Mgmt 5150 – Personal Case Description

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Over time, I became very used to the independent management style of the Senior Director. I became used to many different things as well including minimal interaction with them (helps to know I also did not sit next to my manager) so days would go by that we did not speak in person, only over email, even if we were both in the office. I became used to working on projects for weeks or months and then never getting updates on how the deal turned out or if we were going forward with the initiative or why we were not.

However, one of the things I never got used to was not being a part of the weekly Investor Marketing team meeting. Every Monday morning from 9:30 to 10:30 my manager and the Senior VP would meet and discuss the status of the projects we were working on and any new projects in the pipeline. I was never invited to join those meetings and I worked/contributed to many of the projects that were topics of their discussions. I recall stumbling upon a folder that held the write ups for each weekly meeting (status updates) and getting my information on the status of projects through there, not from my manager. It seemed very bizarre to me that I was not a part of the meeting seeing as our team was very small and many of their discussions resulted in work that I was responsible for. It also made me feel irrelevant and as if I was not a part of a team, but as if I was on my own little island being passed some instructions through messages in a bottle.

During my performance review, I was asked if there was any feedback I had for my manager. I decided to speak up and asked to be given more updates on the status of projects seeing as there were many that I worked on that I never knew what the final result was. The Senior Director agreed to follow through with that going forward but not much changed before I terminated my employment to start my MBA at Schulich.

Problem Statement

My manager had a lack of leadership skills which led to my job dissatisfaction and unwillingness to put in a great amount of effort into a role that I believed would have been a perfect fit for me skill-wise and interest-wise, but turned out to be a disappointment due to poor management.

I believe the above is the core problem since it is was the root of my job dissatisfaction. I had such high hopes for the role seeing as it ticked off many boxes for me including function, responsibilities, skills required, and overall interest in the industry and the company. I believe the Senior Director was not ready to be given a direct report and they tried to execute their role without taking into consideration the fact that they had another important aspect of their role: leadership.