Leadership & Ethics for Managers
As a management consultant you make a living by providing
management advice to senior level managers with regard to management problems
that they are experiencing within their organization. Your role is to analyze
the situation and then apply your experience, general business knowledge, and
sound management principles and theories, to produce a report or other deliverable
on the subject for the senior manager.
Your recommendations are important, but equally important is
your justification for those recommendations. The justification must convince
the manager that your advice is worth the price he or she paid for it. The
manager should feel confident that you have arrived at the correct conclusions
and that your conclusions are well supported by good judgment and competent
authority in the subject. Your goal is to produce results that will strengthen
your reputation as a management consultant and encourage the manager to hire
you in the future for other projects.
Leadership Challenge: Selecting Team Members
The leader of your client organization has observed a lack
of flexibility and a slow decision-making process in many of the departments.
He believes that he is not serving his customers well, and has decided to move
to a team environment and to push many of the decisions to the lowest possible
levels. In other words, he wants to create a team-based, empowered
organization. Several of his best managers are resisting the idea strongly.
They not only feel that many employees are not ready for the change, but they
also believe that they personally could never change from a “command and
control” style to allowing more participation (adapted from Nahavandi,
2003, p. 54).
Your client has asked you to prepare a report in which you
address the following questions:
1. How should the leader deal with the situation?
2. What arguments can he use to persuade his managers?
3. What can he do to help his managers change their style?
4. What are the implications of his actions and decisions?
