MBA 530 Module Four Case Study Guidelines and Rubric

Scenario

As a director of leadership and learning, you collaborate with many different employees throughout the prosthetics manufacturing organization you work for. You were recently contacted by Eduardo, who was promoted from an individual contributor to a manager four months ago. Eduardo is seeking your advice on developing his leadership style after receiving his first quarterly review from his supervisor.

The following are the key takeaways from your conversation with Eduardo:

“I’ve been told that I am extremely intelligent and typically get to solutions before others. However, this can lead me toward moving too quickly to implementing a solution when the organization is two steps behind. I was cautioned that this can create a disconnect with my team. I’m told to focus on working alongside my team to better empower them. However, I get frustrated with the lack of responsiveness from the organization and my team. My supervisor says this can create insecurity and frustration, with people feeling they cannot live up to my expectations.”

After your meeting with Eduardo, you follow up with his supervisor to gain additional insight. This was their feedback:

“Eduardo does not leverage his team to create the desired vision. Because he is intelligent and gets to answers faster than most, he loses patience and decides to do all the work himself. By doing so, he misses out on the input of others and fails to garner support for the vision. When he becomes quickly entrenched in his position, he often ignores valid input and alternative points of view.”

“Eduardo thinks he knows best and hence may not always listen to others. Nor does he inspire confidence in his team. As a result, his?‘professional arrogance’ creates more of a dictatorial leadership style, which in turn produces adversarial relationships internally (Eduardo versus everyone). I am concerned that over time this outcome will also spread to external partners. In the end, we will continue to lose talent, which will eventually impact business performance.”

Since the vice president of leadership and learning has asked you to create an adaptive leadership toolkit, these conversations are extremely valuable because they provide specific insight into areas of leadership that can be improved across the organization. Some of the strategies that you recommend for Eduardo’s situation can be used to help inform the improvement of leadership skills throughout the prosthetics manufacturing organization.

Prompt

Given the case as described, provide an analysis of Eduardo’s situation as it currently exists and recommend steps he can take to help transform his leadership style.

Specifically, you must address the following rubric criteria:

1. Define the following leadership skills?and explain why?Eduardo should focus on developing each of these:
   • Strategic thinking
   • Emotional intelligence
   • Communication skills
2. Describe two actionable steps Eduardo should take towards developing these leadership skills and explain how each step might help improve his situation.
3. Explain how?Eduardo?can?utilize?the flywheel effect to transform his leadership style and identify the tasks he should perform to promote gradual improvement that provides tangible evidence his strategy is yielding results. Support your response.

What to Submit

Submit a Word document using double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, and one-inch margins. This assignment must be 2 to 4 pages in length and include references cited in APA format. Consult the Shapiro Library APA Style Guide for more information on citations.

Module Four Case Study Rubric

Criteria	Exemplary (100%)	Proficient (90%)	Needs Improvement (70%)	Not Evident (0%)	Value
Leadership Skills	Exceeds proficiency in an exceptionally clear, insightful, sophisticated, or creative manner	Defines the strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, and communication skills and explains why Eduardo should focus on developing each of these	Shows progress toward proficiency, but with errors or omissions; areas for improvement may include a definition for all leadership skills or appropriate explanation for why Eduardo should focus on developing each of these	Does not attempt criterion	30
Actionable Steps	Exceeds proficiency in an exceptionally clear, insightful, sophisticated, or creative manner	Describes two actionable steps Eduardo should take toward developing these leadership skills and explains how each step might help improve his situation	Shows progress toward proficiency, but with errors or omissions; areas for improvement may include providing two actionable steps or appropriate explanation for how each step might help Eduardo improve his situation	Does not attempt criterion	30
Flywheel Effect	Exceeds proficiency in an exceptionally clear, insightful, sophisticated, or creative manner	Explains how Eduardo can utilize the flywheel effect to transform his leadership style and identifies the tasks he should perform to promote gradual improvement that provides tangible evidence his strategy is yielding results, and supports response	Shows progress toward proficiency, but with errors or omissions; areas for improvement may include appropriate explanation of how Eduardo can utilize the flywheel effect or identifies appropriate tasks Eduardo should perform to promote gradual improvement that provides tangible evidence his strategy is yielding results or sufficiently supports responses	Does not attempt criterion	30
Articulation of Response	Exceeds proficiency in an exceptionally clear, insightful, sophisticated, or creative manner	Clearly conveys meaning with correct grammar, sentence structure, and spelling	Shows progress toward proficiency, but with errors in grammar, sentence structure, and spelling	Submission has critical errors in grammar, sentence structure, and spelling	10