Finding Answers

Below is a case study in leadership.  It deals with a leader promoted from amongst their peers and a unique situation they, as the new leader, were faced with in their first fifteen days in their position.  The question I put before you is what impact did you think this leader had and what would you have done differently?

The Leader and Her Team

I am your new team leader!

Jill was a new leader recently promoted amongst her peers to a new position and team created by her company.  Given the success she had with her sales and retaining a client that almost walked out, Jill was an indispensable asset to her company.  They had made the new position to keep her and not lose her talent to the competition.  To everyone around Jill her star was on definitely shining bright.

Jill always showed up to work early and left late.  She always returned emails, voice-mails, and any other requests promptly.  While she had a family, she was the first to travel if the client needed.  Jill was considered by some in the organization as being the example of where they wanted to go in hiring new account managers.  She was well liked and seen as the “go-to” person in the organization.

The new team that Jill was handed brought together peers from different departments she had worked with in meeting her client’s needs.  Each one had a different manager and set of goals in their old positions.  This team – called an Account Group – was created to bring together the different resources for the one client Jill had retained: Bigum, Inc.

Jill had on her team an account manager (the group she rose from) named Steve, a logistics specialist named Jackson, a finance/payments manger in Rose, a sales force representative named Mary, and creative services manager named Barry.

Wanting to set a new tone and get off on the best foot with her new team, Jill held an Expectations Meeting.  This meeting was to layout her expectations for the team, her vision for their success, and set down the basic standards she would hold everyone to.  Jill felt that it was a success as this was something that was not done before at her company.  She hard started a new path for success!

Jill concluded her first week with her entire team showing up for meetings on time, returning client requests faster than before, and everyone positive about the future of their team.  It seemed to Jill that everything was going the way she had hoped it would.

The Problem

The following two weeks Jill ran into her first problem.  It started on Monday.  Steve showed up late for work.  While he was only a few minutes late, he seemed to have dragged himself into the office.  Having worked side-by-side with Steve, she knew that he liked to blow off steam on the weekends.  This past weekend was a big sport one, so she figured that he had hung out with his mates a little too long.  Yet once he got settled into his desk he was afire.

Steve ended Monday by closing a big deal in Jill’s presence at a client’s office.  Both feeling tired from the pressure cooker negotiations they went through to get the deal closed,

I could give a rat's @$%!

Jill told Steve that it was okay to just head home as opposed to going back to the office.  Steve, excited, quickly exited.  Jill, figured that she could catch Steve on email with any lingering questions she might have.

On Tuesday, Steve showed up late from work again.  This time he was almost a half-hour late.  While he was not dragging himself through the doors of the office, he was not exactly giving the feeling of being thrilled to be there.  Later in the day Jill had not received any replies from the two emails she sent late on Monday night.  Both were important to making sure that Rose had all the necessary information to bill the client.  When Jill dropped by Steve’s office to get the figures verbally, Steve was nowhere to be found.

On Wednesday, Steve was early in the office, even earlier than Jill.  She found two scraps of paper on her desk with the information she had requested on Monday evening.  Jill did not have time in the morning to chat with Steve, due to meetings she had on her calendar.  Jill decided she would invite him to lunch.  Seeing that Steve had an open slot on his electronic calendar, Jill blocked out lunch for a meeting with her.

Later that morning Jill received a call from the VP of Marketing from Bigum, Inc.  It seems the VP was in town and wanted to have lunch with Jill.  Excellent! She thought, this would be a great time to get Steve in front of his new account. Instead of three for lunch, there was only two.  When Steve did not show, Jill called his cell phone and left a voicemail.  The lunch went off without a hitch, but Jill would have to wait to transfer the VP to Steve.  Jill did not hear back from Steve all afternoon.

Thursday took Jill away from the office, yet she sent emails and left voicemails for Steve to get in contact with her.  None of them were returned.

Friday, Jill caught Steve in the parking lot as they were both entering the building.  She informed him that at three p.m. they would have a meeting together in the small conference room.

The Meeting

This record shows that you've missed some meetings.

Steve came to the conference room with a notepad and pen.  Upon sitting Jill asked him if he knew why he was in the meeting, to which he professed being a bit clueless.  Jill reviewed the team’s standards for excellence and the specific actions Steve had done the days earlier.

When Jill asked Steve about being late on Tuesday, he told her that he was getting over a sickness.  When she asked about not being in the office most of Wednesday, Steve told her that he had “a personal matter” to attend to and did not feel it was appropriate to discuss it in the office.  When Jill asked about why Steve had not returned the emails or voicemails, he told her that his inbox was swamped still from his transition to the new team and that her voicemails did not sound like they were urgent requiring an immediate response.

Jill told Steve that his behavior over the past week went against the team standards.  She let him know that she was concerned about this week becoming a trend and that this meeting was to stop it in its tracks.  Jill also let Steve know that the content and nature of their meeting would be summarized in an email later in the day for both of their benefits.

The meeting ended cordially and Steve finished his afternoon making client phone calls.  Jill typed up the notes of the meeting and sent them to Steve by email.  Prior to hitting the send button Jill tagged the email so that she would be notified when Steve had opened it.

The following Monday, Steve showed up for work a few minutes late and the email about Friday’s meeting, along with others, had not been opened at all.

What Would You Have Done? What do you think Jill’s intent was?  What unintended consequences did her actions have? What did she do right?

About the author:

Erroin A. Martin is a Business Advocate with the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, a business coaching and consultancy provider for business owners, executives, and entrepreneurs. He has fifteen years experience working within the pharmaceutical, manufacturing, natural resources, medical devices, software, technology, business services, and agriculture industries in various levels of leadership across six continents. He has led diverse teams in sales, marketing, planning, and in the Army.  He currently coaches business leaders and physicians in the tools needed, like social media, to plan for their success. Learn more about the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC at www.vongehrconsulting.com or call +1 203 433 8079.  You can follow him on Twitter at @Erroin

The Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, was founded by Erroin A. Martin to provide business coaching, business consulting, and other services to companies both large and small.  The primary goal is to have his clients be passionate about their business and reach the unachievable.