Leadership case study comparison

How have or will external factors result in the overhaul of a traditional industry of your choice (such as retail or any other) as we know it? Please explain and cite examples.

To properly address the leadership transition at House, Hearth, and Home, it is critical to be respectful to bother leaders. Here, both men have provided great service to the company and are both essential to future operations. As result, both men should be treated with respect as a result of their contributions to the organization, the team, and the industry overall.

First, management should provide Wesley Simpson with an opportunity to improve his leadership performance. As indicated by the case, Simpson has a much more antiquated leadership style that is not conducive to the future business needs of the organization. As a result, his leadership skills will need to be improved in order to accommodate a changing market environment within the home improvement industry. These market changes require a much more customer service oriented and dynamic leader that can continually “wow” the customer. In addition, leaders must be able to continually improve processes to better compete with larger retailers who leverage price as their competitive advantage. Simpson, as the case alludes to, doesn’t posses many of these traits which ultimately threatens the competitive position of the firm. Here management should support Simpson by first offering their evaluation of the performance and offering training incentives to help improve his leadership, analytics and process improvement skills. If this training is accepted, management should then evaluate Simpson throughout the year to assess improvement in his leadership skills and ability. Here, it is important to be patient as Simpson has skills and abilities that have been engrained in his behavior for years and will therefore take time to adjust to (Albritton, 1990).

As it relates to Boyd, it is important for management to acknowledge his contributions to the team and his dynamic leadership style. Here management should look to increase compensation to Boyd as a means of retaining his services and discouraging him from going to the competition. In addition, management should look to give Boyd additional management responsibilities in other store departments to continue to keep him engaged throughout the process.

After giving Simpson adequate time to improve his leadership, process management, and analysis skills, management should then determine if the improvement warrants retaining the services of Simpson. After conducting an evaluation, if the improvement has occurred, Simpson should be transferred to another department that can better utilize his skills. Here, the transfer should be a much more process and task-oriented section of the business. Here, Simpson’s more even keeled nature can be leveraged in a much more productive manner. In addition, it will improve Simpsons job satisfaction and engagement as his skill set is being used much more effectively. Boyd should then transition into Simpsons former leadership role. Here, as the case notes, Boyd was already performing many of the leadership functions of the department. Here, Boyd will now have the title and pay increase to substantiate the work he is already doing (Bellman, 2001).