Case #4: Toby Johnson (A): Leading After School

Introduction:
This case study demonstrates a young woman leader, Toby Johnson, who used to serve in the military as a pilot and attended Harvard Business School, joined PepsiCo’s Leadership Development Program (LDP), and was working in the management team at the Williamsport plant. She determined to forge ahead, and led the plant to achieve the Level 3 CI and also won the Doolin Award, which the Williamsport plant had never achieved before. The problem that Johnson encounters currently is that if the plant should continue to forge ahead and achieve the ultimate Level 4 CI, which will cost huge amount of money and efforts with the risk of her sudden leave of plant.

1. What are Toby Johnson's strengths and weaknesses as a change agent?
Johnson’s strengths are that she has the experience of military and attended HBS, where both her leader personality and business insight were enabled. She is a “go-getter” and can “instill confidence into the people around her”, according to her colleagues and subordinates. She is also communicative, because she initiated “one-to-one” conversation with every employee, and arranged plant-wide “state of the site” meetings from quarterly to monthly. In addition, Johnson is an insightful person because she mentioned multiple times that she would not sacrifice long term interest for short term growth.
Johnson’s weaknesses are that she sometime moves too fast that her colleagues cannot catch her up, and sometimes pushes too hard and little impatient. She also “piled too much on her own plate”, which indicate Johnson put a lot of attention on insignificant issues, causing lack of involvement on other important activates. Additionally, she is still young and lack of experiences of working, which might affe...

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...hnson is that she used to put on too much efforts and responsibility on micro-managing the plant, causing all the plant cannot survive without her leadership. As a leader, Johnson should learn how to macro-manage the plant and try to initiate before she left. Then the company could survive and achieve the Level 4 when she leaves.

Conclusion:
In conclusion, after my comprehensive consideration, I believe that Johnson should go with the Team 4ward, however, she needs to change her management strategy: macro-mange the company and initiate a comprehensive plan (with and without Johnson) and a blueprint of the Williamsport plant’s future. Then motivate and persuade employees and management team, and empower them to approach the Level 4 CI goal. By taking these steps, Williamsport plant has a high possibility to achieve Level 4, with or without the existence of Johnson.