for the team. It
establishes the agendas for the entire team.

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2. The leader tries to align every people of
the team and communicates about their
goal..
2. The management is responsible for
staffing and organizing the team by
providing it to a structure.
3. The leader inspires and motivates all the
members of a team. The motivation will
help the subordinates to meet the unmet
needs (Song, Park & Kang, 2015.)
3. The management looks over controlling
and solving problems of the team. The
correction of actions for team are taken care
by the management (Malek, Sarin &
Jaworski, 2018.)
However, a sales team that previously had leader will face problems when a leader is
taken away from them. The sales team will have to self-manage everything. When a leader is
taken away from the sales team then they will face the following problems:
 Experience: The team leader is someone who is experienced and knows all the skills
required to tie the team together and make all them work efficiently.
 Leads by example: The word trust and respect are very easily said but when it comes
to earn them it becomes harder..
 Integrity: When there is no leader in the team, the team lacks integrity and thinks
from individual perspective rather than thinking of the entire team first (Engelbrecht,
Heine & Mahembe, 2017.)
 Motivation: The main role of the leader is to motivate the team and take it further.
There will be no leader whenever there is any chaos or collapse in the organization
(Kjeldsen, 2019.)

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 Communication gap: When there is no leader present in the sales team, it gets
difficult to communicate for the team members and management as well (Friedrich,
Griffith & Mumford, 2016.)
3. Relevant features for shaping the behavior of leader
The behavior of a leader in any specified area gets shaped according to the
environment he or she is present. Some of the relevant features that determines shaping the
behavior of a leader the power he or she holds in the team. The power does not mean having
a dictatorship over the employees but have a power that can be positively used to motivate
the employees and make them do the work effectively. The politics of a place also influence
the behaviors of leader because he or she will follow the economic and political structure of
the present place and design the activity or work accordingly to make it easier for the
employees to understand the workflow. Another important factor is the cultural aspect of a
place where the leader is working. The leader in the cased study comes from a different area
but the place he is working follows different sort cultural beliefs and rituals. His own cultural
belief will not work here properly as the people will find it difficult to understand them.
COMNET was a successful American company that had decided to expand their operations
in Australia. The CEO met Kevin at a conference in USA and impressed by his
communications. Moreover the company was also in need of having their own policies.
Leadership can be of different types such as the theory of Great Man leadership where
inherent traits contribute in becoming a great leader, the situational theory of leadership
where suggestions are given depending on the situation and the Behavioral theory where that
is about learning necessary skills for becoming a good leader (Rosenbach, 2018.)

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4. Characteristics of a leader
There are some relevant personality features as well that a leader should possess no
matter whatever style of leadership is applied. The common thing in a leader is the behavior
of motivation. The leader is supposed to motivate each of employee in a team in order to
make the work done. Another thing a leader must possess is emotional intelligence more than
intelligence. The employees might get stressed or go through uncertainties that might affect
the work pace. When a leader is having emotional intelligence it will be easier for him to
understand the situation and come up with a relevant solution. In this case, the contradictions
in the intentions of leadership skills was the lack of knowledge about the industry. Though
the leader was good at communication skills but his lack of knowledge affected him and the
sales team (Muenjohn et al. 2018.)
5. Contradiction in leadership behavior
In this case study, the behaviors or actions of a leader has apparent contradictions
according to the approaches of leadership. There was no decisive activity for the team and the
leader had very less knowledge about the approach leadership required for the situation in
this case study. Without proper knowledge it is not possible to lead a team no matter how
efficient one might be at communication. The lack of proper knowledge made the team
unorganized and the workflow was in a much disrupted manner. The lack of awareness about
the surroundings and other factors such as political influence, cultural influence mostly and
knowing the cultural background of every individual was missing that led to manage the team
efficiently.
6. Other additional insights
Other Additional Insights that affected the leadership outcomes positively is going out
for lunches and keeping up with other additional activities to refresh the mind. Employee

