Leadership and management case study assignment. Files attached

KAREN L. CATES AND BRENDA ELLINGTON BOOTH

Leader as Coach: Restoring Employee

Motivation and Performance (A)

Kiera lay on a gurney in the emergency room of Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. As

she tried to reconstruct th e events of the last three hours, she hazily recalled collapsing in pain

outside her hotel room door and one of her colleagues from Safety Supply Company taking her

to the hospital. Her head ached and she still felt terrible, but the intravenous fuids she had been

given immediately on arrival had started to ease her symptoms.

When the doctor came to her bedside, they had good news: Kiera had had a kidney stone,

but it had passed. After a few more hours of hydration, she would be discharged from the

hospita l. However, there was bad news, too: the doctor told Kiera she would need to slow down

and alter her lifestyle or risk ending up in the hospital again.

It was February and Kiera had been in her new position for just ten months. She was only 29

years old, but she felt tired and worn out all the time. When she found herself thinking “At least

I didn’t collapse during my presentation at our annual meeting this afternoon,” she knew she had

to make some changes.

A Good Start

Kiera landed a job in guest servic es at a university in downstate Illinois after graduating with

a bachelor’s degree. Guest services provided stafng for campus events to maintain crowd control

while helping to ensure a high -quality guest experience. Gradually, she took on more and more

res ponsibility in the department and ultimately spent two years working as an event manager.

Her

L. Cates and Professo r Brenda Ellington Booth. Cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are

not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of efective or inefective management.

Some details may have been fctionalized for pedagogical purposes. To order copies or request permission to

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attention to detail and commitment to guest satisfaction ft perfectly with her job coordinating

stafng and security at sporting events, concerts, and shows. She prided herself on never receiving

a request that she could not fulfll. As a result, it seemed she needed to be everywhere at once —

and somehow, she was; her ftness app registered over ten miles on most event nights.

Just after her third anniversary with guest services, and on her 25th birthday, Kiera met with

Joe Klein, who sold emergency and safety supplies to the university. He represented Safety

Supply Company, which provided everything from frst aid kits and fre extinguishers to active

shooter feld kits and automated external defbrillators. Joe thought Kiera was the kind of high -

energy person his company needed on its sales team. After conferring with his boss, Joe invited

Kiera to apply for a sales position in the Chicago area. Kiera saw the opportunity as a way to

build new skills and as a natural progression in her career from running events to helping clients

prepare for them.

She was hired after a n extensive interview process that included a drive -along with a

seasoned member of the sales team. Working in sales ofered Kiera a level of freedom she had

never experienced with the university: no one tracked her activities in the region as long as she

met her targets and called on each customer at least once every two months. Plus, with almost no

evening and weekend hours, she and her husband Tomas had more time together and could start

talking about having children. Tey had known each other for fve year s, since meeting in college,

and were married right after graduation. Tomas was supportive of Kiera’s career and felt just as

excited as she for this new opportunity.

A New Assignment

Kiera’s energy level and performance as a sales rep exceeded expectati ons at Safety Supply

Company. After three years of outstanding results, she was promoted to sales manager in Dallas,

Texas, reporting to Rudy Lopez, regional manager for the southern United States. She was

gratifed that she was building a successful sales management career, but she also felt the

promotion showed that the company recognized she had the skills and experience to progress

even further.

Rudy, 47, had worked his way up through the sales organization at Safety Supply Company.

He often told his sa les managers he had learned everything the hard way by doing it himself, but

he felt that experience made him a better boss. He knew Kiera had some learning to do, too, but

he was confdent her energy and stellar sales record would help her fgure it out. Be cause she had

been promoted from within the organization, Rudy gave her only minimal onboarding,

reasoning, “She knows the drill.”

Kiera and her husband moved to Dallas in April. Tey quickly found an apartment, and Kiera

settled into her new ofce. She now supervised fve salespeople and was responsible for staf

development, quarterly sales reports for Rudy, special projects, and annual meeting

presentations. She dove into her new responsibilities by reviewing the client fles and sales

reports. She found th at overall results were fne, but performance was uneven among her team

members. She would need to fgure out why.

