Successful Leaders Case Study

Grace worked very hard to achieve the promotion. She became the medical department’s chief due to her assiduity, persistence, and diligence.

Grace Reed also possesses a number of useful skills, internal qualities, and abilities associated with successful leaders. It should be noted that first of all, she is a woman of a special mind: clever, widely-read, educated, and skilled. She studied from the best doctors. She could cope with any task, could easily calm the sick patient and solve his/her problem. Grace, as the leader, was an example for imitation; she showed how is necessary to work. In the relations with colleagues, she was restrained, counterbalanced, and quiet; she usually does not show her emotions.

A good chief should possess such qualities. Grace Reed is benevolent and positively adjusted; she gains people around. Grace is one of the bosses who do not become isolated. She tries to work collectively. She penetrates into the employees’ problems and tries to understand their situations. Also, she could support the worker with a joke, with a kind word, or pay a pleasant compliment.

Grace was able to recognize and allocate merits of other people. According to Tepper (2012), a real leader should be able to estimate the working staff. The correct motivation of the personnel, colleagues, or citizens allows of increasing the work capacity of a human resource. The simplest way of subordinates’ motivation is to give people confidence that all they do is good and correct. The management efficiency is shown by the personnel in similar nuances (Tepper, 2012, p. 10).

To become better on a chief position, Grace should become more charismatic and confident. She should also enhance her resoluteness. After all, these qualities should be present in the person who aspires to be a real leader. According to Tepper (2012), a firm position, the ability to communicate with subordinats, and capability of making important decisions are the main features of a good leader. Due to the above listed qualities, a person can gain trust of people and manage them effectively. However, many qualities may be not inherent to the person, but they can be developed or improved.

Continuous work and the ability to set goals properly will allow a person to conquer the new heights with each successive step (Tepper, 2012, p. 31). Why Did Grace Have Problems Making Changes and Maintaining Discipline When She First Was Promoted to a Position That Required Leadership? When Grace received promotion, she had many problems with the discipline and collective work. It is not surprising that nobody considered her as the boss. Although formally Grace has risen to the chief’s level because of her skills, knowledge, abilities, and merits, employees still treated her as the pal and considered that it was not obligatory to obey her.

Orders and instructions which Grace gave to the colleagues were ignored and not followed. The work capacity and quality level of work decreased at a high rate. And Grace as the chief could do nothing with it. She was too shy to punish her so called friends for their instructions’ default. She did not have enough of that resoluteness, about which was told earlier.

According to Tepper (2012), if there is a society, it means that there should be the one who directs this society. The leader is a person who is brightly distinguished from other people and takes an authoritative place among them (Tepper, 2012, p. 24). Grace did not occupy the similar position: she was not authority for the colleagues. One more problem which Reed faced was a fear to complain about the workers to the administration.

She believed that they will consider her unqualified and not good enough for a chief position. Also, she was afraid of losing the boss’ position. Having faced all these problems and inconveniences, Grace decided to do all work herself. Of course, her subordinates had some small instructions, but she took on most of the tasks to create no problems to her and other people. First of all, it is absolutely incorrect position in relation to her.

Thus, she reminds not the leader but the workers’ slave. According to Tepper (2012), each leader should praise or criticize employees. It is necessary to remember that praise is very well reflected in working capacity and worker’s initiative; especially praises affect the beginners who were impacted by the first failures. The criticism, however, needs to be carried out very correctly; one should never raise the voice or become personal. It is necessary to criticize a concrete act instead of the worker’s identity as a whole.

The praise should be public, and the criticism should be confidential (Tepper, 2012, p. 52). Grace only praised her workers and never used any criticism in their address. The problems at her work appeared because of it. Desire to merge with the collective and establish unduly friendly connection with the subordinates resulted in lack of discipline and poor performance.

This situation made not only her working performance complicated but the colleagues’ duties as well.The main task of the head and the management in general is to state the concrete, completely stipulated, and attainable aims. The goals were not reached; tasks were not carried out. That is why the Grace Reed’s medical department became worse. In the relations with subordinates, the head should keep a distance and should not closely relate to them. In every collective, the head should have a faultless authority.

The new medical department’s boss, Grace Reed, failed as a chief because of her too kind heart and too soft character.