Leadership is important in any organization because the effectiveness of leadership influences all processes, relations, and operations in a company (McCleskey, 2014; Schaubroeck et al., 2012). It is important to focus on examining the aspects of leadership in the Capital Veterinarian Clinic (CVC) because there are several issues that can be associated with the ineffective leadership in this organization. As a result, it is possible to concentrate on negative dynamics that affect employees and managers’ interactions in the CVC. From this point, the purpose of this paper is to describe leadership dynamics that are observed in the CVC, analyze them from the point of the concrete leadership model, examine leaders’ competencies, and provide a set of recommendations to address the discussed tendencies and improve relationships in teams.
Leadership Dynamics and Reasons
It is possible to identify several leaders who work in the CVC. Thus, Dr. Marissa Sandoval performs a role of the Clinic Director, and she holds the highest position in the organization’s hierarchy. Another leader is Dr. Ibrahim Al-Shamry, who performs as the Assistant Clinic Director. Roles of leaders are also taken by Aziz Al-Murjan, the Financial Officer, Susan Simmons, the Administrative Services Manager, and Henry Stoddard, the Kennel Manager. Still, more attention should be paid to the roles of team leaders: Dr. Kim Chung as the Senior Staff Veterinarian and Florence Meyers as the Supervisor of Veterinarian Technicians.
It is important to focus on the fact that Dr. Chung needs to supervise the work of Dr. Rachel Silverstein who is the former leader of the team, and there are also problems in relationships between all team members. In her turn, Ms. Meyers is known as an ineffective leader because she is strict and rather biased in relation to minorities. The problem is in the fact that Dr. Chung has failed to demonstrate her leadership abilities and control a situation in the team, and methods used by Ms. Meyers seem to be unsupported by employees.
Model of Leadership and Assessment of Current Leaders
In spite of the fact that there are several leadership models that are actively followed in many organizations, it is important to focus on the situational model of leadership developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard in the 1980s. According to the model, leaders should act with the focus on a certain situation, and they need to adapt their comments, tasks, and assessments among other factors to the concrete employee, event, or activity (McCleskey, 2014). As a result, leaders need to evaluate the follower’s readiness to perform this or that task because of his or her experience, skills, and motivation (Janicijevic, 2010; McCleskey, 2014).
While assessing leadership in the CVC from the perspective of the situational model, it is possible to state that team leaders and supervisors lack abilities to adapt to the situation and work with different employees. Thus, Dr. Sandoval seems to ignore problematic situations that are observed in the team of Staff Veterinarians and the team of Veterinarian Technicians. In her turn, Dr. Chung lacks the experience to build effective relations with Dr. Silverstein and other team members in order to contribute to their productivity. Furthermore, Ms. Meyers also does not address the principle of adapting her style to the employee’s expectations or to the nature of a task. As a result, this leader is viewed as strict and biased.
In order to collect more information about team leaders and other members, it is necessary to refer to the qualitative research and focus on conducting interviews to determine which leadership style is viewed in the CVC as effective to apply to different situations and cases. Interviews are appropriate sources of information to analyze the current leadership dynamics and provide recommendations to improve the situation (Beer & Spector, 1993; Schaubroeck et al., 2012). In addition, open-ended questions in semi-structured interviews are important to make employees discuss their capacities, characteristics, and experiences.
Critical Leadership Competencies
It is important to describe and analyze several leadership competencies that influence the performance of leaders. First, it is possible to mention social intelligence and communication skills. Social intelligence means a leader’s ability to communicate with employees, understand their needs, motivate them, and build strong relationships (Flatten, Adams, & Brettel, 2015; Schaubroeck et al., 2012). In the CVC, both Dr. Chung and Ms. Meyers lack social intelligence in order to discuss problematic situations in the team and help employees overcome problems. Another important competency is conflict management (Bissell & Keim, 2008; Flatten et al., 2015).
In the CVC, there are many conflicts and controversial cases to resolve. Still, leaders do not demonstrate their abilities in resolving ethical conflicts related to stealing goods and discriminating employees. Therefore, more important competencies include the leader’s ethics, integrity, and prudence. The problem is in the fact that Dr. Silverstein was not a good example of an honest or prudent leader in the past. In addition, Ms. Meyers cannot be discussed as an ethical leader as well because of her prejudice in relation to representatives of different cultures and religions. Therefore, it is important to provide some recommendations for leaders in the CVC to improve their style and contribute to developing their capacities.
Recommendations
After analyzing leadership dynamics in the CVC, it is possible to recommend selecting leaders among those employees who are not only good performers or the most experienced team members but also good informal leaders. The reason is in the employees’ respect to each other as well as in the persons’ inner ability to lead groups of people (McCleskey, 2014). Furthermore, it is important to pay attention to the additional leadership training for those supervisors and managers who perform current leadership roles because they need to improve their skills and deepen their knowledge in the field. It is also important to provide individual recommendations for Dr. Sandoval, Dr. Chung, and Ms. Meyers in order to enhance their capacities and develop their strengths.
Thus, Dr. Sandoval seems to be a good leader while administering operations in the organization. However, she needs to improve her skills in communicating with employees, motivating them, and evaluating their abilities (Janicijevic, 2010; McCleskey, 2014). The reason is that, currently, the selection of team leaders seems to be inappropriate, it affects the work of the whole organization. For instance, Dr. Silverstein was not a good leader, and Dr. Chung also does not demonstrate abilities of a perfect manager. Therefore, Dr. Sandoval, as the Clinic Director, needs to improve her skills in communication, decision making, conflict management, and problem solving. More attention should also be paid to enhancing capacities of Dr. Chung who requires the additional training in communication, interpersonal relations, and decision making. As a leader, Dr. Chung needs to become more confident, optimistic, motivating, and cooperative. Furthermore, it is possible to recommend the training in building effective teams in order to achieve higher results.
The leadership style followed by Ms. Meyers also prevents the organization from the development, and the ineffective leadership of the supervisor can become a barrier to creating a cooperative team. In addition, there is a risk of developing more religious and cultural conflicts that can be provoked by Ms. Meyers. Therefore, she needs to receive the effective diversity and ethics training in order to improve her behaviors and change approaches to interacting with people. The focus on improving the supervisor’s leadership skills will lead to positive changes in the interaction of teams in the CVC. As a result, it is possible to expect positive outcomes related to the communication with clients and provision of high-quality services.
Conclusion
Those companies that have no effective leaders seem to be less successful in the market, and this factor influences their productivity and profitability. As a result, in order to achieve strategic goals and improve performance, organizations need to focus on the aspect of leadership. Thus, leadership dynamics can be discussed as effective to illustrate the current situation in any organization with the focus on its future. In the CVC, leadership can be viewed as a problem that requires an immediate solution because those managers or supervisors who perform roles of leaders are unable to guarantee the creation of productive teams in the company. The problems in leadership are evident; therefore, the proposed set of recommendations is oriented to addressing the main controversial issues in this area.
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