Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Leadership Observation
Leadership Observation
Table of Contents
Table of Contents.........................................................................................................................................1
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Observation.................................................................................................................................................2
Company Profile......................................................................................................................................2
The Story Inside the Company................................................................................................................2
Theory Findings..........................................................................................................................................6
Power and Influence................................................................................................................................6
Power...................................................................................................................................................6
Influence..............................................................................................................................................6
Conflict and Negotiation.........................................................................................................................7
Conflict................................................................................................................................................7
Constructive Conflict...........................................................................................................................7
Relationship Conflict...........................................................................................................................8
Cultures and Gender Differences in Conflict-Handling Styles............................................................9
Negotiation..........................................................................................................................................9
Leadership.............................................................................................................................................10
Shared Leadership.............................................................................................................................10
Analysis Discussions.................................................................................................................................10
The software program structural changes in project development process............................................10
The way how a leader dealing with the project disorder........................................................................11
The way leader dealing with the male and female members in a team..................................................12
The negotiation by a leader due to his responsibility to the team..........................................................13
The biggest action made by a leader......................................................................................................15
Conclusions and Recommendations..........................................................................................................15
References.................................................................................................................................................16
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Introduction
IT Consultant Company (PT. BT) had just created its new software division regarding to
its first winning tender of software project for NHI a harbor corporate. According to this project
a company hired new team development including its team leader.
The new team development and its leader were passing through various situations either
in the bad or good times during the project development. Therefore the case issues inside it are
likely interested to observe, especially about the leader itself.
The leader case observation will adopt several theories in Leadership and Organizational
Behavior subject, whereas the issues are covering about what problems faced by the leader and
how a leader dealing with those kind of problems.
The referenced theories in this leader observation are Power and Influence, Conflict and
Negotiation, and Leadership. The specific issues to be discussed further are as follows: the
software program structural changes in project development process, the way how a leader
dealing with the project disorder, the way leader dealing with the male and female members in a
team, the negotiation by a leader due to his responsibility to the team, and the last discussion is
about the biggest action made by a leader.
Observation
Company Profile
PT. BT (BT) is IT Consultant Company located in North Jakarta, DKI Jakarta. The
company was established in around 1980’s. At first, this Company’s main business was in IT
Infrastructure / Hardware specialization which running under the Hardware Division. BT has
been successfully growing through this line of business, and it has been running a lot of
Government-related projects as its major clients.
Inspired by its success BT interested to enter new other area in IT field, Software
Development. In 2006, BT participated in and won the tender of another Government project, the
National Harbor of Indonesia (NHI) in out of Jakarta city, which in fact is out of Java Island. The
project was to develop new application system software for the harbor operational management.
Since he joined and being a leader in the A Team, FR sensed that the existing software
program structure was improperly developed, there were no standard methods and specific rules.
As in the process of software development, the application system should be divided into number
of modules and each of which handled by a certain team member, he thought that standard
methods and rules were necessary based on his experience to help in integrating those breaking
modules into one whole application system in the final process.
According to this condition, FR decided to propose the changes in the software program
structure, and started the development from the beginning. After he got the approval to do that,
he reshuffled the new software program structure from zero, then created and applied the
standard methods and specific rules what he meant to be there, the other team members must
stick and follow it in working on their jobs. But unfortunately, the conflict began where the other
team members felt offended by all FR did, it was like he did not even show a bit respect and
appreciate the A Team’s effort on what they had developed before. They felt so unfair, moreover
when the superior seemed in the FR’s side and tend to support him. Eventually, it caused most of
the A Team members resigned one by one.
This consequence had created another new task for FR to hire new employees that fit to
his requirements, because he was responsible to his superior to keep the project going on. After
the required employees collected, he formed new team, let I call it as “B Team”. While the
project was located in remote area out of the city, FR decided to split the team which several
members stay in the office and the rest members were assigned to the site.
This new team formation was being able to run the development process according to the
line of rules made by FR. Initially almost everything was well organized and the communication
amongst the team members was good as well as between a team leader and his team members.
However behind any successful project there always had been disasters in the middle of the
development process, moreover when the team facing the urgency to meet the project deadline, it
caused kind of stressful, worried, high tempered, sensitive feeling for the people involved in the
development. Usually in the progress of software development, the flow can move forward and
backward, because of client requirements can change anytime. That is the complexity in
developing integrated application system software, especially for big and complicated system.
