Who’s in Charge?

Helen is the administrative secretary for Mary Tranthem, the CEO of Lightmade. Helen has been with Lightmade for 35 years and through the tenure of three CEA’s. Helen has seen the firm go through tough times and good times. During the last three years things have gone well under Mary Tranthem’s leadership and she and Mary had developed a very good working relationship. Mary had given Helen more and more responsibilities. Helen did all of Mary’s scheduling of appointments and Helen screened out what she considered to be nuisance appointments. Those were appointments which Helen believed would be a waste of Mary’s time. Mary has during the last few months begun to confide in Helen. She will let Mary know about new projects and ask her opinion about the likely success of the project. Helen is never at a loss for words or an opinion and Mary pays close attention to her advice. After all she has been with the company for 35 years! Last week Helen came to Mary to tell her that Marty, one of the regional managers, had been requesting an appointment to discuss a new flexible employee benefit plan he had seen another firm using. Helen told Mary she felt like the plan would not work and that talking to Marty was a waste of Mary’s time. Mary told Helen “I trust your judgement completely. Tell him I don’t have time to visit with him. Have him refer the idea to his human resource manager. They can decide if it merits my attention.”

a. What are the sources of Helen’s power?

b. Do you think this is an unusual situation?

c. What are the problems and benefits of Mary having such as close relationship with Helen?

d. How can you hold others accountable to ensure tasks are completed?