This is with the exception of one manager who has past 65, and as such, is being paid out the old style superannuation who worked not only hard during the day but on average works 1½ to 2 hours in the evening at home. He is highly motivated, a work ethic that should inspire others to perform strongly to not let the team down. He is a highly valued team member but has no position power, requiring a transformational leadership approach as opposed to a transactional leadership approach.

The second group was former military personnel, mostly army, but also a number of former navy and air force personnel as well. The work ethic of this group is surprisingly casual; one would expect former military personnel to be highly structured and regimented, they are instead highly unionised and work to rule not doing more than is required.

The third group is starters from private enterprise who can further be broken into two sub groups, that is, the ones who discovered that once working for the state government, you can’t be fired and can do the minimum amount of work with no consequences. The second sub-group developed a strong work ethic in private enterprise and carries this into their new role.

The management culture is the laissez faire approach, in other words, management avoids conflict and takes a hands-off approach, no such performance management takes place as management prefers a no conflict approach despite team members clearly performing in a sub-standard manner.

There is a small group of highly motivated team members who drive innovation and change within the strategic portfolio, this group gains personal satisfaction from driving continuous improvement within the portfolio. The strategy of this group is to be an open group – that is any team member can join; however, the non-performing team members refer to the educational leaders as the purple circle.

A formal mentoring program is conducted by the motivated staff members welcoming new starters into the so called purple circle; they are given limited responsibility and roles as it takes approximately two years to develop into competent vocational educators. The majority of these new starters turn out to be highly productive team members.

I view this as a classic behavioral management dilemma; referencing the McGregor X and Y theories, I feel a more hands on management approach utilising a situational leadership approach as proposed by Hersey and Blanchard tailored to individual team members who are highly motivated and those who need to be constantly supervised to perform.