Three Shifts, Three Supervisors

1. Based on the principles of the path-goal theory, Carol appears to be more effective than Art and Bob. As a leader, she possesses behaviors that result in motivated followers. Carol shows directive leadership by ensuring that her group understands what needs to be done and how to do it. She has trouble-shooting meetings for the group and stresses the company goals and what rewards can come from achieving those goals. In addition to directive leadership, she also shows supportive leadership towards her followers. Carol spends time with her individual workers to go over their personal goals and builds up their morale when they are down. These leadership behaviors have attributed to her effectiveness as a supervisor in her company.

2. Each leadership style from the three supervisors affects the motivation of their respective subordinates in different ways. Carol’s style has created a group of motivated employees with Art and Bob’s groups left lacking motivation. Carol’s directive and supportive leadership causes her followers to like her. Art has a more task-oriented style of leadership, which leaves his followers bored at the job. Bob expressed a supportive leadership style. Employees under Bob do not have direction on what they need to get done. Bob would need more task oriented behaviors, which Art showed, in order to increase the motivation from his followers.

3. If I were consulting with Brako about leadership, I would first provide a Path-Goal Leadership Questionnaire to each supervisor. I would also evaluate the employees within the three different shifts to address the situations. Once I gather all the pertinent information from all parties, meaning from the leaders and followers, I would acknowledge the issues that exist in the three groups and make recommendations as needed. My recommendation to Brako would be to have upper management gather the strong points of each leader and to train one another in the attributes that the others are