Rebecca Halstead Case Study

This paper will show how General Rebecca Halstead succeeded in the Army by artfully using the leadership principal of managing up, having a high level of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and by demonstrating the leadership abilities of a Theory Y leader. The paper will also contrast Halstead to other leaders who have failed in their attempt to bring changes to their organizations because they did not take into consideration the nature of the institution they wanted to change. General Rebecca Halstead showed very good use of the principal of managing up. Managing up is the ability to influence one’s superior through a variety of techniques. When Halstead was made Brigadier General and given a command in Iraq, her commanding officer told her he did not have any faith in her and he had every confidence that she would fail. Halstead used the persuasion principle of coalition. This is a principle that involves garnering support from others to
EQ is the ability of a person to know and understands his or her own emotions, as well as the emotions of those around him or her. She understood what people were going through and found ways to accommodate their situation. She was aware for example that being a career military person is hard whether one is married or single, and made allowances to give subordinates in both camps the flexibility they needed to be successful in the army. By being empathetic she created an esprit de corps as well as loyalty. This is very similar to what Navy Commander Abrashoff does. He felt very secure with who he was as the commander of the ship, and at the same time he took pride in knowing his soldiers’ situations. He did all sorts of things that range from enabling soldiers to send emails from the ship so that they can keep in touch with family to sending soldiers to culinary schools so that they can cook tastier food. Those things boost moral and create