Leadership Challenges: Decision-Making, Diversity, and Change Analysis

This report presents an analysis of three case studies focusing on critical leadership challenges. The first case examines decision-making issues within Harmony Inc. and Dynamic Food Inc., highlighting the problems of succession planning, potential employee layoffs, and the need for strategic alignment, suggesting that Harmony Inc. should seek listing on the NYSE. The second case delves into diversity management, emphasizing the issues of perceived role incongruity and stereotyping against female employees, which can lead to unequal treatment and reduced innovation. The report recommends diversity management training. The third case study addresses change management challenges at Harris Farm Markets, where resistance to implementing new accounting systems and operational changes hindered the company's adaptation to the GST laws. The recommended solution is employee training to improve knowledge and skills. The report provides detailed analyses and proposed solutions for each case study.

Running head: LEADERSHIP
Leadership
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1LEADERSHIP
Case 1.
What the leadership issue in the case study?
The case study involving Harmony Inc. and Dynamic Food Inc. presents the leadership
issue of difficulties in decision-making. An analysis of the case study reveals several situations,
which contributed to the leadership issues. First, Harmony Inc. was an American firm, which
was not listed on a stock exchange. This means that the company was not able to generate capital
from the American stock market to support its increasing business needs. This was evident from
the fact that the company was eyeing to expand its product line to include perishable food items
and cosmetics. The second leadership challenge, which the company was facing, was the failure
to manage the change into a public sector company efficiently. The third challenge, which
Harmony Inc. was facing that the partners who owned the company were heading towards
retirement and the latter did not have any successor. This created the need for Harmony to
undergo acquisition by another company. This succession issue, which Harmony was facing,
would likely to be solved by acquisition of the company by Dynamic Foods Inc., a public limited
company which was financially stronger than Harmony (Lee, Mauer and Xu 2018). The issue
with Dynamic Foods Inc. lied in the fact that organisation had a very hostile organisational
culture in terms of talent retention. The company underwent organisational restructuring and laid
of employees. This means that the takeover of Harmony by Dynamic lacked strategic fit. This is
because there was high probability of Dynamic laying off the employees of Harmony post
acquisition. The two challenges of approaching retire and the impending probabilities of
employee layoff post acquisition created a dilemmatic situation, which hindered the management
of Harmony from arriving at an appropriate decision. This resulted in decision-making
challenges before the management of Harmony (Babenko, Du and Tserlukevich 2016).

2LEADERSHIP
Options to deal with the leadership issue:
The leadership of Harmony could consider the following strategies to deal with the
leadership dilemma it was facing:
Listing the company:
The management of Harmony should consider getting the company listed on the NYSE.
This would enable the company to acquire capital from the American stock market. The
company after being listed would have a new body of management, which would succeed the
partners. This would enable the company to sustain in the market under its own brand name,
render the proposed acquisition by Dynamic ineffective and prevent the employees from being
laid by Dynamic post acquisition.
Implementation of path-goal leadership style to implement change management:
The management of Harmony should implement path-goal style of leadership to bring
about change management to implement the organisational changes to get the company listed on
the NYSE. The management of Harmony should combine four leadership styles namely,
directive, supportive, participative and achievement oriented to lead employees to embrace the
organisational changes which would come into effect post listing (Shamim et al., 2016).

3LEADERSHIP
Harmony get listed
on the NYSE
The new management of Harmony
would succeed the present
management of the company
Listing would bring about
structural and operational changes
in Harmony
Use of path-goal theory to lead
employees through the changes
Acquisition
proposal of
Dynamic can be
rejected
Figure 1. Flowchart showing the solution to the leadership challenges faced by Harmony
(Source: Author)
Best option/structure/solution:
The best solution to the leadership challenge the management of Harmony faced would
be getting the company listed on the NYSE. This would enable the company acquire a
management body which would succeed the present owners post retirement and attribute the
company access to the stock market of the United States. This would strengthen Harmony fin

4LEADERSHIP
Conclusion:
It can be concluded from the discussion that Harmony should get listed on the NYSE.
The company should reject the buyout proposal of Dynamic. It can also be conclude in the light
of the given situation that the partner should divulge before the representative that Harmony
should undergo organisational change, which had received resistance in the past in order to
transform into a public limited company.

