Comparing Leadership Models XXXX XXXXX LDR 531 JXXX 1, 20XX Dr. Leo Maganares 1 2 Comparing Leadership Models Shared leadership has emerged as a response to rapidly changing organizations and an increase in the complexity of tasks (de Cruz, 2019). Shared leadership can quickly and effectively solve problems, increase performance, and improve organizational productivity. With a team of experience, skills, and resources a strong leadership foundation can be formed to solve complex problems and initiate change to improve the overall productivity of organizations. Chapter 12 Case Incident One: Sharing is Performing Obstacles that can be encountered with shared leadership are social loafing, conflict with roles, differences in opinions, beliefs, values, negative mental models, task conflicts, and diversity issues (Robbins & Judge, 2019). Undefined roles can cause conflicts of ideas, opinions, leadership authority, and social loafing. All of these can have a negative effect on the team. In this case, Christ looked to McGinley, as did Martin, to Barrs to form a shared leadership to solve two complex organizational problems (Robbins & Judge, 2019). The organization I work for formed a shared leadership quality team made up of leaders from the entire organization to determine clinical competencies for nursing. When the findings indicated that competencies were not standardized or based on evidence-based practices, they developed a program that would improve nursing competencies aligned with the vision and mission of the organization. This program was aligned with the mission of the organization to ensure that nurses were competent in their skills to provide high-quality care. The leadership style that would best promote shared leadership in this case, would be Hersey and Blanchard’s situational leadership theory where the focus is on “directing, coaching, supporting, and delegating behavior” (Thompson & Glaso, 2018, p. 575). Leading a shared leadership team as CEO it would be important to define roles, assess team readiness, skills, knowledge, commitment, performance, and provide structure. Leadership styles would need to be adjusted based on the skills, knowledge, and readiness of the follower. Recruiting team members that are highly motivated, positive, conscientious, and have high abilities and intelligence can help improve the success of a team (Robbins & Judge, 2019). Provide an environment of trust, and openness allowing individuals the freedom to express opinions, views, and disagreements. Open communication can empower, encourage creativity, build trust, and promote confidence. To reduce social loafing, goals, roles, and tasks need to be defined so team members know how they will collectively contribute to the team effort and success. Organizational support, adequate resources, building a climate of trust, and providing rewards to individuals based on team performance are all strategies that contribute to the succe.

1. Comparing Leadership Models
XXXX XXXXX
LDR 531
JXXX 1, 20XX
Dr. Leo Maganares
1
2
Comparing Leadership Models
Shared leadership has emerged as a response to rapidly
changing organizations and an increase in the complexity of
tasks (de Cruz, 2019). Shared leadership can quickly and
effectively solve problems, increase performance, and improve
organizational productivity. With a team of experience, skills,
and resources a strong leadership foundation can be formed to
solve complex problems and initiate change to improve the
overall productivity of organizations.
Chapter 12 Case Incident One: Sharing is Performing
Obstacles that can be encountered with shared leadership are
social loafing, conflict with roles, differences in opinions,
beliefs, values, negative mental models, task conflicts, and
diversity issues (Robbins & Judge, 2019). Undefined roles can

