Consolidated Products Case Essay

In my opinion, Phil Jones is a more effective plant manager from the business standpoint than Ben Samuels. Despite friendlier working environment created by Ben Samuels and strong teamwork, his team did not manage to show good performance results regardless numerous benefits provided to the employees. As the main goal of business is to generate profit, Phil Jones was more successful in terms of achieving this goal. Provision of bonuses to employees is a secondary item for the business. If bonuses do not positively affect the employees’ performance, these bonuses are useless from the business perspective.
If Phil Jones’ and Ben Samuels’ management approaches are compared, they will fall into two possible categories under the behavioral leadership theories. Thus, Phil Jones is a leader who is only concerned with business tasks, when Ben Samuels is more concerned with people’s relations at work. According to the role theory, “each person is an actor representing a typical individual in a real life scenario performing within a specific context and a set of functions” (Leadership-Central.com, n.d.).
Thus, both Phil Jones and Ben Samuels were in the same role of the plant manager. Nevertheless, their management styles varied, as they perceived the role and responsibilities of the plant manager differently. In terms of the performance results, Phil Jones’ management style and his role as the plant manager appeared to be more effective.
Nevertheless, if I were a plant employee, I would rather prefer to work for Ben Samuels because this manager introduced many bonuses for employees and maintained very friendly working environment. As employees are usually concerned only with their salaries, the business performance would not be my number one priority. Therefore, I would perceive Phil Jones as an obsessively controlling who is only capable of using negative motivation to stimulate his subordinated. In the meantime, if I worked under Ben Samuels’ supervision, I would receive my salary and would be very pleased with my work.

References

Leadership-Central.com. (N.d.). Role theory. Retrieved from http://www.leadership-central.com/role-theory.html#axzz3Tmplvy9t