Benchmark: Southwest Transit

In Topic 4, selections for the Southwest Transit marketing team were made and now your job is to present the recommendation to your director. Surprisingly though, a directive is issued informing management that only four people will be able to staff the team, which will of course increase the pressure finalizing the selection.

Consider the vision for a successful Southwest Transit marketing team composed in Topic 4. Narrow down the team selection to four individuals for presentation to the director. Decide which strategies will be most effective for leading the agreed-upon team. Compose a PowerPoint presentation (10-12 slides), then record your 5-7-minute presentation using YouTube Video, Loom, or Zoom. On the title slide of your PowerPoint presentation, provide the link to your YouTube, Loom, or Zoom video recording that you created. Your presentation should address the following:

1. Who are the four team members, and what was the primary reason each person was selected? How difficult was it to come to a decision regarding team selection? Which potential team member was most difficult to come to a consensus about? Why?
2. What are the primary strengths of the team? What are its potential weaknesses? How positive is the management team about the team’s potential? Justify your answers with evidence from ” Southwest Transit Team Member Profiles.”
3. What strategies will be most effective for motivating the team, managing conflict, and ensuring success and fostering collaboration? Cite specific motivational theories, conflict-resolution strategies, and leadership strategies in your answer.
4. Justify how the selected team embodies the values of Conscious Capitalism how the tenet of stakeholder orientation played a role in the team selection process. Provide citations to strengthen your claims.
5. Describe how value is created for each stakeholder, and in what ways will the team positively impact the business as a whole?

You are required to use at least three academic references to strengthen and support your claims and recommendations. Ensure each content slide has supporting citations and specific examples.

While APA style is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected, and in-text citations and references should be presented using APA documentation guidelines, which can be found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

You are not required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite.

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Leading Teams at Southwest Transit

Tabitha Squires, Crystal McCarthy, Jack Daley, Ed Asadi, and Cynthia Dierken

Colangelo College of Business, Grand Canyon University

MGT-605: Leadership in Organizations

Dr. Shaunna Waltemeyer

March 24, 2021

Leading Teams at Southwest Transit

Southwest Transit Company has directed a group of managers to build a qualified team to develop a high-stakes, high pressure marketing strategy to increase sales, reestablish the company’s market dominance and maintain customer loyalty. The task will require effective collaboration in demanding conditions. Below, the proposal will identify the six team members selected, and the rationale behind the selection. The proposal will also discuss the diverse factors driving the behavior of the team members, as well as motivation theories and strategies that will be used with this team. In addition, it will include a discussion of possible challenges and conflict management strategy, as well as the vision for the success of this team based on the application of leadership theories and strategies.

Team Selection

The members of the team chosen for the Southwest Transit up-coming project are Michael, Elizabeth, William, Ian, Katelyn and Natalie. These employees were chosen for their diverse abilities and work ethic. As a strategic thinker that is motivated by complex tasks, Michael was chosen and will bring out the strengths in the other team members through collaboration. Elizabeth is a strong problem solver with the ability to meet required deadlines. Her listening skills and diplomacy will lead her to be a strong peer on the team. The experience that William brings to the table will benefit the other newer teammates and although he may be less efficient, his other teammate’s skills in that area will drive that area. Ian prizes efficiency and will balance William in this area while his creativity and tech savvy will elevate the team’s potential. Although new, Katelyn’s strong motivating for challenging tasks and history of producing impeccable work will bring more drive to the team. Natalie is a natural leader with a skill for communication and will help this team showcase their strong work. With a combination of competence, ability to be autonomous and yet still team-driven, the qualities found in the members of this team will enhance each other’s intrinsic motivation and will yield the highest quality results (Ryan & Deci, January 2000).

The employees that were not chosen for this high-pressure project were Doug, Bob, Susan and Tiffany. Doug’s history of volatile reactions and lack of teamwork made him too high a risk for this project. Although often a strong team player, Bob also tends to overreact and escalate conflict. With tight deadlines and high pressure, this environment would be difficult for him to succeed with the team. Susan is a fantastic employee, but her lack of motivation and focus may not help drive the bottom line for this project. Similar to Susan, Tiffany has trouble with motivation. This project may lead to long hours and strenuous activity in order to succeed and Tiffany has no interest in pursuing these possibilities. The combination of low fundamental motivation and high conflict drivers predict low engagement and decreased potential (Jeno et al., 2017).

Motivation and Behavior Management Strategies

Having a heterogeneous team can be a source of many creative and innovative ideas. The diversity of knowledge and culture within the group makes way for collaboration that works effortlessly. While being different, each group member shares being motivated by a challenge and working well with others. The factor of each member having different areas of knowledge may drive the team to have a competitive advantage. Where some team members lack in skill and expertise, others who have strength in that area can help fill in the gaps and provide assistance.

The expectancy theory of motivation will help this team perform their assigned tasks and work well together. Each team member is expected to contribute the highest form of productivity to have an overall favorable outcome. This method gives each member accountability for their work. The expectancy theory provides justification for performance management (Lee, 2019). If work is favorable or unfavorable, the end result and outcome will show that. Herzberg’s two factor theory would be ineffective for this team. Many would argue that workers are less satisfied than their counterparts due to working conditions, restrictions, and goals (Hur, 2018). Every team member has the common goal of presenting a pitch to increase sales for the organization. It would be expected that each member is willing to use their area of expertise to produce the best marketing strategy that will keep customers loyal to Southwest Transit.