In such cases, FR treated his team too emotionally and quite often he gave instructions to
finish certain work in very short time, and if the result consisted of many mistakes, he got easily
high tempered by straight forward statements or words out of his mouth, and even sometimes he
did it in front of the other team members. This problem was frequently experienced by male
members, whereas FR always tried hard to be more politely to the female members even though
his highly-tempered was still unconsciously shown. Those ways brought many complaints from
the team members, because it was hard for them to keep focus and concentrate to the job if they
felt too much tension and pressures by their surrounding; the deadline work and their leader’s
bad treatment. FR knew that exactly and admitted it, he also promised then attempting to reduce
his behavior although it was seem unavoidable reaction for him when that similar stressful
situation came up.
In the other side, this team replacement and reconstruction of NHI project and still lack of
project management factor has led to delayed time in delivering the project to go live in site. The
company’s expense for project cost was also affected, automatically this time extension needed
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extra cost and extra work for BT to make a new deal in negotiation with NHI as the client. In
effect, BT controlled its project budget tightly in order to keep the NHI project profitable for the
company as expected initially. The new policy focus on the change of compensation system,
where the B Team was the subject to that change according to the following ones:
Base Salary net salary an employee must get for each month
Incentive Pay based on number of days of employee attendance in a
month, that means if an employee does not come to office on certain
day/s, there is a cut off on his/her incentive payment
Overtime Pay start being calculated after office hour (8.30 – 17.30),
which is the overtime at least for 2 hours duration
Transportation and Meal Allowance plus overtime meal
o Other employee’s benefit:
The project bonus was also eliminated, because the actual profit the
company will get was decreasing and less than what company has
expected before
This condition led to another new problem such as complaints from the team members to
FR as their team leader, they insisted FR to fight for them to be treated equitable. FR took the
complaints seriously and showed his responsibility of his team members by requesting for
schedule arrangement to conduct a formal meeting with the top management to discuss this new
compensation system policy. FR tried to explain the new policy might bring side effects to his
team members, while the workload and job demand acquire them to work overtime frequently.
The top management assured him that this policy just only for this project which was assumed as
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the first trial-error and less experienced one for the BT itself, so the target is to finish and
implement it to go live on site successfully. It was merely for the BT’s good reputation, even
though the project was still not profitable. By holding this reputation, BT would pursue and
convinced to get other new software projects. Afterwards based on the BT’s experience, the
project development process could be measured wisely to get more profitable (beside the client
itself) to both BT and the employees.
Through many those argumentations and negotiations, the result of this meeting was kept
the new compensation system unchanged, and FR was forced to agree with that.
By the time went on, the team members who stayed in the office began to showing their
protest through their actions, they were not able to say anything about this new situation. Some
of them started to come late to the office or they attempted as much as possible to work within
the office hours (08.30 – 17.30), and many team members even requested to stay at home and do
their job remotely from their home, which this one violated one of the BT’s rules (the employees
attendance is a must in doing their duties).
In the other side, other parts of the team members who stayed on site out of the BT office
began to feel envy to their colleagues in the BT office, because of the insignificantly total pay
differences between them in the office and others out of the office who have much more
workload to handle.
FR could see this inequity and he was struggling to fight for his team members to be
treated fair, then he tried for the second time to negotiate with the top management to give at
least a project bonus to appreciate all the team members’ merit in the project, as it was part of the
employee’s rights based on common employment regulations. Before FR stepped into this
second attempt, he had made two alternative options together with his team members, that is:
1. As the first option, if the request was approved by the top management, the existing
running process kept going on
2. Otherwise, as the second option, FR planned to resign from BT and establish a new
small corporation / Perusahaan Terbatas (PT) together with the team members to
continue running other new NHI-related project, while FR had already got channel to
the NHI internal management party, therefore he knew how to deal with it.
The FR’s second trial resulted nothing, the top management did not approve FR proposal,
and still hold the previous principal tightly. Consequently, FR then run the second option, he
along with his team members resigned and started to organize the corporate establishment plan,
with involving everyone as a leader of the team. The rules can be everyone is the boss or no one
is the boss. So they share same portion of responsibility in developing the project and also in
project dividend division.
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Theory Findings
Power and Influence
Power
The capacity of a person, team, or organization to influence others and it exist when one
party dependent on the other for something of value. The dependent person must also have
countervailing power, some power over the dominant party to maintain the relationship [1].
