MMLTE - Helen's story

Many issues came out of Helen's story.

Ensuring the correct person is chosen for the role. It seemed that Helen was too inexperienced and underqualified for the role she was given. Also much of her team resented her appointment. This is not condusive to a cohessive team. When Helen tried to gather information and advice her team gave poor or self serving advice.

Ensuring adequate information is handed over/obtained. The orgainsation Helen was working for lacked structure, direction and a strategy. Without this and evidence of performace she was left without information to base desisons on or a goal to work towards. She couldn't reflect on the effectiveness of previous decissions because there was no recording or reporting. This was not an example of a Learning Organisation. Therefore any sucess or failure would be more good luck than good management and no positive change can be actioned. No learning can be assimilated into the organisation's mode of action. Examples of information and evidence is shown above in the activity we did in class (see above)

An organisation will struggle to florish with poor leadership. Whatever the motivation for Helen's appointment- (short shirt and eye candy versus potential for professional development for a promising young employee versus spiteful insult to older staff), she was always going to struggle if her superior wasn't going to give her the support she needed to succeed. How are employees 'hearts and minds' going to be without supportive leadership and a common purpose?

Support Helen would have benefited greatly from a mentor but if the organisation doesn't have systems in place to gather evidance and learn from that information then her success and that of the organisation will still be limited. It may not be so suprising that her predesessor had a nervous breakdown.