Week 6: Leaders and Followers

Theme 1: A leader can plan and strategize all they want, but they cannot succeed if the vision cannot be sold to others. Influencing people to follow is about creating trust, which is the building block of the leader-follower relationship.

Having a story is not enough! A leader must sell the story to others. This means a leader must learn about his or her own style, traits, knowledge, etc., in developing knowledge about others. The leader will create a relationship that will result in “others” following the strategic vision if successful. The leader-follower relationship is crucial to successfully selling the story to others. One truth to the leader-follower relationship is that the relationship must be based on mutual trust if it is to succeed.

Read/View Course Material:

• Barbara Kellerman on Followership
• Followership is Underrated and Misunderstood
• Building and Sustaining Relationships
• The Leadership Relationship, Part I – Understanding Trust
• The Allure of Toxic Leaders: Why Followers Rarely Escape Their Clutches

Theme 2: Authentic Leadership and the Emotional Bank Account – If trust is the cornerstone of leadership, how do we get there? If there is one thing we have learned in our study of leadership, mutual trust is the most valuable element to the leader-follower relationship. Mutual trust requires authentic leadership Course Material.

• Authentic Leadership
• Good Leaders Are Authentic Leaders
• Developing Leadership Good Leaders Are Authentic Leaders Skills
• Your Emotional Bank Account

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Discussion

Directions: Read the Case Scenario and answer the questions using course materials to support your reasoning and conclusions.

Case Scenario

Tisha Allen is Senior Vice President (SVP) of Life Sciences Nutraceuticals, Inc.(LSN) east coast operations. (The LSN company profile can be found in Week 1 above Discussion 1, although it is not specifically needed for this case.) Tisha has received your memo request to be considered for further leadership positions. You have been with the company for 12 years. You are now a senior analyst in the Management Effectiveness Division. You supervise 13 junior analysts. Your roles involve conducting a quality analysis of management practices in all LSN departments on a scheduled basis. You are highly valued by LSN’s leadership and known for your ability to work well with everyone and for being liked and respected by those you have supervised. After reading your memo to her, Tisha has decided to ask you to perform a specific function so she can observe your approach. She assigns you to help the Manager of Accounts Payable, Ken Count.

You walk over to Accounting and visit Ken. He is visibly upset. He has just received a performance review from his manager. This is a six-month review, as Ken was recently assigned to this role after working with great success for 10 years in another area of the Accounting Department. As part of this review, Ken’s manager interviewed the six members of the Accounts Payable section, who all report to Ken. Ken’s boss summarized their feedback in Ken’s performance evaluation. Ken shares this feedback with you:

“Ken marched in here thinking he knows everything. He doesn’t want to listen to any of our ideas. It’s his way or the highway.”

“We really don’t know Ken all that well. He keeps to himself, except of course when deadlines are due, and then he’s all over our backs.”

“He acts as if he is perfect. I’m scared of getting yelled at when I make a mistake.”

“Most times, Ken is fine, but when we have a deadline, he micromanages us. I literally dread coming in to work on days our accounts are due because I know Ken will be watching over us like a hawk.”

Based on your readings this week, answer the following questions, and support your answers with the course materials:

1. What would you explain to Ken is the major reason for his subordinates’ issues with him?
2. What are three specific recommendations you would make to Ken that would immediately improve the situation with his subordinates? You must use course materials to support your answer. (The three recommendations must not overlap with the three suggestions in #3.)
3. What three specific course materials from this week’s course materials would you suggest to Ken that he should carefully review to enhance his future leadership development. You must explain the rationale for each of your three suggestions. (Thee three suggestions must not overlap with the three recommendations in #2.)

Completing the Discussion

• Read the grading rubric for the project. Use the grading rubric while completing the project to ensure all requirements are met to lead to the highest possible grade. (Rubric is in the attachments)
• Third-person writing is required. Third-person means that there are no words such as “I, me, my, we, or us” (first-person writing), nor is there use of “you or your” (the second person writing). If uncertain how to write in the third person, view this link: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/first-second-and-third-person.

• Contractions are not used in business writing, so do not use them.

• Paraphrase and do not use direct quotation marks. Paraphrase means you do not use more than four consecutive words from a source document, but put a passage from a source document into your own words and attribute the passage to the source document. Not using direct quotation marks means there should be no passages with quotation marks, and instead, the source material is paraphrased as stated above.

• Provide the page or paragraph number when they apply to in-text citations. Note that a reference within a reference list cannot exist without an associated in-text citation and vice versa.

• You may only use the course material from the classroom. You may not use books or any resource from the Internet.