A report on the case study DGL International

Presented to Jintao Zhang, Kent Institute of Australia, Sydney NSW 2000, on

Friday 3 May 2019.

Report researched and written by Laxmi singh (K180127) and Thi Bich Ngan
Tran (K180729), Kent Student, Sydney 2000.
Executive Summary
This report describes the refinery equipment company of John Terrill. The
report will research about the different leadership style and power that helps
to determine what kind of leadership style did John Terrill use and what was
his primary source of power.
This report also discuss about the Hersey- Blanchard theory and the problems
faced by the company.
The problem of the company was described by the employee to the Terrill. He
gave permission the employees to tell their problems. This report also
describes why a strong leader is needed for a company. He had used
democratic leadership style to solve the company’s problem.
Introduction
DGL International is a production of refinery equipment in which John Terrill
was brought to control its technical services division. They are facing a problem
in their production that’s why Terrill called a meeting with his 20 engineers
who were best educated, highest paid employee. The employee got many
complaints showing that they nearly spend 2 hours to write reports but no one
else reads the reports. That’s the waste of time. At the end Terrill had came to
a conclusion that he will not came on the way of the engineers on doing their
work.
This report will answer the questioned which were asked in the case study. The
question based on the technic used by the Terrill to solve the problems of the
company.

Question 1

What leadership style did john Terrill use? What do you think was his primary
source of power?
There are 4 types of leadership style directing style, coaching style, entrusting
style and supporting style. Directing style is known as highly dictating style
which involves explicit direction (Eagly et al, 2003). In this style, authoritative
leader provided the goals and tasks.
Coaching style is a guiding leadership style. In this style, the main important
part of the leader is to provide personal support and task instructions and sub
ordinates are given questioning and understanding chances. Leaders build
strength and helps in the guidance to promote others skills (Meirovich et al.
2015). This is only effective when followers are more responsible.
Supporting style is a style in which leaders exchange their ideas and supports
sub ordinates. Chances are given to subordinates to participate and make
easier in decision making. This type of style is used when subordinates have
low confidence and need particular support.
Entrusting style is a style in which leaders provide direction and support. It’s
the decision of the followers if the leaders take part in task completion or not.
High

Fo Directing style Coaching style

cu
s
on
ta
sk Entrusting style Supporting style
ne
ed
high
low
Focus on people needs
The above figure describes the connection of leader style and follower
readiness. The highest chance of successfully affect low readiness followers is
directing style because of poor skill and not enough experience. Followers at
moderate readiness levels are worked by coaching and supporting style. For
example, though there is not enough experience for the job, there is high
confidence and willingness to learn by the followers (Sampson et al. 2015). All
managers need to be able to represent some works and decisions for the
organisation to work smoothly even though entrusting style is not always
better.
The potential capacity that impact the behaviour of others is power. The
different types of powers are legitimate power, reward power, coercive power,
expert power, referent power and there are other sources of powers as well.
As the question asked about the leadership style used by John Terrill, he used
democratic leadership style. The main reason of this is that he was asking the
problems to the employees and allow them to share their ideas among the
employees. He also had the capacity to decide what is wrong and what is right
to make it better.
His primary source of power was focussing more on employees and their
problems.

Question 2
Based on Hersey Blanchard Theory, should Terrill have been less participative?
Should he have initiated more task structure for the engineers? Explain.

Hersey Blanchard Theory was originated by Hersey and Blanchard which draws
great vision from contingency thinking. There are two pillars in this theory:
leadership style and the maturity level of those being guide (Hambleton et al.
1982). This focuses on the features of followers in determining proper
leadership behaviour. There are four different style based on this theory
symbolised by number and word- S1 Telling, S2 Selling, S3 Participating and S4
Delegating (Cummings et al. 2010). These styles are the mixture of task
orientation and relationship orientation.
Based on the theory, he would have never succeed what he have achieved
now if he would have been less participative. As discussed in the case study
that employees were unable to work, it is very important for him to participate
and build the relation with the employees.

Question 3
What leadership approach would you have taken in this situation?
As a leader John Terrill had to used leadership styles to solve the problem of
the company. The leadership style that Terrill used are Hersey Blanchard
Theory. John Terrill wanted to be sure that he was well known about situation
of the employees and then he made sure to make some changes on daily
suggestion of reports to clarify the situations of other departments. He was
ready to accept the ideas and views of the other engineers. The theory was
also obvious in how Terrill was concerns about other department approaches.
Terrill was capable to negotiate the goal of the personnel with the
management to receive the reports that will be read. When Terrill wanted to
make some changes regarding the reports, he was fully clear about the
company needs. He was also ready and open to support his engineers and he
was enthusiastic to provide direction and assistance for them. These needs
were achieving the goals as a leader, which he used the ideas and views of his
engineers to solve the problems of the company. The ideas that Terrill was
interesting about were the ones that will move the company towards reaching
the company vision. The main thing that Terrill wanted to make sure was the
communication between the management sector from which he gained lots of
respect. John Terrill have confidence that by regulating and controlling the
inefficiency of the individual will solve the problem that the company was
facing and reach the goals as a leader.
In this situation, we would use the same leadership approach which the Terrill
used because this style helps to share our ideas among others freely and helps
to determine between wrong and right.

Conclusion

DGL International was facing a problem because of the daily report that was
not read by anyone. John Terrill was appointed to manage technical services
division in which he used democratic leadership approach to solve the
problem. Hersey Blanchard Theory focuses in determining appropriate
leadership behaviour.
References

Cummings, G. G., MacGregor, T., Davey, M., Lee, H., Wong, C.A., Lo, E., Muise,
M. and Stafford, E. 2010, ‘Leadership styles and outcome patterns for the
nursing workforce and work environment: a systematic review’, International
journal of nursing studies, 47(3), pp. 363-385.

Eagly, A.H., Johannesen- Schmidt, M.C., and Van Engen, M.L. 2003,
‘Transformational, transactional, and laissez- faire leadership styles: a meta-
analysis comparing women and men’, Psychological bulletin, 129(4), p.569.

Hambleton, R.K., and Gumpert, R. 1982, ‘The validity of Hersey and Blanchard’s
theory of leader effectiveness’, Group & Organization Studies, 7(2), pp.225-
242.

Holten, A.L., and Brenner S.O. 2015, ‘Leadership style and the process of
organizational change’, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 36(1),
pp.2-16.

Sampson, Danny, Daft, L., Richard 2015, Fundamentals of Management, 5th

edition, Cengage Learning Australia, Victoria.