MNG82001 Reflective Case Study: Leadership and Team Dynamics

This case study examines the challenges faced by a new manager, Ron, in an organization experiencing declining performance due to leadership issues and rigid team structures. Ron implements changes, initially facing resistance and employee attrition. Through perseverance and strategic team restructuring based on employee skill sets, Ron successfully leads a major project, improves team performance, and gains the trust of his team. The study explores Ron's leadership style, the importance of adapting to change, and the impact of team dynamics on organizational success. The provided questions encourage a deeper analysis of the case, exploring the challenges Ron faced and the steps he took to motivate employees and improve performance. This document is available on Desklib, a platform offering a wealth of academic resources for students.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Organizational Behavior
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Case Study
I was working in an organization in the previous year. The organization size was
medium and more than 200 employees worked in the two branches of the organization.
Everything was working when I had joined the organization. After working for two months in
the organization, an on growing tension was noticed among the organization’s employees. I
was new to the company and thus was not able to figure out the reasons of the tension. After
about two more weeks in the organization, the reasons behind the tension were clear to me. In
order to manage the operations, a new manager was appointed (Namada 2018). Initially, the
work of the office depended on the managers and their teams. The turnover of the
organization was decreasing from the last few months. The board of directors and the
managers investigated the reasons behind this. After many investigations, they found out that
the issues in leadership were affecting the productivity of the organization (Dunne et al.
2016). The leaders had too much independence in deciding and controlling the activities of
the organization. The authority took a major step of changing that. Initially, the leaders were
asked to control, manage their respective teams, and report directly to the authority. This
scenario was on the verge of changing. The employees showed no enthusiasm, as they
believed that new manager means more complications in the floor. The team leaders were
equally not happy with the new decision as they were asked to report directly to the directors
as well as the flood managers (Gharakhani et al. 2013). After a week, the new manager Ron
had arrived. He received a diminutive welcome. He being an enthusiastic person tried
mingling freely with the employees. Ron was successful throughout his career. He showed
outstanding performance in the company he was working previously. She was successful in
leading teams with different strategies. In order to understand the team, he had organized a
meeting to interact with the team members and discuss about the issues persisting in the

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organization. The members of the team were not enthusiastic in providing him with any
insights of the prevailing issues in the company. This led to the beginning of problems. He
decided to take in charge of the matter and find solutions to overcome the problem (Zacher
and Rosing 2015). He held another meeting to inform the employees about the work scenario,
objectives and goals. They were assigned individual targets to achieve the organization’s
goals. He gave specific and clear instructions, which did not offer any scope of improvisation
by the employees. Ron assumed that this would increase the productivity of the organizations
as the targets and the set goals will guide the employees to a certain direction. He did not
expect the sudden decrement in the production and increase in employee attrition. In a two
weeks time, almost 25 employees had resigned and it was heard that few more were planning
to do the same. The directors were worried about their decision of appointing Ron as the floor
manager. He was given another chance due to his excellent past records. Ron’s curiosity
about the issue made him dig deeper in order to find out the reasons behind such behavior of
the employees. He found out that an old team took such a drastic step. They were associated
with the organization for quite a long time. The reason behind the issue was clear to him. He
decided to change the organizational structure and few of his strategies in order to succeed.
While investigating and researching, he found out that the team composition did not
change since long. It was working well as there was no change in the hierarchy and the
structure of the organization. The members of the team were not acquainted with such a
change and thus, they reacted negatively when Ron has arrived. Ron decided to handle the
situation patiently and make the employees understand the reason for the change. In order to
make them understand, Ron took a month’s time. Gradually the teams started co-operating
with him. Meanwhile, in the company, a huge project came that required all the cooperation
from all the employees. Ron being the operations manager was given the responsibility for
planning the project’s execution. He decided to recreate teams according to the skill sets of

