Running Head: UNDER ARMOUR INC. 1 UNDER ARMOUR INC. 8 Assignment 2: Professional Development Program Proposal Chet Walker Strayer University Professor Wanda Tillman BUS 520 – Leadership and Organizational Behavior Spring 2019 Leadership and Organizational Behavior Organizational Behavior is the application of knowledge on how people and groups act while in organizations. It involves an interpretation of the relationship between individual people and their organization concerning the whole organization and the entire social system. Studying organizational behavior helps people to build a better relationship through achieving personal objectives, social objectives and corporate objectives. Organizational Behavior comprises of several issues such as change, human behavior, teams and leadership among others. Other aspects such as organizational culture determine the type of leadership, communication and group dynamics within the organization. Corporate culture is what employees perceive as the quality of work life which determines the degree of their motivation. The final employees’ outcomes are personal satisfaction, performance and personal growth as well as development. In the paper, I will analyse how leadership and organizational behavior in Under Armour Inc. influence the current situation in the company. Using emotional intelligence, I will develop a solution to the company’s challenges. Leadership and senior management behavior determine the success of any organization (Mencl et al., 2016). Currently, Under Armour has been experiencing challenges in its top management and leadership. Although the founder and CEO Kevin Plank remain confident on the company’s long-term growth, Under Armour’s sales are decreasing as competition increases from the leading companies. Among the challenging issues that Under Armour is going through include senior executives leaving their positions. In 2015 COO and CFO Brad Dickerson resigned, while in 2016 Henry Stafford, chief merchandising officer and Robin Thurston, the chief digital officer resigned. In 2017, two senior executives left including marketing chief Andrew Donkin and the Senior Vice President in women’s and youth’s category (Lieber, 2018). These challenges have been contributed to by troubling workplace culture and poor leadership. Failure to maintain the best top management seems to lead the company in the wrong direction hence the need to find a solution to safe Under Armour. Under Armour has been termed as an explosively growing company in the footwear and apparel market. However, their growth has started to decline especially in the last three years. The anticipated growth of 28% in 2018 was not attained as a result of poor leadership and workplace relationships. In North America, where the company has the largest market share, Under Armour is facing challenges with Adidas, Nike and Lululemon Athletica soaring on that market (Lieber, 2018). The issue of fading popula.

1. Running Head: UNDER ARMOUR INC.
1
UNDER ARMOUR INC.
8
Assignment 2: Professional Development Program Proposal
Chet Walker
Strayer University
Professor Wanda Tillman
BUS 520 – Leadership and Organizational Behavior
Spring 2019
Leadership and Organizational Behavior
Organizational Behavior is the application of knowledge on how
people and groups act while in organizations. It involves an
interpretation of the relationship between individual people and
their organization concerning the whole organization and the
entire social system. Studying organizational behavior helps
people to build a better relationship through achieving personal
objectives, social objectives and corporate objectives.
Organizational Behavior comprises of several issues such as
change, human behavior, teams and leadership among others.
Other aspects such as organizational culture determine the type
of leadership, communication and group dynamics within the
organization. Corporate culture is what employees perceive as
the quality of work life which determines the degree of their
motivation. The final employees’ outcomes are personal
satisfaction, performance and personal growth as well as
development. In the paper, I will analyse how leadership and
organizational behavior in Under Armour Inc. influence the
current situation in the company. Using emotional intelligence,

2. I will develop a solution to the company’s challenges.
Leadership and senior management behavior determine the
success of any organization (Mencl et al., 2016). Currently,
Under Armour has been experiencing challenges in its top
management and leadership. Although the founder and CEO
Kevin Plank remain confident on the company’s long-term
growth, Under Armour’s sales are decreasing as competition
increases from the leading companies. Among the challenging
issues that Under Armour is going through include senior
executives leaving their positions. In 2015 COO and CFO Brad
Dickerson resigned, while in 2016 Henry Stafford, chief
merchandising officer and Robin Thurston, the chief digital
officer resigned. In 2017, two senior executives left including
marketing chief Andrew Donkin and the Senior Vice President
in women’s and youth’s category (Lieber, 2018). These
challenges have been contributed to by troubling workplace
culture and poor leadership. Failure to maintain the best top
management seems to lead the company in the wrong direction
hence the need to find a solution to safe Under Armour.
Under Armour has been termed as an explosively growing
company in the footwear and apparel market. However, their
growth has started to decline especially in the last three years.
The anticipated growth of 28% in 2018 was not attained as a
result of poor leadership and workplace relationships. In North
America, where the company has the largest market share,
Under Armour is facing challenges with Adidas, Nike and
Lululemon Athletica soaring on that market (Lieber, 2018). The
issue of fading popularity in North America is an issue that
Under Armour needs to address effectively. Other challenging
issues that the company is facing in inventory that is, people not
buying what Under Armour is selling. Revenue, profits and net
income has decreased in recent years. This can be addressed by
improving marketing and promotions, supply chain management
or UA managing its inventories better to gets its goods off the

