Kate Cooper Case Essay

Green Meadows Hospital is newly constructed community hospital owned by Southern Hospitals Corporation. Kate Cooper was very excited when she got a new position at Green Meadows as a Manager of Adult Services. They started hiring people and were getting ready to open the hospital. However, things did not go well as they planned and wanted to. Therefore, Kate had to resign. The biggest problem that I see in this was their unorganized management skills and communications skills. They should have more prepared since they were new hospital and related to people’s lives but from the beginning, it seemed like they did not think that it was a big of deal and just went it the flow. Communications at Green Meadows Hospital is more likely one way communication. It started out with 2 way communication model somehow, but it ended up having just one way communication model. At first, Alan seemed like he understood Kate’s situation and encouraged her with her getting higher education and seemed like he was going to be a strong supporter. However, it didn’t really work out. It was always him giving her too much work when even she told him that she does not think that she can handle all the responsibilities and works due to her duties and school. Also, There were never really clear communication or/and understanding among Doug, Alan, and Kate. 2 way communication model would have fixed their problems. Even though one way communication is a lot easier and faster, using 2 way communication is more accurate, can make fewer mistakes, and will have fewer problems. They could have asked questions to each other, talk about concerns, and even make suggestions or modifications if they needed to. That would have helped them to understand each other, information that they should know about, and what is being communicated. This could have help them to share information effectively and the team could have performed better. I would have to say that Doug and Alan both have the SIL style of between S1 and S2. They both are somewhat directing and coaching at the same time. They seem like they are listening to their followers but the result shows us that they didn’t really. At first he seemed like he was very encouraging and supporting his followers and he turned out to be very selfish and self-centered leader. To be a S3 or S4 leaders, they need to listen to their followers more since they are working with their patients directly and might know better than them. However, decisions were never made with the followers, instead the leaders made most of the decisions and just announced it. On the other hand, Kate is in the level of D2. She has had some experiences as a charge nurse and a house supervisor. Kate has some relevant skills with the new position but since she was new to this position and to the hospital, she needed some help from her leaders. I would say Peter is in the level of D4. He just knew what he was doing and seemed like very confidence of what he was doing but like Alan, he was very selfish, seemed like he always thought about himself first instead thinking about the team as a whole. To help Kate and Peter, they could change their leaderships to S3. I think S4 would be too much for everyone with this situation, but having 2 way communication, when making decisions followers can be involved, but still the leaders can make the final decisions. Instead of Doug and Alan telling Kate and Peter what to do, they all can be involved and talk about what is going on at the hospital and talk about it to make it better or make a better decisions. Kate and Peter will more feel like they are important and will be more motivated and perform better. First theory is expectancy theory. If people put their effort into something and they perform to get the result. Between putting effort and performing they think that their effort will make them to attain their goals. Also between their performance and outcome, they expect specific result. Maslow’s Need Hierarchy is the next theory. People have to have the low level of needs to have higher needs. Also once a need is satisfied, it is not a powerful motivator anymore. Third is Alderfer’s ERG Theory. This theory is somewhat similar to Maslow’s theory but slightly different. It has three sets of needs: existence, relatedness, and growth. Unlike Maslow’s law ERG theory states that several different needs can be done at once and at the same time because they are all connected. This can either motivate or demotivate people. They should use ERG theory to prevent managers like Kate from resigning. Environment like hospitals should have existence needs, relatedness needs, and growth needs at the same time. They do not have time to wait for one thing to get done and go onto another. At the hospital they work with people. They should respect each other, not just respect the leaders but also leaders should respect the followers. And also they should have relationship that includes all the employees and share their thoughts, discuss problems together, and try to find the solutions together. And people need some kind of motivations to work better with other people, be productive, or perform better. These can happen all at once. However, Kate did not get any respect from her co-worker or her leaders and also did not have any motivations. Alan just kept pushing her to the edge. He did not even ask her opinion and told her what to do. Again, there was no communication between them and that was the main problem tha t they had. a. Absence of Trust – At first, they trust each other, but as time goes by, they didn’t really talk about the problems. They didn’t even try to help each other out. They didn’t talk about when Alan behaved unprofessionally and inappropriately. No body was really getting along well. b. Fear of Conflicts – They should have worked as a team but seems like to me they were just working as an individual. They didn’t respect each other, didn’t care about each other, and ignore some issues that they were having. They didn’t really try to fix problems but just covered up when they should have talked about Alan’s behavior or Peter taking Kate’s orientation dates. c. Lack of Commitment – Since they don’t trust each other, don’t respect each other, it led them to have lack of commitment. No body really knew what they were really doing. Everyone was on their owns. There were no priorities, no directions, and had same problems over and over again: Kate having too much responsibilities and work). d. Avoidance of Accountability – Alan always gave Kate way too much work that she cannot even handle them. Alan and Dough were supposed to be communicating each other and lead them team but even they did not really communicate well and resulted in Alan overstepping Doug’s positions. e. Inattention to results – Because of all of the above, it got to the point where Kate was told that she had to quit school. This clearly shows how Alan’s leadership style and ethics were very wrong. I would say, right now they are in the Storming stage. It is the stage when hostilities and conflicts arise, and people jockey for positions of power and status. They can’t go on to the next stage that is Norming stage if they can’t solve the problems. Peter and Alan being selfish and having a self-centered leadership, having no communication among the team members, giving too much work and all the responsibilities to one manager, leader’s unprofessional/inappropriate behavior should be all solved for them to continue to the Norming stage. At Norming stage, the team members share their ideas, thought, goals, and develop closer relationship, which will lead them to perform better, and success as a whole. For Green Meadows Hospital, the most needed solution is communication. Communication is always important in any kind of situation. If they start communicating as a team, having regular meetings that will build their trust. Trust is also important factor but with out communication, it can’t be built. The leaders should have a heart for the company, should be able to motivate their followers, and should have right ethics. Leaders should not have any deception, fear, pride, or greed. Alan showed a lot of greed and deception in this case (telling Kate to quit school, unprofessional behaviors, not following his leader†¦etc). Of course it is important to have great leadership skills but without a heart, they will have no followers. To have faithful, committed followers, then leaders should do it first.