1. Marianne and Betsy do indeed have different leadership styles. What style would you ascribe to Betsy? To Marianne?

2. Does Betsy need to change her leadership style to improve the situation with Bridget and Suzanne? Does Marianne need to change her style of leadership?

3. How can Marianne and Betsy work together?

Betsy Moore is the new director of marketing and communications for a college. She works for Marianne, the vice president for college advancement, and is tasked with developing an aggressive new communication and marketing plan. Four people work under Betsy. Two of these individuals have a strong, personal relationship with Marianne and turn to her for support, advice and counsel on work-related matters. This makes it difficult for Betsy to develop and implement the new plan. To make matters worse, Marianne has recently taken the other two subordinates under her wing and is serving as their personal mentor.

Betsy is task driven and feels that she is not able to execute her plans or build a cohesive team because of Marianne's relationships. Marianne is relationship focused and does not seem to notice how her meetings with Betsy's subordinates may undermine Betsy and inhibit her ability to execute the new plans.

The case study demonstrates the weaknesses of being task driven to the exclusion of relationships, or being so relationship focused that it ultimately undermines organizational objectives and others opportunities to lead.