Read the following case and respond to the questions.

You work on a team with a number of talented individuals from different departments in your organization. You are the team leader, and director of your department. You have a couple people on the team that you really appreciate because they do such a good job handling the issues that arise in their area, but you have noticed that one of those employees, Lindsey Tomas, has been having issues lately. While she still gets the job done, she does not have the same passion and drive that she did, nor the dedication to quality, or the willingness to speak up and offer new ideas. Instead she does what tasks she is given, offers little input, and just comes in with a dazed look on her face. After a month you confront her on what is going on with her.

Lindsey tells you that her boss has given her a number (think 5 or 6) of high profile and important tasks that she is to lead in her department in addition to the team on which you and she currently serve and her normal workload. From what she has told you, her workload exceeds that of what you give your assistant director, who regularly puts in 60 hour weeks. She also confesses that she is having issues with keeping up with her house and kids, as she regularly takes work home to get tasks done and has to forgo time with the kids or sleep (often both). You ask if her if her director has given her a pay raise or anything to help with the extra work she is doing. Lindsey says no as her boss said that his boss says the department does not have the budget to give any incentives like that and there are no current openings for her to be promoted into. Her boss has promised that when the next position opens up in a couple years he will advance her to an assistant director.

Lindsey confides in you that she is trying her best, but she is becoming apathetic from all that she has to do. Her tasks have to get done, but they don’t have to all be done to the utmost standard and so she is not putting the same effort into her tasks as she would have months ago.

You feel like the organization is suffering from the loss of Lindsey’s extra contributions and overall high level of performance. At the next quarterly meeting you speak with Lindsey’s director about her and why he has tasked her with so many projects. He responds that she is an excellent worker that he can trust to get the job done, and as he does not currently have many of those employees in his department he feels it is better to give such important tasks to those that will do the best job. Further, he thinks she has the potential to advance to an assistant director or beyond, and sees this as good training for her.

Questions

What can you say about the relationship between Lindsey and her director? Do you think he is a good manager/leader?
What is happening to Lindsey’s attitude? Using the various theoretical constructs we have read, explain what Lindsey is feeling, how that is currently contributing to her performance, and to what outcomes it could possibly lead to overtime. Justify your explanation.
Now imagine that you were Lindsey’s boss and someone just came up and explained to you how your actions are affecting Lindsey and what they might lead to in the future. What do you do to fix the situation?

Sample Solution