About RBC

James Duffet had been working as a client manager in Wellington and Simcoe Branch, Royal bank of Canada, for the past 15 years. He is accountable for providing quality service to the customers as well as accomplishment of the branch. Mr. Duffet belongs to Nova Scotia. He was born and brought up in a religious family; He did his bachelor’s degree in theology and completed his masters in Divinity from the University of Toronto. He was honored with the silver award at RBC’s Toronto Market annual RBC Performance Gala, for his outstanding contribution in the company as a client manager.

It is a multinational financial service company and is the largest bank in Canada. The bank provides services to about 16 million clients, having over 80,000 employees across the world (“Canada Banking, Investing, and Insurance – RBC”, 2018). This bank is one of the leading, diversified, financial banking services in North America. It assists in giving commercial as well as personal banking, insurance, wealth management, capital market products, investor services on a global basis. RBC serves personal, public sector and the institutional clients by their offices in Canada, United `States and 35 other countries (“Canada Banking, Investing, and Insurance – RBC”, 2018). The main purpose of this company is to help the clients and the communities flourish and proper.  Their vision is to become one of the world’s most trusted and successful financial institutions.

RBC holds a strong place in the market in its all five segments namely the personal and commercial banking, wealth management, Investor and treasure services and capital markets and insurance. RBC is capturing the market with its growing dividend and is considered as a sound investment for the quality value, dividend growth investors with its extended investment horizon. The banking culture of this company is protected and is conservative (“Canada Banking, Investing, and Insurance – RBC”, 2018). RBC is the second largest stock holder among the other banks. It is also the largest bank in the market capitalization and is neck- to neck with the other Td banks, considering the assets. As reported from the fiscal first quarter financial reports of 2017, there had been a dramatic reduction of the losses due to loans in the first quarter (“Canada Banking, Investing, and Insurance – RBC”, 2018). The bank focuses on to improve the management activities, promoting strong operating leverage in all the segments of its business.

James Duffet’s Background

James Duffet  have started his career without having any prior experience in the banking sector nor does he hold any business degree, as perceived from his background. He has developed sets of management and auxiliary skills with time that have helped him to achieve this prestigious position. The raw management skill that he has produced is not supported by any bookish theories and this is the main factor that enables this person to stand out from other banking executives. He has been a member of the Association of certified anti money laundering specialists (ACAMS). He also has experiences in risk management and detecting financial crimes and crisis.

Mr. Duffet is accountable for the day to day supervision of the bank’s client contact centre which responds to a wide variety of technical and operational support issue from the clients of various departments regarding the IRAs, loans, cards , incoming wire transfer and technical support for the online services. As noted from the interview Mr. Duffet is bestowed with a complete knowledge of all the areas of banking policies and procedures. This person approves transactions in line with the policies within the established limits and is also responsible for managing the transactional workflow.

Mr. Duffet has received many rewards and recognition for his performance throughout his careers, including a position in the BC annual performance convention. His excellent leadership skills have encouraged the other members to strive for the organization and interpersonal skills.  This person has been chosen for the interview as he possesses an extensive knowledge regarding the organization and all its banking operations. He has experiences both the good and the bad times. He possesses all the skills that banking personnel should posses from the ability to interact with the customers to the ability to interpret and analyze various information to solve problems. The person is accountable for the quality control related to any financial product. Hence the person plays a pivotal role keeping the company functioning.

As per the interview taken, throughout his teen years Mr. Duffet had been close to the church and has always taken responsibilities in organizing activities in his communities. Like this he had developed an authentic style of leadership of his own.  His leadership styles have helped this branch of RBC to flourish in the field of banking. As perceived from the interview, Mr. Duffet always believed in a transformational leadership style. Transformational leaders believe in giving autonomy to the workers such that they can make use of their creative minds and work for the betterment of the company (Clarke, 2013). Yes he had admitted that ‘ I have only given them the authority, only after I was satisfied with my training to them’. Characteristics of Mr. Duffet had always been inspirational for the new employees and he had achieved the success in inspiring the workers to achieve their goals.

