Please advise

Navigation

Key Books

The Allure Of Toxic Leaders: Why We Follow Destructive Bosses And Corrupt Politicians--and How We Can Survive Them

Managing Multiple Bosses: How to Juggle Priorities, Personalities & Projects, and Make It Look Easy

[Back to message list] [Reply to this topic] [Start a new topic]

Please advise

Posted by: olympiad
Date: 2/24/2005 10:09:30 PM

OK,please tell me what you think of the latest decision made regarding the Leadership Group at my work. The Leadership Group consists of all managers, directors , VPs and their secretaries, and 3 of us in non-management "leadership" (education) positions in our organization. We 3 were just removed from the group- which means we will no longer attend the monthly communication meetings, receive daily communication emails ,attend leadership retreats etc. We were not consulted on this decision, or even notified that it was going to take place. It was discovered when we failed to get an email notice of an important corporate announcement. In response to my strong reaction (which was professional but angry), my boss stated I was being "petty", that it was "no big deal" and that we did not have direct line reports so we really could get our communications via him. Can you tell he's a stellar communicator? Well? Am I overreating? I see this as a definite negative, not only professionally a slap in the face, but its also sends a mixed message. Are we "leadership" or not? I'm told we are but this sends a loud message that we aren't since we are no longer in the inner circle of communication. Comments? Advice? Sympathy?

Reply from:	bbennett
Date:	2/25/2005 4:14:00 PM
Reply:	I remember 6 years ago, in our business, they promoted a woman to Sales Manager. Well, the VP of Operation, the Owner, and the Owner's son, would go out every Tuesday for Lunch and talk about strategy. Once the woman was promoted, she asked if she could go to the Lunches. They flat out said no. Well, I watched this fester and fester, and fester in her. She became convinced that the reason they were not having her along was so that they could bad mouth her. She started a little mutiny with some of the other employees. The bosses could not imagine the damage they did to their workplace when they came back from one of their lunches and announced that we were going to receive training from Sandler Institute. I immediately looked at our "Sales Manager" she looked as if she was going to strangle them. They were all so happy and jolly about it. They were really taken aback when she started lobbing questions at them like..."Don't you think the Sales Manager should have some input on the training?" Well, the training was of course sabotaged by her. She ended up quitting, going into business for herself, eventually competing against us and even taking some business from us. Of course they always blamed her. But in truth, she was a great salesperson and would have been a great sales manager. Instead, her disruptive outrage sunk the training, polarized the office, and compromised the workplace. I always think of the damage it did to not let let her go to those meetings. I mean how hard would it have been to have her along to lunch at least maybe once every third week to discuss sales strategy.

Reply from:	bbennett
Date:	2/25/2005 4:25:00 PM
Reply:	Oh, in response to your situation, I think sometimes knuckleheaded managers assume something will be overlooked. (It reminds of that movie Office Space where they lay somebody off, but to avoid conflict, they don't tell him he is laid off. They assume that if his paycheck is stopped, sooner or later he will just...leave. ) They knew darned well you were not going to be invited to that meeting. In fact, there was probably discussion about it. My rule, now that I am a manager, is this: If you are making some decision about another person and that decision involves you having a discussion with somebody else, it means that you most likely need to speak with the actual person it going to effect also. For instance, somebody had to tell somebody else, "Don't include the education people this time." Therefore, somebody should have gone to the education people to tell them that. I hate to break it to you, or throw gasoline on a fire, but you are definitely not considered leadership by them.

Reply from:	olympiad
Date:	2/26/2005 4:50:00 PM
Reply:	Thanks for the response bb. No, I realize we are not really considered "leadership", however to say nothing about something I feel so strongly about is spineless. It's ironic that we 3 (we aren't actually educators) are among the very very few (less than 3%) of the employees who are required to have graduate degrees to hold the position. And we all have graduate preparation in "leadership theory" etc. As an addendum, when the subject was very calmy brought up again with my VP he completely lost it, started yelling, lunged across the desk ranting and raving about how petty this was! Don't even suggest going to HR- they're a joke at this institution.

Reply from:	tinydancer
Date:	2/26/2005 9:12:00 PM
Reply:	Isn't is possible that you are overreacting to the situation? Maybe it was just an innocent action to change the membership of that group . Maybe it was just too large?

Reply from:	olympiad
Date:	2/27/2005 2:07:00 PM
Reply:	Well, it's certainly possible as bbennet said that a "knuckleheaded manager" made the decision without thinking of the implications or ramifications. However, that alone is an example of poor management wouldn't you say? But, that aside, to respond angrily and defensively and say that my reaction was "petty" is...well...poor management.

Reply from:	olympiad
Date:	3/2/2005 9:47:00 PM
Reply:	As a follow up to my original post... my boss now tells me that he understandsour reasons for being upset and that it wasn't "petty" after all. Furthermore the decision to take us out of leadership is being "reconsidered"!!! Please. Don't patronize me and I don't need your sympathy! For crying out loud. The message they sent was received loud and clear. Can you believe this? Ironically just today a head hunter called my office! I forgot to mention that I am a registered nurse- fortunately jobs are easy to come by so we really don't have to put up with this .

To reply to this topic or add a comment, just complete our 20-second registration process which is free and confidential. If you have already registered, you need to log in.

[top]

Login

Registration is confidential, free, and has a number of benefits.

Copyright � 2007 The CMR Group. All Rights Reserved.
No part of this site may be copied or reused without express written permission.
All trademarks are properties of their respective owners. Privacy policy.

Navigation

Key Books

Please advise

Login

Search

Popular Items

Corporate Sponsors