Analysis of the Empowerment Strategy for Boosting Enrolment in Ray's Modern Fitness Club

Effectiveness of Larry's Empowerment Strategy

Task:

Ray was moving along well in his career in sports administration, having graduated from college with a degree in sports and health administration five years ago. He spent the first two years after graduation working as a fitness instructor at one health and fitness club. Ray then found a position as an assistant manager at a chain of athletic clubs, Modern Fitness. The manager suddenly resigned to move to an athletic club in Las Vegas. Ray was then asked by the CEO of the chain to accept the position as manager of the local Modern Fitness. The CEO, Larry, said to Ray, “You’ve got the smarts and the charisma to do a great job as manager.” Ray was flattered, and he saw the management position as a splendid opportunity to make a contribution in his chosen field.

Five months into the job, all was going well with the Modern Fitness staff. The group appeared to be well motivated, customer complaints were at a minimum, and only one person had quit voluntarily. Yet the local Modern Fitness was facing a problem of declining club enrolment, rather than experiencing growth. New club memberships enrolments were not coming in fast enough to make up for existing members not renewing their enrolment. Larry, who carefully reviewed enrolment data each month, scheduled a meeting at Ray’s club to   discuss the enrolment picture. Larry told Ray that he was pleased with the operations of the club, but not with the enrolment figures. “I am empowering you to boost enrolment to a net gain,” said Larry, “do what you need to do Ray replied, “Larry I am doing all I can. We send out flyers. We advertise on social media. We encourage word-of-mouth advertising. This town is saturated with athletic and fitness clubs. It’s tough for our Modern Fitness club to get a bigger market share. What advice can you give me to boost enrollment?” Larry responded, “Ray you are empowered as the manager to boost enrollment working within your advertising budget. Boosting enrollment is your responsibility, not mine. We’ll talk about your enroll- ment figures again in thirty days."

Write a 3-4 page paper in APA format (not including the cover page and reference page). Please ensure that you respond with an essay and do not use a question and answer format. Be sure you address the unit outcomes in your discussions.  Please use the APA (Hint: conduct the research first and use it in addition to the textbook to support your reasoning. Be sure that you cite your sources in APA format.)

Read the case study Ray, the Empowered Athletic Club Director and answer the following questions.

1.How effective is Larry’s approach to empowering Ray to boost enrollment?
2.Which political tactic or tactics do you recommend Ray use to deal effectively with his empowering boss?
3.What might Larry do to help Ray boost enrollment, within the limits of empowerment?  
4.Locate an article on leadership and influence that you learned about in the readings. Prepare brief introduction and annotated bibliography for the article you located and the APA reference to the article.