Leadership has been defined as the ability to motivate and influence others to work towards achieving a goal. Leaders of any organizations are sometimes faced with challenges of encouraging employees to adapt to organizational structural and culture changes. John C. Maxell define leadership as being influence “nothing more or nothing less.” In a large organizations the effectiveness of managers depends on influence over superiors and peers as well as influence over subordinates.” (Yukl, 2006, p.145) The COO of Smith & Falmouth (S&F), in the Leadership in Action simulation was faced with the challenge of leading a group of stubborn employees to achieve the company’s goals. The following discussion will address the present cultures within S&F and will make a recommendation for restructuring the e-tailing division that would improve the culture while empowering the employees.
The culture of a group can be defined asa pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solves its problems and are taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.” (Covey 2008) S&F Online operations present culture has been identified as a subculture that has been led by the project manager. The project manager and his web development team has been running the department the way that the saw fit. The project manager works very well with the logistic manager and his team. The structure has been identified as centralization. The decision making in an organization is heavily dependent on the type of organizational culture existing in the organization. This fact is not only true with decision making at the higher levels but also applicable to the decisions at the lower levels in the organization. The level of centralization and decentralization with respect to decision making in an organization clearly stems out of the