Analyzing Case Study: General Products Britain Branch
General Products Britain Carl Mitchell recently accepted a position with General Products Inc. in Britain. General Products is a multinational consumer corporation. George Garrow is the general manager in charge of the British branch (Daft, 2011). Mr. Garrow is the type of manager who does not provide motivation to his employees. He is not a servant leader. He seems to be more interested in his own career than those that he leads. Mr. Mitchell reports to Mr. Garrow. Empowering leadership is to encourage followers to take initiative, to manage and control their own behavior that is to engage in self-leadership (Thoroughgood, 2011). Mr. Garrow does not know this skill. Empowering leaders, delegate significant responsibilities related to their followers ' own jobs. An empowering leader is one who leads others to influence themselves to achieve high performance, not one who leaves others doing whatever they want to do (Seokhwa Yun, 2006). Empowering leaders believe that followers themselves are an influential source of wisdom and direction, and strive to develop followers who are effective at self-leadership. They create the context within followers so they may fully utilize their capabilities. Carl Mitchell’s style is best described as self-leadership (Seokhwa Yun, 2006). As a follower, Mr. Mitchell was hopeful and willing to follow his leader but Mr. Garrow let Carl Mitchell down as a leader. I can imagine that Mr. Mitchell’s motivation has been damaged. Carl Mitchell is frustrated as a follower of Mr. Garrow’s. Mr. Mitchell should confront Mr. Garrow and share with him his frustrations. If he does not do this, it can lead to a poor leader/follower relationship between Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Garrow. Trust is the foundation of this leader/follower relationship (Seokhwa Yun, 2006). Without a sense of trust among the members, there can be no relationship. Research also shows that when trust is high in a group/organization the group members
References: Daft, R. L. (2011). The Leadership Experience. Mason: South Western Cengage Learning.
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Seokhwa Yun, J. C. (2006). The forgotten follower: a contingency model of leadership and follower self-leadership. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21(4),374-388.
Thoroughgood, C. H. (2011). Bad apples, bad barrels, and broken followers? Journal Ethics, 100(4),647-672.