Leadership

Question: Describe and compare the managerial behavior of Ben and Phil. To what extent does each manager display specific relation behaviors (supporting, developing, recognizing) and specific task behaviors (clarifying, planning, monitoring)? To what extent does each manager use participative or inspirational leadership?

Ben Samuels and Phil Jones have quite and opposite thinking in the means and terms of leadership. Ben is an employee oriented boss who is more interested in people and focused on their needs and requirements both in the means of their personal and professional lives. Phil on the other hand, is more of a task or job oriented boss whose interest of entirely focused on productivity, efficiency, cost-reduction and timely scheduling which further carries his mode of work and devotion towards achievement of goals and facilitation of work.

Ben is more of a democratic manager making the work environment leading towards job satisfaction, while Phil is autocratic manager who tends to gain higher productivity making the workers feel more hostile, which would also lead towards less production in case of the absence of the manager. To be concluded, both types of leadership have their own merits and demerits. People would be happy to work under Ben’s leadership but the company would incur more costs and the productivity would be less while on Phil’s leadership, productivity would be more and costs would decrease but the people would be unhappy in this environment and it would also lead to employee turnover.

Ben utilizes relation oriented and change oriented behaviors to improve overall efficiency among his employees, which included building a fitness center, sponsoring yearly picnics and holiday parties, avoiding layoffs, visiting each and every employee and speaking to them in a friendly manner, supporting them, remembers their names, treating them equally, widely concerned for the needs and feelings of the subordinates, holding training programs for them and helping them in case of any problems. Ben believes that if he would take care of his employees, then they will perform at a higher level. Ben did less monitoring to his subordinates work progress, never did any planning, delegates decision making to his subordinates oh his beliefs that they are trustworthy and are capable of doing so.