Nervewire: a Case Study of Leadership
NerveWire: A Case Study of Leadership
Grand Canyon University
LDR600
Professor Stephen Young
April 22, 2010
Abstract
This paper is a review of the leadership of NerveWire, a professional services firm that was established in 1999. NerveWire’s Malcolm Frank, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and Kirk Arnold, Chief Operating Officer (COO) are the key leaders in this company. Their leadership skills, attributes, personalities, and leadership styles are reviewed and compared to leadership theories; their effectiveness within the organization, as well as their effectiveness with customers and business growth is explored. Cultural norms and gender stereotyping and their influence on the leaders of NerveWire are also evaluated and explored.
Keywords: Coaching, In-group collectivism, Leadership, Team Management, Situational Leadership, Transformational Leadership
NerveWire: a Case Study of Leadership According to Peter Northouse in his book, "Leadership: Theory and Practice", the leadership style approach "emphasizes the behavior of the leader" (Northouse, 2010, p. 69) and "remind leaders that the action towards others occur on a task level in a relationship" (Northouse, 2010, p. 77). The style approaches to leadership include authority-compliance, country-club management; impoverish management, middle-of-the-road management, team management, paternalism/paternalism and opportunism (Northouse, 2010). The style leadership approach that was predominant in the leadership of Malcolm Frank and Kirk Arnold is “Team Management”. For example, according to Malcolm Frank, in the beginning days of NerveWire the major challenge was recruiting talent, more specifically finding individuals that embodied the values and organizational mission (Nohria & Mayo, 2008). This invariably meant "being cognizant of creating a culture and environment that reflected the type of business that we were trying to create", according to Malcolm Frank (Nohria &
Grand Canyon University
LDR600
Professor Stephen Young
April 22, 2010
Abstract
This paper is a review of the leadership of NerveWire, a professional services firm that was established in 1999. NerveWire’s Malcolm Frank, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and Kirk Arnold, Chief Operating Officer (COO) are the key leaders in this company. Their leadership skills, attributes, personalities, and leadership styles are reviewed and compared to leadership theories; their effectiveness within the organization, as well as their effectiveness with customers and business growth is explored. Cultural norms and gender stereotyping and their influence on the leaders of NerveWire are also evaluated and explored.
Keywords: Coaching, In-group collectivism, Leadership, Team Management, Situational Leadership, Transformational Leadership
NerveWire: a Case Study of Leadership According to Peter Northouse in his book, "Leadership: Theory and Practice", the leadership style approach "emphasizes the behavior of the leader" (Northouse, 2010, p. 69) and "remind leaders that the action towards others occur on a task level in a relationship" (Northouse, 2010, p. 77). The style approaches to leadership include authority-compliance, country-club management; impoverish management, middle-of-the-road management, team management, paternalism/paternalism and opportunism (Northouse, 2010). The style leadership approach that was predominant in the leadership of Malcolm Frank and Kirk Arnold is “Team Management”. For example, according to Malcolm Frank, in the beginning days of NerveWire the major challenge was recruiting talent, more specifically finding individuals that embodied the values and organizational mission (Nohria & Mayo, 2008). This invariably meant "being cognizant of creating a culture and environment that reflected the type of business that we were trying to create", according to Malcolm Frank (Nohria &
References: American Association of Colleges of Nurses (2009). Home page, Retrieved from http://www.aacn.nche.edu/media/NewsReleases/2009/workforcedata.html Dumas, C., & Sankowsky, D Goldberg, L. (1990). An alternative "decription of personality" : The big-five factor structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 1216-1129. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2283588 McCrae, R Nohria, N. & Mayo, A.J. (2008). NerveWire, Inc. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School of Publishing Nohria, N. & Price, A. (2008a). Kirk Arnold. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School of Publishing Nohria, N. & Price, A. (2008b). Malcolm Frank. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School of Publishing Northouse, P.G. (2010). Leadership theory and practice (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Yeakey, G. W. (2002). Situational Leadership. Military Review. Retrieved from http://www.questia.com/read/5035183184?title=Situational%20Leadership