A new cook in a kitchen dropped and broke expensive plates when removing them from the oven due to inexperience with handling hot items. The cook was afraid of being yelled at by the chef and ran from the kitchen. However, the chef went after the cook, explained it was an accident, and that mistakes happen. This calmed the cook and relieved stress. The chef's leadership in keeping calm during a tense situation improved job satisfaction and motivation for employees.

1. A leadership crisis situation that you were involved in. If you observed someone else handle
something either very well or very poorly, you may write about that instead.
1. What happened? (Background, brief description of events, specific leadership actions)
What were the results? (Real or potential. Try to include both positive and negative
possibilities. Even if the event seemed clearly good or bad, consider unintended
consequences.)
I worked in a kitchen for a few months, it can get very stressful easily and employees are tired
most of the time which cause irritability. The kitchen’s leader is the chef and he is the most
stressed when it comes to service time. That moment is when everyone gets very tense and
specially the chef, who is the one in charge and has to make sure everyone is doing their job
correctly and if something turns out wrong, he will be the one responsible for it. One day, a new
entrant was taking some hot plates out of the oven to start plating, he got burned because he
did not use the cloth correctly to grab something hot, he tried to handle it and he was getting
burned until he couldn’t keep holding the plate in his hands so he dropped them to the floor and
three very expensive plates, imported from France were broken. He was so scared that the
chef would yell at him that he runned out of the kitchen. Promptly, the chef went after him and
talked to him, explaining that it was an accident, that these may happen and what’s important is
that he was doing good. That is a real leader’s action and making the right thing in a tense
situation. The result was the chef was taking it easy and the cook was relieved that he wasn’t
fired in his first week of work.
2. Why did this happen? (Consider all possible factors, including the people and the situation)
This situation arised out of nervous, lack of experience and a stressful and rush moment. The
reaction from the leader was the best one considering the situation, which was keeping calm
when normally that wouldn’t happen in a kitchen.
3. What class concepts are relevant to this situation? (Mention at least one concept from class
and how they can be used to interpret the situation.)
This situation can relate to the Job Design, specifically in the motivators. What the chef did is a
motivation not only to that particular cook but anyone in the kitchen, they can see that mistakes
can be made and that there are difficult times. Therefore, managing so well a stressful situation
makes everything easier and improves job satisfaction.
4. What did you learn from this? (Broader lessons that might apply to other situations or
problems.)

2. I learned that the hard way is not always the best, that people are unexperienced and can
make mistakes. Even very experienced people can make mistakes and there has to be a
repercussion but that doesn’t mean it has to make the job harder on others. This situation can
be presented in any type of job and any industry so learning from this is very important.