Discussion:
Communication and Leadership
Focused on resolving an employee problem, you will engage in developing the following professional competencies:
Active listening
Defining an unstructured problem
Make ethical decisions and solve problems
Deal with conflict effectively
All of these professional competencies are desirable in the competent employee in the current workplace. Often employees must work in various teams on a multitude of projects or initiatives. In order to work successfully, employees must actively listen to other team members to solve what are often unstructured problems in an integrous manner.
1. Read the background information.
The Company: PROScout Marketing
Mission Statement: We scout talent for tomorrow's work. We are a focused team of professionals committed to finding the best qualified candidates for our clients. Job candidates are screened for the highest ethics, talent, skills, and abilities. We stand behind our efforts and candidates at the time of hire or we will not charge our clients a fee if the candidates are not acceptable.
2. Listen carefully to the following phone messageregarding an employee problem here.
After you have listened to the message the first time, read the checklist items below, and then listen again to the message taking detailed notes in response to those items. Begin writing only after you are sure you can respond well to each item.
3. Then respond to the following Checklist items:
• Explain the problem or problems.
• As the boss (Kelly), what questions might you ask this employee to clarify your understanding? As the employee (Amalie) what questions might you ask your team to clarify your understanding?
• Determine what might be the best leadership approach (from the options in your text) for the boss (Kelly) in this situation based on the mission statement and explain why.
• Based on your knowledge of conflict resolution from the chapter Reading, how might you resolve or respond to the problem(s) as the employee (Amalie)?
• What if the employee (Amalie) does not hear back from her boss in time, what communication process particular to this scenario would you advise her to use to communicate effectively regarding the problem(s) to all concerned and why? Explain each communication process step (specific to the scenario) to be used regarding resolution of this problem(s).
Assignment:
Create a 2-3 page response to the checklist items above (also include an additional title and references page) using correct grammar, spelling, and APA format and citation style.
Material need to help with the paper.
Problem-solving steps:
1. Define the problem or problems.
2. What do you need to accomplish? What are the end goals?
3. How important is each goal? What is the most important, second most important etc.
4. Brainstorm alternatives
5. Evaluate alternatives-Which is the best choice given the importance of the end goal(s)?
6. Select the best solution, or a way forward.
Steps in the communication process (Robbins & Judge, 2015):
• Message to be sent by sender
• Encoding the message
• Channel selected: Formal or informal
• Message received by Receiver
• Message decoding by the Receiver (eliminating noise-distortion, overload or cultural barriers)
• Feedback to sender
Reference
Robbins, S. P. & Judge, T. A. (2015). Organizational behavior (16th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.