Case 9-1: “The Shift to Team Leadership” Suprovisory Management
Supervisory Management Class
Book title: Supervisory Management 9th Edition The Art of Inspiring, Empowering, and Developing People
by Mosley Mosley Pietri
Case 9-1 “The Shift to Team Leadership”
You work for a company interested in initiating a team leadership training program, and your plant manager has appointed you to an ad hoc task force to study the feasibility of implementing such a program in your plant. In one of the company’s other plants, however, supervisors resisted team leadership, giving the following reasons:
1. Lack of time2. Leader mind-set (” it’s the leader’s job to make the major decisions.”)
3. Lack of trust in employees
4. Lack of confidence and employees’ abilities or judgment
5. Potential for major negative consequences (“too risky,” “too costly”)
6. Leader’s belief that the leader Knows Best
7. Leader’s concern that developed employees will erode leader’s base of power (” they’re not dependent anymore.”)
8. Leader’s perception that employees don’t desire development (” They don’t really care; they only want to do the minimum required.”)
Instructions:
1. Brainstorm ways to overcome supervisors’ predicted resistance to developmental leadership.
2. Outline an initial training agenda for the developmental leadership program to present to the plant manager.
3. Present your analysis and recommendations to the plant manager.
………………Answer Preview……………….
Overcoming Supervisor Resistance
In an effort to make sure that there is coexistence among the supervisors and the other employees, there are several steps that can be taken to make them accept the change. The first this is educating them. Most of the supervisors are simply ignorant and do not believe in a new way of doing things. This is something that often results in a situation that they will resist an change as they are interested in making sure that things remain just as they were before. By educating them, one can be able to……
