The overall political climate at Retronics is in somewhat a mess. When the board members fired the founder, I think the downhill mess started from that. What had happen was that the board members started to get hungry for more profit, so they fired him. Which make no sense at all. Just because of the dot-com bubble burst hick-up, shouldn’t be a reason to fire the founder. And they go on to hire George, a seasoned executive with great engineering skills. I think that everyone in the company sees the big shift in management and they’re wondering when they are next. The company has gone through several layoffs as well, which doesn’t help production. Everyone in the company at this moment, are probably prospecting for a new job somewhere else for security reasons.
George’s leadership style has been on the Authoritarian side. Where this style is used is when George tells his employees what he wants done and how he wants it done, without getting the advice of his followers. However, some appropriate conditions to use this style is when you have all the information to solve the problem, you are short on time, and your employees are well motivated. The authoritarian style should normally only be used on rare occasions. If you have the time and want to gain more commitment and motivation from your employees, then you should use the participative style.
Bad leaders act domineering and superior with their people. They believe the only way to get things done is through penalties, such as loss of job, days off without pay, reprimand employees in front of others, etc. They believe freighting everyone into higher lever of productivity increases their authority. Yet what always happens when this approach is used wrongly is that morale falls; which of course leads to lower produc ...