3. shelves. Lastly, the company needs to address the top
management shakeup for the stability and direction of the
overall company’s strategic plans.
Emotional Intelligence and Motivation
Emotional intelligence measures a person’s ability to identify
and manage their emotions as well as those for others. As
intelligence quotient measure intelligence and cognitive skills
such as learning and understand, emotional intelligence measure
emotional ability. Precisely, people with high emotional
intelligence can understand their psychological state and
manage stress and depression better that people with high
intelligence quotient. Ideally, it is more than just being smart to
be successful in life. An individual with high emotional
intelligence finds it easy to form and maintain interpersonal
relationship and fit into the group situations. Emotional
intelligence is a complex issue which involves different external
and internal factors impacting our thoughts, behaviors and
emotions. It is crucial to consider self-motivation about
emotional intelligence because it affects our ability to motivate
other individuals (Mathew & Gupta, 2015). Emotional
intelligence is divided into social and personal competences
broadly splitting between personal and interpersonal skills.
Motivation is an individual’s drive to improve and achieve,
commitment to their goals, initiative or the readiness to act on
opportunities and being optimism and resilient. Motivation is
one of the personal skills as well as self-regulation and self-
awareness. Emotional intelligence helps people to be motivated
and love what they do and doing what they love. Loving what
you do keeps you motivated, while this motivation drives people
to work harder and produce high-quality work. It also referred
to as intrinsic motivation. It is the kind of motivation that
comes from inside and fuels the desire to solve problems and
overcome challenges to produce high-quality work (Mathew &

4. Gupta, 2015). Extrinsic motivation entails motivation that
comes from external factors to achieve goals. These factors
include pay rise, bonus checks, workforce engagement, time off
and the threat of job loss.
Under Armour, both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations have an
impact on the company’s success and current challenges. The
emotional intelligence of top senior management officials has
significant impacts on the well-being and success of the
company. With a positive attitude at work, people are willing
and highly adaptable to change. As a result, these will enhance
good reputation, reduce absenteeism and improve performance
and profit. People with high emotional intelligence will be able
to understand others and motivated to overcome challenges
(Mathew & Gupta, 2015). Even with the challenging
relationship between CEO Kevin Plank and top senior
management, having high emotional intelligence can help
advance workplace relationships. More so, workforce
engagement, that is allowing staff and management to
contribute to decision making is crucial for solving Under
Armour’s challenges. Employers are responsible for
employees’ intrinsic motivation. When employees are
intrinsically motivated, the organization also reaps the reward.
Emotional Intelligence and Social Skills and Decision Making
Social skills in the context of emotional intelligence refer to
skills which need to handle and influence other individual’s
emotions effectively. Emotional intelligence starts by
understanding your emotions or self-awareness, having the
ability to manage them and using those emotions to achieve
goals. When a person can understand and manage their
feelings, they can understand the emotions and feeling of others
(empathy) and influence them (social skills) (Mathew & Gupta,
2015). Social skills in the context of emotional intelligence
include communication skills, leadership skills, rapport, change