Conflict and Conflict Management

Conflict in the workplace is not always a bad thing. Sometimes, it’s only when conflict arises that hidden problems are brought to the fore. It’s easy to pin the blame on one person or a small group of people, but often, the reasons for conflict go much deeper. Conflicts in the team are unavoidable as people are all naturally different from each other. Teams that have members with a completely different attitude from one another may trigger issues that can complicate or negatively affect the productivity of the entire team. In this case, the managers have chosen individuals who may create conflict not only because of their differences but also because their similar attitudes that can create an imbalance in the team. The focus will need to ensure that the conflict is healthy, as healthy conflict can lead to positive results. Unhealthy conflict is personal and emotional and can lead to negative results (Etkin et al., 2015).

Based on The Thomas-Kilmann conflict management model there are two types of conflict management assertiveness and cooperativeness. Assertiveness is the degree to which a person attempts to satisfy their own concerns, whereas cooperativeness is the degree to which a person attempts to satisfy the other party’s concerns. The CARE technique of conflict management will be applied by communication, actively listening, and reviewing the options. The following strategies would be applied to the team: competing such as quick and decisive action is vital, collaborating when merging insights from people with different perspectives on a problem or issue, compromising is to achieve temporary settlements to complex issues, avoiding when the potential costs of confronting a conflict outweigh the benefits of the resolutions and accommodating are when you realize that you are wrong and allow a better position to be considered. Applying these strategies would keep track of essential workforce metrics and allow leaders to make informed, data-driven decisions that will ultimately help to create a culture where everyone can grow and thrive (Allen et al., 2014, p. 100).

Vision and Leadership Strategy

This vision for this team to be successful is to complete this project by the deadline, work together with their teammates efficiently, and use their unique strengths to their advantage. This team must be creative enough to enable the marketing campaign to stand out and must work well together when there is a lot of pressure and a lot at stake. This team must be motivated to get the job done and do whatever it takes for the success of the company. Some of the selected team’s strengths include having a positive mindset, being challenge-motivated, being team oriented, being good with change and conflict, and being open-minded. Some weaknesses include not focusing on little details, not being timely with some tasks, wanting to take control in team situations and getting frustrated easily.

Leadership theories and strategies will also need to be applied to the team to ensure the vision for the team is successful in the end. One leadership strategy is to value and utilize their diversity. All the selected individuals have skills, experience, knowledge, and backgrounds that they can use to contribute to the project. This strategy will benefit the team the most and will allow the vision for the team to be successful because there are many aspects and factors that can be contributed, “Effective problem solving depends on utilizing the perspectives that others bring because of their experience, orientations, gender, nationality, etc.” (Stoner, 2016). In addition, the cognitive resource theory would be applied because this theory focuses on performance when under stress. This project is required to be completed by a set deadline and has big implications for the company so there is a lot of stress and pressure involved. Fred Fiedler states that stress is a form of “situational unfavorableness” and a leader’s intelligence and experience influence the way that a person reacts to the stress. Research on this theory shows that experienced individuals perform worse in low-stress situations (Learning, n.d.).

Conclusion

The proposed team for this project has a diverse set of qualifications and personalities which will contribute to the success of this project. In order to achieve the expected, it will be imperative that the management team utilizes the appropriate motivational methods and conflict management so that the team can collaborate effectively to produce the required marketing strategy by the deadline. By applying these strategies and theories, as well as providing the team with strong leadership and a clear vision the team will be effective in delivering a successful marketing strategy.

References

Allen, T.D., Cho, E., & Meier, L.L. (2014). Work–family boundary dynamics. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1, 99– 121.

Etkin, J., Evangelidis, I., Aaker, J., Chen, S., & Zhou, J. J. (2015) Journal of Consumer Research, Volume 47, Issue 5, Pages 716–736, doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucaa019

Griffin, R.W., Phillips, J.M., & Gully, S.M. (2020). Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations (13th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage.

Hur, Y. (2018). Testing Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory of Motivation in the Public Sector: Is it Applicable to Public Managers? Public Organization Review, 18(3), 329–343. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/s11115-017-0379-1

Jeno, L. M., Raaheim, A., Kristensen, S. M., Kristensen, K. D., Hole, T. N., Haugland, M. J., &

Mæland, S. (2017). The Relative Effect of Team-Based Learning on Motivation and

Learning: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective. CBE life sciences education,

16(4),ar59. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.17-03-0055

Lee, H. W. (2019). Moderators of the motivational effects of performance management: A comprehensive exploration based on expectancy theory. Public Personnel Management, 48(1), 27–55. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/0091026018783003

Learning, L. (n.d.). Organizational Behavior / Human Relations. Retrieved March 22, 2021, from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wmopen-organizationalbehavior/chapter/the-history-of-leadership-theories/

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (January 2000). Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of

Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being. American Psychologist, 55(1).

Stoner, J. L. (2016, December 29). The 9 Essential Leadership strategies in the age of Information: Jesse Lyn Stoner. Retrieved March 22, 2021, from Seapoint Center for Collaborative Research.