I Need to Make a Difference!

Luisa Chalfant is the supervisor of the shipping and receiving department at Tideway Corporations manufacturing plant in rural Arkansas. The Tideway plant, a producer of paper products, is one of the few unionized plants in the area. Driven by competitiveness in the global marketplace and in order to provide greater returns on company equity, the corporate structure has changed and additional change is expected at a higher pace in the foreseeable future. Because of constantly changing market competition, the company has had to find ways to be more efficient.

Luisa has supervised the department for the last two years after having worked as an employee in the department for the previous eight years. Fourteen employees report to her, and all are members of the plants labor union. Three months ago, the union steward registered a complaint about her supervisory style in a meeting (Luisa, her immediate manager, and the director of HR were in attendance.) The HR manager had her enroll in a four-week supervisory management course at the local community college. There she learned about strategies and models of supervisory leadership, especially those that emphasized a collaborative approach.

She was also taught techniques for giving directions to employees that were less authoritarian than she had used previously. Participative style was emphasized by the professor as being more effective than just giving out orders to employees.

In the four weeks since she attended the last class, she tried to implement some of what she had learned. On a number of occasions, she asked the employeesboth individually and in groupsfor their suggestions and opinions concerning what needed to be done to improve productivity in the workplace. Luisa tried to avoid giving direct orders and suggested to employees what needed to be done rather than spelling out their initiatives in detail. However, despite her best efforts, nothing seems to have changed. Workforce performance has not improved significantly, and some of the employees seem to be going through the motions of their job just as before.

The department shop steward told her this morning that she did not think that Luisa understood how employees felt and that she had forgotten what it was to be a worker.

Luisa pondered whether there was something wrong in her approach. She thought, Is what I am doing and the way of doing it a waste of time? Do employees resent the fact that I was promoted to the supervisory position? I wonder what I need to do to get employees to change so that we can be better at what we do?

Questions to Answer:

1. What are the benefits for Luisa Chalfant to belong to a labor organization?

2. What role did Luisas early leadership style have on her employees unwillingness to follow her direction? Explain your answer.

3. Why do you feel Luisas new style did not have the impact that she thought it would?

4. What suggestions would you make to Luisa to help her get her employees to do a better job?