management writing

Pair 1

Each team pair is required to complete Sections 1 and 2 of this form. Provide a solid rationale as to why you view this person as a leader. Begin to apply concepts and theories from Chapters 8 and 9.

Section 1 - Overview

Leader Name:	Adam Marre
Student Names:	Ryan Egan & Abdulla Ahmaid
Email address:
Name of Organization:	AdamLouis
Position or Title:	CEO/Founder
One paragraph summary of why you chose to interview this individual: When pressed to pick a leader to interview, we decided to ask Adam because he was a contact that Ryan was on excellent terms with as well as he fit the bill perfectly. He is an entrepreneur who started his own business straight out of university. He slowly built it up from working by himself to building a large team of employees. Therefore, he had first hand and recent experience learning to be a leader as well as a wealth of personal experiences relating to leadership.

Section 2 – Pair 1 Post Reflection - Two paragraphs

1. What conclusions can you make about the individual’s leadership style?

2. How does s/he motivate others within the organization?

Adam motivates his employees by focusing on empowering and engaging them as much as possible. He believes that people have the judgment and the skills to get things done and that they mostly just need to be left alone in order to succeed. He particularly likes the phrase, “I trust your judgment.” He has found that when you maximize people’s freedom to the extent you can for a task, you get the best results. Of course, in return for this freedom, he has high expectations on the quality of their work and for them to meet deadlines and follow basic guidelines. He prefers a process he calls the “Vietnam maneuver”; basically, you are given a gun and told jump out of the helicopter. So you have to either shoot the other guy or die or in other words, the employee has to perform or fail, right off the bat. By providing his employees with all the right tools and dropping them into their positions, they learn and become experts much faster than any training program could manage. Thus, he gets better returns on their performance much faster.

A look at the motivation theories in Chapter 9 of our text seems to bring two theories in particular that apply to his leadership style; McGregor’s Theory Y and the Four Drive Theory. (Stephen P. Robbins, 2013) The way he describes the way he views his employees is straight out what the text says on Theory Y. He believes that employees are capable and naturally want to succeed. All he has to do is create the most general of circumstances where they can succeed and they will take it from there. Both McGregor and Adam propose that maximizing challenge, participation, and good relationships are the ways to motivate employees. (Stephen P. Robbins, 2013, p. 250)

Additionally, his particular style of motivation seems to have strong tenants similar to the four drive theory. He tries to address two of the “proactive drives”, the drives to bond and learn, from the Four-Drive theory and include aspects of them in the working environment. (Stephen P. Robbins, 2013, p. 251) His “Vietnam maneuver” is how he uses the drive to learn as motivation; especially how he creates a “learn or fail” set of circumstances for his employees. He told us about how he often would take employees out of the office on trips into town for random outings. There wouldn’t be a plan and they would just figure out what to do as they went along. From these outings came some the best work ideas, because the outings, themselves, encouraged the kind of mindset that he wanted in the office. This seems to be an example using the drive to bond as a powerful tool for motivation.

Bus 150 Assignment 2

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Pair 2

Each team pair is required to complete Sections 1 and 2 of this form. Provide a solid rationale as to why you view this person as a leader. Begin to apply concepts and theories from Chapters 8 and 9.

Section 1 - Overview

Leader Name:
Student Names:
Email address:
Name of Organization:
Position or Title:
One paragraph summary of why you chose to interview this individual:

Section 2 – Pair 2 Post Reflection - Two paragraphs

1. What conclusions can you make about the individual’s leadership style?

2. How does s/he motivate others within the organization?

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Section 3 -- INTERVIEW SUMMARY TABLE

Complete the following table for each of the leaders that you interviewed.

Integrate Chapters 8 and 9 leadership and motivation theories and concepts into your summaries.

Criteria	Leader 1 Name/Student Names	Leader 2 Name/Student Names
Leadership What leadership style/s were identified? How does their particular style fit in with the theories discussed in Chapter 8?	· Laissez-faire with a touch of autocratic · Has a very participative leadership style according to Hersey & Blanchard’s theory
Does the interviewee consider themselves more of a manager or a leader?	· Leader – he aspires to be someone people follow, rather than someone who order’s people around.
What characteristics/traits were identified as important?	· Passion – “insanity with a twinge of reality” · Ability to rile people up
What characteristics/traits could potentially damage a leader’s career?	· Loss of self confidence · Loss of perceived competence · “you can be at only 40% of self-confident, then suddenly everyone else is only at 20% because you aren’t at your best”
Power What sources of power does the interviewee use? · Position power (reward, coercive, legitimate) · Personal power (expert, referent)	· Prefers to use legitimate and expert power · He uses legitimate power in that he makes sure he has the “final say”; complete veto power at the end of the day. · He believes that the leader should be seen to be the best at what they do so that they always have expert power
Motivation How does this individual motivate his/her employees? Theories? (apply Chapter 9)	· Promotes employee participation and engagement · McGregor’s Theory Y is almost a total description of his motivational style · He believes that people are naturally there to work and that to get the best results, you simply need to provide the tools and guidelines for them to succeed · Also seems to apply Four drive theory in that he seeks to use drives to bond an learn to motivate
Developing Trust Dimensions of trust – which ones were identified? What other traits or characteristics were mentioned?	· Identified competence, consistency, and openness · Trust is immensely important to Adam or otherwise, in his words, “what’s the point?” · Competence and consistency came up when he talked about how important self-confidence is and how employees need to see the leader as someone who is the best at what they do · Openness is present based on his team-building adventures, the extent to which he practices his laissez-faire style, and how he values being the “trusted advisor”
Advice and Current Issues What advice did this individual suggest?	· Nothing you can read or study will help. · Team building and social bonding are essential. · “Fun is also part of being a leader.”
What current issues were identified?	· There is too little trust from the top down in today’s world. · Too little autonomy for workers. · The way leaders lead and control their employees stifles creativity too much.

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Section 4 – Team Summary Report