Harry Rankin Leadership Case Study: Style, Team, and Growth
This case study examines the leadership challenges facing Harry Rankin, a manager whose largely laissez-faire style has contributed to employee turnover, poor team communication, and unclear project direction. The paper analyzes Rankin's current approach, argues for a shift toward participative leadership, and outlines concrete steps he should take to stabilize his team and address motivational issues. It also considers what Rankin must do to position himself for advancement, including developing the interpersonal and communication skills required to lead other leaders effectively.
- Rankin's Current Leadership Style: Diagnosing Rankin's laissez-faire and autocratic tendencies
- Immediate Steps Rankin Should Take: Concrete actions to stabilize the team now
- What Rankin Must Do to Advance: Skills needed to move into a senior leadership role
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper diagnoses a real management problem clearly, identifying Rankin's style as laissez-faire with autocratic undertones and connecting that diagnosis directly to observable consequences such as employee turnover and low morale.
- Each section moves logically from diagnosis to recommendation, giving the analysis a practical, action-oriented structure that is useful in applied business contexts.
- The argument is grounded in specific case details — Sally's departure, Nichole's question, the LA team dynamic — rather than abstract theory, which strengthens the credibility of each claim.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied case analysis: using a theoretical framework (leadership style typology) to interpret a real scenario and derive actionable recommendations. This technique requires moving beyond description to causal explanation — the writer does not just note that employees are leaving, but links turnover to Rankin's failure to engage ambition and provide vision.
Structure breakdown
The paper follows a three-part case-response structure. The first section diagnoses Rankin's leadership style and recommends participative leadership. The second section translates that recommendation into immediate, concrete actions. The third section zooms out to consider Rankin's longer-term career trajectory and the interpersonal skills he must develop. Together the three sections move from analysis to short-term action to long-term development.
Rankin's Current Leadership Style
Rankin's leadership style is almost entirely laissez-faire. He does not appear to have great insight into what his team members are feeling or how they are handling their work. His favorite team — the one in Los Angeles — is the one that does not bother him with anything. He works hard and simply expects that everyone else on the team will work just as hard and without complaint, which is an unrealistic standard to impose on others.
There is also an autocratic element to his style, in the sense that he expects people to do what he asks without question. His response to Sally, while honest, essentially assumed she would follow his instructions without further discussion. He did not truly engage with her — when she asked about her career pathway, he offered her nothing meaningful. It was therefore unsurprising that she would move on. Most employees with any degree of ambition will make a lateral move, or even take a step back, in order to put themselves in a position to continue growing.
For this situation, a participative leadership style would be far more appropriate, for several reasons. First, Rankin needs to get the two remaining Chicago team members working together again — that is critical both to completing the project and to avoiding further attrition. The participative approach would also put him in a better position to understand what is happening with his team members, which is clearly a significant gap in his current practice.
Another major benefit of participative leadership is that it would encourage Rankin to apply the same approach in his upward communications as he would with his team. His team needs clarity about the project's vision and timeline. Harry has allowed senior management to drive his team hard without securing that information, and as a result, team members are losing motivation. Even the Los Angeles group, who are executing well, may struggle to sustain effort if they have no sense of when the project will end. Rankin needs to participate upwards as well as downwards in order to get everyone on the same page and present a vision his team can genuinely commit to.
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