Leader/Follower Relationships
Leader/Follower Relationships
June 24th, 2018
The Dover Group has many interesting dynamics going on throughout it and I believe it is because it is broken up into so many different restaurants, venues and so on. There really is a hierarchy of managers and general managers as well as other Dover employees. Of course the person on the highest level is the owner of the entire group and given that he is the only owner, he has the most power out of anyone. The other people close to his level are members of his immediate family. Everyone knows his wife and son who are both very friendly and help him oversee all of his locations. It almost feels like a business monarchy because of the family dynamic and the young son that could potentially take over in a few years.
After the “royal family” there’s the office employees. The head of employment is a young woman named Brittany who is the owner’s right-hand-woman. She is in charge of hiring, firing, wages, etc., pretty much anything that has to do with jobs and careers in Dover. It’s interesting because the part-time summer employees who work as either waitresses, hostesses, beach workers and so on are all kind of intimidated by Brittany and people who work in the main office. I think this is mainly because they are close with the owner and everyone is afraid of him since he is very wealthy and powerful on Long Island. However, they are all very nice when they do stop by the locations and talk to people. I think as an intern it’s been very fascinating watching these dynamics because you really get a better sense of what goes on behind the scenes of businesses.
One step lower on the power scale is the general managers and then regular managers of each of the locations. The general manager that I have been placed to work with is known as being the toughest and hardest working general manager. He is not afraid to fire people if they are not doing their job and he definitely intimidating to those who do not know him. Luckily, I have become close with him since I worked as a waitress for the past three summers and he has become a great mentor for me. I honestly had not been too interested in business before working here and now through his advice and guidance I am actually taking a second look into the business field. Originally I wanted to do something with education but I think that I do have a good personality and work ethic for business. I’m really glad I decided to intern here because when I waitressed for this company before I do not think I got nearly as good a view on business as I do now. Waitressing was just a summer job to help me get spending money for college and I did not really care about the restaurant or the overall Dover Group. But as an intern, I have become a lot closer with many of the managers and developed interest into how things run and how they handle so many employees in all different areas. I really like evaluating the power dynamic between the leaders and followers in this environment. It really shows how much influence the managers have on their workers especially the younger ones who are still in school and need good mentors to help them understand what amazing skills they have and what they can potentially do with them in the workplace.
First, though it is evident from the title of this reflection that it is ‘leader/follower relationships,’ please categorize each reflection; when you don’t select a category, it doesn’t populate correctly in the blog and I have to go looking for it. Now to your reflection… So there is a rather obvious hierarchy within Dover, which as you indicated may also be necessary given the multiple locations, etc. I encourage you to consider some of the other elements in the prompt as you continue. Seems Brittany and others at her level work fairly autonomously; how about other staff (e.g. those below the office staff)? Have you witnessed individuals who are not members of the family or office staff demonstrate informal leadership? How would you assess trust levels? It seems that among the family members and office staff – and perhaps location managers – there is trust; seems it may be missing among the short-term and long-term staff though? Again, this was submitted on 7/11 but dated (in the reflection) as 6/24).