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    Eating Lunch Standing Up

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    Phương Phan
    Susan is the manager of a sporting goods store called Marathon Sports. [1] She works long hours and wears many hats to ensure the store's continued success and 15% annual growth. [2] Employees have mixed reactions to Susan's leadership style - some appreciate her organization and efficiency, while others find her too driven and complain she is hard to relate to. [3] Susan senses the mixed employee reaction but is unsure how to address it, as she also struggles as a spouse and mother of three.

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    Eating Lunch Standing Up

    Uploaded by

    Phương Phan
    3K views2 pages
    Susan is the manager of a sporting goods store called Marathon Sports. [1] She works long hours and wears many hats to ensure the store's continued success and 15% annual growth. [2] Employees have mixed reactions to Susan's leadership style - some appreciate her organization and efficiency, while others find her too driven and complain she is hard to relate to. [3] Susan senses the mixed employee reaction but is unsure how to address it, as she also struggles as a spouse and mother of three.

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    Susan is the manager of a sporting goods store called Marathon Sports. [1] She works long hours and wears many hats to ensure the store's continued success and 15% annual growth. [2] Employees have mixed reactions to Susan's leadership style - some appreciate her organization and efficiency, while others find her too driven and complain she is hard to relate to. [3] Susan senses the mixed employee reaction but is unsure how to address it, as she also struggles as a spouse and mother of three.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    3K views2 pages

    Eating Lunch Standing Up

    Uploaded by

    Phương Phan
    Susan is the manager of a sporting goods store called Marathon Sports. [1] She works long hours and wears many hats to ensure the store's continued success and 15% annual growth. [2] Employees have mixed reactions to Susan's leadership style - some appreciate her organization and efficiency, while others find her too driven and complain she is hard to relate to. [3] Susan senses the mixed employee reaction but is unsure how to address it, as she also struggles as a spouse and mother of three.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
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    Eating Lunch Standing Up

    Susan Parks is the part–owner and manager of Marathon Sports, an ath- letic equipment store that
    specializes in running shoes and accessories. The store employs about 10 people, most of whom are
    college students who work part-time during the week and full-time on weekends. Marathon Sports
    is the only store of its kind in a college town with a population of 125,000. The annual sales figures
    for the store have shown 15% growth each year.
    Susan has a lot invested in the store, and she works very hard to make sure the store continues to
    maintain its reputation and pattern of growth. She works 50 hours a week at the store, where she
    wears many hats, including those of buyer, scheduler, trainer, planner, and salesper- son. There is
    never a moment when Susan is not doing something. Rumor has it that she eats her lunch standing
    up.
    Employees’ reactions to Susan are strong and varied. Some people like her style, and others do not.
    Those who like her style talk about how organized and efficient the store is when she is in charge.
    Susan makes the tasks and goals for everyone very clear. She keeps everyone busy; when they go
    home at night, they feel as if they have accomplished something. They like to work for Susan
    because she knows what she is doing. Those who do not like her style complain that she is too
    driven. It seems that her sole purpose for being at the store is to get the job done. She seldom, if
    ever, takes a break or just hangs out with the staff. These people say Susan is pretty hard to relate
    to, and as a result it is not much fun working at Marathon Sports.
    Susan is beginning to sense that employees have a mixed reaction to her leadership style. This
    bothers her, but she does not know what to do about it. In addition to her work at the store, Susan
    struggles hard to be a good spouse and mother of three children.
    Questions
    1. According to the behavioral approach, how would you describe Susan’s leadership?
    2. Whydoesherleadershipbehaviorcreatesuchapronouncedreaction from her subordinates?
    3. Do you think she should change her behavior? 4. Would she be effective if she changed?

    1 According to the style approach, how would you describe Susan’s leadership?

    . Susan’s leadership style is more of Authority-Compliance management style (9,1).. This is


    exemplified in the case by her ability to stay on task and successfully carry out various positions,
    but her inability to relate to the employees.

    Susan’s leadership style can be categorized as task oriented. She runs the business with mostly
    college students, which means that most of the employees are not long term employees. Since she
    runs the business with mostly college students she is able to keep down the costs but has to put in
    extra effort to train new employees with the turn around on employees she will have. She is a
    hands-on type of manager who knows everything about the business she is managing. She can also
    be categorized as goal oriented manager and the constant growth in business proves it.

    2.Why does her leadership style create such a pronounced reaction from her subordinates?

    Subordinates who are also goal oriented have lot to learn from her and appreciate the opportunity.
    Since Susan makes tasks and goals very clear for everyone and keeps them busy end of the day they
    feel good about everything they’ve accomplished. Subordinates who pay attention to people
    relationship may not like Susan’s style because she focuses on the tasks rather than people
    relationship. They may feel like she is more concerned about results than people and is focused only
    on getting the work done. Susan works hard and tries to keep her subordinates also busy and
    productive.

    3.Do you think she should change her style?


    Yes, I think she should learn to delegate some of her own tasks out to other managers or the most
    senior employees to free up time that can be used getting to know the employees and to slow down.
    In turn, the employees will also be happy to have some new responsibilities and trust in their
    position.

    4.Would she be effective if she changed?

    Yes, if she changed to be more accommodating to the interpersonal needs of her staff, while
    maintaining the high standard of excellence she works with in her store, she will be less Authority-
    Compliant and become more of a Team Manager.

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