5LEADERSHIP
Case 2:
What the leadership issue in the case study?
The leadership issue which came to the forefront upon analysing the case study was one
the most significant leadership challenges leaders face today namely, diversity management. The
videos brought out the concept of perceived role incongruity and stereotyping. The first
concept of perceived role incongruity refers to the notion that women are ‘incongruent’ with
leadership positions. Stereotyping the second concept refers to the perception that male
employees are more appropriate to hold senior level designations (Guillaume et al. 2017). This
lack of diversity and stereotyping of perception against female employees often deprive the latter
of respect and equal payment as their male counterparts. The female employees also face unjust
treatment during appraisals and promotions before their male counterparts. Lambert (2016)
points out this unequal treatment of female employees hampers the motivation levels of the
latter. The female employees as a result decline from expressing their business ideas, which
actually jeopardises innovation in the business organisations, which ultimately hampers the
productivity. It can also be pointed out that diversity management and providing equal
professional development opportunities to all employees irrespective of gender is not only a
business requirement but also a complianbce requirement. The Attorney-General’s Department,
Government of Australia mentions that discriminating between employees on the grounds of
gender is ‘unlawful’ (Ag.gov.au. 2019). This means that by failure among leaders to establish
diversity management in their workplaces not only attracts business issues but legal issues as
well.

6LEADERSHIP
Options to deal with the leadership issue:
The apex managers in business organisations can consider the following strategy options
to deal with diversity management in the organisations they lead:
Development of a contingency plan:
The management bodies of companies should form a contingency plan to deal with lack
of diversity management among employees. The top managers should form policies to ensure
equal treatment of all employees irrespective of gender. They should also form the policy of
taking strict measures against employees who practice discrimination against their co-employees.
The management on the other hand should award employees who practice diversity management
to encourage the other employees to practice the same.
Diversity management training:
The top management body of companies should provide diversity training to the
employees. Spaaij et al. (2018) mention that employees may perceive forceful implementation of
diversity as a sign of threat and may resist to the same, thus jeopardising the very strategy of
implementation of diversity management. Diversity management training would enable the
employees to gain knowledge about the necessity and benefits of diversity management. Thus,
they would proactively adopt the system of diversity management instead of resisting it. This
would enable the business organisations gain more proactive participation of employees towards
implementation of diversity management.
Best option/structure/solution:
The appropriate strategy between the two strategies, which business organisations in
Australia can adopt to implement diversity management, would be providing a diversity

7LEADERSHIP
management training to employees. This strategy would enable the management instil among
employees the necessities and benefits of diversity management among employees. The
employees on the other hand would perceive forceful imposing of diversity management as
threats and may resist to it, thus rendering the entire implementation fruitless. Providing diversity
training on the other hand would motivate the diversity management more readily. Thus, it can
be established that the strategy of providing of diversity management training to employees is the
better strategy of the two strategies considered above.
Conclusion:
It can be concluded that the management of companies should provide diversity
management training to employees. This would enable the management of companies establish
diversity management with minimum resistance from employees and comply with the Anti-
discrimination laws as well.

8LEADERSHIP
Case 3:
What the leadership issue in the case study?
The leadership issue, which the analysis of the case study brought forward, was challenge
in implementing change management. The case revolved around the Harris Farm Markets which
was a supermarket chain dealing with fruits and vegetables in Australia. Catherine Harris one of
the CEOs of the firm was induced by her husband, David Harris to implement organisational
changes within the firm to enable it to adapt to the new laws which the Australian Government
introduced in 2000s namely, the GST. The legislation require all the business organisations to
pay an percentage of their profits as taxes which in turn required them to operate in more
transparent methods (Spaaij et al. 2018). However, the firm did not have an established digital
accounting system, which would have enabled to it record and maintain financial transactions
more dynamically and accurately. The firm had no written operational codes and had no WHS
policy. Catherine was faced with resistance when she tried to change the prevailing operational
methods of the company. This resistance from the employees and the CEO resulted in change
management challenges, which was the challenge, which Catherine faced.
Options to deal with the leadership issue:
The following are the options, which Catherine could be considered in order to deal with
the leadership challenge she faced when she attempted to change the modes of operations
prevailing in Harris Farm Markets:
Employee consultation:
Catherine should have consulted the employees through her husband Harris, who was the
co-owners and obeyed by the employees. The case study showed that Harris Farm Markets,

