I.

INTRODUCTION:

Leadership theory has existed for a long time and it is an interesting topic that people from all generations desire to comprehend. Chinese classic written as early as the six century B.C.E filled with hortatory advice to leaders about their responsibilities to the people (Bass .W, R 2008). Leadership is in our daily lives- in business, school, and politic, public agencies. It emphasizes the important of leadership to society and organization. According to a , leadership is

the ability to inspire confidence and motivate a group of people to act toward achieving the common organizational goals. Indeed, there are a lot of theories supporting person who want to be an effective leader. The major purpose of this assignment is to learn from real case in order to find out the correlation between the real successful, experiences leaders and leadership theories. In this report, I try to learn more about Ms. Vo Thi Minh Duc, regarding her leadership characteristic. She is a young and successful business woman, who had many experiences in leader position as a brand manager for Tiep Thi Gia Dinh magazine and currently, she is a brand manager in BVL Gari Co. Vietnam branch. Moreover, she is an entrepreneur who conducts two business coffee shops in Ho Chi Minh City. Therefore, it is really elated to learn the behavior of a leader in two different positions; as a manager and as an entrepreneur. There are 3 main theories can be found with Ms. Duc and those will be analyzed in this report. There are relationship-oriented attitudes and behavior which mainly stems from servant leader characteristic, path-goal theory of leadership and ultimately, Entrepreneurial leadership style.

II.

OBSERVATION:

1. Relationship-oriented attitudes and behavior:

Currently working as a brand manager for one of popular international brand all over the world BVL Gari, Ms. Vo Thi Minh Duc shows the characteristic of an effective leader. She appears to adopt relationship-oriented behavior theory and she relies on relationship power. Building relationships with people and inspiring them is the first key to her leadership. This behavior properly follows by major factors: Aligning and mobilizing people: Ms. Duc communicates directly to the mother company in France and she correlate the expectations from them with her planning clearly and after that she

frequently announce to staff to getting them pulling in the same direction and collaborating smoothly. Moreover, she usually updates information, objectives receiving from France head office to all subordinates through email and she asks for feedback from all teams if they put forward any new idea. Being a servant leader is a strong characteristic supported relationship oriented behavior of Ms. Duc. According to Spears & Lawrence (1998) servant-leadership is the foundation for effective leader. Ms. Duc possesses this virtue; Trustworthy is the characteristic from Ms. Duc that inspire to all staffs. She always has responsibility for what she says and does what she has planned. She listens to opinions from all staffs and motivates them to contribute during the meeting. After that she classifies and analyses all ideas clearly and then proceed to work on the most pressing idea. She conducts an monthly meeting with all staffs in the coffee shop to evaluate the operation of that month. Basically, with those perceived characteristic, Ms. Duc can be considerate to apply servant leadership to lead member achieving the organization goals. 2. ENTREPRIEURIAL LEADERSHIP STYLE: As an owner of 2 business coffee shops, Ms. Duc expresses entrepreneurial leaders style. She has a strong achievement and sensible risk taking. Although she is a full time employee in BVL Gari Co., she spends her evening time and weekend in the business coffee. Overall, she spends 10 to 14 hours for working per day and over 50 hours per a week. She is a visionary leader. After open the first business coffee shop, she found that it was the right orientation; catching the trend, she acted quickly when opportunity arises and she decided to open the second business coffee six months later. Moreover, she has an eye on the future; she is cooperating with her friend to open a string of business coffee and intending in expansion to Hanoi. According to Kuratko and Hodgetts (2007), entrepreneur blend imaginative and creative thinking with systematic, logical process ability and Ms. Duc tries to be creative thinking in operation the business coffee shop. She creates a new idea that brings business works from a stuffy office to a modern and comfortable space. As an entrepreneur role, she set up a high achievement and encompassing with long-term plan for the expansion of her business coffee shops. If you ask her about the

business plan to expand her business she will present the long-term plan for the next 5 years and her goal to build her own brand of the business coffee shop. 3. PATH-GOAL THEORY OF LEADERSHIP EFFECTIVENESS: According to House (1971), the path-goal theory explained the effects of leader behavior on subordinate performance, motivation and satisfaction. Path-goal theory generally indicates 4 different types of leadership depend on situation; directive, supportive, participative along with achievement-oriented. Base on my observations, when Ms. Duc is in a role of a brand manager, she emphasizes formal activities (Directive style) because she is working for international company and this is very competitive position. Thus, she requests a high performance from subordinate. She focuses on the completion of company objectives. Moreover, she often applies:walk to talk with her subordinates; therefore, she walk to different department to explain or guide when there is a new event in progress to ensure the effective of work. As an entrepreneur, she plays a role of Participative style; thus she consults with the subordinate and considers their suggestion carefully before making decision.

