WANYING Chen

FIKOTOVA Zdenka
PASQUIER Amaury
PENANHOAT Quentin
TRACEY Maria
de ROQUEMAUREL Delphine

FOUNDATIONS OF
LEADERSHIP AND TEAMWORKS

- Case Studies -
 Case 1: Radovan Karadzic
Why is Radovan Karadzic a bad leader?
Radovan Karadzic (born 19 June 1945 in Petnjica, Montenegro) is a psychiatrist, poet
and a former Bosnian Serb politician. He is currently accused by the International Criminal
Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia of war crimes committed against Bosnian Muslims and
Bosnian Croats during the Bosnian war (1992 – 1995). He is also accused of the Srebrenica
massacre and genocide.
Educated as a psychiatrist, he co-founded the Serbian Democratic Party in Bosnia and
Herzegovina and was the first president of Serb Republic from 1992 to 1996. Nearly
overnight Karadzic became a political figure of major consequences – the leader of
increasingly inflamed Bosnian Serbs. He completely changed his mind-set into a leader who
sanctioned and even encouraged atrocities. His objectives were the independence and the
“Greater Serbia” without any ethnicities.
The question is if Radovan Karadzic is a “bad” leader. Is he a war criminal or a hero?
Even if you do bad things, it does not mean that you are a bad leader. Let´s thrash out the
quality of Karadzic’s leadership.
Leadership involves influencing others to achieve objectives. The objective for
Karadzic was the sovereignty and the “ethnic cleaning” of Serbia. Bosnian Serbs were waiting
for someone to lead them to a Greater Serbia. Karadzic’s presence and his capacity evoked
their old hurts and new fears. His nationalist effort influenced them to secure their future.
Karadzic united his followers in a common purpose. But in many cases it was fear and not
loyalty that the followers felt.

Karadzic was indeed a leader for several reasons. First, he was passionate by his cause
and really convinced by the goal. He had a very good control of the situation, and was well
organized. His strategy was planned well in advance and he cleverly knew how to take
advantage of the situation in Bosnia to stock the fear of the population and achieve his goal.
Lastly, he was able to surround himself with good people, like Ratko Mladic and the Serbian
Orthodox Church and to convince and motivate troops to apply his orders. His other
characteristics of a leader were patience, self-confident, and his agile negotiation.

But although it cannot be objected that Karadzic was a leader, it’s also clear that he
was a bad one.
 His rapid and complete transformation from poet and psychoanalyst to politician
shows that he had an unstable behaviour. According to his entourage, he was also crazy and
totally detached from reality, it was his stubbornness by his deep-seated hostility to some
ethnic group that influenced all his decisions and acting, what could prevent him to react and
adjust his policy and actions according to the situation.
Second, he did not manage to convince the International Community and the United
Nations to follow him and to give him a free hand to achieve his goal. Qualities of a leader are
among others to be able to rally everybody to his cause.
Finally, the main failure of Karadzic’s leadership was his relation with his followers.
As Hersey and Blanchard said in their situational theory, characteristics and readiness of
followers determine effective leader behaviour. His style of behaviour was a high autocratic
one, which means he was a leader who tended to centralize authority and derive power from
position, control of rewards and coercion. He took his decisions without consulting his
followers and controlled the information that he wanted to give them. According to the
Leader-Member Exchange, if the leader gives Trust, Responsibilities, Information and
Reward to his followers he can expect Loyalty and Performances in return. But Karadzic’s
followers were long frustrated Bosnian Serbs, who followed him because they were afraid of
the situation and because they could expect material advantages, not because they really
wanted to rally his cause. He had close associates who were willing to execute even his most
radical and malignant orders but there is no evidence that he had even a small circle of
acolytes to whom he was closely bound. It is also connected with the issue of consideration.
We can say that in this case there is no consideration but high structure, i.e. low sensitive to
subordinates but high motivation to achieve a goal.
The lack of consideration among followers and the lack of loyalty in return, are the
main causes that explain the failure of Karadzic’s leadership.

Karadzic is accused of being Europe´s greatest mass murderer in a half of 20 th century.

