Professor Kern

The Superintendent’s Directive

Study Group

The Superintendent’s Directive

By:

Leadership in Organizations

BMGT 365- 7980

Instructor: Dr. Alex Yousefi

10/06/13

1. Evaluate the email communications of Mr. Porter and Mr. Weigand. To what extent are the communicating effectively about the new performance objectives? Explain. If you were a teacher, how would you have felt after receiving the e-mail? Why?

Email communication in the workplace can be very misleading at times. Since the message is not delivered in person, the receiver of the message sometimes cannot get a true feeling of the correct interpretation of the message. This can cause tension in the workplace, especially when a message is interpreted wrongly. There are many other problems that are involved with email communication that are derived primarily from the person’s communication tendencies.
Effective communication is an essential element of leadership. The main purpose of a leader is to inspire and unite people around a common sense of purpose and identity. When communicating with employees, it is important for leaders to keep in mind the vision and key strategic objectives. For these reasons, neither Porter nor Weigand represent effective leadership through their email communication. Porter’s email to Mr. Weigand simply states to have the teachers at Earsworth Elementary School develop performance objectives and gave a deadline. However, Porter does not communicate any reasons for the request, how the request ties into the vision, and what this request will do in completing strategic objectives. Furthermore, leadership techniques of Porter trickle down to Weigand in his email to the faculty. Rather than forwarding Porter’s email and, in addition, providing effective reasons on why developing performance objectives is necessary, he simply forwards the email and reiterated the deadline. I would have a similar response as the respected teacher had. The teachers deserve a better terms of communication than Porter and Weigand use. This email makes teachers feel as if they are completing empty exercises rather than contributing to the overall mission of the school.

2. If you were Mr. Weigand, how would you respond to the angry teacher? Be specific about how you would communicate with her and what you would say. How could he have communicated differently about the performance objectives to influence the teachers more positively?

Mr. Weigand, could have called the angry teacher personally and try to explain to her into details why the performance objectives structure was required. I understand that Mr. Porter did not include the details of why he was requesting the teachers to prepare this document and this would have made them feel more over burdened not knowing the positive side of carrying out this exercise. I would not respond to the teacher through the email about the same issue again but it would be wise to have a meeting and invite all other affected teachers to explain the whole issue and seek their views about it.

Mr. Porter’s communication was not effective since he left out some important information as he was sending the email to Mr. Weigand to be sent to the teachers. Mr. Weigand repeated the same mistake without questioning Porter why this performance objective was important. As a leader, Mr. Weigand should have asked for more information regarding the performance objective from porter and after he understood why this was important he would then sent a detailed email to the teachers. He should have explained the positive influence of the performance objective and also how it could translate to the classrooms. Also, he would send the email to all related employees, especially the teachers. He should have explained that it may take time and add to the teachers “to do” list but that it would provide more focus for classroom progress. This should also have been left open for any questions, comments and discussion without ruling out.

3. Identify the mistakes that the teacher made when composing and sending her e-mail message.

The teacher did not use the “think twice and read twice before she hit the send button” ritual. Using this forum to express her discontent was not the appropriate method.

 

It is quite clear that she is upset and unfortunately her emotions are clouding her judgment.  The teacher has sent out an electronic document in which she insults Superintendent and has basically resigned from the position by way of her statement, “I am going to start looking for a school district that values my time!”  This type of e-mail does none of the recipients any good.  It merely escalates the issue.  In fact, it has the potential to invite others to express their thoughts in the same manner.  This teacher should have requested an in-person meeting with her supervisor to express her concerns. She also could have chosen to allow herself a 24 hour cooling period before replying to the e-mail in an effort to provide a more objective point of view.

 

Works Cited
Daft. (2011). The Leadership Experience. Mason: Cengage Learning.
Patterson, K., Grenny, J., Maxfield, D., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A. Influencer:The Power to Change Anything. McGraw-Hill.