Leadership in Action: Affecting Change Thesis

Second, as a spin-off division focused on electronic commerce, systems integration and increasing sales of F&H products online there is a definite status level associated with being a member of this group. For any new manager or COO of this group that can work for or against them, depending on how the new leader manages the transition. Finally the controls in place are focused purely on logistics and order management functions so the group is no doubt evaluated from its efficiency at systems and process integration as well.

Recommendation for Restructuring the Department

Clearly after studying the simulation S&F Online needs significant restructuring organizationally and the use of more transformational leadership strategies is also needed. First, the Project Manager needs to be promoted to Operations Director, S&F Online, with the Logistics Manager reporting to him. The Marketing Manager needs to stay reporting to the COO and also having their dotted line reporting to corporate. The Web Development Team would report directly to the Project Manager, and the Logistics Manager would still have the Logistics Team reporting to them as well. This is in effect the structure of S&F Online today as well. The COO then would work with the Project Manager on setting and achieving corporate objectives and also setting a career path for him to be eventually promoted to a vice president title. This would serve to give the Project Manager all three attributes of job satisfaction including autonomy, mastery and purpose of his role (Crespell, Hansen, 2008).

Second through the use of transformational leadership strategies each group would be given a quarterly and yearly objective and asked to present their plans for how they would attain it. This engrains ownership of the tasks with each team and also supports strategies towards giving them an opportunity to gain mastery over their tasks (Zhu, Avolio, Walumbwa, 2009). As is the case in many organizations which have exceptionally aggressive objectives, the hybrid approach to transformational and transactional leadership from a purely positive standpoint can also be used successfully for managing F&H Online. Having performance targets for group and individual performance that are entirely aligned only to their teams promotes team accountability and cohesiveness and also creates a strong sense of purpose as well. The COO also needs to create a monthly overview of all operating metrics and praise the top performers of the team in front of everyone and also invite the CEO to each of these monthly reviews. The idea of doing this is to show the entire division that the COO is committed to their career progression and recognition throughout the entire company. Finally the COO needs to give the Project Manager the necessary authority to reward employees for exceptional effort with raises and promotions as well (Crespell, Hansen, 2008). As for the COO their role needs to be focused on delivering a consistent vision that explicitly states where each person's contributions fit into the broader efforts of the entire division. Once these strategies are accomplished F&H Online will succeed.

References

Boga, I., & Ensari, N. (2009). The Role of Transformational Leadership and Organizational Change on Perceived Organizational Success. The Psychological - Manager Journal, 12(4), 235.

Crespell, P., & Hansen, E.. (2008). Managing for innovation: Insights into a successful company. Forest Products Journal, 58(9), 6-17.

Lyons, J., & Schneider, T. (2009). The effects of leadership style on stress outcomes. Leadership Quarterly, 20(5), 737.

Zhu, W., Avolio, B., & Walumbwa, F. (2009). Moderating Role of Follower Characteristics with Transformational Leadership and Follower Work Engagement. Group & Organization Management, 34(5), 590.