North Lands Ledger Case Analysis

Northlands Ledger Case Analysis Position statement: I strongly believe that Vincent Potter is a great replacement to publisher John Allison for the growth of the newspaper.

Criteria: Here are the reasons why I believe so: 

Potter has a high degree of emotional intelligence.

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Potter has diverse leadership styles and knows when is best to use them to suit the situation.

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Potter is sure able to influence the employees.

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Potter knows the importance of hard elements and how that affects change management.

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Potter knows how to lead the change in the organization

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Potter sets standards that are ethical.

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Potter acknowledges the importance of followers.

Proof of evaluation In order to be a great leader you need to be effective and to be effective you need a high degree of emotional intelligence. The leader needs to be self –aware of who he is before trying to understand others, self- regulate to be able to control his moods, motivate by having a passion for his work, empathize with people and socialize to create relationships. If a leader is able to master these 5 components they can move with the changes, and being the leader is like being the teacher it all starts at the top and trickles down. In the case of Northlands Ledger we can see that the atmosphere and work under Allison was austere and chaotic. Allison was the top of the hierarchy and that by having his own parking spot, the luxury company car, palatial office sort of got to his head, he acted like the king, which Potter noticed; “ In his first meeting with this direct reports he felt as if vassals were paying liege to their new lord. “ Potter was visibly disturbed by his style, which shows that he is aware that it isn’t the right thing for a leader to do. If Allison has only a tiny bit self-aware he would of admitted the failure of the paper and done something about it. However Potter did by noticing the lack of communication, no motivation from the top (people being lazy), blaming others (external locus of control) etc.

From my

perspective I think if you are able to notice these missing elements in a company you are aware of their importance and how substantial they are for a leader to use for the good of the organization. Potter came into his new position confident with ideas and openness to change, which were acknowledged by the executive vice president, which proves that his actions are clear and realistic. Another example

would be how Potter was wondering how he decided to transfer from Star to Ledger, he was wondering that he could take what Star does and implement it at Ledger however he thought it would be carried unwillingly and that demonstrates that he wants to be fully dedicated to it with a passion and not forced by it. He also appointed people do different tasks, which shows empathy, it’s not all about him but it’s about everyone in the organization. Even though the paper is on the verge of failing and there are lots of things to take care of Potter remains optimistic and works on deciding who stays and who doesn’t and does his rounds to all departments to discuss the situations and asks employees for their input. Taking into consideration his actions I can deduct he has a high degree emotional intelligence.

When it comes to leadership styles its important to keep in mind that it doesn’t solely depends on personality it is more about what style suits better the situation you are in. in accordance with the previous criteria, leader with emotional intelligence are able to take on different styles and switch them according to need. There are 6 different styles; visionary, affiliative, democratic, coaching but two of them who are commanding and pacesetting shouldn’t be used on their own, or else it will lead to failure. Mastering few of those styles will help maintain a favorable work climate and improve business performance. As I mentioned earlier Potter seems to have a great degree of emotional intelligence and for this reason I believe he is able to take on different leadership styles. He seeks reassurance from the executive that what he’s about to do is right and then goes on with a mellow coercive style where he

takes drastic actions to jumpstart a turnaround such as; replaces key personnel, demands full-scale evaluation, brings in new personnel, resisted against what Allison was trying to tell him to do. Then once that is done he takes on the visionary style where he meets with his new team, states the new mission of the paper “First Choice” to give a clear direction of the newspaper, and bring some coercive back into the visionary style by stating that he would accept nothing less. Old managers were concerned that a new Allison what taken place but Potter managed to take on the democratic style and asked for their collaboration by putting into place task forces that will get them to be part of the decision-making process. As mentioned in the case people were resistant because there was no trust and no empowerment. Finally Potter mixed affiliative and coaching while visiting each department, people were actually, surprised because Allison had never done that before. He made sure to let people know that no one is better than anyone; “ You are not the head of circulation-advertising- HR- editorial […] – you are a newspaper executive. It shows that he wants to create harmony and communication between employees. Then coaching came into place by offering them guidance on how to do things by teaching human resources steps they should taken on during the hiring process and encouraged task forces to try different things which is the goal of coaching to develop people for the future. All these actions demonstrate that Potter has a great ability to put different leadership styles into place for the benefit of the organization.

