Reference no: EM132250106

You are at a meeting chaired by your department head. Also present are another department head and four other supervisors. The subject of the meeting is the manner in which the hospital’s supervisors are to conduct themselves during the present union-organizing campaign. Your department head makes a statement concerning one way in which supervisors should behave. You are surprised to hear this because earlier that same day you read a legal opinion that described this particular action as probably illegal. You interrupt with, “Pardon me, but I don’t believe it can really be done that way. I’m certain it would leave us open to an unfair labor practice charge.” Obviously annoyed by the interruption, your department head responds sharply, “This isn’t open to discussion. You’re wrong.” You open your mouth to speak again, but you are cut short by an angry glance. You are certain that the boss is wrong; he had inadvertently turned around a pair of words and described a “cannot-do” as a “can-do.” Unfortunately, you are in a conference room full of people and the document that could prove your point is in your office.

1. Recognizing that you are but an attendee at the meeting and that your immediate superior is running the meeting, what should you—or what can you—do to ensure that the other participants do not act on critically incorrect information immediately after the meeting?

2. What fundamental requirements of effective meeting leadership appear to have been ignored in this meeting?