Organizational Behaviour - Case Study Analysis

This case study analysis focuses on the leadership styles, power types, and challenges faced by a project manager in J&J Furnishings Ltd. The article also suggests steps to eliminate these challenges and ensure the proper functioning of the project team.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
J&J Furnishings Ltd. was started by the siblings Jack and Jessica in the year 1965.
This company built and sold furniture for home in Sydney, Australia, then expanded to
selling office furniture in the mid-1980s. For 25 years, J&J has opened several showrooms
for furniture in several places like New York, London and Tokyo. Around the early 1990s,
J&J aimed at increasing its sales by shipping their furniture to various distributors of general
furniture and home decoration of Europe and United States. J&J Furnishing have also added
a new line of furniture for patio and pool-side which is expected to increase their average of
unit sales every year due to the increase in the choices of furniture for the customers. The
departments in which the employees are divided are Research and Development, Marketing,
Human Resources, IT, Sales, Manufacturing, Legal, Finance and Accounting. The top
management of the company are Jack and Jessica and the managers or directors of each of the
departments.
Response to Question 1
There are three forms of leadership styles that can be derived from the case study. The
three leadership styles areas follows. Firstly, strategic leadership style which can be derived
from the project goal 1 which talks about the formation of various strategies to make sure that
the company is able to sustain in the market for a long time with the support of the
stakeholders, critics and their partners (Özer & Tınaztepe, 2014). Secondly, democratic
leadership which is derived from the goal 2 as the company takes the opinion of the
employees along with their own decisions into eradicating the problems that might be faced
by the company (Goleman, 2017). Thirdly, transformational leadership style which is derived
from the goal 3 as the goal aims to make certain changes within the organization and form
strategies which can help in its sustainability in the long run (Ejere & Ugochukwu, 2013).

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The more effective style of leadership among these three leadership styles would be the
strategic leadership style as this leadership style enables the companies to form proper
strategies which would persuade the stakeholders to support the operations of the company,
and the company will also be able to deliver the strategic and shareholders benefits.
Response to Question 2
As the project manager of the project team, the tool or technique that would be used
to influence the team would be to upgrade the inner operations of the company with the help
of the employees. The employees should be properly trained with the necessary technology
and resources so that they are able to work to their full potential. Upgradation of IT system in
the organization would give them enormous benefits for the company which would provide a
much positive and sophisticated system that will help the organization to reduce their lost
sales and create more efficient supply chain and also to decrease their operation cost
(Martinelli & Milosevic, 2016). The main aim as a project manager would be to keep the
team continually motivated so that they find their interest in their job. Moreover, the project
manager should keep a proper interaction with the project team members and try to solve any
issues or queries that the members might have.
Response to Question 3
There are five types of power such as legitimate power, reward power, expert power,
referent power and punishment. Among these five kinds of powers, the power used to firstly
influence the project team would be legitimate power (Walker, 2015). This is because in this
kind of power the project manager would influence the team to work by taking complete
charge of the team. The project would be able to lead the team into the right direction and
help them in the tasks and responsibilities that they have to perform. Secondly, to motivate
the team members to work collaboratively, reward power is to be used (Lu & Hao, 2013).
The work of the project management who possesses this power is to motive the team into

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working together on projects by providing one motivation or reward that would be similar for
everyone and which will push the team members into achieving the goal collaboratively.
However, there are certain instances where punishment power could be used if the team
members are not following the decisions of the project manager or being absent for a long
time (Nosenzo & Sefton, 2014). Thirdly, to create an impact on the success of the project the
project manager must use expert power (Heagney, 2016). This power ensures that the project
manager leads the team by his own example and by doing tasks that would make him credible
in the eyes of the team and hence the team will follow his decisions. This will enable the
success of the project as the team will not deny any decision that will be taken by the project
manager.
Response to Question 4
The above mentioned approaches were selected because there are different kinds of
power that should be used by leaders to ensure full cooperation of the team members and
complete productivity. As shown above legitimate power is necessary when the team has to
be led by the project manager and motivated in different ways to fulfil their tasks. Otherwise,
reward power can be used to make the team members interested about the task as they can
derive that they will be rewarded once the teaks is complete (Goncalves, 2013). However,
there are also instances where punishment power should be used in case the team members
do not react on any of the above mentioned powers. This is done to make the members
understand that if the task is not completed then they might be punished.
Response to Question 5
As a project manager, it is important to eradicate the challenges that are faced by the
project team to ensure good completion of task. The steps that could be taken by the project
manager to eliminate these challenges can be as follows. Firstly, the project manager should
build trust among the members of the team. The team members should be able to both

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personally and professionally trust each other completely so that they could work on projects
together and rely on each other for their work (Harrison, 2017). Secondly, the project
manager should be quick to resolve any kind of tension or conflict that might have risen
between the team members. If the conflict is not resolved at the earliest then it could take a
bigger shape and ultimately be harmful for the project. Thirdly, there should be complete
transparency between the team members and the project manager. Transparency is needed so
that none of the members might hide any information that might be for the benefit of the
project (Hoda & Murugesan, 2016). Fourthly, the project manager should work for the daily
benefit of the team and not keep plans for the future. Daily targets should be set and achieved
by the team.
Conclusion
Hence, it can be deduced from the above answers that a project manager has to
perform several tasks for the proper functioning of a project team and to ensure that all its
members work together in harmony and showcase their talents and give their full potential to
complete every task that is given to them. The project manager also ensures that each task is
completed within the given timeframe and in the perfect way.

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References:
Ejere, E. I., & Ugochukwu, D. A. (2013). Impact of transactional and transformational
leadership styles on organisational performance: Empirical evidence from
Nigeria. The Journal of Commerce, 5(1), 30.
Goleman, D. (2017). Leadership That Gets Results (Harvard Business Review Classics).
Harvard Business Press.
Goncalves, M. (2013). Leadership styles: The power to influence others. International
Journal of Business and Social Science, 4(4).
Harrison, F., & Lock, D. (2017). Advanced project management: a structured approach.
Routledge.
Heagney, J. (2016). Fundamentals of project management. AMACOM Div American Mgmt
Assn.
Hoda, R., & Murugesan, L. K. (2016). Multi-level agile project management challenges: A
self-organizing team perspective. Journal of Systems and Software, 117, 245-257.
Lu, S., & Hao, G. (2013). The influence of owner power in fostering contractor cooperation:
Evidence from China. International Journal of Project Management, 31(4), 522-531.
Martinelli, R. J., & Milosevic, D. Z. (2016). Project management toolbox: tools and
techniques for the practicing project manager. John Wiley & Sons.
Nosenzo, D., & Sefton, M. (2014). Promoting Cooperation: The distribution of reward and
punishment power.
Özer, F., & Tınaztepe, C. (2014). Effect of strategic leadership styles on firm performance: A
study in a Turkish SME. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 150, 778-784.

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Walker, A. (2015). Project management in construction. John Wiley & Sons.