Students will be expected to synthesize material from the course to provide recommendations for enhancing leadership effectiveness in the assigned case on Microstar’s Annual Report information.

Description

Students will be expected to synthesize material from the course to provide recommendations for enhancing leadership effectiveness in the assigned case on Microstar’s Annual Report information. You will be asked to play the role of a consultant by identifying problems and recommending solutions. Your assignment will take the form of a leadership consulting report to the president of the organization in order to make informed and supported recommendations regarding organizational assessment/s that will lead to needed change in leadership (based on your evaluation of issues discussed in the case study). Your report should follow a general leadership consulting report structure with clear section headings to orient the reader. The report should include Cover and Reference Pages in APA format. Sections should include: 1. Executive Summary – serving to state your thesis and preview the problem/solution areas. 2. Introduction – this can sometimes be referred to as “front matter” including an introduction stating your intention to evaluate the problems or issues and provide recommendations for solutions along with an overview of the organization including any background information. 3. Body – which should include the following main sections and can also include various subsections: Problem or Issues identifying both Production/Sales, the Solutions to Issues identifying both Production/Sales, Recommendations for specific Organizational Assessment/s identifying both Production/Sales (examples from class), and finally your Plan/Implementation and/or Improvement Strategies identifying both Production/Sales. 4. Conclusion and Final Recommendations – summary/review, sometimes referred to as your “back matter” and is usually an abbreviated re-statement or reiteration of your Executive Summary along with a final brief restatement of your Recommendations. This allows you to close persuasively in order to “sell” your idea. However you plan to label your report sections, please be clear and organized so it is easy to follow your problem-solving strategies and plan for implementing solutions. Again, your report should have a cover page, a reference page (in-text research citations and a reference from the main course text as a minimum source), and there is a 7 pg. suggested minimum for this final exam (not including cover and reference pages). You should include specific concepts/themes from class readings/discussions in your recommendations clearly cited in APA format. You will be evaluated on thorough analysis of the case, overall development of ideas, creative application of specific concepts/themes from class readings/discussions in your recommendations, and consistent citation of concepts in correct APA format/proofing (see rubric for more details on this). Below is the case study for analysis Case- Microstar Industries Paula Willard is the president of Microstar Industries, a medium sized technology company that employs 420 people. Willard has hired your consulting firm, Think! Leadership, to assist Microstar in resolving what she calls “A power struggle between people and departments which threatens the very existence of our organization.” According to Willard, the problem began shortly after the expansion into a new product line. The expansion meant that sales of Microstar’s precision technology doubled over the last three years. The precision technology department’s workforce increased by 60%, while other divisions, such as R&D, finance, and sales remained relatively stable. Six months ago, sales executive vice president Ernie Lane (a twenty-year veteran at Microstar) barged into Willard’s office. Lane threatened to quit unless his department, sales, received an immediate 15% increase in staff. Willard believed Lane was indispensable and gave in to the demands. Despite the increased number of sales representatives, morale among sales staff is at rock bottom. One of the senior sales representatives quit abruptly earlier this month and many other top salespeople are likely to follow suit. Lane believes people want to leave because the sales division is still understaffed, Indeed, most sales representatives are putting in well over 60 hours per week without overtime pay. Although the long hours are a problem, many salespeople are reporting that their main source of dissatisfaction is Lane himself. The most common complaint against him is that “He doesn’t listen.” One senior sales representative provided clarification by saying, “Ernie means well, but he has lost touch with the type of leadership his job requires. He seems more concerned with controlling than with leading.” The members of Lane’s sales staff are given very little autonomy. Lane controls virtually all aspects of the day-to-day operation of the sales department. When sales representatives suggest innovative ideas for marketing Microstar’s products, they are rarely rewarded when successful. On the other hand, sales staff are often criticized by Lane for any failures. Four months ago, a sales representative suggested Microstar should participate in an international robotics trade fair in Singapore. Three Microstar sales representatives traveled to Singapore along with an R&D engineer and a production supervisor. Participation in the robotics trade fair cost Microstar nearly $55,000. The majority of vendors at the fair were involved in AI robotics, technology that was not related to the work being done at Microstar. Indeed, few, if any, promising sales contacts were established in Singapore. Participation in the fair did, however, provide Microstar with international exposure which might be beneficial to the company as it continues to explore new markets. Lane viewed the “Singapore fiasco”, as he called it, as a “disastrous waste of money, human resources, and energy.” He offered this harsh criticism in front of an entire sales team during a staff meeting, leaving the sales representative who made the suggestion to feel humiliated. For the past eighteen months, Lane has had frequent disputes with Beth Rowden, the manager of Microstar’s production department. According to the personnel director Chris Lee, the central issue is the lack of coordination between the production and sales departments. “Sales promises a delivery date before consulting production. When production doesn’t deliver, it makes Lane look bad. Nothing gets Ernie Lane angrier than losing a customer,” explains Lee. The last time Lane and Rowden met to discuss this issue, the discussion was not very productive. They both stood firmly by their positions – Lane said that slow production is Rowden’s problem that she needs to fix and Rowden insisted that Lane’s overpromising tendency is his problem that he needs to fix. Meanwhile, Beth Rowden has problems of her own. Rowden is in her mid-thirties, friendly, outgoing and likable. She finished her MBA at an east coast Ivy League business school, moved west, and worked her way up to director of the production department at Microstar. Rowden strongly believes in empowerment and team-based leadership, allowing her subordinates a great deal of freedom in goal setting, problem solving, and decision-making. Morale in the production group is generally high. Lately however, there have been rumors that Rowden will be replaced in an organizational shake-up, which has created a climate of uncertainty and anxiety. At the recent all-hands meeting, senior leadership shared numbers with all employees at Microstar, among which were figures which showed a noticeable decline in the production rate over the past three years. These figures further fueled rumors that Rowden was being replaced. However, these figures don’t tell the whole story. Microstar produces more precision parts than it did three years ago, the number of parts per production employee (the production “rate”) is down by 22 percent. The decline is partially attributable to the large employee growth among the production group. Further, several senior production staff are having a tough time adapting to Rowden’s open management style. While they once used to be supervisors, they now find themselves having to operate as coaches and teachers for newer employees. They have gone from being “bosses” to being “peers”. This handful of former supervisors are uncomfortable in the team setting – they are not supervisors, but they don’t feel part of the team either – it is not a culture they recognize. Indeed, Rowden has good reason to believe that these few disgruntled former supervisors are responsible for the rumor that she is going to be fired. Those who support Rowden also point out that although the per-employee production rate is down, quality is up: the yield (the rate of defect-free precision parts) has actually increased from 85 to 98 percent. Paula has attempted to create unity. She has weekly “voice and strategy” meetings where the senior leadership can voice their concerns, work out problems, and collaborate on a strategy moving forward. However, she finds that in these meetings people do not seem to say much beyond just giving her a report of their group’s activities for the week, in serial fashion. Given the information provided, write a report to Microstar president Paula Willard offering your suggestions for dealing with the problems identified.