Leadership and Team Dynamics in the MSCC - Case Study Example

Leadership and Team Dynamics in the MSCCAs the MSCC grew and developed into the information age, key acquisitions were made to help the firm become more streamlined, reduce cost, increase efficiency etc. These changes all worked together to bring the organization out of the red and into the black, reduce personnel costs, and gave the leadership a sense of confidence with regards to making key decisions relating to the acquisition of information technology and the benefits that such acquisitions could bring.

However, when the organization set out to purchase and implement a new information system for their respective departments to utilize, the plan went awry as the changeover period was not a smooth transition and cost the firm a great deal of valuable time, lost resources, and lost potential. The key players in this case are Jeff Hedges, controller and director of research, Jim Kovecki, team member and information technology specialist, and Leon Lassiter, vice president of marketing for MSCC.

With respect to the key responsibilities that were associated with each role, Jim Kovecki was primarily responsible for systems maintenance and operations. Conversely, Leon Lassiter was primarily responsible for marketing outreach and conducting himself as a representative of the organization as a means to boost visibility, promote the services that the organization offered, and seek to better hone and organize marketing dynamics to better serve the needs of the organization. Lastly, Jeff Hedges was the lead director of research.

Although these roles are straight forward enough, the problem that emerged was that nearly as soon as the project began, the key roles and responsibilities of the individuals that have thus far been enumerated upon seemed to experienced a sudden shift. Due to the fact that Lassiter was the one that was spearheading the effort to purchase and implement the new systems, the other shareholders showed little if any interest in fulfilling their job responsibilities in order to assist the transition; interested instead in seeking to busy themselves on other tasks, or outright decline to participate in what they termed as “Lassiter’s project”.

In much the same way, Lassiter was left to spearhead an information technology change over that he had little if any experience in. This served as both a disservice to the firm as well as a disservice to his own responsibilities that he was charged with fulfilling. With regards to what roles in particular could stand to be modified, it is the belief of this student that the roles themselves were solid; however, the implementation of the project fell so outside the roles of the participating factions that it was necessarily doomed to failure (Barnett et al 655).

Lassiter should not have been the de-facto leader of an information technology changeover he knew little if anything about, Kovecki should have become a prime shareholder in the process as it closely mirrored his own job responsibilities in the first place, and Hedges should have spearheaded all of the initial research and development which went into seeking to find out which software and hardware packages best served to fulfill the needs of the organization. In such a way the needs of the group could have been met in a far more expeditious manner than what actually occurred.

Work CitedBarnett, Kerry, and John McCormick. "Leadership And Team Dynamics In Senior Executive Leadership Teams." Educational Management Administration & Leadership 40.6 (2012): 653-671. ERIC. Web. 21 Jan. 2013.