Subject code: BUSM4188

Subject Name:
Leadership and Decision Making

Location & Campus RMIT Vietnam, HCMC

Assessment name:  Leadership Interview and

Observation
Group SG_G03

Student Name: Do Le An Binh

Student Number: S3740909

Lecturer’s Name: Jung Woo Han

Word count: 2004

1. Introduction
Leaders can be seen as the main factor contributing to the success or failure of any
organization due to the main responsibilities to make decisions, and usually vital ones. In fact, an
effective leader often affects and encourages the staff to utilize their potential and reach the
highest goal in their abilities, moreover, also develops the employees' abilities to widen the
whole organization to new levels. In other words, it is hard for business to endure and develop
without good leadership. However, leadership is never easy to gain, it depends on various
factors, such as leadership behavior, traits, styles, power, and influence which are essential to
control and maintain the company.

To be a great leader, one needs to be an influential person, knowledgeable, charismatic, and have
high social skills, according to some experts. Also, becoming a good leader and consistent in
your actions is very important. Making good decisions, dealing with difficult situations and
work, but also giving time to family and your community are some of the important things to
know if you want to be the leader of the company and team. In fact, there are certain leadership
qualities which are the basic traits that make a leader successful.

This paper aims at a real leader who has endured and experienced a company for over a
decade and he has achieved many successes in his own and company, to look at how he employs
his leadership. Moreover, this paper also targets in applying leadership theories into practice and
then uses the theories to analyze how the leader shows his leadership in his company.

2. Observation
Do Viet Hung is the founder and also the CEO of Hung Vinh JSC – a leading firm in the
tempered and glass industry in Ba Ria – Vung Tau province. I decided to interview a long-term
employee of the company, who has also worked for Mr Hung for a long time, that was Mr Tran
Ngoc Khanh for his perspective about Mr Hung’s leadership. Khanh is the current production
manager of the company and has worked in Mr Hung's firm for nearly ten years. He can be seen
as a close colleague with Mr Hung and therefore I believe his opinions can be a useful source of
information and can be used to judge Mr Hung’s leadership objectively.
2.1 Leadership style
Mr Hung is described as a task-oriented leader because he likes others to work in his
direction and even if they make mistakes, he can easily forgive them. On the other hand, if the
employees have not followed him, although he appears to forgive them, but he can harm their
mental health. In addition, he is also considered to have initiating leader behaviors due to
focusing on achieving targets (he always encourages people to overcome obstacles); defining
leader roles by showing people that he is the leader and it is easier to follow his directions than
changing his mind; and finally defining employees’ roles (he knows himself younger generations
cannot be better than him so they never can affect his mind).

2.2 Leadership personality traits

According to Yukl (1989) for eight characteristics of an effective leader, Mr Hung is
portrayed as a highly-achievement-oriented leader moderately since he is decisive and he always
pursues what he thinks. Moreover, he is told to endure stress and be energetic highly by one of
his impressive traits, that is he likes challenges and never gives up when obstacles appear.

2.3 Contingency leadership – style of approaching

Mr Hung is illustrated to use 2 main types of responding to management situations,
which are Directing and Coaching. According to Hersey & Blanchard (1969), Directing is
defined by one-way communication in which the leader decides the roles of an individual or
group and directs the what, how, why, when and where to do the task. On the other hand,
coaching is when the leader adds two-way communication and socio-emotional support to
influence the staff, but is still based on Directing. Most of the time, he tells people what to do
and his direction and vision for the company. Particularly, when he has made his mind, hardly to
change again and he always persists to follow what he has thought. Sometimes, he uses a
coaching approach by listening to others' opinions in some unknown fields.

2.4 Transactional Leadership

Although Mr Hung shows the difference with others (he has his own ways of thinking
and working), sometimes this may attract others to follow and work for him, sign of charismatic
leadership (Conger & Kanungo 1988), he is more a transactional leader, because he focus on the
final results and usually use both positive and negative reinforcement to solve problems. For
instance, when there are mistakes from staff, he responds in two different ways. If the employee
shows his/her regret and he has been enthusiastic in work and followed directly Mr Hung's
direction, he can be forgiven and encouraged by Mr Hung. On the other hand, If the employee
lacks enthusiasm and his ego is too big, he has not followed Mr Hung's direction, he can still be
forgiven but damaged mentally.

In addition, according to Yukl (2010), he can be seen to have a charismatic effect by his
strong belief in the younger generations that they can not be better at him and he often stresses
about high results he wants his employees to get when he assigns work to them.

