An Analyst for the Office on Aging - Essay Example

 An Analyst for the Office on Aging INTRODUCTION I work as an Analyst for the Office on Aging, a part of the Community Services Division of the Parks and Recreation Department in the City of San José, California. Historically, our division was managed by two Deputy Directors; one overseeing youth programs and one overseeing programs that serve adults and seniors. Joan, the Deputy Director that had responsibility for our office, was an inspirational leader who exhibited a genuine interest in the development of her staff. A strategic planner, Joan was organized and collaborative; she possessed the ability to clearly communicate her vision to both her staff and the community at large. Approximately eight months ago, Joan accepted the position of Department Director in a neighboring City. Facing a budget shortfall within our organization, senior management, instead of filling the position vacated by Joan, opted to have the remaining Deputy Director, Maria, assume management of the entire division. Maria is almost the antithesis of Joan. She operates in a chaotic fashion, frequently scheduling emergency meetings and demanding last minute changes to reports she has already accepted, but clearly has not read. She shows little interest in explaining new programs or policies to staff and often threatens to issue written reprimands to those to do not comply. An inequity of treatment, particularly felt by staff members from Joan’s old team, is pervasive throughout the department. Perceived or real, Maria’s double standard treatment between her old staff and new staff has become detrimental to the efficiency and morale within the department. Maria shows some skill in working with the community; but, unlike Joan, she appears to lack genuine concern and does not seem willing or able to reach out and connect with clients and her staff. As a result of Maria’s disparity of treatment and her perceived apathy towards the adult and senior programming responsibilities she has assumed, Joan’s former staff members feel that they and their programs are no longer respected or valued. Having detailed the current work climate, I will now examine Maria’s behavior and possible motivations from three different perspectives presented in the course reading and presentations from Module 1. Examining specific instances in an unbiased fashion, I will interpret possible causes for the behaviors demonstrated. Lastly, based upon insights gained from this analysis, I will develop strategies which will foster a successful working relationship with Maria. FEAR BASED OPPRESSION As a manager, Maria has extensive background in youth and anti-gang programs, but little experience working with older clients. Consolidation of the two divisions caused Maria’s workload to be doubled, and she was suddenly responsible for a wide variety of programs she knew little about. Further, Maria may have felt resentful for having additional work and responsibility thrust upon her with possibly no consideration of her concerns or reservations prior to the decision making process. In the Mentor Gallery, Sterling Financial CEO Harold Gilkey points out that: “People like where they are and are often resistant to move to the next level.” He also notes that managers are no exception to this rule (Gilkey, 2004). Faced with changes that presented challenges outside her comfort zone, Maria might have felt insecure about her ability to handle these new responsibilities and therefore resented the additional workload placed on her. Maria is attempting to remedy her discomfort and fear by demanding total control over meetings and projects and by intimidating her subordinates, thus dehumanizing them. To maintain her authority, Maria engages in prescription, dictating the tasks to be performed and the method in which they must be accomplished. (Freire, 2005, p.47) An effective leader would engage in a true dialogue with their staff, utilizing their skills and knowledge to expand their own. Instead, Maria has engaged in oppressive behavior such as the threat of disciplinary action to enforce her authority and to disguise her lack of understanding. This exemplifies Freire’s statement that: "The antidialogical individual, in his (her) relations with others, aims at conquering them-increasingly and by every means” (Freire, 2005, p.138). Similar behavior is displayed by the character of Barry Fife in the motion picture Strictly Ballroom (Lurhmann, 2002) when he tries, first by bribery and then through threats, to prevent Scott and Fran from performing new and unfamiliar dance steps which he perceives to be threat to his livelihood as a dance instructor. Paralleling the movie, Maria’s attempts to control her subordinates proved to be somewhat successful in the short term, but eventually staff has begun to resist her efforts to dominate them. Maria’s continued failure to engage in meaningful dialogue with her new staff has led to a hostile work environment, and most of the adult and aging services staff find her difficult to work with. Maria is frequently left out of meetings or not informed of critical issues within the department because staff does not want to be constrained by her demands or subjected to her abusive behavior. Staff is beginning to take items requiring management input directly to Maria’s supervisor, thus undermining the control Maria is trying so desperately to maintain. Freire might see this as the dawn of a revolution. Freire writes: “Because it (oppression) is a distortion of being more fully human, sooner or later being less human leads the oppressed to struggle against those who made them so.” (Freire, 2005, p.44) SELF EMBEDDEDNESS Maria’s behavior may have been motivated by insecurity and fear, but it can also be viewed as a conscious choice to resist change. In the Four Truths, Dr. Carey discusses the role of the individual faced with new challenges: Since choice is a matter of free will, individuals also can choose not to enlarge their minds or develop their abilities. In addition to the free choice to stay embedded in one's present stage of development, there are less conscious choices for fear, neurosis, and addiction. However unconscious these choices may in fact be, the effect is the same as if they were cold-blooded choices against development: the person who becomes embedded in the self to the exclusion of others must exert tremendous control over others in order to keep them in line. (Carey, 1999, pg.5) Maria displays self-embeddedness by her steadfast refusal to learn more about adult and aging programs and her unwillingness to engage her new staff. This could be due in part to the lack of control she may have experienced when the decision was made to not fill Jane’s vacancy. This may have led her to the conscious or unconscious decision that the unification of the two departments will not work. Subconsciously, because she perhaps resented that she had no input in the decision making process, Maria