THE STORY OF JIM Jim is sitting in his officedazed. How did it happen? What went wrong? He had worked so hard. Everyone knew it too He had cleaned up all the messy details

Please read the case in Chapter 1 (I copied and pasted it here in case some of you haven't got your textbook yet.

SCENARIO: THE STORY OF JIM

Jim is sitting in his office—dazed. How did it happen? What went wrong? He had worked so hard. Everyone knew it too He had cleaned up all the messy details that his predecessor was so poor at. And Jim knew his integrity was by far the highest in the department. Jim had been in his academic profession for over twenty-five years. For ten years, he had badly wanted to be promoted to his current job. He had known that he could do it better than the series of recent incumbents, who had all failed in their turns. Finally, he did get his turn. And now, somehow, despite long, arduous hours that he was spending at the job, he was perceived to be failing, too, after just one year.

Jim had in front of him a stack of the annual evaluations of his work from members of his department. It was not difficult to tell who had written most of them. The only two consistently good evaluations were from colleagues who were not the most productive members of the department. In fact, one was from a colleague whom Jim had taken pity on and had insulated from the bulk of the job that he was not very good at. Another favorable evaluation was from a senior colleague, Dick, who was rather overpaid, a potboiler, and a bully. In the past, Jim had had many disagreements with Dick, but this last year, he had come to rely on him more and more while struggling with the department's problems. Some of the evaluations were polite and accented Jim's earnest, hardworking qualities. His numerous harsher critics suggested that even his virtues were of dubious value and that they perceived his handling of details as not-too-subtle authoritarianism. Jim made sure that everything of consequence in the department needed his approval. Some of this criticism, Jim knew, was due to his firm handling of several employees in the department who were relatively productive but had completely unrealistic notions of their self-worth. Just because most of the senior members of the department had gotten contractual “deals” and pay that was beyond their true market value, Jim was not going to compound the problem by giving in to those of medium tenure. Even the new crop of young employees, who were acknowledged to be exceptional, generally treated Jim politely but viewed him with considerable suspicion. Jim had high expectations of junior faculty and was careful not to spoil them with praise until they had done their time. Yet clearly Jim was not viewed as the savior he had hoped to be. Instead, half of the department accused him of outright manipulation and “dealing,” although he felt his democratic process was exceptional. Two-thirds of the department suggested in one way or another that “change” in his administration was quite awkward and painful at best, and going in the wrong direction at worst. And everyone who commented on his vision for the department either felt that it was petty and geared toward the status quo or claimed that he simply lacked vision altogether.

As Jim sat at his desk with the evaluations in front of him, he wondered what he should do.

Questions and Exercises

    What clues do we have that Jim underestimated the job?

    What clues do we have that Jim was oblivious to his own leadership biases? What might some of those weaknesses have been?

    What might Jim have done to better prepare for the job of being chair?

    How might Jim have gotten some feedback earlier?

    What should Jim do now that he has received the feedback?