II.INTERVIEW:
After having a brief interview with Ms. Duc, I realized some variances between her real leadership styles and the observation. In this part, those contrasts and similarities will be discussed and analyzed, backed up by the leadership theories. Through the interview with Ms. Duc I found that the major issue pertaining to her is the time management. She stated that: I wish I could have 48 hours a day so I can do all of my projects. Moreover, she has to balance between the 2 roles as a brand manager and as an entrepreneur. She has passionate and experience in building brand so she also has an ambitious to build her own business coffee shop brand but she is lack of experience in operation and management a coffee shop. However, her leadership characteristic is the leverage to support her succeeds in both positions.

1. Relationship-oriented attitudes and behavior:

Firstly, as regards relationship-oriented leadership behavior and servant leader, most of my observations are similarities to the interview. Through the conversation, I realized that whether she is in the role of brand manager or entrepreneur, she engages the characteristic as a servant

leader. She applied relationship-orientation and it was reflected apparently via her characteristics of the Servant-leader: Listening, Trustworthiness, Foresight (Spears and Lawrence 1998). (Appendix B). There are many situations she shared in the interview to inspire trust by being trustworthy. For example: when she required all staff have to be punctuality. She always finishes her tasks on time. Therefore, she automatically encourages people to follow. As a brand manager, if there was any mistake from a team members that influenced the performance of the whole department. Indeed, she was the person to report to senior manager and bear the responsibility for the team. Subsequently, she made a meeting with the whole team to find out the reasons from mistake-caused member and share experiences to improve better. Thus, she enhances trustworthiness with her subordinates. Furthermore, to express confidence in subordinate, Ms. Duc applied listening characteristic of a servant leadership. During meeting, everybody had equal position to voice their opinion; Ms. Duc would listen to all opinions before making decision. For instance, every month she conducts a meeting with subordinates. At this meeting Ms. Duc will listen to the evaluation from staff to the operation of the coffee shop; what they have achieved and what they have to improve for better performance. Moreover, they are encouraged to put forward any new idea to improve the operation. This activity also demonstrates one of the characteristic of servant-leader: Foresight which means the leader to understand the lessons from the past, realities of the present and the likely consequence of a decision for the future (Spears and Lawrence 2002). 2. ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP STYLE: Through the interview, I found that most of my observation is similar to the interview; however, there are some extra personality characteristics of Ms. Duc that relates to the entrepreneurial leadership style. Firstly, she is strong achievement drive and sensible risk taking; which means entrepreneurs have very strong achievement motives. She stated:I wish I could have 48 hours a day so I can do all of my projects. To accomplish her goal she is willing to work extraordinary hours. Moreover, she spent her earning money for opening the first business coffee and she accepted taking risk to accomplish her goal. According to McGrath and MacMillan (2000): Entrepreneur will not change what they do on the basis of words alone, that demonstrates another characteristics of entrepreneurial leader from Ms. Duc. She had an ambitious to build her own brand of business coffee and she was consistent to her plan. She stated that her plan will be

fail but she will learn from the failure and will start it over again. Regarding Entrepreneurial leadership style theory, entrepreneurial leader envision and enact a proactive transformation of the firms transaction set (Venkataram an and Van de Ven, 1998). At this point, Ms. Duc believe that after one year operation, she is in the right way. Although a current operation of 2 coffee shops are running smoothly, she keeps thinking about the future deals and business opportunities. Thus, she carefully analyzes the future opportunities for her long-term plan. That is the eye on the future characteristic of entrepreneurial leader. 1. PATH-GOAL THEORY OF LEADERSHIP EFFECTIVENESS: The main difference from what I have observed is her leader styles applied in the brand manager position. She not only applied Directive style, but she also used supportive style. Penning (1986) stated that : Different leadership styles can be shown by the same leader in the various situation. As mentioned above, Ms. Duc applied listening characteristic of servant-leader by listening first and then express confidence in others, it also illustrates supportive style owing by Ms. Duc. Surprisingly, she combined these two styles flexibly. BVL Gari is a high organizational level company; Desslers (1973) stated that for subordinates at higher organizational levels doing ambiguous tasks, directive leadership was preferred for both authoritarian and non-authoritarian subordinates. Thus, Ms. Duc agreed that she focused on task completion and very strict adherence to authority which means she requested the high quality performance from all staffs. However, she also applied walk to talk to achieve happiness and harmony among team members because supportive leader will have most positive effect on subordinates satisfaction for subordinate who works on stressful, frustrating task. She explained that it was necessary to set up a high standard for all staff but it is more important to support them work as an effective team. Therefore, walk to talk is the good way to understand the expectation of subordinate toward their leader to motivate them works effectively. III. REFLECTION:

