Leader Member Exchange Theory

Case Summary:

Mr Mark Davis, a young MBA(1999 pass out from Richard Ivey School Of Business) is currently the group product manager of the CFL (Caribbean Foods Limited, Trinidad-a subsidiary of Intasco, USA which is one of the largest food and beverage companies in the world).He has been working only for less than a year in CFL prior to which he was working as a product Manager in DWI (Dovan West Indies Limited, a subsidiary of Dovan International, a Swiss company, one of the largest consumer products company in the world) which he left in only one year .Mark is feeling quite frustrated in his position just within six weeks into the new role. All his initiatives and suggestions are being turned down by his new boss and he is not able to meet his boss's expectations in spite of trying too hard. He is beginning to consider his alternatives like working things out with the new boss, changing his own self and even resigning from the job. He is also concerned about his wife and his family's future.

The Situation:

Mr Mark has been employed on 10th July 2000 by CFL as a marketing manager but later he was being told on the day of joining that he was being currently recruited as a group product manager and one or two years later he would be made the marketing manager of the company.

As of today i.e. on August 21, 2000 Mark is quite disgusted partly at his boss and partly at himself for not being able to perform and is having the feeling that he has lost his credibility in his boss John's eyes. After being discouraged and put down after quite a few times he is feeling that he will not be able to continue .The quality of relationship which he shared with his boss in previous organization was many fold better than the quality of relationship which he shares with his current boss. New Boss, John who is much more experienced than Mark and who was the youngest General Manager ever in CFL till date was quite disgruntled with the poor show put up by Mark. Let us look at the past events which led the deterioration of this relationship and also what wrong decisions were taken by Mark at different points in time. We shall also look at the course of events where the fault was not completely due to Mark's decisions.

Analysis:

Analysing the events in chronological order, we have:

1) Mark's decision to switch the industry/sector: Mark was lured by the offer given by an HR consultant who promised him a higher position and a higher salary. In spite of being satisfied in his current job and with the good quality relationship that he shared with his boss, he blind folded decided to switch to food and beverage industry from detergents and personal care products. He gave more weightage to monetary considerations than other things like profile,