BSMAN2007

Fundamentals of Leadership

GARRY GRIMES 0

BSMAN2007 Fundamentals of Leadership

 Table of Contents
Overview ............................................................................................................................................... 2
Values................................................................................................................................................ 2
Culture .............................................................................................................................................. 3
Project ................................................................................................................................................... 4
Leadership Style and Traits ............................................................................................................ 5
Leadership Style and approach ..................................................................................................... 7
Effective Leaders ............................................................................................................................... 9
Trust, Confidence & Ethical Issues ............................................................................................. 10
Maintain a Consistent Vision ........................................................................................................ 11
Actions/Strategies ........................................................................................................................... 12
Motivation........................................................................................................................................... 13
References ......................................................................................................................................... 14

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BSMAN 2007 Fundamentals of Leadership

 Overview
Asplundh Tree Experts is one of the largest vegetation management businesses in Australia.
The expertise of the business is

Arboriculture this is tree pruning, line clearance, historic tree management, tree and
stump removal , tree irrigation, planting programmes, hedge and shelter belt
management and managing tree databases,
Power line clearance by using state of the art electric work platforms to clear
branches from power lines, Asplundh are the most efficient and safe operators in
Australia
Land clearance services includes tree felling, and removal, onsite mulching, stump
removal and large scale land conversion.

Asplundh is involved in high risk work, such as:

Power lines
Tree felling
Chainsaw operations
Heavy machinery and
Land clearing
Using heavy machinery

Values
Asplundh is committed to being both a sustainability leader and a champion of carbon
reduction in the vegetation management industry. Asplundh views sustainability in terms of
financial, social and environmental sustainability and it is dedicated to ensuring that our
current approach to our business, our employees and the environment will continue to offer
indefinite opportunity, consistent growth and environmental protection for our people, our
partners and importantly our future generations for many years to come.
Accordingly, we have in place a sustainability policy demonstrating our commitment to
sustainability as well as a draft of a sustainability roadmap detailing our objectives and
project testing commitments over the next few years (Asplundh Tree Experts, n.d.)

Asplundh Tree Experts also values the following

Health and Safety

Community

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BSMAN 2007 Fundamentals of Leadership

 Quality Assurance

Culture
There are two aspects of culture at Asplundh.

The first aspect is the arborists and general labourers, the working conditions for these
workers can be hot, dry, wet, and windy and snow conditions as most of the work is in
country areas of New South Wales and Victoria. Due to the nature of the work there is 3
females employed and around 180 male, Asplundh is an equal opportunity employer,
however due to the strength needed to complete cutting down trees and an exceptional
need of human strength makes are more attracted to this line of work. Being a male
dominated labour force presents its challenges such as humour, expectations and their
opinion is very straight forward.

The other aspect is the office employees who are educated differently as tasks that are
required are opposite to that and the field employees believe that they are not appreciated in
the business. However the field employees are the most important as that is where
Asplundh operating revenue is earnt.

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BSMAN 2007 Fundamentals of Leadership

 Project
The change initiative is to reduce the cost, administration, paper and manual processing of
the weekly payroll.

The project is to change the mindset of employees that the weekly payroll can be an
automated process reducing the cost to the business and using technology to be a leader in
the Asplundh group in being an innovative and learning organisation where change can
benefit the business. This project will also help in one the business strategies of being a
environment friendly organisation.

The initiative is to work with the software providers of the payroll system to automate the
following:-

Annual and sick leave forms

Electronic timesheet function
Employees to receive electronic pay advices
Real time work health and safety input, statistics and reporting
Electronic human resource system
Electronic learning systems for employees to achieve competencies for changes to
the workplace.

As 75% of the employees are in involved in field work such as, managing tree vegetation,
land clearing, tree cutting and use of heavy machinery, being technology minded is not in the
mindset of these employees.

Once the system is implemented then training sessions are needed to be rolled out to
employees. The employees will be trained on how to use the system on their home
computer, Ipads and smart phones.

