The position I was in was as a Contracting Engineer, and together with three other Full-Time Employees of Rockwell Collins we comprised a four-man team, one of whom was Site Manager. The project manager was the superintendent of the entire team and not considered a constituent of it.
Our objective was to install two flight simulators in an Airbase in Tuscany for the Italian Air-forces Euro-fighter Squadron.The job required us to be work and live on site for the duration for the project, which was contracted at being in the range of 6-12 months.We had full responsibility of assessing, erecting, refining, and completing the project to provide to turn-key simulators.
The Site-Manager was responsible for the three subordinates, assigning their duties on an ad hoc basis, dealing with any unforeseen eventualities that may occur on site and liaising with the Customers on site and the Project Manager, who was based in the UK.
With regards to the Project Manager, and the demanding conditions of the job we were on, out of respect to the Site Manager and the employees on site a Management style of Laissez-Faire was implemented.
�Laissez-faire leaders don't interfere; they allow people within the team to make many of the decisions. The leader lacks responsibility or authority to make a decision- leader leaves them to sort out their roles and tackle their work, without participating in this process himself. � (LCBM, 2011, Unit 1).
This served useful to our on site team and to the project for several reasons. One of the main reasons was logistics and communications. It was simply impractical to have to reference and authorize every decision with the Project Manager who was situated in the UK. Not so much due to time zone differences, although that did occasionally prove to be a problem, but mainly due to the fact that the project was inherently complex and on a step by step basis would present difficulties and problems which required quick-responses and tailored solutions.
Another reason that it proved to be beneficial is that it was salubrious to employee morale. We felt respected, dignified and esteemed to be granted such free reign of decision making and implementation on site.
We chose our own working hours, our own internal schedules, were permitted to move freely between roles if tedium or stress begun to become apparent.
This demonstrated clearly to me that the LMX (Leader-Member Exchange Theory), this being a theory in which leaders maintain their position via tacit agreements with their subordinates through a series of phases (changingminds.org), in it's final phase had matured into a very comfortable structure for the entire team. Due to our relative freedom, by the later stages each member of the team was socially accepted, ie., not a pariah.
We generally felt that apart from being home-sick on occasion that all of the �tacit agreements� had been met and surpassed. These tacit agreements I will revisit below.
As a group we were content, at ease and placated.
Furthermore, this style of Laissez-Faire was supplemented, but not commutated, by the Participative Leadership Style (wisegeek.com).
The site manager implemented the Participative style of leadership, which truly complemented the Laissez-Faire style, perhaps because the participative leadership is a modified version of Laissez-Faire (Ricketts and Ricketts, 2011, p.30).
Where it complemented, without contradicting, Laissez-Faire was in that our active and democratic participation in strategy held us accountable to each other and as such a strong camaraderie was developed whilst, all the while, encouraging a fluid system of idea development and communication. As Rickett and Rickett say, such participation not only allows the members of a group to become edified about how to implement new programs and procedures, but also facilitates interpersonal exchanges and bolsters confidence and morale (Ricketts and Ricketts, 2011, p.30).
This participative style of leadership was site specific, which means that it only existed on site and was only of concern to those on site, whilst the laissez-faire style was the general leadership styles imposed by the project manager.
Without the ultimate form of leadership being laissez-faire, as it was, we would not have had the freedom to implement the participative style on site. Effectively, one resulted in the other, which is almost poetic, considering it�s heritage; As mentioned above, Participative is a style borne of Laissez-Faire.
Although we received no direct performance related incentives, we were privvy to on site perks which included total expenses covered, free international phone calls home, complete health insurance, reimbursement for any work related peripherals and such. It could be said that the most precise description of the leadership behaviour styles used to govern and motivate the team were a precise and careful mix of contingent reward and laissez-faire (Mathhew Reis, 2010 : p.163)
Although these perks were not formally agreed to or stipulated in any contract, they were in fact, unspoken conditions paid out of respect, and in turn spurred our motivation and dedication to the company and project. These were all stipulations of the �tacit agreement�.
The reason for these being tacit neither formally, nor officially, agreed upon is due to the company having an entire network of engineers on-site at any given time, with strict rules of conduct and compensation that were universally applied. Although it was common knowledge that these perks were granted to the engineers on this particular job, it was officially considered an oversight by management and HR, as to not set grounds for other engineers on other jobs to claim inequitable treatment.
For the interest of the reader, it is unlikely that any other engineer would have complained, if the opportunity to was technically there, for it was general consensus that the perks, that is �tacit agreements�, should be higher in value and compensation.
Additionally, the method of Managing Performance was in the vain of SMART; that being Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Recognizable, Time Constrained objectives (LCBM, 2011 : Unit 1).
The performance monitoring was less about personal performance and more concerned without the project quality and deadline. There were no assessments on the employees of any kind, this once again reflected the Laissez-Faire style of Leadership that we operated under.