5. management skills, persuasion skills and team-working skills
(Mencl et al., 2016). Emotional intelligence is also crucial in
making effective decisions in any organization. All decision-
making processes in any organization have emotional and
cognitive components. Various aspects of emotional
intelligence contribute to productivity and success in the
workplace (Sumathy et al., 2015). Decision-makers can
maximise on self-management skills in establishing a consistent
record of achievement as well as emotional control and earn
trust for internal and external constituents.
As we noted above, emotional intelligence is essential in both
developing social skills and decision making. It is crucial for
leaders in any organization to have high emotional intelligence.
Leaders should first understand their emotion and know how to
manage those emotions. This makes it easy to understand
others and be able to influence them. Having emotional
intelligence among leadership, senior management and other
employees makes it possible to communicate effectively, work
in teams, manage conflicts and be persuasive and influencing
people to adopt changes. More importantly, emotional
intelligence social skills such as self-awareness and the core
competencies of empathy, organizational awareness and service
orientation of decision-makers will judge or evaluate the impact
of their decision and also manner through which decisions are
made (Sumathy et al., 2015). Decision making influences the
effectiveness of accomplishing goals. Understanding other
people’s emotions and considering team members in decision
making impact the success and improve the group’s
performance and productivity.
Effective Team
Teams should be motivated towards attaining common goals,
recognizing small victories, learning from mistakes and
acknowledging how each team member can improve on the ways

6. to success. More importantly, it is the presence of a confident
leader dedicated to helping team members to understand
individual roles as well as communicating and upholding team
vision. The core attributes of a team include having the team’s
clear vision impacted by the company’s mission and offering
direction to achieving common goals (Cascio, 2015). Also, the
success of a team is influenced by an inspiring leader who
communicates their team’s mission, lead humbly and accept
feedback and criticism. Inspiring leaders encourage employee
development and give teams credits (Mencl et al., 2016). More
so, organizations need to cooperate and coordinate to achieve
goals and objectives. Team cooperation helps leverage on each
team member’s strength and developing a strong team. Lastly,
constructive communication is crucial for the success of any
team. Regarding Under Armour challenges and issues, these
four core characteristics of a group are useful for the company’s
success.
Reward System
Under Armour should invest in annual bonuses to motivate
employees and retain highly experienced employees in the
company. Further, employees should be promotion will be
essential to ensure the company develops and grows in the right
direction according to their vision and mission. More so,
personal touch is essential to encourage innovation as
employees will feel to be part of the management. Personal
touch should come alongside employee involvement in the
contribution of ideas (Mathew & Gupta, 2015). Employees are
highly motivated when involved in the process of new product
development. Lastly, the leadership should ensure no
discrimination of any employee based on sex, origin, age,
religion or status (Cascio, 2015). Recognizing every employee
regardless of their gender or age keeps employees motivated
and encourages interacting with each other and building trust
among them.

7. References
Cascio, W. F. (2015). Managing human resources. McGraw-
Hill.
Lieber, C. (2018). Under Armour won’t let employees expense
“adult entertainment,” limos, or gambling anymore. Vox.
Retrieved on May 10, from https://www.vox.com/the-
goods/2018/11/7/18068378/under-armour-kevin-plank-
workplace-culture
Mathew, M., & Gupta, K. S. (2015). Transformational
leadership: Emotional intelligence. SCMS Journal of Indian
Management, 12(2), 75.
Mencl, J., Wefald, A. J., & van Ittersum, K. W. (2016).
Transformational leader attributes: interpersonal skills,
engagement, and well-being. Leadership & Organization
Development Journal, 37(5), 635-657.
Sumathy, L., Madhavi, C., & Felix, A. J. W. (2015). Influence
of emotional intelligence on decision making by
leaders. American International Journal of Social Science, 4(1),
134-140.
ASSIGNMENT 3
POWER, POLITICS, AND CULTURE
Due Week 9: 240 points
In business, power and politics greatly influence an
organizational
culture in turn hinder organizational productivity. In your role

8. as
consultant you observed power and politics influence on the
corporate
culture.
INSTRUCTIONS
Create a double-spaced 5 to 7 page report that addresses the
following:
1) Influence of Politics and Power
• Explain how politics and power-play may have influenced the
organization’s culture.
2) Sources of Power
• Explore the sources of power and describe how management
could use this influence to benefit your department and improve
organizational performance.
3) Leadership Behavior and Culture
• Make recommendations that support how the study of power
and politics could influence leadership behavior and improve
the organization’s culture.

