Lisa Benton an assistant product manager at Houseworld, a leading consumer products company. Upon the start of her career at Houseworld, she has been frustrated by a lack of responsibility, by her poor relationship with her boss and a colleague, and recently, by the negative performance review she received. Initially she is not widely accepted by her team and felt that the lack of responsibility granted to her left her with little room to prosper in the company. Many other factors are also contributing to Benton’s dissatisfaction at Houseworld. She is not receiving the marketing training she was promised and her skills are being underutilized. Strained interpersonal relationships are contributing to this as well. There are three major relationships within the company that shaped Benton’s current state of dissatisfaction.
Deborah Linton, Benton’s boss, is the main relationship of focus. Linton failed to establish trust with candor and transparency at Houseworld. This is one of Jack Welch’s eight essential rules in being a great leader. Candor “breaks through political bias,” (Kotter) and Linton failed to do so by allowing her loyalties to Scoville strain the professional relationship between her and Benton, her mentee so to speak. Transparency is defined as “sharing information broadly (Kotter).” By avoiding Benton’s training seminars, she is hoarding necessary information Benton needs to excel within the company. She put her own concerns before that of the company. Because she lacked an MBA, she actively silenced the individual who did which would hinder the overall company productivity while maintaining her own status. She failed to instill the company’s vision by failing to teach Benton the organization’s vision or overall goals. She continually exuded negative energy, along with Scoville, due to her dislike towards MBAs. In addition to these issues, Linton lacks