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BSMAN 2007 Fundamentals of Leadership

 Leadership Style and Traits
For this project to ahead the change management plan must go through four senior
managers who have their own ideas and agendas for the initiative to work. As the four
senior managers have their own agendas when negotiating to make this project happen I
must deal with four different leadership styles and traits. Negotiation is the key to make it
happen (Armstong, Michael, 2012)

The leaders involved in the project are:-

Managing Director
o Trait confidence, has a belief in himself. This is a trait the project team can
sense and with that sometimes standard are not as high as the other leaders
in the team have traits to make up for his lack of standards
o Leadership style authoritive this person mobilises the forces by allocating
resources, budgets and time to have the project completed. He is only
interested in the end result, so he can report to his seniors that the projects
that he has authorised can be accomplished in timeframes set.
General Manager
o Trait confidence, has belief in himself. The self confidence that this person
has can be seen and put his confidence into action. The self confidence is
due to his training in the British Army and SAS. He was also a security leader
in the Asian Pacific Heads Conference in Sydney 2007. With his background
communication is a strong point.
o Leadership style coaching. He advises the project on his personal
experiences and how he would like to see the project go. His strength is in
planning due to his background. He has the power to inspire others and well
as empowering the team. If the General Manager can see that you are trying
to grow within the project and the business he will be on hand to offer any
support he can.

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BSMAN 2007 Fundamentals of Leadership

 Financial Controller
o Trait toughness (with all these people I have met this is a common trait)
this person is tenacious, resilient and demanding high standards, seeking
respect but not popularity. This person is more concerned with costs and
budgets and the project being right the first time and well as deadlines being
met at all milestones that have been set.
o Leadership style coercive demands compliance. This person is
interested that the project is completed to the resources allocated, but is also
concerned with audit, legal, financial and reputational concerns of the project
and the business.
Human Resource Manager
o Trait enthusiasm the ability to get to communicate to all team members in
the projects as well as the employees who are not computer literate.
o Leadership style authentic leader this person has the capacity to
empower others in being involved in the project. This person has the ability to
communicate with all stakeholders to see what the issues are and try to
resolve them. Issues that have come up is that employees do not know how
to use a smart phone, so a training session has been initiated and all staff
have been given a smart phone for business purposes.
Project Manager
o Trait thruster organiser (TMS Worldwide, n.d.) This person like to do with
systems and get the job done. They are quick to decide on what has to be
completed, can be impatient and result orientated.
o Leadership style this person can see the vision of the project. Will lead
others to see and create the vision. Will take ownership of all the faults in the
project , will tend to do more than others to have the project completed, define
team roles and accept, delegate responsibility and accountability (Hartley,
Stephen, 2013)

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BSMAN 2007 Fundamentals of Leadership

 Leadership Style and approach
Managing Director in this project he has a Laissez-fair approach (Cole, Keith).
This person has an electrical trade background and a new computer system does
not interest him as long as it works. He relys on his personal assistant to complete
most of his computer work. Due to this background he has approved the resources
and time for this project, however he is not involved in any direction and given free
rein to others in the project. He has delegated all responsibility for the project and
has given all the knowledge workers the responsibility for the project.
General Manager consultative this person values input by all team members,
giving his background his communication is valued. He tends to talk down to team
members, however he changes his style when he is corrected by the team. He
takes this feedback positively as he is open to consultation. He gives the project
manager empowerment to get the task completed and is accountable and
responsible for the outcome of the new system, however sometimes his direction
may become murky as he has other projects happening at the same time
(Education Business Articles, n.d.).
Financial Controller has the authoritive leadership approach (Northouse, Peter G).
His approach is usually negative, which is common for this position. Due to his
work and life experiences he also has a pessimistic and discouraging view of the
project. The reason this is the case as he believes the audit of the system may
have issues down the track and he is responsible for findings and to fix the
problems. The people who are involved and heading the project have a different
vision and style to this project through. He also believes that the end users are lazy
and not as intelligent as him and foresees a lot of problems going forward.
Human Resource Manager has a transactional approach (Bartol et al) his
function in this project is to motivate the regional managers and field workers that
this system is needed to be understood for human resource reporting, collecting
information and statistics for workplace health and safety training. This system is
important for this position as it provides high end information for local board
reporting as well as reporting to head office in the United States. This system is a
more accurate database in providing monthly bonuss to regional managers as staff
turnover and safety incidents affect the amount of bonus earned.

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BSMAN 2007 Fundamentals of Leadership

 Project Manager has the transformational approach - (Riggio, Ronald E PHD,
2009). This person motivates the team to produce a high level of performance, he
inspires individuals to perform above expectations whether in the team or the end
users using the new software. This person can see the vision of the project and is
confident in their abilities to finish the project in the time frames given. By being
involved in this project he believes that this leadership approach can transform the
business as well as individuals in the organisation. This person believes that he is
the ideal role model for project and walks the talk. This leadership style challenges
all people in the project to be innovative and creative.

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BSMAN 2007 Fundamentals of Leadership

 Effective Leaders
The leaders in this project performed exactly as the traits, styles and approaches were
given. The Financial Controller was upset on how much the system cost as it was not in this
budget as it was driven by the head office in the United States to become a more
sustainable business

The Managing Director was only involved when a high end direction was needed, however
there was only one decision that was made by him.

