Several months ago, I worked as an Assistant Manager at a Dunkin’ in my home town. I had worked at the Dunkin’ for about two years before training in management. When I was ready to step up into management, the store manager gave me the task of running the store on Sundays, one of her days off. This was a daunting task because the last manager who ran the store on Sundays would yell at the employees, which caused constant anxiety, stress and frustration. Most of the employees who worked Sundays were strained and tired of the constant abuse. As a result, two employees quit, and the other six employees on the morning shift started to accomplish only the bare minimum, before clocking out from their shift. As the new manager and leader of the Sunday team, I knew I would have to create a more positive work environment. An environment where employees would enjoy their jobs and perform at higher levels. The way I accomplished this is shown through the Leader-Member Exchange Theory. The Leader-Member Exchange Theory describes a leader’s relationship to the work unit as a series of vertical dyads (Northouse, 2016). I will address how I developed each vertical dyad to develop what the text refers to as “high quality exchanges” (Northouse, 2016). These exchanges led to a series of positive effects and also showed one of the weaknesses of the Leader-Member Exchange Theory, which will be discussed as well.
As the new manager for the Sunday crew, my goal was to focus on each vertical dyad, meaning my relationship with each employee. At the current moment, all six out of seven employees were part of an out-group, which means they would basically come to work, do their jobs and go home (Northouse, 2016). My goal was for each employee to respect me and eventually enjoy the work they were performing. I wanted to get to a place where all six employees would do the extra tasks and go above and beyond. At the time, I didn’t know this but I was developing an in-group, a group containing followers who are more dependable, highly involved and more communicative than out-group followers (Northouse, 2016). During the course of about five months, I engaged in what the text refers to as leadership making. I did this by developing high quality exchanges with all six employees, instead of just a few (Northouse, 2016). Over five months, my relationship with the employees started in the stranger phase and then progressed to the acquaintance phase and mature partnership phase (Northouse, 2016). These are the three phases of leadership making, which will be explained further in detail.
During the stranger phase, the interactions in the leader-follower dyad are rule bound, relying on the contractual relationship (Northouse, 2016). During the first month of working with the Sunday crew, I basically communicated each morning about our goals and what I wanted us to accomplish. I tried to take a gentler approach when communicating, to show them that I had high expectations but didn’t want to create a stressful environment like they experienced before. Throughout the morning, I would support them as much as possible and show them that I valued the work they were doing. During the first weeks, they started to smile and laugh more. They started to move faster and work more effectively as a team. During this period, they were still out-group members because they would do their jobs very well but were still content with only accomplishing the basic tasks of the job (Northouse, 2016). After about a month, we started moving into the next phase, the acquaintance phase.
During the acquaintance phase, dyads shift away from interactions governed solely by job descriptions and move towards new ways of relating (Northouse, 2016). During the second and third months of working with the Sunday crew, I started to focus even more on each individual relationship, or vertical dyad, with each employee. For example, an employee named Gabby was responsible for portioning out all of the sandwich station product. This task usually takes about two hours. I decided to add some humor when communicating with her about the task. I knew she loved chocolate munchkins so I said, “Gabby do you think you can portion that product as fast you eat chocolate munchkins?” She laughed and responded, “I don’t know about that but I’ll go as fast I can”. She ended up portioning every single product in one hour, which I was ecstatic about. I said thank you to her and told her I appreciated the work she had done. Little by little, I started to create more fun, easy going and healthy connections with the other five employees. At the end of the three-month mark as the Assistant Manager, all six employees started to become in-group members, as we started to developed greater trust and respect with one another (Northouse, 2016). Eventually, all six group members became more focused on the purposes and goals of the group, marking a successful acquaintance phase (Northouse, 2016). Heading into the fourth month, I knew it was time to transition into phase three, the mature partnership.
