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Leadership Case Study: Mary Kay Ash and Bill Gates

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The given case study about Mary Kay Ash and Bill Gates is in the Nahavandi textbook (pages 165-166).

How would you describe each of the two leaders in terms of LPC( Least- preferred Coworker) and situational control?

How are they similar? How are they different?

What makes each effective?

Which leader would you prefer to work for? Why?

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Solution Summary

The solution evaluates these two industry leaders against each other, looking at LPC scale scores, leader-member relations, structured task delegation and leader position power. 888 words.

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How would you describe each of the two leaders in terms of LPC( Least- preferred Coworker) and situational control? How are they similar? How are they different?

The leadership style is the consistent system of interactions that takes place between a leader and work group. According to Fiedler this depends on the personality of the leader, thus, fixed and measured by -what he calls- the least preferred co-worker (LPC) scale, an instrument for measuring an individual's leadership orientation. The LPC scale asks a leader to think of all the persons with whom he or she has ever worked, and then to describe the one person with whom he or she worked the least well with. From a scale of 1 through 8, leader are asked to describe this person on a series of bipolar scales such as those shown below:

Unfriendly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Friendly
Uncooperative 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Cooperative
Hostile 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Supportive
Guarded 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Open

The responses to these scales (usually 18-25 in total) are summed and averaged: a high LPC score suggests that the leader has a human relations orientation, while a low LPC score indicates a task orientation.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiedler_contingency_model#Least_preferred_co-worker_.28LPC.29

If we compare these two leaders in terms of LPC, Mary Kay Ash will have a higher LPC score as compared to ...

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