BUS 700 Week 6 Leadership Theory Example

Leading Branch Managers Through Closures: What Leadership Theory Explains and What It Leaves Open

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

BUS/700: Introduction to Business Administration in Doctoral Study

Week 6 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The doctoral student, Buckeye Valley Bank and all details are composites written for a model paper.

Marcus Bell led the process when his composite Ohio bank, Buckeye Valley, closed eight branches, acting as director of retail operations. Six branch managers were reassigned and two left the bank. The closures met their financial targets, but a later employee survey showed that trust in senior leadership among branch staff fell sharply. As a DBA student, Marcus now examines his leadership through theory. A leader can execute a change perfectly on paper and still lose the trust of the people who carried it out, and leadership theory helps explain why. This paper applies leadership theory to his experience.

The Development of Leadership Theory

Early research sought traits that distinguish leaders from others. Behavioral research then examined what leaders do, distinguishing task-oriented and relationship-oriented behaviors. Contingency theories argued that effective leadership depends on the situation. Later approaches, including transformational, relational, authentic, servant and ethical leadership, emphasize motivation, relationships and values.

A Crowded Field

Dinh et al. (2014) reviewed leadership research published in major journals since 2000 and identified dozens of theoretical domains, noting growth in perspectives such as social exchange, leadership and emotion and ethical leadership, but also limited integration among theories. The field offers many lenses but few tests comparing them, which leaves practitioners to judge which theory fits their situation.

Transformational and Transactional Leadership

Transformational leaders inspire followers to exceed expectations through vision, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration. Transactional leaders manage through exchanges, rewarding performance and correcting problems. Combining dozens of studies, Judge and Piccolo (2004) linked transformational leadership to satisfied, motivated followers and effective leaders, yet contingent reward, a transactional behavior, performed nearly as well on several of the same outcomes and better on a few.

Applying the Behavioral View

Marcus was highly task-focused during the closures: detailed timelines, clear assignments and weekly progress reports. Branch managers knew exactly what to do. He spent little time with managers individually, especially those whose branches were closing, and rarely asked how they or their staff were coping.

Applying Transformational Leadership

Marcus explained the closures with financial data rather than a vision of the bank's future. He did not invite branch managers to help design how customers would be served after closures, missing a chance for intellectual stimulation, and showed little individualized consideration for managers facing reassignment or job loss.

Applying Transactional Leadership

Marcus used contingent reward well: managers who met closure milestones received recognition and retention bonuses. This explains why the closures stayed on schedule even as morale declined. But transactional exchanges did not address the uncertainty and loss managers felt.

Relational and Ethical Perspectives

Relational theories emphasize the quality of leader-follower relationships. Brown et al. (2005) defined ethical leadership as demonstrating appropriate conduct and promoting it to followers through communication, reinforcement and decisions, and found it related to followers' perceptions of fairness, trust in the leader and willingness to report problems. Marcus's communication was honest but impersonal, and some managers felt decisions about who would be reassigned were not explained, raising fairness concerns.

Evidence From Followers

Marcus's view of his own leadership is only one source. The employee survey after the closures asked branch staff whether leaders explained decisions, treated people fairly and cared about their well-being. Scores on explanation and care fell by more than 20 points, while scores on clarity of direction remained high. A former branch manager told Marcus later that she understood the business case but felt like "a line item." This feedback confirms the pattern theory suggests and adds the followers' perspective that self-reflection alone misses.

Contingency Considerations

Contingency theories suggest that the best leadership style depends on the situation. A crisis may call for directive leadership, while a change that affects people's jobs and identities calls for more consideration and participation. The closures had both features: a firm deadline and deep personal effects. Marcus applied the crisis style throughout, when the situation called for adjusting his approach once the plan was set and the human consequences became clear.

The Leader's Own Experience

Leading the closures was also hard for Marcus, who had worked with several of the affected managers for years. Research on leadership increasingly recognizes leaders' emotions and well-being. Marcus admits that he kept conversations focused on tasks partly to avoid painful discussions. Recognizing this pattern is the first step toward changing it in future changes.

Applying Ethical Leadership

Fairness concerns arose mainly around who was reassigned and who was let go. Decisions were based on performance ratings and tenure, but the criteria were not explained to managers. Ethical leadership research suggests that explaining such decisions, and allowing questions, would likely have kept more of the managers' trust, even those unhappy with the result.

What Theory Explains

Together, these theories explain why the closures succeeded financially but damaged trust: strong task and transactional leadership delivered results, while weak relational, transformational and fairness behaviors left people feeling unseen and uninformed.

What Theory Leaves Open

Leadership theories say less about how to lead when the change itself harms some followers, such as managers whose branches close. They also say little about how leaders should balance obligations to employees, customers and shareholders in such moments, an area where ethical and stakeholder perspectives may help.

Leading the Next Change

Buckeye Valley plans to consolidate two more branches next year. Marcus will apply what he learned: he will meet each affected manager before any announcement, explain the criteria for staffing decisions, invite managers to design customer transition plans, schedule regular check-ins during the change and ask for anonymous feedback afterward. He will also keep the task discipline that made the first closures run on time, since research suggests effective leaders combine both.

Leadership in a Regulated, Numbers-Driven Industry

Banking rewards precision and control, which may favor task-focused leadership. Yet branch success depends on relationships with customers and staff. Leaders in such settings must hold two commitments at once: meeting targets and caring for people. Recognizing this tension helps explain why Marcus's natural style served him well in operations but less well in change.

Development Goals

Marcus's goals are to hold individual conversations with every manager affected by future changes, to involve managers in designing how changes are carried out, to explain decisions about people openly and to ask for feedback through a short survey after major changes.

Leadership and the Doctoral Topic

Branch managers' relationships with small business customers were a resource lost in the closures. Leadership influences whether those relationships survive transitions, for example by assigning managers to call former customers. This connects leadership to Marcus's research on customers after closures.

Conclusion

Leadership theory helps Marcus see that his closures succeeded through task and transactional leadership but faltered in relational, inspirational and fairness dimensions. Evidence supports the value of both transformational and transactional behaviors. His development goals address the gaps, and the link between leadership and customer relationships enriches his doctoral topic.

References

Brown, M. E., Treviño, L. K., & Harrison, D. A. (2005). Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 97(2), 117-134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2005.03.002

Dinh, J. E., Lord, R. G., Gardner, W. L., Meuser, J. D., Liden, R. C., & Hu, J. (2014). Leadership theory and research in the new millennium: Current theoretical trends and changing perspectives. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(1), 36-62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2013.11.005

Judge, T. A., & Piccolo, R. F. (2004). Transformational and transactional leadership: A meta-analytic test of their relative validity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(5), 755-768. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.89.5.755