2. cause conflicts of ideas, opinions, leadership authority, and
social loafing. All of these can have a negative effect on the
team.
In this case, Christ looked to McGinley, as did Martin, to
Barrs to form a shared leadership to solve two complex
organizational problems (Robbins & Judge, 2019). The
organization I work for formed a shared leadership quality team
made up of leaders from the entire organization to determine
clinical competencies for nursing. When the findings indicated
that competencies were not standardized or based on evidence-
based practices, they developed a program that would improve
nursing competencies aligned with the vision and mission of the
organization. This program was aligned with the mission of the
organization to ensure that nurses were competent in their skills
to provide high-quality care.
The leadership style that would best promote shared leadership
in this case, would be Hersey and Blanchard’s situational
leadership theory where the focus is on “directing, coaching,
supporting, and delegating behavior” (Thompson & Glaso,
2018, p. 575). Leading a shared leadership team as CEO it
would be important to define roles, assess team readiness,
skills, knowledge, commitment, performance, and provide
structure. Leadership styles would need to be adjusted based on
the skills, knowledge, and readiness of the follower. Recruiting
team members that are highly motivated, positive,
conscientious, and have high abilities and intelligence can help
improve the success of a team (Robbins & Judge, 2019).
Provide an environment of trust, and openness allowing
individuals the freedom to express opinions, views, and
disagreements. Open communication can empower, encourage
creativity, build trust, and promote confidence.
To reduce social loafing, goals, roles, and tasks need to be
defined so team members know how they will collectively
contribute to the team effort and success. Organizational
support, adequate resources, building a climate of trust, and
providing rewards to individuals based on team performance are

3. all strategies that contribute to the success of a shared
leadership team (Robbins & Judge, 2019).
Job design and redesign could be accomplished by defining
roles and allowing for an increase in autonomy and decision
making. Communicating effectively to each team member that
individual efforts will contribute to the overall team effort, and
tasks will be shared. Redesigning roles can allow for
autonomy, empowerment, and confidence among followers to
feel valued that they are contributing to the success of the
organization. Tasks could be divided, and sub-divided as needed
to accomplish the goals of the team. By utilizing a situational
leadership style, each team member’s readiness to contribute
will require a leader to adjust their leadership style. As CEO,
the leadership style is redesigned in shared leadership. The
focus becomes not on assessing information and making
decisions, but managing teams by being aware of relationships,
progress, and motivations (Fitzsimons, 2016).
A nonshared, traditional leadership approach is seen in the
aircraft manufacturing industry like Spirit AeroSystems. In this
industry CEO’s make all important decisions and delegate tasks
to managers below. These tasks then get passed down to
employees. In a traditional leadership model, individual roles
and jobs are well defined to focus on a product, performance,
and results. Employees have little decision-making
opportunities or input. The CEO has the power to make
decisions and execute orders in a top-down style (Robbins &
Judge, 2019). Building airplanes is based on safety protocols
and following procedures in a traditional hierarchy of
leadership. This is a preferable leadership style for this type of
industry because of following policies and procedures helps
ensure that aircraft are being built safely while also meeting
productivity.
Chapter 15 Case Incident Two: Turbulence on United Airlines
In this case, passengers were removed from United Airlines
flights, I do not agree that these situations were handled
appropriately. United does have the right and power to remove

4. an individual if the concern is a violation that could jeopardize
the safety of others. If United did not instill a bureaucratic
leadership style but instead utilized a leadership style based on
Fiedler’s contingency theory, relationship-oriented managers,
rather than task-oriented, could respond to follower needs by
adjusting their leadership style to match the situation and
manage conflicts. Building strong relationships with followers
can improve confidence, and empowerment so that followers
feel safe in asking for decisions to be made that are exceptions
to the rules and regulations of United. Followers could look to
leaders for guidance based on trust that they would not be
reprimanded or lose their jobs for requesting protocols and
policies to be adjusted to meet customer needs.
Roles and job descriptions in this model would be still be well
defined, but followers and managers would work together to
make decisions that would meet customer needs rather than
focus only on following the strict rules for United’s “efficiency-
boosting strategies” (Robbins & Judge, 2019, p. 537). Leaders
in this model provide direction, support, build confidence, and
assess situations before making decisions and adjust their
leadership style to build strong relationships with followers (da
Cruz, Nunes, & Pinheiro, 2011).
The pros for having a bureaucratic organizational structure
for an aircraft manufacturing plant is that rules are set, policies
are enforced, and job roles are well defined for safety. The
downside to this type of structure is limited employee decision
making, the focus is on productivity and not on meeting
customer needs. Employees and managers may become
unmotivated because they are not able to voice their ideas,
concerns, and must follow strict rules and regulations or face
possible termination.
If United keeps this structure, they need to allow managers
the ability to make decisions that benefit meeting customer
needs within the safety regulations of the airline. In the future,
the airline should allow the opportunity for decisions to be
made by leaders, and possibly in the future by qualified

