The topic I chose to analyze for this week deals with the too-nice boss. As a matter of fact, I perused one source written by Jared Sandberg on February 26, 2008 in The Wall Street Journal titled: “Avoiding conflicts, the too-nice boss makes matters worse” and I read an article about the same topic by Lisa Cullen in the Time published on February 27, 2008 titled: “Help – my boss is too nice.” Cullen mentioned Sandberg’s article and added her opinion to it. In this essay, I will analyze both articles in order to demonstrate synthesis.
While Sandberg (2008) started by profiling a too-nice boss as someone who doesn’t “like confronting people or making decisions that favored one staffer over another,” he went on to further assure us that a too-nice boss would let problems drag for years without attempting to find any solution to them. First, in his opinion, a conflict-avoiding boss would never be able to tell a low performer that he needs to improve and most importantly he simply would
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Out of that batch, the noodle is by far the worst” and she even claimed that Sandberg was being too kind when he qualified managers’ behavior as mere kindness (Cullen, 2008). She proclaimed that employers who shy away from their responsibilities to provide constructive feedback to their employees aren’t courageous enough to do so, so they tend to delay dealing with unpleasant tasks, they prioritize “other business goals over staff management” and they shift the responsibilities to deal with an employee to someone else (Cullen, 2008). She recounts one episode with a manager who waited for years to tell her what she did wrong in the first months of her employment with that company. His belated remarks left her perplexed. She ended her article by urging managers to provide constructive feedback in order for everyone to
Case study number two is a four-page article written by Marian L. Houser and Astrid Sheil, and it’s titled “How Do You Get Anything Done Around Here?” The article focuses on the concept of real organizational experiences, but primarily Kate Elliot’s experience and dissatisfaction with her job at Donaldson Family Foods, Inc. Kate’s a hard-working, educated woman who is initially impressed with the Donaldson Food, Inc., especially at the opportunity that she has to become the national brand manager. As time goes on, and her first project’s assigned, Kate notices countless negatives within the organization, including how the company remains a low-growth business, its employees’ lack of competitiveness and hurry, and the SMART group’s “Black Hole,” a term referring to the grinding halt that’s applied to all initiatives, ideas, and proposals. In this case, Kate’s cooking bag project faces the dueling black hole. Throughout my paper, I will relate and apply Kate’s experience to organizational culture and socialization, how the conflict is handled, both verbal and nonverbal communication, and possible suggestions for Kate.
Black Hearts is a great example of the reality on how severe bad leadership skills can ripple throughout a unit and impact its overall mission. This book serves as a guide for future leaders of America and will set the examples of what not to do in leadership positions. The lessons we can take from these soldiers can help us as potential leaders to become more competent and effective. The fact that this book focused on the hardships, poor decisions and sound judgment of the soldiers it helped emphasize on what was not the best choice of action and leaves a moment for you as the audience to think how you would of done it better. So right or wrong there was a lesson to be learned and the book did a good job including the reader. This book puts you in the shoes of a small group of soldiers from the 502nd Infantry Regiment and gives you an up close and personal take on the experience of the soldiers, from the bottom of the the ranks all the way up to the commander. 502nd Bravo Company 1st platoon deployed in the fall of 2005 into one of the most dangerous battle zones in Iraq known as the “Triangle of Death”. Thrown into the heartland of a growing insurgency, with undefined goals and a shortage of manpower, Bravo Company began piling up casualties at an alarming rate. They suffered many losses, as well as mental anguish. Because of the long and tragic deployment, a collapse in leadership began to unfold causing one of the most tragic, brutal, and infamous deployments in U.S Army history. There were many reasons that caused the deconstruction of leadership, and eventually, the actions of the soldiers accompanied by the lack of control, lead to the rape and murder of an innocent Iraqi girl and her family. This is a story about character...
In the beginning of the young man’s search, all the managers he met fit into one of two categories: stern managers or humanistic managers. People in each category were proud of their own style of managing, even if it fell short in certain categories. Usually, the hard-nosed managers had no trouble pleasing his superiors, but had more trouble with his subordinates. A common pattern with the humanistic managers was that their employees
General Motors became a “centralized organization, so decision-making authority is concentrated in the hands of top-level managers, and little authority is delegated to lower levels” (Ferrell et al., 2015, p. 199). Centralized organizations have little upward communication and top-level manager may not be aware of problems and unethical activities. According to Ferrell et al., (2015), it has been noted that “centralized organization may exert influence on their employees because they have a central core of policies and codes of ethical conduct” (p. 201). Conversely, to survive at GM employees praised the CEO intelligence and carried out their orders by keeping a low profile, and never made waves. GM rewarded employees who followed the old traditional ways and those that challenged their thinking lost promotion opportunities or their jobs. However, General Motors experienced conflict between corporate management responsibility and social responsibility. Consequently, General Motors “attempted to implement a new mentality upon its management in a short period of time” (Goussak, Webber, & Ser, 2012, p. 49) by changing the company’s environment, but
provides very important approaches to leadership and ways of dealing with dilemmas, negative feedback, and other management issues. Although it has a few minor short comings, the book is well-written and properly structured, making it easy for the target readers to understand its content.
Supervisors such as these promote themselves through visible short-range demonstrations of accomplishments, but are unconcerned with staff development or morale (Reed, 2004, p. 67). Toxic leaders affect the atmosphere of an agency by creating a demotivational environment while attendin...
