Case Analysis: Superstar Leaders Dr Shekhawat is an exceptional doctor, who strives for excellence in everything he is involved in. He competes with everyone else in his profession, including h imself to redefine the excellence level. He is revered as a magician in his prof ession by both co-workers as well as his patients. All patients wanted to be tre ated by him and everyone treats him as the ideal doctor image, and compares ever y other doctor who works at Dausa Kidney Hospital(DKH) with him. In fact, a lot of talented consultants and interns comes to DKH, mainly because of their aspira tions to work with him, the experience they can gain with him and the weight of that experience in their future jobs. He indeed is a superstar doctor and is a m agician in his trade. But despite all these, after Dr Shekhawat moved in full time to DKH and took ove r as the head of the institution, the tenure of the consultants and interns stay ing at DKH is constantly declining. Even some of his friends and long time co-wo rkers left the institution. Fiedler s contingency leadership theory suggests that, the group effectiveness is the result of the interaction between leadership sty le and situational favourableness. leadership effectiveness is the result of int eraction between the style of the leader and the characteristics of the environm ent in which leader works. In the case of Dr Shekhawat, we can easily identify that he is a task oriented w ork master, and who expects everyone else to work just like him. He does not muc h emphasises or pay attention to his coworkers aspirations, areas of interest or their familial and other personal commitments outside work. In a factory enviro nment or during an emergency, such leadership styles will work fine, as there, c lear division of tasks and assigning it to the first available, capable person d etermines the success of the whole mission. But in the case of highly intellectu al oriented jobs like research or in healthcare(as in this case), the workers ex pects them to have a level of autonomy in their actions, trust between their lea der and themselves, and having the freedom to pursue their passions up to a leve l(which does not negatively impacts the organisation). That is the primary reaso n why Dr Shekhawat, even though being admired as the epitome of excellence in ur ology, is not a very successful leader.His organisation is a very hierarchy orie nted rigid structure, with Him being the most powerful, with Dr. Rajput and Mr R eddy being next in power. Dr. Rajput, is a good mentor and accommodates the conc erns and suggestions of his subordinates, and hence being admired as a good lead er in his department. His departments attrition rate is much lower compared to U rology department, because of the level of compassion and mutual trust they show with each other. It is a common word in the hospital that, Shekhawat aur Reddy k i marzi ki bina yahan patta bhi nahin chalta . This clearly shows that both Dr She khawat and Mr Reddy are very hierarchy oriented masters, and everyone else will have to obey their orders without questioning. Dr Shekhawat also treats even exp erienced consultants who are newly joining in his organisation as a fresher with out any prior experience, and he allows only those whom he feels that as capable , to even do minor surgeries. This shows that trust does not exist between him a nd his subordinates, which , according to Fiedler s theory, makes him a poor leade r in such a highly intellect oriented organisational situation. This is the prim ary reason for the high attrition from his department. According to Fiedler s model, in the following two situations of Leader-Member Rel ations / Task Structure / Power of Leader in the the organisation organisation combinations, a considerative leader is successful than a task oriented one Poor -- Structured -- Strong Or Poor -- Structured Weak In the case of this industry, due to the high amount of work load and busy sched ule, the relationship being poor between Dr Shekhawat and his subordinates. Also , the organisational style is structured and the power when the members are in t he organisation is high for the leader. But he does not have power to keep them at the organisation. Hence, the best style which would have worked well here was a considerate one. That is the reason why his task oriented style is a failure.