But, his followers are guilty not to stop or at least slow bad leadership. So the question
remains. Was Karadzic a bad leader when his followers, despite the crimes and clearly illegal
behaviour, still followed him?
For some people Karadzic remains the symbol of fanatic nationalism and hatred, for
some the hero and the symbol of national fight for the sovereignty of Serbia.
 Case 2: GE Money Bank
Why is Pierre Lambert an excellent team manager?
Faced with decrease of profitability, GE Money Bank decided to enter into the
credit card market in Switzerland with the country’s No. 1 retailer MIGROS. Pierre Lambert
was in charge of setting up the project team and of leading it until the launching of the
operational phase.
Mainly thanks to Pierre Lambert’s team manager performances, the project
was managed extremely successfully. But why can we say that Pierre Lambert is an excellent
team manager?
1. Formation of team
Firstly we can say that Pierre Lambert is excellent at managing teams because
he knows how to create not only a group, but a really efficient team with a common objective.
A team is a unit of two or more people who interact and coordinate their work to accomplish a
started goal and purpose. To create his team, as a leader, he selected every single member.
Pierre Lambert had the objective of pooling several people with expertise and knowledge in
particular areas. For each of the five domains (IT, Operation, Marketing & Sales, Financials,
Risk & Legal) he selected the core members after having interviewed internal and external
applicants. As admitted by Pierre, he did not have much knowledge about the card business so
he needed a team of experts to help launch the complex project. Besides, they were on a tight
schedule with many challenges, so the ability to work in a team was crucial. The result was a
small team of 5 members, which was easier to manage and in which he could trust. He
decided to integrate people from different countries like France, Italy or UK, to promote
creativity and the sharing of experiences. He was, without a doubt, open minded as he was a
team manager who was ready to include people from different nationality in his team. This
quality helps to be an excellent team manager. Finally thanks to the selection he did and with
training, he managed to turn individuals into team players. He not only created a group, but a
team of highly co-operative and motivated people.
2. Performance of team
2.1 Information
The essence of a team if we compare it with a group is that there is an
exchange of information in order to achieve a collective performance, there is a positive
synergy, and complementary skills. That’s why he instituted a short daily meeting at 8 am and
a more important weekly meeting. Problems were solved as soon as they were identified and
decisions were made in a timely fashion. There were also continuous exchanges between, and
within teams. This communication allowed Pierre Lambert to be sure that everything was
alright and that they were on time. Pierre Lambert was an excellent team manager because he
knew how to communicate with his teams. He had a great relationship with his team.
2.2 Autonomy
When you trust in your team, you are ready to delegate and to give autonomy
to your colleagues. Autonomy means more responsibilities for the outcome of the job. More
autonomy leads to stronger motivation, better quality and more job satisfaction in employees.
Pierre Lambert took the notion of autonomy. Thanks to this he was more easily able to lead
the whole project focusing on the most crucial tasks. He gave a lot of responsibilities to his
team members. The team had a great deal of autonomy in its decision making. He delegated a
lot and people had to manage sub teams.
2.3 Motivation
Pierre Lambert was really proud of his project (“Pierre Lambert’s eyes
shine…”), he was really enthusiastic. Due to those qualities it was really easy for him to
motivate his team during every step of the project. Without this motivation it’s impossible to
manage a team and to achieve an objective. In this case the project was really stressful. There
was a lot of pressure because of the deadline of the project, and also because of the change of
plan caused by the entry of a competitor into the market. The intensive work pace necessitated
an important team cohesion. Due to his experience in similar projects and due to his pressure
resistance and his ability to work well in urgent conditions, Pierre Lambert was able to keep
in mind the deadline without getting stressed out, and did his best to optimize the schedule.
2.4 Experience
Pierre Lambert is not a novice in this kind of project. He already had
experience in a similar project. He also received awards to mark his leadership skills. He
knew the challenge of this new project. He knew the key success factor to achieve the task.
He knew where to go and who to ask for support. Due to his background and his experience
Mr. Lambert was well regarded within the bank and was respected by his colleagues. As a
consequence he was an excellent team manager because he was not challenged but supported
by his superiors and his team.
 2.5 Mastery in management function
With the realization of the credit card value chain, Pierre Lambert showed us
that he was able to organize a team and a project. He perfectly respected the deadline of the
project due to good planning. He was also able to change his plan in the middle of the project
because of the entry of a competitor in the same market. Finally he controlled what the team
did during the project with numerous feedbacks, discussions, communication and meetings.
He controlled everything, even the budget that he respected. Pierre Lambert was really
reliable.
3. Adjourning of team
Finally another argument that could help to prove that Mr. Lambert was an
excellent team manager is that, at the end of the project, when the bank launched the
operational project, Pierre Lambert handed over the card business’s leadership to another
person. That means that he was not doing his job in order to have the power and to keep it.
But just in order to do the best job, to exchange, and to learn with the team. After this project
he began another project with another team. This change of project shows that Pierre Lambert
was able to manage different teams easily and that he was really polyvalent. Managing a
project from scratch, like he did, is not simple. The fact that he always did a good job shows
again that he was an excellent team manager.