5. employees. Building positive leader and employee relationships
would improve the productivity of the organization, and the
work environment. I would consider restructuring the leadership
style for United to allow leaders more opportunity to assess
situations and make decisions based on customer needs so that
customers are not forced to exit a plane for reasons of clothing,
overbooking, and seat assignments. Each of these situations
could have been handled differently without causing stress and
harm to customers.
The policy at our clinic is that we do not draw lab for
outside providers. This can cause problems for patients if they
are elderly and require a great deal of assistance to ambulate.
There are also insurance conflicts where the lab costs may not
be covered if lab is drawn in our facility. Utilizing Fiedler’s
contingency model, employees can assess each situation and
decide based on what is best for the patient which may be
outside the policy. With strong relationships, trust, and
confidence with leaders, followers can feel safe to either reach
out to their leader for guidance or make a decision that will
benefit the patient without repercussion. Occasionally writing
off the cost of a lab draw and having the specimens picked up,
is more beneficial for meeting customer needs than strictly
following a policy that no outside labs will be drawn.
Chapter 16 Case Incident Two: Active Cultures
The key dimension of the Patagonia culture is to meet the needs
of the employee while providing a work environment that is
conducive to productivity. This culture is fostered by providing
flexible work schedules, having a café, and encouraging
employees to be active in allowing them to become familiar
with the Patagonia products. By promoting healthy lifestyles,
and allowing flexible schedules, employee motivation,
productivity, and retention will improve for the overall success
of the organization. This type of leadership model follows the
Burn’s transformational model where the organization strives to
provide a positive work environment and meet the needs of its
employees (White, 2018). This leadership style is also seen in

6. companies such as GOOGLE, Apple, and Tesla. These three
companies strive to provide a positive work environment to
encourage creativity, productivity, and meet employee needs.
As a leader these leadership qualities are important to me. I
strive to provide a positive work environment, encourage,
motivate, and coach employees to perform at their highest level
to provide quality patient care.
The drawbacks of this type of culture may be too much
flexibility causing lack of productivity and motivation. This
culture is built on trust that the work will get done.
Encouraging “playtime” could inhibit productivity and become
a liability if the products are poorly designed. For example, a
faulty designed surfboard could cause injury to customers
resulting in large expenses for the organization. Expectations
would need to be set for the quality and consistency of work in
this type of organizational culture.
Conclusion
Each of these leadership models is designed to encourage,
motivate, and improve follower productivity whether it be
applied individually or to a group. Each scenario required a
different leadership style to meet the needs of the followers and
the given situation. Transformational models focus on
providing a positive work environment, whereas the two
transactional models focus on a task, role definition, and
adjusting leadership style to encourage follower motivation.
All three are leadership models to improve follower retention,
satisfaction, motivation, build trust, empower, guide, and coach
followers to improve productivity of organizations.

7. References
da Cruz, M. R. P., Nunes, A. J. S., & Pinheiro, P. G. (2011).
Fiedler’s contingency theory: Practical application of the least
preferred coworker (LPC) Scale. IUP Journal of Organizational
Behavior, 10(4), 7–26. Retrieved from
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=
shib&db=bth&AN=71490543&site=eds-live&scope=site
de Cruz, N. P. (2019). A conceptual overview of attaining,
maintaining, and regaining shared leadership in high performing
teams. Journal of Leadership Education, 18(1), 213–226.
Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.12806/V18/I1/T3
Fitzsimons, D. (2016). How shared leadership changes our
relationships at work. Harvard Business Review Digital
Articles, 2–5. Retrieved from
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=
shib&db=bth&AN=118686162&site=eds-live&scope=site
Robbins, S. P. & Judge, T. A. (2019). Organizational behavior.
(18th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.
Thompson, G., & Glaso, L. (2018). Situational leadership
theory: A test from a leader-follower congruence
approach. Leadership & Organization Development
Journal, 39(5), 574–591. Retrieved from
https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-01-2018-0050

