How will you describe Albert’s leadership style? Does his style match the circumstance that confronted him? If not, what might be the problem of his style? To what extent did Albert’s leadership style influence the attitude of the staff in both the short term and the long term? Would you consider that his style should be the same towards all staff? With your knowledge of the leadership theories, provide an appropriate theory that explains the behaviour of Albert. Be sure to justify your choice of theory.
Albert Asamoah-Mensah is an American-born Ghanaian, who was raised and lived most of 36 years in the United States. He attended one of the renowned universities in the US. He has had a successful career as a Risk Manager at the Sunbeam Financial Services, a multi-billion company in the US. The Company was renowned for achieving consistent improvement in its profit-margin and share prices. Albert was instrumental in this success story. To all intent and purposes, Albert exemplified a meticulous person, and paid attention to every detail. The Company had its subsidiary in Ghana, which was going through a state of temporal fluctuation because of the increased competition and changes in the external environment. Albert was appointed and posted to head the Company’s operations in Ghana in1996. For his mandate, he had complete authority and reserved the right to make decision to reward or reprove employees, and was unquestionably responsible for his decisions. He had reputation of giving detailed orders and instructions to his staff. Albert was aware of the lack of accurate data on individual credit ratings in Ghana and the national high financial risk rating. Consequently, he reckoned that the nature of the work of the company involved a high level of risk and required that precision to exact specification of task was critical.
Albert wasted no time to make his intentions known after assuming his new position. Within the first two years of assumption of office, he became renowned across board to the admiration of all for indiscriminately rewarding those who demonstrated zeal and diligence, and punishing or firing non-performers. By the third year, he had fired about forty per cent (40%) of the workforce he came to meet in the Company, either for non-performance or persistent lateness to work or for not adhering to instructions. This notwithstanding, many people had also enjoyed several benefits including paid-for vacations. He also took special personal interest in the staff’s off-the-job lives and made efforts to promote their personal welfare. With his paternal care, the staff were also expected to demonstrate loyalty, respect and compliance to the leaders. He also recruited very brilliant and talented professional who were well remunerated to support the Company’s operations.
Perhaps Albert had come to Ghana in with a mistaken belief that Ghanaians were generally lazy and naturally dislike working, but later realised that what he held early on was to the contrary. He found out that the people could be ambitious and self-motivated and that given the right conditions, they enjoyed doing their jobs with little supervision. They liked to seek and accept responsibility, and applied their creativity in solving work-related problems. He had held the view that his job demanded a strong centralised control. He therefore considered that adopting a participative leadership style might result in delay and problems due to exclusion of some key staff and deliberately adopted an authoritative management style as part of his leadership strategy. He would even hesitant to let his senior managers apply their skills and utilise the workforce. Soon, Albert became overconfident with his grandiose visions about his own importance, and believed he is special and has unique gifts that the others did not. In short, he developed a sense of entitlement and everything revolved around him because he thought he was better than the others. Thomas, one of his lieutenants, recalled:
“I once completed an assignment in which I did about 90% of the work. In a meeting in which my boss gave the report, he took complete credit for actually doing the work. I was stunned that this man did not at least acknowledge my input in the report. My boss really believed he had done all by himself. Well, I figured he was the boss, so everything that we achieved was something he had done,”
Howbeit, his management and leadership style paid off, and helped to improve the Company’s organisational efficiency and contributed to its profit by the third year. One of the senior managers remarked that,
“The results would indicate the vision, confidence and pride in his own achievements within a relatively short time could presumably translate into his effective leadership in the Company.”
- How will you describe Albert’s leadership style? Does his style match the circumstance that confronted him? If not, what might be the problem of his style?
- To what extent did Albert’s leadership style influence the attitude of the staff in both the short term and the long term? Would you consider that his style should be the same towards all staff?
- With your knowledge of the leadership theories, provide an appropriate theory that explains the behaviour of Albert. Be sure to justify your choice of theory.
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