Introduction: Case
Study on Listo’s supervision
Suki Andrews, a sales supervisor,
works for supervising some sales representatives at Listo Systems. Recently,
customers have started complaining her sales officer about not completing of
invoice orders sufficiently and negligence of daily tasks and performances.
However, Suki requested her sales representatives to come into a meeting with
listed occurring problems. Then she figured out the reasons why the company is
suffering from major financial hardships- a loss of sales and customers. For
overcoming these problems, she decided to monitor the invoices and daily tasks
and follow up any complaints from customers and sales officer.
1.
What are some of Suki’s actions that
indicate task behavior?
In the case, Suki is working as a sale
supervisor at Listo Systems. Her roles and responsibilities are to maintain and
control sales representatives and an officer. Task behaviors are those
task-related activities which leader engages in organizing and assigning the
roles and responsibilities of an individual or group by explaining them what to
do, how to do, when to do, where and who is to do it. It clearly indicates that
directions and supervision of the company granted by the leaders to their
followers. Here are some of Suki’s actions that indicate task behavior.
·
Doing
negotiations and her decisions for further improvements.
·
Analysis
of the performance schedule and daily tasks associated with sales officers and
sales representatives.
·
Inviting Sales representatives for a meeting
and listing of already occurred problems.
·
Monitoring
the invoices daily and making a meeting with the responsible sales officer to
follow up on any complaints from customers.
Hence, having said all the above,
these are the behavioral tasks shown by Suki that indicates task behaviors.
2.
Is Suki’s level of task behavior high
or low? Why?
Suki’s task behavior is above average
task behavior which means high. Since she is more active in making tasks
related behaviors such as daily tasks, handling complaints and low performances
from customers, scheduling daily tasks and invoice procedures, and calling up the
meeting and listed the problems that were occurring. She, for example, made an
immediate meeting by calling her sales representative to discuss about how to
reduce the number of customers’ complaints. Not only that, she also provided
all the necessary information and directions required for the sales
representatives and the sales officers to pursue the company’s decision regarding
the performance improvements.
Thus, it can be said that her task behavior is
high in terms of her involvements activities in order to maintain and improve the
performance of the company.
3.
Which of Suki’s actions indicated
relationship behavior?
Relationship behavior refers to an
extent to which the leader engages in two-way communication. Relationship
behaviors include leaders’ behaviors such as listening, facilitating and
explaining the whys of something while offering supportive behavior.
In this case, there are complaints
receiving from customers that her sales officers are not involving with invoice
quick orders and neglecting daily tasks. She participated them, listened their
views and opinions regarding major activities. In the given case, Suki has
shown some certain relationship behaviors to her employees while performing and
improving customer relationship. They are as follows:
·
While
there is monitoring activities, there need to be two way communications which
indicates relationship behavior.
·
Calling
up a meeting and discussing also needs listening, facilitating and supporting
activities.
·
Reducing customers’ complaints and realizing
them with their unresponsiveness and omissions.
·
Making
sales representatives more responsible and assigning them more with a sense of
duties.
Hence, the above activities point out
some of the relationship behavior of Suki’s actions.
4.
Is Suki’s level of relationship
behavior high or low? Why?
Being a sales supervisor, although, she
listened to all the complaints received and took certain actions in order to
figure out the problems, she has a level of low relationship behavior. Suki’s
behaviors are considered as low as comparison to task behaviors. In the case,
it is seen that her behavior is low than average relationship behavior because
she is not actively involved in supporting and facilitating the sales
representatives.
In her meeting, she talked as well as
listened to how the company has been doing, how to bring improvements and how
to alleviate the problems and negligence. Apart from these, she made a few
details and the future tasks to improve customer complaints. To be high
relationship, she needs to be involved very highly with more talking,
listening, and communicating and coordinating with sales representatives and
sales officers. Hence, Suki’s level of relationship behavior is below than
average.
5.
Which leadership style was Suki using
(S1, S2, S3, or S4)?
The leadership style is S1 because
there is high task and low relationship behaviors. It is known from above case
that she is highly involved in task behavior where low relationship behavior can
be noticed. Therefore, she was using S1 leadership style for improving
organizational behavior.
6.
Did Suki’s leadership style match what
was needed in the situation? Why or why not?
From the case, it seems that Suki’s
leadership style do not match with what was needed in the situation. She is likely
to be involved in more task behavior and less likely to be involved in
relationship. However, the situation
needs S2 leadership style because the given situation has no more relationship
behavior.
In the given case, she is using
leadership style 1 but to improve the condition of customers’ complaints she
has to use the leadership style 2 in which more tasks and more relationship
behavior can be observed. She has to communicate
a clear and acceptable vision and goals for achieving organizational goals. She
has tried to inspire the sales representative and sales officers for reducing
customer complaints.
Therefore, it is suggested for her
that she was not using leadership style 2 so that she needs to implement the
leadership style 2 for improving the productivity and reducing customers’
complaints.
Conclusion:
Having discussed all the above, it
would be better to use leadership style 2(S2) rather than style 1(S1). If there is high tasks and high relationship,
there is more interaction among the sales representatives and sales officers
which ultimately can lead to improvement and higher productivity in the
organization. Thus, she has to analyze the situation very carefully while
choosing leadership style to fit the situations.
References
·
P.
Hersey, Kenneth H.Blanchard, Dewey E. Johnson. (2008). Management Of
Organization Behavior: Leading Human Resources. New Jersey: Pearson
prentice Hall
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