8. White, S. K. (2018). What is transformational leadership? A
model for motivating innovation. CIO. Retrieved from
https://www.cio.com/article/3257184/what-is-transformational-
leadership-a-model-for-motivating-innovation.html
Case Incident 1: Sharing Is Performing
Replacing Nicholas Dirks as the chancellor of University of
California at Berkeley, Carol T. Christ is taking on a strategy
that her predecessors did not utilize: sharing leadership.
Notably, the prior chancellor and provost would not consult
other decision makers and stakeholders at the university when
they proposed to dissolve completely the College of Chemistry.
Christ, on the other hand, met with Frances McGinley, the
student vice president of academic affairs, reaching out to “get
a beat on what [student government] was doing and how [she]
could help.” This move was unusual because McGinley would
often have to track down the other administrators to even get a
meeting (or would be merely delegated work). Another such
arrangement between Jill Martin and David Barrs at a high
school in Essex, England, designates special interest areas
where each takes the lead, and they both share an educational
philosophy, meet daily, have the authority to make decisions on
the spot, and challenge one another.
As Declan Fitzsimons suggests in a Harvard Business
Review article, the twenty-first century moves too quickly and
is too dynamic to be handled by one person. By sharing
leadership among multiple individuals, the organization can
respond more adaptively to challenges, share disparate but
complementary perspectives, and ease the burden experienced
by the traditional charismatic leader figurehead. However,
sharing leadership leads to its own issues and obstacles, which
are apparent in the multiple relationships between team
members, subordinates, and other employees. Not only do
individual identities become involved, but so do collective
identities shared as a group. It is also important to recognize
that shared leadership is not about delegation but about putting
in effort to coordinate and collaborate, along with balancing

9. individual and collective goals.
Recent reviews of the research on shared leadership suggest
that, overall, shared leadership is effective at improving team
performance, attitudes, and behaviors, especially when the
leadership is transformational or charismatic and when the team
tasks are complex.Questions
1. 12-13. What kind of obstacles can you foresee in taking a
shared leadership approach? How might they (or can they) be
solved?
2. 12-14. How would you implement a shared leadership
initiative in a company where you were the CEO? What
elements of job design and redesign might you draw on to
increase the effectiveness of the shared leadership initiative?
3. 12-15. Can you think of any instances in which nonshared,
traditional approaches to leadership would be preferable to a
shared leadership approach? What are they, and how are they
preferable? What sort of situational or individual factors lead to
the traditional approach being more effective in these instances?
Case Incident 2: Turbulence on United Airlines
The beginning of 2017 was not good for United Airlines.
Several incidents involving United Airlines personnel enforcing
a variety of rules, regulations, and protocols in employees’
interactions with customers caused international outcry. The
first incident involved two teenagers who were wearing leggings
for their flight from Minneapolis to Denver. They were stopped
by the gate agent and not allowed to board for violating the
United Airlines travel perk program. These travel perk passes
hinge on a requirement for users of the passes to dress
themselves so that the airline is presented in a favorable light.
United defended its decision via Twitter: “Leggings are not
inappropriate attire except in the case of someone traveling as a
pass rider.” Comedian Seth Rogan tweeted, “We here at
@United are just trying to police the attire of the daughters of
our employees! That’s all! Cool, right?”
A second, more severe incident occurred when David Dao, a
doctor who needed to see his patients the following morning,