Due to the nature of this particular job, the teams tasked to undertake them are almost entirely removed from the corporate culture, and even contact. The only member of the team who has any contact with the main office during the entire time we are on site is the site manager.
Thus we had no exposure to any other departments within the organisation and sensed no effect from what occurred in the company, be it from the various strata of management, the work force or even any environmental factors.
Although we were supplying the simulators to the Italian Air-force, it was via contract proxy, that is to say, through a Canadian company known as CAE.
This meant we had minimal interaction with the staff stationed on the airbase and anything we wished to communicate to the personnel on base or CAE had to be through the proxy of our Project Manager. Truly, it was convoluted and kept us isolated.
Because of all these factors and conditions, we existed in a closed culture with minimal external influence.
I have herein highlighted the two main styles of management and leadership that the team I was a constituent of was subjected to, Laissez-Faire and Participative, in the hopes of giving some insight as to how these styles are employed, implemented and what effect they have when applied in a practical manner on the strategy of an organisation.
In conclusion we have seen that a variety of leadership styles are employed at a given time across the expanse of an organisation. In this case there were two styles employed in a symbiotic manner.
Laissez-Faire, which provided a great range of freedom for the subordinates under its doctrines, and resulted in a sub-culture/group, which implemented a separate style of leadership and self-regulated.
We have seen that with the right formulation of employees, and in appropriate circumstances, as detailed, that Laissez-Faire was successful in giving the organisation the framework of which to operate in for it to reach its goals.
Participative style proved to be very successful here, with it�s venerable qualities of morale building, confidence boosting and social bonding, there is great opportunity for it to evoke the best qualities out of the work force and positively encourage them to operate loyally to meet the goals and follow the strategies of an organisation.
b)The aim of this task is to demonstrate that different style of leadership and management are used in an organisation at different times and in different situations.
The appropriate management and leadership style at any one time depends on the situation, the decision or the problem being handled at that particular time. Using the organisation of your choice, evaluate how different leadership styles are required for different situations.
With regards to the Site Manager, his Leadership was of the participative style, which has been discussed in detail in section a). This style was not immediately in effect, but grew and developed in the early weeks of the project, perhaps culminating around our individual characters and the nature of the project.
As time progressed and we graduated into the Role-Making phase, the Site Manager grew more confidant in our abilities and understanding of the job at hand and began to invite open dialogue with regards to the project and our daily plans of action, and even our short term strategies.
With each problem that arose we gathered by the site manager and openly engaged in solution finding, always with positive feedback and constructive criticism. As is said by Hodgetts and Hegar, a way in which a Participative Leader commonly exercises this style is through delegating responsibilities across the lowest strata of the organisation, as well as through means of feedback (Hodgetts and Hegar, 2008 : p.341).
It is difficult to pinpoint what the initial, being merely a few weeks, style of leadership utilised by our site manager was. It is likely that the primary form of leadership actuated by the site manager was Directive Leadership. A Directive Leader can be defined as �An instructional type of managerial style characterized by a leader who tells subordinate staff what they are expected to do and how to perform the expected tasks.� (businessdictionary.com)
Perhaps this was only implemented ephemerally due to it traditionally being a style reserved for unskilled, inexperienced or immature members of a group (Pradip N. Khandwalla, 2009 : p.121), and the first few weeks of the project is primarily menial, labour-intensive type of work. Generally moving components and heavy boxes, cleaning the site to be free from contaminants and setting up the work stations.
In any case, the leadership style definitely progressed into Participative Style.
There were several situations which required impromptu response and transgression of established protocol. In order to demonstrate how various leadership styles are employed at different times, in response to different environmental stimuli, be it internal or external, I have chosen a particular incident during the course of my term in Italy because it gives a great insight as to how a leader is required to conditionally permutate his/her leadership style.
The particular situation that I would like to draw the readers attention to occurred during the final stage of completing the first simulator. I aim to introduce this situation with the reader for it demonstrates clearly how a leaders style, either naturally or consciously, responds and changes according to developing situations. This notion falls under the contextual umbrella of Situation Leadership Theory (mindtools.com). Although not a style in itself, Situational Leadership Theory dictates that a leader and his/her style is dependent on various factors, ranging across any of the following conditions:
The managers personality, knowledge, competence etc
The situation �environment (internal or external)
The nature of work
The composition of the workforce
The task
Company tradition
Type of labour force
Group size
Time
(LCBM, 2011 : Unit 5)
According to the list provided above, the cardinal conditions which influenced the decision by the site manager to temporarily apply a different leadership style were situation, the composition of the workforce and the time. Each of this will be made apparent in the example below.
This stage involved temporarily installing, calibrating and collimating a robotic arm to sit exactly centred within the simulator.
The robotic arm was fixed with spray painting equipment, set to a program and would evenly, to a tolerance of 500 microns, spray the inner surface of the simulator screen.
