Managers Behaving Badly
Introduction
“Managers behaving badly” is the title of the case study. The case revolves around a company known as David Jones Limited, which started operating in the 1830s and has recently gained the status of one of the leading retail department stores in Australia. The company has had a strong management team led by Mark McInnes who eventually left in the month of June 2010 due to internal management issues. A report to critically analyze and review the workplace description presented in the case study and the attitudes, skills and actions of managers presented in the case will be presented.
Discussion
David Jones Limited is a retail department store headed by Mark McInnes as the Chief Executive Officer. Just like any other company or organization, David Jones has a code of ethics and conduct officially signed by the CEO. According to the code of ethics and conduct, discrimination, harassment or bullying was not tolerated at the work place. Moreover, it stated that employees had a right to get a professional and fair treatment. Despite the fact that McInnes is the one who signed the code of ethics and conducts, he failed to follow them during a lunch hosted by David Jones. He sexual harassed Fraser-Kirk the then publicity coordinator of the company. There are some general managers who witnessed McInnes behavior but failed to take any action. These managers were Anne-Maree Kelly, the General Manager for Public relations and the financial services and marketing manger.
After several series of inappropriate sexual conduct of McInnes, the CEO, Fraser-Kirk acted upon the issue by instructing a firm of solicitors to write a letter to the Company stating the need for McInnes to further contact Fraser-Kirk. The solicitors also instituted a lawsuit against McInnes as well as the Company’s board of directors. Eventually, a few days later McInnes left the company. This was on June 18th under an arrangement for mutual termination. The Company also paid a termination payment amounting to $ 1.5 million to McInnes. There was claim for damages presented by Fraser-Kirk and they amounted to $37 million. According to Fraser-Kirk’s allegations, McInnes went on with the bullying and harassment behavior following his appointment as the CEO of the company. The same case applied to other managers in McInnes’ management team. For this reason, employees could not raise concerns regarding McInnes sexual misconduct and the conduct of the management team.
One of the vital qualities that a leader has to possess is integrity. The best definition for integrity is honesty as well as strictly following the set ethical code. McInnes who is the CEO of David Jones can not be termed as an effective leader because he lacks the virtue of integrity. Despite having insight and adequate knowledge of the ethical code, he does not follow it. McInnes knew that it is unethical to harass and bully an employee of individual within David Jones Company but went on to make inappropriate sexual advances to Fraser-Kirk, the Company’s publicity coordinator (Carlopio, Andrewartha, Whetten, and Cameron, 2008).
An individual who has internal conflicts that are unresolved can not make a good leader. This is due to the fact that such an individual finds the act of making decisions and strictly following them challenging. There were numerous internal conflicts surrounding McInnes. There was continual bullying behavior from McInnes following his appointment as the CEO of David Jones. Due to his ineffectiveness in leadership, other managers within the company followed his trend, necessitating employees to keep numb over the issue. The aftermath of unresolved internal conflicts is inconsistency, indecisiveness and the lack of ability to stick to decisions made. Building an internal foundation that is sound requires the identification of ones values and resolving of any value conflicts that might be present (Carlopio, et al, 2008).
The other applicable feature to leadership is emotional intelligence. The basis of other competencies of emotional intelligence is self-awareness. An individual who is not aware of his r her emotions finds it difficult to understand and manager other people’s emotions. Having consciousness of what one is good at as well as acknowledging one’s mistakes is what defines self-awareness. Moreover, it includes owning up to or accepting one’s mistakes and admitting when there is no answer to a particular problem. McInnes lacks the quality of self-awareness since he could not own up to his mistakes as the CEO of David Jones. His lack of emotional control results to the inability control other managers within the organization. This is the reason why other managers followed a trend of misconduct without any action being taken against them (Carlopio, et al, 2008).
Self-awareness about weakness and strengths that an individual has builds trust and enhances credibility which in turn, increases the effectiveness of leadership. Without self-awareness, leaders are sure to repeat the same errors over and over. Sexual misconduct became a habit for McInnes, who made sexual advances to Fraser-Kirk severally. According to current research studies, there is a direct relationship between leadership, self-awareness as well as emotional intelligence. Through self-awareness, leaders have the ability to make sound and fare decisions in an objective manner. The other benefit is that leaders can get more out of the people they work with by harnessing self-awareness. Effective communication is the other benefit in addition to reducing stress and depression levels (Carlopio, et al, 2008).
Managers of David Jones Company failed to conform to the contingence theory of leadership and management. According to this theory, managers have to take account of the current aspects and act on them during the process of making company decisions. As effective managers, Tahli Koch and Anne-Maree Kelly ought to have made a decision to take action against McInnes for his inappropriate misconduct. They instead advised Fraser-Kirk to say no to McInnes advances and eventually took no further action against him (Carlopio, et al, 2008).
