Styles, approach and leadership theories

The Global Delivery Direct Company (GDD) provides its services worldwide. It was established in 1968 by four economics students who saw an opportunity to invest together. The four had gathered at the school’s flying club. The business was established to provide distribution services in various countries. One of the four founders was an American, which benefited the company because he could make proper plans for the company’s distribution services in his region. The proposal to sell off three retired planes by the Royal Air Force prompted them to consider investing. The four students bought the aircraft, repaired them, and repainted them with the help of a retired pilot so that they could meet their objectives. The jobs were few at first but later started to pick (Clark, 2016). They had several customers from America and Europe who gave them jobs on a regular basis. As their business picked, they decided to expand it from delivery of small parcels to delivery of documents and mail. Due to the hard work and effort made by the four founders, the company creates billions of revenue on an annual basis. The founder members believe in collaborative decision making and used democratic leadership style where employee take part in decision making (Clark, 2016)

GDD’s Results

Managing a successful business is challenging for the leaders. They have the role of ensuring the objectives of the company are met and profits made. GDD has the same vision; expanding its business activities and increasing their profits. To achieve this, the leaders have their way of making it successful. The four founders have shared powers. No one is superior to the other, and they have similar responsibilities. However, they operate in different locations i.e. Andrew Rock Fish is the executive director of North American Division, Joseph Knolls is the executive director of Asian Division, Giles Hartford is the executive director of European Division, and John Smythe Heathering is the executive director of corporate services (Daniel Stid, 2017). Several leadership styles are employed in the company. Strategic leadership style is used whereby a strategy is brought up by leaders that are meant to propel the company towards achieving its vision. All employees of the company are made aware of the vision of the enterprise. The employees are motivated accordingly so as to help the company accomplish its goals. GDD aims at offering its services to all parts of the world. It also aims at increasing the profits made by the firm hence unnecessary costs are avoided. Through the above leadership style, the above are achieved.

The company has grown in various sectors of its operations. Ove the years, the company have been able to offer delivery services of mails and packages. Its customer volume has grown to enable it to make 1.6 million deliveries and 750 million pick-ups in the year 2005. For the company to offer the above services successfully, it has employed 6500 employees in different parts of the world (Hoch et al., 2016). Its operations have grown from offering the services around England alone to other countries in Europe, the US and other parts of the world. The company can serve more than 15 countries in the world including every address in England, North America, and France. The delivery fleet is comprised of more 34926 package cars, tractors, vans, and motorcycles. The company has 80 jets to deliver their services through the air and have leased 25 aircraft for the same task. Through this, it can deliver its goods within the shortest time possible. An approximate of 340 domestic and 615 international flights are on made on a daily basis. As a result of this, 122 domestic and 246 international airports are served (Nahavandi, 2016).

Candidate’s results

The company requires a manager to oversee its success in future. To ensure this, necessary measures should be taken when selecting the individual to occupy this position. Four candidates Henrietta Raynard, Orson Hernandez, Jonathan Livingstone, and Drianna Coyote were investigated to see who best fits the position (Nahavandi, 2016).

Henrietta Raynard

Orson Hernandez

Jonathan Livingstone

Drianna Coyote

Leadership style

Transactional leadership style

Laisse-faire leadership style

Transformational leadership style

Servant leadership style with a touch of authoritarian style

Leadership theory

Great man theory

Contingency theory

Relationship theory

Relationship theory

Henrietta Raynard leadership style is transactional style and she is also an authoritarian. Her characteristics are dependable, systematic, thorough, judgmental, and practical (Daniel Stid, 2017). Due to this, she is able to give instructions to the people she is leading making her an authoritarian leader. She rewards those who attain the required targets and punishments are offered to those who don’t since. She is also punctual, and work is completed on schedule under her supervision (Clark, 2016). Her manager was from a different cultural background and her experience working with him enable her to understand and coexist with people from across cultures. As a leader, she welcomes ideas and opinions (Clark, 2016). She employs great man leadership theory because she has the ability influence others positively.

Orson Hernandez’s leadership style is laisse-faire leadership where employees have the freedom of carrying out various tasks on their own. The reason for this is because Orson likes a collaborative culture where the leader and the employees are in good terms (Daniel Stid, 2017). He believes that the leader should provide a conducive and friendly environment for the employees. He believes in freedom for his employees since denying them it reduces productivity and creativity of the workers. He employs contingency leadership theory because he believes in the situation in which the leader operates and his personality are key to achieving success (Daniel Stid, 2017).

