Upon analysis of this case study, the main issue in front of Sam is that he need

Question

Upon analysis of this case study, the main issue in front of Sam is that he needs to deliver an important project to one of his prestigious clients and he is unable to delegate the work to any of the available team members. Various personal and interpersonal reasons have been noted in the case as reasons for the members not to accept the responsibility. First of all, it can be seen that Sam is unable to make use of his managerial power over the matter and his approach to the team members is rather a laissez-faire type where he wants to hear the commitments spontaneously from his team rather than delegating specific task to one another. Although, this approach is good for a more evolved team, presently this is ineffective for Sam as the team members are not motivated. If Sam wants to pursue the same approach, he needs to ensure that the members are empowered and motivated. Furthermore, only mentioning that the project is going to be "challenging and high profile" is not sufficient and instead, Sam should explain to his team members the benefits, details and highlight of how a member taking up the responsibility can progress ahead of the others. Although if this form of motivation still does not work, Sam should change his leadership style and use a more coercive form of leadership.

It is also evident that there are problems regarding Sam's conflict management techniques. It seems from the case study that he is relying on an accommodative form of conflict management. For example, the issue with Anne, Felicity, Peter, and Deborah are behavioural and can be addressed by negotiating and dealing with an assertive form of conflict management. Sam should implement a collaborative style of conflict management here. This should reinforce Anne and Felicity with Deborah or Peter to reduce their problems or behavioural issues. Finally, Being a multinational business if everything stills remain adverse, Sam needs to take the help of the chain of command existing within the organisation and inform the next level of the hierarchy regarding these barriers and ask for intervention and strategies to overcome such obstacles.

How would you know if it was good advice? Write 375 words to answer the question drawing on three relevant concepts

Explanation / Answer

As per the case study, Sam is a good employee but is incompetent as a manager for his current team. A manager's duty is to lead, motivate and get the work done through his team in any which way possible. He has failed in all three respect in this case. His way of work or approach towards delegating work to his juniors is failing because he has doesn’t recognise the position and the mindset his team is in right now. It is understandable that he expects the team members to be spontaneous and proactive towards addressing their responsibility but for that he needs to work with the team to bring that kind of motivation, which he has failed to do so.

Apart from that, being their leader and someone the team looks up to, it is also his responsibility to resolve any kind of conflict that may happen between 2 sub-ordinates of his team. If the team itself is not working together as one and has personal/professional issues with each other, the efficiency of the team will decrease and eventually there will be a downfall in the productivity.

In such a chronic situation, Sam needs to seek advice from his higher authority. A typical organisation works in hierarchy and here too, involvement of high in command executives will bring a change in the attitude of the subordinates. A correct leadership and motivation will go a long way and can turn an inefficient and lethargic team into a most efficient one. This is because the higher authority, with a considerable amount of work experience, will always have some brilliant management technique up their sleeves that can prevent a team from downfall. A more cohesive approach that will address the personal/professional issues directly and will direct them towards resolving those. A bit of control and power over the team can bring a sense of responsibility within the individual and thus a feel of ownership will come eventually.

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