Analyzing the Resignation of Bobby Kotick from Activision Blizzard

In the present paper, we will discuss a case study and the analysis of the case study will be done based on three organizational theories. The chosen theories include leadership, power and politics and diversity at the workplace. These factors will be used to analyze the case study. The problem arises due to the absence of certain factors in the workplace which led to the mass resignation and forced resignation of the director himself. The case study is about Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activision Blizzard (bbc.com 2021).  He was forced to resign from his position due to his involvement and or lack of effective leadership strategies to help in the development of a workplace work culture which supports its people and promotes positivity in the workplace and inclusiveness. The paper will discuss at length the problems that had arrived in the company, which led to the campaign in favor of the resignation. It will also discuss the three selected theories in the light of the case study. The paper will argue the need for maintaining a sound and healthy work culture which promotes equality, effective leadership strategies and effective use of power to mitigate the problems and conflicts that might arise at the workplace. When the employees and the employers promote good deeds in the workplace, the workplace politics can enjoy a positive advantage. From case study it can be said that the company had suffered the loss due to the absence of a positive workplace politics (Thompson 2017).

The case study states that the workers of Activision Blizzard, had staged a walkout to demand the resignation of the CEO, Bobby Kotick. The company had been alleged for sexual assault and ineffective leadership strategies. Ineffective leadership strategies can be said to have led to this chain from the workers who had failed to develop a work atmosphere which promotes safety and security to its female workers. Though the CEO had claimed that the reports had been misleading, the cases had been caused by the mass resignation of the employees as well. He had not been accused of being involved in the scandal but allegedly had also not taken effective steps to solve the challenges that had arisen. The report also stated that in the past, as well there was a scandal erupted about the company when the company had been sued for inequality and gender differences among the employees. Diversity is not well maintained as can be understood from the case study. From the case study, it can state that though the CEO was not directly involved with the misconducted of sexual harassment and gender diversity being maintained in the workplace, yet the CEO had all the information about the misconduct being acted out in his organization. He had earlier reported to have threatened an employee who had once tried to complain about the misconduct. Thus, it can be stated that he had executed ineffective leadership in his organization (Itri and Lawson 2016). Power and politics are a strategy that is being used by the organization which tries to maintain and preserve the workplace culture and the employees of the organization. Due to the faulty power and politics in the organization, power harassment can be detected where in spite of knowing of the occurrences, the leader did not take action against the happening yet it was alleged that he had threatened when some employee tried to complain against the misconduct. The power and politics were so executed in the organization that it did to welcome equality but contributed towards discrimination against the female employees and led to their psychological abuse (Thompson 2017).  The leader had failed to develop a work culture that can enhance the safety and security of all employees in general and a sense of security or faith in the workplace rules, ethics and the work policy (Davis 2020). They do not have faith that the company will ever change their work culture. The employees had reported that the company had involved the strippers in the office events which the leader himself attended and thereby promoted. Thus, they do feel secure in that work culture which led to massive resignation. The workplace does not promote inclusive policies though it claims to be doing so. The leader claims that his leadership is being painted in a negative light and the reports are all wrong even when the employees have been claiming the occurrences. To explain his effective leadership, he claims that his organization has a zero-tolerance policy towards sexual misconduct (Atwater et al. 2021).

Analysis

Leadership:

Leadership in the workplace is defined as the ability of the leader to manage and supervise the employees and ensure their wellbeing. It is the effective leadership that promotes the wellbeing of new employees at the workplace. A leader can be said to be effective when the leader is successful in handling the responsibilities that they have, solve the problem that arises and then listen to the feedback that is being provided by the employees. They strive to develop work culture or promote an environment within the workplace which promotes the performance of the employees and their safety-security along with having effective policies which fight for the cause of any misconduct that might happen at any time (Farokhzadian, Nayeri and Borhani 2018). All these factors were evidently missing in the leader of the Activision Blizzard and thus the employees of the organization have faced issues like sexual harassment and no effort from the side of the leader to mitigate the issues. There has been more than one similar occurrence in the organization. But employees suggest there has been no action taken by the leader and thus the leadership cannot be said to be effective. Though the leader has stated that he took care of the employee wellbeing and that the has taken immediate action to look after the nearest of the employee when such a case had been lodged and that he has introduced the zero-tolerance policy against the sexual harassment or misconduct (Jain and Lee 2020). The company has always aimed to keep up with the ever-changing workplace conditions and the leadership role that the leaders are playing. The company’s directors have trust in the leader and his performance but the leader is ineffective in gaining the trust from the employees. Leadership will be effective only when the employees are being communicated effectively by the leader of the present case study, who has failed to do so as he has not mitigated the problem of the employees to the extent that they no longer feel their safety and security in the workplace. The leader has failed to meet the interest of the employees to create a workplace culture which provides safety and security to the employees. It is the responsibility of the leader to ensure such a working atmosphere in the workplace.  It can be argued that it is the responsibility of the leaders to ensure that the employees are discriminated against based on their genders and they can work effectively portraying their efficiency without the need to think about their safety (Shore, Cleveland and Sanchez 2018).