may have been assured about failure being the outcome. While Maria tends to behave in a domineering manner towards all her staff, she is decidedly more willing to discuss and become involved in youth issues. Maria spends more time with the youth staff and focuses the bulk of the Division’s resources on developing youth programs. Because she has programmatic expertise in this area, Maria is more willing to delegate tasks, feeling less need to exert control over the youth service staff to maintain her authority. This has lead to a more favorable relationship with the youth staff. Conversely, Maria has failed to earn the respect of the adult and senior program staff by her seeming refusal to educate herself on issues relevant to their programs. Instead, she resorts to intimidation and oppression to maintain her authority. Staff views this behavior as inflexible and domineering, further deteriorating an already poor working relationship. Dr. Carey writes that inflexible behavior limits the effectiveness of top managers because: “it consistently distorts their perceptions of people (neurotic) and events and strongly influences their goals, their modes of decision making, and even their preferred social settings" (Carey, 1999, p. 8). Maria’s self-embeddedness limits her ability to manage her new staff, because she does not have the requisite knowledge to understand their program issues and seems unwilling to learn or seek advice from staff. This yields a sense of organizational dislocation. The staff is unhappy because they feel they and their services are no longer valued and Maria is unhappy because she continues to feel insecure in her ability to manage her new responsibilities. To overcome this sense of organizational dislocation, either Maria must be willing to embrace change and move towards self-transcendence (p. 5), or staff must find alternative methods of addressing their needs. FAILURE TO ENGAGE IN LEADERSHIP BEHAVIORS In addition to fear based oppression and self-embeddedness, Maria’s failure to engage in certain relations-oriented and task-oriented behaviors results in compounding the level of dysfunction within our Division. Yukl cites the Michigan Leadership Studies that found that effective managers were more supportive, engaging in relations-oriented behaviors such as: showing trust and confidence, trying to understand subordinate problems, keeping subordinates informed, showing appreciation for subordinate’s ideas, providing recognition for subordinate contributions, and helping to develop subordinates and furthering their careers (Yukl, 2006, p. 54). Maria exhibits a limited amount of these behaviors with her youth staff, but has not demonstrated them with the adult and senior program staff. This behavior perpetuates Maria’s lack of confidence and keeps her from delegating tasks despite her heavy workload. This fosters the sense that staff is not treated equally, reinforcing the feeling among the adult and senior program staff that their contributions are not valued. This sense of disregard has caused many talented staff members to seek positions outside our Division; leaving Maria with less support should she ever decide to embrace the changes in her responsibilities and attempt to move towards self-transcendence. Additionally, Maria routinely fails to utilize the task oriented behaviors of clarifying and monitoring, leading to disorganization and necessitating crisis management. Yukl describes clarifying as the: “…communication of plans, policies, and role expectations” (Yukl, 2006, p. 69-70). Maria’s failure to clearly outline project requirements results in work having to be sent back for revisions. Often, this occurs multiple times, resulting in lost productivity and missed deadlines. This problem is compounded by a failure to engage in monitoring behaviors which Yukl describes as: “gathering information about the manager’s organizational unit, including the progress of the work, the performance of subordinates, the quality of products or services, and the success of the project or programs (p. 70).” Proper follow-up by Maria would ensure that projects meet time and quality requirements, eliminating the need for multiple revisions. This would also provide Maria with opportunities to open up a dialogue with her new staff, increasing her knowledge of new material and improving the relationship with her new subordinates. CONCLUSION Examining Maria’s behavior from the perspectives of fear-based oppression, self-embeddedness, and a failure to engage in relations-oriented and task-oriented leadership behaviors, gives some insight as to the root causes of her dysfunction. If Maria continues to be unwilling to embrace the changes in our Department, it will be essential for the adult and senior services staff to develop effective methods of dealing with her behavior. Freire indicates that: “The oppressed can overcome the contradiction in which they are caught only when this perception enlists them in the struggle to free themselves (Freire, 2005, p. 49). Therefore, Maria’s new staff may have to take responsibility for establishing a dialogue; scheduling briefings on key issues and programs, thus reducing her insecurities in dealing with unfamiliar material. Staff might suggest certain tasks that can be delegated which will reduce Maria’s workload and help to build trust and confidence between Maria and her new staff. Additionally, staff can check in frequently to update Maria on the status of projects which will eliminate the need for her to monitor behavior and, at the same time, allows the staff to showcase their abilities and demonstrate their willingness to adapt to the change in office structure. Hopefully, these actions will help familiarize Maria with her new responsibilities and assist her in moving towards the path of self-transcendence. In closing, I would like to share a thought from the Mentor Gallery. In discussing transformation, Gonzaga University Vice President of Diversity Richard Reyes points out that dysfunction can be a blessing in disguise because it gives us an opportunity to: “confront, to interact, embrace, reconcile, and love ultimately not only our dysfunction, but the dysfunction of others.” (Reyes, 2004) REFERENCES Carey, M.L. (1999). Hereclitean fire: Journeying on the path of leadership (Part one: Four Truths). Retrieved November 6, 2005, from http://jesuitnet.blackboard.com/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_114_1 Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum Gilkey, H. (2004). Diversity and servant-leadership [Recorded by Gonzaga University]. On Mentor Gallery [CD]. Gonzaga University. Lurhmann, B. (Director). (2002). Strictly ballroom [Motion picture]. United States: Miramax Home Entertainment Reyes, R. (2004). Diversity and servant-leadership [Recorded by Gonzaga University]. On Mentor Gallery [CD]. Gonzaga University. Yukl, G. (2006). Leadership in organizations. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall Read More