Exploring Leadership Styles and How Leaders can Use Social Media to Boost Employee Engagement

In today's workforce, there a many different people in leadership positions as well as many different leadership styles. In this blog post, we will explore some of the different leadership styles and social media strategies that leaders can use to boost employee engagement.

According to Robert Blake and Jane Mouton’s 1964 leadership grid, there are five types of leaders (as cited in Contingent Approaches to Leadership, n.d.) This grid features five types of leadership: impoverished leaders, country club leaders, task leaders, middle-of-the-road leaders, and team leaders.

According to Blake and Mouton (1964), impoverished leaders have “low concern for both people and production and thus exerts minimum effort to get the work done” (as cited Contingent Approaches to Leadership, n.d.). From personal experience, I can tell you this is not a leader you want to have.

Almost twenty years ago, I worked on a sales and marketing team and had the unpleasant experience of working under an impoverished leader. This individual was more concerned about things going on in the outside world than his employees and production.  He consonantly gossiped about the drama in his life, was always was in a bad mood, and he couldn’t be bothered with answering work related questions, would not expect feedback, and he did very little at work. My team members and myself had to solely rely on each other to figure out what was expected for each project and we were even left to train new employees on our team (shocker, shocker high turn-over rate). Needless to say, I only stayed at that job a little over a year before I quit. Not only was that type of leadership and work environment mentally and emotionally draining, I took the negativity home to my family.

The country club leadership style is more concerned about pleasing people than production (Blake & Mouton as cited in Contingent Approaches to Leadership, n.d.). This type of leader is more worried about being people’s friend and avoids confrontation, taking corrective action, and giving constructive criticism (Duggan, 2019). This often interferes with productivity.

The task leader is more interested in production than their employees (Blake & Mouton as cited in Contingent Approaches to Leadership, n.d.). This type of  leader is authoritative and demands quick results and views their employees as commodities to get the job done (Duggan, 2019). This type of leadership is common in factories. Jim Beam’s Sour Bathroom Break case study as discussed in an earlier blog https://organizationalcommunicationtalk.blogspot.com/2019/09/to-pee-or-not-to-pee-infamous-case-of.html, is a great example of task-oriented leaders. Jim Bean’s production leadership at their Clermont, Kentucky plant was more concerned about production than they were about their employee’s bathroom needs. If leaders only focus on the task at hand, employees’ basic needs are not being met and their morale decreases (Duggan, 2019).

The middle- of-the-road leader balances concern for employees and productivity to  get the job done (Blake & Mouton as cited in Contingent Approaches to Leadership, n.d.). This type of leader shows leniency and allows employees freedom to increase efficiency and performance (Quain, 2018).  However, this type of leadership often tolerates mediocre employee performance, which results in mediocre productivity (Quain, 2018).

Lastly, according to Blake and Mouton (1964), a  team leader “has a high regard concern for people and production and promotes commitment to the organization and to each other” (as cited in Contingent Approaches to Leadership, n.d.).  People that are team leaders hold their employees to high performance and productivity standards and have no issue with taking corrective action when necessary (Quain, 2018).  However, they also promote learning and development (Duggan, 2019; Quain, 2018), encourage performance, reward good performance, encourage employees, (Quain, 2018) and inspire commitment (Duggan, 2019). This is what great leadership is about.

Great leaders are also effective communicators. Part of being an effective communicator is encouraging open two-way communication. Many organizational leaders are using internal social media to do just this. By using an internal social media platform, organizational members at all levels are able to share information and opinions as well as form connections with colleagues (Madsen, 2018). This form of participatory communication can “democratize organizations and empower employees, which is the key to engaging employees” (Madsen, 2018).

Organizations are utilizing internal social media platforms that have similar features to popular social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, etc. (Baer, 2018). In particular, leaders are using gamification, socialization, and rewards platforms to encourage employee engagement. These social media strategies not only increase employee engagement, but also boosts employee morale, performance and productivity (Baer, 2018).

Key points to take away from this blog is that some of leadership styles are counterproductive and are not true leadership. A true leader is motivational and inspirational and leads by example. They are also someone employees can respect, trust, and follow. Moreover, great leadership requires high standards, balancing employees and production, as well as innovative ways to engage employees. When employees are happy and feel valued in their organization, performance and productivity increase.

References

Baer, S. (2018). Social media proves to boost wemployee engagement . Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/02/13/social-media-proves-to-boost-employee-engagement/#724c72ed4db5

Contingent Approaches to Leadership. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://moodle.drury.edu/pluginfile.php/937721/mod_resource/content/1/Leadership%20behaviors.pdf

Duggan, T. (2019). Examples of leadership grid styles . Retrieved from Chron: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/examples-leadership-grid-styles-11873.html

Jain, D. (2017). Leadership styles . [Image]. Retrieved from https://listovative.com/15-different-types-of-leadership-styles/

Madsen, V. (2018). Participatory communication on internal social media – A dream or reality? Retrieved from Instittute for Public Relations : https://instituteforpr.org/participatory-communication-on-internal-social-media-a-dream-or-reality/

Quain, S. (2018). Examples of leadership grid styles. Retrieved from azcenteral: https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/examples-leadership-grid-styles-15803.html

  

Managing Emotions in the Workplace and During a Time a Crisis

Every day, we express our emotions through words, intonation, body language, and other physical actions. Not only are emotions a crucial part of communication, how we manage our emotions when communicating is equally important.  In this blog post, I will discuss emotional management in the workplace and the importance of emotions in an organization’s crisis communication strategy.