The mature partnership is marked by high quality leader member exchanges. In this stage, the leader and follower have a high degree of mutual trust, respect and obligation toward each other (Northouse, 2016). During months four and five, I really focused consistently on developing each individual relationship with all the employees. At a certain point, employees started to trust me so much that they started to open up to me about things I never would have imagined they would share with me. For example, one employee looked very sad when she clocked in one day. I asked her if she was okay and she burst into tears. She immediately told me about her abusive relationship and the anxiety she felt about raising her children. I listened attentively and showed her compassion and support. I offered for her to leave early and she said she needed to stay because she needed the money. That day, I had her perform the easiest tasks I could find and I actually was able to make her laugh at one point. The other employees saw this happen and they really appreciated the support and compassion I was giving to the employee.
Over the course of the fourth and fifth month, I had many similar moments and meaningful connections with all the employees. I remember one day, we were so slammed with customers we weren’t able to fully clean the store up to standard before the end of their shift. The employees could see I was a little stressed and every single employee offered to stay later to help. We all stayed thirty minutes later to clean the store and eventually it looked great again. These experiences highlight the mature partnership phase because in this phase leaders may rely on followers to complete extra assignments and followers may rely on leaders for needed support and encouragement (Northouse, 2016). At that time, myself and the other employees developed strong partnerships, which was transformational because we started to move beyond self interests and focused more on the greater good of the team (Northouse, 2016). This transformational effect let to many positive outcomes for this Dunkin’ location.
After about five months, the Sunday crew had become the strongest in-group I had ever seen. The employees were willing go above and beyond their required job description and advance the group’s goals. Eventually, we started to break store records in terms of front counter and drive through speed of service. The employees would get excited about not only meeting goals but blowing the goals out of the water. The Sunday team became a group of employees who not only had fun and enjoyed their jobs but took pride in performing at the highest level possible. Part of the reason this happened is because of the focus on the dyadic relationship with each employee. This shows one of the strengths of the Leader-Member Exchange Theory. The theory makes the dyadic relationship the centerpiece of the leadership process (Northouse, 2016). The key to creating these strong dyadic relationships was the communication between me and the employees. Communication is key for creating and sustaining useful exchanges (Northouse, 2016). Whether we were joking around or communicating about our struggles, we were there for each other, which created mutual respect and trust. In combination with all of the positive effects that this brought, there was one negative effect that occurred. Basically, the employees who didn’t work on Sundays found out about how fun and engaging Sundays had become. They started to feel left out and many of them actually asked the store manager to take them off their Friday or Saturday shifts to put them on Sundays. Although LMX theory was not designed for this reason, it supports the development of privileged in-groups in the workplace (Northouse, 2016). At a certain point, many other employees started to feel like outsiders, especially when the Sunday employees would talk about the Sunday shifts. This even made the store manager feel a little inferior, which was unhealthy for the relationship between me and her. Therefore, I began to focus on the vertical linkages between myself and the employees who worked on the other days of the week. This helped more employees build trust and respect with myself, the other manager and each other, creating an even bigger in-group. The Leader-Member Exchange Theory has its weaknesses but it shows how I was able to create a positive work environment where employees were highly satisfied and productive on a consistent basis.
References
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. 7th Edition. Los Angeles: Sage
Publications.
ced256 says
Hello,
I though your post was extremely insightful and interesting! I can only image the stress you must have felt when you were assigned the task of managing the Dunkin’ on Sundays. As you describe, you were employed to fill the position of the previous unkind and ineffective Sunday manager. Therefore, it is sensible that the Sunday Dunkin’ employees would assume that you, like the old manager, would treat them in a mean, condescending manner. However, you present excellent leadership strategies that you utilized each Sunday as a means to transform the negative setting into a positive work environment.
I believe that the leader-member exchange theory was a suitable theory for you to utilize in this situation because, as you address in your post, the various vertical dyads that you employed, enabled you to build a close, quality relationship with each of your employees. I think the strategy of attempting to connect with the employees on an individual level was brilliant because, as Northouse (2016) suggests, employees are often more willing to perform better in the work place if they are satisfied and content.
