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Portfolio ProjectAshley V. Twyman

Leadership Styles and Theories1/5/2009 – 2/15/2009

Dr. Jeni McRay

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One of the best experiences I have had so far in my professional career was

working for a small privately owned company in Austin, Texas. In this paper I will

discuss background information about the company, analyze the owner’s leadership

abilities and assess how the company could have ran more effectively through the use of

leadership styles and theories.

Hannah D’s is a small, privately owned business in Austin, with locations in

surrounding areas. It is a retail/wholesaler that deals with women’s accessories. Our

inventory included purses, backpacks, necklaces, bracelets, necklace/bracelet sets,

earrings, seasonal items (i.e. fuzzy socks, gloves, scarves, hats), shoes, watches, wallets,

wedding accessories, such as tiaras and diamond encrusted accessories, sterling silver

jewelry, belts, children’s jewelry, and accessories like fairy wings and frilly tutus; the list

goes on.

When I first began my employment there, there were two retail locations and a

fully functional online business, hannahdonline.com. The owner, James, also owned a

gold buying business. One of the retail locations, the online business and the gold

business, were located in the same building, and the other retail store was located in

another area of Austin.

It was meant to be a short time employment opportunity for me, though I ended

up staying for just over a year. I was two weeks out of college and was looking for

something that would utilize my degree. The idea was to work at the retail location in

order to support myself financially until I could take the time to find something that fit

my degree more appropriately.

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Within just a few months of being employed at the north Austin retail location, I

was promoted to Assistant Store Manager, while the owner’s daughter, April, served as

the Store Manager and my immediate boss.

April’s power as a leader was compromised as soon as I met her father, who

owned the business. My first impression of him was unlike any other I have experienced

in the working world so far. He stormed into the building, stopped, and looked around.

He ran his eyes up and down every employee, and actually made faces in approval or

disapproval of their appearances. He was harsh toward his daughter about everything. He

proceeded to work his way through the store and say “change this”, “change that”, and

“that looks terrible”. His actions and responses completely negated all of April’s

decisions for running this retail location. As a leader, he should have known that putting

down April and her choices, especially in front of her subordinates, would weaken her

ability to be a good leader in our eyes; which would make it harder for us to follow her in

the future.

I believe that a more appropriate way James could have handled the disapproval

he felt about the store’s organization should have been discussed with his daughter in

private, between the two of them. Then, if we had to re-do displays, April could tell us

how we should change them and it would seem like her idea. This way April’s legitimate

power over followers isn’t compromised. “Legitimate power of O/P is here defined as

that power which stems from internalized values in P which dictate that O has a

legitimate right to influence P and that P has an obligation to accept this influence.”

(Peirce & Newstrom, 2008, pg 153)

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The differences between the sexes played a huge role in April and James’

relationship. James tended to hire girls that were very good looking, thin, and who wore

lots of makeup. When I first started my job at the company, I did not feel as though I fit

in at all, but after a few weeks, April (whether under her father’s instructions or not) took

me shopping and helped me pick out more appropriate clothes to wear and another girl

from the store gave me a makeover. At first I thought they were being nice, and I did

have to face the facts that my college wardrobe was in need of some alteration. I couldn’t

live in jeans and sweatshirts throughout my professional career! But, I have a feeling that

James insisted on a change where my appearance was concerned. Basically, James

expected all of the “women in his life” to look radiant on a daily basis.

April was a typical female leader. Shy and quiet, occasionally frustrated with

feeling as though she didn’t have the power she deserved, and emotional. When her dad

was critical of her store, she would sometimes lock herself in her office to gather herself

and was sometimes teary. She was a classic example of negative femininity, and her

father, of negative masculinity. The combination didn’t lead to a good result. “According

to Bem, ‘masculinity has been associated with an instrumental orientation, a cognitive

focus on ‘getting the job done’; and femininity has been associated with an expressive

orientation, an affective concern for the welfare of others’ (p. 156)” (Peirce & Newstrom,

2008, pg 101) James definitely tried to cut to the chase and get the job done (although in

an ineffective manor), while April concentrated on creating relationships with employees,

while making sure daily activities, like marking new items, was accomplished, but

without much rush.

