Leadership Judgment Test

If the test below arouses your curiosity to find out more about 'leadership judgment', please contact Andrea Charlesworth to obtain a quotation to complete Hogrefe's Leadership Judgment Indicator (LJI-2)

Scenario 1: SymChem

The first scenario to be analysed is a meeting between the Director of Operations in the European Division of SymChem, a large multi-national biochemical organization, and one of his Project Managers, Kim Bailey.

The Director of Operations oversees a number of projects within SymChem but does not get directly involved in the day to day running of the projects themselves.  Instead, he has a number of Project Managers who are responsible for coordinating and implementing all aspects of project delivery.  Their job is to ensure that projects are completed in line with the agreed deliverables and milestones.  

It has recently been brought to the Director's attention that a very important project, managed by Kim Bailey, is in danger of slipping behind schedule.  Kim Bailey works in the Fine Chemicals Division of the subsidiary Telion and is responsible for delivering the Xena-II process review project.  There are some concerns about the progress of this project because work is not being completed to a high standard and it is falling behind its target delivery date.  Employee survey and project reporting data has alerted the Director to these slippages and now he has received messages of concern from senior engineers within the project team.  

Kim Bailey started at SymChem seven years ago after graduating with a degree in Chemical Engineering.  Kim has worked up through the organization to become Project Manager and has an extremely good understanding of technical aspects of project delivery, given his background as a Chemical Engineer.  Kim has traditionally managed product design projects requiring specialist technical expertise and in this area has gained credibility as an extremely competent individual.  Kim has less experience in the process management area.  As Kim has a reputation as a competent Project Manager the Director has so far refrained from any form of supervision up to this point.

Kim Bailey is in the building for another meeting later today so the Director has taken the opportunity to meet him.  During the meeting the Director aims to:
•    investigate Kim’s view of the progress made on the project so far;
•    establish a definite plan of action for the implementation of the project;
•    identify any support that Kim needs;
•    discuss any other issues that Kim wishes to raise;
•    identify ways to help Kim motivate his team.

Leadership Style Alternatives

There are four possible ways the Director could lead this meeting:
    
a) Use a Directive approach - having questioned Kim about the facts, the Director could decide on the solution himself and tell Kim exactly what he needs to do.  

b) Use a Consultative Approach - having discussed the situation with Kim, the Director could get Kim's ideas and suggestions, then use these to tell Kim exactly what he needs to do.  

c) Use a Consensual approach - having discussed the situation with Kim, the Director and Kim could collaboratively generate and evaluate alternatives and attempt to reach agreement on a solution.

d) Use a Delegative approach - having questioned Kim about the facts, the Director could provide Kim with clear parameters and objectives and give him the responsibility to solve the problem.

Before viewing the videos where the Director attempts to implement each of these approaches, rate each of the leadership style alternatives (a,b,c,d) using the following rating scale:
    
1 - Most Infeasible Style,     2 - Infeasible Style,     3 - Unsure,     4 - Feasible Style,     5 - Most Feasible Style

Leadership Judgment Questions

Next, attempt to answer 'Yes' or 'No' to each of these 'judgment questions' as if you were the Director.  These can be used to help establish which style has the 'best bet' chance of working:
ABOUT THE TASK -
Is this a really important decision?
Do you feel there is time urgency?
Do you know enough to generate a solution on your own?
Does this need the views of both Kim and yourself?
Have you worked successfully on this type of problem before?
ABOUT THE PEOPLE -
Is this a good opportunity to develop Kim?
Will Kim readily follow your decision?
Could Kim sort this out on his own?
Can you trust Kim to do what's best?
Is there going to be quite a lot of disagreement about this?

If possible, discuss your 1 - 5 ratings of the decision style approaches and your pattern of 'Yes' / 'No' responses to the judgment questions with a colleague before viewing the four videos and critically evaluating the efficacy of each style in this particular situation. 

Now please complete Scenario 2: ChemoCorp