Leadership Failure Analysis at Growing Places

This case study examines the leadership failures of Rob, the CEO of Growing Places, a childcare organization. It highlights his lack of communication skills, emotional intelligence, and ability to handle media scrutiny, ultimately leading to organizational dysfunction. The analysis suggests that Evan, the founder, should consider replacing Rob with a more suitable leader who possesses essential qualities for success in the childcare industry.

Leadership individual written
report

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK...............................................................................................................................................1
Leadership styles.........................................................................................................................1
Emotional Intelligence................................................................................................................2
Values associated with childcare industry..................................................................................3
Decision on Rob..........................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Leadership is a skill where a leader give direction to his/her followers in order to attain
goals set by organisation. Most of the people consider that leader and manager are same thing
but there is a huge difference between their personality and working style. This report is based
on a case study and it will also included various styles of leadership. Emotional intelligence and
its utilisation will become part of this assignment. Values relating to growing places will get
cover in this file (Nahavandi and Afsaneh). This project will discuss about some decisions with
has direct connection with the cases study.
TASK
Leadership styles
Personality of every individuals is different, this can be considered as the main reason
that there is a huge difference between leadership styles of two person. It can happen because of
various reasons like education, experience, knowledge etc. Laymen may think that their is a
sound connection between leading followers and management but they are not synonymy. One
can find various techniques and principles which are not available in book on management
subject. Following are some of the popular types of leadership styles:
Democratic – In this method, a leader involve his/her subordinate in the process of
decision making. They give importance to their advice and give reward to those give valuable
suggestions. In this manner, employees feel their importance in company and they get motivated
to improve their performance so they can earn more money. Skills of all the subordinates are
used under this leadership style. Most of the plans are made by combining efforts of both sides.
Laissez-Faire – Under this method, a leader eave most of the things in the hand of
his/her subordinates. This form is only effective when employees are experience and they
already contained desired skills which is necessary for performing a task. Leading person has to
keep an eye on his/her subordinates so they do not go off track and do their work in right manner
(Madsen and Susan, pp.3-10). In this situation, a leader do not have much control over his/her
team which is not a positive point.
Transactional – This approach is based on an assumption that all the subordinates are
agree to obey orders given by their leader. He/she has right to punish them in case they do not
follow the pre- determined plans. This style face issues relating to job satisfaction, they do not
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have anything in their control but they can get money and other rewards if they improve their
productivity.
Autocratic – Under this style, leader do not involve their employee in decision making
process and hardly take any suggestions from them. He/she may use his/her creativity but do not
give much importance to the experience and innovative ideas of subordinates. It can be effective
in unskilled jobs but in present era its importance is going down (Northouse and Peter).
In present case, Rob is using autocratic style of leadership where he does not think of
other people and employee much and implement the plans which he think is appropriate.
Although his plans are working but still there is a big question mark on his way of doing. He
made a some irresponsible comment in-front of a news report which can be considered as the
prime reason that his company, Growing places, earned lot of negative publicity because of his
statement. His organisation is working in a business of Child Care industry where they have to
deal with small children and some infant child also. If Rob will make such an irresponsible
comment patient client will think that his organisation do not take their work seriously.
Leadership style of Rob is inappropriate because he holds a key position in organisation
so before making any comment he should think twice specially in-front of media. The industry
where they are operating is severely affected by news published by media because parents never
compromise life of their child. They do not want to take any risk regarding their children so they
will not consider better facilities which Rob's company is providing like lactation room
(Solomon and Michael). His tone of communication was in appropriate specially in front of
Delores, who is head of PR team at Thrivand. Rob made a irresponsible comment in front of her
that they do not give much attention to the children ''who can ask for Coke by themselves''. Evan,
the founder of company, had to get involve in this issue so he can control the damage done by
Rob. He also made some comment when he was addressing with workers which was against the
employee of the organisation, if he had any problem than he could say it in a locked room.
Emotional Intelligence
Most of the people mainly focus on experience and skill when they try to recruit a person
of a post like CEO. In this era, this thinking is losing its charm because their are some other areas
which are needed to be consider at the time of selecting a person who has to deal with lot of
problematic and complex situation (Hoffman and Brian, pp.347-381). Emotional intelligence is
related to self awareness and social skills which a person possess in his/her personality. It deals
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with the controlling emotions and handling relation with other people of society. If a leader do
not have complete knowledge about his nature and feelings than he/she may not deal with
problematic situation effectively. Normally people lose their calm and get frustrated when things
do not go according to them but if someone has high emotional intelligence than he/she can turn
the table in eleven hours. Following are the ways by which Rob could develop his EI:
Attention towards behaviour – He should focus on emotional awareness by noticing his
day to day life. He need to analyses his communication skills on continuous basis so he can take
find various mistake which he commit at the time of interacting with any person. In present
scenario, Rob do not care much about other people who are working with him. He need to put
himself in the position of other so he can understand various challenges which other employee
face at the time of execution of customised instructions (Herman and Warren, pp.2827-2835).
Take responsibility – Rob is also a human being, he can also commit mistakes but the