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Ten she looked at the sales training materials. Te printed materials were at least 15 years old,

and the videos were so outdated they were unusable. All of it needed to be updated. Kiera

decided she would create more interactive materials and reshoot the videos as her frst special

project. She reviewed the idea with Rudy, who said with a laugh: “Reall y, that’s your frst project?

Well, if you think you have the time, go for it!”

Tree months later, Kiera had written new scripts and hired a videographer. She asked her

team members to “star” in some of the new videos, which she directed. She hired an edit or, with

whom she worked closely to bring the new content and video together. While Kiera was editing

videos at home late one night, her husband pointed out that she was working a lot of evenings

and weekends again. But the project was worthwhile, she thou ght, and she was confdent it would

eventually get company -wide attention. Besides, her team was working hard, and most of them

were making their numbers, so she felt optimistic. Everything seemed fne.

Expanding Her Role

In October, Kiera received a call from Barbara Wilding, the company’s corporate events

manager. “How would you like to help us organize the regional meeting in Dallas scheduled for

January? I hear you have some experience with this sort of thing.” Kiera was excited. “Of course,

I’d love to help!” she replied.

“Great,” Barbara said. “Talk to Rudy, and if he agrees, we can get started.”

Kiera sent an email to Rudy that afternoon:

Hi Rudy,

Barbara Wilding and I just had a conversation about my helping coordinate the regional meeting in

Janu ary. Tis is the perfect opportunity to blend my skills in event management with what I know about

Safety Supply Company. My team is doing a great job — we’re making our numbers. And the video

project has just another month or so of editing before it is ready for fnal review by corporate. Tat will

leave me a window to work on the meeting, which would be an exciting project. I can do this. Barbara

said with your OK, this is a go. What do you think?

By the way, did you see we landed the Chili’s account? Kiera

Rudy called her a few hours later, sounding a little annoyed. “Are you sure you have the

bandwidth for this?” he asked. “I need you to focus. Te video project is nowhere near done. It is

almost defnitely going to need further editing after corporate looks at it. Legal alone will have to

justify their existence with some changes. How are you going to manage the regional meeting on L E A D E R A S C O A C H ( A ) KE1145

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top of that?”

K E L L O G G S C H O O L O F M A N A G E M E N T 3

Kiera had her answer ready. “Te hard part of the video project is done, Rudy. Yes, there will

be edits, but I can squeeze those in this fall,” she responded. “And remember, I can organize

events with my eyes closed. Tis is where I came from. And technology means I’m never far away

from my staf even when I’m no t in the ofce. Barbara’s staf will be on this project, too. I really

want to do it.”

Rudy sighed and replied, “As long as you don’t drop the ball on your other work, I’m not

going to stand in your way.”

Kiera few to Portland, Oregon, to attend the region al meeting, talk to company organizers

on the ground, and get ideas for the Dallas meeting.

Fatigue and Frustration

By the end of January, the regional meeting in Dallas was over. It had taken a lot of Kiera’s

time, but in the end, it was a great success . However, the training video project was still not

fnished because of the large number of edits required after the corporate review. During one of

her few full days in the ofce, Kiera heard some of her salespeople complaining about Maya, one

of the more e xperienced members of her team. Maya’s sales had been down, and she had been

noticeably absent from Friday afternoon meetings, which meant the other members of the team

were missing out on her product and client know -how. Kiera would have to deal with that later.

However, what occupied Kiera’s thoughts was not the overdue videos or Maya’s

performance. She was thinking about her frst presentation at the annual company meeting in

Atlanta in February. By the week before the meeting, she was spending all day w orking on it,

ending with an all -night session before she boarded her fight. “I’ll sleep on the plane,” she told

herself.

As she sat in the airport, Kiera was not feeling excited about the presentation; rather, she was

worried about being criticized. She had heard that executives at corporate (who were the cause of

the extensive edits to her training videos) did not support her video project. Apparently, they felt

she was displaying too much ego and not paying enough attention to her core concern, which

wa s sales and her sales team.