10. was aboard a Louisville-bound flight from Chicago in April.
Four United employees needed to get to Louisville at the last
minute, and it was announced that four people needed to give up
their seats or else the flight would be cancelled. Attendants
called the police after no one complied. The police approached
Dao and forcibly removed him from the plane. Dao suffered a
broken nose and concussion after his head smashed into an
armrest. United policy allowed for the involuntary removal of
passengers from flights, although this time United was not as
defensive. Dao later filed a lawsuit against United for its
actions.
A third incident, in Houston, involved a soon-to-be-married
couple, Michael and Amber, headed to Costa Rica for their
wedding. When they entered the plane, they noticed a man
sleeping in the row where their seats were assigned. Instead of
disturbing him, they found some seats three rows up and sat
there instead. They were soon asked by an attendant to return to
their seats and they complied. A U.S. marshall approached them
soon after and ejected them from the plane. According to United
statements, the couple “repeatedly” tried to sit in upgraded seats
and would not follow the instructions of the attendants and crew
members, and, as such, they were within their power to eject the
passengers.
These incidents suggest that, starting with the structure as
created by the CEO, United employees do not have much
latitude or flexibility when dealing with day-to-day policy
breaches. Taking cost-minimization and efficiency-boosting
strategies to the extreme may also have had an effect given that
the focus drifted from the customer and toward rule following.
Many attribute this inflexibility to the strict, rule-following
bureaucracy created by United managers. In this bureaucracy,
their 85,000 employees may be reluctant to deviate from the
rules—intracompany historical precedent suggests that many
employees face termination if they break the rules.
Questions

11. 1. 15-13. How do you think United Airlines should have
handled the recent string of incidents? Do you think that United
Airlines was within its power to have removed these people
from the flights? Why or why not?
2. 15-14. What are the pros and cons of having a bureaucratic
organizational structure for an airline? Do you think the pros
and cons are justified for United Airlines and that they should
keep the structure they have? Why or why not?
3. 15-15. What do you think United Airlines should do in the
future? Do you have any suggestions for enhancements or
improvements to the United Airlines organizational structure?
Would you consider restructuring? Why or why not?
Case Incident 2: Active Cultures
Employees at many successful companies start the day by
checking the economic forecast. Patagonia’s Ventura,
California, employees start the day by checking the surf
forecast. The outdoor clothing company encourages its
workforce to take time from the workday to get outside and get
active. For Patagonia, linking employees with the natural
environment is a major part of the culture.
New hires are introduced to this mindset very quickly. Soon
after starting at Patagonia, marketing executive Joy Howard was
immediately encouraged to go fly fishing, surfing, and rock
climbing all around the world. She notes that all this
vacationing is not just playing around—it’s an important part of
her job. “I needed to be familiar with the products we market,”
she said. Other practices support this outdoors-oriented, healthy
culture. The company has an on-site organic café featuring
locally grown produce. Employees at all levels are encouraged
through an employee discount program to try out activewear in
the field. And highly flexible hours ensure that employees feel
free to take the occasional afternoon off to catch the waves or
get out of town for a weekend hiking trip.
Are there bottom-line benefits to this organizational culture?
Some corporate leaders think so. As Neil Blumenthal, one of the

12. founders of Warby Parker eyewear, observes, “[T]hey’ve shown
that you can build a profitable business while thinking about the
environment and thinking about your team and community.” As
Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario says, “People recognize
Patagonia as a company that’s … looking at business through a
more holistic lens other than profit.” However, she is quick to
add, “Profit is important; if it wasn’t you wouldn’t be talking to
me.”
Patagonia’s culture obviously makes for an ideal workplace for
some people—but not for others who don’t share its values.
People who are just not outdoor types would likely feel
excluded. While the unique mission and values of Patagonia
may not be for everyone, for its specific niche in the product
and employment market, the culture fits like a glove.Questions
1. 16-16. What do you think are the key dimensions of culture
that make Patagonia successful? How does the organization help
to foster this culture?
2. 16-17. Does Patagonia use strategies to build its culture that
you think could work for other companies? Is the company a
useful model for others that aren’t so tied to a lifestyle? Why or
why not?
3. 16-18. What are the drawbacks of Patagonia’s culture? Might
it sometimes be a liability and, if so, in what situations?