I would like to analyze your post from the servant leadership perspective as I also think this form of leadership depicts your actions as a Dunkin’ manager. Northouse (2016) indicates that servant leadership is an approached focused type of leadership, which emphasizes the needs of the followers. From your description, it sounds like you immediately empathized with your employees previously challenging work situation and you yearned to improve your employees’ experiences at Dunkin’.
Northouse (2016) highlights the characteristics of servant leadership and a few of these characteristics stood out to me in your post. Northouse (2016) describes the characteristics of empathy and awareness as two main components to servant leadership, implying that empathy involves a leader demonstrating a true understanding of the followers’ circumstances and awareness entails a leader being attuned and receptive to a specific situation. When you began your role as the manager at Dunkin’, you were extremely empathetic of the employees, understanding that the previous manager’s strategy of yelling at employees heightened the employees’ anxiety and even forced a couple of employees to quite. Furthermore, you noticed the strain and fatigue that the poor management had on the employees. Therefore, your ability to place yourself in the employees’ situations enabled you to successfully comprise an effective leadership strategy. Additionally, you demonstrated a strong sense of self-awareness, viewing your position as the new manager in the general context of the company by understanding that your command would be most well received if you gained the trust and the friendship of each individual employee.
The idea of conceptualization is another servant leadership characteristic that Northouse (2016) mentions. Northouse (2016) describes conceptualization as a leader’s ability to have a clear sense of goals and direction for the organization. In your post, you state that your primary initial goal was to create a positive Sunday work environment for your employees in an effort to motivate employees to perform at their highest levels. You went on to accomplish this concrete goal by implementing various leadership strategies from the leader-member exchange theory, such as addressing the three leadership phases in an effort to gain a connection with each employee. You suggest that your efforts were primarily successful by indicating that after five months, your employees were the strongest in-group that you had ever witnessed.
In your attempt to improve the Sunday Dunkin’ employees’ experiences, you utilized many successful leadership tactics. Through your utilization of the various leadership tools, you exhibited the final servant leader characteristic that Northouse (2016) mentions. Northouse (2016) suggests that commitment to the growth of the people is a servant leadership characteristic in which the leader treats each follower as a unique person and leaders are committed to helping each individual grow both personally and professionally. Your actions as a Dunkin’ manager demonstrated that you did not yearn to exert dominance or instill fear in your employees like the previous manager. Rather, you imply that you desired to treat your employees in a kind, humane manner in the hopes that the employees would respond positively and perform professionally. Although you mention that the tremendously upbeat Sunday environment did leave other employees working on different days feeling left out, it is clear that you succeeded in your goal of completely altering the Sunday Dunkin’ employees’ situation and you should be proud that you were able to transform a negative work atmosphere into a positive occupational environment.
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. 7th Edition. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
jtt5181 says
I really liked your title for you blog post! Management is such a important thing to do correctly because as our lesson has stated form the in and out groups or the LMX theory members of the out group typically experience higher turnover and do not have as good as a relationship with the manager which sounds very similar to what you have talked about in your post about the previous manager. Sounds like the previous manager had a lot of employees as apart of the out group and therefore that is why two employees quit and the other six just did the bare minimum to get by, I think that taking. a page out of the Northouse chapter on creating high quality exchanges can really help create some great relationships between management and employees.
I liked how throughout the course of your blog post you really conveyed how important the different phases of getting better acquainted with your new staff. Being able to relate the similarities between our lessons and your own personal experience was very helpful in understanding your story, It shows that the lessons we have learned in this class are very applicable and you have the results to really show that by taking a team of basically all out-group members and like you have said becoming the strongest in-group by taking the time to understand their needs and help them thrive. Just to make sure according to our lesson there is necessary for members to be apart of an in and out group in order for members of the in group to feel the worth of doing the extra work, just make sure to have both groups when you manage to keep the peace. Great Post!
Sources:
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. 7th Edition. Los Angeles: Sage