Reference no: EM132839531

The case of an Abusive Supervisor?

This challenge involves the behavior of Kofi Amponsah, the supervisor of a Municipal Tax Collection Office in the Greater Accra Region. He has worked through the ranks for more than 20 years to get to his current position. Efua Mensah also worked in the same Municipality for more than 20 years but got transferred to the Tax Collection division recently as an Administrative Assistant. Efua filed a lawsuit claiming that her boss (Kofi) and the office allowed a hostile work environment to exist. She had worked at the office for about three years at the time of the suit. The hostility allegedly began on Efua's first day at work in that office. Upon arriving, Kofi showed her the "Wall of Shame," Placed conspicuously in the main office, it contained a funeral urn with the "ashes of problem employees." Efua noted that it resembled "the way Adolf Hitler treated the disabled and the Jews during the Holocaust," with "various nameplates of the employees who were 'exterminated'" or fired by Kofi. The lawsuit alleges that Kofi stated "that all personnel of his office should be 'perfect humans,' as he believed he was." Media reports about the situation allege that "Kofi threw papers at Efua and called her a 'waste of a human being,' and referred to her as a 'mess up' who should just 'quit her job.'" Efua ultimately experienced stress and anxiety and took sick leave for medical and psychiatric treatment. When she returned to work, Efua alleges that Kofi relocated her desk so that she had to look at the Wall of Shame, which now contained her name along with the others.

Adapted from Kinicki & Fugate (2018)

In addressing the challenge presented in the case, what would you do if you were the manager responsible for the entire office.