James Duffet’s Role at RBC

It is the essence of the transformational leaders to work in groups and get the work done. Mr. Duffet had always believed in establishing a good rapport with the employees. It has already been described that Mr. Duffet had achieved excellence in solving financial crimes. It is to be noted that the transformational leaders are best in resolving conflicts. Being a client care manager, Mr. Duffet has always tried to influence the people based on one word; that’s trust and honesty. Mr. Duffet has expresses during the interview, “Once you can make your employees trust on you and themselves, you can transform your whole life”. “You can transform any anger and rage. Attitude changes due to that one word trust”. Showing them trust, providing them with ample space and constant support can help the employees to rely on Mr. Duffet’s decisions (Lazaroiu, 2015).  Mr. Duffet had always preferred to communicate openly with the employees and have tried to build an honest relationship with the employees. One of the essential features of the transformational leaders is ‘ courage’, the courage to change and the courage to adjust with the change, the courage to deal with the company during adverse times. As told by Mr. Duffet, “courage is the greatest virtue and we need to believe in ourselves and our peer employees’. A good transformational leader should posses the courage to sacrifice for the greater good (García-Morales et al., 2013).

A transformational leader always strives to work in the changed system. A leader should be able to solve the problems by finding experiences showing that an old pattern does not fit in the organization (Du et al., 2013). Leaders would often question the ways things are accomplished as they always want to forward the organization and its people instead of just maintaining a stable environment (Clarke, 2013). Mr. Duffet had been working in this organization for a long time; he had proceeded towards the success in a step by step approach.

One of the main features of transformational leadership is to motivate the workers (Wong & Laschinger, 2013).  One of the challenges that Mr, Duffet has faced in managing his employees is that each employee requires different means of motivation. He had always tried to understand the needs and the behaviors of each of the employees as he knew that they are the revenue makers of the company and are responsible for the success of an organization. High performance work force is very important in our organization today (Du et al., 2013). As told by Ng & Sears, (2012), a good leader should be able to inspire the organizational members to step beyond their task requirements. García-Morales et al., (2013) has described transformational leadership as a leadership style that fosters change in an organization and the social system. Sadeghi & Pihie, (2012) has added that a good transformational leader easily engages with other employees creating a connection that increases the level of morality and motivation in both the follower and the leader (Kelloway et al., 2017). According to Mr. Duffet there is a distinct difference between the management and the leadership. ‘Management is a post that has to be assigned, whereas the leadership is to be called. No leadership post has been assigned to me, yet the employees always respects me and tries to take my suggestions in every aspect’, as expressed by Mr. Duffet. Ng & Sears, (2012) have said that leadership influences relationships among the employers and the employees, who intend a real positive change and outcomes that reflect their shared purpose. A perfect transformational leader should be able to provide a vision for the organization’s future (Kelloway et al., 2017).

