1. How do the standards set by Fred Smith for FedEx teams improve organizational performance?
2. What motivates the members of FedEx to remain highly engaged in their teams?
3. Describe the role FedEx managers play in facilitating team effectiveness.
4. What types of teams does FedEx use? Provide evidence from the case to support your answer.
5. Leaders play a critical role in building effective teams. Cite evidence from the case that FedEx managers performed some of these roles in developing effective teams.
6. The Big Five model of personality categorizes traits into dimensions of surgency, agreeableness, adjustment, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. Which of these dimensions do you think Fred Smith possesses?
7. The normative leadership model identifies five leadership styles appropriate for different situations that users can select to maximize decisions. Which of the five leadership styles is practiced by FedEx team leaders?
8. The case reveals that at the Memphis hub, senior managers have been known to hurry down from the executive suite to help load packages during emergencies in order to get the plane off on time. FedEx leaders want to be seen as coaches, not managers. Specific guidelines can help a leader become an effective coach. Which of the guideline(s) does the example above represent?
9. Research on followership describes five styles of followership. Which of these types will work best in FedEx’s team environment as described in the case, and why?