Stress Management - Deborah and Belinda - Case Study Example

Stress management Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: Question 1 The reasons that made Deborah to react cruelty to Belinda include; unjustified promotion according to Deborah. Due to the fact that Deborah had been in the organization for fifteen years while Deborah had only spent two years in the organization as a secretary to the managing director, she thought that she was at a better position to be promoted. In the contrary promotion this led to frustrations and led to bad behavior by Deborah towards Belinda. Another reason for such reaction is stress. Deborah was used to leaving the job earlier and was not used to keeping time terms of the employment (Stephen et al 2011). When Belinda was promoted, she felt that she will put more pressure on her like leaving the office late which she was not used to. This led to stress and hatred towards Belinda the new executive support manager. Deborah feared the formal power Belinda will have. Belinda was promoted to a higher rank than Deborah and so she feared being under somebody who has been in the organization for only two years. In this aspect she did not regard Belinda as her ne immediate boss and she did not want to follow her directions. Promotion of Belinda who had been in the HIA for two years only lowered the morale of Deborah who had been working at HIA for fifteen years. Lack of motivation led to conflicts between Belinda and Deborah. Lack of motivation leads to poor industrial relations and can lead to conflicts between the employees. The above reasons that made Deborah to react badly to Belinda were not justified because Belinda showed more skills and characteristics of being a leader than Deborah who never showed good leadership skills as she was never a role model to other employees (Stephen et al 2011). Belinda showed more commitment than Deborah towards achieving the HIA goals and objectives. On the other hand David the executive director of HIA wanted the managing director secretary to have close control of the whole staff of Housing industry association. The above reasons led to promotion of Belinda to the position of executive support manager instead of creating another department to do the same work hence the organization will minimize the costs of administration. Question 2 There are various techniques which could have been applied by Belinda to resolve the conflict between her and Deborah which includes; potential of showing cooperativeness (Robbins et al 2008). Deborah had asked Belinda to carry on with her work at her own time because she was already used to that culture and that it was hard for her to adapt the new working style of long hours. In order to find the resolution, Belinda could have shown some cooperation although the solution could have been for short while before changing the whole scenario. Cooperation could have reduced the stress on Deborah thus maintain good relationship. Another resolution to the problem could have been to avoid any circumstances that will lead to confrontation between the two parties (Joseph, 2010). In this regard Deborah could slowly get used to the changing circumstances and the relationship could have come back to normal. Tension between Deborah and Belinda was high when they were solving the conflict and that led to disagreement. Belinda could have involved third parties to the conflict like the executive manager to resolve the conflict (Robbins et al 2008). The executive director David could have solved the conflict by giving orders to each party and explain the competency Belinda had than the other candidates Deborah inclusive. This would have cooled down the pressures on the two parties. Belinda could have asked the executive director to of HIA to restructure the organization. Restructuring could have separated the two conflicting parties and everyone could be satisfied with her job. For instance Deborah could have been moved from her current position to another one so as to avoid being close to Belinda who has been promoted. Alternatively, Belinda could have improved the communication with Deborah by ignoring the negative attitude towards her and be friendly (Joseph, 2010)v. Through good communication Deborah could have started gaining the trust with Belinda and slowly start working together as a team and forget about the negative attitude. Finally, Belinda could have applied her authoritative power to stop all the sorts of abuses from Deborah (Robbins et al 2008). Her new position could have enabled her to dictate command Deborah from disrespecting her and thus they will engage in formal business towards achieving the objectives of HIA. Every one could have concentrated on her part of the employment terms and forget about the promotion incidences and later Deborah could start forgetting her stress and work together as a team. Question 3 The organizational change is more stressful to the team members. This is because conflicts have arisen between the employees who are Deborah and Belinda. They have developed disagreement between them hence there is no sharing of information hence there is no coordination of operations of HIA. The main stressors of the teamwork in this case study include the following; Changes to meet the new demands of the job (Graffin & Moorhead 2007); Belinda who has been promoted to executive support manager with new responsibilities and she is trying to show her competency for the position by implementing the policies effectively without failure. On the other hand Deborah who has been operating freely in the organization is also under pressure to meet new job demands of working for long hours of which she is not used to thus the new job demands has caused stress to her. The relationship between Deborah and Belinda is not good leading to stress between the two parties. Lack of good relationship between colleagues of the same organization can lead to conflicts and destroy the good working conditions. Like in this case there is stress between the two parties because they always clash and are employees of the same organization. Possibility of controlling the staff under an individual’s position is also a cause of stress to Belinda (Joseph, 2010). She is not able to control Deborah who is the employees under her thus it stressful to her because she can’t control the staff well if she cannot control Deborah who spreading false rumors about her. Change of the job is another stressor because Belinda is not used to the position of executive support manager. This can be a stressor because she has to work hard so that she can meet the deadlines of her various responsibilities and she can’t achieve that then she will seem to be incompetent. Working for overtime hours can also lead to stress to the employees because they are not used to working for long hours especially Deborah. This can lead to stress because the employees will not be satisfied with the nature of their work hence there will be conflict between the management and the employees leading to poor industrial relations. Question 4 The situation in this case study may have been influenced by the organizational culture. Culture plays an important role in the management of the organization (Joseph, 2010). In this case study, Deborah had developed a culture of reporting to work late as well as leaving the work early. This culture led to conflict between Deborah and the management as well as the new executive support manager who is Belinda. This is because the management changed and it was difficult for the culture to change which led to conflicts. Culture influences the social system in the organization (Graffin & Moorhead 2007). In this case study employees were interacting freely with their management and that is why there is no dictatorship in leadership. Deborah was always late for work but she was not under pressure as she could do her work at the convenient time. When the management changed, she could not cope up any more and the social relationship with the management changed leading to conflicts. Culture influences the types of communication in the process. In this case study there was both upward and downward communication. When the management changed, Deborah was so cruel to her boss because she could freely argue with Belinda as the culture has been that you can even confront your boss. If the culture was that communication was only downward, Deborah could have not gotten a chance to confront Belinda. The organization culture in this organization did not commit employees to the betterment of the organization than the employees’ selfish interests (Stephen et al 2011). That is why Deborah could come to work late and leave earlier before time with the excuse of traffic jam and going to pick up her kids from school. This is a clear indication that she was much concerned with her welfare and not the objectives of the organization. Finally, culture can influence the situation by setting guidelines for employing and promoting the employees. In this case study, there was no clear cultural guidelines of promoting employees and that is why Deborah felt that she was best qualified for the promotion simply because she has been in the organization for fifteen years. References Griffin, R. W. & Moorhead, G. (2007). Organizational behavior: Managing people and organizations. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. Joseph, E. (2010). Organizational Behavior: Integrating Individuals, Groups, and Organizations, 4edn. New York: Taylor & Francis. Robbins, S. P. & Judge, T. A. (2008). Essentials of organizational behavior. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Stephen, P. Robbins, T. A. Judge, B. Millett & Boyle, M. (2011). Integrative case study: Change and Stress management at HIA. Organizational behavior. French's Forrest, N.S.W., Australia: Pearson Australia.   Read More