In my opinion, a specific leadership style is only effective in a certain case/ situation. As seen in the “Energix” case, the same leadership style does not always suit the culture of a company and therefore might be effective in one case but not necessarily in another. It was agreed earlier in this class that being successful is amongst others about having different tools in the toolbox. In my opinion the same holds true for effective strategic leadership. That there is no one best way becomes apparent when looking at different stages of development a company can be on. While relationships between employees in a start-up company may be based mostly on trust, that might not work in a multinational company. The most effective leadership style also differs based on the geographical region, type of organisation or on different decisions to take within an organisation.
Why was David Jones successful in one role and not in another?
In conclusion, David Jones seemed to be the right person for the COO position but not for this organisation (at least not at that time: see above). While his leadership style and his ideals were appreciated and effective at his prior company that was not the case at Energix. Where as assessing the situation with a wide range of facts, systematically defining the critical issues, describing issues factually drawing conclusions through logical reasoning was the right thing to do at Jones' ancient company, it did not bring the same effect at Energix. There, more diverging approaches and an intuitive and holistic definition of the issues might have been cleverer and more adapted.
What I have seen other people do in other case studies that might have worked well here!
- Madonna: As seen in the "Madonna" case study, collaborating with others often brings great benefits. To get into closer contact and in some sort build collaborations with other employees (e.g. the founders of the company), might have increased the acceptance of David Jones. To put more emphasis on the development of personal relationships than on data definitely would have been to prioritise.
- Gerry Robinson: Open discussion, as proposed by Gerry Robinson, would have prevented the lack of conversation in that employees could have asked David Jones about his task, approach, etc. and Jones in turn could have informed about the need of change etc. It is a common knowing (first introduced by Lewin) that employees are more receptive for change if the initiator "unfreezes" them first (by informing, allowing questioning, etc.). That would definitly have helped here.
