Developing Leadership Skills
A good way to develop your leadership skills is to observe leaders around you. What makes you willing or unwilling to follow them?
1. The situations below describe several leaders. Ask yourself whether you would like to work under them.
a. Cindy decided that the workers under her were not producing enough. She felt they needed some goals so she spent a few evenings writing some for everyone under her. When she was finished, she handed the goals to the workers and told them they had better meet them.
b. All the workers knew exactly where they stood with Carmen, the plant manager. She did not like fooling around on the job, and she was hard on people who made careless errors. But she was ready to help when needed, and she always let everyone know exactly what was expected of them. When she had to make decisions concerning the workers, she asked them to participate and help her.
c. Colin was always driving the people under him at the photo developing plant. He was quick to punish them with fines and payless days off when they did not perform as he expected. This made Nate uncomfortable. He talked to Colin about his style of leadership, but Colin said, "That's the way I've always done it. I assume it ought to be done that way. Do you want to be let go?"
d. No one had to bother thinking in Sabina's department. She did it all for them. There was a certain way to do things and no one was allowed to do them any differently. When problems came up Sabina expected the workers to bring them to her. She felt that she was making life easy for the workers under her by having a rigid routine and eliminating their need to think as much as possible.
Post the reason for each of the evaluations you made in the Discussion Board. How could those with poor leadership skills improve?
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