Leadership
Sales Engineering Division
When DGL International, a manufacturer of refinery equipment, brought in John Terrill to man- age its Sales Engineering division, company executives informed him of the urgent situation. Sales Engineering, with 20 engineers, was the highest-paid, best-educated, and least-productive division in the company. The instructions to Terrill: Turn it around. Terrill called a meeting of the engineers. He showed great concern for their personal welfare and asked point blank: Whats the problem? Why cant we produce? Why does this division have such turnover?
Without hesitation, employees launched a hail of complaints. I was hired as an engineer, not a pencil pusher. We spend over half of our time writing asinine reports in triplicate for top management, and no one reads the reports. We have to account for every penny, which doesnt give us time to work with customers or new developments.
After a two-hour discussion, Terrill began to envision a future in which engineers were free to work with customers and join self-directed teams for product improvement. Terrill concluded he had to get top management off the engineers backs. He promised the engineers, My job is to stay out of your way so you can do your work, and Ill try to keep top management off your backs, too. He called for the days reports and issued an order effective immediately that the originals be turned in daily to his office rather than mailed to headquarters. For three weeks, technical reports piled up on his desk. By months end, the stack was nearly three feet high. During that time no one called for the reports. When other managers entered his office and saw the stack, they usually asked, Whats all this? Terrill answered, Technical reports. No one asked to read them.
Finally, at months end, a secretary from finance called and asked for the monthly travel and expense report. Terrill responded, Meet me in the presidents office tomorrow morning.
The next morning the engineers cheered as Terrill walked through the department push- ing a cart loaded with the enormous stack of reports. They knew the showdown had come.
Terrill entered the presidents office and placed the stack of reports on his desk. The president and the other senior executives looked bewildered.
This, Terrill announced, is the reason for the lack of productivity in the Sales Engineering division. These are the reports your people require every month. The fact that they sat on my desk all month shows that no one reads this material. I suggest that the engi- neers time could be used in a more productive manner, and that one brief monthly report from my office will satisfy the needs of the other departments.
ANSWER THE FOLLOWING THREE QUESTIONS FOR THE CASE ANALYSIS
1. Does John Terrills leadership style fit the definition of leadership in Exhibit 1.1? Is it part of a leaders job to manage upward? Explain.
2. With respect to Exhibit 1.4, in what leadership era is Terrill? In what era is headquar- ters? Explain.
3. What approach would you have taken in this situation? What do you think the response of the senior executives will be to Terrills action?
REFERENCES
Leadership Experience, 6th Edition
By: Daft, Richard L.
ISBN: 978-1-4354-6285-4
Exhibit 1.1 (1.1 is all on Page 5)
Leader
-Influence
-Intention
-Personal Responsibility and integrity
-Change
-Shared purpose
-Followers
Exhibit 1.1 summarizes the key elements in this definition. Leadership involves influence; it occurs among people; those people intentionally desire significant changes; and the changes reflect purposes shared by leaders and followers. Influ- ence means that the relationship among people is not passive; however, also inher- ent in this definition is the concept that influence is multidirectional and noncoercive. The basic cultural values in North America make it easiest to think of leadership as something a leader does to a follower.12 However, leadership is reciprocal. In most organizations, superiors influence subordinates, but subordinates also influence superiors. The people involved in the relationship want substantive changesleadership involves creating change, not maintaining the status quo. In addi- tion, the changes sought are not dictated by leaders but reflect purposes that leaders and followers share. Moreover, change is toward an outcome that both the leader and the followers want, a desired future or shared purpose that motivates them toward this more preferable outcome. An important aspect of leadership is influencing others to come together around a common vision. Thus, leadership involves the influence of people to bring about change toward a desirable future.
Exhibit 1.4 (all on Page 19)
A Model of Leadership Evolution
Exhibit 1.4 provides a framework for examining the evolution of leadership from the early Great Man theories to todays relational theories. Each cell in the model summarizes an era of leadership thinking that was dominant in its time but may be less appropriate for todays world.41
Leadership Era 1 This era may be conceptualized as pre-industrial and pre-bureaucratic. Most organizations were small and were run by a single individ- ual who many times hired workers because they were friends or relatives, not nec- essarily because of their skills or qualifications. The size and simplicity of organizations and the stable nature of the environment made it easy for a single person to understand the big picture, coordinate and control all activities, and keep things on track. This is the era of Great Man leadership and the emphasis on personal traits of leaders. A leader was conceptualized as a single hero who saw the big picture and how everything fit into a whole.
Leadership Era 2 In Era 2, we see the emergence of hierarchy and bureaucracy. Although the world remains stable, organizations have begun to grow so large that they require rules and standard procedures to ensure that activities are per- formed efficiently and effectively. Hierarchies of authority provide a sensible mechanism for supervision and control of workers, and decisions once based on rules of thumb or tradition are replaced with precise procedures. This era sees the rise of the rational manager who directs and controls others using an impersonal approach. Employees arent expected to think for themselves; they are expected to do as theyre told, follow rules and procedures, and accomplish specific tasks. The focus is on details rather than the big picture.
The rational manager was well-suited to a stable environment. The behavior and contingency theories worked here because leaders could analyze their situation, develop careful plans, and control what happened. But rational management is no longer sufficient for leadership in todays world.
Leadership Era 3 This era represented a tremendous shock to managers in North America and Europe. Suddenly, the world was no longer stable, and the prized techniques of rational management were no longer successful. Beginning with the OPEC oil embargo of 1972 to 1973 and continuing with the severe global competi- tion of the 1980s and early 1990s, many managers saw that environmental condi- tions had become chaotic. The Japanese began to dominate world commerce with their ideas of team leadership and superb quality. This became an era of great con- fusion for leaders. They tried team-based approaches, downsizing, reengineering, quality programs, and empowerment as ways to improve performance and get more motivation and commitment from employees. This is the era of the team leader and the change leader. Influence was impor- tant because of the need to change organizational structures and cultures. This era sees the emergence of knowledge work, an emphasis on horizontal collaboration, and a shift to influence theories. Rather than conceiving of leadership as one person always being firmly in charge, leadership is often shared among team leaders and members, shifting to the person with the most knowledge or expertise in the matter at hand.42
Leadership Era 4 Enter the digital, mobile, social-media age. It seems that every- thing is changing, and changing fast. Era 4 is the era of the agile leader who has made the leap to giving up control in the traditional sense. Leaders emphasize rela- tionships and networks, and they influence others through vision, meaning, pur- pose, and values rather than management authority and control. They are constantly experimenting, learning, and changing, in both their personal and pro- fessional lives, and they encourage the development and growth of others so that followers are expanding their capabilities and contributing to innovation. Era 4 requires the full scope of leadership that goes far beyond rational management or even team leadership.
Implications The flow from Great Man leadership to rational management to team leadership to agile leadership illustrates trends in the larger world. The implication is that leadership reflects the era or context of the organization and society. Most of todays organizations and leaders are still struggling with the transition from a sta- ble to a chaotic environment and the new skills and qualities needed in this circum- stance. Thus, Era 3 issues of diversity, team leadership, empowerment, and horizontal relationships are increasingly relevant. In addition, many leaders are rap- idly shifting into Era 4 leadership by focusing on change management and facilitat- ing a vision and values to encourage high performance, agility, and continuous adaptation in a fast-shifting world. Agile leaders align themselves with new social technologies that can create networks of leaders throughout the organization. Era 3 and Era 4 leadership is what much of this book is about.