In order to influence the ones beneath, you need power. The type of power comes with the position you occupy however it needs to be exercised in the right away. Many believe formal authority is the main or only way to influence others but soon come to realize that before exercising influence you need to establish trust and credibility. Empowering is one way to share your power with others because it increases your own control as a leader or manager, therefore making it easier for you to run the organization.

In the case of Potter he starts by dividing the

employees into task forces which shows he wants to delegate some of his power to them. Not only this enables him to accomplish more by giving some of his work away but also it motivates the employees. They feel like they are needed. Besides delegating Potter goes and visits the departments and as mentioned the supervisor of the complaint department was shocked to see him that had never happened under Allison’s management. During scheduled meetings even though he made it clear that he will be taking the final decision he gives right to everyone to speak out and share their information and findings. By having Potter implement all these changes it sort of built a bridge and connections with others in order to motivate them to do more for Ledger, instead of being resistant to change and lazy. Allison unfortunately was the “ say as I do” type where he abused his power of publisher and that is why under him people weren’t doing their job and were slacking off. When you think of it, you would think that it would be the opposite out of fear, people will do their work. However this case shows us that people tend to rebel against those who make excessive use of their power. Potter is able to exercise

influence because he realized that he is dependent on those around him, he needs them as allies and not as enemies.

When reforming an organization its important to take into consideration leadership style, corporate culture and employee motivation however that it is not enough to make a successful change. A company also needs hard elements such as: duration, integrity, commitment and effort to identify potential problem and assure success. Potter made use of dedication and integrity when building the task forces, from not having any developed meeting under Allison’s lead, now Ledger had monthly meetings with to discuss issues and problems the newspaper might be facing which if reviewed frequently, the newspaper stands far better chance of surviving than without any teams in place. When he put into place these groups he took into consideration the integrity element where you need to appoint the right people to the right task and have a diversity to cover all aspects of the problems. Potter certainly did see the benefit when approving the teams’ recommendations; it made sense. During the transformation he also emphasized the commitment element, by keeping constant communication with all members, stated the mission was one way to do so to make sure the change is clear and consistent with everyone. Finally the last thing Potter did was not to burden employees with too much work to prevent resistance and was assigned to new tasks that they had never performed. He noticed that the head of the personnel was in significantly over his head and decided to offer him another position to free him up. The employees seemed to be more than excited with the progress the newspaper. Potter found them

congratulating themselves, which demonstrates that they are actually enjoying their work and happy with the results they have provided. For these reasons I believe Potter knows how to make use of the hard elements to guarantee a successful transformation.

When leading change its important to work smart, to build a proper foundation by establishing the right actions at each stage of the reformation. Leaders need to be patient and not skip stages of the process when changing even if the pressure is high because short cuts never worked. Bear in mind, that you need support for your change therefore it is important to include your subordinates in the process so that they don’t resist you like in the case of Northlands Ledger. Potter was uncomfortable with the lack of strategy and performance; he knew it was time for a drastic change to occur. He went by the “ eights steps to transforming your organization”, first establish a sense of urgency by letting the team know; “[…] decline in circulation and ad revenue, and the practice of eking out profit by costcutting would lead to significant shrinkage in the paper, the paper’s staff and their salaries.” This tactic was great because gets people to realize the position the organization is in but how it is going to affect each and one of them if nothing is done about, creativity can then spur. Potter then assembled a group of task force teams composed of one person from each department and this was meant to encourage them to work as a team but also wanted to give them some power to come up with solutions to the diverse problems. Potter also created and communicated the new vision of the paper;“ First Choice”, which gives a clear sense

of direction that the paper must take. Then he went about empowering by asking his employees to be risk taking;“ Potter kept encouraging these two tasks force to try something different […]”. He also gave power to outsiders like the advertisers to be implicated in the interviews of new sales people. The new recruits would also be involved, they would have to visit all departments and then report on them. All these steps Potter is putting into place to get others to act on the vision go back to how it is important to get opinions from outsiders because they might see something that we don’t. Finally to keep people motivated and create short term wins he decided to reward with monthly pizza party and by giving them all the same status; newspaper executive. He began an internal newsletter announcing birthdays, promotions, progress of task forces, revenues etc. Therefore that is why I believe Potter knows how to lead the change effectively.

