Leadership and Organization

This essay analyzes the personality traits of Louise, the supervisor of a small assembly unit of a manufacturing company, whose skills and efficiency cannot compensate for her lack of leadership quality. The discussion uses relevant leadership and personality theories to illustrate theoretical arguments on personalities.

Running Head: LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATION
Leadership and Organization
Name of Student
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Introduction
The differences between a boss and a leader is one of the primary things the head of an
organization must educate himself/herself about. There are no particular combination of traits
and skills that make a successful leader, only different characteristics in differing circumstances
that the leader is expected to abide by. The essay takes the case study of Louise, the supervisor of
a small assembly unit of a manufacturing company, whose skills and efficiency cannot
compensate for her lack of leadership quality. The discussion analyzes the personality traits of
the mentioned leader, and uses relevant leadership and personality theories to illustrate
theoretical arguments on personalities (Chuang, 2013). The main body of the discussion
elucidates on the nature, personality traits and characteristic of Louis and bases this discussion to
determine her shortcomings as a leader and the ways it can affect (negatively) the employees
who work under her. Finally, this essay concludes with some suggestions for Louise to improve
her leadership skills.
The scenario
After being promoted to the post of a supervisor, Louise, a reliable and efficient worker
of a manufacturing company, proved herself an inconsiderate, overbearing and borderline
arrogant superior whose behavior and domineering nature has been bothering employees. The tea
club, organized by the members of the team was looked after by junior staff member Sanjay,
who was penalized by Louise after the money collected from the member went missing. Turns
out the money was borrowed by Phyllis, a team member who felt compelled to take such a
drastic step when her mother had to be rushed to the hospital as she needed cash for reaching
there by taxi. Despite Phyllis having sorted out the matter and returning the money she had

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borrowed, Louise contested that she (Phyllis) should be charged for gross misconduct and
decided to take disciplinary action against her which could get her terminated from office.
Louise as a leader
Louise is evidently an autocratic leader who does not consult with her team before taking
any organizational and managerial decision. She is rather bossy and prefers her authority remain
unquestioned and her verdicts adhered to. Her rigid and authoritarian nature intimidates the
workers and they have justifiable reasons to fear and even despise her. The rash decisions she
comes to without being considerate of the workers is indicative of her imprudence. Had any
other leader with efficient leadership skills, been in her position, he/she would have a totally
different take on the situation. Louise may be a highly productive and reliable worker but she is
clearly not well-adept with human resource management and the ways to handle a team during
minor glitches. Her leadership traits can be compared and contrasted using leadership theories
(Schoemaker, Krupp, and Howland 2013). A participative leader for instance, aims to include all
members of the group in the decision making process. This commits team members to actions
and make them more collaborative than competitive which is better for achieving joint goals.
This is a form of democratic leadership where the leader consults, empowers and shares the
power with the teammates. A participative leader would have run the decision through the staff
before declaring an extreme verdict like termination of an employee on dubious grounds. Renesis
Likert recognized four different styles of leaderships, revolving around employee involvement
and decision-making. Two of which are exploitative authoritative and benevolent authoritative
leadership. Leaders exhibiting the exploitative authoritative style, have little concern for
employees and resorts to regressive methods like threats, instilling fear and other extreme steps
for achieving conformance. These leaders avoid personal communication and ignore the

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psychologically distant concerns of employees. Louis, is evidently an exploitative authoritative
leader who uses threat and induces fear in workers to attain company objectives. On the other
hand, if a benevolent authoritative leader had been in her place, she/he would be sensitive even
towards the lower concerns of the team members.
The actions analyzed through leadership theories
This case must be analyzed using the theories of situational leadership. This form suggests that
the actions and decisions of the leader is wholly dependent on situational factors. Situational
decisions are inevitably affected by factors like follower’s capability and motivation. The
decision is also eaffected by the relationship shared by the leaders and the followers. The leader
is more influenced by the his/her perception of the followers than the circumstance itself.
Further, the leader’s perception of t ‘self’, his/her mood, temperament, level of emotional
intelligence are also determiners and potential modifiers in the leader’s behavior. Leaders
following situational leadership focus on factors like resource acquisition, external relationships,
and managing the structure, culture and demands of the group. The leader’s action is also
affected by situational forces, the forces in both the follower and the leader. The action of the
leader is therefore highly variable and something as remotely unrelated as a family feud or any
other personal issue can displace the leader’s decision and behavior. The case study sheds very
little light on the personal life of Louise but her constant discontent and unnecessary rigidity with
workers and her failure in motivating and reaching out to employees might indicate personal
conflicts that needs resolution.
The five personality factors a leader is supposed to exhibit are neuroticism, extraversion,
conscientiousness, agreeableness and openness. This principle is popularly known as the
CANOE model of leadership (Altmäe, Türk, & Toomet, 2013) Conscientiousness can be