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the employees. He created five teams and gave specific tasks to each of the teams. The team
leaders were also cooperative and started working in the new structure (Schippers, West and
Dawson 2015). Finally, after all the efforts, the project was done successfully. During the
time of performance appraisal, it was noted that the overall performance of the team has
become better than before. The performance of each individual has also enhanced. Now, the
employees along with the team leaders had no doubt on the ability of Ron and his strategies.
After the process of appraisal, everyone congratulated each other. They celebrated together in
the office for the teams’ success.
Question 1.
What challenges and threats Ron had to face after joining the organization?
When Ron had joined the organization, the operating teams were old. This was the
main challenge faced by Ron. The employees were working together for a long time and were
not ready for any change in the team and the organizational structure. They were accustomed
to reporting to the same authority and manager. Thus, the employees did not accept the
strategies and methods discussed and introduced by Ron as they thought that their freedom is
being curbed in the workplace. Another major problem was their team leaders. They were
given the highest authority to make the decisions of the team. They reported to the directors
directly. Now, when a new head was appointed, they had a negative approach towards him.
The freedom and independence were limited and thus, they became uncooperative with Ron.
The rigid mentality and the lack of alternation in the structure of the organization enhanced
the problems (Braun et al. 2013). Thus, the transformational leadership style of Ron did not
receive appreciation. Gradually they understood and adopted the change prevailing in the
organization (Avolio and Yammarino 2013). They were also happy with the fact that their

4ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
skills were utilized in the correct manner. The execution of the project made them understand
the new strategy of the manager which made them succeed.
Question 2.
What steps Ron had taken for a better performance and to motivate the
employees to work together?
Ron believed in inspirational leadership style (Molenberghs et al. 2017). When he had
joined the organization, he thought that transformational leadership style would help him to
lead the teams. Earlier there were not any structural or other changes in the organization.
Rarely new members joined the team. They either survived adjusting with the mechanism of
the team or left the organization. Ron knew that the members of the team need to adopt with
the new structure. He knew that the best way to pursue that is by creating teams where
members had similar skill sets. Another factor is that the teams were mostly multi-cultured.
People from different cultures were put together in a team to enhance productivity. When this
structural change was helpful and made them succeed, they were forced to change their
mentality and rigid opinions about the new manager. A sense of trust and respect was also
developed towards Ron. Thus, this incident marked the beginning of a new phase in the
organization. The team leaders too appreciated the efforts of the new manager Ron.

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References
Avolio, B.J. and Yammarino, F.J. eds., 2013. Transformational and charismatic leadership:
The road ahead. Emerald Group Publishing.
Braun, S., Peus, C., Weisweiler, S. and Frey, D., 2013. Transformational leadership, job
satisfaction, and team performance: A multilevel mediation model of trust. The Leadership
Quarterly, 24(1), pp.270-283.
Dunne, T.C., Aaron, J.R., McDowell, W.C., Urban, D.J. and Geho, P.R., 2016. The impact of
leadership on small business innovativeness. Journal of Business Research, 69(11), pp.4876-
4881.
Gharakhani, D., Rahmati, H., Farrokhi, M.R. and Farahmandian, A., 2013. Total quality
management and organizational performance. American Journal of Industrial
Engineering, 1(3), pp.46-50.
Molenberghs, P., Prochilo, G., Steffens, N.K., Zacher, H. and Haslam, S.A., 2017. The
neuroscience of inspirational leadership: The importance of collective-oriented language and
shared group membership. Journal of management, 43(7), pp.2168-2194.
Namada, J.M., 2018. Organizational learning and competitive advantage. In Handbook of
Research on Knowledge Management for Contemporary Business Environments (pp. 86-
104). IGI Global.
Schippers, M.C., West, M.A. and Dawson, J.F., 2015. Team reflexivity and innovation: The
moderating role of team context. Journal of Management, 41(3), pp.769-788.
Zacher, H. and Rosing, K., 2015. Ambidextrous leadership and team innovation. Leadership
& Organization Development Journal, 36(1), pp.54-68.

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