Oak Brook Medical Systems; Jaqueline Harris Communication Style May Be Costing Her a Promotion

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Oak Brook Medical Systems is facing an issue concerning the role of a valuable and experienced employee who is having trouble moving up in the company. Jaqueline Harris has been working for Oak Brook for 12 years. A year and a half ago, she became director of strategic planning for the Hospital Supply Division. During this time, Harris's strategic planning was widely credited for the development of a $40 million business. She has been highly successful in all her endeavors with the company and has a very impressive educational history, yet Harris keeps getting overlooked for promotion. Harris has been receiving some bad publicity from her coworkers and managers, yet she hardly knows anything about it being a problem. Harris believes her managers can see value in having her in a management position, but she is becoming very unhappy the longer she continues to get ignored. Harris has now begun to think that the reason that she has not been promoted is due to her being a woman and she is African American. The main problem here is a lack of communication throughout the organization.

I propose that management speaks to Harris about these pressing issues. Harris must be informed about the issues that are causing management's hesitation in promoting her to a higher position. These issues must be brought up in a straightforward and direct manner and this meeting should serve as an informative conference. Beyond this issue of communication, management must take a thorough look at themselves and their organization's culture to see what forms of overt racism may be influencing people's perceptions of Ms. Harris' capabilities. Many claim that they feel like they are being 'talked down' to when they meet with Ms. Harris, but her supervision is creating great results. She gets things done, albeit at the sake of other employee's pride and self-esteem. Perhaps there is an available upper-level position that would require minimal dealing with employees within the company which would better suit Harris's strengths.

I strongly suggest a look at currently available upper-level positions and consider Ms. Harris's attributes during the promotion process. If management cannot find any current position which would fit Ms. Harris' management style, she must be told why there is no room for her promotion at this time and how she can better prepare for a move into the upper tier of the company's ranks. Communication must be maintained at all costs and all concerns need to be addressed throughout this entire process. This must not be a race or gender issue but merely an issue of finding the right person for the job. I urge all those in management to look at themselves and their fellow managers and find any correlations between the company's current effective management styles and Harris's own. If one can see the value in someone like Harris being amongst the ranks of management, consider that option. If not, she must be told explicitly why she is not considered for promotion based on her communication style and not on any other insubstantial factors.

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