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described as a person’s tendency to be organized, controlled and dependable. Agreeableness is
the extent to which an individual is nurturing, accepting and trusting. Neuroticism is an
individual’s vulnerability to anxiety, depression and insecurity while openness is referred to the
insightful, creative and curious nature of the individual. Inculcating these five factors have been
reported to be effective for strategic leadership and human resource management. Louise’s
indifference to these factors are reflected in her behavior towards the workers and her random
decisions taken without considering the welfare of the employees. Emotional intelligence,
sociability, integrity and perseverance are personality traits that are deeply associated with
effective leadership (Iqbal, Anwar & Haider, 2015). Sociability accounts for the leader’s ability
to maintain cordial relationships with workers even during difficult and critical times. An
efficient leader is friendly, tactful, courteous and diplomatic. Perseverance is another crucial
personality trait of a good leader. Leadership is an arduous, long and tedious process and a leader
must be determined and perseverant both of the process and of the people he/she is working
with. The most important characteristic a leader must inculcate is emotional intelligence. It can
be defined as an individual’s ability to be empathetic towards the emotions of others and be in
control of one’s own emotional commotions. Louis demonstrates a visible lack of emotional
intelligence through her harsh decision of sacking Phyllis, who had no ill intention in her mind
while borrowing the money from the safe. An emotionally intelligent person would be able to
understand and empathize with someone whose rash action may have caused inconvenience to
the ones around him/her. Proper management of human resource requires the manager to be
emotionally understanding of the workers, be patient and empathetic towards their shortcomings
and misdoings. Leaders also need to maintain integrity towards the organization and the

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workers. A loyal, dependable, responsible and honest leader is more capable of uniting workers
and goading them towards a common goal.
The contingency theory of leadership when a leader is contingent on the situational
factors like behaviors and capabilities of workers and the preferred leadership style of the leader.
This theory is assertive of the relativity of leadership since it maintains that no leadership can
follow the same style in different situations. The variables of the situation is to be considered
before the leader takes any situation. What Phyllis did would appear entirely abominable, unless
the reason behind her action is brought to notice. The action must be judged against the intention
for a rational and justified decision-making. What Louise follows can be categorized under
transactional leadership theory; this style has a clear hierarchical structure where the employees
are obligated to follow the rules and be answerable to the manager/leader. She expects her
workers to strictly abide her rules and does not encourage any involvement of the workers in her
plans and decisions. This style of leadership is not favorable for employee motivation as they
might feel forcefully entitled to certain actions and feel increasingly detached from their work.
Jeff Bezoz the founder and CEO of Amazon is considered the top most efficient leader in
the world for his outstanding organizational skills and democratic way of leading. He follows the
transformational leadership style for organizing his teams for different projects. Mark Parker’s
(CEO of Nike) participatory leadership has acquired him the success he deserves and continues
to reach greater heights with an approach that treats every employee of the company the same
way.

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Referencing:
Chuang, S. F. (2013). Essential skills for leadership effectiveness in diverse workplace
development.
Ebrahimi Mehrabani, S., & Azmi Mohamad, N. (2015). New approach to leadership skills
development (developing a model and measure). Journal of Management
Development, 34(7), 821-853.
Iqbal, N., Anwar, S., & Haider, N. (2015). Effect of leadership style on employee
performance. Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review, 5(5), 1-6.
Miao, Q., Newman, A., & Huang, X. (2014). The impact of participative leadership on job
performance and organizational citizenship behavior: Distinguishing between the
mediating effects of affective and cognitive trust. The International Journal of Human
Resource Management, 25(20), 2796-2810.
Schoemaker, P. J., Krupp, S., & Howland, S. (2013). Strategic leadership: The essential
skills. Harvard business review, 91(1), 131-134.
Altmäe, S., Türk, K., & Toomet, O. S. (2013). Thomas-Kilmann's Conflict Management Modes
and their relationship to Fiedler's Leadership Styles (basing on Estonian
organizations). Baltic Journal of Management, 8(1), 45-65.