Appendix 2: Questions

For the following case-study-based questions, put yourself in the position of the new general
operations manager and answer the questions accordingly.

Question 1

Your Store Manager has had a stressful month. It is the end of the financial year and sales
revenue in the Timber and Plumbing & Electrical departments is down on targets, almost
certainly due to increased competition from smaller competitors for trade contractors’ business.
Just this week, the Store Manager held a meeting in which she yelled at all the department
managers and told you and them to work out a way to improve revenue. Obviously, the outburst
did not make much sense as the department managers, in such a large business, do not have
the capability to raise much revenue directly. Marketing and distribution innovations that could
have an effect are mainly a head office responsibility. The Woollongong store’s inability to
counter the threat from smaller, more nimble trade suppliers has been the main reason for the
revenue deficit.
Naturally, the atmosphere around the store and in the management team is subdued and a few
managers have discussed leaving the organisation; other managers have responded by pushing
unreasonable sales demands onto their sales staff.
You are now feeling pressure to do something: to act contrary to budget planning and cut costs
or to increase pressure on others to offset poor performance in other areas.
In your opinion, this leadership behaviour was disrespectful to all the managers, created
unnecessary concern about job security and undermined trust. There has been a clearly
negative flow-on effect down through the store, which is now affecting people at a lower level.
You are justifiably angry at the manager’s behaviour and blame her for making a bad situation
worse with poor leadership and poor emotional awareness.

In your written response to the above scenario:

● Describe what you think is the best way to respond to the Store Manager’s behaviour. Describe
how you would model positive leadership behaviour.
● Describe the principles of emotional intelligence that the Store Manager did not demonstrate.

● Describe how the Store Manager should have acted and communicated.

● Describe the connection between the Store Manager’s behaviour and store morale. Describe
what effect the Store Manager’s behaviour could have on store performance.
Answer

● The best way to respond to the Store Manager’s behavior is to make him realize that his behavior was
not good with the staff and no staff is going to work with him in that way and make him aware about
the condition of some employee thinking about moving on. As Managers are also humans, they can
also make mistakes sometimes. In order to promote positive leadership, it will be very helpful to talk
with the store manager calm him down and make him realize nothing can be change by anger, but if
he/she changes attitude towards employees and apologize for his rude behavior things can change
and work also.

● The principles of emotional intelligence that are not demonstrated by store manager are self-
regulation, motivation and empathy.

● The store manager should have acted in a normal way and should have communicated in a normal,
motivational accent so that the performance of the store will be high and better from the next time.
He/ She must also tell the staff about the mistakes and things that produced in low performance so
that staff should keep in mind to avoid such things.

● The connection between store manager and store morale is very low, the behavior of manager drops
the morale of store to the very down level everyone is hurt by this behavior and this behavior effects
the store in a very bad way
● .
Question 2

An employee has come to you with an issue involving a co-worker. In general, the sales team is a
pretty cohesive team, but now a relatively new member of the team is rubbing people the wrong
way.
She never participates in drinks or other social occasions outside work. She never involves
herself in normal, day-to-day conversations about family, popular movies or culture. The team is
beginning to form the opinion that she is too aloof and doesn’t like the other team members and
is quite upset about it. On the sales team, it’s really important to be able to feel a connection
with other team members. When you feel this connection, you know you’re able to rely on them
– to relieve you when you need some personal time, feed you information as you need it and
help you serve customers.
You happen to know that the sales staff member in question is a valuable staff member with
good customer skills and product knowledge; however, as a foreign-born, conservative, religious
woman, she is having trouble relating to the other team members. Many team-bonding
opportunities involve activities that she cannot participate in, such as out-of-hours parties,
alcohol or confusing cultural references. She is in a bind because she would like to be accepted
as a member of the team, but when all avenues to team-bonding are closed off, she feels
stigmatised and perceived by others as an unfriendly person.

In your written response to the above scenario:

● Provide at least two examples of possible misinterpretations of expressions or behaviour that
may arise in the context of a diverse workforce.
● Describe how you would explain to the employee who came to you with the issue how cultural
expressions may be misinterpreted – and have been in this case.
● Discuss how the team can raise their awareness of cultural expression and promote effective
communication to avoid misunderstandings in order to resolve the differences.
Answer
● Possible misinterpretation of behaviors in a diverse workplace can be:
a. Non understanding of workers between them.
b. Non friendly working environment with lack of support to each other.

