Part 1: Theories of Leadership

Define leadership as you now understand it and identify how leadership impacts
employee performance.
Leadership is a behavior by an individual who is highly driven but with strong relationship with

the followers. A leader considers the needs of the organization and those who are looking to

him/her for direction and support. This can be in business acumen along with on more personal

level; mental health. A leader is one who inspires their followers to do their best and allow for

growth.

Depending on the type of leader you are or chose to be, will have an enormous impact on the

employee performance. For example, an authoritarian leader may get the results needed to

succeed but without a true input from the followers, lacking comraderie and recognition.

Whereas a transformational or authentic leader will also achieve the goal but with a positive

team working environment as the followers will feel appreciated and in unison. This

environment will keep the turnover down, foster a collaborative environment and create

exemplary followers.

Describe in detail five leadership theories in the following way:

approach, leader-member exchange theory and authentic leadership. Situational approach allows

the leader to base their decision on the event or situation at hand rather than being so rigid that

there’s no room for any other consideration. It’s similar to compromising to best take care of the

issue at hand without negatively impacting anyone or the organization. In the beginning, I didn’t

know to deviate away from the rules and policies that I only saw right or wrong. Thank
goodness for me and my team, I had a leader who showed me what it means to listen and

consider all the facts and use the rules and policies as a guide.

Leader-member exchange theory resonates with me because relationships are big part of my life

and what I enjoy building. This theory opens the door for the leader and follower to cultivate the

relationship necessary to work well together with boundaries but also be known, everyone’s

opinion and voice counts. This relationship is a building block of a strong foundation, trust in

the leader that any pertinent knowledge will be shared and cascaded down to promote

transparency. Supposedly, the only downside to this theory is a leader does not form this

relationship with everyone, only select few. However, how much of this should the follower be

held accountable? If a leader makes same effort with everyone and only few reciprocate, does it

mean this theory is ineffective?

Finally, authentic leadership is very important to me and who I am as a leader and person. This

style is a combination of situational and LMX theory. An authentic leader understands and

appreciates their success is mostly due to the great work of the followers. It’s about giving the

followers the empowerment and ability to reach the goal by building trust and their skill set.

Both of these give the followers sense of pride and confidence needed to collaborate with one

another to succeed.

- Two leadership theories that did not resonate with you and explain what about the
theories did not appeal to you.
Two leadership theories that did not resonate with me are traits approach and transactional

leadership. As stated above, I strongly believe a leadership behaviors and characteristics can be

taught. Of course, the individual involved must be willing and able to apply those behaviors
taught. If leadership traits are acquired through nature, born with it, how can one explain why

the leadership qualities in a family doesn’t continue from one generation to next?

Secondly, transactional leadership is not a genuine relationship built on trust and share of

common goal. The relationship between the follower and leader is almost superficial because

the relationship is good for short term while the task at hand needs to be met. I see this is temp

jobs where the leader is friendly and supportive to the temp and the temp appears to be an

exemplary worker. However, once the news is shared the permanent position is not offered, both

sides stop their leader, follower role.

Identify which of the models seems to fit best with your leadership philosophy and
why?
For me, authentic leadership model best fits with my philosophy. In my leadership role, building

trust and 2-way communication with open door policy is important. From here, you can build

respect and reliability. My job as a leader is to create a safe space where the followers can be

their true selves, inclusive environment and where honest feedback is welcomed. We celebrate

together as well as figure out how to overcome challenges as a team. I have always believed in

transparency, ask this from my leaders and I provide it to my team. In my opinion, this is one

aspect of showing respect by sharing all information that’s relevant to them and choices they

should make for themselves. My current team inspires me to be a better leader because of the

way they show up. Even through these challenging times of uncertainty and fear with the

pandemic, I owe it to my team for remaining so strong and positive. Their willingness to trust

me to progress our store to next phases and be the role model for our area is great but also heavy

on my soul. Why? Perhaps the fear I may get one of them in a compromising position where

their health and safety is compromised. As an organization we have been going above and

beyond the recommended safety guidelines, but I can’t control the public and what they will and
will not do. Every once in a while, I catch myself becoming the overly protective mom and

frustration towards the public starts to build. If this pandemic occurred 5-6 years ago, the

patience or the courage to stop and assess the situation to address it appropriately would have

been absent in my leadership behavior.

With this, one last thing I want to share is I am a prime example these qualities, behaviors,

skillsets as leaders can be learned. It truly depends on how much the person want to adapt and

adjust.