2.5. Power and influence

He influences people by reference power (he is acknowledged for his wisdom) and
legitimate power (from his position, founder and CEO of the company) according to French &
Raven (1959), which are also personal and position power. They can contribute to his leadership
effectiveness because they reinforce his status from two sides (one makes people have to follow
him and other makes people admire him).
3. Feedback
Mr Hung holds that three traits that any leader should have are setting goals clearly;
being realistic with the resources; and being persuasive to others. He also describes himself as an
effective leader with three characters that he is proudest of, which are wisdom, ethics, and vision.
All of his characters align with each other. Wisdom gives him the ability to have a clear and right
vision, ethics can help him to gain others' influence.

He illustrated himself as a transactional leader. Transactional leaders are the ones who
value order and structure and use positive and negative reinforcement to get the results (Burns
1978). He wants to manage and avoid conflicts at the beginning by imposing internal rules.
Moreover, he also believes that if everyone follows rules initially, all the conflicts would
disappear. He takes values and orders as first references when there are conflicts. However, he
also displays some of the properties of a situational leader. Although he puts rules and policies at
the first priority, he also knows that everyone is different in many aspects, so after referencing
them, he also takes a view at attitude, causes, effects, and the environments from each
stakeholder and then makes final decisions.

To have a better understanding of his leadership style, I also asked whether he valued
more, finishing tasks or building an excellent team with a long relationship between people. He
may not show enough evidence to be a relations-oriented leader. Nonetheless, his answer implied
a more situational style. If there were few tasks, he said to focus on the leadership style due to
few relations and responses at work. When the organization was big and there were more
employees, the best way was to develop their working skills in order for them to solve problems
effectively. He claimed that when the company had excellent staff, they naturally knew the way
to work better with others.
I can conclude from the company size that he mostly focuses on procedures and policies. He also
shows a mix between task and group-orientation. He claimed that the best way when the
company is big is to develop staff’s skills so that they can know how to work well even without
any direction from upper managers.

When asked about power and influence, he showed clearly two main methods:
Information Power (Raven 2008) and Expertise Power (French & Raven 1959). Moreover, he
was confident with his wisdom and knowledge in the field. He thought these could lead his staff
positively and hardly to be affected negatively.

4. Analysis
It is pervasive to be jealous negatively in work conditions to compete with each other at
work (Dogan & Vecchio 2001). Especially the fact that employees compare each other can be
seen as contributors to a continued evaluating one’s self which may raise unfavorable feelings
that may harm in achieving work goals (Everald, Morris & Wilson 2004). However, Mr Hung, as
an task-oriented leader, has combined the situational style to solve any conflicts flexibly and
makes sure the company runs as he wishes. Specifically, he mainly focuses on finishing the work
and aiming at expert, precise, and efficient task achievements (Yukl 2013c). Bowers & Seashore
(1966) added to the description that he maintains heavy focus on structures, plans to aim specific
goals and certain standards for the company, which Mr Hung has proved to be a really realistic
when setting goals for the company. As said before, he mixes task-oriented style with group-
oriented style, which means he develops employees.

The most interesting trait of Mr Hung is his passion for the industry. Passion is of the
most important leadership characteristics to become a prominent one, which also contributes
mostly to inspire motivation and strength as well as reinforce good working results from the
employees (Marques 2007). Mr Hung shows a deep understanding and know-how in the industry
for a long time, which is acknowledged by his co-worker who has followed him for over 10
years. This requires a huge passion for the work. With passion, he always makes sure what the
company should do and where it should aim at. In fact, he uses his knowledge to influence
people through expert power. Expert power is power acquired and developed through the
knowledge and skill of the leader. Expert power has a robust connection and a huge impact on
the work's efficiency of the employee (Green 1999). In addition, he applies Information Power to
control the company. According to Raven (2008), Information Power is a position power which
means he always shows clearly the company's vision and his directions to all employees, and he
believed this way can make them follow him without hesitation. 

Another impressive trait from him is his stress resistance. To be more specific, this trait
portrays how leaders counter with challenges, difficulties, and chaos which happen usually in the
business environment (Yukl 2013a). He also sets high expectations when talking and
encouraging employees. This shows a way of influencing people through communicating high
expectations (Yukl 2010). Mr Hung can influence people to collectively achieve objectives that
initially seemed impossible. 