9. 4) Leadership Influence
• Discuss the importance and complexity of leadership behavior.
How does it influence organizational structure and
performance?
5) References and Citations
• Provide at least 2 quality resources.
• In-text citations are required when paraphrasing or quoting
another source.
6) Formatting and Writing Standards
• Formatting and writing standards are part of your grade. Align
your formatting to the Strayer Writing Standards.
https://blackboard.strayer.edu/bbcswebdav/institution/STANDA
RDIZED/StrayerWritingStandards/Strayer_Writing_Standards.p
df
*Grading for this assignment will be based on the following
criteria and evaluation standards:
POINTS: 240 ASSIGNMENT 3: POWER, POLITICS, AND
CULTURE
Criteria

10. Exemplary
100% - A
Proficient
85% - B
Fair
75% - C
Unacceptable
0% - F
1. Influence of
Politics and Power
Weight: 20%
Completely explains how
politics and power-play may
have influenced the
organization’s culture.
Accurately identifies the core
issues and strongly

11. connects them to the impact
on culture. The explanation
is well-supported by
research.
Satisfactorily explains how
politics and power-play
may have influenced the
organization’s culture.
Identifies some core
issues and connects them
to the impact on the
culture. The explanation
uses research support.
Partially explains how
politics and power-play may
have influenced the
organization’s culture.
Identifies some issues but
does not fully explore them

12. or make a strong
connection to their impact.
Uses little research support.
Does not explain how
politics and power-play may
have influenced the
organization’s culture.
2. Sources of
Power
Weight: 20%
Completely identifies the
sources of power and
describes how management
could use this influence to
enhance organizational
performance. Uses relevant
key concepts and makes

13. valid connections to
enhanced performance that
are well-supported by
research.
Satisfactorily identifies
the sources of power
and describes how
management could use
this influence to enhance
organizational
performance. Most key
concepts are accurately
identified and there is a
connection to enhanced
performance with
research support.
Partially identifies the
sources of power and

14. describes how management
could use this influence to
enhance organizational
performance. Not all key
concepts are identified and
there is a loose connection
to performance. There is
little research support.
Does not identify the
sources of power or
describe how
management could use
this influence to enhance
organizational
performance. There is no
reference to research.
3. Leadership
Behavior and

15. Culture
Weight 25%
Provides excellent
recommendations as to how
the study of power and
politics could influence
leadership behavior and
impact the organization’s
culture. Recommendations
are credible and relevant
with a strong connection to
the impact on culture backed
by well-supported research.
Satisfactorily
recommends how the
study of power and
politics could influence
leadership behavior and

16. impact the organization’s
culture. Recommenda-
tions are clear and
mostly realistic; there is a
connection to the impact
on culture. Research
support is evident.
Partially recommends how
the study of power and
politics could influence
leadership behavior and
impact the organization’s
culture, but the
recommendations are
unclear or unrealistic. There
is no clear connection to the
impact on culture. There is
little or no research support.

17. Does not recommend how
the study of power and
politics could influence
leadership behavior and
impact the organization’s
culture. There is no
reference to research.
4. Leadership
Influence
Weight 20%
Thoroughly discusses how
the importance and
complexity of leadership
behavior influences
organizational structure and
performance. Relevant key
concepts are presented with

18. strong research support.
Satisfactorily discusses
how the importance and
complexity of leadership
behavior influences
organizational structure
and performance. Most
key concepts are
presented with research
support.
Partially discusses how the
importance and complexity
of leadership behavior
influences organizational
structure and performance.
Some key concepts are
missing and there is little or
no research support.

19. Does not discuss how the
importance and
complexity of leadership
behavior influences
organizational structure
and performance. There is
no reference to research.
5. Reference
minimums;
Reference quality
Weight 5%
Meets or exceeds number of
required references; all
references high quality
choices.
Meets number of
required references;
some references may be

20. poor quality choices.
Does not meet the required
number of references; some
references may be poor
quality choices.
No references provided or
all references poor quality
choices.
6. Follows writing
standards;
Meets page
minimums
Weight 10%
Followed all writing
standards.
Met page minimums.
Followed most writing

21. standards.
Met page minimums.
Followed few writing
standards.
May not have met page
minimums.
Followed few to no writing
standards.
Did not meet page
minimums.
1) Influence of Politics and Power2) Sources of Power3)
Leadership Behavior and Culture4) Leadership Influence5)
References and Citations6) Formatting and Writing Standards