Thursday, December 20, 2007

Dilbert Leadership


An article in today's Toledo Blade talked about a worker who had posted a "Dilbert" cartoon on the company's bulletin board. Apparently, the management team did not think it was very funny as they felt the worker was poking fun at them so they sued him. However, the judge found in favor of the worker.

I can see management's point. I agree that employees need to show respect and submit to the authority of their supervisor.

However, I believe that management (the leadership) needs to lead in such so as to not provide employees an opportunity to find a cartoon that shows their leadership style. Management needs to earn the respect of their employees.

In the case pointed out in this article, my bet is that the cartoon was probably a pretty close depiction of how these employees were being led. Rather than sue an employee for posting a cartoon, the management team should have looked inwardly and used this as a wake-up call to see how they were leading and what they needed to change.

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