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Terry Gau Case Study

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At the age of 23, Terry Gau borrowed $7,500 from his mother to start his own manufacturing business out of a rented shed in suburban Taipei. (Balfour & Culpan, 2010). After 20 years gaining position and power within the technology manufacturing industry Gau leveraged his efforts to launch the company now known as Foxconn Technology and has since grown it to almost a million employees in 9 countries with almost $50 Billion in assets. (Foxconn, 2013). Estimates of Gau’s personal worth at between 6 and 10 Billion dollars though he claims to have little interest in that figure, stating in a 2010 Bloomberg Business week interview that, “I am working not for money at this moment, I am working for society, I am working for my employees.” Now in …show more content…

Nevertheless, Chang’s failure to adapt to the new environment caused production to fall off and her workforce to complain about her leadership. Tanenbaum and Schmit would have encouraged Chang to embrace a more participative leadership style which would have allowed the skilled labor force find and test out solutions for themselves. (Lussier & Achua, 2012, p.121). In this method of leadership Chang would need to assume the role as a member of the group taking a less directive approach and allow the group to find consensus among the group. William Bridges notes than when implementing change transitions the “Outcomes work best if they serve (or at least don’t violate) the self-interest of the participants.” (2009, p.69)
Robert House’s Path-Goal Leadership Model might also have proven useful to Chang’s situation. Lussier & Achua point out that this model posits that “the leader is responsible for increasing followers’ motivation to attain personal and organizational goals.” (2012, p.122). Whereas her directive approach served her well with the production line crew it is apparent that a the Participative style might be more effective with the engineers and designers on her new team. Based on this Model proposed by House, Chang would involve her new team in the decision making processes thus building trust in her leadership and her trust in them as a team.

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