Jonathan Livingstone is a team leader. He values the opinion of his members and lead by example. He has worked with UPS which was is one of the companies offering GDD competition (Lachance et al., 2017). As a result of this, he has relevant experience in the delivery field and is aware of the challenges to meet. During the interview, he showed a high level of confidence. He shows people what to do by doing it. He is also a transformational leader. This type of leader works with subordinates members to come up with a vision for the company as well as identifying the needed changes that can yield better results for the enterprise (Daniel Stid, 2017). His leadership theory is relationship theory since he is mainly concerned with the well-being of the team members (Lachance et al., 2017).

Drianna Coyote is a servant leader. She began her career as a part-time worker at GDD Company. This is because she passionate about serving people. She is more conversant with how operations are run in GDD than any other candidate. She is innovative and has ideas on how the company can gain business growth. She is flexible and knows how to interact with people. She believes everyone has a role to play in the decision-making process so as to gain the best out of the policies made (Clark, 2016). Her leadership theory is relationship theory since motivates and ensure satisfaction of her team members (Daniel Stid, 2017).

GDD/Candidates Comparison

Different factors are considered when choosing a manager in any company.

Table 1 below shows the rating of four potential candidates based on the similarities in GDD’s leadership model and each candidate’s leadership trend

Candidate

1 No Fit

2 Bad Fit

3 Not Sure

4 Good Fit

5 Best Fit

Raynard

4

Hernandez

2

Livingstone

4

Coyote

2

Table 1

Table 2 shows the rating of four potential candidates in accordance with differences in GDD’s leadership model and each candidate’s leadership trend .

Candidate

1 No Fit

2 Bad Fit

3 Not Sure

4 Good Fit

5 Best Fit

Raynard

2

Hernandez

3

Livingstone

2

Coyote

4

Table 2

According to Table 1, Raynard and Livingstone are most suitable candidates based on comparison of leadership styles used. Their leadership styles are similar to the GDD’s democratic style where the employees are involved in decision making. As a result of this, they are the most suitable candidates for the position. Hernandez and Coyote have laisse-faire and servant leadership styles respectively making them the least suitable candidates. According to Table 2, Livingstone and Raynard show a bad fit hence not suitable. Coyote on the other hand shows a good fit when compared to GDD. Hernandez shows moderate divergence as compared to other candidates. If the company wanted a new approach to how they run their activities, Coyote is the best candidate to bring that change. However, if they want to maintain the values, visions, and structure of the company the best candidates to pick are Livingstone and Raynard (Nahavandi, 2016).

Recommendation

After a thorough analysis of the case above, Livingstone is the most suitable candidate for the position. He has worked in a similar company giving him the necessary skills and experience in this field. He uses democratic leadership style just like GDD hence he is the best suited. He has a leadership style that can propel the employees ahead without resistance. The company operates with people who are out of sight and disagreements between the leader, and the followers would reduce the effectiveness and productivity of the enterprise. Since Livingstone can motivate and guide a team, he is the most suitable person for the position.

References

Clark, B. L. (2016). Organizational Leadership Analysis: 4th Armored Brigade Combat Team Scenario. SSRN Electronic Journal. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2730355

Daniel Stid, K. (2017). The Effective Organization: Five Questions to Translate Leadership into Strong Management. Bridgespan.org. Retrieved 5 February 2017, from https://www.bridgespan.org/insights/library/organizational-effectiveness/the-effective-organization-five-questions

Hoch, J. E., Bommer, W. H., Dulebohn, J. H., & Wu, D. (2016). Do Ethical, Authentic, and Servant Leadership Explain Variance Above and Beyond Transformational Leadership? A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Management, 0149206316665461.

Lachance, C., Chasse, K., Pelletier, F., Hunter, M., Simek, S., & Gillies, J. et al. (2017). Leadership is an Action, not a Position – Slaw. Slaw.ca. Retrieved 5 February 2017, from http://www.slaw.ca/2009/03/25/leadership-is-an-action-not-a-position/

Nahavandi, A. (2016). Teaching Leadership to First-Year Students in a Learning Community. Journal Of Leadership Education, 5(2), 14-27. http://dx.doi.org/10.12806/v5/i2/ab2