● I would like to explain the employee who come to me with complaint in a way that “maybe she is not
involve in drinks because her religion does not allow her to drink alcohol. Maybe she was not of the
nature who quickly adjusts and involves in every environment but she is a valuable worker with good
skills give her sometime and she will adjust herself with the team”.

● In order to raise the cultural awareness, the team should be taking training of global citizenship.
Practice good manners and bridge the cultural gaps with quality communication by observing and
listening to their colleagues. To avoid misunderstandings, talk in a good manner and never talk
against the culture of anyone. Effective communication is always the key to good friendships.
Question 3

An employee that you manage really gets on your nerves.

It’s not that their performance is all that bad. For example, the employee always does what is
required of them in terms of professionalism, administration tasks and dressing appropriately.
They meet sales targets and their customer service ratings on their performance scorecards are
good.
On the other hand, the employee does not really respond to the team training and team-building
sessions that you have initiated and that have proven so effective in sustaining team morale
and driving others to success. Other team members seem to thrive on, and draw energy from,
these team sessions, while this employee, if anything, appears emotionally drained from
interacting with their peers. They say that they would rather work individually and that all the
team stuff is suffocating. You’ve really tried hard to build a culture of teamwork and this feels
like a slap in the face.

In your written response to the above scenario:

● Describe how you would set aside your own emotions to focus on and identify how the
employee (probably) feels. Refer to relevant principles of emotional intelligence.
● Describe how knowledge of, for example, learning styles, personality types or communication
styles, might be able to help you relate to and understand the employee better and adapt your
response.
● Describe how you could use your awareness of your own feelings and those of the employee to
adapt your response so that the following needs are satisfied:
○ your needs (emotional needs, need for team cohesiveness, need to meet performance
standards)
○ employee’s needs (emotional needs, need to develop and perform within a team
environment).

Refer to relevant principles of emotional intelligence where applicable.

Answer
● After doing so much efforts to build a culture of teamwork with no outcomes I would like to have a
deep breath and think of new ideas for building it up. The employee must be feeling self-aware but
are not taking the team awareness in their minds.
● Learning styles, personality types and communication styles describe the nature of any person. By
observing the employees, the nature of them are identified and then according to their nature.
● In order to satisfy the needs, following principles are to be fulfilled:
o (Self-awareness, Self-reflection and regulation, social skills)
o Self-awareness, empathy, motivation).
Question 4

It is the end of the financial year and sales revenue at the Wollongong store in the Timber and
Plumbing & Electrical departments is down on targets. This issue is almost certainly due to
increased competition from smaller competitors for trade contractors’ business; Nevertheless
some action should be taken by management to mitigate the effect of this issue on the store
overall.
As a result of managerial discussions, it has been decided that some employee performance
targets will be increased where capacity exists and some programs, such as training, will be
delayed. These measures will have the effect of potentially increasing revenue and reducing
costs to compensate for overall poorer-than-expected performance in the Wollongong store.
Each manager will have responsibility for implementing this group decision in their particular
area of responsibility. It will be important to consider the emotional impact on staff and any
consequential impact on health, safety and wellbeing as well as the impact on performance and
the achievement of organisational goals.

In your written response to the above scenario:

● Describe the relationship between emotionally effective people and the attainment of business
objectives.
● Describe how considering the emotional impact of decision-making could lead to better
decision-making (with respect to business objectives).
● Describe what a possible process of decision-making that takes into account emotional impact
could look like. Decisions in this case include, for example, setting particular performance
targets, or selecting what programs can be delayed.
● Identify policies, procedures, or legislation that will need to be adhered to in order to satisfy
internal and external requirements related to managing emotions in the workplace.
● Describe how OHS/WHS legislation is relevant to how managers implement business
decisions.
Answer

 The relation between emotional people and attainment of business objectives in workplace is that
emotionally effective people are the one who knows the principles of emotional intelligence and
their importance so regarding this the goals become much easier to achieve.

 The emotional impact of decision-making could lead to better decision-making with respect to
business objectives because the principle of emotional intelligence are in the key to decision
making as they taught about self-awareness, motivation and other valuable factors which leads to
better decision making.

 The process that should be taken into account while making decisions is:
 Self-aware: should be self-aware about what you are up to.
 Empathy: Show empathy to the colleagues and share the matter about them before
making any decision to get the better options.
 Motivate: Motivate them to speak so that you have better ideas and options, if you don’t
motivate them they will hold their ideas inside them and that may cause a lack of
understanding.