Answer the following questions using this case study as the only reference:

Questions:

1. How would you advise the supervisor?
2. What do you feel makes a good mentor?
3. How would you go about building a personal network of mentors?

Moving Someone Out: A Case Study The purpose of this case study is to discuss the leadership issues associated with situations involving finding the right person for the right job.

The background: I'm a typical administrator at Mayo, which means I'm responsible for selecting, training and retaining staff. I had a position open for a secretarial supervisor. I looked at applicants who had previous supervisory experience at Mayo so I would not need to invest as much time in new employee training. I found the "perfect" person who could transfer from another area and hit the ground running. I negotiated the start date, spent two half days orienting the new person, Lee, and left Lee to learn the area and contact me with questions. I checked with Lee each week. Everything was moving along business-as-usual, and the staff was commenting that it was good to have someone who seemed to listen and respond to their needs. I went on to other issues, keeping my door open to Lee. The problem: About three months later, one of Lee's employees, Chris, came to me complaining that her work schedule had been changed without her knowledge after she had already planned her days off. Chris went to Lee to ask about it, and Lee said that she changed the work schedule to accommodate a request from another employee. However, she promised to try to work something out for the days that Chris really needed. The next day I received a letter from one of the physicians, expressing concern that supervision in the area was not tight enough. Two secretaries who were back-ups for each other were both gone during the same week, with no plan for re-routing work The action: I decided to discuss my concern over these growing issues with Lee. It turned out that she had delegated the scheduling task to someone in her group as a developmental opportunity. However, Lee had to step in and make changes because she felt that the person wasn't being sensitive enough to individual needs. This discussion helped explain the breakdown in communication, so I started working more closely with Lee, coaching her and observing her work. Everything was okay for three months, and then similar issues were reported again. I decided to do some homework. I reviewed Lee's application and recent performance reviews. She had the highest available rating on all skills. The comments described her as a good delegator and an empowering manager. One comment said "Lee puts her relationship with others first, often going the second mile to meet an employee's request." Certainly, that was a positive comment. I checked with Lee's previous administrator who said "I knew she would eventually get into trouble trying to please everyone, and frankly, I was glad when she started applying outside the department. I didn't do her last performance appraisal because I knew she was applying and I didn't want to lie about her performance, but I also didn't want to block her from other opportunities. She is really a dedicated worker." I continued working with Lee, setting up mentors and regular feedback. She was so driven by the need to please others that she was constantly arguing policy interpretation to justify saying "yes" to every request.