Leadership

It can also be argued and summarized that the leader needed to have taken the zero-tolerance policy more strictly against those who are involved in the sexual harassment case and take immediate legal suits against them to preserve the trust of the employees as one employee had stated in the interviewee that she does not have and test on the organization that it will ever change its work culture. It can further be argued that an effective leader is one who takes such harassment issues seriously and not one who himself gets involved in threatening in case anyone tries to complain about the misconduct. He would have been considered to be an effective leader if he could have explained the anti-harassment policies in the workplace and explained how the employees and the employers need to respond to such incidents. If that was done, the employees would not have been claiming his resignation. It needed to have made sure that no discriminatory action takes place in the workplace (Feldblum and Lipnic 2016).

Power and politics:

Power and politics are such that it influences the working of the organization. The leaders earn power through their role in the organization and they use that power to influence the employees to work in a way that the company can reach its goal. Coercive power is that power of the leader that they use often to threaten the employees to follow their orders (Landa and Tyson 2017). The leader if the present company has been detected to be doing the same. He did less to promote the safety needs of the employees and inflicted emotional pain through not providing them with a safe and secure working environment and an environment that would treat all employees equally (Hosang and Bhui 2018). Mr. Kotick has been reported to have used his coercive policy to threaten to kill the female employee who has been sexually assaulted by the employee of the company. An internal universalization had been launched with the concern being raised, but the leader has used the coercive power and politics to detain the employee who had been accused of the sexual harassment (Jaffe-Walter 2020). Using the power, the legal cases of sexual assault and alleged rape which were being filed had been settled out of the court. Power is such a tool which can be used by the possessor to safeguard their activities even when they are at fault. The board of directors have used their coercive power to dismiss any claims over the ineffective leadership performance of Mr. Kotick, in spite of their complaints and the mass demand for his resignation (Kondalkar 2020).

Power and politics

Thus, it can be summarized from the above discussion that the leaders and the board of directors had used their power and politics and successfully dismissed the cases that were filed against them on the grounds of sexual assault and rape and they even have threatened the employees or fired the employee who had gone to the extent of complaining against them. Yet the leader claims that they promote equality and zero-tolerance of sexual assault cases in the company (Pineiro and Kitada 2020). It can be argued that the leader could have used their power in the positive light to avoid making the workplace toxic. The policy if was used to promote psychological and legal protection, it can be said that the leaders are not that effective in dealing with the difficulties of the problem.  It can be stated that as a result of power being applied unethically within the workplace and the politics within the workplace being dirty, the result is that the company had to face the massive revolt against the CEO and thus they demanded him to resign from his CEO position in the organization. Being in the position of power, since the director did not take the right decisions about complex situations like that of protecting the employee’s safety and security and promoting the safeguarding of the human right of equality, the toxic effect had to be borne by the company. Had they not threatened the employees or fired them on getting the complaints, the employees would have felt secure working in that company. Politics within the workplace reduces the productivity of the employees involved (Buchanan and Badham 2020).

Diversity:

Effective diversity management can be used to improve the business outcomes. Organizational diversity refers to defining employing individuals of various personality traits like that of the sex, age, gender and the marital status (Cletus et al. 2018). Diversity theory has been used in the paper to discuss the problems of the case study. Employees need to understand what is being communicated to them by the authority. The communication needs to be effective and it needs to be done in such a way that the information is being shared to the employees in a way that the trust among the employees is developed and maintained. Diverse employees need to be made to feel that they are being valued and their performance is being valued (Rogers 2018). But the case study has a different reality to share. The boss of the company did not make the employees feel secure and safe within the workplace to reduce turnover or increase the employee satisfaction. The employee could not maintain diversity in the workplace. Diversity at workplace increases the productivity, but due to sexual assault cases and sexual harassment cases the performance at the workplace had been affected (Johnson et al. 2018).

It can be argued and summarised that due to maladaptive leadership strategies in terms of managing diversity at work pace, and promoting safety security by not attending to the complains instead threatening them or firing them when they raise any legal complaints and using their power to solve the case outside the course, the director did not take care of gender diversity at workplace (Bajjou, Chafi and En-Nadi 2017). Diversity at the workplace was not effectively maintained which has led the employees to fight against the inequality being meted out to them in terms of gender discrimination and sexual assaults. It can be stated that inclusive workplace policy could have been better implemented in the workplace. Diversity in leadership is important as it means diversity in thought. The leader also did not show any emotional and social intelligence while dealing with the concern of sexual harassment of the female employees. It can be suggested that ineffective dealing with the emotions of the female employees and mistreating them sexually has thrown the company into lawsuits and related turmoil (Thomas 2016).

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it can be concluded that through the ineffective leadership and indirect involvement in the sexual harassment of the female employees, the leaders have led the organization into the recent turmoil condition of the company. The CEO of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick is demanding to resign from the post. He has reported to be directly involved in the sexual harassment of the employees, yet he has used his power to support the employees who have been involved in the cases. The CEO has threatened to have fired or killed the female employees who tried or have filed a legal suit against them. The unethical portrayal of their pictures of the female employees in front of the board of directors have enhanced the issue which compelled the employees to demand the resignation of the director. The director had shown ineffective leadership strategies to deal with the challenges of the company and not promoted the policy of diversity within the company. The female employees did not feel secure in the workplace and suffered emotional turmoil due to their experiences at the workplace which was further escalated due to the unsupportive leader and the higher authorities of the workplace who had threatened them. The emotional turmoil has even forced a female employee to commit suicide due to her inability to endure the stress or humiliation. Gender inequality and gender discrimination is illegal to take place at workplace but due to power the cases had been mitigated out of the court without any legal punishment. It had been argued that such the court.

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