Eating Lunch Standing Up Susan Parks is the part–owner and manager of Marathon S

Question

Eating Lunch Standing Up
Susan Parks is the part–owner and manager of Marathon Sports, an ath- letic equipment store that specializes in running shoes and accessories. The store employs about 10 people, most of whom are college students who work part-time during the week and full-time on weekends. Marathon Sports is the only store of its kind in a college town with a population of 125,000. The annual sales figures for the store have shown 15% growth each year.
Susan has a lot invested in the store, and she works very hard to make sure the store continues to maintain its reputation and pattern of growth. She works 50 hours a week at the store, where she wears many hats, including those of buyer, scheduler, trainer, planner, and salesper- son. There is never a moment when Susan is not doing something. Rumor has it that she eats her lunch standing up.
Employees’ reactions to Susan are strong and varied. Some people like her style, and others do not. Those who like her style talk about how organized and efficient the store is when she is in charge. Susan makes the tasks and goals for everyone very clear. She keeps everyone busy; when they go home at night, they feel as if they have accomplished something. They like to work for Susan because she knows what she is doing. Those who do not like her style complain that she is too driven. It seems that her sole purpose for being at the store is to get the job done. She seldom, if ever, takes a break or just hangs out with the staff. These people say Susan is pretty hard to relate to, and as a result it is not much fun working at Marathon Sports.
Susan is beginning to sense that employees have a mixed reaction to her leadership style. This bothers her, but she does not know what to do about it. In addition to her work at the store, Susan struggles hard to be a good spouse and mother of three children.
Questions
1. According to the behavioral approach, how would you describe Susan’s leadership?
2. Whydoesherleadershipbehaviorcreatesuchapronouncedreaction from her subordinates?
3. Do you think she should change her behavior? 4. Would she be effective if she changed?

Explanation / Answer

According to the behavioural approach, Susan’s leadership approach is production Centred Leadership/ Task Oriented Leadership as she is devoted more towards getting the things done and she herself works hard at the store with the employees to achieve her objective. She has made rigid work standards and does close supervision of subordinates.

Her leadership creates such pronounced reaction from her subordinates because she is too much of a task oriented boss. She keeps a tight watch on her subordinates and gives them a very little chance to make work fun. The entire concentration of Susan is on the job and not on her employees. She exercises a higher degree of control on her subordinates and which is obviously disliked by her employees.

I think she should not change her behaviour completely as this is her store and she has made huge investments in it but she should change a few things so that her employees would start liking Susan and help her in achieving her objective easily.

The practices which Susan should change are:

If she changes herself completely then I doubt she would be as effective as she is now but if she adds the above mentioned practices into her leadership styles and lessen her control she would prove to be more successful than she currently is. A complete change in leader's attitude would make her less trustworthy and Susan should avoid any such thing.

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