An In-Depth Analysis of Alex Sander's Daily Work Routine

Executives must deal with a lot of things throughout their work days. Along with having to make sure that their own job duties are properly completed, they must make sure that their employees and fellow executives are doing what they need to do as well to move the company forward. As a student, I feel some of this pressure because I am always working on a project or paper that needs to be turned in for review. When looking at the contents of this case study, I can tell that being in control of a growing an already large company is a challenging task for professionals who are said to have considerable amounts of potential and promise.

When looking at an executive like Alex Sander, the pressure of having so much potential can lead to leaders like him having a short temper and low level of patience with their subordinates. Sander feels that his anger is a useful management tool, but they may not always be the case. On page 2 of the case study, there is a moment where Sander is yelling at an employee and clearly embarrassing her before taking a project off her dashboard. On page 4 of the case study, Sander’s temper and lack of communication come back to haunt him, as his boss, Sam Glass, tells him that many of his comments contradict themselves and that he cannot achieve the things that he wants to without learning how to become an effective leader. Sander’s leadership skills are lacking because he feels that he always knows everything that he needs to achieve success in his career as an executive. As Sam Glass partly confirms, Sander must be doing something right, as his history of being paid as much or more than his older peers in management means that his talents do produce tangible results.

However, these financial rewards do not say that his peers view him as someone that should be in charge; and Glass strongly recommends that Sander review his feedback forms and prepares for another feedback meeting. This initial performance evaluation by Glass is interesting because it is in direct conflict with Sander’s personal view of himself. The basis of this case study is the personal reflection and growth that Sander performs as this day goes on. At the beginning of the case study, Sander says that the feedback from his 360-degree evaluation will be useless and not affect him in any way. However, before he even gets to his lunch break, he is already convinced by Glass to at least look at the feedback that has been given by his peers and senior managers. The growth seen so far in this case study is made resentfully, but it is still progress nonetheless, as Sander truly cannot grow such a large company like Landon Care Products on his own. Unfortunately, Sander does not seem to take Glass’ advice to heart honestly, as he immediately hosts a conference call and gives his international peers an extensive list of tasks that they cannot possibly be expected to complete along with their currently existing commitments. One of his peers brings up this exact point, and Sander fails to practice any empathy towards his fellow managers, saying that he has a “longer list of action items than anyone, and he will finish his early”.

By completely ignoring the pleas and feedback of his peers, Sander continues to display the traits that show why he is not ready to lead a historic amount of change at Landon. At this point, he simply cannot see how short-sighted and arrogant he is. The inability to see his arrogance is all but confirmed when he is performing his nightly workout and his neighbor asks him how his feedback interview went. Sander’s arrogance is almost increased after having a few hours to think about what Glass said to him as he is seriously considering opening his own small business so that he does not have to answer to any superiors and deal with any 360-degree feedback processes.

While reflecting on Sander’s performance with a colleague, Glass admits that he knew Sander’s personality and aggressive traits would have a significant effect on the culture and direction of Landon Care Products. Despite Sander’s abrasive nature, however, Glass does not feel like Sander’s negative traits outweigh the growth and success that the firm can achieve while he is a part of it. After saying this, his colleague is understandably worried and asks if Glass has any plan for addressing Sander’s temper and channeling his desires for corporate fame and success. When thinking of how to use Sander’s talents and desires to help the product group, Glass needs to communicate more often with the team members that will find themselves working with Sander on projects. Glass needs to do this because it is known that Sander’s attitude can wear on his peers within the company. This emotional wear and tear may lead to some members of the product group resigning from their positions due to the unreasonable expectations and demands that Sander places on his teammates. So, Glass needs to let other members of the product team know that he, and his office, can be a safe place for them to vent their frustrations to. Along with allowing peers of Sander to vent their frustrations, however, Glass also needs to use this feedback to create more accommodating scenarios that corral Sander’s attitude and aggressiveness while also keeping his drive and desire to succeed intact. Focusing on Sander’s individual development and growth will be a tough task for Glass accomplish. This task will not be hard from the standpoint of finding ways that Sander can improve; instead, the difficulty will come in getting Sander to agree that A) he needs to grow and B) the suggestions that Glass provides are the improvements that he needs to make to improve his standing at Landon Care Products. If Sander’s attitude towards the 360-degree feedback packet that was given to him by Glass is any indicator of how he feels about change and being made aware of his flaws, Glass has an almost impossible task ahead of him if he wants to change how Sander functions as an individual in the workplace. In his self-evaluations, Sander feels that he is a talented team leader and that his inability to “suffer fools” could be considered both a strength and a weakness depending on the context. The negative feedback that Sander receives on his 360-degree feedback forms, however, strongly disagrees with Sander’s views about himself. One commenter went as far to call Sander a narcissist and writes that Sander thinks everything is about him.

To compliment this sentiment, other commenters write that Sander cannot recognize that his team members cannot and do not want to work as long and as hard as he does. As some of his colleagues reported, his lack of understanding about how to have a proper work/life balance has led to him giving harsh critiques that stepped over the line of professional criticism in the past. But, the negative feedback on Sander’s 360-degree evaluation sheets tells both Glass and Sander information that they already know. This constant rehashing of already known data may be the reason why Sander thinks it is such a waste of time. The 360-degree feedback is a tool that relies on colleagues giving feedback to each other in a forced manner that may not achieve much more than centralizing workplace gossip. When one seriously thinks about it, there are not many benefits to knowing what your peers, managers, and competitors think about your performance and personality in and outside of the workplace. Knowing this, Glass should make two significant recommendations for the improvement of this feedback method.

Firstly, only superiors in the corporate hierarchy should make feedback on these forms. This is because the superiors of employees know what it takes to get their job, and the employee receiving the feedback’s, done correctly. Also, when dealing with arrogant employees like Sander, an opinion from a superior should carry much more weight than the opinion of a subordinate who he has reprimanded multiple times.

The second recommendation that Glass should make is to ensure that less than four comments that discuss the same topic or personality trait should be included on an employee’s feedback forms. While it is important that Sander recognizes how many people his temper negatively affects, the truth is that Sander knows and embraces that his anger rubs people the wrong way and gets things done. Hearing about it repeatedly on a feedback sheet is not going to change his way of doing things. Instead, different comments about his multiple flaws and deficiencies should be included. By commenting on things other than what an employee already knows, the 360-degree feedback method should be viewed as a more effective tool to catch mistakes and shortcomings.