ACTIVITY 10.2 Disaster at the bakery The fire at the bakery was a disaster for T&S Provisions Ltd. Eli Tarranto, the chief executive and main shareholder, had been the first one to be called by the fire brigade officer at 3am. 'The whole building is up in flames - we have not been able to save anything,' he had shouted down the phone. The next day, as Eli waited for his staff to turn up for work outside the burnt-out shell of his bakery, a plan was beginning to form in his head. He had already contacted both the owner of a small competing bakery, who was actually a very good friend, and the commercial estate agent from whom he had bought the land for the bakery four years ago. The owner of the bakery agreed to allow Eli to use one of his spare ovens if he sent his own workers to operate it. This would give him about 50% of his normal capacity. The commercial estate agent suggested that Eli rent, for a period of three months, an empty depot on the other side of town. He believed that it would take around two weeks to have this equipped as a temporary bakery. When the staff started to arrive, Eli gave them all clear instructions. They were shocked by the state of the old building but they seemed willing to help in this time of crisis. Six of them were despatched to his friend's bakery to start organising production there. Two were sent to the estate agent to pick up keys for the depot and had instructions to start cleaning the premises. The remaining three workers were to help Eli salvage what he could from the office records of the burnt-out building. Before this could start, Eli telephoned all of his major customers - he did not leave it to his sales manager - to explain the extent of the problem and to promise that some production would be back on stream just as soon as possible. He then contacted suppliers to inform them of the disaster, to reduce order quantities and to give them the new, temporary address for deliveries. (17 marks, 25 minutes) 1 Identify the management roles that Eli seems to have demonstrated in this case. [4] 2 What leadership style did Eli seem to be employing in the case? Explain your answer. [3] 3 Discuss whether this is the most appropriate style of leadership to apply in all situations. [10]