Kiera felt so tired. Why was Rudy not protecting her from some of this criticism? She felt

like she had been making her way alone ever since she had arrived in Dallas. She was working as

hard as she could, but she was getting l ittle support or guidance from her boss.

What Now?

At the hospital, Kiera’s mobile phone was ringing beside her on the gurney. It was Rudy.

“Kiera, are you all right?” He sounded genuinely concerned. After Kiera explained, he said,

“Take a few days of be fore coming back to the ofce. When you get back, we need to talk about

what happened.” Was Rudy going to fre her or give her a pep talk? She was too tired and

discouraged to care. “Maybe this isn’t the right job for me anyway,” she thought as she closed

he r eyes.

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Kiera met with Rudy after taking a few days of to recover from her kidney stone episode. He

started the meeting by asking questions. “Why did you tackle a corporate -wide project as soon as

you got to Da llas? What were you thinking, taking on a regional meeting before you even got to

your frst anniversary? What were you trying to prove?”

When Kiera responded, she expressed the frustrations she was feeling. She felt all the work

she was putting into the t raining videos was unappreciated. She thought she was being unfairly

criticized by corporate. She was upset that Rudy was not supporting her more. Why wasn’t he

even talking to her about sales, which seemed to be corporate’s main criticism? And what about

the Chili’s account? Was anyone paying attention to anything she was doing?

After Kiera fnished talking, Rudy felt exasperated that she did not seem to understand that

she needed to focus her energy on her team. Finally, he hit on the idea of Kiera hiring an outside

coach, proposing it as a way to help her get a new perspective on the situation. Although she felt

unsettled after what felt like an unproductive conversation, when Rudy ofered to cover half the

expense per company policy, Kiera agreed.

Workin g with a Coach

After some research, Kiera decided to work with Belinda Garcia, a former

telecommunications executive and International Coaching Federation –certifed coach. During

their frst meeting, Belinda described the coaching process, determined the lo gistics of the

coaching arrangement, and worked with Kiera to determine some general goals for coaching

around prioritization and how to best manage up. Next, Belinda asked Kiera to describe the

current situation. After listening to the whole story, from t he move to Dallas to the emergency

room in the Atlanta hospital, Belinda asked, “How do you feel about going back to work?”

Kiera took a deep breath. “Not good. I feel a knot in my stomach every time I think about

going back to the ofce. I get a little na useated when I think about those training videos. I don’t

understand how they became so controversial! And now that I’ve been out of the ofce, the work

is piling up. My last quarterly report was due weeks ago, and I’m still working on it.”

Belinda remarke d, “Let’s see if I have this right. You have a knot in your stomach and feel

nauseated — it seems that work is giving you a lot of stress.” “Yes,” Kiera replied with an

exasperated sigh.

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“I d on’t know. I just don’t know. I’m not sure I even want to stay in this job,” Kiera said.

“I’ve been trying so hard, but it seems like Rudy and corporate think I’m really screwing things

up — and I don’t even know what I did wrong!”

Belinda said quietly, “I ’m noticing a lot of emotion here.” Kiera could feel the tears coming.

Belinda asked, “Do you need a moment?”

K E L L O G G S C H O O L O F M A N A G E M E N T 5

Kiera took a deep breath. “No, that’s OK,” she said. “I didn’t realize how much this wa s

getting me down.”

Once Kiera collected herself, Belinda asked, “Do you really know what Rudy expects from

you, in terms of what success looks like and how it’s measured?”

Kiera thought for a moment. “Obviously, our sales numbers are the most important

measure,” she replied. “But after that, I guess I’m not sure what his expectations are — or if

anything else is even being measured!”

Kiera repeated her feelings about the training materials, the paperwork, and most of all, her

meetings with Rudy. He always seemed impatient or frustrated with her. “Why is that?” Kiera

asked. “Am I missing something?”

“I don’t know,” said Belinda. “It sounds like you have a lot of questions and need to get

some clarity.”

“I guess you’re right,” replied Kiera. “I need to go back and talk to Rudy.”