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motivation was done carefully and it was made sure that the employees get adequate number
of facilities and help from the leaders whenever required. Whereas, on the other hand, the
negative influence was that the employees were allowed to do everything and the leader
himself did not had any knowledge about the team and how to tackle it. The cultural
differences also made it difficult for the leader to understand the requirement of the team as
he did not had the proper knowledge of diver culture of the employees. For example,
COMNET had an employee names Ravi who was from Thailand. It was common in Thailand
working in to friend and family businesses. He did not face such problem in this
organizational because the later did not let him feel like he is from different race and ethnic
culture.
7. Recommendation
The best recommendation will be to adapt a theory and style of leadership that suits
the need of organization and employees. In a company like COMNET where the workforce is
multicultural, some measures are to be taken to ensure that diversity in the team has positive
influence rather than negative one. A culture is a mental programming that is collective that
distinguishes one member of the group from the other. To address the diverse workforce of
COMNET, the best possible measure will be incorporating the cross-cultural management
theory into the organization. It is very crucial for the organization to understand the cultural
differences of its employees. This theory lets the organization adopt with the methods of
management to the cultural subsidiaries nations for designing a feasible organization (Bird &
Mendenhall, 2016.)
Conclusion
Thus, it is concluded from the above discussion, for any leader it is very important to
know the field and industry he is going to work. An individual might have all the required

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communications skills but if that person does have any particular knowledge about the
industry he or she is going to work, then it is of no use. A leader is a must for any sales team
as they act as a bridge between the higher authority and employees. The employees might be
from different parts of the globe but a leader must know how to maintain the harmony and
utilize the cross cultural theory in order to maintain workplace efficiency.

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References
Bird, A., & Mendenhall, M. E. (2016). From cross-cultural management to global leadership:
Evolution and adaptation. Journal of World Business, 51(1), 115-126.
D’Innocenzo, L., Mathieu, J. E., & Kukenberger, M. R. (2016). A meta-analysis of different
forms of shared leadership–team performance relations. Journal of
Management, 42(7), 1964-1991.
De Hoogh, A. H., Greer, L. L., & Den Hartog, D. N. (2015). Diabolical dictators or capable
commanders? An investigation of the differential effects of autocratic leadership on
team performance. The Leadership Quarterly, 26(5), 687-701.
Engelbrecht, A. S., Heine, G., & Mahembe, B. (2017). Integrity, ethical leadership, trust and
work engagement. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 38(3), 368-379.
Fiaz, M., Su, Q., & Saqib, A. (2017). Leadership styles and employees' motivation:
Perspective from an emerging economy. The Journal of Developing Areas, 51(4),
143-156.
Friedrich, T. L., Griffith, J. A., & Mumford, M. D. (2016). Collective leadership behaviors:
Evaluating the leader, team network, and problem situation characteristics that
influence their use. The Leadership Quarterly, 27(2), 312-333.
Herath, D., Costello, J., & Homberg, F. (2017). Team problem solving and motivation under
disorganization–an agent-based modeling approach. Team Performance
Management: An International Journal, 23(1/2), 46-65.
Kjeldsen, A. M. (2019). Public Service Motivation and Distributed Leadership Agency-A
panel study during organizational change processes.

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Kundu, S., & MONDAL, D. (2019). Luminance of Contingency Theory in revealing the
leadership style of the academic librarians. Library Philosophy and Practice, 1-10.
Lisak, A., & Erez, M. (2015). Leadership emergence in multicultural teams: The power of
global characteristics. Journal of World Business, 50(1), 3-14.
Malek, S. L., Sarin, S., & Jaworski, B. J. (2018). Sales management control systems: review,
synthesis, and directions for future exploration. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales
Management, 38(1), 30-55.
Muenjohn, N., McMurray, A., Fernando, M., Hunt, J., Fitzgerald, M., McKenna, B., ... &
Waterhouse, J. (2018). Leadership. Cambridge University Press.
Rosenbach, W. E. (2018). Contemporary issues in leadership. Routledge.
Song, C., Park, K. R., & Kang, S. W. (2015). Servant leadership and team performance: The
mediating role of knowledge-sharing climate. Social Behavior and Personality: an
international journal, 43(10), 1749-1760.
Storey, J. (2016). Changing theories of leadership and leadership development. In Leadership
in Organizations (pp. 17-41). Routledge.
Wong, S. I., & Giessner, S. R. (2018). The thin line between empowering and laissez-faire
leadership: An expectancy-match perspective. Journal of Management, 44(2), 757-
783.
Zacher, H., & Rosing, K. (2015). Ambidextrous leadership and team innovation. Leadership
& Organization Development Journal, 36(1), 54-68.

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Appendix
Fig 1: Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Model
Fig 2: John Adair’s Leadership Model

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Fig 3: Fielder’s Contingency Model of Leadership