Leaders need to be ethical, they set the tone they are the face and culture of the company. They should respect and care for all stakeholders rather than just for themselves. Leaders demand to be morally good, fair, sharing; no false promises or unreasonable demands depending on the culture that you are in. When you a leader it’s not enough to have a code of ethic, you need to be there to reinforce it and hire the right people in order to maintain it and reinforce it. In the case of Potter that is what he did he did a full-scale evaluation and got rid of the unnecessary personnel. He also emphasized good communication by himself taking the time and meeting with several employees. This spurs openness and fosters a bond between individuals who are keen on being ethical and help promote teamwork, which then

results in a good spirit and climate of the workplace. He also got rid of the whole “ Just do it “ because I am the boss, which was Allison way of ruling. Potter made sure to let people know that he was in charge but let them understand that there is room for them to intervene and help his decision-making “ He let everyone know that it was his responsibility to decide what was to be implemented. Managers noticed that most, though not all, task force recommendations were approved. “ He also didn’t use the reserved parking spot and eliminated it and got rid of the palatial office of Allison and turn it into a conference room which was more needed. Allison’s way of thinking was “winner takes all” which is something that can induce people to do the wrong thing in order to be rewarded or to gain that financial bonus which seems to be prevailing under his reign. Potter on the other hand with the actions he undertook mentioned above and the monthly pizza party, he prizes that included “Ledger” money that could be spent any of the advertisers joint with their business. By doing so I believe that he’s trying to emphasize the importance of the business itself not what he can benefit out of it and what is why I believe Potter set ethical standards.

7. Followers are important to the organization because without them a leader cannot lead. Therefore it is important as a leader to acknowledge and understand the people beneath you. By doing so you get rid of slackers, create authentic personalities, get a sense of community, excite people to perform and get a feel of significance. In the case of Potter I believe he understands the sense of unity and how followers are important because he comes in trying to get in touch with each

department and employees to see what their view is. He also gives them the same status name; newspaper executives, in this way people don’t feel left out or less important. He distributes the work evenly for example he reduces the workload of the head of the personnel. Then with the rewards he shows gratitude for the contribution of the employees. Potter makes sure he is engaged as a leader so others feel engaged, too much distance like Allison makes people feel less valuable therefore not caring so much about the position they occupy. However distance is important to make sure you show them who the boss is, and the draw the line at the right time and that is what Potter did even though he delegated work to the task forces he made sure to remind them that he was going to make the final decision. If Potter didn’t set these standards he would probably go back to having slackers, he might face difficult decisions like firing a friend, if he becomes too close to some of them therefore I believe Potter knows the importance of followers and where to draw the line.

Qualifications My main assumption is that Potter is better than Allison for the newspaper. There is evidence that the company is heading the right way but there isn’t that much evidence to say that all employees are pleased with the new publisher. I assumed he is better because no one really complained about Potter. I also assumed that Potter as a sense of unity when it comes to followership, I believe so because he worked at Star which is a successful newspaper so therefore if they are successful that means they know how to run things.

Action Plan: Potter did a great job taken on all these different actions to create change at Northlands Ledger. However to be able to maintain this growth a plan needs to be put into place to ensure that the organization keeps running well. These are few actions I would recommend to Potter:

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Implement training programs: Bring in specialists and even new graduates to teach the news ways of doing things. Another way would be to send off some of your employees to another newspaper, preferably in another city so it does not create conflict of interests this would enable employees to see how things are done somewhere else, which could spur creativity.

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Seek out coach: Encourage people in the organization to get a mentor or coach to help them grow or be a mentor yourself to them. Take someone under your wing to show them how it is really done and that person could potentially take over once you decide to resign and maintain your legacy and hard work into place.

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D-I-C-E: use previous four components of hard management; duration, integrity, commitment and effort even though they have already been implemented, continue using after the launch of the new actions to make midcourse corrections if the initiative goes off track.

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Anonymous messages: You can have a hot line put into place where people can call and denounce someone or share a particular experience. Sometimes

it is hard for people to really open up because of fear of retaliation. Another possibility would be to the have a box where people can simply write their thoughts and drop it in and have an HR manager look at them and bring it forward to management for discussion. 

Rotation: Rotating employees is important to make sure new ideas generate therefore take on new employees with different backgrounds from time to time or simply rotate them internally between departments.

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Expand to the internet: The number of newspaper subscribers that actually receiver the paper at home or buy it at a stand as decreased over the years for many reasons due to technology, going green etc. Therefore expanding the newspaper on the Internet would make it an easier reading for the customers and also would make it easier for the team to work on.