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James decided to open another location in Round Rock, a town just north of

Austin. He hired a new store manager and asked if I would be willing to transfer

locations in order to assist the new manager, who would also need training. I would be

the assistant manager for the new location. It was a little insulting to have to train your

new manager, especially because I was interested in the position. I figured there was

some reason that I wasn’t chosen over the new manager. “Research on justice has

indicated that a decision will be accepted by subordinates if procedural justice is

followed, even if the distributive outcome is less than what an individual desires (Tyler,

1986)” (Peirce & Newstrom, 2008).

It was hard to have to listen to her train new employees since she was still in

training herself. She had worked at the old location for just a few weeks before we began

setting up the new store, so she was not very well trained on the technical, front-line

operations since she had spent most of her time learning how to do ordering and put

together schedules and make bank deposits. This eventually lead to catastrophic disarray

during opening week, when no one could properly run the cash registers, or knew about

wholesale pricing or how to set up a wholesale account. I am a firm believer in the idea

that in order to effectively manage, a leader must have working knowledge of, at least,

their immediate subordinate’s duties. Leaders cannot effectively train unless they are

knowledgeable on what they are training. It also compromises their perceived power if

they are outsmarted by a subordinate.

It was nice having a brand new building to work at, but the planning and setting

up for the opening of the store became a disastrous undertaking. James wanted all say and

control over every tiny aspect of the store, right down to where to keep the vacuum

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cleaner! He admittedly had no background in retail and was constantly changing his mind

about where to put the registers and what directions the display shelves should go. It was

exhausting trying to keep up with his constantly changing ideas. At one point we had to

do one wall seven times with different set ups until he decided he liked the first set up the

best. It was a wreck. There was packaging, necklaces, bracelets, and earrings

everywhere! A lot of money was wasted in this process. It takes three people about two

hours to complete one wall display. I can’t imagine how much he spent making us do it

over and over again. It was customary to change wall displays once a week anyway. I

understand wanting the store to be perfect for the opening, but delays like these set the

opening back weeks! If he could have been able to be less picky about the initial set up of

the walls, we had been able to get the store open sooner. He could have been making

money while spending it on employee’s wages; instead of delaying the opening and

paying people for hours of work that were not necessary.

Apparently, James was an incredibly mistrusting owner. He made it obvious that

he didn’t think his daughter ran her store correctly, but he was also known to “spy” on the

employees of all the locations. There were many times that he would sit in the parking lot

outside the store. He would park his truck a few rows out where no one would notice him

and then call the store and ask for an update on how things were going that day. It made

the manager on duty (usually me that time of night) feel as though he didn’t trust them to

run the store effectively. He always wanted to make sure things were being run well and

that no one was messing around on the clock. I believe it would be very difficult if a

person owned a chain of retail stores, an online business, and a gold business to still try to

micro-manage every aspect of your operation. It is essential that you put a large amount

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of trust in your employees, so that even though things might not be run exactly your way,

you know things are working and business is good.

James seemed to spread himself too thin attempting to control everything about

his stores. It would have been beneficial for him to build better leader-follower

relationships and build the trust between him and subordinates in order to achieve a trust

factor, instead of being an overbearing ruler. “Hollander and Julian (1969) suggested that

leadership is a relationship whose legitimacy and strength of the psychological tie is built

over time.” (Peirce & Newstrom, 2008, pg 27) In this situation, I would suggest that the

leader in question spend time building a relationship with employees that will eventually

become a relationship built on trust, rather than making employees constantly fearful of

getting in trouble and completely powerless.

Although the initial time to be invested with each employee, in order to build a

relationship based on trust is large, the resulting benefits would prove to be even greater.

