Portfolio Assignment Unit 4

BUS 5411 - Leading in Today’s Dynamic Contexts

University of the People

Instructor: Dr. Sali Bakare

July 2023

A Case Study - Chris Peterson at DSS Consulting

Introduction

This case is a case involving Chris Peterson, a project manager for DSS

Consulting who was recently assigned to lead a cross-functional team. Chris is faced

with a leadership dilemma where the project which she and her teammates spent

months developing is being canceled by her boss Meg. She is also informed of the

decision to make changes to the composition of her team which she carefully selected

its members. Chris has the option of either accepting the new changes or returning to

her former position as a functional specialist in the IT practice group. This paper seeks

to analyze the situation and uncover leadership mistakes made by Chris, identify the

sociological, psychological, and organizational perspectives of the case, and provide

recommendations on organizational concepts that could have been applied.

Case Background

Chris Preston is a project manager who was assigned to lead a newly formed

regional team at DSS Consulting, a consulting firm that provides administrative

support to small district schools. This appointment followed a restructuring process in

the company which aimed at developing new services and reorganizing into a more

cross-functional and customer-oriented organization (Ancona, 2010). DSS Consulting

operated a system where its businesses were generated through contacts established

by the company's founders. However, with recent changes and the founders cutting

down on their involvement in the business, there was a direct effect on the business

hence the company saw a need to devise new marketing strategies to sell its products
and also expand its services to accommodate the needs of the market.

When these cross-functional teams were created, Chris was assigned to lead

the South West Region team and was given the liberty to choose her teammates. This

was an exciting challenge for her and she invited teammates to work with her based

on two factors. First was their experience with DSS consulting processes and second

was their ability to work well together as she wanted teammates who would be happy

working with themselves. Chris’s plan worked well as her teammates got along pretty

well with each other and were able to resolve issues that arose. She made sure to

shield the team from distractions and criticisms of other functional teams and they

worked tirelessly towards developing the new product. However, after the product

development and getting it ready for beta testing, the project was canceled by Meg,

the chief operating officer at DSS. Meg expressed her concern about the project being

of little concern to the large districts and informed Chris that her team's composition

would be changed.

Chris was shocked by the new development as she had initially thought Meg

was on the same page with her on the project process. During developing the project,

she met with Meg to brief her on the project's progress, though their meetings were

very short compared to the meetings held by other team leads. Chris is faced with

accepting the new changes or returning to her role as a functional specialist in the IT

practice group (Ancona, 2010).

Leadership Style Demonstrated by Chris and Mistakes Made

Chris demonstrated a people-oriented leadership style. The people-oriented

leadership style is a type of behavioral leadership theory where the leader focuses on

building relationships with their subordinates and encourages their subordinates to

develop relationships among themselves (Russell, 2011). In this type of leadership

style, the leader favors behaviors related to encouraging collaboration, rewarding

success, observing teammates’ progress, and mentoring team members (Indeed

Editorial Team, 2023).

Chris expressed this leadership style first by selecting teammates whom she

feels will collaborate easily. And also by encouraging the team to continue working on

the project even when they were not getting support from other functional teams.

However, she made some mistakes in her leadership style. Firstly, in her selection of

teammates, she didn't consider their connections to people in other departments or

their relationships with clients. This made the teamwork in isolation without even

considering the needs of the large districts.

Another mistake she made was that she wasn’t open to honest criticisms and that

extended also to her teammates as she tried to shield the team frOm what others were

doing or saying. She didn’t allow for the critical flow of ideas but cherished the

comfort of the team agreeing at all times.

Another mistake made was her poor communication with Meg. She was so

interested in her team that she paid little attention to the organizational strategies. If

she were communicating well with Meg, she would have gotten a clue about whether
the project would be accepted or not.

Case Analysis - Sociological, Psychological, and Organizational Perspective

According to Ruthu (2017), the sociological perspective seeks to observe

society through a lens that's without personal opinions. It observes people's behavior

from the outside by generalizing people's actions into patterns and categories. From a

sociological perspective, Chris was working in isolation from the other departments in

the organization. She was acting like her team was separate from the entire

organization.

Looking at the case from the psychological perspective, Chris had

self-efficacy issues which made her not open to criticism. To her, the opinion of others

was a distraction to her goals and it meant a direct attack on her person. And from the

organizational perspective, Chris lacked collaborative skills with her functional team

leads. She only kept relationships where she was comfortable and praised her team's

hard work.

Recommendations - Applying Organisational Theories for Better Leadership

Chris would have adopted a participative leadership style. This leadership

style takes account of what others have as input and gives a sense of ownership to

subordinates (Russell, 2011). Also, she would have taken advantage of the

constructive criticism given by others.

 Applying the classical organizational theory which focuses on the division of

labor, functional processes, structure and span of control would allow Chris to stay

abreast with the organizational strategies. Skills like collaboration, openness, and

team spirit should have been demonstrated by Chris and her teammates.

Conclusion

This case is a clear example of the behavioral theory in action. Particularly

the people-oriented leadership style. Though Chris and her teammates worked well

together, they were working in isolation of the organizational goals and strategies, and

it led to their efforts being in vain. The participative leadership style as opposed to the

behavioral style creates an environment where every party participates in

decision-making and power is spread across the team.

References

Ancona, D., & Caldwell, D. (2010, September 10). Chris Peterson at DSS

Consulting. MIT Sloan School of Management. licensed under Creative

Commons 3.0.

Indeed Editorial Team (2023, March 11). What is Behavioral Leadership Theory?

Definition and Types of Behavioral Leadership. Indeed. Retrieved from

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/behavioral-leadership-theo

ry#:~:text=Behavioral%20leadership%20theory%20is%20a,a%20certain%20set%20of

%20behaviors.

Russell, E. (2011, September 8). Leadership theories and style: A transitional

approach.General Douglas MacArthur Military Leadership Writing Competition.

Ruthu G J (2017, Sep 28). Sociological Perspective - Meaning, Types, and Examples.

Retrieved from

https://www.sociologygroup.com/sociological-perspectives/