SECTION C [25 Marks] Read the case below and answer the questions that follow: Dorothy and the Warehouse SWAT Team Dorothy Edwards has been the warehouse team leader for more than 20 years at Helping Hands, a charity foundation that collects and distributes clothing and household items for needy people. She has a full-time team of four employees. But each summer, Dorothy takes on an additional responsibility that she calls her 'SWAT Team', a heterogeneous group of volunteers, university students on summer break working for minimum wage and people placed with her for work experience through various social service and educational agencies. Dorothy's 'SWAT team' has a big job: go through the foundation's rambling ware- house and make order out of chaos. The warehouse is the receiving point for all of the goods that are collected from across the community. Once received, goods must be sorted, repaired, cleaned, catalogued and stored so that they can be readily accessed when a need is identified. Because it is a charity, Helping Hands does not have much in the way of IT support to assist the process. Many donated items are quickly cleared, perhaps leaving the warehouse the same day they are received. But in time a sizeable store of various items begins to build, being pushed to the back of the warehouse. These items include clothing of odd sizes or colours, cooking equipment donated by a local restaurant which was just 'too good to throw away', various items that can likely be repaired but for which no one has had time, and much more. By the time the months have passed, the warehouse becomes jammed with a variety of things needing attention or even just a decision as to what to do with them. The answer has been Dorothy's summer 'SWAT Team'. The summer tends to be a slack season, both for receiving donations and for client needs. So it is an ideal time to tackle the warehouse, a project that has shown remarkable results for each of the last four summers when Dorothy was in charge. That a SWAT Team would be so successful is not readily apparent. It usually comprises between 15 and 20 people of all ages and backgrounds who commit to between 20 and 35 hours per week. And during the eight-week period for which they are committed, the warehouse undergoes an incredible renewal: it is cleaned and painted where needed, all items are inventoried and either made serviceable or disposed of, and the storage racks are restocked for easy access of items as they are needed. When asked how she is able to achieve such results with her 'motley crew', as she affectionately calls them, Dorothy tells a story that she finds rather unremarkable. I know that people are here for a variety of reasons, not only to make a contribution but also for their own learning and development as well as for the small salary that is paid to some of them. So I ask them to look around the warehouse for a day or so, poking into things, trying to see what is there, where items are deposited, what kind of work needs to be done on the donated items themselves as well as on the warehouse itself. This is in preparation for our initial meeting to get us organised. This first meeting is really more of a workshop than a meeting actually. I usually begin by talking about Helping Hands, where it has come from, what it has done for needy people, what has happened with SWAT Teams in previous years, and what it has meant to me personally. I also usually have someone who has benefited from our services speak with the group, someone with a very personal story who doesn't mind sharing. Often this person is from among the SWAT Team members themselves. There are not many dry eyes by this time eight weeks, how critical their input is to achieving that task, and how important our goods are to our clients. Then I ask people to talk about themselves, why they are here, what they hope to get from the experience, what they feel they have to offer and so on. Each person has a different agenda, different skills and different aspirations. They are all legitimate, and my job is to meet those aspirations while renewing the ware- house. I never forget that team members could easily be spending their summer somewhere else. Finally, we spend the rest of the day planning how to organise our work. People are asked to volunteer to work on planning and implementation teams, either because they feel that they have expertise to offer in the area or because it meets a learning need for them. For example, there is almost always an appliance repair team, and a clothing team and so on. They talk about what they want to do and how the work can be accomplished. I also encourage them to be creative and to think creatively about not only how to solve current problems but also perhaps how to make the next year easier for our full-time staff who receive and dispatch the items. We then go to work in our teams for a couple of days initially to get the work organised and under way and then we meet again to discuss problems, talk about how teams can best interface, work out shift-working patterns and so on. There tends to be a lot of confusion at first, but I always tell them never to forget our clients - that is what we are in business for - and most times any confusion or conflict melts away. Of course I'm so old that there are not many problems I can't help them with because I have mostly seen it all before! But I tend to stay out of their way and only get involved when asked or when I sense that they may be going way off course. I also pitch in and do as much of the dirty work as anyone else, scrubbing and washing and painting. By the time a couple of weeks have passed, we usually have a very smoothly operating SWAT Team, and it is incredible the amount of work we get through. We also ask people if they want to swap jobs to get other experiences, and it is interesting to see the number of people that end the summer being experienced appliance and furniture repair people! Each group is different: for instance this year I have six people returning from last year so that is a help, but I also have to work with them to be open to input from the new people as well. I also have a retiree who heard about this last year from his granddaughter who had participated. But it's no big deal really, I guess you just have to treat them all as individuals while asking them to keep their eye on the real purpose for which Helping Hands is in business. I sure am proud of them, though.' Source: Berry, T. and Bunning, R (2006). Leadership Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt University QUESTION 6 6.1 Would you say that Dorothy's approach is an example of transformational leadership? Motivate your answer. [4 marks] 6.2 What is the vision that Dorothy has for the SWAT Team? How does she get it across? [3 marks] 6.3 What do the members of the SWAT Team gain from Dorothy's approach to leadership? [4 marks]