This paint was applied to enhance lumen refraction, amongst other optical properties.
The process would take 18 hours for the robot to complete an entire circuit, which is the entire inner surface of the simulators domed screen.Three to four coats were required in total, depending upon the results of testing undertaken between each coat.
Seeing as the process to apply one coat consumed such an extent of time and our team was comprised of only four men, it was common practice to assign duty roles by pulling straws.
Hardly professional upon first glance, but I believe the site manager implemented this method as an embellishing extension of the Participative Style that our site manager employed, as has been explicated previously.
Other than the site managers role, which was to regulate the computer program of the robot, which was situated outside the simulator dome at a computer terminal, there were three roles which needed to be manned. These were the �lackey�, �paint-boy� and the �stooge�; all non-official titles.
The lackey was the most desired role, for it involved no major responsibility, the purpose of this role was to attend to the alimentary and refreshment needs of the other members of the team. This was due to the diligent focus and constant attention required by the spraying process during the 18 hours each session lasted. Simply put, the lackey would travel off base to obtain food and drink for the team, and occasionally tending to other non-essential tasks.
Paint boy was a role which involved the team member to spend the entire day measuring, evaluating, mixing, and testing the various ingredients of the paint solution (which was mixed on site). The role also required the Paint boy to deliver the paint to the robot and filled it as when needed, never allowing the reservoir to run dry.
The stooge had the least enviable role. This required the team member unfortunate enough to have been delegated the stooge to don a bio-hazard suit, enter the simulator dome and monitor the spraying process from within for the entire day, reporting any errors or signals of malfunction to the site manager.
The process required constant attention, without a moments lack of attention, otherwise risking having to rebuild the entire simulator from scratch, for even one patch of uneven surface paint would compromise the entire integrity of the screen.
After we had completed applying the first coat, we spent about a week analysing the quality of the application and preparing to apply the next one, when rolling blackouts suddenly began to affect the power on the base.
This posed an enormous problem and required us to shift the style of leadership we were under at the time (Laissez-Faire), which without warning or opposition quickly shifted to Autocratic leadership style.
The reason this posed such a problem to the project is that the application of the painting process has to be fluent and continuous, without a single pause or intermission during the circuit. An interim of even the briefest of times would result in a �contiguation mark�, which basically means a visible line in the paint work that would be ostensible when an image is projected on it; unacceptable.
The autocratic style of leadership, although drawing parallels with various political atrocities throughout history can in some situations be the most appropriate form of leadership, is streamlined, efficacious, perfunctory in its decision making is combined with a the charge to diligently oversee and assess a subordinate workforce to result in a very domineering, overbearing, almost duress like, leadership (leadership-toolbox.com).
The site manager was able to successfully employ the qualities of an autocratic leader, where in he issued each of the team members a new role and changed them as spontaneously as new situations would arise.
No more could we offer suggestions and engage in open dialogue to resolve environmental factors that were now affecting the project, i.e.., rolling power cuts.
We were at the beck and call of our site manager, who had to act promptly to avert compromising the project due to a power outage.
He issued new roles, gave orders, devised methods and short term projects for us to undertake in order to obviate disaster and successfully paint the simulator dome.
This was achieved by the site manager firstly instructing me to organise for a rental diesel 240v generator, collect it, bring it to base and connect it to the robot.
Secondly, by assigning another team member to task of finding a place to purchase a large quantity of fuel cans and begin to fill them and return them to base, building a surplus of fuel for us to use to continually fill the generator for it�s bouts of 18 hour operations.
Thirdly, by instructing the third member of our team to continue with preparations for the next days spraying, which is an onerous task for one man.
Whilst the site manager himself sought the base commander (breach of protocol, as I mentioned we were not permitted to talk directly with those around us) and gain permission for us to bring diesel fuel on base, a generator, have it function through the night and frequently enter and leave the base to meet these needs.
This was all achieved, and it required us to work through the night, totalling a 27 hour shift.
I believe that this could only have been achieved with a style of leadership such as the autocratic style and been completed without objection from the subordinates.
In such a circumstance, being responsible only to direct orders and free from decision making became a comforting feature, it also reflected back onto the site manager who felt encouraged by the loyalty this garnered.
In conclusion I would say that Participative Style of Leadership within the confines of our site based project and Laissez-Faire as the umbrella style used for the Project as a whole coalesced perfectly into a system which afforded the freedom to the employees on the ground, the Site Manager the discretion to delegate and direct as was necessary.
With the Autocratic Style, although generally unpleasant, applied by the right leader, with the right pressure it can excel a workforces efforts and motivation. As was the case in my example, our unit worked around the clock, to exacting standards, albeit it for a brief time, until we had circumvented what could have been a catastrophic disaster to the project.
We can see from the above examples how according to scope, timing and particular circumstances that different leadership styles are required.