Sources of power: Legitimate, Reward, Coercive (these three sources originate from the
position), whereas Expert, Referent (in contrast originates from within the person)
Power contingencies is used to determine whether the source of power translate into real power.
Individual and work team unit are more powerful when they are no substitutable, that is when
there is a lack of alternatives. They reduce substitutability by controlling tasks and knowledge
and by differentiating themselves from competitors.
Influence
Influence is any behavior that attempts to alter someone’s attitudes or behavior [1].
The most appropriate influence tactic depends on the influencer’s power base, whether
the person being influenced, compared with the influencer is higher, lower, or at the same level
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in the organization; and on personal, organizational, and cultural values regarding influence
behavior [1].
To know which of those influence tactics are best is by identifying the three ways that
people react when others try to influence them [1]:
Resistance, it occurs when people or work units oppose the behavior desired by
the influencer and consequently refuse, argue, or delay engaging in the behavior
Generally people react more favorably to soft tactics than to hard tactics. Soft influence
tactics rely on personal sources of power (expert / referent power). Which tend to build
commitment to the influencer's request. In contrast, rely on position power (legitimate, reward,
and coercion), so they tend to produce compliance or, worse, resistance. Hard tactics also tend to
undermine trust and thus can hurt future relationships.
The first most obvious contingency is which sources of power are strongest.
Whether the person being influenced compared to the influencer is higher, lower
or at the same level in the organization.
Conflict
A process in which one party perceives that his or her interests are being opposed or
negatively affected by another party [1].
Constructive Conflict
A type of conflict in which people focus their discussion on the issue while maintaining
respect for people having other points of view [1].
This conflict is called constructive because different positions are encouraged so that
ideas and recommendations can be clarified, redesigned, and tested for logical soundness. In
8
keeping focused on the issue helps participants reexamine their assumptions and beliefs without
triggering the drive to defend and its associated negative emotions and ego-defense mechanism
behaviors. The team and organization with very low levels of constructive conflict are less
effective [1].
Relationship Conflict
A type of conflict in which people focus on characteristics of other individuals, rather
than on the issues, as the source of conflict [1].
b) Cohesive team. Relationship conflict is suppressed when the conflict occurs within a
highly cohesive team. The longer people work together, get to know each other, and
develop mutual trust, the more latitude they give each other to show emotions without
being personally offended. Strong cohesion also allows each employee to know about and
anticipate the behaviors and emotions of teammates.
c) Supportive team norms. Relationship conflict will be less likely to occur when the team
has norms that encourage openness, so the team members will learn to appreciate honest
dialogue without personally reacting to any emotional display during the disagreements.
The team with low relationship conflict use humor to maintain positive group emotions,
then offsetting negative feelings team members might develop toward some co-workers
during debate.
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Meanwhile, there are five types of conflict handling style contingencies and problems: Problem
Solving, Avoiding, Forcing, Yielding, and Compromising [1].
Negotiation
The process whereby two or more conflicting parties attempt to resolve their divergent
goals by redefining the terms of their interdependence [1].
Parties do negotiate when they think that discussion can produce a more satisfactory
arrangement for themselves in their exchange of services. Negotiation is evident in the
workplace because employees work interdependently with each other. They negotiate with their
boss, client, and between co-workers over company policy, work assignments, project deadline,
project standard rules through disputes and agreements.
Problem solving tries to find mutually beneficial solution to the disagreement, known as
win-win orientation. The information resources are expandable if the parties work together to
find a creative solution, therefore sharing information is important in this problem solving style
[1].
Gathering information: The two parties spend time listening closely each other to
information details conveyed by each party
Making concessions: concessions move the parties toward agreement and it should be
under certain conditions, which are:
◦ concessions need to be labeled to the other party, because concession is costly for one
party and beneficial for other party
The best strategy is to be moderately tough and give just enough concessions to
communicate sincerity and motivation to resolve the conflict. But being too tough can undermine
relations between the parties, so in giving too many concessions implies weakness and
encourages other party to use power and resistance [1].
Effective negotiation usually use Exchange influence activities which promising benefits
or resources in exchange for the target person's compliance.
Leadership
Shared Leadership
The view that leadership is broadly distributed, rather than assigned to one person, such
that people within the team and organization lead each other [1].