thought that he should keep in his mind at the workplace is that whenever he commit a blunder
he should responsibility of it. Right now, he does not care about feelings of other people like
employees and do not think about apologising to them. This will help him in developing soft
skills which is must needed part in his personality.
Do not react, respond – Rob need to understand difference between two terms and than
practice how to the skill of giving response can be developed. He can ask his employee to stop
him whenever they feel that he is making any appropriate comment, gradually this will help him
making less number of irresponsible comments.
Values associated with childcare industry
Emotions are given more priority if it is compared to intelligence in childcare industry
because children need love instead of good management policy. One of the major values in this
sector is related growth of kids without any fear, if they are abused at young age than it can
make a negative impact on life for a long period of time. All the risk relating to health and safety
should be analysed at a child care company so their security can be assured. If they suffered a
trauma than organisation should assist them in recovering from this problematic situation (Amy
and Green, pp.771-777). Sometime firms operating in this industry do not give much attention to
a child who can do some tasks by himself. This is against the value of this sector because all the
children all entitled to receive same treatment and things like discrimination have to be avoided.
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Every young one need respect, they need love instead of logic so staff of an organisation
should have proper training about how to nurture a kid. Management of a company should try to
keep workers happy because if they have any problem at workplace than if will get reflect in
their job. Children must receive good basic education and knowledge because at this age
whatever they will learn, will become a part of their personality. They need to tell them how to
participate in social life so a boy or girl do not feel isolated at the time of growing word. It is the
responsibility if childcare company to save children from any type of bad influence.
Some of the values of this industry are against the working style of Rob. He was the main
reason that staff of the Growing places were ready to leave the organisation because they were
disagree with the thinking and offensive comments of their CEO. Discrimination is a serious
offence in childcare sector but after analysing Rob's comment relating to Coke, it is clear that
when a kid is bit growth up and can do some activities by himself than Growing places stop care
about them and at this point the problem of discrimination starts (Fallon, pp.8-20). When
employees of cited organisation gave a threat that they may quit, it can easily be predicted that
development of children hampered and the risk of bad influence on their life also got enhanced.
Rob was running a childcare company like a profit making organisation, he was not emotionally
attracted to the work. His main aim is to use management principles and increase business of the
enterprise which is a secondary this in this industry.
Decision on Rob
Rob has done impressive work for the organisation. Evan accepted that in before Rob, he
felt that every quarter was like their last one as they have to face many difficulties relating to
finance and growth of business. Rob started some programmes which got lot of appreciation
from their customers and they earned a strong position in their industry. But one need to consider
all the argument before taking an important decision (Dinh, Jessica and Robert, pp.651-669).
Rob made some comments against employees of the organisation which were completely
inappropriate. Staff threaten that he do not take his words back than they will leave company.
Rob made plans but workers are the one who executed them so they must get equal credit for the
success. He also made irresponsible comments in front of a Delores, head of PR at Thrivand
which can be considered as the main reason that their shares prices were going down because
this was not the first time he did something like this.
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In childcare industry, one can make effective plans but if company fail to earn trust of
parents than they can not run business according to their plans. Rob was the main reason that
some of the customer did not prefer Growing places because they lost faith in this company. Rob
do not deserve another shot because in upcoming time he is blunt and do not think about other
people. Employees of organisation are against his attitude so Evan should convince board to let
him go. In present scenario, they have good reputation and funds so they can hire someone who
is from same industry and have better emotional intelligence (Abraham and Pauline, pp.306-
312). A leader should listen to other people who are working in company, he must respect them
and do not insult them in public. These are some of the main and basic principles of leadership
which Rob failed to follow. His time in Growing Places is over and Evan should start search of
next CEO. He is the founder of company so if he think that thinks are out of his hands than it is
the right time that he should remove Rob from his position.
CONCLUSION
At the end, it can be concluded that a person can possess good managerial skills and take
organisation to a next level but if he/she does not have basic skills like 'how to talk in front of
media or how to deal with employees' than most of his/her efforts will go in vain. In childcare
industry emotional intelligence is given more priority compared to talent and experience that is
present in a person.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Abraham, Pauline J. "Developing nurse leaders: a program enhancing staff nurse leadership
skills and professionalism." Nursing administration quarterly 35.4 (2011): 306-312.
Dinh, Jessica E., and Robert G. Lord. "Implications of dispositional and process views of traits
for individual difference research in leadership." The Leadership Quarterly 23.4 (2012):
651-669.
Fallon, Helen, et al. "Engaging with leadership development in Irish academic libraries: some
reflections of the Future Leaders Programme (FLP)." The Australian library journal
60.1 (2011): 8-20.
Green, Amy E., et al. "Leadership, organizational climate, and working alliance in a children’s
mental health service system." Community mental health journal 50.7 (2014): 771-777.
Herman, H. M., and Warren CK Chiu. "Transformational leadership and job performance: A
social identity perspective." Journal of Business Research 67.1 (2014): 2827-2835.
Hoffman, Brian J., et al. "Great man or great myth? A quantitative review of the relationship
between individual differences and leader effectiveness." Journal of Occupational and
Organizational Psychology 84.2 (2011): 347-381.
Madsen, Susan R. "Women and leadership in higher education: Learning and advancement in
leadership programs." Advances in Developing Human Resources 14.1 (2012): 3-10.
Nahavandi, Afsaneh. The Art and Science of Leadership -Global Edition. Pearson, 2016.
Northouse, Peter G. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications, 2015.
Solomon, Michael R. Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being. Vol. 10. Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2014.
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