Leadership and Ethical Decision-Making

Sharon and Marcia share some parallels with their work history. Both women have been in the human resource field for almost 20 years. Both women seem to have been successful in their positions. Sharon seems to have an alpha personality. She will “jump” to get things done in the fastest way possible. I am concerned however, by her stating that she does not want to waste time by planning out anything with a lengthy implementation. UWEAR is going through a merger and although people tend to resist change, it cannot be avoided at this point. Also, considering Sharon is the HR manager for UWEAR, it should be noted that she was hired directly out of college with no prior experience. She also has not been kept abreast as to the legislation that is currently required for publicly traded companies, which can be seen by not having a whistleblower protection policy that should have been implemented after the SOX Act. Sharon’s style relies heavily on her intuition. She believes she can assess the environment around her and know what needs to be done. This is a great strength if she indeed can accurately assess her situation and see the path that needs to be followed to get the job done. Her weakness is her lack of enthusiasm for having a predetermined plan with an implementation timeline. Another strength that Sharon has, is her experience in being a part of a company that has grown into a larger, publicly traded company. She would be able to assist Marcia in the transition from a private company to a larger, publicly traded one (My Unique Student Experience, 2015).
Marcia has only been with PALEDENIM for 3 years, however she has about 17 years of HR experience and a Master’s Degree. Marcia has a completely different approach to her management style. As she states, she is trusted to run her department and has the authority to make her decisions without obtaining the approval of the VP. She says she isn’t afraid to ask for more resources if they are required to complete a job. Marcia has gained the trust of her supervisors by being an effective manager by planning her projects prior to implementing them. Marcia appears to be a good HR Manager. Her strength will be in her ability to plan and execute her plans in a timely fashion. Her weakness will be the fact that she is used to planning projects for a much smaller company.
My approach would be to first point out the strengths of each HR Manager. Instead of relaying that they have weaknesses, I would rather point out what the other HR Manager brings to the table and how they could help each other become a unified HR department with a single vision that would incorporate the planning that Marcia is good at completing, and by incorporating the instinct and intuition of Sharon to properly act on projects. The obvious challenge is that no one likes change, and it is difficult to get someone to change how they do things, especially when they have been effectively doing their job for almost two decades. However, the merger will make these compromises necessary.
Marcia and Sharon may clash often in the beginning with regard to implementing company policies. I think that if they clash too much, they will stall the implementation of new company policies. Sharon seems to want to take charge and get the job done herself. Marcia takes the more cautious approach. I do think that I would advise Sharon to work with Marcia to properly layout a plan for the implementation of the new company policies so that they would have a definitive timeline to follow. Going forward, I would suggest that certain duties be handled by Sharon and Marcia. For instance, Marcia would do well to manage project timelines and resources and Sharon may be better at dealing with maintaining required company policies and legal compliances. Sharon may not have missed the omission of the whistleblower policy if she had less duties and was able to focus on that aspect of her job. “It’s an opportunity to push the boundaries to create an organization that is increasingly focused on predicting, guiding and meeting the organization’s needs.” (Tom Keebler, 2013).

References
My Unique Student Experience. (2015). Retrieved from http://campus.ctuonline.edu: https://campus.ctuonline.edu/courses/INTD670-X/p3/hub1/hub.html
Tom Keebler, T. W. (2013). New Considerations for HR Service Delivery Success: Where to Begin? Workforce Solutions Review.