‘Situational leadership theory proposes that effective leadership requires a rational

understanding of the situation and appropriate response, rather than a charismatic leader with a
large group of dedicated followers’ (Graeff, 1997; Grint, 2011, cited in McCleskey 2014, p.
118). Originally coined by Hersey and Blanchard (1969, 1979, 1996, cited in McCleskey 2014),
Situational Leadership Theory stressed the importance of relating the leader’s managing style
according to the maturity level of the employees. Unfortunately, although Mr Hung understands
the variety in his company, he sometimes adjusts situations by more criteria than just policies
and internal rules. However, he also believes in his employees’ maturity level and they can solve
most conflicts if they follow the rules initially.

5. Conclusion
In conclusion, through observation, face-to-face interview, and analysis using a wide base
of leadership theories to portray leadership traits, behavior, power and influence strategies, this
work focuses on describing a real leader in context and sees how well he deals with other
employees so that his leadership can be viewed clearly. Through the interview with his co-
workers and himself, I realize that flexibility and open-mind are really useful when working in
such an environment where there are many generations working together. Particularly,
situational management should be used in this kind of working environment due to the fact that
his co-worker claimed Mr Hung’s way of pushing others to overcome obstacles like him may
harm the whole company. Furthermore, expertise power is the easiest and clearest power that can
be acknowledged by others, although people have to endure a long time in an industry to gain
that power. I also know that theories can apply to practice and we should change accordingly to
the situation.
6. Reference list

Bowers, D, G & Seashore, S, E 1966, Predicting organizational effectiveness with a four-factor

theory of leadership, Administrative Science Quarterly, pp. 238-263.

Burns, JM 1978, Leadership, Harper & Row, New York.

Conger, JA& Kanungo, RN 1988, ‘The empowerment process: Integrating theory and practice’,
The Academy of Management Review, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 471-482.

Dogan, K & Vecchio, RP 2001, ‘Managing Envy and Jealousy in the Workplace’, Compensation
& Benefits Review, vol. 33, iss. 2, pp. 57–64, Wiley Online Library.

Everard, KB, Morris, G & Wilson, I 2004, Effective school management, Paul Chapman, .

French, J & Raven, BH 1959, ‘The bases of social power’, in D.Cartwright (Ed.), Studies in
social power, pp. 150-167, Univeristy of Michigan.

Green, DR 1999, ‘Leadership As A Function Of Power’, Association of Proposal Management

Professionals, pp. 54-56.

Hersey, P & Blanchard, KH 1969, Management of Organizational Behaviour – Utilizing Human

Resources, Prentice Hall, New Jersey.

Marques, J.F 2007, ‘Leadership: Emotional Intelligence, Passion and ... What Else?’, Journal of
Management Development, vol. 26, no.7, pp. 644–651.

McCleskey, JA 2014, 'Situational, Transformational, and Transactional Leadership and

Leadership Development', Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 117-130,
Taylor and Francis Ebooks database.

Raven, BH, 2008, ‘The Bases of Power and the Power/Interaction Model of Interpersonal
Influence’, Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 1–22.

Yukl, GA 1989, ‘Managerial Leadership: A Review of Theory and Research’, Journal of

Management, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 251–289.

Yukl, GA 2010, Leadership in organizations, 7th edn, Pearson Education, England.

Yukl, GA 2013, Leadership in organizations, 8th edn, Pearson Education, England.

Yukl, GA 2013, Sustainable leadership: creating the future through people, technology and
design, 8th edn, Pearson Education, Sydney, Australia.  
Interview Script
 A. Interview Script with Mr Do Viet Hung
1. In your opinion, what are the three traits that a leader in any organization or fields
needs to have? Why?
Three traits that a leader has to have anywhere and any fields are:
1/ Set goals clearly, properble with his resources (to have the motivation to overcome obstacles)
2/ Be knowledgeable enough to the goals, so that he can plan well to accomplish goals
practically with competitive cost
3/ Have the ability to persuade others to accompany him in getting the goals.

2. Can you describe yourself as a leader through 3 words? And in those words, what makes
you the most proud of yourself? Why?
Three words to describe a leader according to my view are: “Trí”, “Tâm”, “Tầm” (Wisdom,
Heart, and Vision)
a. “Trí” means Wisdom - you have to be wise to navigate your thoughts and actions effectively.
b. “Tâm” means the heart, in other words, ethics. Only when the leaders have the “heart” (ethics)
then they can influence other stakeholders, and then get others’ support.
c. “Tầm” means Vision. It is when a leader can see and put his organization to a level when it
can survive in a way to help the society.

