Least Preferred Coworker and Company Environment

Through my first three weeks working at Altria, I have noticed that almost everyone I interact with is not only nice, but tends to have only nice things to say about their coworkers. I have witnessed very little gossip, drama, or tense situations between coworkers. It would seem, then, that leaders in the company tend to rate highly for the Least Preferred Coworker theory. My manager, for example, often prioritizes the relationship she has with her coworkers over the work that she doing. The leader-follower relationships between coworkers are clearly a priority and  It would not surprise me if my manager rated most coworkers highly.

There are clear benefits to this type of work environment. With such positive relationships between coworkers, the environment in the Altria office is very relaxed. While employees work hard to do their best work, there is little threat of punishment (or reward) and every mistake is looked at as a learning opportunity. The promotional products for Benson and Hedges cigarettes, for example, are largely viewed as being ineffective and costly over the past few years. This “failure” did not result in the team that worked on it being punished, but instead was used as a way to teach the new interns about what went wrong and how to prevent that in the future. The team that worked on it is still on very good terms with their manager and was given even more responsibility after the fact. This environment of trust gives people the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and benefit the company even more going forward.

While rating highly on the Least Preferred Coworker has its benefits, there are also drawbacks. With such close and friendly relationships between leaders and followers, I have noticed that there is a wide application of trust. While this seems to be beneficial for Altria by letting employees do the work that they think is best, it is not out of the realm of possibilities that more mistakes can be made in the future without more active and transactional oversight. It is hard to quantify the success of a team or individual without being able to compare to other environments or leader-follower relationships, and because Altria has had a similar work environment for a while, it begs the question that perhaps a different leadership style (i.e. more transactional vs. transformational) could be more beneficial.

From a more personal experience, though, I see leaders having a high Least Preferred Coworker leading to better company success. Even as an intern, I feel more confident in my ability to complete my work without having to worry about poor results. After all, it is a learning experience for me and for the company, and if my manager believes that I will do good work (which is why the interns were hired in the first place), then mistakes that I make will not harm the way I am viewed and instead will be looked upon as something to learn from.