Christian Parrish

OGL 343

Professor Gustafson

Sept. 25, 2020

Prompt #1

The Leadership Paradox is fairly simple as paradoxes go: a team usually needs a leader,

but a leader threatens the autonomy of a team. (Leigh 52) This can be illustrated best using cars

and trains. Trains have a “leader” in the form of the rail they ride on. The rail is necessary for the

train to function but limits the train to a defined path. A car on the other hand has full autonomy

to travel multiple different directions, but disaster can often arise with this overabundance of

control. There are positives and negatives to each approach, and there are highly successful

teams that have no leaders or an indirect leader, but at the same time most teams can not function

at such a high level. Participative management is a sort of middle ground between defined

leaders and a lack of leaders. In participative leadership a leader helps to coordinate employees

and solve problems as they arise, but often allow teams to be semi-autonomous during normal

operation. There are many problems with participative leadership, from teams requiring a more

direct hand to grow to leaders being reluctant to relinquish the power or control of being the sole

person in charge.

Transformational leadership is a different leadership approach that involves a leader

being in a relationship with their team and motivating their team to go above and beyond the

individual’s self-interest to work for the good of the team or company. Transformational leaders

are outwardly focused, adaptive and proactive when it comes to change, and more focused on the
group rather than the individual. This type of leadership is infectious to the team, pushing them

to be more group oriented as well and reinforcing the idea of group versus self. In contrast,

transactional leadership is the all-too-common form of leadership that can be described as “you

work, you get paid.” Transactional leadership is largely concerned with trading something,

usually wages or bonuses, for the work done. This type of leadership leads to high levels of

individualism and employees focusing on their own gains rather than the greater good of the

company.

For years I have worked for transactional leaders. Most of my work experience has been

at fast food or customer service companies where my worth is directly related to how well I

serve customers. At one job in particular bonuses were applied based on customer reviews and

this system led to certain select group of workers gaining the majority of the bonuses and

convincing the remainder of the employees that they could never “win” and that they shouldn’t

even try. On the other hand, I had one job in particular where I worked for a transformational

leader and with a group rather than individuals. At this job I felt the most fulfilled I have ever

been, as my skills were useful as part of a group and I was always being introduced to new

concepts and challenges from my boss to grow my own personal leadership both at work and

outside of the workplace.

Prompt #2

There are many different approaches to participative management, and as with any

leadership style these approaches have their specific use cases and pitfalls. One participative

management style is the task delegation approach, where managers hand jobs to those who are

best suited to solve them. Some team members may be better at the technology aspect of a

project whereas another employee may have only basic knowledge of how to use a computer.
Delegation also includes adding more members to share in the workload rather than an

individual. This division of labor helps break tasks down and gives each member something to

work on as a part of a whole. Another approach to participative management is parallel

suggestion, where team members are invited to make suggestions and help direct organizational

changes. This method is one of my favorite, as I know people have better ideas than I do and it

makes people feel greater as part of the team when they make changes they can see take effect.

Obviously not every idea that is presented will be beneficial to the team, but the idea of an open

door policy allows team members to feel valued and respected, two things that lower stress and

raise morale.

A lack of parallel suggestion management is something I am struggling with currently at

work, as my manager seems to accept suggestions but does not provide any feedback one way or

another, and nothing is ever changed. In one particular incident I mentioned a problem that was

occurring with a team member, and my manager asked what I would do based on what I had

seen. I recommended reassigning them to a different shift or limiting their hours. My manager

said she thought it was a good idea, but two days later everything went back to how it was

before. From a morale standpoint this has made me feel like my concerns aren’t being noted, and

the lack of updates one way or another makes me feel like my boss is just asking my opinion to

appease me and not to ask for actual input.