Power, Politics, and Leadership

Team Leaders Tanya Wants to Be Truthful

[Team leader Tanya receives a text message from her direct supervisor (Gus) that reads, "We must talk in person. You are out of control."]

[Tanya's heart sinks a little as she considers that something is wrong. Gus rarely uses text message as a means of communication]

[A face-to-face meeting is set up for 8am the following day between Gus and Tanya, in Gus's office]

[Tanya enters Gus's open office door]

Tanya - I was a little surprised to get a text from you yesterday, but was this so important that you needed to schedule this now? I had a very busy morning already planned out and you've caused me to have to reorganize.

Gus - [Calmly] please come in, close the door, and sit down.

Tanya - [Clicking her tongue impatiently] ...I don't think you heard me! I said, "I have..."

Gus - [Calmly, but assertively, with eye contact] Tanya, I heard you just fine. Please come in, close the door, and sit down. I did find this meeting to be urgent enough to schedule it immediately.

Tanya - [Hesitantly stops talking, closes the office door and sits down with her full attention on Gus] This must be very important then, what's going on?

Gus - Simply put, I would like to have a frank discussion about your recent behaviors and comments. I, along with several other leaders of the company, have been concerned about several things you have said and done in the past few weeks. Tanya, before we get started, I would like you to clear the rest of your morning schedule. This may take some time and would like it to be your only concern.

Tanya - [Now looking concerned] I will need to make a few calls to do this.

[Tanya makes a few quick phone calls to ask people to stand in for her and move meetings she was leading]

Tanya - My morning is clear, I'm ready to handle whatever this is when you are.

Gus - Good, we have several topics to talk about from the last few weeks. First, let's start with your team itself. We've heard several concerns recently regarding your behavior towards them. It seems that you have been uncharacteristically...aggressive in your communications with them.

Tanya - [Raising her voice] Aggressive? They have been dropping the ball lately! Tyler has been showing up 20 minutes after the team's morning meeting most days and Martha has been avoiding interactions with me for weeks now! I'm about sick of having people on the team who care so little about the success of our new products that they can't even communicate or be on time!

Gus - Have you talked about these issues with them?

Tanya - Yes! Well...sort of. I reminded Tyler that our morning meeting starts at 8 a.m., not 8:25 a.m. I also TRIED talking to Martha, but she just gives me the most direct, brief, responses needed to get through whatever conversation I am trying to have with her!

Gus - Did you tell them, or did you talk to them? These are very different actions, you know.

Tanya - [Frowns] Well I haven't had time for any deeper conversation with them to see why they have been slacking off. I think maybe it is time for a mix up of the teams to get some fresh minds in who actually care about launching this new energy drink!

Gus - Well, the power to make decisions like that is reserved for your department head, who handles these types of team moves. Traditionally, we also reserve handling team meetings for this position as well, but you requested more in your role as the assistant to the department head in a performance review last year. Because of your interest in moving up within the company, we agreed to allow you to take on this extra responsibility. Since then, you have increasingly tried to make decisions and control aspects of the company that are well outside of just these meetings, and your normal responsibilities.

Tanya - Yeah, well I told you in my last performance review that I wanted to work myself up to the marking executive position for this company! I figured taking over the meetings was just the first step towards this! I'm trying to push myself and move things along to get there faster.

Gus - I don't think you understand. I, and the rest of upper leadership, were very excited that you have this ambition. You are usually highly effective as a senior marketing analysist and team leader for our product-development group! However, since taking on these extra roles as assistant to the department head, you've run away with duties that are not yours. Duties that you do not fully understand yet.

Tanya - I'm just practicing for my job tomorrow, today, so I'm ready when it comes!

Gus- That's not exactly how this works. You can't just assume the responsibilities of others like that. You're stepping on the toes of a lot of people and I don't think you realize it. The past few weeks alone you've had several complaints from people all over the company for things you've said, and how you've said them.

Tanya - You know I've always prided myself on how direct and honest I am with others!

Gus - This is not a question of integrity, so much as tact. For example, the reason Martha has been avoiding you recently is you offended her pretty badly at a meeting, two weeks ago, when you started bashing our old Instant-Spaghetti product. That meeting is the second reason I wanted to talk to you this morning. I'm not sure how you got so off base with the purpose of that meeting, and I don't think you noticed this, but the CEO was also not very happy with how you were leading that meeting either.

Tanya - [Shocked and annoyed] Well of course he's not going to like what I'm saying if Martha is mad, they are married!

Gus - It's not really that simple. You might not know this, but that was originally a product idea they came up with together and invested a lot into. Martha has always considered that to be her biggest professional failure.

Tanya - But the Instant-Spaghetti product WAS a failure! We lost so much money on it!

