Coaching as a Form of Performance Management - Case Study Example

The issues arise when Reed’s failed to motivate Fred and eventually handing over a dismissal letter (Buller & Schuler, 2003).

 Major Issues

The major issue of the case is the inability of Reed to motivate Fred who has proven to be loyal, committed, and hardworking for several years. The situation of Reed's motivational issue eventually led to the dismissal of Fred.  The motivational problem of Reed has many other issues connected to it. These issues include, Reed’s feeble attempts at coaching,  Motivating older workers  The potential influence of the performance evaluation system Fred’s resistance to change Fred’s unethical response to pressure Lack of trust or violation of the psychological contract  Equity and procedural justice.

 Reed’s feeble attempts at coaching

One major issue in the case is Reed’s inability to lead Fred. Reed’s demonstrated a transactional leadership style behavior which is used by many salespersons. Dubinsky, Yammarino, Jolson, and Spanger (2001) argue that Sales managers generally employ transactional leadership behavior which can “induce adequate attitudinal and behavioral responses in employees, transformational leadership has found to engender even higher results” (Dubinsky et al., 2001, p. 17). Reed’s leadership style is evident from the fact that he finds out the job tasks for Fred’s and then tells him how to execute his job and being more successful (Buller & Schuler, 2003; Dubinsky et al., 2001).  An incident to confirm this point from the case is when Reed wanted to determine the volume to drug prescriber and he went through Fred’s computer files and then through a memo told Fred how to go about accomplishing the task. Reed was setting Fred’s goals for him without his input and totally negating the fact that Fred had been working in sales with success for over 30 years before Reed became his supervisor. According to Bassett-jones and Lloyd, a study conducted to determine motivation influenced by the leader-member relationship, the study confirmed that about 80 percent of the respondents who had a positive attitude towards their manager dropped to 53 percent when they felt they were being monitored to close by their supervisor.