This time could help reduce the amount of front-line employee turnover and would help

the employees trust the leader more. This would also help the leader trust the employees

more while developing a better working relationship between leader and follower. “Yukl

and Tracey (1992), for example, find that there are a number of influence tactics that

leaders employ in their relationship with their followers. Among those that they have

studied are ingratiation, exchange, personal appeal, coalition, pressure, legitimating,

rational persuasion, inspirational appeal, and consultation.” (Peirce & Newstrom, 2008,

pg143)

It is possible that some of James’ distrust stemmed from the fact that he would

hire employees who were, typically, uneducated and questionable in character, in order to

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get cheap labor. Personally, I could not understand why he would hire people like this –

except if he thought he was saving money. He was incredibly cheap, possibly why he was

so wealthy! To me however, it would seem worth the money to hire people who were

more educated and let them take over certain aspects of the company so that I could

concentrate on other aspects of the business. That way I could spend more time

concentrating on the tasks of running a company and the overall picture, instead of trying

to micro-manage every business I owned. James could have adopted this view with

employees. Is it better to have 10 uneducated and mediocre employees, or five who can

do the work of 15? If he could have obtained better employees to start with, he might not

have had such trust issues with followers. He might have found it easier to work with

people of a higher caliber as well; they might be easier to relate to and easier to form a

common bond and working relationship with. He also might have seen that they were

open to buying into his vision and easier to influence.

The entire time I worked for the company, never once was I asked if I liked it

there or if there were things which could be changed in order to help me enjoy working

there more. It was as if they could care less if their employees were happy or not. James

definitely didn’t believe in listening to the ideas of subordinates, which might have

proved to be beneficial for his company, since he had no idea how to run a retail

business. He was basically a man with a lot of money and illusions of self grandeur. It

basically boiled down to it being his way or the highway. “When the team feels that it

cannot rely on the leader or that the leader does not have the team’s interests at heart,

team members are unlikely to carry out the roles specified by the leader or to work

toward the performance-related objectives and strategies set by the leader.” (Peirce &

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Newstrom, 2008, pg 45) James had this bad habit of telling people that he had no idea

what he was doing where the retail business was concerned, but his way was still best.

Despite the lack of trust, James appeared to be a very moral leader, which, at first,

made him easy to follow. During my initial interview process we discussed faith in God

and my views on religion and some philosophy. It was a nice addition to an interview,

and I came into the job thinking about what a great company this must be under a man

who believes in God. I came to discover that this was either a fake front he put on. April,

his daughter, would tell stories about how she didn’t see her dad for 10 years because he

just disappeared one day and left her and her mother. He didn’t provide for the family

during that time at all. I remember one thing that April desperately wanted was braces.

She was very pretty but had the worst teeth I have ever seen. It affected the way she ate

and talked but he refused to even help her get braces, and didn’t pay her enough as an

employee so that she could afford to pay for them herself. Personally, something like

braces is a need, not a want, and he had more money than God, so I would have thought

he would have wanted to help his daughter with something like that.

His character continued to be called into question, in many little ways. He went

around trying to show everyone what a good Christian he was, but the majority of his

actions didn’t coincide with this ideal. I would definitely say that he was not a credible

role model, though he thought of himself as one. It was as if he wanted the public to have

a perfect Christian view of him, while he truly wasn’t like that. “Honesty is absolutely

essential to leadership. After all, if we are willing to follow someone, whether it be into

battle or into the boardroom, we first want to assure ourselves that the person is worthy of

our trust. We want to know that he or she is being truthful, ethical, and principled. We

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want to be fully confident in the integrity of our leader.” (Peirce & Newstrom, 2008, pg

76)

The worst part of his pseudo-management style was that he would say “No, I

don’t like it”, but never had any suggestions on how to change it. He would just expect

change and then he would again judge whether the new presentation was what he was

looking for, or not. After assisting with the new store, and once things were established

and fairly routine, I began working at the downtown Austin location as the company’s

