Best response: E
Core competency: encouraging employees’ development
Secondary competencies: effective communication, supervising and monitoring performance, responsibility for subordinates
In this question, you are facing a conflict between the need to maintain the chain of command and your responsibility for your subordinates. In this case, your subordinates are the supervisor and his employees.
In response A you turn down the employees and choose to maintain the chain of command. In this particular situation, this response is not preferred as the employees tell you that they have tried to talk to their supervisor. Indeed, you can ask them to try again to discuss the situation with the supervisor before turning to you, but this is not what the answer choice says – in this response, you simply send them back without any solution.
Response B gives too much power to the team. While you may decide to hear their complaints, they shouldn’t be in the same position as you are. Discussing ways for the supervisor to improve with the team without giving the supervisor a chance to be heard is leaving him out of the loop, and ignoring the chain of command.
Sending the supervisor to a course (response C) is not direct enough. Being sent to a course doesn’t send out a clear message that there is a problem, and even if the supervisor does understand that there is a problem, he won’t know what exactly it is. The supervisor is not informed that there is a problem and is unlikely to correct it (two competencies are lacking here: supervising performance and effective communication).
Response D is direct and open. This could have been a great response, but there are two things missing: asking the supervisor about his point of view, and suggesting or discussing ways for improvement (effective communication, encouraging development). As it is, this response leaves the supervisor with the complaint and without any clear options for change.
Response E is the only one which includes all of these factors: hearing the employees and the supervisor (responsibility for subordinates) speaking directly to the supervisor about the problem (effective communication), and suggesting ways to improve (encouraging development, supervising performance).