Chapter 41 Behavioral Approach 83 CASE 4 A Drill Sergeant at

Chapter 41 Behavioral Approach 83 CASE 4. A Drill Sergeant at First Mark Young is the head of the painting department in a large hospital; 20 union employees report to him. Before coming on board at the hos- pital, he had worked as an independent contractor. At the hospital, he took a position that was newly created because the hospital believed change was needed in how painting services were provided. Upon beginning his job, Mark did a 4-month analysis of the direct and indi- rect costs of painting services. His findings supported the perceptions of his administrators that painting services were inefficient and costly. As a result, Mark completely reorganized the department, designed a new scheduling procedure, and redefined the expected standards of performance. Mark says that when he started out in his new job he was \"all task,\" like a drill sergeant who didn\'t seek any input from his subordinates. From Mark\'s point of view, the hospital environment did not leave much room for errors, so he needed to be strict about getting painters to do a good job within the constraints of the hospital environment. As time went along, Mark relaxed his style and was less demanding. He delegated some responsibilities to two crew leaders who reported to him, but he always stayed in close touch with each of the employees. On a weekly basis, Mark was known to take small groups of workers to the local sports bar for burgers on the house. He loved to banter with the employees and could take it as well as dish it out. Mark is very proud of his department. He says he always wanted to be a coach, and that\'s how he feels about running his department. He enjoys working with people; in particular, he says he likes to see the glint in their eyes when they realize that they\'ve done a good job and they have done it on their own. Because of Mark\'s leadership, the painting department has improved sub- stantially and is now seen by workers in other departments as the most productive department in hospital maintenance. Painting services received a customer rating of 92%, which is the highest of any service in the hospital. Questions 1. From the behavioral perspective, how would you describe Mark\'s leadership? 2. How did his behavior change over time? 3. In general, do you think he is more task oriented or more relationship oriented? 4. What score do you think he would get on Blake and Mouton\'s grid?

Solution

Q1) Description of Mark’s leadership

In my opinion Mark’s turn out as an very good manager in terms of his work ethics, his management of the team and overall outcome/result of his work. Mark takes a good approach to his work when saying that he started even before coming on board with hospital, he started analyzing the prior painting staff in the hospital, which really helped him while starting the job. Because of his analysis, he was able to come up with h decent strategy for the hospital, especially in terms of managing his staff in a way that they will not disturb the hospital environment.

With his analysis Mark was able to design whole strategy from scratch for the hospital and was also able to reduce cost for painting. He makes sure that there is no scope of errors in such environment and handle the team in a very efficient way. In beginning he was strict with his workers which was very necessary to complete the task on given time.

Q2) Behavioral change over time.

There was quite a change that was visible in Mark’s leadership during the time, at the start of his job, he was quite strict with his team, and he makes sure that all the team members are properly completing their task in an efficient way. The reason being was the hospital environment, in such environment it is very essential that the work is completed on time with no scope of error. To achieve such results he has to be stringent with his team.

As time passes, he becomes more flexible with his team. He started establishing a team in a way that he delegated most of the work and became fully responsible for the managing the team. He made sure that the team is efficient and kept a close look on the results. He even takes his coworkers out to establish good relationship with the team or you can say to break the ice. Because of his relaxed yet efficient behavior he becomes one of the popular managers in the hospital and as a result he got a very good rating for his department.

Q3) In my opinion he was a very well balance of task as well as relationship in terms of orientation of the team. When required he was strict with his staff/department and made sure that the goal is achieved by the team in given time frame and when he was satisfied with the team effort, he became little relaxed with the team. Being relaxed with the team in my opinion is not a bad thing, Mark as a manager made sure that his department is working efficiently. To make sure his team is bounded and to make good relationship with his team, he took his team out also for snacks. This is a usual act of building positive relationship in team outside office.

Q4) Score on Black and Mouton’s grid-

You can find the Back and Mouton’s grid at the mentioned source (source - https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_73.htm)

According to this grid, I will rate Mark as “Team Management” grid. Despite the low performance of the department before he joined the team, he made sure that not only he will achieve the goal of the department but also managed to make his department one of the best departments of the hospital and also managed to get a rating of 92%.