Poor management?

Characters: Jenny Lewis, a senior manager

Paul Parker, a new team leader

Jenny Lewis has been in post for thirteen years and is senior manager of a large sales department with in excess of a hundred staff in six teams. Her team leaders are her direct reports and have, between them, a total of 45 years under her management; mostly they know each other well and have always got along fine.

At the end of last year a new team leader Paul Parker joined the department. He came in very energetically and performed really well during his first weeks in post. However, about two months ago, during a regular supervision session, he told Jenny that he had not appreciated the way she spoke to him during his introduction period. She was somewhat confused as no-one had ever made such a comment to her before. She enquired into the specifics of his allegation and was told that she had been rude; on one occasion he found himself feeling humiliated at a team meeting.

Jenny apologized if she had caused offence and said she would be more careful in future, recognizing that he was quite sensitive. The following week Jenny was called to the director’s office and was told that a grievance had been taken out against her and HR were investigating the claim made by another member of the team that she has been treated disrespectfully. She could not think what this related to.

During the next two weeks HR spoke to each of the team leaders investigating their views on Jenny’s management style. It appeared that after so many years of successfully working together, she was suddenly being branded a bullying manager. How Finally, it was established that it had been a simple hand gesture towards a team leader had caused the grievance; Jenny had waved her out of her office because she was on a confidential phone call; the gesticulation was seen to have been aggressive.

Within a few days, her style of management was questionable. Each member of team came up with past situations they had viewed as “just the way Jenny did things” and had accepted them at the time. Now, with HR intervention, the same situations were being regarded as bullying. After asking for specific situations, HR now had a catalogue of managerial errors questioning Jenny’s leadership.

So what caused this to happen? Was the catalyst the new member of staff, or had Jenny really changed? Was she less tolerant or more demanding than previously – probably not – just open to greater scrutiny. What was it about how she presented herself at work, or the relationship she had with her team members, that could have contributed to her problems.

CASE 10

NEW BOSS

Characters: Eric Johnson, an accounting supervisor

Kim Rose, his boss

Eric Johnson is an accounting supervisor with a medium sized service based organization. During his first two years with the organization things proceeded quite well. He had 15 years of accounting experience and was able to meet his responsibilities quite successfully. He received good performance evaluations and enjoyed his job. Six months ago Eric began to report to a new manager, Kim, at which point everything changed for the worse. Kim was very controlling and seemed to believe that management by intimidation was the best way to motivate employees.

Kim was critical with all of her staff but paid particular attention to Eric. She was constantly finding fault with Eric’s work and no matter how hard he tried, she was never satisfied with his work. After a couple of months Kim became more aggressive with Eric. She started yelling at him several times a day for seemingly trivial issues. She called him stupid and incompetent and made these statements in front of Eric’s co-workers and his subordinates. Sometimes she got so angry that she banged her fists on her desk and would spit on Eric while she spoke.

Eric overheard Kim telling two members of his staff that she thought he was stupid and incompetent and that she planned to fire him. He felt humiliated and diminished in the eyes of his staff. During staff meetings, Kim encouraged input from other employees but whenever Eric made a suggestion she ignored him, rolled her eyes or dismissed his suggestion in a patronizing and sarcastic manner.

Eric was frustrated by this behaviour, which seemed to go unnoticed by senior management. Kim was quite charming and personable when dealing with her superiors who viewed her as an effective, assertive manager.

The stress of working for Kim took its toll on Eric. He began experiencing headaches and back pain. He couldn’t concentrate, his self-esteem fell down and he became clinically depressed. His doctor prescribed medication and recommended that Eric quit his job.

Eric requested that his hours be reduced and that his workload be modified to help him cope with the effects of his depression. For the first three days Kim complied with this request but then became impatient and said she would not give out “special favours to an incompetent employee”.

Eric applied for a transfer within the company but was told that his performance had to improve before he could be transferred. Eric believed that as long as Kim was his manager, she would never consider his work satisfactory.

Author: Lauren M. Bernardi

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16