RBC’s Market Presence

One of the greatest challenge faced by any client care manager is to deal with the irate customers and juggle among a myriad of responsibilities. One of the greatest ability of a client care manager is to lead a team (Sadeghi & Pihie, 2012). Transformational leadership qualities enables a   client care manager to guide and support other members in challenging situation with both the customers and the staff members to keep up the spirit of the team high and help the team members to consistently perform well (Lazaroiu, 2015). Rewards and recognitions can be considered as one of the excellent ways to motivate the employees. Mr. Duffet had admitted that retaining talented employees can be challenging as it will not only affect the company’s turnover but also would affect the morale (Braun et al., 2013). Mr.Duffet had always applied strategies to motivate the existing employees and keep them hungry and passionate about work. Increasing payroll and bonuses would not always increase the employee engagement (Lian & Tui, 2012). Mr.Duffet had always believed awarding the employees for their excellence in performance. While discussing about the rewards and the recognitions he give to his employees, he stated, “I use simple gestures like patting them in their shoulder, praise the employees in front of others for their work, all these gestures keep my peers hungry for the work”. This kind of an action reflects positive encouragement and is an effective approach, leading to more engaged and productive employees (Sadeghi & Pihie, 2012). Apart from monetary rewards there are other forms of recognition that can be given to the employees, such as a vacation, mementos, a free lunch and several more (Manzoor, 2012). Empowerment is an essential skill of a transformational leader. According to Lian & Tui,(2012), some of the essential components foe empowering the employees includes clarity with timelines, directions and the budget, full authority with an open door for suggestions and questions, appreciating the work done privately and publicly. Mr. Duffet had followed certain ways of empowering his employees (Onorato, 2013). Companies can conduct employees’ surveys for discovering the workforce issues, workplace concerns. It is necessary to provide on spot feed back to communicate the work force issue to each other. As stated by Mr. Duffet “you might have to grip your steering wheel really tight for directing your employees, but it’s high time to let the employees drive”. This sort of a statement signifies that he never believed in the concept of baby sitting and believed in giving flexibility to the employees, which is one of the key role of a transformational leader.

Leadership Style of James Duffet

The interview reveals that Mr. Duffet had not just thought about the company’s profit, power, status, stability, performance and production. This reflects that he believes more in ‘ people’, influence, relationship and personal growth. The motivations for the leaders are people, relationship and personal growth (Rajhans, 2012). The interview reveals that the person is concerned more with emotions, standards, ethics and long term goals and long term outcomes. “I have never believed in the concept of rigidity and control as it tends to squelch innovation and motivation”. This kind of a sentence indicates that like transformational leaders, Mr. Duffet believed in sharing powers rather than clinging to it (Braun et al., 2013). While discussing about the challenges faced by the transformational leaders he had stated that role of a modern day leader is not at all easy, as they had to motivate and guide a diversified group of people (Onorato, 2013). Furthermore, there are several cultural considerations that have to be taken care off for promoting cultural safety at the workplace (De Vries, 2012). Hence the dynamic nature workplace can be a challenging factor for the new generation leaders. “In spite of having my employees, team, it cannot always share anything and everything with them, I know my limits”, reflects that being a leader can sometime be really lonely. Even if in the presence of any conflicts with the upper management, he cannot expose the behavior of the upper management and tarnish the viewpoint of the employees.

In order to assess the leadership styles of Mr. Duffet, feedbacks had also been taken from his peer staffs and the juniors. Those feedbacks have been tallied with Mr Duffet’s answers. Mr. Duffet had been asked to mark himself on a scale of 10 on leadership context. Throughout the interview it is apparent that Mr. Duffet is a people- person and engages most of his time while interacting with the employees. According to his peers, Mr. Duffet is a person who is true to his words and tries to help out their employees as much as possible. His trainees have stated that Mr. Duffet had encouraged them to adopt a leader’s vision of reality.

Conclusion

Mr. Duffet had been extremely kind to spare an hour for the interview and have provided a poll of information regarding the company, his designation and his leadership style. His answers reveal that empowering the employees, giving them authority, promoting excellent communication between the employees can greatly encourage and motivate the employees, which completely relates to the characteristics of a motivational leader. He has employed charisma to gain respect and trust of the employees and other stakeholders. His main aim was to raise the levels of ethical aspirations and human conduct. Mr. Duffet had encouraged the introduction of rewards and recognitions to motivate the employees to perform well, as he believes that every employee is recognition hungry. Mr. Duffet had overcome several obstacles like any other present day transformational leaders, yet he had accepted them as a part of his life and is continuously striving for the growth of the company and the interpersonal development of himself and the employees. It is already known that a transformational leader comes across several barriers like conflict of interests and miscommunication, yet keeps on motivating the employees due to the motivational habits. He is bestowed with excellent communication and management skills that have helped to bridge the emotional gap between the employee and the employers.

Transformational Leadership

References

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