Mike Wilson was an up and coming young leader who, in his first experience working at Consolidated Life enacted many “unorthodox” changes that produced excellent results. He was known as a superstar despite being viewed as free-spirited. Mike accepted a role elsewhere in the organization. He soon discovered that the long term potential he was looking for was not there. He was offered and accepted the chance to come back to his old division. While he was away a new divisional senior vice president, Jack Greely, had been hired.

The whole environment had changed from a loose casual atmosphere to a stricter task-oriented one. People viewed the organization as a prison. Mike and Jack had opposite views on how the organization should be run. Mike set up a supervisors’ forum that infuriated Jack and strained relations between them. The ultimate effect was that Mike was denied a promotion despite his excellent results and resigned from the company.

Conflicts existed between Wilson and Greely on Communication (Greely wanted top-down and Wilson wanted two-way), dissent (Wilson) vs. obedience (Greely), openness (Wilson) vs. secrecy (Greely) and rights of people (Wilson) vs. rules (Greely).

Wilson's leadership style was democratic, supportive and oriented towards results rather than rules, while Greely's style was autocratic and even tyrannical, fear-based and egotistical. Considering the results, it seems clear that Wilson's style was more effective. After Wilson returned to his old division, norms had changed and violators were punished. Also, groupthink was working here in that some managers accepted Greely's position without questioning. Finally, Wilson became the "scapegoat" for Greely's perceived problems.

How effectively did Mike manage his relationship with his boss?