answer the the 5 questions please:

School Suppliers, Inc. (SSI) is a national distributor of elementary and secondary school supplies. The company has fifty salespeople located in eight regional offices throughout the United States. The salespeople call on purchasing agents or principals at elementary and secondary schools in their assigned regions. Over the past decade, the Southeastern region has been one of the company's fastest-growing regions. Primarily because of the increasing population in Florida, SSI's Southeastern region has led the company in sales and is projected to be the strongest region for the next several years. Howard Larsen, one of SSI's top sales reps over the past several years, was recently promoted to sales manager of the premier Southeastern region. Howard, age twentyeight, was at first very pleased and excited to be managing one of the most promising regions within the company. After only four months as the sales manager of this region, however, he began to question his ability as a sales manager. Howard believes that he is having problems managing his salespeople. Howard recently met with his close friend, Johnwho manages a large resort in the Orlando areato discuss his problems with the sales force. He gave John a brief rundown of the situation: "Well, my problem concerns the way I'm leading my salespeople. Things seem to be going fine with five of my seven salespeople. Melissa and Jeff, who I just hired six months ago, are going great. They are both young and eager to learn. Both have been progressing well, with slight increases in sales volume over the last two months. They both have very little sales experience, so they do make a few mistakes now and then. However, both will take constructive criticism very well, as they continually want to improve their selling skills. Melissa and Jeff are both about my age. Therefore, they relate to me very well. I have no problems with my two new salespeople. "Rhonda is perhaps one of my best salespeople. Everyone enjoys being around her. Rhonda can give the other reps a lift when they're down. Her own sales performance is exceptional. Rhonda regularly surpasses her quotas and actively seeks out new customers. Rhonda accepts my leadership as if I were the VP of marketing. I wish all my salespeople were like Rhonda. "Robert is also a fun salesperson to manage. He's been out of college for only about two years. He's young and wants to do well in the company. Robert reminds me a lot of myself when I first started with SSI. He is very competitive and readily accepts my constructive feedback since he constantly wants to improve. I made a few sales calls with him last week, and he must have asked over twenty questions after each call about how best to handle selling activities. He sort of looks on me as a big brother, and that makes him very easy to manage. To be honest with you, Robert is good for my ego. "George is about my age, and if he has a problem, it's that he likes to goof off too much. George is good at bringing life and laughter into the job. He is well liked by everyone. However, he spends too much time bull-shooting with virtually everyone he encounters during the work day! Every so often I have to get after him to manage his time better. When I do, George picks up his pace and usually reaches his annual sales quota. George's lapses keep me on his case but I don't think he really minds being supervised. Actually, I think he realizes that a little bit of leadership now and then will help his sales performance." "It sounds like things are going pretty well for you, Howard," John observed. "Five of your seven salespeople seem to be doing fine. Is it the other two salespeople who are causing you all that grief? I can't wait to hear about these two! "Well, Fred is probably my biggest problem. He's a veteran salesperson who has been with the company for over thirty years. Fred started out by selling liberal arts textbooks. In fact, he has been the top salesperson in the company several times in past years. However, since he's been working for me, his performance has fallen off sharply. His performance is not quite bad enough for me to recommend that he be fired. However, if it gets any worse, I'm going to have to do something. "The biggest problem with Fred is that he doesn't listen to me. He is very hardheaded and seemingly feels insulted every time I tell him to do something. For example, the other day I told him that he wasn't spending enough time with some of his best customers. He angrily fired back that he was selling textbooks before I was born and that he has forgotten more about 'real world' selling than I've learned from textbooks. "Recently, I've been going out of my way to work with Fred. I've asked him to go on recruiting trips with me, and I've tried to help make his job easier by offering to train him to do several sales-related tasks on a laptop computer. In both instances, he rejected me by making up some feeble excuse. He refuses to listen to me, no matter how hard I try to win him over. "Fred also shows me very little respect. He will sometimes address me as a 'college boy' in sales meetings. Last week, he called me by that name in front of one of our largest accounts. I don't know how much more I can take from him. "Warren is my other problem. Warren is about forty-eight years old and has been with the company for about ten years. He is a hard worker and normally reaches his sales quota. I think he resents me for having this managerial job at such a young age. It may sound paranoid, but I have the feeling that he wants my job and will do whatever he can to get it. Warren is very competitive and seems to be trying to undercut me and show people that he can do better job managing the sales force than I can. Given his attitude, I have a difficult time being a leader to Warren because he's not a good follower. "The way I look at it, I'm a fairly effective sales manager because five of my seven salespeople accept my leadership and are doing well. However, it really disturbs me that I can't do better job with Fred and Warren. These two guys have the potential of being top salespeople. If they would change their attitudes and significantly improve their sales volume, I could have the best sales district in the company. I just don't know what to do to be a more effective leader to these guys!" "I personally feel that you have nothing to worry about," said John. "You definitely have the ability to manage this sales force, or your company would never have promoted you. Howard, you need to build up your self-confidence so that these old guys don't bother you. Don't be afraid to boss them around. Remember, your company's future is with the younger and currently more successful people. I didn't become manager of a resort hotel by being afraid to boss people around."

Questions 1. Comment on Howard's leadership style. What kind of leader is he? 2. Do you agree with John's advice? Why or why not? Is John's leadership style different from Howard's? If so, how? 3. Should Howard take John's advice? Why or why not? 4. Should Howard change his leadership style in an attempt to be a more effective leader to Fred? To Warren? Why or why not? 5. Would a transactional or transformational leadership style help Howard? Please explain. Case prepared by: Scott Widmier, Kennesaw

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