Ineffective leader-

1.
2. Sources of Power / Enough power to influence the followers
The source of power that the leader had was legitimate power due to his formal
authoritative position of manager for one of the business unit. Due to his positional
power he had the authority to lead the team, decide responsibilities for subordinates,
delegate tasks and review work and give feedback. Being in the position of power, the
leader had the enough power to influence his followers and get the work done. During
one of the projects to be completed within tight deadlines, the direct reports had a
much comprehensive plan to tackle the work load and achieve project goals as per
decided timelines, however being in the position of power, the wishes of leader were
followed out of respect for the position. The outcome was that the project did not meet
the intended timelines and results and the reasons were attributed to resources’
inefficiencies.
3. Task Oriented/ Relationship oriented
a. The leader in the above situation was a task-oriented leader. The situation was very
much in the favor of leader to get everyone together in the team and build trust with
the team members to get the project delivered as per the timelines. However, the
leader being in position of power, chose to exercise his authority and guided everyone
to work as per his plans and inputs without giving anyone the opportunity to share their
view point or to take ownership of any task. This resulted in the leader’s situation being
turned out into a less favorable one as he lost the trust and believe of his subordinates
and was more perceived to be as person who only believed in delegating tasks and not
maintaining a relationship-oriented atmosphere at work
4. Steps to motivate the followers – Appropriate / Inappropriate
The steps that the leader took in the situation above to motivate the subordinates were
more qualitative in terms of including the project deliverable milestones as part of
everyone’s key performance indicator. These steps resulted in demotivating the team
members to some extent as the work on project was totally converted into a task-
oriented work where none of the team member had the opportunity to showcase their
strengths in leading or managing the project milestones on their own. Everything was
pre-deiced by the manager in position and the team was only to execute the same
without any questions or inputs on the same. This was inappropriate on the behalf of
leader as he lost the opportunity to lead his team effectively. The whole project was
converted into a one-way activity and everyone lost the motivation to give their best.
Had the manager given team members enough space and ownership to decide and
execute the project tasks as per their best efforts and given opportunity to learn and
grow along as team, they would have been much more motivated and contributed their
best to work on the project to completion.