In conclusion, Pierre Lambert was an excellent team manager because he knew

how to select the best team with the right mix, the right size, complementarity and social
skills. When the team was created, due to his experience, he knew how to control, plan, lead,
and organize a project. He had both a task-specialist and a social emotional role. And finally
he reached the objectives without facing group polarization or social loafing.
 Case 3: Tony Fernandes
Why is Tony Fernandes a “great” leader?
Tony Fernandes is a private entrepreneur who took over the debt-ridden airline
AirAsia for the symbolic sum of $0.26. Today, AirAsia is the best of the Asian airline
companies in its market segment and became profitable almost immediately after Tony
Fernandes took it over in spite of the air-travel downturn following the 11 September 2001
terrorist attacks.
These results can only be explained by the fact that Tony Fernandes is a great
leader. First of all, his skills and personal qualities are those of a good leader: he was entirely
committed to his business (sometimes with a little humor) and was very accessible to the
media: he wore AirAsia’s official red cap and official T-shirt to almost every official function,
he gave his mobile phone number to all the media representatives he talked to, and was
himself an advertisement for his company.
Tony Fernandes has also had a good vision of the future because he was very
realistic and he exploited the market’s opportunities well. Although the context was not very
favorable to enter the market, and especially in this field because of the 11 th September,
Fernandes chose to take the risk because he strongly believed in his project, which is a
characteristic of a good leader. Another point that can prove this is that he was the first on the
market segment of low-costs, no-frills and entered the market at the most profitable moment:
nobody on the market segment in Asia and attractiveness for customers. So Tony Fernandes
was courageous in this unfavorable context and he took his decisions in a very independent
way. These strengths are crucial to be a leader.
He did not take risks only by taking over AirAsia, but also in its drastic
changes. Since the creation, he continually brought a lot of innovative concepts, such as on-
line booking and check-in, travel insurance, holiday products, booking services for hostels,
car rental, credit card or medical care. He also deeply changed the business model of the
airline company in choosing a low-cost and no-frills strategy and moved down the value
chain. Thanks to him, AirAsia was also a pioneer in the defense of environment, by fighting
against carbon emissions and paper waste.
Tony Fernandes was also a good leader because he succeeded in convincing people to
rally on his project, since the beginning. The acquisition of AirAsia by Fernandes was
welcomed by the Malaysian government. AirAsia became the official airline sponsor of the
world-famous Manchester United football club and the AT&T Williams Formula One team.
AirAsia was also implicated at the request of authorities but also on its own in tourism, rescue
to cyclone-hit Myanmar in 2008 and Sichuan earthquake recovery in China. The number of
rewards received by AirAsia is endless and this is a way to recognize the good job done by
Tony Fernandes.
He was also a great leader because his management and leadership styles led
quickly to huge profits, whereas the situation was not very favorable. Several indicators prove
his good skills in leadership and management (see Exhibit 10). The productivity of the staff
was superior to the quality in other airline companies in the market segment of low-cost (0.33
cost/ASK compared to 1.18 for the others): it shows that people were encouraged, motivated
and committed to the company policy. Fernandes’choices in investments such as new fuel-
efficient Airbus A320 and new aircraft decreased the costs of fuel and maintenance. The cost
of marketing was also lower because he was a recognized leader on the market and needed
less money for marketing and sales because of the effectiveness of the distribution channel,
which is another indicator of his good leadership towards employees. Purchasing aircraft also
cost less than other companies because he knew how to convince suppliers and gain
attractiveness. People in the company were wholly loyal to Fernandes, which also proves he
was appreciated and respected as a leader.
As a result, Tony Fernandes was not only a leader, but also a great leader
thanks to several aspects: his skills and personal qualities, his good and right vision, his
independence, his innovative capability, his sense of convincing and making partnerships with
trust, and the performance of the employees due to his good leadership leading to very good
and quick results. Being a great leader means to have qualities and skills as well as results:
Tony Fernandes showed he had both of them.
 Case 4: Christian Dior
What do you think of Christian Dior as a leader?
Christian Dior was born January 21st 1905. A leadership culture was instilled in
him from birth as his father was a director of the family firm. He dreamt of becoming an
architect, but his father thought this desire was unmotivated and unimpressive, and forced him
to attend ‘École des Sciences Politiques’. He studied there for 3 years, but left before
graduating to open an art gallery. Soon after this the family business went bankrupt, his
mother died, his art gallery was closed down, and his brother was interned to a psychiatric
asylum. Suffering a life of struggling and hard chip, Christian Dior finally realised his dream
and opened his fashion house in 1946. In 1948 Dior broke into the New York fashion market,
and by 1957, Dior’s various international businesses spanning couture; ready-to-wear, and
perfume had global sales of $22 million.
Dior’s business was obviously successful, and he left behind him a culture of
fashion in France that would have been impossible to achieve without his expertise. But this
doesn’t necessarily mean he was a good leader. Firstly, the attributes that made Christian Dior
a good leader will be focused on, i.e.: his ability to carry out the main leadership activities,
and his creativity and charisma. Following this will be his drawbacks as a leader, i.e.: his lack
of delegation and sometimes lack of trust in his employees. Finally, some recommendations
