Ready To Lead?

Leadership Scenario 5

CHOOSING YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE

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Scenario 5

A new leader was appointed to oversee a team of reservationists working

for a large travel company. The work of the department involved handling

enquiries and taking reservation bookings for clients. When she started, the

new leader sat with the team members and outlined her expectations and

also addressed some concerns the team had about aspects of the job.

Since then, the team generally worked well and the leader had not had any

major staffing issues to deal with. However, one problem arose

unexpectedly which caused significant difficulties.

One of the girls, the longest-serving and best member of the team, began

taking unscheduled breaks usually towards the end of the day. She was

never gone too long but the leader felt it wasn’t acceptable just to

disappear like that. Upon speaking to her about it, the employee explained

that when she had completed her workload for the day, she did pop out for

an occasional smoke. In any case, she ‘did a lot more work than the others

so she deserved it and anyway it wasn’t affecting anyone else’. The team

leader emphasised that it wasn’t permissible to take unscheduled breaks

because if she allowed her to do it, then everyone would end up expecting

the same. If she had finished her workload for the day, there were other

things that could be done. But despite this chat, the leader noticed that this

girl continued to take unscheduled breaks occasionally.

The leader tried the engaging approach again, hoping to come to a

reasonable agreement but the team member remained obstinate. So the

leader explained that she would no longer tolerate the unscheduled breaks

and the team member reluctantly agreed to stop taking them. But different

problems later arose. Due to not getting her way, the girl’s performance

dropped and she became slower at her work. Over time, she became more

and more difficult and despite the best efforts of the leader in trying to

reason with her, nothing seemed to work. Eventually, this led to disciplinary

action being taken with the girl and ended in her leaving the company of

her own accord.

Before you read on, consider the following:

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What was the problem facing the new leader?

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How did she deal with it?

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What are your thoughts on the leadership style she adopted?

Like all leadership problems at work, there are rarely perfect solutions. On

the one hand, it would be nice to be flexible with a good employee, but on

the other it is not possible to have separate rules for each team member. In

this case, the team leader began with an engaging style in seeking to resolve

the situation through discussion. But this didn’t work. Then she moved to

a more steering style and defined for the team member what solution was

acceptable, i.e. no unscheduled breaks. The particular team member didn’t

like this and eventually left.

What was really behind this issue was that the girl in question had applied

for the leader’s position but had been overlooked. The leader who was

appointed did try a number of approaches, but the girl could never get over

her resentment towards the company. Sometimes there is no alternative

but to lose a disgruntled team member when all other approaches fail. It is

a shame when this happens, but a worse case scenario is having every

member of the team thinking they can set their own terms, even over what

seems like a relatively minor issue. If this girl had been allowed more

breaks than everyone else, it would only have been a matter of time until

other team members started to look for special terms of some kind. A lot

of employees feel they work harder than others, so where do you draw the

line?

Key learning points from Scenario 5

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This scenario shows that it’s never easy to lead people and even when

a leader tries to do the right things, it doesn’t always work. But the

leader did try to deal with the problem in the correct way and that is

the key.



The leader did adopt a number of approaches, but personal resent-

ment lay behind the problem and you may encounter similar

situations. All you can do is deal with it in as professional a manner

as possible.



Sometimes having tried everything reasonable, there is no alternative

but to lose an unhappy team member even when they are a strong per-

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