With the advent of electronic email, and now social media and collaboration software, many interactions between a leader and their subordinates takes place on an electronic forum. Sometimes these interactions are meant for a small audience, but find their way to a larger audience that was unintended. One example of this was reported by Business and Health (May, 2001):
Wall Street didn’t take too kindly to a harsh e-mail sent in late March by Cerner Corporation’s chief executive Neal Patterson to company managers. The tone was belligerent and the text conveyed some sensitive information about the Kansas City, Mo., health care software firm: “We are getting less than 40 hours of work from a large number of our K.C.-based EMPLOYEES. The parking lot is sparsely used at 8 a.m.; likewise at 5 p.m. As managers—you either do not know what your EMPLOYEES are doing; or you do not CARE.” The message threatened layoffs and other punishments if the situation were not corrected within two weeks.
It didn’t take that long for the e-mail to be posted on an Internet message board, prompting Cerner’s stock price to fall in three days to $34 from almost $44. An apology Patterson sent to the troops helped. As of May 1, the stock was trading at $42.
There are many things that can be learned from the example above. First and foremost, anything produced electronically has an immediate copy produced that is inherent to it’s nature. Regardless of the privacy or firewalls in place, the medium allows an immediate potential for a cut and paste or copy and forward. While one of the first rules of being a supervisor that I learned was”praise in public, criticize in private,” I understand that any criticizing should be done in a more private or personal way — ideally face-to-face, but by telephone when that is not feasible.
Secondly, and regardless of the argument of assertiveness or authoritarian leadership style, communication style and practice is important no matter the media used. In the example above, the first thing that was communicated to me when I read it was that leadership and management doesn’t trust their employees and they have a spy with binoculars watching the parking lot. Being direct or assertive in communication does not mean you need to attack the character or those you are communicating to, and it is necessary to keep the message relative to the facts that matter. For example, does it really matter how many cars are in the parking lot? Couldn’t the message be better delivered by stating that indicators show employee attendance is down and outcomes indicate lower productivity?
Thirdly, where is the vision and structure of leadership in this message or before the necessity of this message? If the vision, structure, and engagement of employees was an ongoing process, would not these issues be part of an ongoing going dialog for improvement. In places where I have assisted or worked where there is this type of activity (e.g. people sneaking off, management making threats), there appears to be a negative relationship between those in leadership and management roles and their employees. It becomes an “us” or “them” organizational culture verses “we” culture.
Can you see other difficulties in the example above?
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