Leadership in Action: Affecting Change

Leadership in Action: Affecting Change

The intent of this analysis is to evaluate how Smith & Falmouth (S&F) can manage its e-tailing program S&F Online to become a profitable Strategic Business Unit. The methods of control, current cultures of the department and the organization and the dynamics of the organization are defined. Strategies for attaining very aggressive growth including a 100% increase in the customer base are making the new COO's job quite challenging. As the new leader of a diverse team, the COO needs to move quickly to attain credibility and earn the trust and respect of the S&F Online while also motivating them to get to the 100% new customer growth target the CEO has mandated.

Analysis of Current Methods of Control and Culture

The staff of S&F Online including the Logistics and Web Development teams and the managers has to this point had a high degree of autonomy in their roles, complimented by a very strong sense of purpose. These two factors, autonomy and purpose, combined with mastery are the three core determinants of job satisfaction in addition to long-term learning (Crespell, Hansen, 2008). The S&F Online team has also had to rely on collaborative work processes that have also further galvanized the trust and cooperation of the team. Add to this the fact that they are taking on complex system and process integration tasks with logistics systems throughout their parent company, and the reputation of the team internally as one of importance to the online strategies is increased. In short, this team perceives itself as blazing the trail to online sales for their parent company. All of these factors together create an environment where technical expertise and quickness of development matter far more than traditional chain-of-command, and where leadership is more dictated by knowledge than by title. This is the reason that the Marketing Manager has little if any political clout in this organization while the Project Manager is really the acting COO at this point.

Control factors are based more on the evaluation of quality of work, performance, and contributions by peers than by a hierarchically-placed manager or executive for example. In organizational cultures such as S&F Online it is common to see promotions given to the de facto leaders of these teams to preserve the collaborative relationships and therefore continue the relationships between team members that produced results. Introducing a COO into any organization such as S&F Online is a risk, yet the CEO in this case study Irene feels it is warranted to get the aggressive growth targets needed.

There is also a heavy reliance on cross-functional team reporting and the use of metrics for managing the logistics integration to the parent company. The Logistics manager however does not have the credibility to scale his role to leader of all of S&F Online due to the inaccuracy of his figures, and the Marketing Manager is for the most part isolated, no doubt seen as a corporate overseer by the Logistics and Web Development teams. The Project Manager in this case study has the potential to be a more transformational leader than he already is with further mentoring and training. He shows this in how transformational leaders can assist those around them to deal with exceptional levels of stress (Lyons, Schneider, 2009) as the team transitions to a COO and also has the high goals of attaining a 100% increase in new customer sales.

In conclusion the positive aspects of control in this organization include the support for autonomy and purpose, with the potential of mastery of their positions over the long-term if given the chance. 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).