Management Course. Leadership Case

1. What types of power are available to you? Which ones do you use most? Why?

Given one’s position as a plain student, there are not many ways to use power, but anyway there are some cases where power can be useful. Those cases are basically related to personal power, given the fact that there is not much formality in a student life beyond a classroom. In that sense, perhaps it is easily to use expert power when developing a team work assignment. It is normal that colleagues tend to follow the guidance and advices of one of them that has an outstanding level in one specific field. Besides, sometimes one is respected among others and some people may come to you looking for help, being then the referent power a powerful tool.

2. Do you think that most managers in real life use a contingency approach to increase their leadership effectiveness? Discuss.

Generally, given this globalized world we live, organizations tend to face more and more complex environment and that may lead to most complex operation that will require a wide range of rules set by management in order to get things done in a proper way. Besides, some markets seem to be currently saturated and that fact may affect the way business operate making even more difficult to keep the profit motivation. All in all, the more complex is the environment the more complex will the situation to manage and from that idea we can infer that there is not a universal way of managing a business, and therefore managers will be needed to adapt to the precise situation of every particular firm in order to develop their leading skills to a greater level.

3. If you were to ask people why a given individual is a leader, they tend to describe the persons in terms such as competent, consistent, self-assured, inspiring a shared vision, and enthusiastic. How do these descriptions fit in with leadership concepts presented in the chapter?

In describing the characteristics and behaviors of a leader, many individuals...