Part 2: Followership questionnaire

What does the score mean in terms of your followership ability?

follower but one who would look to me a leader, as I am currently working to continue my

journey at Starbucks. I am not surprised of the scores because as much as I enjoy working with

my peers, I have never been the one to just agree to be agreeable. Similar to active engagement,

any successful relationship needs engagement between people. One comment from my peers

while I’ve been on vacation is the weekly calls have been quick and quiet because no one speaks

up or shares anything. They said they missed my presence. Not to say I speak just to take up

airtime but how can a team of 13 store managers not have anything to add to a weekly

discussion?

Which leadership style do you think best develops exemplary followers? Is it Servant
Leadership, Situational Leadership, Authentic Leadership, Adaptive Leadership, or
some other approach?
I believe an adaptive leadership style can best develop exemplary followers. As stated, adaptive

leaders encourage people to adapt- to face and deal with problems, challenges and changes

(Northouse, 2018, p258). Adaptive leader provides the tools and space for the follower to grow

personally and professionally. This style of leadership requires someone who can build

confidence and strength in the follower, allowing them to make mistakes and learn from them to

expand their ability and knowledge. Addressing ambiguity can be daunting and I believe an

adaptive leader helps the follower develop the skills and senses to assess to situation, listen and

make decision based on the greater good of the whole. This confidence will also help them

maneuver through needing to speak or stand up to those who is acting against the organization’s

values or acting unethically. Developing the skillset to know when to adjust, to take action or

not while standing tall on moral grounds is very important and an adaptive leader can get the

follower there.

How can followers effectively change leaders?

There’s strength in numbers and if the group as a whole feels the leader is not providing the

environment that’s positive, collaborative and honest, I believe it’s the responsibility of the

followers to bring this opportunity with the leader. With this being said, some drastic measures

may happen to be taken depending on the leader in the first place. If the leader has an

authoritarian style, the followers may need to consider either unionizing or going on a strike for

the leader to take them seriously. It can’t be done by one follower; it will take the village to

move the mountain. Otherwise, the leader may retaliate and put fear if only one follower

approached the leader. Another type where the follower can effectively change the leader are the

laisses faire leaders. These leaders will be easier to change because they will either listen to the
concerns and change their behaviors appropriately or their immediate leader will also take notice

and make the change for them. I am not sure which is worse, leaders who fails to create a

positive environment but with direction or one who is so disconnected, the moral of the followers

are just as low. Regardless of type, followers have just as much of responsibility to be involved

to create a positive and successful working environment. And if this is not present, they need to

approach the leader respectfully and share the concern and work together towards change.

Part 3: Simulation recap

How did the team lead itself? Was leadership shared? If so, how? 


Initial meet was challenging trying to align everyone schedule so we can start a cadence and

work on the simulation. I appreciated the effort, which we were able to achieve, to not have

anyone absent. Compromising and ability to discuss any issues was our biggest strength as a

team. We all took the leadership role of CEO, COO, CHRO, CMO and CFO. Again, regardless

of the role we took, we all supported one another and considered how to best support so we can

all do well in the simulation.

What are the most important things you learned from the simulation?
The most important thing I learned from the simulation is learning to listen, practice patience and

compromising is a positive thing. 4 out of 5 have been with Starbucks in management level for

several years and although our 5th teammate did not have the similar experience, we all made

sure she felt included. In fact, we rarely referred to our experience as a partner unless it was

pertinent to the simulation. We’re a team and isolation was not the environment we wanted to

create.

Did you find the simulation to be realistic? What differences are there between the
simulation and “real life”?Is there a way to prepare oneself for the sort of challenges
faced in the simulation (or in “real life”)?
I didn’t find the simulation to be realistic because there were so many moving parts and not

enough information. Although our decisions were made to best of our abilities with the

information provided, I think we would have made more sound decisions had we known more

about Liberty Air and the situation they caught themselves in. Not enough history was provided.

In real life, we would be able to look at our company portfolio and learn from our past decisions

which landed us in the brink of the company dissolving or bought out. Also, in real life, I think

the shareholders would have had a proxy to speak in their behalf. One way to prepare or try best

to prevent the challenges faced would be to listen and being present. Building the relationship is

important, especially in hospitality which can be very volatile.

Did you make decisions as you personally would have made them or as your character
would have made them?
I made the decision based on how I would have made them as CFO keeping our shareholders in

mind while trying to best allocate the budget. Never losing the sight of the importance of the

employees as they will have the biggest impact with our decisions.

If you could play the simulation again, would you change your decisions? Why or why
not?
If I could play again, I would have been more aggressive with allocating the budget and better

argued my reasons why to my teammates. I would have done further research as a CFO in an

airline company and what the role really entailed. It’s more than just budget, it’s convincing

others to take the risk to spend the funds available to improve our company. This may have

taken us closer to the top performance vs others rather than the middle ground.