Ben Samuels and Phil Jones show their different managerial behaviors and leadership styles while acting as the plant managers of Consolidated Products. The difference in the approaches of Ben and Phil as managers can be illustrated through their relationship-oriented strategies that were different from task-oriented policies. While Ben devoted a large proportion of his time to building relationships and developing employees, Phil emphasized performance standards and monitoring.
Ben’s Managerial Behavior
Ben Samuels successfully practiced relationship behaviors such as supporting, developing, and recognizing employees, which aligned with the organizational goals. His supportive acts ranged from the facility of fitness centers for employees, organizing social activities like company picnics and holiday parties, and showing personal interest in employees’ work lives by remembering their names and inquiring about families or activities. Ben also tried to provide jobs concerning the disabilities of employees by allocating suitable roles for them within the plant. These efforts created a friendly and effective environment for the employees to deal with.
On a behavioral aspect, Ben was offering supervisory training programs to improve the interpersonal and leadership capabilities of the leaders. Nonetheless, he did not identify key goals and standards of operation for the plant, not to mention he did not oblige supervisors to come up with a plan of activities to improve production and product quality. What this means is that there was no specific performance management, unlike clarifying roles, planning and controlling, and others.
The interactional behaviors of Ben are clarified in the way that he endeavored to avoid layoffs during slow periods, as he believed he was not going to have a competent team to continue business if he were to lay off them because they were highly specialized and hardly replaceable. This principle is that Kaizen thought that treating employees with respect would help good work come by itself, decrease workers’ management, and adjust an individual’s character as he trusted it.
Phil’s Managerial Behavior
In contrast with this, Phil Jones relied on a task-oriented management style, wherein he highlighted particular task behaviors, including role clarification, planning, and performance monitoring. He required managers to maintain and achieve their departmental units by the top standards employed. Phil was an innovator and was the spotlight luminary device that closely tracked or scanned employees’ output to their set standards, representing his focus on monitoring people’s behaviors.
Phil was someone who highly valued clear and well-thought-out strategies. Some of his well-identified behavioral traits included pushing through his sales teams to set difficult and stretching targets, running department reviews and team meetings with his managers every week, and asking supervisors to seek his consent before deviating from regular strategies. Additionally, he decreased the monthly maintenance on the equipment as part of the cost reduction measures. This unnecessary overhaul, according to him, was not helping to improve production but rather delaying it.
On the other hand, Phil lacked relationship-oriented behavior. Employee activities like the fitness center, the company picnics, and supervisory human relations training programs, which had earlier supported and expatriated employees, were curtailed. His irrational approach, “If the employees don’t want to work, then get rid of them and find somebody who does,” demonstrated no care for workers’ interests and motivation.
Influence on Employee Attitudes, Short-term Performance, and Long-term Plant Performance
Ben brought in an approach that was supportive and related to work environments, and this gave birth to employee satisfaction and loyalty, as shown by the plant’s turnover rate, which is the lowest among the company’s five plants as a whole. Yet, his preponderance in the absence of clear objectives and guiding standards induced the plant to have the second worst performance ever in the regulations of costs and production levels, depicting inapt results in the long run.
However, Phil implemented tight performance targets, monitoring, and budget cuts, which were successful in reducing the costs of production by 20% and 10%, respectively, for only the first year of his term as the plant manager. While his leadership style was personal, yet polemical and prone to scolding for errors made on the job and threats of hiring said erring workers, it led to a high employment turnover among supervisors and skilled machine operators.
Apart from that, some workers were given the boot, but so were others with talents who could manage the machines that they left. In addition, the talk of unionizing became more prevalent among the workers. Perhaps it was a natural progression from the growing saturation of workers to the undesirable corporate consequences under Phil’s management leadership.
Phil’s first characteristic is providing clear targets and holding both employees and the workshop responsible for producing high-quality machined parts within the set limits while Ben is mainly focused on making sure the workers are satisfied but there is no room provided for measuring the employees and the workshop performance.
Recommendations for Achieving High Employee Satisfaction and Performance
Being the manager of this plant, I will ensure relationship-oriented and task-oriented aspects of my behavior that would merge the satisfaction and performance of employees at high levels simultaneously. Here are my recommendations:
Establish clear performance objectives and standards: Establishing Key Performance Indicators, which are specific, measurable, and achievable is a good start for departments’ and employees’ performance goals, with alignment to the organization’s goals. Engage your staff in the process of goal-setting to promote their involvement and motivation. Welcome to my sports blog. Through this blog, I aim to explore topics centering on sports’ role and impact on society and culture. Sports have always played a vital role in individuals’ lives across many nations on our planet. However, when it comes to society and culture, the influence of sports is vast and intricate.
Implement a comprehensive performance management system: Set constant observation of performance, objective metrics incorporated, but, regularly feedback, coaching, and development opportunities for employees integrated. Find alternative ways to improve current underperformance by using such as coaching, training, and modifying performance plans, rather than sanctions.
Invest in employee training and development: Offer long-lasting training and development plans that enable employees to improve their skills, knowledge, and capabilities. With this not only performance enhanced but also taking care of the career path of employees, this becomes a symbol of the commitment the company has towards the skill development of employees within the organization.
Foster open communication and employee involvement: Keep lines of communication with employers at all positions; be responsive to ideas employees give, allowing them to collaborate. Invite the employees to participate in decision-making processes, paying particular attention to those possible changes that will affect their roles and responsibilities, thus creating a feeling of personal belonging and dedication.
Recognize and reward employee contributions: Establish a recognition and rewards system that will showcase the successes of employees, and allow them to shine while encouraging them to give their best and perform beyond their expectations. It can consist of incentives that are both monetary (e.g. bonuses, promotions) and non-monetary (e.g. public outguesses, awards).
Promote work-life balance and employee well-being: Host programs and projects designed to boost employee well-being. For instance, it can include workouts, games, and remote work, which can be referred to as employee assistance programs. This shows that the fuel of the smile motif of this firm is a concern for workers’ overall well-being and contributes to the increases in employee satisfaction and loyalty.
Lead with integrity and inspire a shared vision: Unmistakably, make known to people the mission, values, and goals of the organization, and endeavor to implement these ideals and governing principles. Achieve the purpose of inspiring employees by clearly showing their devotion to the vision of the organization and connecting their work with the fulfillment of the organization`s goals.
Adopting these steps will help the facility to develop a two-way intelligent work environment of cooperation and fairness, thus, allowing employees to retain their self-value, fulfilling and comfortable job duties.
This balanced method includes providing clear work objectives, development, communication, openness, and caring about employees as people can help gain success in the long term and ensure employee high levels of performance constantly.
References
Northouse, P. G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and practice (8th ed.). Sage publications.
Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2019). Organizational behavior (18th ed.). Pearson Education.
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