Head of Marketing and Ad Design. James decided he wanted to rejuvenate business and

expressed that he needed help reaching the public. I dealt with mostly print ads, but also

assisted with radio ads and short television spots as well. It was so frustrating working

with someone who was compelled to give his approval on everything I put to print. When

I would take him items to proof it was a common practice for him to say “Nope, come

back when you have something better.” I would come to him with something that was

simple and textbook for an effective print advertisement. He would ask me questions like

“Why are the pictures in a diagonal line through the ad?” I had to explain to him that the

heaviest pieces of the ad (usually pictures) when placed at an angle, lead the viewer’s eye

through the ad. It is a technique used to attract the eye and get the viewer to actually read

the ad to see what is being presented. It basically makes the ad attractive and effective at

the same time. He literally looked at me like I was from the moon and said “Well, it

sounds like you know a lot about this. I don’t know anything about advertising like that.

I still don’t like it. Come back when you have something else.”

It was apparent that James attempted to use referent power over his subordinates.

“The referent power of O/P has its basis in the identification of P with O. By

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identification, we mean a feeling of oneness of P with O, or a desire for such an identity.

If O is a person toward whom P is highly attracted, I will have a desire to become closely

associated with O.” (Peirce & Newstrom, 2008, pg 154) It was evident that he was trying

to get people to be and think like him by appearing to be a successful person in all aspects

of life. He constantly flaunted his trophy wife, and perfect adopted daughter, his money,

and his self-appointed genius in and out of the businesses he owned. He constantly made

it a point to say how much his daughters should use him as a successful role model and

strive to be more like him, when their view, based on their experiences with him, was

completely the opposite. He was probably someone they would least like to share

commonalities with. He also had a sense of legitimate power. Legitimate power is the

most complicated form of power. It resides in the interaction and relationship between

leader and follower (or followers) and has the ability to constantly change. “Legitimate

power of O/P is here defined as that power which stems from internalized values in P

which dictate that O has a legitimate right to influence P and that P has an obligation to

accept this influence.” (Peirce & Newstrom, 2008, 153) There are three bases for

legitimate power: (1) cultural values - such as age, intelligence, caste and physical

characteristics (2) acceptance of social structure – if a person buys into a social structure,

they accept that the leader has the right to be the leader (3) destination by a legitimizing

agent – the follower accepts the leaders commands because the leader has been given his

power by someone else whom the follower accepts.

I know that throughout this paper it seems as though all I can do is complain.

Working there really wasn’t a bad experience. I fell like I learned so much about what not

to do and even more about myself. It was also a great experience to have under my belt

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and gave me a good foundation to build on, and things to strive for in my professional

future. James also made sure his employees got very good Christmas bonuses, which is

always a plus! On the surface, the company was great, but when you started looking at

the interaction between the employees and the terrible leadership abilities of their

management as you moved up through the company, things just became a sticky mess.

All the relationships were complicated because of more than one relationship being

present (most of James’ family members worked for him). I have addressed most of the

major issues that were present in the company while I was employed there and have

given my views and advice on how the organization would have ran more efficiently if

acceptable leader-follower relationship behavior was respected. I would recommend that

the managers and leaders, especially the owner, James, look into taking some leadership

styles and theories classes. “Leadership study calls for a situational approach; this is

fundamentally sociological, not psychological. Leadership does not reside in a person. It

is a function of the whole situation.” (Peirce & Newstrom, 2008, pg 12) Even though

some research states that attempting to train leaders is ineffective, I believe researching

leadership styles and theories have been beneficial to me and my leadership skills. The

study in general really makes you take a look at yourself and helps you broaden your

knowledge base concerning leader-follower relationships and makes you more aware

than you were before, and perhaps more effective in the future.

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References

Pierce, J., Newstrom, J. (2008). Leaders & the Leadership Process: Readings, Self-assessments & Applications. McGraw Hill: New York 5th ed.