You're Driving Us Crazy. You've Got to Back Off. Case Solution

2. Analysis

Dough Rouch, who was the then president of the Trader Joe's Grocery Chain, was overseeing the expansion of the company from West Coast to the East Coast in the US. Being thoroughly committed to the prosperity of the company, and wishing for the expansion to be a success, Dough Rouch realized that he would need to impart the knowledge and the values of the organizational culture to the new staff himself. He thought that he would be the best person to deploy training to the new staff because he had the most knowledge of the company's functionality and culture. This identifies his legitimate power as well as expert power over organizational aspects. After initiating and completing training, Dough, however, was still unable to let go of micromanaging the new employees and continued to manage through coercive power. The employees who were ready to take on their roles and perform tasks felt stifled instead of empowered and as a result failed to perform optimally. Consequently, the performance of the company also showed signs of suffering. Fortunately, however, Dough Rouch was able to stop just before it got out of hands. Another senior manager intervened, and asked Dough to stop micromanaging for the sake of the company. She showed him the employees were ready to take their decisions as well as make their mistakes, and should be empowered instead of being micromanaged for the smallest of the details. Dough realized that he needed to back off, and become a facilitating tool instead of a controlling one for his team members. This was important not only for the growth and success of the company but was also important for the growth of the employees in their respective roles. Dough was soon able to let go of micromanagement and incorporate participative leadership as a means of empowering his colleagues and employees (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013).

3. Solution

The solution to Dough’s micromanaging problem was seen in the incorporation of participative management techniques. Participative management allows delegation of tasks and empowers employees and other colleagues in an organization to take managerial decisions and lead tasks and projects (Miner, 2015). Through delegation, a leader not only shows his trust and confidence in his colleagues, employees and team members but also feels the self-satisfaction of nurturing capable and decisive organizational members (Phail- Wilcox & Ward, 2013).

Dough Rouch was extremely committed to organizational success which is why he chose to micromanage and oversee even the smallest of details. When he was made to realize by another senior manager that his management and leadership style was proving to be an obstruction in the success of the organization, he quickly reviewed his behavior, recognized his faults and immediately corrected them through allowing more decision making power to his employees. He also asked for regular feedback from the employees in case they thought he was becoming a controlaholic again, and let the coercive power go to be replaced by delegation and empowerment. Dough was easily able to do so because he saw a mutuality of interest between his aims and those of the new employees – both wanted the company and its expansion to flourish (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013).

Delegation and empowerment allowed Dough to also become a better leader. He was able to nurture employees and instill skills and qualities in them needed for organizational success instead of bossing and telling them what to do. In his words, he was able to nurture problem solvers instead of trying to fix everything himself.