Fall of Empire

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

At the outset, we would like to pay our sincere gratitude to the Institute of Personnel Management of Sri Lanka for giving us the opportunity to write this Group Assignment Case Study on the topic of “fall of empire”. We also sincerely thank the Lecturer for Module One   for the valuable guidance given to us and also for giving valuable instructions.  

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Executive Summary

The purpose of the study is to identify three main concerns related to one of the largest biscuit manufacturing plant in the country.

• Identifying the leadership approach of the owner of the plant and how the company was benefited many years with his self-learned management skills and the drawbacks of the process.
• Short comings of the new approach taken by the young team of directors in changing the process after handing over the responsibilities by the owner.
• Identify and implement the best HR practices after the failure

As we believe, environment scanning is very important in identifying / developing solutions and forecasting to overcome current issues as well as to minimize issues which the organization may experience in future. Hence this study considered SWOT analysis to identify the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats and collect the required information; suggestions for the concerns above as those have arose in the internal environment.

After taking the general facts and the facts found out after the swot analysis into consideration, it was understood that the owner of the plant (Rolex Mudalali) has paid maximum attention in keeping his employees motivated with the little knowledge he had about management. However, employees were mainly demotivated with the application of modern management theories by the new team of young directors. The negative image created among the employees increased up to high labor turnover. Hence more attention to be given on attracting the skilled senior workers who left the organization, motivating the current staff and employee retention.

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1. Discuss about the leadership approach of Rolex Mudalali and how the company was benefited for many years with his self-learned management skills and main drawbacks of the process.

Rolex Mudalali is a person who has gathered knowledge in management through experience but not thorough a formal or professional education.

However, He is a person who believed the open door policy and manages with the style of Management by wandering around. He uses to walk in the production floor with white attire, exchanging few words with everybody he met despite of their positions. This effect to solve problems relating to the process as well as persons then and there which was more effective and made the employees satisfaction to the optimum level.

The management approach towards employees for control and keep their labor under control is more towards Humanistic Perspective which is an approach to psychology that emphasizes empathy and stresses the good in human behavior. Rolex Mudalali believes that the most important factor of his organization as the employees and understanding the higher level of needs of the employees which is more towards to Human Resources perspective.

Leadership is a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective and directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent. Rolex mudalali carried out this process by applying his leadership attributes, such as beliefs, values, ethics, characters, knowledge, and skills. Although the position as an owner, gives the authority to accomplish certain tasks and objectives in an organization, this power does not make a leader. It simply makes the position “Boss”. Leadership differs in that case; it makes the followers want to achieve high goals, rather than simply bossing people around. When we consider Rolex mudalali’s character, it is clear that he was a person who knew the pulse of his people and a person who took care of his employees, guiding them by showing the path, blending with them to understand them; to care for them, molding them when needed and developed them and their future as a father rather than a businessmen. Let’s see how we can conclude Rolex mudalali’s leadership into leadership theories. Basically we can identify that Rolex mudalali had a mix of leadership styles according to blend with the situations, having the best interest for his followers.

Benefits gained by the Leadership styles followed by the Rolex Mudalali

1. Autocratic leadership        : Under the autocratic leadership style, all decision-making powers are centralized in the leader, as with dictator leaders. They do not entertain any suggestions or initiatives from subordinates.

• Quick Decisions

An autocratic style of leadership work effectively where decisions need to be made quickly. Since the Rolex Mudalali’s business faces constant changes due to the competitiveness in local and foreign markets, the autocratic style gives the ability to respond in a way that prevents the business from falling behind the competition and keeps up with customer demand while satisfying the work force.

• Close Oversight

The environment like this the leader has to keeps a close watch on the activities of the workers. This eliminates the tendency for workers to "slack off" that may occur with more lenient management styles. We noticed that Rolex Mudalali daily walks around the production floor exchanging few words with people he meets. This was his close monitoring method which was effective in rectifying issues and develops relationships with employees. Result of that productivity and quality of the products goes high.

• Total Control

These types of leaders take the whole control towards him. This is why Rolex mudalali never hired professional managers to run the activities. Instead he believed in himself and his work force to run the business. The work culture was built in a way that senior most employees acted as supervisors.

1. Participative or Democratic Style        : These types of leaders allow their team to provide input before making a decision, although the degree of input can vary from leader to leader. This style is important when team agreement matters, but it can be difficult to manage when there are lots of different perspectives and ideas.

• Good relationship between the Employer & Employee

Most employees want to feel like they are wanted in the workplace. They want meaningful work and want to be a part of the decision-making process. Under participative leadership approach by Rolex mudalali, depending on the seniority and experience, employees are empowered to step out of their normal role as laborers and become a part of the decision-making process as leaders in their work line. This eases tensions between employees and employer and creates a sense of team. Productivity will rise and the employees will be happier with the relationship.