IOP3707 Assignment 4 (DETAILED ANSWERS) Semester 1 2024 - DISTINCTION GUARANTEED

IOP3707 Assignment 4 (DETAILED ANSWERS) Semester 1 2024 - DISTINCTION GUARANTEED Answers, guidelines, workings and references ................... CASE STUDY: ABC Homeware (Please note that the case study is not based on a real company.) ABC Homeware, which is a global, large-scale homeware business, recently appointed a new leadership executive within the sales division to drive sales as well as apply leadership principles. The newly appointed leader (Dr Puleng) not only has a masters degree in Business Leadership (MBL), but even went the extra mile and completed a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) with a focus on leadership styles. Dr Puleng was appointed to this position due to her cognitive ability and her emotional intelligence and knowledge of cultural diversity. After her appointment, Dr Puleng was excited about the sales opportunities within the country, and about global opportunities and expanding the ABC Homeware brand. It was an important principle of Dr Puleng to increase her subordinates’ motivation to attain personal and organisational goals. In terms of her subordinates, she was very achievement-oriented and emphasised high-quality sales performance over and above the current sales performance of the company. She held weekly sales meetings with her subordinates at which she invited them to make suggestions on how to grow sales in the company. She was direct and clear on what followers should do to meet work outcomes. Where applicable, Dr Puleng applied extrinsic reward principles and promoted staff according to the company’s promotion policy. She was also eager to ensure that staff desired intrinsic rewards from the work itself. In addition, Dr Puleng was approachable and made herself available to assist and support her subordinates when necessary. As a result of her previous work experience and the leadership coaching sessions she had attended, Dr Puleng was conscious of her emotional intelligence and very aware of how her mood could influence the sales team and the larger organisation of ABC Homeware. The previous leader of the sales team had been extremely negative, which impacted on the performance of the team and caused the team members to become anxious that they might lose their jobs due to not meeting their sales targets, instead of using their energy to think creatively about how they could rather increase sales. Dr Puleng was faced with a challenge to change the toxic environment to a positive one and to inspire the team to become hopeful again. She therefore put some effort into improving the morale of the team and arranged 15-minute motivational sessions every Friday morning. At these, she also addressed the staff on how to manage negative emotions. One month end, two of the team members had personal circumstances they had to attend to. Dr Puleng showed empathy and compassion and even gave them time off. The staff members committed to still delivering on outstanding work the following month. Dr Puleng constantly pushed her staff out of their comfort zones to drive sales, but she was also aware of the effect this may have on the team. Due to her level of self-awareness, Dr Puleng was able to make difficult decisions about new business deals several times and she trusted her “gut feeling” during the process. Unfortunately, ABC Homeware lost two of their main income stream clients, which was a huge setback for the business, but Dr Puleng stayed optimistic. Team conflict arose as a result, but she was able to resolve this and then focus on influencing the team members in positive ways. Due to ABC Homeware being a global business, Dr Puleng had to engage on a multi-cultural level and was very sensitive as to how she engaged on a global level, always taking into consideration the workforce diversity and the ways of doing things, not only from a South African (local) point of view, but also from a global point of view. It was not always easy for her to adapt to the different cultures and scenarios she found herself in. Though she recognised and accepted culture differences, she also highly regarded the value of organisational diversity and understood the benefits of building a diverse and inclusive organisation. In addition, she wanted to position minority employees differently in the organisation and both attract and retain them. Lastly, Dr Puleng added diversity training for all employees in the company to the agenda for the next board meeting so that she could request the directors of the company to budget for this training and to regard this as a high priority. QUESTION 1 1.1 What is meant by the contingency approach and which contingencies are important to leadership style? (4) 1.2 Illustrate which one of the five contingency models would be most appropriate in the case study. Explain why you believe this is so. Use examples from the case study to support your discussion. (6) [10] QUESTION 2 2.1 Discuss what emotional intelligence is. In your discussion, explain how emotions are contagious and how they influence performance, using suitable examples from the case study. (10) 2.2 Identify and discuss the components of emotional intelligence and support each component by using suitable examples from the case study. (15) [25] QUESTION 3 3.1 Describe workforce diversity and explain the difference between traditional and inclusive models of diversity. (5) 3.2 Briefly discuss five benefits of building a diverse and inclusive organisation. Also, make recommendations to Dr Puleng on how she can practically implement these benefits to ensure a diverse and inclusive organisation. (10)