Effective leaders should have the power to lead by example. McInnes is not a good example to other managers and employees of David Jones. As an effective leader, he is supposed to have good conduct and behavior that is morally upright so that other managers can follow a similar trend. The same case applies to Tahli Koch, who was the immediate supervisor of Fraser-Kirk. As a supervisor, Koch had an obligation of making sure that Fraser-Kirk was not harassed in any way. The most appropriate step was for Koch to take action against McInnes when after witnessing his sexual misconduct and advances to Fraser-Kirk. McInnes’ behavior was affecting the company’s productivity since it is clear that Fraser-Kirk refused to attend the company’s important functions due to the fear that McInnes would make unwelcome sexual advances towards her.
Leading by example does not only apply to managers but employees should also lead by example to their colleagues. Showing the way for others is the basis for pure leadership. All individuals within an organization have the ability to make decisions, choices and take responsibility for the change that they desire to see. Employees of David Jones Limited ought to have raised concerns concerning the misconduct and unethical behavior of their managers and CEO. Doing so would enable the achievement of the much desired change within the organization and meeting of the set goals and objectives (Carlopio, et al, 2008).
Winning the trust of their employees was difficult in David Jones company managers. In order to be trustworthy, leaders should demonstrate competence, experience expertise and accountability. The other point is that they need to be believable in that, they should walk the talk of the values and codes set within an organization. McInnes who is supposed to strictly adhere to the code of ethics fails to do so. He instead, continually breaks the set of values without considering the implications and consequences of his actions. The basic foundation of effective leadership is trust and trust can no just come along. A leader should constantly and consciously work towards building and developing trust (Carlopio, et al, 2008).
To avoid issues from arising in future, David Jones should encourage effective leadership and managerial skills. One area that needs to be worked on is professional development. The CEO and managers should have skills for personal development as well as professional development among managers and other staff. Plans for professional development can only be created through observance of employee’s capabilities and duties. Organizational skills are requires for maintenance of knowledge concerning employee responsibilities and skills. Mangers should take part in communication and self-evaluation programs with employees regularly. A vital step to managing a workplace is organization of an interaction and communication schedule with employees and other workforce within an organization (Carlopio, et al, 2008).
The other step that David Jones Company needs to take is to employ individuals with perfect leadership skills. Such individuals should have integrity and self-awareness so that they can stick by the set or rules and decisions that they make. Competency, dependability and honesty are the other virtues that individuals taking leadership positions within David Jones Company need to have. There should be effective communication between executive leadership and managerial leadership. This means that managers of Davis Jones should have fixed schedules for communicating and interacting with the CEO. This will provide an avenue for raising various issues of concern and problems that might be affecting the company. By keeping the executive leadership aware of the different issues and progress of the company, it is possible to make sound and fair decisions on the company’s behalf (Carlopio, et al, 2008).
The integral part of an organizational success at the current moment or in the future is effective communication. Communication within an organization ensures that messages reach the intended target and appropriate feedback is received. In the case of David Jones Company managers should have communicated with the CEO and inform him about the issues of concern. It was also the role of these managers to ensure that an appropriate response was obtained and an appropriate course of action taken to handle the case of sexual misconduct (Carlopio, et al, 2008).
The success of any given organization or institution requires effective organizational skills. The skills should focus on ways through which people working inside and outside the organization are handled. There are three types of managerial skills that David Jones needs to adopt. These skills are human skills, technical skills and the conceptual skills. Organizational management is dependant on the technical skills. Human skills on the other hand are necessary when dealing with the human factor within an organization. Finally, conceptual skills are necessary when driving an organization towards achieving a desired form of change.
The systems theory should be adopted by David Jones in order to make sure that there is synchronization between various sectors and individuals within the organization. The theory would ensure that there is effective interaction and synchronization between the managers and the chief executive officer especially when various issues of concern arise within the organization. Through the systems theory, managers are able view an organization from a wide range of perspectives. Through the theory, managers can effectively interpret events and patterns within the workplace setting. Hence, David Jones needs to adopt and conform to the various theories of management and leadership so that it can meet all the set goals and objectives and eventually achieve organizational success (Carlopio, et al, 2008).
Conclusion
Effective leadership not only enables an organization to achieve success but it also helps the nation to be successful. Lack of leadership in organization has a negative effect on an organization’s performance as well as making it move at a slower pace towards attaining the set goals and objectives. Lack of leadership implies the lack of direction and the consequent lack of an objective or goal. Organizations should have good leaders who are competence, dependable and able to win the trust of employees.
Reference
Carlopio, J., Andrewartha, G., Whetten, D.A. & Cameron, K. (2008). Developing Management skills. A comprehensive guide for leaders (4th Ed). Australia, FrenchsForest: Pearson Education
“Managers behaving badly” case study.
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