Assuming New Leadership in Organizational Life

Susan Bilsner was the type of individual who was always on top of things. She was always the best in her class at school, held many leadership positions, and was a very active and popular student. Upon graduation, she went to work for her uncle's sporting goods store, Sports R Us. Within one year, the company was so impressed with her that she received awards for best attendance and "most productive new employee." In fact, her supervisor even convinced the organization to send her back to school to get an M.B.A. so they could groom her for a top management position. She graduated with honors at the top of her class and returned to Sports R Us to assure the role of Vice President of Production.

Bilsner had read all about the potential problems of assuming a new leadership position while in graduate school. She was determined to avoid them. She knew that the previous VP, Murray Almars, was essentially an absentee autocrat. He had run the division from his office at the top of the building, far above the factory floor. Once or twice a day, hee would summon a secretary from the offices on the second floor and send a memo to one group of workers or another. But for the most part, he chose to remain detached from his production unit and make all the decisions himself.

Bilsner's first order of business was to change all of that. She set up her office on the second floor, where she could look out her always-open office door and see out onto the factory floor. Instead of eating lunch by herself, she spent the time down on the factory floor, walking around talking to subordinates, and organizing groups. Although the workers (many of whom had fifteen to twenty years seniority) were surprised by her new policy and reluctant to volunteer for groups, Bilsner persevered. Within a short period of time, she had created a worker award group, a Suggestion of the Month group, and a management relations group. Each group met twice a month, once with Bilsner and once without. She encouraged each group to identify goals and develop plans for reaching those goals. She provided as much support for their activities as she possibly could.