Gus - You referred to it, in front of the entire marketing and development teams, as well as senior leadership, as "a total bomb that lost us $10 million."

Tanya - I'm just telling the truth!

Gus - [Sternly] And are you really telling the truth? This is exactly what I meant about questioning your tactics instead of your integrity. Also, how you are overstepping boundaries into roles that are not yours. There was no need to bring up a past failure in such a crass manor, regardless of if the originator of it was in the room or not. Also, the new energy drink was already approved for development by necessary groups in our leadership. I am blown away that you turned a development and marketing meeting into a meeting to question whether we should make this product or not. The necessary parties had already given it the okay to move into development, it's not your place to decide if we make it or not. As for the comment about Instant-Spaghetti losing us $10 million, is that really the truth?!?

Tanya - I uh... that might have been an exaggeration.

Gus - You have no idea how much money was made or lost on that product because that information is not relevant to your position.

Tanya - Okay, yeah. I can see how what I said can be seen as a bit tactless.

Gus - Are you sure, because the next thing we need to talk about this morning is related. You're usually pretty active on social media, but know you are not supposed to comment or speak on behalf of our company or our products.

Tanya - [Says nothing but looks startled]

Gus -Everyone has to take the same annual training class on this topic, especially where we work, we might accidentally give away information about products that are not out yet and tip our hand to the competition. Comments about our business were made on several social media platforms, apparently from your personal accounts. Was this actually you?

Tanya - [Looking concerned] Look, I was having a bad day when I made those comments. I've already removed them all. I was having some wine when I got home, and ended up online in the comments for some of our social media.

Gus - When did you remove them?

Tanya - The same night I posted them. Why?

Gus - The vice president of marketing asked me to look into this and report back to her. I don't think we need to take extra steps about this, but this cannot happen again. Your comments were right on the line of getting you in real trouble here at work.

Tanya - It won't happen again; I am sorry for causing you the extra trouble.

Gus - [Remains quiet to let the point settle in]

Tanya - I probably owe Martha an apology too, after what you told me about the Instant-Spaghetti. I will work on that this afternoon. Is there anything else you need, or should I go?

Gus - [Smiles softly] Sadly, I have another issue I need to bring up with you.

Tanya -[Overwhelmed] Oh no, what else have I done?

Gus - Do you know who Obdu Wobe-gun is?

Tanya - Of course! I had a meeting with him at the end of the day yesterday. He is the food packaging scientist we are consulting for a new package design.

Gus - Do you remember what you asked him, immediately after introducing yourself?

Tanya - I asked him about his U.S. citizenship to make sure he was not a foreign spy.

Gus - Quietly continues looking at Tanya

Tanya - ...now that I say this aloud...

Gus - Yes?

Tanya - I was way out of line in saying that, wow that's really offensive! I can't believe that came out of my mouth! It's nowhere in my job description to vet people for that kind of information.

Gus - You clearly understand why this isn't okay, so I have to ask, why would you say something like that?

Tanya - I was just so focused on the task at hand, and moving it along, that it must have just come out. I didn't even think twice about it. He's onsite again today, I should track him down and apologize. I owe two people apologies when I leave here.

Gus - I would actually say three people. We never talked about Tyler's "lateness."

Tanya - [Sits with her full attention on Gus]

Gus - You know that since we've come back to working in the office full time, the policy HR gave your department is an 8-hour, flexible schedule with the mandatory hours being 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., right?

Tanya - Yeah, but the team meetings have always been at 8 in the morning, even before the pandemic.

Gus - The norms have changed; you have to be more flexible than that. It's no longer acceptable to expect everyone to cater to the schedule you impose when it goes against what HR has implemented. If you would have asked Tyler why he's been coming in later, rather than thinking the worst of him, you would have known that he is busy with getting his children off to school.

Tanya - Oh my, that makes so much more sense. You're not wrong when you said I've "been out of control."

Gus - [Looking Tanya over]

Tanya - Three apologies, change the team meeting time. Where do we go from here?

Gus - You have already cleared most of your workday so when you leave here, I think you should first be focused on repairing a few bridges with some of these people. Then, I would like you to take some time to reconsider what duties you do and do not need to be successful in your current position.

Tanya - I'm not being fired or demoted or anything?

Gus - Well, you have made several, severe, mistakes in the last few weeks. However, until recently, you've had an outstanding track record. We will need to decide what responsibilities take from under you, though, because you have been overworked from taking too much on. This is partially my fault, and your department head's fault. While trying to enable and empower you to grow into the next role on your desired career path, we did not do a very good job of establishing limits to this empowerment. We need to redesignate your boundaries, and you need to pay much more attention to the things you say. As you move up in this, or any, company, your actions and words will have much more political weight. You need to hone your awareness of this if you want to be successful.

