Leadership and Organizational Behavior

1. What happened? (Background, brief description of events, specific leadership actions)

What were the results? (Real or potential. Try to include both positive and negative
possibilities. Even if the event seemed clearly good or bad, consider unintended
consequences.) At the Guest Services Desk there was a huge line, one of a Guest Service
Agent while assisting a guest rolled her eyes and responded to the guest. Guest was extremely
unhappy and wanted to speak to a supervisor and also left a bad comment about the guest
service agent. The positive side was that the agent assisted the guest during a hectic schedule
however the negative side was that even after being assisted the guest was still unhappy due to
the nonverbal communication gap under stress due to excessive work load. The Management
was not happy and reprimanded the Guest Service Agent.

2. Why did this happen? (Consider all possible factors, including the people and the
situation) The Guest service agent was willing to assist however due to stress and monotonous
queries the Guest Services Agent seemed condescending and rude due to which they wanted to
report a complain. The Management reprimanded the employee to ensure that this is not
repeated. We see Reward, Coercive and legitimate power used in this situation a very formal
technique. Additionally a persuasion method of fast mode was used. This is turn would
demotivate the employee instead a expert and referent method would help by training the
employee on how to handle situation and a slow process of understanding the situation would
motivate the employee.

3. What class concepts are relevant to this situation? (Mention at least one concept from
class and how they can be used to interpret the situation.) Power, Persuasion and influence
– The employee could have been motivate by using an informal way of communication i.e. expert
and referent. The supervisor and manger could have lead with example on how to deal with such
situation also a general discussion and activities to engage the team could have been conducted
without taking names would result in employee learning and being motivated to deal with such
cases and influence the employee. A reward system could also be used by incentivizing
employee who perform well after the training. Rather than a legitimate and coercive method that
was used. Additionally we can also analysis the job satisfaction, commitment and work place
engagement with the situation. The more we work towards the right kind of influence and
persuasion by using the right power we are able to develop these job attitudes of the employee.

4. What did you learn from this? (Broader lessons that might apply to other situations or
problems.) With this case study the learning outcome was that best performing employee can
make mistakes and that we are all human however the approach and type of power that we use
to influence and persuade our employee will have a direct impact on their job attitudes i.e. job
satisfaction, their commitment to the job and how engaged they will be with the job.

5. Final Reflection

To develop job attituded like Job satisfaction, commitment and work engagement with employee
a leaders should not change his ways but ask themselves what is the is the best way I can
handle this satiation this can be done by using effectively the power, influence and persuasion.
Leadership and Organizational Behavior