What Are The American Express Leadership Theories

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When American Express first came about, it would fit the assumed picture of a typical call center: a tall building filled with thousands of service agents aligned on every floor. For years, a typical work-day for each employee consisted of repeated, recorded, scripted, and timed phone conversations. Today, though, it is a whole new world. Today, no two conversations are the same. American Express finally realized that opening the gates and allowing employees be themselves would sell more product than ever before. American Express exemplifies and practices many of the theories described in the Management textbook. The first, and possibly most imperative, would be Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory. Maslow suggested that people must satisfy five groups of needs (in …show more content…

This is a theory of leadership that suggests that the appropriate style of leadership varies with situational favorableness. Fiedler identified two styles of leadership: task oriented and relationship oriented. He identifies the leadership style by using a controversial questionnaire called the least-preferred coworker (LPC) measure. To use this measure, a manager or leader is asked to fill out the questionnaire on a specific person with whom he/she is able to work least well with. After answering the questionnaire the score is then calculated by adding up the numbers they have chosen. The higher numbers are associated with positive qualities and also called the relationship orient, whereas the lower numbers are negative qualities and called the task orient. This questionnaire would help the American Express Company determine if someone is leader or not a leader, it will show if someone will do the job or rely on someone else. After learning each employee’s leadership style, the company could then group individuals that they believe would work well together. This would allow for production to

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