The General Manager was communicative in this project as the team involved in this
innovation was guided in some way in what he wanted to see reported and how access to
the system could be achieved in areas that did not have access to a telecommunication
network.

The Human Resource Manager motivated the regional managers and employees in how to
use the system and what was required.

The Project Manager was passionate about the vision of transforming the business and
individuals in the organisation. The passion involved inspired the business on how easy the
project actually was and the time frames were completed on time.

By having senior management involved in some way in the project improved relationships
with the team members of the project as they could see how positive the team was and the
outcomes gained in the project. The field employees were impressed as they finally had
effective communication with head office and they impressed that they were being thought
about.

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BSMAN 2007 Fundamentals of Leadership

 Trust, Confidence & Ethical Issues
The person who had the most issues with this was the Financial Controller. Due to his
leadership style, trait and approach he was sceptical about this project from the start. He
believed that this would create issues in the audit trail for him and believed that would create
more work for him.

After trialling this for around 3 weeks the Project Manager was able to alleviate all fears that
he had and showed him how this would actually help him and the business for future
planning for when staff are on leave and is a more accurate system than the forms that the
payroll area receives on a weekly basis.

Once the system went live the field employees were confident that they could receive the
pay advices on a real time basis and company policies were available anytime on this
system.

Once all employees had confidence in the system, the trust in the system was accepted with
a 97% take up rate from all employees.

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BSMAN 2007 Fundamentals of Leadership

 Maintain a Consistent Vision
The project manager was the person responsible in maintain the vision. The passion that
was shown on how the business can be transformed was the driving force in this project. By
maintaining the vision all achieving a take up rate of 97% of this new system will deliver a
saving of around $200,000 a year saving in processing and paper costs that the manual
system had.

Once the project was completed the Managing Director and General Manager were
impressed as this means that the profit of the business increased and with that so did there
bonus for the year.

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BSMAN 2007 Fundamentals of Leadership

 Actions/Strategies
There was very few conflicts in the implementation of the system. The field employees at
the start believed that they were being punished by making them become computer literate.

The strategies employed to deal with the issues were:

Collaborating change their thinking to show them that the new system is in their
benefit
Compromising treat all employees as equals, communicate the long term
objectives on how the system will help managers and employees.
Accommodating - when there was a mistake made in the implementation we
accepted it and fixed it, and we found out what the parties had in common
Conflict there were times when this happened due to frustrations of network
connection, we took our time to find out what the issues were and resolved them
Avoiding we did not avoid any issues as feedback was important to resolve any
issues.

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BSMAN 2007 Fundamentals of Leadership

 Motivation
Motivation from the leaders was not really an issue as the project manager was excited
about the project as this was dealing with his strengths as a thruster/organiser.

The motivation was that the project manager believed that he could change the business
and individuals in the business as this was completed on time and to the satisfaction of all
stakeholders.

Conclusion
The management of Asplundh Tree Experts wanted a system that could reduce processing
costs in payroll and associated expenditure in eliminating paper to become a green and
sustainable environment business.

The Managing Director installed a project manager who was excited about transforming the
business and individuals. The Project Manger reported to the senior leaders in the business
to achieve the results desired.

This project was concluded with the minimum of fuss as the project leader was experienced
and passionate. Project was completed to the satisfaction of head office and the project
manager in now touring areas in the United States to help roll out the project.

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 References

Armstong, Michael. (2012). Armstrong' Handbook of Management and Leadership.

Asplundh Tree Experts. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.asplundh.com.au/Page/Sustainability

Bartol et al. (n.d.). Management a Pacific Rim Focus. In T. M.-L. Bartol. McGraw Hill.

Cole, Keith. (n.d.). Management Theory & Practice. Cenage Learning Australia.

Education Business Articles. (n.d.). Education Business Articles. Retrieved from

http://www.educational-business-articles.com/

Hartley, Stephen. (2013). Project Management, Principles, Process & Practice. Pearson,
Prentice Hall.

Northouse, Peter G. (n.d.). In I. t. Practice. SAGE.

Riggio, Ronald E PHD. (2009, 03). Cutting Edge Leadership. Retrieved from Are you a
transformational leader: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-
leadership/200903/are-you-transformational-leader

TMS Worldwide. (n.d.). Magerison - McCann Team Management Wheel. Retrieved from
http://www.tmsworldwide.com/tms07.html

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BSMAN 2007 Fundamentals of Leadership