Assignment Paper

Define “trait,” “behavior,” and “power-influence” approaches. List the unique insights that each approach
provides about effective leadership.
Compare the following theories of leadership and explain why all types of theory are useful or not:
Descriptive theory
Prescriptive theory
Universal theory
Contingency theory
How is a crisis likely to affect managerial activities and behavior? For example, the machinery broke down
ur customer will go to another company “that can produce.”
Case Study: Acme Manufacturing Company
Steve Arnold is a production manager at Acme Manufacturing Company in New Jersey. When Steve drove
into the parking lot at the plant on Tuesday morning at 8:35, he was already 35 minutes late for work. Steve
had overslept that morning because the night before he had stayed up late to finish the monthly production
report for his department. He parked his car and entered the rear of the plant building. Passing through the
shipping area, Steve spotted his friend George Summers and stopped to ask how work was progressing on
the new addition to George’s house.
Entering the office at 8:55, Steve greeted his secretary, Ruth Sweeney, and asked whether anything urgent
needed his immediate attention. Ruth reminded him of the staff meeting at 9:30 with Steve’s boss — Frank
Jones, the vice president for Production — and the other production managers. Steve thanked Ruth for
reminding him (he had forgotten about the meeting) and continued on to his adjoining inner office to look
for the memo announcing the meeting. He vaguely remembered getting the memo in an email one or two
weeks earlier, but did not take the time to read it or look at the attached materials.
His phone rang, and it was Sue Bradley, the sales vice president, who was inquiring about the status of a
rush order for one of the company’s important clients. Steve promised to look into the matter and get back
to her later in the day with an answer. Steve had delegated the rush order last week to Lucy Adams, one of
his production supervisors, and he had not thought about it since then. Stepping back into the outer office,
Steve asked Ruth if she had seen Lucy today. Ruth reminded him that Lucy was at a training workshop in
California. She would be difficult to reach until the session ended late in the afternoon, because the
workshop facilitators regard cell phone calls and text messages as an unnecessary distraction.
Going back into his office, Steve emailed a message to Lucy asking her to call him as soon as possible.
Then, he resumed his search for the memo about the meeting with his boss and the other production
managers. He finally found it in his large collection of unprocessed emails. The purpose of the meeting was
to discuss a proposed change in quality control procedures. By now it was 9:25, and there was no time to
read the proposal. He hurried out to get to the meeting on time. During the meeting, the other production
managers participated in the discussion and made helpful comments or suggestions. Steve was not
prepared for the meeting and did not contribute much except to say that he did not anticipate any problems
with the proposed changes.
The meeting ended at 10:30 and Steve returned to his office, where he found Paul Chen, one of his
production supervisors, waiting for him. Paul wanted to discuss a problem caused in the production
schedules by a major equipment breakdown. Steve called Glenda Brown, his assistant manager, and
asked her to join them to help rearrange the production schedules for the next few days. Glenda came in
shortly and the three of them worked on the production schedules. At 11:25, Ruth came in to announce that
Mr. Ferris was waiting and he claimed to have an appointment with Steve at 11:30. Steve looked at his
calendar but could not find any entry for the appointment. Steve asked Ruth to tell Mr. Ferris that he would
be ready shortly.
The schedules were completed around 11:40. Since it was nearly noon, Steve invited Mr. Ferris to join him
for lunch at a nearby restaurant. During lunch Steve learned that Mr. Ferris was from one of the firms that
provided materials used in the production process at Acme, and the purpose of the meeting was to inquire
about some changes in material specifications the company had requested. As Mr. Ferris talked, Steve
realized that he would not be able to answer some of the technical questions. When they returned to the
plant at 1:15, Steve introduced Mr. Ferris to an engineer who could answer his questions.
Soon after Steve walked back to his office, his boss (Frank Jones) stopped in to ask about the quality
report for last week. Steve explained that he had given top priority to finishing the monthly production report
and would do the quality report next. Frank was irritated, because he needed the quality data to finalize hisproposal for new procedures, and he thought Steve understood this task was more urgent than the
production report. He told Steve to get the quality data to him as soon as possible and left. Steve
immediately called Glenda Brown and asked her to bring the quality data to his office. The task of reviewing
the data and preparing a short summary was not difficult, but it took longer than he anticipated. It was 2:40
by the time Steve completed the report and attached it to an e-mail to him.