Tanya - Thank you Gus, I appreciate your understanding and willingness to take a risk on me.

Gus - It is very important that you understand that blunders like this in the future will likely be detrimental to your career. I cannot say these concerns will not arise in your next performance evaluation, but as long as you can recover from this and return to your usually proficient ways, I don't think there will be any long-term fallout from this.

Tanya - [Standing up to leave] I understand Gus. I will go start repairing some of these bridges that I've damaged.

Analysis

Tanya, a team leader, has received a message from her direct leader (Gus) requesting an immediate meeting due to her behavior being "out of control." Tanya and Gus then meet in person the following day, which Tanya seems to think of as unimportant and a waste of time, but her boss remains calm while speaking to her.

From the very beginning, Tanya displayed an enormous attitude problem and hesitancy to hear her boss out. Despite these behaviors, Gus directly plows through what he has to say and seems to have finally caught Tanya's interest as she now begins to devote more focus.

When Gus mentions his first point of Tanya being uncharacteristically "aggressive", she demonstrates exactly what he was talking about, and Gus continues to patiently respond to her with a series of follow up questions. Even more so, Gus provided clear reasoning as to why her behavior was unacceptable, yet she remained combative. For this reason, Tanya is now showcasing herself as unfit for a future promotion she has expressed interest in because she can hardly handle the criticism and the job she has at hand currently. It appears she is taking on too much, too soon, which is bringing the organization down.

Eventually, Gus can talk Tanya to a state where she begins to understand the error of her ways as Gus's points begin to resonate with her. This is an important change of events because it highlights a good quality about Tanya; the ability to recognize and correct any political blunder before it gets out of hand. As Gus continues to discuss Tanya's blunders with her, we can see that Tanya has realized the error of her ways even without Gus's input. This is important to note because it demonstrates how caught up you could get when trying to execute political skills in order to promote personal development within your company.

When Tanya mentions the status of her job, Gus demonstrates strong leadership skills by holding himself accountable for his role in Tanya's downward spiral. While his tone could come off as a bit condescending, he remains composed in order to make sure his points were effectively communicated. His final messages were important because they were said to ensure future prosperity for everyone involved. With the language used, Gus can reprimand Tanya in a way that makes the point clear but doesn't burn a bridge or cause tension with his employ

for discussion, how can i use this rubric below

this example

Not evident.	Difficult to discern the skill.	Minimal evidence of skill was demonstrated	Satisfactory but more detail was possible.	Strong Demonstration Of the skill
Student consistently makes specific references to a message/moment in the transcript where leadership is at stake? Or the student makes a clear reference to some pattern of interaction from the transcript.	Points Range:0 (0.00%) - 0 (0.00%)	Points Range:1 (2.00%) - 2 (4.00%)	Points Range:3 (6.00%) - 5 (10.00%)	Points Range:6 (12.00%) - 7 (14.00%)
Student consistently provides a sensitive and detailed assessment of how the message (either the words or the behavior) might have meaning for one or more receivers.	Points Range:0 (0.00%) - 0 (0.00%)	Points Range:1 (2.00%) - 2 (4.00%)	Points Range:3 (6.00%) - 5 (10.00%)	Points Range:6 (12.00%) - 7 (14.00%)
Student consistently makes a claim about how well the message enacts leadership in the moment of consideration? Claim is clearly stated in relation to one or more concepts from the assigned readings for the week.	Points Range:0 (0.00%) - 0 (0.00%)	Points Range:1 (2.00%) - 2 (4.00%)	Points Range:3 (6.00%) - 5 (10.00%)	Points Range:6 (12.00%) - 7 (14.00%)
Student consistently uses one or more concepts from the assigned readings to evaluate the message as effective or ineffective.	Points Range:0 (0.00%) - 0 (0.00%)	Points Range:1 (2.00%) - 2 (4.00%)	Points Range:3 (6.00%) - 5 (10.00%)	Points Range:6 (12.00%) - 7 (14.00%)
Student offers at least one example of a message that might be equally effective or more effective at satisfying expectations or needs for leadership in that moment of the transcript.	Points Range:0 (0.00%) - 0 (0.00%)	Points Range:1 (2.00%) - 2 (4.00%)	Points Range:3 (6.00%) - 5 (10.00%)	Points Range:6 (12.00%) - 7 (14.00%)
Student consistently uses sound and detailed reasoning to evaluate the messages in the transcript and the examples of messages that might be equally or more effective for leadership needs.	Points Range:0 (0.00%) - 0 (0.00%)	Points Range:1 (2.00%) - 2 (4.00%)	Points Range:3 (6.00%) - 5 (10.00%)	Points Range:6 (12.00%) - 7 (14.00%)