Higgs, M. (2009). The good, the bad and the ugly: Leadership and narcissism, Journal of Change Management Vol. 9, No. 2, 165–178,
Dr. Sutton highlights what it takes to be a good boss. People that work for a good boss are 20 percent less likely to have a heart attack (Sutton, 2010). Dr. Sutton wrote that teams with stronger leaders cost the company less money and achieved their work better (Sutton, 2010). Engagement and performance of employees were based upon their direct boss and not if the company was good or bad (Sutton, 2010). Most bad bosses have employees who have check-out: actively disengaged, and undermine their co-workers accomplishments. Managers have to find the balance between performance and humanity to be successful. Performance is about doing everything possible to help followers do great work; while humanity is about employees experiencing dignity and pride. Treating managerial work as an endurance race instead of a sprint race with small wins will lead one to becoming a good boss called grit by Sutton. Sutton believes that good bosses walk a constructive line between being assertive and not assertive enough with guidance, wisdom, and feedback that he called Lasorda’s law (Sutton, 2010).
Fast, N., & Chen, S. (2009). When the boss feels inadequate: power, incompetence, and aggression. Psychological Science, 20(11), 1406-1413. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02452.x
Many foremen in a workplace will try to belittle workers of lower standard in order to get what they want from them, and over work their employees in order to save money on hiring more staff. Many times it is not only the managers that mistreat the workers but the customers do as well. At the beginning of the short story by John Updike, the young cashier was targeted by a customer when he accidently scanned an item twice, this cause a ruckus from the customer, "I stood there with my hand on a box of HiHo crackers trying to remember if I rang it up or not. I ring it up again and the customer starts giving me hell…By the time I got her feathers smoothed and her goodies into a bag -- she gives me alittle snort in passing…". (A&P, John Updike) Many cashiers are disrespect on a daily bases and are looked down upon for the job they do. Disrespect directed at this cashier is also seen by his manager, in the sentence paired with the context of the story, "'Did you say something, Sammy?'". (A&P, John Updike) Maltreatment of staff can also be seen in the article by Karen Olsson, Walmart goes out of its way to make the wages of their associates as long as possible by cutting their hours and coercing managers to force employees to work overtime without extra pay. This was told by a former manager at Walmart who was interviewed, "In the Oregon wage-and-hour case, a former personnel manager
Throughout this case study of a Nice Manager it discusses a company Called Chisum Industries that is looking to promote someone within the company. The company is widely spread throughout Texas. Right now the middle management within the company seems to be a great place to be. There are tons of opportunities to grow and become better leaders or managers for the company.
The distinctions and interrelationships of Psychology and Business pose important questions and deepen our understanding and potential for solutions and breakthrough ideas. Being Wrong by Kathryn Schulz is about our obsession with being right and how the relationship of error and transformation can teach us about who we are. Good To Great by Jim Collins analyzes the histories of twenty-eight companies discovering the key elements of greatness and why some companies make the leap and others do not. The challenges individuals face when they err are vital towards their understanding of the importance of searching and learning from our mistakes. The internal, emotional component of disparity, surprise, confusion, embarrassment, amusement, anguish, remorse, and delight may result from wrongness, but the force to face up to error is ours alone. By studying every area of management strategy and practice, Collins believes the transition from good-to-great lies within having the right people who will do the right thing to deliver the best results for the common good of the company. Level 5 leaders are ambitious, disciplined, and diligent but “first and foremost for the company, not themselves” (Collins 39). Error is central to our lives and “our mistakes are part and parcel of our brilliance” (Schulz 121). One must “face up to [their] wrongness in the faith that, having learned something, [they] will get it right the next time” (Schulz 339). “Managing your [individual] problems [by confronting error] can only make you good where as building your opportunities [based on the mistakes one has made] is the only way to become great” (Collins 59). Acceptance, openness, and reliance of oneself offer the potential of one to evolve into a Level 5 ...
“Dark side” leadership can cause significant harm to the organization and its members, yet individuals with these tendencies still reach positions of power since dark side characteristics are hard to detect and easy to overlook. Dark side characteristics is describe as undesirable characteristics that affect the relationship between supervisors and followers and his or her success at creating a cohesive team (Hogan, Curphy & Hogan, 1994). They can include characteristics such as narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy (Harms, Spain & Hannah, 2011), moderate and functional versions of personality disorders (Hogan & Hogan, 2001) or more exaggerated form of bright side traits (Kaiser, LeBreton, & Hogan, 2015). However, these features are
It is this capability of the management to cultivate communication that is important towards effective engagement with the employee (Albrech, 2011). It is not just a one-sided affair of a company engaging employee, but also mutual loop where the employee is also engaging the company. After all, it takes two hands to clap. “Voice must be approached in a genuine and authentic way, and treated as more than just a cosmetic exercise. An authentic use of voice means that when the employee is invited to speak up, the company in return will both listen and will respond to what the employee says, even if just to explain why they cannot carry out a request for change. Feedback is vital and action must be seen to follow.” (Dromey et al, 2012, p.17).
People have many misconceptions about conflict in the workplace. Not all workplace conflicts are bad, some organization even implement changes just too slightly stir things up; as a result employees are more productive. Covey, (1992) mentions seven things that will destroy us; wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, religion without sacrifice, and politics without principle. We must stand for what is right and it is the leader’s obligation to manage in all seven of these arenas including workplace