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Case Study “Chris Peterson at DSS Consulting”

Anonymous

Master of Business Administration, University of the People

Dr. Jason Fair

BUS 5411 Leading in Today’s Dynamic Contexts

December 8th, 2021

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Case Study “Chris Peterson at DSS Consulting”

Introduction

Ancona & Caldwell (2010) present a case study that explores Chris Peterson's

leadership skills at DSS Consulting. DSS Consulting, founded in 1907, started as

administrative support to small school districts mainly in the mid-west. In the 1990s, as small

school districts faced more complex challenges, the company rapidly grew. In response, DSS

created four departments -Procurement &Systems, IT, Contract Negotiation, and Facilities

Planning. In the early 2000s, the founders stepped back and appointed new leaders. Since the

founders established the existing contracts through their network, new leaders needed new

marketing strategies to allure new clients. The diversity of problems the districts presented

demanded new services. Due to these two factors, DSS saw the need to change its strategy. It

would attract larger school districts by developing new services. Meg Cook was appointed as

the new COO. Chris Peterson, a consultant for the IT department, was selected to lead the

Southwest Region team as part of the re-organization. She was assigned to put together a

team to create a budget and planning system that clients would embrace. In this paper, I will

address the mistakes Chris made in her new leadership role and address which leadership

style -behavioral or participative- would have best addressed her failures.

Analysis

Meg instructed the newly appointed leaders to be flexible in inviting people to their

team. Chris decided to put together a team that joined the company around the same time and

that felt comfortable working with one another. She was catering to the needs of the people on

her team, which seems like something a people-oriented leader would do. Then, Chris rushed

to relocate her team to start working and to avoid any distractions. Her attempt to keep the

team solely focused on the task at hand is a characteristic of task-oriented leaders. Task-
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oriented leaders care about their people, but they are more concerned about structure,

operating procedures, and staying in control (Behavioral Theories of Leadership, n.d.). Chris

constantly held meetings to encourage collaboration and hear different perspectives. From

their shared experiences during the meeting, the team decided to work on a scaled-down

system for planning and budgeting targeted at small school districts. During the planning

phase, Chris’ goal was to keep the team focused on the task at hand. Chris oversaw dealing

with anyone who was outside of the group and she would occasionally and briefly meet with

Meg to give her updates on their advances. During the developing phase, the feedback from

the districts was somewhat positive, started questioning how the system would work with the

issues that were unique to each district. The team thought the problem would be solved by

changing a few specifications. However, as more and more questions were raised, the team

got lost trying to adapt the system to every concern. Others inside DSS did not provide any

feedback and were reluctant to cooperate. When she hit a dead end, she looked for Meg’s

support, but it did not go well. The whole situation got Chris and her team uneasy about the

company’s new structure. Chris maintained a positive attitude and motivated her team. She

kept the team focused and encouraged them to work independently to complete the project. In

the end, the project was presented and was ready to move to the testing face. However, Meg

called the whole thing off because other regions had not reported demand for this type of

product and the system did not appeal to larger districts.

A task-oriented leader provides step-by-step planning, constantly defines structure and

goals, sticks to schedules, and makes employees set processes and formulate plans to achieve

goals (STU Online, 2014). Christ did all these things with her team. She was so worried about

keeping her team working like a well-oiled machine and finished the program that she failed

to see the bigger picture. She did not consider the input of other teams that were going to be

involved in the final product. The first leadership problem Chris had was ineffective
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communication. The second problem was instead of focusing on putting together who got

along, she should have thought about the skill set she needed to gather. She ended up having a

team composed of people with a similar set of skills. A diversified team would have resulted

in more innovative solutions.

Conclusion

The best-suited leadership style to address Chris’ failure is participative leadership.

Participative leadership “takes into account the input of others” (Russell, 2011). Listening to

the other teams’ feedbacks and the customers’ needs and expectations is something Chris

should have done from the start. Chris should have made a general meeting with all the

involved areas to present their project. Everyone would have known what the purpose of the

team was. It would have opened a channel of communication amongst teams for feedback

that would have benefited the team. The role and expectations of each team would have been

set and everyone would have worked accordingly. Implementing this leadership style would

have developed participation and collaboration within work teams in the organization. A

participative leader would have known how to avoid pitfalls that could obstruct collaboration

(What is democratic/participative leadership? How collaboration can boost morale, 2018). An

effective leader integrates individual development with group goals and motivates employees

by making them understand the importance of their role for a positive outcome.
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References

Ancona, D., & Caldwell, D. (2010, September 10). Chris Peterson at DSS Consulting. MIT

Sloan Management. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons

Attribution/Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Behavioral theories of leadership. (n.d.). LeadershipCentral.com. http://www.leadership-

central.com/behavioral-theories.html#axzz3tD3BNLW1

Russell, E. (2011, September 8). Leadership theories and style: A transitional approach.

Military Leadership Writing Competition.

STU Online. (2014, November 25). What is task-oriented leadership? St. Thomas University

Online. https://online.stu.edu/articles/education/what-is-task-oriented-leadership.aspx.

What is democratic/participative leadership? How collaboration can boost moral. (2018, June

01). STU Online. https://online.stu.edu/articles/education/democratic-participative-

leadership.aspx