Who’s in Charge? Helen is the administrative secretary for Mary Tranthem, the CE
ID: 343405 • Letter: W
Question
Who’s in Charge?
Helen is the administrative secretary for Mary Tranthem, the CEO of Lightmade. Helen has been with Lightmade for 35 years and through the tenure of three CEA’s. Helen has seen the firm go through tough times and good times. During the last three years things have gone well under Mary Tranthem’s leadership and she and Mary had developed a very good working relationship. Mary had given Helen more and more responsibilities. Helen did all of Mary’s scheduling of appointments and Helen screened out what she considered to be nuisance appointments. Those were appointments which Helen believed would be a waste of Mary’s time. Mary has during the last few months begun to confide in Helen. She will let Mary know about new projects and ask her opinion about the likely success of the project. Helen is never at a loss for words or an opinion and Mary pays close attention to her advice. After all she has been with the company for 35 years! Last week Helen came to Mary to tell her that Marty, one of the regional managers, had been requesting an appointment to discuss a new flexible employee benefit plan he had seen another firm using. Helen told Mary she felt like the plan would not work and that talking to Marty was a waste of Mary’s time. Mary told Helen “I trust your judgement completely. Tell him I don’t have time to visit with him. Have him refer the idea to his human resource manager. They can decide if it merits my attention.”
a.What are the sources of Helen’s power?
b.Do you think this is an unusual situation?
c.What are the problems and benefits of Mary having such as close relationship with Helen?
- How can you hold others accountable to ensure tasks are completed?
Explanation / Answer
1. Helen's source of power is her working knowledge of the company's various aspects, CEO's trust and confidence in her, and her vast experience with the company that makes her worthy of an opinion in the CEO's decision making.
2. It is not unusual for CEOs and othe top bosses to ask for an opinion from the people who have seen good and bad times of the company, and have vast experience of all situations. Such opinions are valuable more often than not.
3. Mary, who is relatively new at the company can benefit from the advice powered by working experience of Helen with the company. However, the disadvantage is that she might be losing on some other vital opinions from others, who might be having conflicting views with Helen. This might affect the quality of her decisions which might be biased against certain persons or situations. Unknowingly, she might be losing on some vital opportunities because Helen did not see any merit in them. She might be prompting Helen to abuse her powers and making others unhappy with the situation, letting their morale down.
4. Others can be empowered first, then be held accountable for the tasks. Clear communication of the tasks, clear delegation of power and responsbilities and providing necessary tools for task completion may help to ensure that the tasks are completed.
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