that could have helped to improve his leadership skills and qualities will be explained.
Leadership Activities:
In my opinion, there are 4 main activities that are necessary to be a good
leader: controlling, planning, leading, and organising. He controlled the human resources of
the company by choosing personally all of his employees due to their expertise in certain
fields. This was effective as it added a personal touch to the recruitment and selection process
and it motivated employees to work harder in order to impress Dior. It outlines in the case that
the employees worked closely but discretely with Dior, and they feared but also respected
him. This is an extremely effective rapport to develop with an employee, as the lines of
communication are clearly formal and respected. He planned ahead and always met deadlines
due to his stringent planning process. The best example of this is the way in which a fashion
show collection was produced. Clear, achievable objective were outlined, and preparation
began two months before the fashion show. Dior created drafts of clothes for several weeks,
which were sent to the workrooms. Prototypes of these garments were made, and about 220 of
these prototypes were chosen and completed and used in the fashion show. Dior led his
employees very well, and a good culture was instilled in the company because the employees
strived to impress Dior, and Dior endeavoured to impress the public and have his designs
bought. He was a good facilitator and leader as he remained positive, and motivated his
employees to do their best. The success of his company even to date stands as a testimony to
the organisational skills that Dior harboured. Organisation is central to all leaders’
accomplishments, and Dior remained organised throughout all of his endeavours. A good
example of this is the way in which he broke into the American market. He realised while in
America that in order for his company to expand, he would have to grow geographically as
well as economically. He wasted no time in doing this, and while he was still in America he
phoned Henri Fayol to discuss developing an American house of fashion. Clear organisation
was showed in the urgency of this desire, and within one year Dior had a clear presence in the
American market.
Creativity:
I think that Christian Dior was more a leader than a manager, because he was
passionate, creative, inspiring, innovative, courageous, imaginative and experimental, and he
was possibly lacking in the main characteristics of a manager such as rational, consulting, and
analytical competencies. I believe he was a high extroversion type of leader, in that he was
outgoing, energetic and gregarious. He also had a high openness to experience, because he
was imaginative, curious, and open to new ideas. This is seen a lot when he broke into the
new market and altered his entire collection in order to suit the needs of the American fashion
customers. This shows that he was adaptable to new situations, and that he also led and
influenced his employees to be open and adaptable. His creativity was the basis for the
success of his company. Without it, the company would not have existed. He would not have
been spotted by French textile entrepreneur Marcel Boussac, who gave Dior the break he
deserved and offered him ten million francs to start his own firm. He motivated his employees
with his creativity and innovation. He excelled in the American market due to his willingness
to expand and to create new styles and types of clothing. He was creative in post-war France
when most other designers were afraid to be. He re-introduced the longer skirt despite
material restrictions and rations.
Lack of Delegation and lack of trust in employees:
Christian Dior was an autocratic type of leader. He centralized authority and
derived power from position, control of rewards, and coercion. This type of leadership style
can often be effective if it is teamed with a high trust in subordinates, a co-operative work
force, and a high level of delegation of tasks. However, in Dior’s case, I feel that it was
ineffective as he held the company too close to his own heart. He didn’t delegate tasks
enough, and did so much of the work himself that in the end his company possibly killed him.
Aged 52, he died from a heart attack on 24 October 1957. The stress and pressure he put
himself under to complete his collections and to be the best fashion designer in his field
definitely attributed to his death, as he often eat too much to counteract this stress. The
company lacked so much delegation and employee empowerment that after his death, critics
and even the employees worried that the company would not be able to continue without its
autocratic leader. Companies need leaders in order to facilitate creativity, to guide people, and
to influence people to work for you. A leader is not there to do all of the work, to supervise
every single manoeuvre the employees make, and definitely not to hold the company so dear
that it does not trust its employees enough to delegate tasks to them. This is exactly what
Christian Dior did. There was no autonomy in this company. He was so proud of the creation
of his own company that he was afraid to loosen the reigns a small bit and stand back from the
action. The company was a part of him, especially because the name of the company was his
name. His entire legacy was based upon the success of the company, and so he was so afraid
of failure and rejection that he deemed it necessary to have a part in every single entity if the
company. He was also extremely good at what he did, and so maybe he felt that he was the
only one who could complete the products to the standard he deemed acceptable. He also had
trouble trusting the press and journalists that viewed his collections at fashion shows.
Recommendations:
As a leader, Christian Dior knows exactly what he wants and directs his team
to it. He was talented and enthusiastic with great support of his team. His main problem as a
leader was that he was too protective of the company, and he would have reaped the rewards a
bit more had he undertaken a free reign style of leadership, or at least a democratic style. Then
he could have delegated and empowered his employees, he would have had more trust in his
employees to complete the tasks, and he could have relaxed and enjoyed his personal life a bit
more.