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.

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