Reference no: EM133170149

Understanding Strategic Forces

This exercise is designed to help you understand the role of leaders in managing the six strategic forces of environment, strategy, culture, structure, technology, and leadership outlined in chapter 7. It will assist you in applying the same concepts to your Group Project, but most importantly, may help broaden your perspective when it comes to hiring in the future.

The Case:

You are a member of a school board for a mid-sized middle school in Calgary, Alberta. Calgary has experienced tremendous growth in the past five years, and as a result, the student body increased by 20 percent.

Previous to the past few years, the school was well-known as one of the most creative and academically sound schools in the city. Traditionally, a diverse group of parents showed high interest in the school and participated in a variety of ways. Faculty have diverse educational approaches, tenure, and backgrounds; the majority of teachers show great dedication to their students and are committed to the improvement of the school.

Unfortunately, there were very little increases to funding and facilities despite the school's recent growth; this has led to overcrowded classrooms, outdated equipment, and limited resources to help teachers enrich the curriculum. There has also been no clear sense of direction from leadership. Over the past few years the school has slowly developed one of the region's worst records for student academic performance and dropout rate.

The principal was asked to resign due to a number of recent threats of lawsuits from parents over equal opportunity issues, several violent incidents among the students, and poor academic performance. Many parents, teachers, and board members blame the principal for a laissez-faire attitude and what appears to be a total lack of direction and focus. Problems and complaints were simply not addressed, and no plan was articulated for dealing with the changes that the school was experiencing.

After a two-month interprovincial search and interviews with a number of finalists, the school board narrowed its search for the new principal to two candidates.

The Candidates:

J. B. Robertson is 54 years old, with a doctorate in education administration and BA and MA degrees in education. He previously served as principal at two other schools, where he was successful in focusing on basic academic skills, traditional approaches, discipline, and encouragement of success. Before moving to school administration, he was a history and social studies teacher. The board is impressed with his clear-headedness and no-nonsense approach to education. He readily admits that he is conservative and traditional and considers himself to be a father figure to the students. He runs a tight ship and is involved in every aspect of his school.

Sam Spoelstra is 41 years old. She holds MA and PhD degrees in education administration with an undergraduate degree in computer science. She worked in the computer industry several years before teaching science and math. She worked as assistant principal in one other school and is currently the principal of an urban middle school in Vancouver. She successfully involved many business and community members in her current school. The board is impressed with her creativity and her ability to find novel approaches. She considers one of her major strengths to be the ability to involve many constituents in decision making. She describes herself as a facilitator in the education process.

The Assignment:

A. Create a table similar to the one below (copy and paste works if you take some of the lines before or after the case) to help you understand the strategic forces at play in this scenario, and to assist you in comparing the two candidates. When determining which candidate to recommend, consider how each might handle and balance the six strategic management forces of environment, strategy, culture, structure, technology, and leadership.

B. Answer the following questions using the information from the case and the breakdown of the strategic forces.

1. How are the two candidates different?

2. What explains the differences between them?

3. Who would you recommend for the job? Why?