We all experience a variety of positive and negative emotions in the workplace. When things go well at work, we feel positive emotions such as happiness, excitement, pride, gratitude, etc. In contrast, when things do not go well or as expected, we can feel anger, frustration, uneasiness, etc. It is perfectly acceptable to allow yourself to feel these emotions. However, we must be aware that negative emotions spread like wildfire in the workplace and can create a toxic environment.

Five emotions that can be hard to control in the workplace are: “frustration; worry or insecurity; anger;  feeling “down”; and dislike (Fisher as cited in Bakken, 2011). Learning how to control your negative emotions is key and can lead to a more positive and productive work environment. So how do we effectively manage our emotions at work?

According to the author of Emotions at Work, Elizabeth Bakken, we should handle our problems before they escalate and overpower us (2011). By not addressing issues that upset you right away, you allow your negative emotions to “to slow burn and keep festering” (Ilfeld, 2016), this can lead to uncontrolled emotional outbursts in the workplace. Some other emotion management strategies that Bakken (2011) recommends are:

• Handle hard to control feelings in work-appropriate ways. Take a moment to analyze what brought on your emotions and think of steps you can take to diffuse a situation if it happens again in the future.
•  Remember how you handle a previous issue in the workplace. Make a note of what has worked for you in the past and use it in a similar situation if necessary.
• Use your organization’s employee assistance program. Speaking to a professional will help you get an outside opinion on the issue at hand and help you with emotion management.

Emotions also play a key role in crisis communication. When an organizational crisis occurs, it can spark outrage and anger from the public (Van der Meer & Verhoven, 2014). Research by Paz-Soldan (2018) shows that “the publics’ initial emotions will be triggered or intensified by a process of online emotional contagion.”  Moreover, social media can expose an organization to a higher volume of negative dialog, and how an organization chooses to handle a crisis can help or hinder their recovery. Let us look at the crisis case studies of Fed Ex and Domino’s Pizza.

FedEx Case Study: During the busy holiday season, a Fed Ex driver threw a customer’s package containing a computer monitor over the fence instead of delivering it the right way (Capozzi & Rucci, 2013). The incident was caught on video and uploaded to YouTube causing an organizational crisis (Capozzi & Rucci, 2013).

FedEx responded swiftly, issuing both a video and a written response (Capozzi & Rucci, 2013). The video response can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOhwZHHwWng. After watching the video apology, I think the Senior VP, FedEx Express U.S. Operations, Mike Thornton III handled the response with sincerity. He conveyed emotions such as regret, disappointment, concern for the customer, and embarrassment for the employee’s actions. His body language also suggested that he was being open and honest. For example, he made direct eye contact with the video camera and his hand gestures displayed passion and conviction. Furthermore, he had good voice intonation. 

Domino’s Pizza Case Study: In 2009, one Domino’s employees filmed and narrated a YouTube video of another employee deliberately contaminating delivery orders with bodily fluids (i.e. sneezing directly on a pizza, wiping mucus on the food, etc.) (Capozzi & Rucci, 2013). Bloggers found the video online and reported to a “subsidiary of Consumer Reports, which posted the video to their website” (Capozzi & Rucci, 2013).

 Domino’s store owner and the corporate office did not find out about the video until almost two days later. Also, the response was issued one day after they found out about the video (Capozzi & Rucci, 2013). The video response can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dem6eA7-A2I. After watching the response video, I think Patrick Doyle conveyed sincerity, regret, disgust, shame. In addition, he expressed concern for public safety, the individual franchise owner, and Domino’s employees. Also, he had good voice intonation and his body language conveyed conviction and passion through his head movements and hand gestures.

There are a couple of improvements that could have been made to Domino’s crisis communication strategy. First, they should have responded the same day instead of waiting until the next to release their statement. Lastly, the angle that the video was filmed at was off-putting. Throughout the video, it looks like the Doyle is not making eye contact. However, after re-watching the video, I realized that it was being filmed off-centered, presumably to capture part of the Domino’s logo in the background.

It is important to show the authentic and sincere emotions when handling crisis communication. When an organization's crisis communicator shows emotions such as shame, and regret, it reflects positively on their reputation (Van der Meer & Verhoven, 2014). Furthermore, when a spokesperson tries to remain emotionless when delivering a message, emotions can unintentionally come out in your body language, which can alert others that you are “hiding something” (Ilfeld, 2016).

References

Bakken, E. (2011). Emotions at work. Retrieved from University of Notre Dame: https://hr.nd.edu/assets/52816/emotionsatwork.pdf

Capozzi, L., & Rucci, S. (2013). Crisis management in the age of social media. New York: Business Expert Press, LLC. Retrieved from https://moodle.drury.edu/pluginfile.php/933981/mod_resource/content/1/Case%20study%20in%20crisis%20com%20.pdf

Emotions in the workplace. (2017). [Image] Retrieved from https://www.changeboard.com/article-details/13738/being-emotional-in-the-workplace/

Ilfeld, J. (2016). Emotions at work: Needless or neccessary? . Retrieved from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2016/06/06/emotions-at-work-needless-or-necessary/#37629916917b

Paz-Soldan, M. (2018). Getting emotional: Emotions' role in crisis communication. Retrieved from Institute for Public Relations: https://instituteforpr.org/getting-emotional-emotions-role-in-crisis-communication/

Van der Meer, T., & Verhoven, J. (2014). Emotional Crisis Communication. Public Relations Review, 40(3), 526-536. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2014.03.004