Question

You are a new Athletic Director at a small Division II university. The athletic program that you are taking over has been in a shambles (i.e. losing records, ineffective leadership, conflict among the different departments) for the last several years. The president of the university is bringing you in to clean up the program and change its direction. In addition, as mentioned there are conflicts between departments with the worst being between the head baseball and football coaches. Football has received according to the baseball coach all the resources while only producing mediocre results on and off the field. The baseball team has been more successful but has received very few resources. The baseball coach feels like he is under-resourced in scholarships, staffing, and budget for several years compared to football. The baseball stadium is run down, with very little seating, but football just had a new stadium built which is still only half full for games. The football coach continues to want more and often enjoys receiving resources at the expense of baseball. (Both of the coaches are currently under long term contracts so firing is not an option.)

1. Explain why affiliative, transformational, authentic and situational leadership styles that could be used in this situation and why. What leadership approach do you think is best?

2. Using strategic management outline how you would attempt to accomplish this task?

Answer 1

QUESTION NO. 1 Conflict management is one of the main qualities that a good leader should have. Let's first understand, What are the different leadership styles and how are they different from one another.

1. Affiliative style: This style of leadership suggests that "people come first". In this style, Leader gets close and personal with people, pays attention to their problems and supports the emotional needs of his team members.

According to the situation given in which there is intergroup confict( conflict between baseball team and football team coaches), this style could be helpful to try and understand each coaches issues and problems on a personal level. This will help the both the coaches especially the baseball team coach to open up about his problems like why he feels he is under- resourced and etc.

2. Transformational leadership: As the name itself suggests, it is about transforming, empowering and initiating a change in the organisation,groups,oneself and others. It is about motivating others to do more than they thought they are capable of.

3. Situational leadership: It simple suggests that no single leadership style is the best. The style of leadership will depend on the type of situation at hand.

4. Authentic leadership: These leaders act in a genuine way that is true to who they are as individuals. They inspire teust in their team members because of which peoole are willing to open about peoblems which means those problems are more likely to get fixed instead of getting ignored. They have a firm moral code. They manage to stay sensible and stable even during difficult situations.

QUESTION NO. 2

According to the given situation, despite having comparatively more resources, the football team is not able to perform well and on the other hand, the baseball team is under resourced and still has been more succesful than football team which proves the capabilities of baseball team to achieve even greater results provided enough resoucers are allocated to it. Investing in football team is giving less rate of return as compared to baseball team. The demand of football team for more resources should not be entertained and instead it should prove through good results that what it is demanding is actually it deserves.