The Schoen Ultimatum - Essay Example

?Case study- The Schoen Ultimatum: This paper is primarily based on contemplating in detail a significantly important case study “The Schoen Ultimatum”, which revolves around myriad grave difficulties and phenomenal rebelliousness faced by Clarissa Schoen who happens to be in control of many crucial events occurring in the human resources field. As Schoen is recently assigned the stress-laden job of a human resources/employment relations manager by the CEO, she is seen as a tough-skinned person who puts up a relentless struggle to fervently cope up with the defiance based argumentative scenarios cropping up nearly everyday at the workplace. The most important key issue faced by Schoen is that her subordinates and managers do not seem to comply with any of her orders no matter how much explanation is provided to them concerning any particular order by Schoen. Asked to follow a centralized leadership style by CEO, Schoen frantically strives to gain her business managers’ confidence, yet fails to do so and remains unable to ensure mutual harmony between her and the business managers and supervisors. Given the fact that gaining favor and trust of the subordinate employees becomes increasingly difficult in the case of centralized authority, same is seen happening in the case of Ms. Schoen who seems unable to make her managers comply with her orders of hiring new employees. No job descriptions and person specifications are ever submitted to Ms. Schoen, employee dismissals occur without taking the HR manager Ms. Schoen in confidence, and only a minimal number of business managers happen to attend the leadership program conducted by Ms. Schoen. Considering the issue where despite notifications issued by Ms. Schoen regarding hiring new employees to each business manager, no obvious action in accordance with the notification is taken by any supervisor, the level of stress and exasperation faced by Ms. Schoen certainly seems to be disastrously huge. It is mentioned in the case that big setbacks are seen occurring in the company owing to the waves of insubordination exuding from the supervising managers who did not ever even try to submit the required eligibility specifications and job descriptions to their manager, with the result that departmental activities are seen running defectively and respect for authority is deteriorating rapidly. Visibly, there is a lack of coordination which is profoundly desired for smooth system running and increased firm output. (Shin, 2003, p. 126). Centralized function required out of Ms. Schoen by CEO of HR management seems to transform into a potential pitfall and this transformation can be suppressed by providing strong central leadership through engaging themes, motivations, and suggestions which would inspire the employees to join in the head manager’s thinking, as suggested by (Hussey, 1990, p. 225). As for the front-line leadership development program which only an embarrassing number of business managers attended in the case, Ms. Schoen is seen requesting the CEO to either accept her resignation or strictly instruct the supervisors to act upon her orders instead of meeting head-on with them. The need to communicate is critically important as is justifying plans or orders to the subordinates in an efficacious central authoritative style. According to (Brophy, 2010, p. 42), communication can lead to increased persuasion and can help a leader in developing his/her vision and expressing his/her desires. Effective head-on meetings arranged with business managers individually and strengthening the central leadership by providing the supervisors with persuasive explanations can prove to be vitally important solutions that Ms. Schoen might explore in an attempt to combat with high level of defiance and insubordination shown by the business managers. According to (Apqc, 2005, p. 59), “soliciting feedback and providing constant communication are important tools that help foster trust between HR and the business units.” Constructive criticism should be practiced by Ms. Schoen so that her business managers get to know about their deficiencies in a respectful manner. Also, (Kenton & Yarnall, 2009, p. 248) stress that HR managers need to be involved in communication from the beginning of the process so that flawless networking and informal communication channels, which are great opportunities offered by central leadership could be availed. By regularly arranging meetings with the business managers, Ms. Schoen can discuss costs and benefits of any important business event with them personally instead of simply ordering them to act upon certain instructions. (Labor Statistics Bureau, 2010, p. 115) suggests that selecting a site based on its attractiveness may also help in increasing the number of attendees in an important business meeting. In the case of Ms. Schoen where there is already a high level of aloofness and virtually no cooperation and coordination between the head manager and business supervisors, the need to try such innovative measures as arranging meetings in a unique manner may contribute significantly in gaining the confidence of business managers. Considering the nature of problems faced by Ms. Schoen in the case presently analyzed, I would highly recommend tackling all the troublesome setbacks with negotiation and head-on meetings so that practical efforts could be made to take all the business managers in confidence. The actual problem is that the head HR manager in the case is seen excessively relying on issuing notifications and essentially requiring all the supervisors to attend the leadership development program without arranging head-on meetings with the chief supervisors beforehand so that the vision of the leader could be related in an explanatory and persuasive manner. According to (Goman, n.d.), the survival of any type of business depends hugely on how effectively the leaders are able to share their knowledge and express their visions to their subordinates. Combining the potential of the supervisors and employees and the quality of the experience-based knowledge shared by the leaders throughout the organization is an effective strategy to handle the destructive scenarios cropping up in any business. Willingness to share knowledge and communicate personally should be the vital features of a leader’s personality while not getting infuriated and suppressed by the antagonizing behavior displayed by the employees helps in tacking the problematic issues in such a way that misconceptions can be highlighted and proposals can be made, thus every person can be engaged in the process. This strategy of generously sharing the corporate strategy and vision with the employees should be explored by Ms. Schoen instead of going for the option of resignation and finding an escape. According to research studies, central leadership offers huge opportunities of freely communicating with the subordinates. This offers the leader a huge chance of relating his/her idea for gaining a certain target. Sharing ideas holds ultimate importance because it provides guidance and instructional plan to the managers and supervisors, so that they can keep from committing unnecessary mistakes. “A definitive way to improve communication between management and employees is for managers to create an open door policy to welcome any thoughts, comments, complaints or suggestions.” (Goessl, 2008). Summing up, this remains a valid fact considering the above discussion that there is a huge burden of responsibilities on Ms. Schoen and a variety of tough jobs and authorities are assigned to her by the CEO of the company, which she remains unable to address appropriately owing to her not-so-satisfactory reliance on major imperative tools like arranging meetings, sharing knowledge and vision, highlighting misunderstandings, and communicating frequently and personally with the business managers. The action taken by Ms. Schoen to reach the CEO and clearly accepting defeat indicates her greatest weakness as a leader. A true central leader should operate in such a manner that nearly every subordinate manger or supervisor could be sufficiently engaged in the constructive process and they could be stimulated to comply with the orders of the leader. References: Apqc. (2005). Next Generation Human Resources: Driving Organizational Excellence. USA: APQC. Brophy, J. R. (2010). Leadership Essentials for Emergency Medical Services. USA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Goessl, L. (2008). Improving communication between management and employees. Retrieved from http://www.helium.com/items/1037599-improving-communication-between-management-and-employees. Goman, C. K. (n.d.). Strategies for Inspiring Workplace Collaboration. Retrieved from http://www.hodu.com/collaborate.shtml. Hussey, D. (1990). International review of strategic management. California: Wiley. Kenton, B. & Yarnall, J. (2009). HR: The Business Partner. USA: Routledge. Labor Statistics Bureau. (2010). Occupational outlook handbook. US: Government Printing Office. Shin, N. (2003). Creating business value with information technology: challenges and solutions. USA: Idea Group Inc. Read More