After have a comparison between the real case of Ms. Duc in different positions- Brand manager and entrepreneur with leadership theories, I realized that leadership theories are very essential to future leaders. Although I can understand the theories but I cant totally depend on it. There are variance between reality and theories. The most important point I learn from Ms. Duc is a

leaders ability to flexibly adapt leadership theories selectively in suitable situation. We can use theories as a framework assisting and base on that to build your own form of leadership styles. Furthermore, this assignment also provides me a general background about how to apply the theories to the reality, and how it works outside book. I have self-awareness about my leadership styles and behaviors and that will enhance my experiences to improve my leadership ability. After this assignment, I have more understanding about the importance of relationship-oriented behavior to modern leaders, especially its influence to subordinates performance. Before this assignment, I am prefer to task-oriented behavior in leading people. For instance, when becoming leader in a group, for example assignment group, I only focus on task-orientation which means I only care about assigning task to member and ensure they will finish their tasks and achieve high mark. There simply exists the relationship base on the duty of each member in the group and that relationship will end after we finished. I didnt awareness the importance of relationship-orientation and how it will support my leadership styles. However, I have changed my perception after observing Ms. Ducs through her working and how effective of her relationship-oriented behavior toward her leadership style. Currently, I know how important of a leader to align and mobilize people in organization. If a leader can pull in the same direction and collaborate smoothly it will improve the performance of all organization as well as orientate people to the same goal. Moreover, I realize the essential of a servant-leadership for an effective leader. Through an interview with Ms. Duc and backed up with leadership theories, I recognized the characteristics of a servant-leader and how it contributes to succeeds of leader. Be a servant leader, I have to inspire trust to subordinate by being trustworthy first. Itll strengthen the interpersonal relationship between leader and subordinate. Listening to express confidence in other is the good way to increase the team effectiveness.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT: Hai: Can you please tell me more about the current company BVL Gari Vietnam where you worked as brand manager? And how long have you worked there?

Ms. Duc: I have worked for BVL Gari for approximately 2 years when it was at the very first established. Back then, during the time working for Tiep Thi Gia Dinh magazine as a brand manager; I have had a change to corporate with Mrs. Sigrid Villamil, who was a Product Manager of BVL Gari in Asia. At that time, BVL Gari had a plan to open an agency in Vietnam and they were looking for a new brand manager. Thus, Mrs. Sigrid Villamil recommended me to a new position. Hai: Can you tell me what the characteristics of the leader they expected from you for that position? Ms. Duc: Self-confident is very important. I have worked for TTGD for 3 years, thus my understanding about the cosmetic industry in Ho Chi Minh market is an advantage. I had a close relationship with mass media such as HCM city television and VTV channel. Therefore, I am very confident in my experiences in building and developing brand. Thats the first element they are looking for. Secondly, enthusiasm, optimism, and warmth are necessary for this position. Because, event celebration is major part of brand manager; I have to meet with many people and I am responsible for the successful of every events. Hai: Can you tell me a brief introduction about your current job? Ms. Duc: As a brand manager, I am responsible to increase the awareness of Vietnamese customer toward BVL Gari brand. I have to make a research about the attitude and reaction of customer toward Companys product. Base on the result, our team will make a plan to develop the brand image of company. A part of my job is to create events celebration for the company product. Hai: How is your decision making process? Ms. Duc: BVL Gari agency in Vietnam has just established, we depended on the Agency in Singapore who is the representative agency of BVL Gari in ASEAN. I will receive the objectives, planning or other information of company from the senior brand manager in Singapore. And then, I will discuss and making a suitable detail plan to apply in Vietnam base on the real situation. A report about the detail plan and objectives adapted in Vietnam will be sent to main agency in Singapore. After getting feedback from Mother company in France, I will inform

the plan to other departments. There are 5 subordinates directly working under my lead. I will discuss and give the direct guidance to them and they will be the executor. They will contact with other department to run the even

Characteristic Listening (Listening first to express confidence in others) Healing (Provide emotional healing) Conceptualization

Foresight

Inspire trust trustworthy.

by

Definition The servant-leader seeks to identify the will of a group and to help clarify that will. He or she seeks to listen receptively to what is being said (and not said) Learning to heal is a powerful force for transformation and integration. One of the great strengths of servant-leadership is its potential for healing oneself and others. Servant-leaders seek to nurture their abilities to dream great dreams. Servant-leaders are called to seek a healthy balance between conceptual thinking and a day-to-day focused approach. Enables the servant-leader to understand the lessons from the past, the realities of the present, and the likely consequence of a decision for the future. being Being trustworthy is a foundation behavior of the servant leader. He or she is scrupulously honest with others, give up control, and focuses on the well-being of others.