Assignment:
Based on my test results, I am an authoritarian. Based on this alone, I would correct the problem by meeting with my employees in a group and addressing the issue at hand. They need to pay attention to detail on the report logs because there is a trend of serious errors that can cause GDD to loose customers to competition. I feel as though addressing the issue as a group will open up everyone's eyes and will direct their attention to producing accurate report logs.
Next, I would engage in individual conversations with each one because in order to solve any problem, effective and transparent communication is required. For the single mom, I would ask if she needs to move her shift up an hour so that she can drop off her kids and get to work on time or if there is someone that can drop off her kids. Being a single parent is hard and sometimes parents need just need to talk to someone who understands their situation. If we can come to an agreement that can accommodate her dropping the kids off at school and getting to work on time, then the report logs will become more accurate. The other employee that accounts for 30% of the errors should get additional training to ensure his error rate will continue to decrease. The rest of the employees should also get training on how to fill the report logs. This will help them understand what needs to be filled out and why it is being filled out.
If after the additional training, the next set of reports do not show improvements in the 10-15% employees, I would be forced to let the employees go. It would not be fair to the other employees who improved their performance to have additional work because the other employee(s) cannot perform their duties. If I do not take action on this issue, the other employees may begin to resent the poor-performing employees. Conducting additional training may be necessary to improve employee performance, however, if after the training they continue to perform poorly, then GDD would only be wasting precious resource on them.
I don't believe the authoritarian leadership style is the best type of style to use in this situation. This form of style should only be used in emergency situations where there is no time for conversations (Blanken, n.d.). When this leadership style is used at the wrong time, is can cause employees to feel restrictive and their job performance to suffer even more. Recent studies show that this form of leadership style can result in lack of creative solutions to problems. In this situation, the authoritarian leadership style should be used with the transformational leadership style in order to improve group performance.
The transformational leader sets clear goals, encourages others, provides support and recognition, and inspires people among other things (Transformational Leadership, n.d.). This form of leadership should be used to motivate group members in order to strengthen their commitment and maintain an effective organization. Transformational leadership leads to high productivity and engages all team members (Blanken, n.d.).
I would correct the problem by starting with conversation. People need to be approached about what they're doing wrong so they can be aware and they can correct the issue. I would speak to the employees privately and individually to show them the proof of their errors on the delivery report logs. I would stress how important it is for this information to be accurate and how it could negatively affect the company's business relationship with other businesses. I would also throw in a compliment to let them know they're doing a great job in other areas, but I'd like for them to be more conscious of the report logs. If I was a manager, I'd have meetings ever so often to discuss anything work related, so in the next meeting I'd mention this issue, but I wouldn't call any names given that I've already spoken to those people individually.
After that if the reports showed improvement in 60% of the employees but not the 10-15%, I would have a quick training of the reports in our next staff meeting so it can be taught to everyone at the same time.
The leadership style I used was coaching. Coaching is "one-on-one style focuses on developing individuals, showing them how to improve their performance, and helping to connect their goals to the goals of the organization" (Harper Business, n.d.). This leadership style came naturally to me and it was helpful given most of the employees performance improved right away. The few left to improve represents the case-by-case basis may not pick things up as quickly as others. I don't think any other style would have worked because coaching fit more of my personality.
Most of the time people can see when you're not being your true self, and that can backfire and make them not respect you. So instead of being something I'm not, coaching was the best way to lead my team to success.