Scenario 1 - Leadership

Sandra Johnson was continuously on top of things. In school, she had always been at the top of her class. When she went to work for her uncle's shoe business, Fancy Footwear, she was singled out as the most productive employee with the best attendance. The company was so impressed with her that it sent her to get an M.B.A. to groom her for a top management position. With three years of practical experience, Johnson absorbed every idea put in front of her, relating many to her work at Fancy Footwear. When Johnson graduated at the top of her class, she returned to Fancy Footwear. To no one's surprise, when the head of the company's largest division took early retirement, Johnson was given his position.

Johnson knew the pitfalls of being suddenly catapulted to a leadership position, and she was determined to avoid them. In business school, she read cases about family businesses that fell apart when a young family member took over with an iron fist, barking orders, cutting personnel, and destroying morale. Johnson knew a lot about participative management, and she was not going to be labeled an arrogant know-it-all.

Johnson's predecessor, Max Worthy, ran the division from an office at the top of the building, far above the factory floor. He would summon a messenger or secretary to send memos out to groups of workers, but as Johnson saw it, Worthy was mostly an absentee autocrat, making all decisions from above and spending most of his time at extended lunches.

Johnson's first move was to change all that. She set up her office on the second floor. From her always-open doorway, she could see onto the factory floor, and from her desk, she could spot anyone walking by in the hall. She never ate lunch but spent 11 to 2 on the floor, walking around, talking, and organizing groups. The workers, many with twenty years of seniority, seemed surprised by this new policy and reluctant to volunteer for any groups. However, Johnson established a worker productivity group, a "Suggestion of the Week" committee, an environmental group, a worker award group, and a management relations group. Each group held two meetings a week, one without and one with Johnson. She encouraged each group to set goals and develop plans to reach them, promising any support within her power.

The group work was slow initially, but Johnson was well-trained as a facilitator. She wrote down ideas on a big board, organized them, and later communicated them in notices. She encouraged everyone to call her "Sandra" and learned all their names. By the end of the first month, Fancy Footwear was stirred up, but most employees didn't want that. The truth hit Johnson when the entire management relations committee resigned. "We're good at making shoes, but not at this management stuff. A lot of us are heading toward retirement. We don't want to be supervisors," one of them said.

Astonished, Johnson spoke with workers she believed she had good relations with. Yes, they reluctantly admitted, the changes made them uneasy. They liked her but would rather go back to how Mr. Worthy ran things. "After you've been in a place doing one thing for so long," one worker concluded, "the last thing you want to do is learn a new way of doing it."

Question:
According to our class theories and concepts, what factors should have alerted Johnson to the problems that eventually came up at Fancy Footwear?