Tyler is the chief operations officer (COO) of Mining and Drilling Co., a company that manufactures equipment for the mining industry. With the CEO being heavily involved in strategy formulation, mergers and acquisitions, and company finances, Tyler is essentially in charge of running the company. With all the exploration for resources in recent years, the company is prospering.
Tyler sees a major part of his role at Mining and Drilling to be that of a leader who inspires, guides, and monitors the behavior of subordinates. At the moment, Tyler is facing what he considers to be a delicate issue. He wants to provide constructive feedback to one of his direct reports, Gus, the director of materials management. The feedback has to do with incidents he heard about Gus’s relationships with staff members. Although none of these incidents or reported incidents rumors deals with behavior that violates the code of conduct at Mining and Drilling, they suggest poor professionalism.
Sherry, an office manager, once told Tyler that Gus often stares at her in a lecherous manner. Sherry also said that Gus tends to stand about five inches from her when they have a conversation about work-related matters.
A few weeks ago, Tyler heard Garth, the IT manager, joke about how much advice and help Gus wants with his off-the-job communication technology pursuits, such as setting up a smart house and interconnecting the electronic devices in his home.
Last week Tyler asked Kaitlin, his administrative assistant, how she and her family planned to spend the weekend. Kaitlin said with a sarcastic expression on her face, “As usual, I will have to put a lot of time into deleting the dozens of text messages Gus sends me. I don’t do anything to encourage Gus, but he keeps bombarding me with silly messages. Last night he sent me five texts about cute things his dog did recently.”
Tyler was wondering how he should approach Gus about his behavior unbecoming to a company executive, yet still not in violation of company policy. “I should give Gus some feedback about these problems,” thought Tyler. “Yet I don’t want to damage my relationship with one of the key leaders at Mining and Drilling.”
Question
What opening line do you recommend for Tyler if he does hold a coaching session with Gus about the incidents reported in the case?