Organization Drama

One organization I am involved with has many leaders who are looked upon greatly and interact with its members on a regular basis. Recently we hired several new members, most of which who are freshmen that several others and I have interacted with outside of the organization due to our roles as First Year Mentors and Resident Assistants. Because of these roles, we have to be aware that people are looking at us constantly for leadership and role modeling.

            Over the last few weeks we have had multiple trainings and social bonding time in order to build our team and get to know each other casually. So our final bonding event was a trip to Kennywood’s Fright Night, something I could not attend because I had prior obligations. This was originally intended to be a fun night for everyone to celebrate that training was over, what had happened instead was everything but fun.

            Sometime in the evening, one of my close friends who also is a leader on the team, texted me expressing concern for something that was happening. She said that other leaders were making rude comments about myself in front of multiple members, including new ones, in the organization. I tried to laugh it off and told her I appreciated that she let me know, but she should ignore them and enjoy her time. She stopped responding, so I thought that meant things were better.

            After a few hours, the same friend texted me again saying a big blow up occurred because the leader that was making comments about me, threatened my friend by saying she would “ruin her life” for telling me what had been happening. Of course it included a lot of drama that I did not want to deal with and that I did not want her to have to deal with, so I told her everything would be sorted out and she does not need to worry about people who are rude.

            The next morning I had multiple messages from my friend, but also from one of my closest friends who is a member of the team, not in a leadership role. She had expressed her frustration of what was happening that night, but not because of the drama. Being that she is an FYM, one of her students came up to her and explained how she had heard about all the issues that had arose. The student said the leader who was making the offensive remarks and arguing with other leaders was talking about my leader friend as well as myself in front of her and other new members. She claimed that this had been a big let down for her because she was looking forward to joining an organization where she could build some relationship, but now she sees that everyone really hates each other and its not worth being a part of.

            Eventually this was brought back into the office and told to the advisor who attempted to address the situation. Whenever it was brought up to the leader making the disrespectful comments, she claimed that everything had been worked out and there was nothing to worry about. You may have guessed, this issue is still unresolved.

            The reason I believe this conflict is so important is because of how it has affected the entire organization and our work. In my opinion, outside of the situation because I was not present, I believe the remarks were first brought up to instill a sense of power. By her trying to belittle me in that situation, she made herself look better which is an immediate power entitlement in her eyes.

            Afterwards, this had a major affect on the organization in multiple ways. The first is it brought this idea of leaders and members being disrespectful to each other seem like a norm. When people immediately saw this, there were multiple remarks and questions of whether or not they still wanted to be in the organization. It also set a standard for three leaders: the one making the remarks set this idea that she talks about everyone that she works with, the leader/friend who messaged me set this standard that she does not get along with other leadership in the organization, and the standard set for myself is whatever comments were made about my character. Because of this, all three of us now have to work against these judgements of our character.

            You may also see a lot of saving of face in this situation. For instance, the leader who made the remarks obviously lied to the advisor stating that she everything was solved already and she was okay with everyone else. I have been going into the office and making an effort to connect with everyone so they get to know who I am as a person. I have also been doing it during my FYM time too, so a false impressions of me do not spread throughout the first year class. I also feel like some of us have been tasked with saving face for the organization so people will not want to quit and so there is not a stigma of disrespect and rumor spreading for the group.

            In the future, leaders have to know that what they say has a major effect on everything around them. Teams, colleagues, and what they represent will be decided upon with what they say and what their attitude is. This situation has dug us into a hole for the year which we will be continuously trying to dig ourselves out of.