Summary Of Leadership At Fortuga Artisans

Doug Jeffers was a beloved interior designer who was renowned for his interior design acumen. Mr. Fortuga hired him as CEO to lead Fortuga Artisans Inc. to the next level. Unfortunately, the company suffered greatly mainly due to the new CEO’s poor leadership style, approach, and strategy. Employees and artisans started leaving the firm and even those who were left were possibly looking for alternative employment. The specific elements of leadership at Fortuga Artisans are outlined below:
Leadership Style
According to Leadership That Gets Results by Daniel Goleman, the six distinct types of leaders are pacesetting, authoritative, affiliative, coaching, coercive, and democratic. Coercive leaders demand total and immediate compliance with their
Position-based leadership focuses on hierarchy rather than a person’s character which is in contrast to person-based leadership. The results-based approach focuses on outcomes but there is a dilemma in that great results can arise from good leadership or from good organizations (Grint, 2010). Doug Jeffer’s leadership approach is position-based. He believed that simply because he sat at the helm of Fortuga Artisans, everyone must yield to his demands. Therefore, he took people for granted and opted to make decisions in a vacuum. Rather than propel the business forward, this approach only led to employee attrition and even those who stayed were seeking alternative employment. His approach was so bad that in a blatant show of sexism, he replaced female VPs with male
is attrition of talent. Jeffers’ coercive leadership and person-based approach to leadership have created a bad work environment thus making employees quit. Sigmund Freud developed three kinds of personalities; obsessive, erotic, and narcissistic. While personalities cannot be judged as right or wrong, research shows that different personality types yield positive and negative outcomes (Northouse, 2013). In this case, Jeffer’s narcissistic personality had cost the company valuable members and more people would follow suit. In the end, Fortuga Artisans will be condemned to a shell of its former self.
Aside from coercive leadership and person-based approach, employee dissatisfaction, talent attrition, and sexism can be linked to Jeffer’s lack of leadership strategy. Considering that Fortuga Artisans had an international presence and was likely to expand its global footprint, a good leadership strategy calls for increased gender and cultural sensitivity. Another strategy is promoting greater interdependence among leaders and practicing talent management practices (Pasmore, 2014). Instead, Jeffer’s is too wrapped up in narcissism to develop a