Chattanooga Ice Cream Company Case Analysis

Introduction

Teamwork has become so influential and determinant of outcomes on goals in many organizations. Thus, the concept of teamwork has been given a lot of attention in the management process. Instead of the old management models, contemporary management lays emphasis on leadership and effective teamwork approach. Therefore, the potential of creating and managing teams in an organization is highly valued.

Managers or top company executives are highly encouraged to prioritize the concept of teamwork at their managerial levels. The importance of teamwork is practically invaluable. From enhancing decision-making through the provision of information to achievement of organizational goals through collaborate approaches; the concept of teamwork is indispensably relevant in the management process. Effective leadership steers this concept to high-value-addition to organizational outcomes. The crisis in the Chattanooga company present a failed teamwork where member consistently “question the competency and trustworthy of each other” (Sloane, 2003)

Team management and decision-making: what went wrong in the leader?

From the case, it is evident that, the concepts of teamwork and leadership have ostensibly failed. To begin with, Moore, the president only convenes team members, who are in this case not made up of a team, at the time of crises. The first failure evident in this concept is the lack of team coordination because of role incompatibility” (Davidson, 2001) through communication. Thus, Moore has failed as a team leader in regularly updating his team member on apparent problems and thus, requesting for their suggestions because successful managers “regularly update, coach and build self confidence” in their teams (Welch, 2005).

The lack of communication in the above step creates many complications, especially in the leadership of the institution. When times of crises emerge, leaders provide ways forward and always maintain a sense of direction; even when it is not obvious. Moore on his part failed terribly in this regard and attempted to apply management principles in solution of current problems rather than providing direction for team members through motivation. As evident from their meeting, the president sought ways of solutions and did not seem optimistic of realizing any permanent solution to the problem. Thus, lack of enthusiasm from the president deducts an extremely valuable virtue from the leader. The concept shows how lack of communication leads to ineffective leadership in the management process.

It is also evident from the case that the leader does not have the full sense of awareness. According to Goleman (2009), the most influential parts of awareness, namely organizational and service awareness are missing in the leader. As a leader, one ought to have a full organizational understanding through reading the changing