Analysis Discussions
The following are the case issues I would like to analyze further based on the theory provided:
FR proposed the software program structure changes to his superior and he got the
approval, FR used power and influence to his superior to assure what he was going to do was
right and can be accounted and relied on to deliver the best product. His superior gives fully trust
to FR and supporting what he wanted to do. FR have strong expert power and non substitutable
contingency of his power, regarding to FR's skill, knowledge and experiences in the related
project field and also hard to find another person fit to the job requirements at that time. Whereas
BT had not enough experience in this premiere software project, so BT fully depends to FR's
direction. Other than that, FR also use soft influence tactic, that is friendly persuasion through his
expertise plus FR was using logical arguments, factual evidence, and emotional appeals to
influence and convince his superior (which was in higher level position) of the value of his
request. The way a superior reacts to FR's request showing a Commitment and was highly
11
motivated to approve the change in software program development structure with less extrinsic
sources of motivation.
In this case, FR might have a positive aim to deliver the best product by changing the
software program structure standards and rules (as the source of issue in constructive conflict),
but the way he did brought to disagreement which create such a constructive conflict in the team
because he did that without asking the team’s agreement and consideration first, it was only
based on his superior’s approval alone (as the source of issue in relationship conflict), it was
obvious that FR was unethical and he desired quick solution. As a leader, FR adopted a Forcing
Conflict-Handling-Style where his team must follow those new standards / rules he had created.
This conflict had high risk of relationship conflict in the A Team and affecting bad long-term
relations which indicated by the escalated feeling of offended and unfair in the A Team members
(due to their previous efforts likely not appreciated), until they finally decided to resign from BT.
According to the case, there still lack of emotionally intelligence, cohesive team, and
supportive team norms in the A Team. So to reduce the relationship conflict during the
constructive conflict, those three strategies should be applied to manage the conflict:
FR may share his idea on the project, but he was supposed to discuss first internally in the
team before brought it up front to his superior. If the team agreed then FR could proceed
to actualize his idea, otherwise FR and the team must look for other solution that fit to all.
This showing respect exists in the A Team, they also would be more supportive and
cooperative to their team leader (FR) and automatically such way could keep the A Team
solid and build trust each other, it is good for long-term relations and increasing future
problem solving.
This case is also implying discretion contingency of power (the freedom to exercise
judgment, to make decisions without receiving permission from else others). Consider the
position of FR as a team leader, it seemed that he had legitimate, reward, and coercive power
over the A team members. He become more powerful because his high level of project and team
control delegated by his superior made him having plenty of discretion in his jobs.
The frequent changes in project user requirements, urgency to meet project deadline, a
complexity in process, and the work mistakes made by the members (as the source of
constructive conflict) may created stressful situation in work environment. If FR treated his team
(B Team) too emotionally and easily high tempered in dealing with those things (as the source of
issue in relationship conflict), it would not help the situation better, in fact it just caused the
members feel worse, could not focus and concentrate to their works, high level of anxiety, and
stressful.
Such way indicated that FR use Forcing Conflict-Handling Style and he typically has a
win-lose orientation, but consequently this style relies on some of the hard influence tactics,
particularly upward appeal and assertiveness to get his own way. FR also seemed had legitimate,
reward, and coercive power over the B team members.
In order to minimize the relationship conflict during the constructive conflict happened in
B team, there should be emotionally intelligence, cohesive team, and supportive team norms
exist to be managed well. The team members will be able to do the job well, and could be more
responsive as well as more concentration toward their jobs, if they feel these following with their
work environment:
Comfort: they love their jobs, the members get to know each other closely, building
mutual trust, helping each other when encounter difficulties, understanding, learning
not easily get into personally if problem occurs.
Secured: nobody threatens each other, not treated badly, leader willing to change his
bad behavior and characteristics towards his team.
Relaxed: open-minded leader, the members can be honest about their feelings,
chances to give feedback to the leaders, allowed to have flexible working hours with
a target.
In the end, these are done to maintain sustainable good relations in the team and
delivering the best software product to the client.
The way leader dealing with the male and female members in a team
FR usually treated male members with forces in stricter way or rude, whereas he always
tried hard to give the female members more flexibility and with much more compromising in
conveying the job duties.
Based on the case observation in this part, since the female members tend to adopt a
compromising in business settings and are more willing to compromise to protect the
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relationship, so in return, FR as their team leader try and learn to do the same thing in treating
them in order to get the job done, because he was concern and realize that women have more
sensitive feeling than men.
Compromising involved when the parties have equal power, time pressure exists for
resolving the conflict, and the parties lack trust and openness for problem solving. Then this style
will results in suboptimal solution when mutual gains are possible [1].
