The leadership style adopted by the person in power can lead to an unnecessary crisis or an unexpected good relationship between the leaders and the subordinates. It is the case between Wanda and Beverly from the case study. Wanda and Beverly were close friends when they were working in Consumer Credit Services Department as senior representatives. However, six months after Wanda was promoted into a supervisory role in the Consumer Credit Services Department her relationship with Beverly had turned sour. The reason for the change of the situation was the fact that Wanda chooses to go for a less experienced individual while selecting her assistant while they had worked with Beverly for almost four years. Besides, Beverly has always been against Wanda ideas and directives especially in meetings.
Wanda has a supervisory problem with Beverly because Beverly always opposes Wanda’s ideas and directives. It had happened severally but according to Wanda two instances stood out in her mind account. At one point shortly after Wanda being appointed as the head of the Unit she had issued a change in the account of processing procedures as a strategy to eliminate a problem that existed in the system. Beverly stormed into Wanda’s office after receiving a memo on the proposed changes and explained a reason as to why the changes would not work. In the latest account about that's days meeting which she had used to describe the changes that the Credit Unit was going to make to help the Winston County to attain its goal of getting a new computer system in place. As usual, Beverly was the first to mention that if the changes were implemented, things in the department would be chaotic and she explained the reason and most of the employees agreed with her. The worst thing was that she was often right. The problem was Wanda’s leadership style.
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The problem was that Wanda was an autocratic leader and a micro-manager. Leaders who adopt this leadership style hold authority and responsibility ( Bolden, 2016) . The leader makes decisions without consulting the subordinates and communicate them and expect to be implemented by the assistants. After being promoted, Wanda was under pressure to show that she was capable of running the Unit. Therefore, she became a “hands-on” manager ( Bolden, 2016) . Wanda would have called for a meeting and consulted the subordinates on how they thought things would be run in the Unit after she was promoted. It would have been the first step in creating rapport.
At the moment Wanda has to adapt to a new leadership style to be able to address her stalemate with Beverly. Wanda has to become a democratic leader consulting her subordinates including Beverly ( Kest, 2006) . Instead of making decisions and communication to the subordinates through meetings or memorandums, it would be wise to include them in the decision making process. It would make the decision-making process inclusive and the implementation of strategies collaborative ( Thuijsman, 2015) . Some of the specific actions she can take include creating a friendship with Beverly by making her assistant. Beverly has experience in running things in the department, and she makes a perfect assistant. Beverly can ask help from the team in implementing the new computer system in the department. The employees will provide a suggestion, and the best alternatives will be selected. In addition, Wanda could use help from employees in making a decision and implementing the necessary changes to improve the credit department.
References
Bolden, R. (2016). Leadership, management, and organizational development. In Gower handbook of leadership and management development (pp. 143-158). Routledge.
Kest, R. T. (2006). Principles of leadership: Leadership management. Futurics , 30 (1/2), 52.
Thuijsman, T. (2015). Leadership styles and their influence on employees regarding the acceptance of organizational change (Bachelor's thesis, University of Twente).
https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/57436/mod_book/chapter/121632/BUS%205411%20U3%20Case%20Study.pdf