9LEADERSHIP
though based in Australia, followed an Italian style of operations. Immense power distance
prevailed in the company in which the employees looked upon Harris as the final decision
maker. Harris practiced an authoritative leadership style and took decisions without consulting
the employees. Catherine while practicing ethical leadership should have consulted the
employees about the necessity of embracing the change in the modes of operations. This
consulting the employees would have created a sense of belongingness to the company among
the employees. This would have encouraged the employees embrace the organisational change
required to align the operations of Harris Farm Markets with the GST laws, which the Australian
Government had enacted in the country more readily (Giauque, 2015).
Training of employees:
Catherine should have resorted to train the employees to operate in methods that are more
transparent. The case study mentioned that the company prior to induction of Catherine did not
follow any formal operational method. The company carried out all transactions in cash and did
not report its financial operations transparently. Catherine in order to bring about changes in this
operational mode should have arranged for training of employees. The training would have
boosted the knowledge, skills and competencies of the employees. The training sessions would
have also made the employees more aware about the macroeconomic changes in Australia like
introduction of new laws like GST. The employees would have realised the importance of
embracing organisational changes in order to sustain in the face of the dynamic market
conditions. They would as a result have supported and cooperated with Catherine to introduce
the changes in the modes of operations in Harris Farm Markets, which she was aiming to
introduce.

10LEADERSHIP
Best option/structure/solution:
The best option between the two aforementioned alternatives, which Catherine could
have implemented to lead Harris Farm Markets through the organisational change, would be
training of employees. The case study mentioned that Harris Farm Markets operated in an
outmoded fashion and unlike, their corporate counterparts, the employees of the company had to
knowledge about the market changes. Thus, the strategy of consultation would have failed due to
the limited knowledge about business environmental changes among the employees. The strategy
of training on the other hand, would have induced new knowledge about the macroeconomic
changes taking place in Australia. Thus, the employees owing to their enhanced knowledge and
skills would have contributed more effectively towards leading Harris Farm Markets towards the
coveted organisational change namely, formalising the entire operations in order to make the
same more transparent before law.
Conclusion:
It can be concluded that Catherine should adopt the strategy of training the employees.
This would have enabled her to lead them towards embracing the organisational change.

11LEADERSHIP
Case 4.
What the leadership issue in the case study?
The case study presented several leadership issues before the business leaders and
managers encounter. The two challenges, which the case study exhibited, were innovation and
marketing. The case study revolved around MacDonald’s. First, the owners of the fast food
chain the case study introduced namely, Griffith’s Drive Inn followed a very slow food
manufacturing process. The slow process resulted in the orders, which the customers placed
being delivered slowly. Moreover, the fast food business charged high prices from the fast food
and beverages it sold. The lack of dynamic decision-making and innovation in the food
manufacturing process of the fast food business resulted in long waiting time, which resulted in
low customer satisfaction. The fast food business also delivered inaccurate orders. For example,
a certain customer (Ray Krock, the narrator of the video) ordered a plate of Barbeque beef and
received some other food item. The delivery staff in the fast food business lacked customer
management training. This was evident from the fact that when the customer said that he had
been waiting for over twenty minutes, the delivery staff replied, ‘I’m so sorry. We’re really busy
today.’ This showed that the management of Griffiths lacked customer centric attitude, which is
one of the attributes business leaders should have. Dick and Mack, the founders of McDonald’s
on the other hand showed higher level of leadership in both the areas namely, innovation and
customer services. The food manufacturing process employed at McDonald’s was far more
innovative compared to the Griffiths. The owners namely, Dick and Mack arranged the different
steps, which went into the food preparation like adding the beef pieces and the pickles were
arranged in the form of a tennis court. This allowed the food products under preparation like
burger pass from one stage to another at a higher speed. This enabled the company to