Elvit, who works for CanAirLtd. and Cinby, who works for TravelAge Ltd, are employed as production managers. Last night, both of them attended a staff development meeting organised by Production Management Institute, a professional body, of which they are members. During the tea-break, Elvit and Cinby discussed the various leadership styles that they were following in their respective organisations.

Cinby told Elvit that she was newly appointed to the role, and was relatively inexperienced. She pointed out that she manages a team of forty workers, grouped into project teams with highly skilled and experienced staff in each team. Cinby mentioned that her predecessor was unpopular with the workforce since he adopted an autocratic style of leadership. At one stage, the Labour Relations Agency were asked to mediate in a dispute regarding management/employee relations in which staff felt stifled and demotivated that led to low productivity. In view of this, she had been thinking of adopting a democratic leadership style.

Elvit told Cinby that he had a friendly personality and was optimistic that he will get on well with the workers in the company that he is employed. He went on to say that a total of fifty workers are employed, with 40 of them having been employed with the business for over 20 years. The others, mostly unskilled, tend to be younger workers who stay for a year or so and then move on elsewhere.   Elvit thinks that the latter group are harder to motivate.   Elvit is aware that new Health & Safety regulations are due to be implemented and this will require  discipline in the workforce. He is thinking of adopting a more autocratic leadership style.

With reference to each organization, CanAir Limited and TravelAge Limited, discuss the role of management in motivation, in relation to the specific changes each company has gone through or will be going through.