In contrast, men who are especially in low collectivism cultures are more likely to use the
forcing approach to conflict handling. What I mean here is, FR was a typical person such another
technical guy who has been living mostly in technical area which lack of socially collectivism.
Forcing has preferred common style when the male members treated as if they have a
deep conviction about their position, and seeing their leader’s behavior is unethical. Then the
dispute requires a quick solution. This style has highest risk of relationship conflict, may damage
long-term relations, reducing future problem solving [1].
The negotiation conducted in this case which involving FR and the top management due
to B Team new compensation system policy, was implying the four most important skills, such
as:
◦ Setting goals:
▪ FR:
Resistance points the overtime pay and project bonus should be remained,
the earliest time project would be go live cannot be less than 7 months
▪ BT Top Management:
Setting target temporarily eliminated the incentive pay and overtime pay,
and also project bonus (in B Team members). The project must be able to be
implemented on site in 6 months later.
Resistance points whatever matters it would take, this project should keep a
company’s good reputation in order to get client trust and obtain the other new
software projects in the future.
◦ Gathering information:
FR explained the new policy could bring side effects to his team members:
FR informed that the workload and job demand acquire his team members to
work overtime frequently
FR suggested that all his team’s contribution should be rewarded suitably. The
new compensation system based on fix-pay in basic salary did not motivate
his team’s performance
▪ Top Management forecasted that this premiere project was unlikely profitable.
Therefore company should control its budget carefully regarding to this project.
Top Management found that fixed-pay base is the best solution at this moment.
▪ Company really need to keep its good reputation, to get another prospect software
project tenders.
◦ Making concessions: concessions move the parties toward agreement and it should be
under certain conditions, which are:
▪ concessions need to be labeled to the other party, because concession is costly for
one party and beneficial for other party
However, this negotiation result was the new compensation system kept being applied in
this project.
In the second negotiation with the Top Management, FR preparing other alternative
strategies if the negotiation failed, that is FR with the team was planning to resign from BT and
organize their own new corporate establishment.
Shared leadership flourishes in organization where the formal leader (FR) is willing to
delegate power and encourage employees to take initiative and risks without fear of failure.
Shared leadership also calls a collaborative rather than internally competitive. Shared leadership
lacks of formal authority, it operates best when employees learn to influence others through their
enthusiasm, logical analysis, and involvement in their idea or vision [1].
This shows that there is no positional power in a team, where everyone can share an idea
and vision that others to follow and respect, they also have same right and decision power. In a
short the team itself is the boss, they will encourage the team to get the best and will not let the
team down.
Meanwhile, the consequence by sharing same portion of project dividend division may
result to if the project was not profitable, they would not get paid at all.
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The most appropriate influence tactic depends on the influencer’s power base, whether
the person being influenced, compared with the influencer is higher, lower, or at the same level
in the organization; and on personal, organizational, and cultural values regarding influence
behavior. Generally people react more favorably to soft tactics than to hard tactics. Soft influence
tactics rely on personal sources of power (expert / referent power). Which tend to build
commitment to the influencer's request. In contrast, rely on position power (legitimate, reward,
and coercion), so they tend to produce compliance or, worse, resistance. Hard tactics also tend to
undermine trust and thus can hurt future relationships.
There are two types of conflict, that is constructive and relationship conflict. Constructive
conflict focuses on the issue to deal with, whereas relationship conflict focuses on the personality
of the parties involved in the conflict. The best conflict management should consider about the
emotional intelligence, cohesive team, and supportive team norms. In the best practices, it should
encourage constructive conflict and minimize relationship conflict, even though these two types
of conflict separation is not that easy. In other words, any attempt to engage in constructive
conflict, no matter how calmly and rationally, may still sow the seeds of relationship conflict.
Generally, women pay more attention than do men to the relationship between the parties. Men
tend to be more competitive and take a short-term orientation to the relationship.
Shared leadership is the view that leadership is broadly distributed, rather than assigned
to one person, such that people within the team and organization lead each other.
FR can manage well on his duties and has high level of responsibility to his team toward
the top management, yet he still had poor ability in manage the people itself. It was clearly
showed through the problems occurred in the software program structural changes in project
development process, the way how FR dealing with the project disorder, the way FR dealing
17
with the male and female members in a team, the negotiation by FR due to his responsibility to
the team, and the last is in the biggest action made by FR.
References
[1]. MacShane/Von Glinow, “Organizational Behavior”, 5, McGraw Hill, 2010