3. When there is conflict between staff, how can you solve it?
When I am a leader, I have to impose internal policies that everyone has to follow (the
policies have to weigh the majority’s benefits). When there is conflict, I spend time considering
the causes, defying the attitudes, actions of stakeholders, consulting with the imposed policies
and then I would choose the solution which is related to the policies the most. If people follow
policies at the beginning, all the conflicts can be solved automatically. Anyone undervaluing
internal policies should be removed.

 4. I think you should be flexible to solve human-related problems. Can you generalize
different methods you use to approach and solve them? Is it right to say that a leader has to
change the solution and make different decisions for each kind of employee group because
they differ in characters, knowledge and functional skills?
After imposing an internal policy that employees have to obey, I use them in the
interviewing process and access work performance. It is true that everyone is different with each
other. Their view of the world is contributed through the educational environment, family,
friends, schools and workplaces. Their views are different, so their response to the world is
different, too. In order to solve human-related problems, I think we should consider people’s
characters and each kind of situation. 

5. Which of the following do you value more than the other, finishing tasks or building an
excellent team with a long relationship between people?
Naturally, when there are few tasks, we should focus on the leadership style due to few
relations and responses at work. However, when the organization is big and there are more
employees, the best way is to develop their working skills in order for them to solve problems
effectively. When the company has excellent staff, they naturally know the way to work better
with others.

6. How can you influence your employees? Do you ever think that you would change your
influence towards a more positive or negative way?
I have influenced my staff by: having a strong aim in creating positive values and using
my knowledge and personal values such as “Trí”, “Tâm”, “Tầm” (described in question 2) to be
an example for my staff. When I lead them positively, I don’t have to worry they are affected
negatively.

B. Interview Script with Mr Tran Ngoc Khanh

1. As a long time employee, what are the three most impressive characters of Mr Hung?
Mr Hung has 3 impressive styles:
a. Decisive, he does what he thinks’
b. He likes challenges and never gives up. He works really detailed; 
c. He thinks and works differently, he is always special in the crowd.
2. How does Mr Hung often motivate and encourage his staff? Do you think his ways are
effective and bring value to the company?
In my opinion, when Mr Hung assigns tasks to me, he always reminds me to do my best,
to overcome and achieve what others can’t, even the task is difficult, however be patient and
move forwards step by step.

This way can be effective in some special cases when there are people who have strong
will like Mr Hung. In general, I think it is not effective because everyone is different from each
other, they have their own situation and living environment, character, instinct, lifestyle, so that
they cannot be the same as Mr Hung. In conclusion, I think his way of motivation cannot help
improving people’s potential.

The company is an organization, where there are a lot of minds, new ideas and innovation
from staff can be different and more suitable to the current affair, so that it is better to absorb
them which may not be the same as the old generations’, it helps encouraging internal power of
the company and improving survival rate and competitive advantages.
If we consider every new idea as a new way of earning money, we can make various ways to
increase money from many people, it is better than just following one’s person.

In conclusion for question 2: I think his way can bring limited benefits for the company,
in a more detailed way, it is not good for the whole company.

3. When there is a staff member making a mistake, how does Mr Hung usually solve that?
In a positive or negative way?
When there is a mistake, he can respond negatively or positively.
There are 2 situations:
a. Positively: if the employee shows his/her regret and he has been enthusiastic in work and
followed directly Mr Hung’s direction, he can be forgiven and encouraged by Mr Hung.
b. Negatively: If the employee lacks enthusiasm and his ego is too big, he has not followed Mr
Hung’s direction, he can still be forgiven but damaged mentally.
4. Does Mr Hung often listen to his staff or he just directs them? If someone can show an
error in policies and rules, does Mr Hung review it or continue to follow the old way?
Mr Hung is a wise man and he is traditional and the most arbitrary than anyone else.
In work, he also listens to others’ opinions when it comes to something he doesn’t know well,
however when he has a clear direction in mind, no one can change his decision.
In his mind, Mr Hung always thinks that every employee from younger generations cannot be
better than him, so that it is difficult for them to affect his thoughts.
In some cases, even when the staff prove themselves right practically, Mr Hung agrees
reluctantly and doubtfully and considers himself that case is just an exception. Finally, he
conserves his views and firmly makes staff follow his decisions.