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PCA – Political Frame

Megan Miller

Department of Integrative Sciences and Arts, Arizona State University

OGL 481: Pro-Seminar I

Dr. Hess

October 6, 2020
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Political Frame

I am the Leadership Development Specialist on the Leadership Development Training

Team at United Wholesale Mortgage Company where we are responsible for providing

leadership training to all levels of the company from team member up to C-suite leadership. In

March of this year our company, like many others, was faced with the harsh reality of COVID-

19. The 2020 pandemic continues to wreak havoc on much of the world and our training teams

have been faced with many difficult decisions regarding training protocols at work.

As a financial industry provider, we were considered an essential business and needed to

ensure compliance training and business continued as normally as possible. During this time, the

senior leadership team continued to meet and discuss issues associated with COVID-19, business

as a whole, and team members health and safety. However, there was a lack of communication

and transparency between the senior leadership team and the team members that unfortunately

led to a misguided press release in August. This release included COVID-19 positive test

numbers for our team members, however over half of the positive results were from team

members who had not stepped foot into the office since March. This lapse in communication

contributed to a culture of distrust and fear amongst many team members.

Political Influence

Although I like to think of my workplace as an institution free from organizational

politics, as we read, this is just not an attainable reality (pg. 184). When COVID-19 was declared

as a pandemic, we watched leaders across the globe respond in different ways. The political

sphere of the world was impacted, and the political sphere of Dreams Together Mortgage

Company was impacted as well. The power in our company truly arises from the top-down. Our

CEO is heavily involved in all decisions and ultimately has the final say. In addition to the CEO,
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the entire senior leadership team oversees every decision that gets made and at the end of the

day, together the entire senior leadership team has great power over the organization.

In the structural analysis we dove into the different levels of leadership throughout the

company. For the purpose of this analysis it is important to understand the structure of the

leadership team. In order of hierarchy we have team members (TMs), team leaders (TLs),

assistant vice presidents (AVPs), vice presidents (VPs), senior vice presidents (SVPs), and

executive vice presidents (EVPs). Looking through a political lens, it tends to appear that TMs

and TLs input is valued little, yet there is greater political drama within these levels. Executive

leadership is open to input from TMs and TLs, but these levels tend to feel that they are the last

to know about changes in policy and business decisions and feel the input they do provide is not

highly regarded.

However, AVP level leadership is stuck at an in between level and although hold higher

authority than TMs and TLs, they often times fill the role of the political robot executing the

decisions made by senior leadership. The power truly resides in those holding the VP title or

above and those in lower positions are executing the plays called by those in higher power.

My Recommendation

Looking at the COVID-19 scenario that occurred in March of this year, I would change

some of the decisions made after analyzing the scenario through organizational politics. One

thing that quickly happened was a small group of executive leaders got together and made all of

the decisions. This seemed to work for a few months, however, as it appeared all levels of

leadership would be returning to the office in June, a few issues began to arise. Lower levels of

leadership questioned the decision being made and asked for it to be supported by not just
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business decisions, but by the quality of life being impacted for many leaders and team members

without childcare, family jobs, etc.

I would suggest that instead of relying on the power to come from the top and slowly

filter all the way down when making decisions, to ask for the input of all levels of leadership

involved. When our senior leadership team failed to do this, we quickly saw a large level of

turnover amongst leaders in the company and as the leadership training team we were

immediately bogged down by the immediate need for promotions and trainings to fill these

empty seats.

Reflection

I would encourage the senior leadership team to have made a more immediate effort to

reach out to the various coalitions throughout the organization to see how the collection of

individual team members and team leaders were holding up. Take it a step further and reach out

directly to the coalition of team members and ask for their status at home; did anyone in the

household lose a job, childcare, education availability, health and wellness, etc. Again, repeat the

process at the team leader and even AVP level. Reaching out to TMs and the two levels of

leadership who work directly with them, makes up the vast majority of our workplace

population.

Asking for the collective input of the various coalitions could have led to a more diverse

viewpoint and understanding when making the decision to bring back leaders into the office.

Senior leaders at the top of the company typically have greater ability to accommodate external

forces based on salary, experience and overall status than those at TM level or entry level

leadership. Gaining greater insights for the leaders at the top could have led to less turnover and

an increase in trust rather than creating a chasm of mistrust.

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Reference:

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing  organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership

(6th ed.).San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass